Class Tier List

Kythra

I was chatting up a friend from another IRE game and they were thinking about jumping over and they asked for my tier list. I realized how probably awful my tier list is from a biased serpent standpoint so I was curious about everyone else who thought about the current state of classes. This is also 1v1 standpoint, we are not assuming group.
     +Though feel free to add a tier list for group combat if you want! 

(SS)
S
A+
A
B
C
D
(E/F/G)

   + For those who ask about the letters from a tournament/competitive standpoint:

(SS) = Broken/Busted (Think Infernal with 251s and Frenzy) Not applied in this thread. Can use if you wish.
S = Dominant/Best Class. Consistently wins every matchup.
A+ = Somewhere between too strong and just right. Most people can pick it up and do decently well, and in the hands of a pro it's lethal.
A = Solo Viable. Wins most matchups.
B = Viable. Not consistent. Struggles with some classes.
C = Niche use. One tricks.
  + Not to say one tricks are bad, they usually go over and above to prove a point. But the class itself can't just be picked up and dominate the scene.
D = Unviable for competitive. Should not be used. And if someone loses to this tier/person, you/they usually learn the counterplay and never lose again.
(E/F/G) = Never seen. Not applied in this thread. Can use if you truly wish.

Is how it works, for those unfamiliar. Some tier lists have A+ S+ SS SSS, but we're not exactly 90 classes deep and such. So throw in your personal tier list, biased or unbiased. Just be sure to mark which. Should also be interesting to see the more combatant heavy agree or disagree on where things are.


Classes:

Alchemist
Apostate
Bard
Blademaster
Depthswalker
Druid
Infernal  (SnB, DWC, DWB, 2H)
Jester
Magi
Monk
Occultist
Paladin (SnB, DWC, DWB, 2H)
Priest
Runewarden (SnB, DWC, DWB, 2H)
Sentinel
Serpent
Shaman
Sylvan

Kythra's Tier List  (I am assuming artefacted and automation/optimization because that's how I do) (Unbiased the best I can as playing mainly pure aff classes)

S
---
Shaman
Monk
Sentinel


A+
---
Serpent
Priest
Paladin SnB 


A
---
Apostate (On the fence here between A or A+)
Bard
Blademaster
Sylvan
Infernal DwB
Runewarden SnB
Runewarden DwB (Runeblades)
~Depthswalker (I dont know enough about the class yet. Maybe B tier if you cant change routes on the go)


B
---
Magi
Occultist
Alchemist
Infernal DwC (Everyone has anti-vivi and vivi-mindgaming coding
Paladin DwC
Runewarden 2H (Hugalaz says surprise but smex)


C
---
Jester (In its current state. Pre-suicide mouse changes was A or so)
Infernal 2H
Paladin 2H
Paladin DwB
Runewarden DwB


D
---
Druid
Infernal SnB


I encourage combatants and non-combatants to post their own tier lists, and get thoughtful discussion.

Posts like this help retirees, or people who visit our forums and get interested by tier lists. It's how I got into competitive Smash in any case. ^ ^;; (Go Amsa and moving Yoshi up two tiers!)

Note: As usual for most of my threads. You can agree to disagree, but please no shit talking. I can't exactly mod/remove posts, but I prefer the public postings to be a place newbies can look and see a more professional air/side of things. Thanks!

Cailan

I don't know if I agree with Monk in S tier, maybe A+/A. Haven't fought enough monks to provide a strong argument otherwise.

Would also add Dragon as a class, under C.

Kythra

Jhui and Xer made me cry as monk, I suppose is the reason that it always sticks. A+ for sure, if not S.

And yeah, I forgot about Dragon. I only ever seen Florentino and Khel fight in that class 1v1 seriously. Definitely C, though. Good call!

Armali

We should spar a bit more, @Cailan.

Anedhel

I'd move priest out of A and into B with the Earth Disrupt change!

Kythra

Aaah! 12 AM typos!

