Class Picks

Toz

I'm curious about the perception of classes, if there's enough people with an interest in fighting to weigh in. What is your...

Best bashing class?

Worst bashing class?

Favorite thematically?

Favorite mechanically?

Favorite group class?

What's your tier order?

What opposite tether class is scariest?

What opposite tether class doesn't scare you one bit?

Toz

For me personally,

Carnifex is my bashing baby lately. I have it all kitted out and it's a dream. Openings and furor procs make my dps vary so much it's fun to watch. If I quit bashing with 'fex I'll probably swap to wayfarer, because the dps on chop is nice even unruned.

Monk is my worst. It's probably a lot better now, but the paper thin audit and the low dps it had because Zealot was monster tanky made it super not worth it. You could numbbash but that took forever. I just don't bash in monk.

Carnifex for theme, obviously. I miss the guild but Bamathis' Order has that covered now- but big heavy bulky knight slinging a huge weapon around is fun, and landing a kill with hammer throw or pulverize just feels right.

Mechanically, Archivist all the way. It sure doesn't do it all, but what it does is this bizarre juggle effect and I hate I accidentally broke my AI for it somehow. You play with timing, everything lines up accoding to plan, and then they explode. Plus return lets you get away with an awful lot, and it doesn't have any annoying upkeep (looking at you, souls).

Group is monk. Group will always be monk. Let me dump this damage on you real quick, and here have an enfeeble. But as soon as you get in the area you better watch yourself, because I can kill you perfectly fine with teammates or by getting in your head. I can even bring you to me, or send you away to Time once you get here. There is nothing monk doesn't bring, either. Affs, limbs, mana, health, cc, deliverance. It's king in a group to such an absurd extent I almost spent all classlead round asking for group buffs for other classes. Maybe next round.

My 1v1 Tiers:
S Tier
Luminary, your hinder is your kill path. Your defense is unstoppable with a 10s passive cure rite, immunity to hunger/sleep, and passive health gains. Your limb route ignores rebounding and you have the only aff in the game that shuts down hitting back AND thaf also progresses your kill. Then piety. It plays like a steamroller, you bounce off of it until it's too late. It's what vamp wants to be when it grows up.

Archivist is still scary because people haven't touched 50% of what it can do, I bet. IF you can solve some part of it, you're rewarded by deleting almost everyone else until the next classlead round. Oh and your passive heal is 8s and heals allies too. 80% dodge with no CD, too. And shadow's fastest team kill path.

Monk, mind blank is insane to deal with. Pair that with 3 active cures and kai banish, you shouldn't technically ever die to an aff class. Limb classes might sneak up on you, but the kit is nuts.

Shaman, because it's such a monster to fight all its cheese, let alone the actual offense/defense and arti scaling. Group fight nightmares, so much utility.

A is gonna be
Carnifex: assuming you can do breeding or pay to bypass it, the limb route has some deceptively good hinder tucked in. If they cure bad you're deleting them. It'll struggle against people who cure correct, but you can switch to affs and blitz instead. Reliable re-lock, but less room control and it isn't able to specialize as hard as Templar.

Templar: Blink and you're dead. Don't blink and you can probably just walk away. The class has been nerfed like every single classlead round since it came out though, and it STILL has a few cheap tricks left, which I am absolutely not telling you about because I like winning. Limb route is good at surprising you and a fast kill,  too.

Teradrim: Best shadow limb class. If you don't cure exactly right you are gonna die. Struggles slightly with upkeep from inks if you swap runes like Emir does, setup is kind of a pain, but really no weak spots on it except for a lack of aff game, which is perfectly fine.

Sentinel: I bet it's closet op on offense but untouchable area control. I hated coding it and the reliance on ents is annoying. That being said, resins got turbocharged and backflip means never dying if you don't want to die. Great hinder, no limb route really.

Wayfarer: Hinder, limb, affs, at the same time. I'm still convinced it's high skillcap high reward, and that a good WF can demolish anybody. Just weird to code and the QoL for axe management is lacking. Also your lockbreaker blows.

Syssin: No endgame to your limb route, but it does exist. The kings of "you almost had me", their offense plays like that too, where your target yoyos between locked and doomed and home free about eight times then finally drops dead. It's weird, I hate fighting them, and they have a to of utility.

Shapeshifter: Troll strat of lullaby aside, if someone goes prone they should almost never stand back up. It takes forever to kill somebody but really you just gnaw on them while they ask you to please stop, then they die. No aff option but who cares, best team in the game is as many furry friends as you can find. Offense is good, audit isn't great, defense is kinda bad but the hinder can make killing you a chore even after you get locked.

