POE 2 Best Class Rankings

[3rdID]

I found this interesting site that uses a chess like ELO rating based off of user opinions to rank the classes in Deadfire:

http://charactercompare.com/pillars-of-eternity-ii-best-class/

 

It does not break down by sub class so I don't know how accurate it is.

 

 

[baldurs_gate_2]

I found this interesting site that uses a chess like ELO rating based off of user opinions to rank the classes in Deadfire:

http://charactercompare.com/pillars-of-eternity-ii-best-class/

 

It does not break down by sub class so I don't know how accurate it is.

Monk 18? The class that can solo the mega bosses. Not really accurate. And opinion of ppl, that played the game through once?

[Verde]

Lmao I'm currently playing #60. Lifegiver/Priest of Wael...doesn't seem that low.

 

I'd rank Trickster top 5 certainly top 10, over Mindstalker (which I've played like 3 dif variants).

Edited February 18, 2019 by Verde

[arkteryx]

It's an interesting attempt but I would take it with a giant grain of salt. Way too many variables, different people with different ideas about the basis of the ranking, fun versus power versus popularity.

[Raven Darkholme]

Cipher/Paladin Rank 1 is really troll, sadly not even a good class with any awesome synergy.(This is coming from somebody who absolutely loved these classes in Poe1 and was superhype for the multiclass)

Not counting the subclasses makes this even worse, Bloodmage + anything is so meta and while wizard in itself is good enough to be rank 3 or maybe even 2 or 1 adding the subclasses would make this much more accurate.

[Jayd]

This kinda stuff in single player games is pointless. Only in PvP (or at least some kind of competitive PvE) environments is there any degree of objectivity in these kinds of lists.

[Boeroer]

I would say even in PvP it's totally pointless for a party-based RPG. For solo it's a bit easier - but still not easy to do. With a party setup any general ranking of classes is completely and utterly pointless in Deadfire.

 

Just one example that proves the point:

 

Howler is 30. But a Berserker/Beckoner is the fastest way to toally break the game and solves every encounter from mid to lat(ish) game with one single combo. Stack up on Fortitude and Freeze AR (eventually grab Effigy's Husk and enchent it with Eyes of Blackstone), Frenzy, Summon Skeletons and use Chilling Grave from Grave Calling to annihilate all skeletons (6+6 from Ancient Brittle Bones which get destroyed on the spot by the 6 Chillfogs and prodice another 6) and have 12 parallel Chillfogs which have all bonuses from weapon enchantments. And if you switch to Modwyr right after using Grave Calling all Chillfogs turn into foe only... Or just keep summoning skeletons into the fog - the fog also counts as Grave Calling attacks so it will spawn more fogs...

 

This admittedly cheesy build should not be an example of how every Howler should look like - it just shows that there are so many different apporaches and builds with one class that you just can't judge and rank them just so.

 

Another example:

Fighter (47.) with Fire in the Hole (Chain Shot) and a bashing shield (or any melee weapon in the offhand really) using Clean Sweep or Clear the Path: destroys most mobs in an instant. "What?" you say "Clear Out and upgrades are melee only!" Ekera, but the bashing shield (or melee offhand weapon) makes it so that Clear Out thinks you are a melee guy and still uses the mortar to deliver Clear Out + mortar AoE I say.

"Cheesy" you say. Per complanca - it still proves the point.

 

There are too many roles, too many builds (with too many items which have special enchantments) in order to make an even slightly useful ranking.

 

What you could do (and what might be helpful) is to rank builds (not classes per se) for special roles (e.g. "Tank that can withstand friendly fire" or "Healer who can also do CC" or whatever). 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

Cipher/Paladin Rank 1 is really troll, sadly not even a good class with any awesome synergy.(This is coming from somebody who absolutely loved these classes in Poe1 and was superhype for the multiclass)

Not counting the subclasses makes this even worse, Bloodmage + anything is so meta and while wizard in itself is good enough to be rank 3 or maybe even 2 or 1 adding the subclasses would make this much more accurate.

The cipher from PoE1 is gone indeed, but the soulblade/paladin is, just like the troubadour/paladin, one of the best soloers in the game - very reliable and can deal with anything you throw at him from the start until the end (megabosses included). And he's also a great addition for a party if you want a tank with good offense and versatility.

[Boeroer]

By the way: Does Sun & Moon have an issue wioth Soul Annihilation nowadays? I tried it yesterday with a Soulblade/Bleak Walker and it would only apply 29ish raw damage with the first attack roll and then regain some focus with the second - no matter how much focus I had collected...? 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

By the way: Does Sun & Moon have an issue wioth Soul Annihilation nowadays? I tried it yesterday with a Soulblade/Bleak Walker and it would only apply 29ish raw damage with the first attack roll and then regain some focus with the second - no matter how much focus I had collected...? 

