Your worst classes

[Zizzo]

Let's see:

• Reaver, Corruptor, Demonologist (?): Vim-based. Not touching `em.
• Cursed, Doomed: Hate-based. Definitely not touching `em.
• Necromancer: AFAICT from the Wiki, the Necrotic/Souls resource is basically the Vim problem all over again.
• Sun Paladin: No offense against luminous/radiant horrors; dealbreaker.
• Temporal Warden: A weak Archer with the melee half of a weak Rogue awkwardly grafted onto one side and a handful of temporal-based parlor tricks awkwardly grafted onto the other side. Play an Archer instead.
• Paradox Mage: Not great damage output, and needs more ways to keep Paradox low enough to keep spell fail chance at zero over the duration of a protracted fight.

[Effigy]

I definitely wouldn't call Temporal Warden weak. It may have less damage output than Archer (I haven't done a direct comparison), but I'm clearing Insane with minimal effort on one.

[acheronx]

For me... probably Shadowblade or Mindslayer. I love the latter, mind you, but he has terrible HP, and you can't keep all the shields up. So sooner or later, something is going to crit you in the face with a damage type you're not protected from...

Shadowblade just... doesn't seem to add enough DPS to justify the loss of utility compared to a Rogue.

(I've only ever won with a Summoner and Sun Paladin, for what it's worth.)

[SolarDwagon]

Shadowblade would be my worst probably followed by Rogue. They're just not fun at early levels (compounded by how sick of early levels I am, being about 95% roguelike).
Re sun pallys, you can get access to fire by one of the Celestial class trees. Can't remember which one. That should solve your LHorror problem. (but still oh god LHorrors-my last playthrough I ran into Grrrlklkr whateverthehell at the same time as three LHorrors. That was not fun.)

[Razakai]

Archer's only real advantage is slightly better AoE and the Excellence tree, which is quite good defensively. Otherwise, Temporal Warden is pretty much superior in every way (Warden's Call and it's ridiculous damage boost helps).

They definitely don't feel like they're awkwardly stapled together either. Their design feels far cleaner than Archer, and the melee/ranged combination flows very naturally.

Which ties into my disliked classes are Archer and Bulwark. Sure they're intended as simple starter classes, but they feel like inferior versions of 'advanced' classes (Archer vs TW, Bulwark vs Sun Paladin). A shame, as some basic classes still remain pretty powerful thanks to having some outstanding and unique tools.

[Faeryan]

It's funny Razakai, just for the same reasons you used to compare TW and Archer I like Archer more. TW is kinda like jack-of-all-trades which usually in games is exactly my thing, but in ToME it really is not. Melee/ranged Reaver for example doesn't do that, only TW and Stone Warden. That said, I don't hate either of the classes, I've scored a win on them, but I don't overly enjoy either.
As a sidenote my TW experience is with the old one. The new TW I just played the starter area with to look at the trees and while it changed quite a bit it still didn't remove the meh factor the class had for me.

The archer's forte against TW in differentiating the classes (not as much as making it better in comparison) is the ability to go AM if so wanted.

[pizdabol]

Throw Bomb - Channel Staff - Channel Staff - Throw Bomb. Need I say more. Hands down the pinnacle of boredom for me. Especially since it's one class tree I found mildly amusing got scrapped recently (fire).

I also never really got Mindslayers, hand on to about level 30ish, although interesting at a glance it feels sort of incomplete to me, kind of like something is missing to get my interest. Bulwark seems pretty dull, but I've never really played around with block a lot, it might turn out i actually enjoy such game play.

[Radon26]

solar dragon, yes.
sun paladin has a lvl8 talent, called weapon of wrath. when you attack, it does damage equal to the % of your life lost.
the thing is... luminous horrors eat fire too

[Razakai]

I'd really recommend giving Temporal Warden another shot if you only won with the old one. I think the old one deserves all the criticism it got - it really was just archer skills with rogue skills bolted on and some random temporal spells. Whereas the new one pretty much has 0 in common with their previous incarnation beyond the theme, what with getting all their shared technique trees replaced. Think the number of class skills that weren't replaced or overhauled can be counted on one hand.

If I had the time to do anything with Archer, I'd want to make them truly masters of archery. Give them some outstandingly cool bow skills and trick shots - Excellence and it's ability to shoot projectiles out of the air or block melee attacks was a pretty great theme. They just feel like they lack that 'flash' that some of the newer stuff has, which is partially because of them being non-magical, but I think it's possible for Technique stuff to be just as cool (e.g. Brawlers getting to suplex dragons).

[Atarlost]

I'm terrible at every arcane caster except archmage, sun paladin, and the chronomancers. And I'm not very good at archmage either, though I was once able to get to the end with a disruption shield build.

