Weakest class for Insane?

[Derael]

What are your opinions on the weakest class for Insane? I've played a bunch of them while being quite careless and died mostly pre Dreadfel due to blindly trying everything without considering if I can handle that right now or not (Hi there, Intimidating Cave and Dark Crypt). But I always felt very powerful with every class I picked, aside of being oneshotted while autoexploring without Track using squishier characters, which is mostly my fault anyways.

Two most dangerous areas for me were Lake of Nur and Dark Crypt, past this point everything was quite easy, but I don't have that much eperience with Fat East, since I have like 15 or so characters total and rarely play the same class twice. Dreadfell was surprisingly one of the easiest zones I've encountered, never died there even once, maybe because I'm always overlevelled when going there and being overly cautious due to its reputation.

So far I've played as Berserker, Bulwark, Archer, Rogue, Archmage, Oozemancer, Doombringer, Temporal Warden, Solipsist, Mindslayer and all 3 tinker classes. Personally I had most fun with Rogue and Solipsist. Rogue felt very good despite often being one-shotted (I played Yeek), while Solipsist is just a supreme powerhouse on Insane IMO, it was even easier than my TW Nightmare run (my first and only win as of now, but I never played on normal). Haven't won yet, but currently level 50 and finished Slime tunnels with 300 kills (died once and stopped).

Now I want to actually try something that's really considered underwhelming, if there are such classes.

[tabs]

Alchemist?

[Derael]

Alchemist?

Ah, right, totally forgot about him. Might be interesting to try, I don't know anything at all about him as of now.

[St_ranger_er]

I was going to say Alchemist, but after seeing this https://www.twitch.tv/videos/183964927 I don't know what to say.

Arcane blade sucks early game, Skirmisher not as great as Archer, Bulwark considered meh. Personaly I find Doomed, Anorithil and Necromancer the most hard/confusing to play (aside AB/Archmage, those are not confusing for me).

[Derael]

I was going to say Alchemist, but after seeing this https://www.twitch.tv/videos/183964927 I don't know what to say.

Arcane blade sucks early game, Skirmisher not as great as Archer, Bulwark considered meh. Personaly I find Doomed, Anorithil and Necromancer the most hard/confusing to play (aside AB/Archmage, those are not confusing for me).

Oh, I like Cathbald builds for their unique flavor, thanks for the link.

As for Arcane Blade, I've heard it's one of the best classes, but maybe early game is really that bad. I'm mostly discouraged to play it after reading Mex guide since it's too reliant on artifacts with Stone Wall etc. But if it can beat Madness it's definitely not weak class IMO, just hard.

Skirmisher also looks good to me, definitely not as strong as Archer but archer is probably the strongest right now, even after nerfs. Bulwark was good when I tried it, mostly used Cathbald build and it worked wonderfully. Also tried Ogre with archery unlock at 10, and easily cleared everything pre Dreadfell (then got bored because it's essentially tanky as hell archer with low damage and no skills). I had 800 HP at 25, and most enemies died even before coming closer. If I got lucky with Surefire drop that'd made early game even easier, it's better than 90% tier 3 bows despite being tier 1.

Will look into Doomed, Anorithil later, but I've seen a couple of good guides for them with Insane/rl wins. Necro is separate case, which is considered shit if going Lich, and probably requires Vaulting some mastery item to save that otherwise wasted category point, which I don't like at all, and level 6 is simply not good enough. In addition, I don't really like summoning type characters, aside of those who summon only 1 or 2 (Doomed with its Shadows and Oozemancer with Oozes are fine as well, since they work differently from typical summoners).

Might try Necro Lich after all (because it's basically the only thing tempting me to play them). Will hope to find some mastery item, but it's just too unreliable.

Anyway, thanks for your opinion, I got some ideas what to try next.

[Cathbald]

Weakest class for insane : solipsist, wyrmic, skirmisher, gunslinger, summoner, alch.

From my experience anyway.

I never could do anything right with solip, no matter how I tried, same with wyrmic (and I WANT to play those two classes!)

Skirmisher only have called shots going on for them (if only tireless combattant was on other classes though), I lost one in HP and one against a slime tunnels guardian. I want to play a sling char but won't come back to them unil they are reworked, I'm burned out.
Gunslinger can abuse awesome toss with movement infusion but apart from that can't do anything.
Those two are not helped by the fact that the other archer type are some of the strongest classes, so they pale in comparison.