Runewarden DwB (Runeblades) -> Runewarden DwC (Runeblades)

Aegoth

Magi's probably an A

Ryzeth

D = Unviable for competitive. Should not be used. And if someone loses to this tier/person, you/they usually learn the counterplay and never lose again.

I cannot help but disagree with this. Druid is most definitely not 'unviable' - As Makarios says, it's just not played. Anak---whatever his name is did very well with it. Reclaim (is that the quad break one? I forgot... Whatever that one is called) can be combo'd with their triple hydra attack, FYI.
Wouldn't say Infernal SnB is unreliable, either. Just because you can't Vivisect that doesn't mean you can't play it as SnB. There's still focus locking (which has a -chance- to be a truelock with maggots. Can these still give Impatience? idr not that it's needed anyway, focus locking is great as snb)

Personally...

Monk's definitely S (potentially even s+) when played right. Considering you said artifacted/optimised, there's not really a matchup it should ever lose, barring colossal mistakes.

S: Alchemist, Druid (maybe high A. Not nearly as easy to defend against as people think), Sentinel.
A+/low S?: Bard, Jester (think outside the box), Shaman.
A/almost A+: Depthswalker (so many possibilities), Occultist (so many unused tricks), Priest? (haven't played around with it since like october), Serpent, Sylvan.
A: Apostate, SnB/DwC (regardless of class).

Lump the rest together in no real order.

Quick final edit, in case the argument is proposed: Basically anything is 'counterable' if you want to put theory into play. Theory and practical application are two completely different things, however.

Lyrin

Magi should move up to A/A+.     Druid is scary as hell so I'd agree with an A+ or S rating.

Kythra

Ryzeth said:

D = Unviable for competitive. Should not be used. And if someone loses to this tier/person, you/they usually learn the counterplay and never lose again.

I cannot help but disagree with this. Druid is most definitely not 'unviable' - As Makarios says, it's just not played. Anak---whatever his name is did very well with it. Reclaim (is that the quad break one? I forgot... Whatever that one is called) can be combo'd with their triple hydra attack, FYI.
Wouldn't say Infernal SnB is unreliable, either. Just because you can't Vivisect that doesn't mean you can't play it as SnB. There's still focus locking (which has a -chance- to be a truelock with maggots. Can these still give Impatience? idr not that it's needed anyway, focus locking is great as snb)

Personally...

Monk's definitely S (potentially even s+) when played right. Considering you said artifacted/optimised, there's not really a matchup it should ever lose, barring colossal mistakes.

S: Alchemist, Druid (maybe high A. Not nearly as easy to defend against as people think), Sentinel.
A+/low S?: Bard, Jester (think outside the box), Shaman.
A/almost A+: Depthswalker (so many possibilities), Occultist (so many unused tricks), Priest? (haven't played around with it since like october), Serpent, Sylvan.
A: Apostate, SnB/DwC (regardless of class).

Lump the rest together in no real order.

I personally never lost after I learned how their quad break worked! I have a druid mode for my AI and it pre restores on a smart loop when my clamp/maul counter reaches a certain point. If they do arms I auto tumble or evade past icewall depending on the situation and restore if there's not enough time for mending. The risk there is shatter, but, haven't needed to yet. 

It also can only be done like this.

Swing staff (prone), hydra bind, hydra leg clamp left, throw axe at right leg.
-regain balances-
hydra arm clamp right, take axe, throw axe at left arm, reclaim x.

Super fast, but the hydra bind or proning is a tell-tale sign, and I pre-apply before this point. And if they try to counter with arm breaks, then see above.

Maybe C, pushing B, then? I don't ever see it being S rank, damage and Forestal Vivisect are both easy to avoid in a full auto v auto. Maybe it's untapped but after Ank owned me, he couldn't get me a second time. Miriew can't get me either.
I'll await an S rank Druid though, with anticipation! 

And what makes RW DwC so big in my opinion is the rune blades + pith. 20% mana drain plus extra bleed to clot. Ouch. 