They just can't take a hit, even the ones that really should like the AB or Reaver. I've never seen the mythical 5000 point damage shields from the aegis tree. I haven't even seen 500 point shields. Anorthil might work with circles if the start wasn't so horrible and the resource management weren't so painful.

Mindcasters are fine except the summoner which is pet focused and the hate classes which don't have any good talents at all.

I also hate what's been done to the mindslayer. I liked the old caster mindslayer, but the new one just has too many talents that do too little. Mindlash used to get to 2 cooldown on a tier 3 gem or mindstar which was pretty common in the second tier dungeons, now it never improves and you have to cycle and pay for several talents to get the same performance. Also, TK mindstars actively make you worse at being a caster build by pulling enemies towards you.

[HousePet]

Wait, you think the new Mindslayer has too many talents that do too little compared to the old Mindslayer? Need I mention Reach, Focussed Channelling, Aura Discipline, Shield Discipline, Highly Trained Mind or Insatiable?

(Yes I agree that TK mindstars is crap but Mindlash did need a nerf. One talent isn't supposed to be the whole class)

[Atarlost]

Wait, you think the new Mindslayer has too many talents that do too little compared to the old Mindslayer? Need I mention Reach, Focussed Channelling, Aura Discipline, Shield Discipline, Highly Trained Mind or Insatiable?

(Yes I agree that TK mindstars is crap but Mindlash did need a nerf. One talent isn't supposed to be the whole class)

Mindlash needed to stand alone because shields and voracity ate so many talent points. Shields and voracity still eat tons of talent points, but mindlash no longer stands alone.

Useless talents are just empty places, they don't soak talent points. It takes all the offensive talents to get offense and you still can't get the range all other casters and mindcasters except the doomed get.

Mindlash has cooldown 3 and range 6. Everyone else but the doomed considers 7 a short ranged talent.
Pyrokinesis has cooldown 15 and range 6.
Brain Storm has cooldown 10 and range 5.

That's a terrible duty cycle. You can add brainfreeze with cooldown 8 range 6, but it's still a terrible duty cycle. You can use auras, but they have cooldown 10.

Since you need 3 auras just to get to a tolerable duty cycle and the old mindslayer or melee new mindslayers only need 2 that's something like 20 or 25 talent points to do what an archmage or oozemancer or solipsist can do with 10 in terms of duty cycle. There's no way now to match the range. With the way absorption takes three talents to provide comprehensive defense while other classes tend to need one or use generic points and the way filling a cycle with non-basic attacks eats more resources (compare to the 2 and 5 for a solipsist's basic attacks) and voracity is not optional either but requires you to get almost as close as a doomed. That's a lot of class talent sinks.

Between the talent sinks and the lack of range it's simply not possible to build anything remotely like the old caster mindslayer. It's not just nerfed, it's gone.

[Coldbringer]

I love berserkers but I end up getting them killed before I even reach the east every time.

And any type of stealth class or caster.

As for the archer vs TW debate - they're both fun and different enough.

My hobbit archer going with slings was lucky to find the icy pouch of shots that does AOE freeze and a unique tier 3 sling early on, then a unique tier 5 sling later. I didn't even know she could use shields for half the game, lol. She has cruised through the game, all her abilities are fun and interesting. Especially the AOE stun shot, that is so huge. Multi-shot triggers the procs so easily and often, got the enemies missiles slowed down to a crawl and shoot them out of the sky, my opponents are blinded, slowed, pinned, 60% crit chance. Then vital shot prodigy for the big stuff, doing 2k damage hits. Kite the heck out of anything. Not super flashy, but reliable and consistent.

My higher Time Warden is amazing. That vision radius boost and long range bow is eating opponents alive. In melee she is shredding everything, especially now with wind blade prodigy. The temporal hounds take the initial spells/shots of opponents so reliably. Yeah she has less AOE but so much flexibility and potential. I feel like a superhero playing her. Until the critical spell fails due to paradox, haha. I find with her, the bag of tricks can run out in extended boss/unique/rare fights and everything on cooldown. One of my deaths was vs the Weirdling Beast which had endless amounts of abilities to spam at me and I couldn't keep up

[Charlie_B]

Let's see:

• Sun Paladin: No offense against luminous/radiant horrors; dealbreaker.

Sun Paladins need the luminous horror quirk to make the game a bit more interesting. They're so powerful that I got slightly bored steamrollering everything - the occasional LH tripos popping up was a fun challenge.

I remember an hilarious battle towards the end of the game where I had to run away about half a dozen times before being properly prepared. "So... my sword heals them. My spells heal them. My melee skills heal them. My sustains heal them. My shield heals them. Being attacked by them heals them. ARARAHGRHAEGH."

Irresistable Sun is such an utterly fun progidy as well for Sun Paladins.

[astralInferno]

Anything pure technique bores me reeeaally fast. I have never played a Bulwark and likely never will. >>
I don't have the patience for summoning classes, either, and alchemist bores me to tears.