Summoner, I just fall asleep and make a mistake, might be they're not that weak but I just can't play them, problem here is probably me.

Alch is weak for a number of reasons, but imo NOT the weakest, they have the biggest range, thanks to bomb radius, and can start damaging from out of LoS, they get enough crit shrug from talents to reach full crit immunity, they have an AoE global speed slow, and they can remove mental sustains (hello doomed) and phys buff.


Bulwark is below average and boring but better than those I listed imo. Ano is actually really good.

Oh, I like Cathbald builds for their unique flavor, thanks for the link.

I'm gonna try to upload some more videos, yesterday I added the first part of my ghoul/shadowblade if you're interested in that.

As for Arcane Blade, I've heard it's one of the best classes, but maybe early game is really that bad. I'm mostly discouraged to play it after reading Mex guide since it's too reliant on artifacts with Stone Wall etc. But if it can beat Madness it's definitely not weak class IMO, just hard.

Yeah, I hate AB early too, never got one to the point where they get strong

[minmay]

The weakest/strongest classes for Insane are the same as the weakest/strongest classes for Normal. So probably alchemist or maybe bulwark.

Necromancer and Arcane Blade are two of the strongest classes in the game. Necromancer has great defense in the form of Sacrifice, and Arcane Blade has Aegis, Stone Wall, and excellent damage. When people say Arcane Blade's early game is "bad," they're usually comparing it to Archmage. Everything that isn't Archmage is bad compared to Archmage. Their early game is still good compared to classes that aren't S tier.

As for why X might be the worst class, let's go through it individually.
I think we can safely dismiss Berserker, Archer, Arcane Blade, Brawler, Shadowblade, Marauder, Archmage, Necromancer, Sun Paladin, Reaver, Corruptor, Demonologist, Stone Warden, Paradox Mage, Temporal Warden, Mindslayer, Possessor, Adventurer, Sawbutcher, and Psyshot as "not the worst in the game." Everyone knows these classes have something that puts them miles ahead of Bulwark, even if it's a single talent like Bone Shield.
That leaves Bulwark, Rogue, Skirmisher, Alchemist, Doombringer, Summoner, Wyrmic, Oozemancer, Anorithil, Cursed, Doomed, Solipsist, and Gunslinger.
I will eliminate Gunslinger because although its defense is awful, it has higher-than-god-tier damage output due to Awesome Toss. It doesn't make sense to peg that as the worst in the game unless every other class were like, literally invincible, which isn't the case.
Cursed and Doomed have Curse of Nightmares and Cursed Sentry, so those are out too (and Doomed isn't that bad even without broken curse stuff, but people don't seem to be ready to believe that yet).
Anorithil having Celestial / Light from the start is enough to eliminate it alone IMO, and it also gets to chain-brainlock things with Circle of Sanctity, use Jumpgate, Corona, etc.
I will also, without any attempt at exhaustive proof, submit that Rogue, Skirmisher, Summoner, and Solipsist can be safely eliminated. Rogue has quite a bit of good stuff between Mobility, Artifice, Expose Weakness, and Shadow Dance, giving it superb damage and at least passable defense. Traps are also still good if you actually have the patience to use them.
Skirmisher is obviously almost strictly worse than Archer but it still has Mobility and great damage from a long range.
Summoner is really good at not taking damage, because summons, and war dogs and minotaurs have no problem putting out a ton of damage. Maybe if the AI's target selection didn't outsmart itself Summoner would have more problems, but it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon.
Solipsist has three different ways to Sleep things and Inner Demons, plus Dream Smith is actually very good and so is Maelstrom.

This leaves Bulwark, Alchemist, Doombringer, Wyrmic, and Oozemancer.

Bulwark's damage is fine, maybe it's even a bit above median. It's melee and it has Shield Offense and GWF. The problem is everything else - its only claims to defensive advantages are some extra max HP (most of which is baked into a talent that pins you as a melee character and takes away current HP when deactivated), stun immunity from Shield Wall, a little extra armor/defense from Shield Wall, Conditioning, and True Grit, a talent that works so poorly that I almost decided against mentioning it at all. And other classes can get Vitality from escorts. Its only mobility talent is Step Up, which is good but not exceptional, and its only status removal talent is Unflinching Resolve.
So Bulwark is among the worst in the game at everything except damage. Gunslinger probably has worse defense but it has the aforementioned super-god-tier damage, which Bulwark does not.