B Tier:
Indorani: Strong hinder/offense. But your ents can be killed like a billion ways. You have lust/stsr tarot. But 2 classes can turn rooms indoors and TOUCH SHIELD isn't that hard. Mono stops empress. Also somehow even more skills one-shot your doppie. Pathfinder escape! If they don't oneshot it. Defense is solid, if you don't have paresis. It's not awful and the offense is hard hitting enough to mostly make up for the defense, but the sheer investment/ability to troll them with breaking their stuff is sad times.

Zealot: Tekura is GREAT. But you could have been a monk. Burning people to death is mega cool. But you could have been a monk. You can tank better, lightform to position better/infiltrate, and you have a few niche uses! ...but you could have been a monk. On its own, class is an A. But monk is still loads better, which makes Zealot worse. Gogo revamp.

Ascendril: Broken leg stops some of your skills, your instakill is actually tankable for some reason. Good group utility, woes vs good curing, reliant on them chilling in your vibes. Solid defense audit and your defense is weird. Gogo revamp.

C Tier:
Sciomancer: See Ascendril. Except you have less skills. ??? Gogo revamp

Vampire: You can literally troll a vampire to death in 1v1, so long as your cures outlast their corpses. Good group fight class, sad times 1v1. Decent defense, offense has a few issues trying to ramp up. Running out of class resource literally kills you, and nerfs your sip the whole way down. The sun teams you with affs 1v1. You could have been a Luminary.

Scariest lifer class: Templar. Lum is better, Templar is just faster. Please stop hitting me.

Least scary: There are no Sentinel duelists. Probably that class.

Stathan

Going to preface this with
I spent around 5 years away and my combat experience since I've been back is basically exclusively Foci fighting.
Depending on which character I'm on I either have aliases for combat or a janky outdated bassackwards AI that I basically turn on and hope for the best.

Bashing-
I primarily bash as Monk on the one and Scio as the other. Monk has other classes but I just seem to do better with monk and numb tanking things. DPS is tolerable but on the low end. Have Templar, haven't tried bashing with it. Othe character bashes exclusively as Scio since I have no other classes on him, yet.

PVP-
Not doing a fancy list like Toz did because I honestly have no clue about half the classes, bare minimum.

Templar is solid, so long as you set up your routes properly and don't get hung up on wrong venom order or constantly hitting parry. Since I've been back the primary route seems to be limbs, or Retri if the group is set up for it, occasionally impale.

I'm 100% agreeing with Toz about monk in groups. It just brings, oh so friggin much. And if you code in calling/reactions properly you have kill route support for basically every route the game has to offer in some form. Not including what they can do with someone who can prone spam a target to BBT chain them out. I personally need to get better with Kai usage, simply because I barely use it at all aside from the AI triggered cripple.

Scio seems to either be ranged support via cataclysm or a tfix bot. Vibes have uses, and you can set up stonespike stuff if you use venoms right. The fall back of singularities means that if the fight starts to turn a kamakazi attack can shift it back to the Scio's teams favor.

Wayfarer, from an outside view, is absolutely monstrous with it's output and abilities. With a solid setup and enough quick damage output, maybe some limb(torso) damage thrown in from a teammate you can dropstrike spam a lesser clean in nothing flat.

Shapeshifter (now) seems to be solid and have good group usage. Quick hinder, stun/prone with leapslash. Neckdrag can have it's uses. Quarter seems to be a royal pain if enough people have it set up properly.

Preferences-
For looks and flavor, I gotta go with monk. It's the only class I seem to come back too after any amount of time away and I love the general RP of finding balance in all things. Miss the Neutral angle a bit but understand with game progression and such with the tethers.

Mechaically, I can't really make a call honestly. I have limited knowledge on the classes compared to other people. From just what I've seen though? I'm going with Wayfarer because hey, handaxes are in again. I like the concept of the class and beyond that I love what I've seen it do. Lob or chop, so you can go either agi or str based for your offense. Limbs as well as affs at the same time. The juggled axes look like they take a lot of timing to get right and dropstrike kill message is just tits.


Scariest classes-

Lifer? Hands down Templar. Just stop. No. I don't want your bludgeon loving or your pokey deaths. Go away with your ability to hit 21str without arties and stop eating my face.

Shadow tether- No clue honestly. I'm going to go with Archivist because it's the least known to me and from what I've heard/seen I don't want any part of that noise. None at all.