Kythra

Lyrin said:

Magi should move up to A/A+.     Druid is scary as hell so I'd agree with an A+ or S rating.

Curious. What's the cause for the lack of them, then? Mechanically boring as hell?

Ahmet

Getting locked by a BM is the scariest shit ever. A+ from me

Lyrin

Kythra said:

Lyrin said:

Magi should move up to A/A+.     Druid is scary as hell so I'd agree with an A+ or S rating.

Curious. What's the cause for the lack of them, then? Mechanically boring as hell?

I think people have a tendency to prefer momentum over prep generally, due to the more exciting nature of aff based combat.   Magi and druids exacerbate this with the need to add vibes / groves / reclamation setup to limb prep to be fighting at optimal strength.

There's also the fact that the classes are quite simple and linear if you want to go for the basic kill route (pummel or incinerate).     To go beyond that, strats that require more finesse such as retardation or optimized druid limb prep/break take a fair amount of work to develop.    That step probably puts people off.

If you can find a way to enjoy the classes enough to stick with them, they're hugely powerful.  I find Magi to be a great compliment to Sentinel in terms of combat style.

Ryzeth

Kythra said:
I pre-apply before this point. And if they try to counter with arm breaks, then see above.

You're aware you can reclaim from adjacent, yes? Pre restore, if the druid is paying attention, is an easy thing to get around, and not sure how you're gonna evade when bound. Also a failed reclaim is gonna be a death to their... Significantly-higher-than-any-other-class burst damage. Unartifacted it's ridiculous damage; full artifacts it's outright obnoxious.

Maybe C, pushing B, then? I don't ever see it being S rank, damage and Forestal Vivisect are both easy to avoid in a full auto v auto.
Automating with a limb class is kinda asking for failure at some point, honestly.

And what makes RW DwC so big in my opinion is the rune blades + pith. 20% mana drain plus extra bleed to clot. Ouch.
Agree. Other ways to lock besides just destroying their mana, albeit partially RNG reliant; I'll concede that point well enough. Insane things you can do with lv 3s.

--

Ahmet said:

Getting locked by a BM is the scariest shit ever. A+ from me

Precache a lot of kelp/bloodroot, and hope for some RNG. You won't get riftlocked... No guarantee you'll live, if they adapt into a Brokenstar, tho.

Kythra

Ryzeth said:

Kythra said:

You're aware you can reclaim from adjacent, yes? 

I was not aware, I've never seen it been done adjacent! More because I don't think the people I've been fighting are as automated as myself, so they don't know how to deal with a pre-apply. Cool, I learned something new.

But reclaim does damage now? Before if it simply failed if the requirements weren't met. It never did any damage. That was mostly bees and maul. Is this new? :O

Lyrin

Druids can't reclaim adjacent rooms in a 1v1 fight.   They can do it while flying over a room though.

Also, the insta is called 'embrace' not 'reclaim'.

Kythra

Lyrin said:

Druids can't reclaim adjacent rooms in a 1v1 fight.   They can do it while flying over a room though.

Also, the insta is called 'embrace' not 'reclaim'.

Dirty forestals and your fancy lingo speak.

Sarathai

Kythra said:

Lyrin said:

Magi should move up to A/A+.     Druid is scary as hell so I'd agree with an A+ or S rating.

Curious. What's the cause for the lack of them, then? Mechanically boring as hell?

Partly the momentum versus prep, partly the need for setup with reclamation, partly the fact that Druid is in the same faction as Sentinel, and partly that for RL years, decades even, by far the vast majority of Druid class users were noncombatants (a lot still are), so they didn't really know how best to combine their abilities and for a while now the Embrace kill route has semi-sort-of needed weaponry and throwing axes (which not everybody went for, though recent classleads have I think tried to address that issue).

But a really good Druid is damn scary. Rom was kicking a fair bit of ass as one for a while, if I remember rightly. Even an average Druid can be a support monster in group fights (Hail Hydra Bind!).