Alchemist has unquestionably some of the worst damage in the game, and it doesn't have status cures or good mobility. Its basic damage is still usable for most of the game and talent_on_spell mostly solves its damage problems later in the game (it won't on Madness but we're not talking about Madness) so it's not unwinnable or anything.
You can make an argument that Alchemist is better than Bulwark because you can use the golem much like you used old Ambuscade: teleport it, let it fight things, Supercharge Golem to resurrect it when it dies. Teleporting allies long distances is very hard for the other classes in contention for worst in the game, but Alchemist can do it easily with a teleport rune. In combination with a properly dug tunnel (or even better, an island), this is actually pretty good, and it's noncommittal as you only need to control the golem for long enough to teleport it. However there are some levels this just doesn't help on. Alchemist is also infamously bad in the final fight, but if you have Life Drinker or another good talent_on_spell I assume it's fine.
Ice Core lets you reach 100% crit shrug really early (thanks, rares with 15% crit shrug) so you can also argue that Alchemist is defensively better than Bulwark lol.
I think Bulwark is probably still a bit better overall though.

Doombringer's defense is at least as good as Bulwark's, its offense is obviously way better, it has Wraithform and a ridiculously good status cure. Not much else to say.

I don't think Wyrmic is a serious contender for worst in the game because if nothing else, Ice Wall and Lightning Speed carry it. It has a few other great talents like Dissolve and Burrow (though you can get Burrow from mindstars...) but really Ice Wall alone is just too good.

Oozemancer's damage is perfectly good once you understand how to use mucus oozes and its damage reduction is fine too. It has an excellent teleport and status immunities. The only reason you might regard it as the worst in the game is if you regard Antimagic even more poorly than I do: it's the only class in the game that can't use Stone Wall or Aetherwalk and it doesn't have anything resembling a replacement for Stone Wall either. It also has a lot of difficulty exploiting Arcane Amplification Drone. However, seeing as you're not guaranteed to find Stone Wall items, you're not guaranteed to find Aetherwalk and even if you do it won't be early, you don't get AAD until level 30 and it's not that amazing without Garkul's Revenge (or Touch of Death), I think this argument is implausible.

Note that even the worst classes can win Insane comfortably. There are several insane bulwark and alchemist wins in the vault.

[bpat]

Bulwark is actually okay now thanks to the Antimagic changes. I'd rank Alchemist as the worst since it just doesn't do much outside of Bomb spam. I would rank it above Solipsist because it can actually deal damage and it can tank big hits without getting doubleturned. Solipsist and Alchemist are the biggest contenders in my opinion but Solipsist has passable defense and some good disables so I'd rank it above Alchemist who doesn't even have a ranged stun.

[Derael]

Weakest class for insane : solipsist, wyrmic, skirmisher, gunslinger, summoner, alch.

From my experience anyway.

I never could do anything right with solip, no matter how I tried, same with wyrmic (and I WANT to play those two classes!)

Skirmisher only have called shots going on for them (if only tireless combattant was on other classes though), I lost one in HP and one against a slime tunnels guardian. I want to play a sling char but won't come back to them unil they are reworked, I'm burned out.
Gunslinger can abuse awesome toss with movement infusion but apart from that can't do anything.
Those two are not helped by the fact that the other archer type are some of the strongest classes, so they pale in comparison.

Summoner, I just fall asleep and make a mistake, might be they're not that weak but I just can't play them, problem here is probably me.

Alch is weak for a number of reasons, but imo NOT the weakest, they have the biggest range, thanks to bomb radius, and can start damaging from out of LoS, they get enough crit shrug from talents to reach full crit immunity, they have an AoE global speed slow, and they can remove mental sustains (hello doomed) and phys buff.


Bulwark is below average and boring but better than those I listed imo. Ano is actually really good.

Oh, I like Cathbald builds for their unique flavor, thanks for the link.

I'm gonna try to upload some more videos, yesterday I added the first part of my ghoul/shadowblade if you're interested in that.

As for Arcane Blade, I've heard it's one of the best classes, but maybe early game is really that bad. I'm mostly discouraged to play it after reading Mex guide since it's too reliant on artifacts with Stone Wall etc. But if it can beat Madness it's definitely not weak class IMO, just hard.