Least Scary -
Lifer - Agreeing with Toz. I can't be scared of Sentinel if no one uses it much or uses it effectively. Waiting for someone to step up but at the same time, no please. Keep your pointy stick out of my ass and no resins. Screw you.

Shadow- Have to go with Sciomancer. As much as I love the class for various reasons, I can't be afraid of it when the primary kill route I've seen successfully utilized is staggering sings into a damage kill. Feels like if they can't get ahead enough to start the sing chain properly, or you hinder well enough they aren't going to get any momentum.

Edit: Forgot least scary

Mjoll

Best bashing class?

I'm all in on Carni - Openings, flank, furor, audit coats and intercept = happy murder times.

Worst bashing class?

I only play Carnifex ( on purpose, don't make fun of me )

Favorite thematically?

Carnifex - soul eating reaper-adjacent armored tanks. YUM

Favorite mechanically?

All the speed-knight classes. I've been a speed-knight fighter type for... Way too long, lmao.

Favorite group class?

I'm on that monk love train, but Teradrim are a VERY close second to who I'd like standing next to me in a big brawl. Been saved by sand shield too many times to discount it.

What's your tier order?

S
Luminary
Archivist
Shaman

A
Teradrim
Carnifex
Syssin
Templar
Monk
Lycan
Indorani

B
Ascendr/omancer
Vampire

(Classes left off the list are underplayed or just forgotten)

What opposite tether class is scariest?

Shaman. I mysteriously die and haven't figured out why, yet.

What opposite tether class doesn't scare you one bit?

They're all scary! I think templar scares me the least though, I see through their tricks.

Tiur

This is all super relevant to my interests. Keep giving me free opinions and info to use! MUAHAHAHA

Toz

I figured with bashing revamp and classleads closing, this would be the time to talk about this!

Fezzix

I'm a Syssin boy, through and through. I love the theme, love the idea of being sneaky, love eavesdropping, love following and infiltrating. Love fighting in it, too. Everything about Fezzix in character is Syssin.

As for mechanics..

TOP TIER:

Archivist, but mostly because it's new. It's in a weird spot where nerfing some of the more powerful mechanics like Madness or Ethereal or Ameliorate might neuter the class, but as it currently exists, there are only a few class-specific "Achilles' Heel" routes that can counter it, like Carnifex easily pressing Peace into an offense.

Shaman, because every route it has relies on some form of cheese, and you can get blown up out of nowhere. Granted, if you -constantly- play defensively, it's hard to lose, but if you ever expect to win against one, you have to eventually stop diagnosing through the million blackouts and go on the offense. Premonition is easily buried, blackouts can mask almost everything, and Oath of Tranquility/Elder Shaman/Panacea makes them one of the harder classes to kill. Vitalbane is one of the biggest pains in the ass, ever. Ever. Having to halt your offense to diagnose to avoid Reclamation or to pull thorns to avoid Strangle Cheese adds to the frustration.

Luminary, the freight train. Fighting even the most mediocre luminary opponent as a venom-based affliction class is a chore. Fighting one that's optimized (which hasn't been done yet, not even close) is an almost guaranteed loss. The class has the most built in hinder of any class in the game that doesn't detract from its natural progression, e.g. hidden blurry_vision, lethargy, confusion, pacifism, and has access to transfix alongside an unstoppable passive heal and an active that can choose between a random physical or mental affliction. Luminary is nigh unkillable defensively, and offensively it can press both the decongestant and euphoriant stacks simultaneously, then adjust its route easily according to what the target cures.

Monk, because three active cures. Mind Push, Mind Cleanse, and FITNESS. Fitness alone just wasn't enough, I guess. Blackout and blank. A throw that interrupts tumble. Kai Cripple. Banish to reset any fight if you're losing. Also, the best group class in the game. In groups, it doesn't have a single disadvantage.

MID TIER:

Syssin, my bread and butter. It'll sneak up on you if you don't know what to look for, but it's also prone to every type of hinder tactic in the game and has a narrow kill window that, if missed, means the fight is reset. Balace-wise, syssin is in a good spot. Plenty to slow it down, but powerful enough to reliably get kills.

Carnifex. Was at the very top of the top tier before the nerfs. I need to play around with it more. Wraith is one of the best abilities in the game, and the Soul mechanic gives them some momentum that takes a loooong time to recover from, so in a fight you will rarely ever truly "reset" against a carnifex.