Ryzeth

@Kythra no I meant if the insta fails you're still gonna be prone and broken so the druid can use their burn-maul attack things to bomb you with stupid high damage. 

Kenway

Artied/optimal 2h should be at least an A

Anedhel

Sentinel's so good, I'm so jealous of those bastards

Telinus

Sentinel is rather amazing, till you try to manage your entities without scripting it, then it becomes an absolute nightmare.

Out of all the classes I've played, probably the only one I would actively say needs a script to maintain any form of offense.

Every other class is pretty easy to manual, as you don't need to worry about 6 variations of presummoned entities and managing to enrage the right one, dismiss the right one, summon the right one for the next attack. You essentially have to have a script to manage that for you, which kind of sucks.

Ryzeth

Automation is not required for any class, for anything. 

Farrah

Bard should be A+ or S.

Also, I wouldn't rate anything a D. Infernal snb is a B, even though worse than DWC. Druid is at least a C, but I don't have enough experience to know if higher than that.

Priest isn't as consistent as pally, so probably only an A. Nothing to do with the earth disrupt changes though, which were arguably a buff if you use them right (the whole set of changes that happened at that time, including in changes). Just struggles with slow prep.

Telinus

Ryzeth said:

Automation is not required for any class, for anything. 

I should rephrase, not actively "required", however if you want to use the animals that all afflict on enrage (so without lemming, keeping lemming passively ticking and available for shield/rebounding stripping) with,curare, that's 25 different aliases without a script just for curare. Then factor in xentio, kalmia, gecko, slike, prefarar, oculus, eurypteria, aconite etc.

Gets very big without a script to manage the entities. Whether you choose to automate the entity selection or not is a separate argument.

Ahmet

25 different aliases? You be trippin.

Regex is your friend.

Ryzeth

Telinus said:
that's 25 different aliases without a script just for curare.

Regex aliases are your friend. One alias per attack (albeit a number of different combinations in each); check Rom's post history and see how he set it up. Off the top of my head, he designated a letter per animal. So it was like ^(letter)(atk)(letter2)$ where letter is the animal used, atk is the attack+venom used, letter2 is the animal summoned.
wdpw -> wolf enrage/doublestrike paralysis/wolf summon, raaw -> raven enrage/axe asthma/summon wolf. Etc; might've been six letter combinations, you'd have to ask him.

I'll concede that scripts help Sentinel if your typing accuracy/speed is not quick, or you just generally don't want to memorise that many different letter combinations. Generally the more you fight, the more of a feel you get for it, and typically know the flow of your strategies to the point where the script isn't actually needed. I used a bunch for Shaman, because of how many different combos there are and how fast Shaman's bal is, then I started to not really need them.

Jinsun

I think Occie is still A+ close to S, I'd put DW up at S though.

Monks are close to S at optimal they're just hard af to kill sometimes. I thank god, though for all
the people who saw Jhui play monk and said "I can do that!" Then cane out and sparred. Most monks can be beaten blindfolded it's the top tier ones that are scary but i guess that's most classes 

Amranu

Shaman definitely D class

Ryzeth

Amranu said:

Shaman definitely D class

Eh. If they're good it's a solid D+ at least. Maybe C-

Antonius

Ryzeth said:

Telinus said:
that's 25 different aliases without a script just for curare.

Regex aliases are your friend. One alias per attack (albeit a number of different combinations in each); check Rom's post history and see how he set it up. Off the top of my head, he designated a letter per animal. So it was like ^(letter)(atk)(letter2)$ where letter is the animal used, atk is the attack+venom used, letter2 is the animal summoned.

What backs up a multi-purpose regex alias? A script. Automation might not be needed, but unless you feel like sitting down and making each one of those potential combinations (or at least the ones you're likely to use) an actual alias, you'll need a script involved. I'm not sure why people automatically assume using the word "script" means "automation".