Yeah, I hate AB early too, never got one to the point where they get strong

Should probably look into Skirmisher and try some way for it to work well, but I know that feeling. When I played Sawbutcher in EOR I died just before final boss after beating those Giant guys with abomination in the end. And that was such silly death, I felt invincible and just cleared everything with ease, and then I dug out from some sort of vault with lots of monsters and items in little squares a monster with insane physical resistance and Inner Demons. I didn't really pay attention to my debuffs at this point and it was just rare or even elite monster, so that death was extremely frustrating. So close to my first Insane win to die like that.

I have few experience with Gunslingers, but I agree they are a bit one-sided, though not weak IMO, and have some good synergy with some maj'eyal races.

Totally agree with summoner, way too boring for me as well.

Will probably try Alch soon, since I don't know anything about this class, but range indeed looked insanely big.

I agree that Bulwark is a bit boring, but they are definitely strong, Last Stand felt so good when I played it.

As for videos, I myself is more of a text person, almost never watch videos longer than a couple of minutes and never watch streams. But thanks anyway, I'm sure there are quite some people who are interested in those.

___

Finally, regarding Solipsist. This one felt extremely powerful for me with right prodigies. I got Range Amplification Drone and Windtouched speeed. Since most of his ranged abilities have range 7 they all get improved to range 10, and his main damage tool Mind Sear has 1 turn CD with windtouched speed. You also have nearly permanent 70%+ global speed buff, so you can't actually spam it non stop and have to use other abilities afrer 1-3 casts depending on enemy speed. Right now (at level 50 pre tribes) it deals 1000-2000 damage on average from range 10, and hits all targets in line, with basically 0 cd (since cd is counted from the beginning of your action). Add inner demons and 3 different sleep tools on top of it, and discharge, and you can easily deal 3k+ DPT vs 5+ enemies. Just make sure you have knockback immunity since it will interrupt you channel.

Most bosses in the game are very vunlerable to Inner demons, only some random Bosses somewhat resisted it and spawned only 1 or 2. All others spawned like 6 or 7 and quickly cleaned the boss and everything else for me while I lasily beamed targets I deemed worthy with my Mind Sear. Currently it's the most fun class I've played and probably the easiest one (since it's nearly impossible to get oneshotted, I died only because of my own mistakes. Cleared Sludgenest up to 300+ kill but died once due to carelessness when 3 bosses and 2 uniques spawned, so I decided to stop and went to the next level. There Distortion truly shined, with lots of slimes on screen I could easily spawn up to 10 bolts every turn for 300 damage each and it could be redirected to a single target, so bosses melted like crazy. Can't wait to test it in final fight with all portals opened.

__

And I really want to test Wyrmic myself, but it always gets delayed by other classes I stumble upon =.=
It's probably the most diverse class over there, even more so than Archmage, and looks extremely fun.

[Derael]

The weakest/strongest classes for Insane are the same as the weakest/strongest classes for Normal. So probably alchemist or maybe bulwark.

Kind of disagree with that, since on normal lots of things work differently, in some aspects normal is even harder, since you don't get nearly as much good items there (though I never played it). So depending on strong and weak point of every build its rank can vary heavily on normal, especially if said build is heavy item dependant.

Also some classes struggle mostly with early game (pre level 20-30), and past that point Insane is a breeze for them. IMO Archmage is one of those, at least I had much harder time surviving and more frustrating deaths than when I played Solipsist or Doombringer (or even Rogue). After you get core categories (or if you simply play super carefully), they definitely are the best. But there are better classes in early game who don't lose too much in late game.

As for Arcane Blade, his early game might be even better than that of Archmage, but it's much more tedious IMO, and less forgivable. Still, it definitely isn't enough to make it bad.

I think we can safely dismiss Berserker, Archer, Arcane Blade, Brawler, Shadowblade, Marauder, Archmage, Necromancer, Sun Paladin, Reaver, Corruptor, Demonologist, Stone Warden, Paradox Mage, Temporal Warden, Mindslayer, Possessor, Adventurer, Sawbutcher, and Psyshot as "not the worst in the game." Everyone knows these classes have something that puts them miles ahead of Bulwark, even if it's a single talent like Bone Shield.

---

This leaves Bulwark, Alchemist, Doombringer, Wyrmic, and Oozemancer.