Templar, borderline top tier. I'm itching to alt it up and see how far I can push this one, but I don't feel like shelling out the cash for lessons and there's a lot of other stuff demanding my attention right now anyway. They're fast, immune to clumsiness, have a passive heal, fitness, and access to hidden affs. Straightforward and predictable but good.

Sentinel. See Templar. Curious to play around with it, but don't have the time or motivation to mess with resins and ent stacking.

Indorani, super high aff rate, but easily trolled as Toz mentioned and the second-worst active cure in the game. When you lock an indorani, they're probably staying locked. They can give impatience and lethargy on demand, which is a big deal. Sun and Moon tarot are balanced enough in their aff selection to where you can't immediately bury asthma behind clumsiness. The hidden affs can spell doom for the unprepared or inexperienced.

Praenomen, easily trolled, but eventually you have to try to kill them. They require a different curing priority list than other classes, but if you focus on the important stuff, it's mostly junk (but they are able to stick loneliness easier than anyone else). They're like luminary, but it's a slower moving freight train.

Teradrim. Scary, but prone to clumsiness (and now disfigurement!). Great utility, amazing passives, solid class that will tear you up if you ignore your bruises.

Shapeshifter. @Toz said all that needs to be said. Group up and kill everything. Slow moving, but the offense increases exponentially. Go prone and die.

Wayfarer, because the way it pushes venoms AND limb damage at the same time is terrifying. Exhausted is an amazing affliction, they're good at preventing movement, and if you decide to dodge a certain type of attack against them, they can simply swap to another style and keep going. Punish Arms makes me cry.

BOTTOM TIER:

Ascendril. Spec into fire resistance. Cure Dissonance, walk away if you get branded, and part the water or raise icewalls to prevent Tsunami spam. Their saving graces (ANNOYING saving graces) are Tsunami and Reflect, both spammable, and Waterward. If you die against one, it's because you either didn't keep waterbreathing up or didn't cure Dissonance and they stuck loneliness on you from Tone Creeps. Sometimes this will happen because of extremely unlucky procs from vibes/watersprite.

Sciomancer. Spec into cold resistance. Same as Ascendril, but they don't have an ent that strips your blindness so they can get lucky Voidgaze spams.

Zealot. Sure, it's immune to clumsiness and has a better audit, but it has fewer active cures and requires more limb focus on the torso and head to get those cool Infernal Shroud kills. People I've seen lose to Zealot in 1v1 fights usually just never bothered parrying torso or head because they were ignorant of the mechanics. I think it's perfectly preventable though. They also get Telepathy Tether, but moving a single room and touching shield works just as well.

Scariest classes? Luminary and Archivist. Easy choice.

Galadriel

Keroc straight said in the last liason rounds. Luminary limb route isn't viable 1v1 and he has no interest in making it that way

Eliadon

Best bashing class?
Probably Shamwow, but I also have level 2s all around so I'm biased. Extra tanky courtesy of spiritbond, familiar can never die, etc.

Worst bashing class?
Probably monk. Used to think 'hey, more crits is nice!' but it turns out I'd rather crit one time for 1234123 damage than 3 times for 100 damage each.

Favorite thematically?
Ascendril.
Why?
The entire idea of the class is that it uses an understanding of how the Elemental planes interact with each-other when their raw materials are mixed to create powerful 'magical' effects.
But it's not magic at all. It's just physics.

Favorite mechanically?
Gotta go with Ascendril courtesy of -one- mechanic.
Replicate.
Turns some matchups that are awful into matchups that aren't quite so awful (looking at you, Praenomen).

Favorite group class?
Shamwow, of course. Lots of utility.

What's your tier order (1v1s, individual classes in order too)?
SS Tier:
Archivist:
If only because very few people know how to deal with a good chunk of their tricks. Recollection is also -extremely- powerful against softlocking classes, like Templar. There's also the 'if you run away from an Archivist you're in for a bad time' quirk, and their current group utility with ridiculously fast unravels. There are a great many little curing optimizations you can make against archivists, however. One of the biggest ones is 'oh dear gods please stop curing mentals with pills.'

Monk:
Because it has too many tools to deal with everyone else, see previous posts.