Bulwark's damage is fine, maybe it's even a bit above median. It's melee and it has Shield Offense and GWF. The problem is everything else - its only claims to defensive advantages are some extra max HP (most of which is baked into a talent that pins you as a melee character and takes away current HP when deactivated), stun immunity from Shield Wall, a little extra armor/defense from Shield Wall, Conditioning, and True Grit, a talent that works so poorly that I almost decided against mentioning it at all. And other classes can get Vitality from escorts. Its only mobility talent is Step Up, which is good but not exceptional, and its only status removal talent is Unflinching Resolve.
So Bulwark is among the worst in the game at everything except damage. Gunslinger probably has worse defense but it has the aforementioned super-god-tier damage, which Bulwark does not.

First of all, I think Doombringer and Oozemancer can safely be mentioned in the first group, since they are one of the strongest classes in the game IMO.

As for Bulwark, he has Last Stand which effectively double his HP (it adds up to 1k HP and 1k to negative HP), and has no CD and doesn't take a turn, if cancelled through rest button. So he is not that weaker in terms of protection compared to some other classes of this list. And his defences are overall better so he gots even more effective HP. That's why I'm not really convinced about him being weaker. In particular, I'm not sure if Maradeur and Reaver (or Stone Warden) are really better than Bulwark. Haven't played them though, just looking at their skillset. While I did play Ogre Bulwark with Archery tree and never felt threatened in the least all the way through tier 2 dungeons. Though classic Bulwark might indeed be a bit underwhelming comparing to other classes, at least some enemies are very dangerous.

Oozemancer's damage is perfectly good once you understand how to use mucus oozes and its damage reduction is fine too. It has an excellent teleport and status immunities. The only reason you might regard it as the worst in the game is if you regard Antimagic even more poorly than I do: it's the only class in the game that can't use Stone Wall or Aetherwalk and it doesn't have anything resembling a replacement for Stone Wall either. It also has a lot of difficulty exploiting Arcane Amplification Drone. However, seeing as you're not guaranteed to find Stone Wall items, you're not guaranteed to find Aetherwalk and even if you do it won't be early, you don't get AAD until level 30 and it's not that amazing without Garkul's Revenge (or Touch of Death), I think this argument is implausible.

Aetherwalk are bugged boots with infinite controlled teleport range? IMO that's just a joke, they are absurdly OP. As for Antimagic in general, it worked very well for me on most mind damage focused classes (especially on Solipsist).

AAD + Garkul's Revenge, I assume, deals 1600% damage in a cone of 4? More exploits pelase. But by itself it's more than good enough IMO. Have no idea what Touch of Death is though. Overall Oozemancer felt extremely powerful for me, and it has good defence and prefectly makes do without arcane items IMO. AM worked very good with various mind and sometimes physical based builds I've tried.

[bpat]

The only thing hard about Normal for people like minmay, Cathbald, and I is not falling asleep out of boredom. Even on Nightmare I can get away with stuff like making it to level 25 without any resource bars. Also, while the midgame is the hardest part of Insane, the East (especially High Peak) can be very difficult on classes with low damage or poor defense.

[St_ranger_er]

AAD + Garkul's Revenge, I assume, deals 1600% damage in a cone of 4?

It's good and all untill you meet someone with high enough arcane res to laugh at your(and/or drone) face.

More exploits pelase.

Here we go

Have no idea what Touch of Death is though.

Brawler/Unarmed Discipline final talent, works great on AAD.

[Derael]

AAD + Garkul's Revenge, I assume, deals 1600% damage in a cone of 4?

It's good and all untill you meet someone with high enough arcane res to laugh at your(and/or drone) face.

Arcan respen is that hard to build? I got 95% mind pen on solip without much problems.

[Cathbald]

You don't deal arcane damage, the drone does, and he doesn't have any res pen.

[Derael]

You don't deal arcane damage, the drone does, and he doesn't have any res pen.

Ah, right, I didn't think about it. But still, i've heard that arcan resistance is the most rare of them, or at least one of the rarest. Even if you meet someone with 90% you'll steal deal 160% damage. Not sure if there are enemies with more then 90% arcane res around.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the combo with Garkul Revenge was totally unintended, numbers just don't fit. And as I said, AAP is good by itself and doesn't require specific build to work wonders. You just play like usual and even if enemy has high arcane res you'll probably have other means to deal with them.