S Tier:
I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree a bit with Fezzix and Toz here, and it's because of a specific quirk of their offense.
Syssin:
Syssin are unique in that they can prepare their major offense window slowly, over time. There is nothing a target can do to prevent this offense window from eventually being opened. If a target decides to turtle through it, the Syssin's offense is gone, sure, but they can set it up again.
Syssin can run away over and over and over again while still building their offense. If you attempt to fight through their kill window, there is a very good chance that you will die if your class does not have an absurd amount of healing (see: Luminary/Monk) or an absurd amount of hinder (see: Monk/Indorani (if no web boots, but c'mon)/Shaman), and even then you can still get locked and die.
Despite ranking Archivist higher, I will continue to view Syssin as the king of 1v1 for the above reason. Patience is the ultimate key to 1v1s, and @Fezzix is one of the most patient 1v1ers that I know. :P
Fighting @Kamui is about as frustrating as it possibly gets, though.

Wayfarer is also probably up here, but I have yet to see an offense that utilizes the combined salve + aff pressure, including my own. Hard as shit to write a good offense for.

A Tier:
Teradrim:
Not quite as overall scary as Monk, but probably the second scariest of the limb classes. Golems do a lot of work, and if you take advantage of your golem it's pretttttttty frightening.

Shaman:
While @Fezzix and @Toz do raise good points about the cheese, I'm putting it a littttttttle bit lower. Shaman has counters to a lot of different mechanics, but even with all the cheese strats it's somewhat hard to kill anyone who has more than a +sip artifact because omen is by no means an instakill, and unstoppable reclamation is visible through blackout. Stoppable reclamation is useless against many classes, even when begun during blackout, due to the prevalence of paresis in routes.

Luminary:
It's just so slow that I usually kill them before they get their lock on me, even if it feels inevitable. Alternatively, playing Ascendril: qeb cast tsunami. Strong for the same reasons that Toz and Fezzix mentioned, but so slow.

B Tier:
Templar:
As much as I like to trash talk Templar, it's probably the easiest Spirit class to set up an offense for. All it needs to be effective is a decent venom/empowerment stack, and most people will eventually die. Vulnerable to losing their entire lock to a tiny bit of hinder, particularly if that hinder comes directly after a vorpal. Overall, not the most threatening class in the world.

Tentatively Carnifex:
Prior to the recent set of nerfs, Carnifex was far scarier to me than Templar. Now, I'm not sure. Time will tell!

Shapeshifter (Raven):
Probably the only Shapeshifter that's actually worth a damn in 1v1, due to headdrop. Can't get that armpitlock after you get a groinrip? No problem! Headdrop here to save the day.

Praenomen:
While Prae is really slow, fighting without cheesing them can be mildly scary. After awhile, they will kill you. Nothing really to be done about it.
There's a problem though.
If I ever want to not lose to someone in Praenomen? I'm going to force them to class change if they want to keep fighting, because I will run them out of blood.
Granted, I've never done this, but the fact that you -can- do it is absurd.

Indorani:
Too slow. Too vulnerable to 'bsh bloodleech' if they ever want to try to use adder.
That said, I would never want to fight an Indorani if I couldn't just bsh bloodleech.
They also are one of the few classes that will kill you via attrition of an arbitrary mechanic. Hunger is dumb, and dying to going unconscious because you've had vomiting nearly the entire fight is pretty annoying. (Granted, same can be said about Templar)

CC+ Tier:
Ascendril:
Mostly due to some cheeky tactics with delayed aquasphere, and replicate. Without using those, solidly C-.
You lose all pressure if they're not fighting you in your vibes... so vibe the entire sect arena. 8)
Bad for previously mentioned reasons, however.

C Tier:
Sciomancer for previously mentioned reasons.
Shapeshifter (non-Raven)
Old Zealot.


Didn't bother placing new Zealot, because we have no idea yet. Same with sentinels. There are no 1v1 Sentinel fighters, or at least no one that's used the new resins fully.

What opposite tether class is scariest?
Archivist in groups. Syssin in 1v1, because I know most of the little Archivist tricks and can always CLASS SWITCH SHAMAN.

What opposite tether class doesn't scare you one bit?
Indorani, because I'm a monster and bash their entities.

edit: Had a few weird formatting bits and bobs to fix, and originally didn't answer the last two questions. Turns out I typed monk's blurb partly into Archivist's, then rewrote it later.

Fezzix

@Eliadon Fight an archivist that knows how to easily bury Addiction under Madness, wait for you to cure Patterns, give Patterns again, then Madness/Bloom proc (vomiting) into Stimulant for an instant Unravel.

All before you get pill balance back. Carnifex gets a nice edge simply because Peace prevents the Bloom proc and Deathlore Purge can get rid of Addiction or Vomiting.

Eliadon

That sounds painful. :[