Don't know, I haven't played recently. But with Draining Whip you should get the same focus as the damage dealt by the second head. The Soul Annihilation damage is half of your total focus multiplied by your damage bonuses (and the hidden PL bonus).

Edited February 19, 2019 by Kaylon

[Boeroer]

Yes, but as I said: I was only getting the raw dmg as if I had only 10 focus or so - no matter how much I really had. Maybe I have to check again.

[MaxQuest]

Another example:

Fighter (47.) with Fire in the Hole (Chain Shot) and a bashing shield (or any melee weapon in the offhand really) using Clean Sweep or Clear the Path: destroys most mobs in an instant. "What?" you say "Clear Out and upgrades are melee only!" Ekera, but the bashing shield (or melee offhand weapon) makes it so that Clear Out thinks you are a melee guy and still uses the mortar to deliver Clear Out + mortar AoE I say.

"Cheesy" you say. Per complanca - it still proves the point.

That's not cheesy

And that's hardly even exploit.

 

That's a straight-up non-vague bug, since the description clearly tells "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon in a large arc".

So it's either implementation-bug. Or description-bug.

 

And looking at the effect... I tend to think that it is related to implementation, because:

- it's quite improbable that a character can reload the blunderbuss 5 times under 1s, when sweeping 5 enemies in melee.

- the advantage gained is a bit too high, and doesn't look to be intended design.

 

That said, I also find weird how Whisper of the Wind works with bows and firearms. I mean I can somewhat understand implements firing n shots without the need for draw/reload... but these... nope.

Edited February 19, 2019 by MaxQuest

[3rdID]

With 5 out of the top 10 being Paladin multi-classes and no way to factor in any synergy with-in a party, it would seem that the main criteria is the ability to solo the game.

I would wager that a lot of the votes are from people's "perception" of the class and not having actually played it. 

[Boeroer]

 

Another example:

Fighter (47.) with Fire in the Hole (Chain Shot) and a bashing shield (or any melee weapon in the offhand really) using Clean Sweep or Clear the Path: destroys most mobs in an instant. "What?" you say "Clear Out and upgrades are melee only!" Ekera, but the bashing shield (or melee offhand weapon) makes it so that Clear Out thinks you are a melee guy and still uses the mortar to deliver Clear Out + mortar AoE I say.

"Cheesy" you say. Per complanca - it still proves the point.

That's not cheesy

And that's hardly even exploit.

 

That's a straight-up non-vague bug, since the description clearly tells "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon in a large arc".

So it's either implementation-bug. Or description-bug.

 

And looking at the effect... I tend to think that it is related to implementation, because:

- it's quite improbable that a character can reload the blunderbuss 5 times under 1s, when sweeping 5 enemies in melee.

- the advantage gained is a bit too high, and doesn't look to be intended design.

 

That said, I also find weird how Whisper of the Wind works with bows and firearms. I mean I can somewhat understand implements firing n shots without the need for draw/reload... but these... nope.

But with the same argument "how can you reload x in y secs?" you could also call HoF and Whispers of the Wind with ranged weapons a bug. Basically you could call all AoE weapon abilities a bug - if reloading a crossbow doesn't work, putting an arrow on and drawing a bow should also be impossible - and so on.

 

In this case I do think it's a smallish bug that Clear Out allows you to use a ranged weapon if you have a melee weapon in the offhand. But not because of "realism".

 

It's a bit clunky: You still have to get into melee range but instead of using the melee offhand the main hand gets used. It works properly with other primary attacks like Taste of the Hunt etc.

 

Whirling Strikes has the same glitch by the way.

 

No matter though: it's in the game and it's very powerful. It just proves the point that there's always an effect x with class y that allows that class to be used with a more powerful build - while there are also bad choices which make a potentially great builds crappy.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Cipher/Paladin Rank 1 is really troll, sadly not even a good class with any awesome synergy.(This is coming from somebody who absolutely loved these classes in Poe1 and was superhype for the multiclass)

Not counting the subclasses makes this even worse, Bloodmage + anything is so meta and while wizard in itself is good enough to be rank 3 or maybe even 2 or 1 adding the subclasses would make this much more accurate.

The cipher from PoE1 is gone indeed, but the soulblade/paladin is, just like the troubadour/paladin, one of the best soloers in the game - very reliable and can deal with anything you throw at him from the start until the end (megabosses included). And he's also a great addition for a party if you want a tank with good offense and versatility.

 

That's not a good synergy at all tho, Soulblade has that with any melee class and Paladin has that with any class, and I definitely would not compare ciphers with chanters in this game, while they were similar in poe 1(the chanter was still stronger by quite a bit, except against dragons where cipher was god tier) they are not even in the same tier in this game.

Yes you can solo the game easily with both, but are there really many classes that can't kill the megabosses? (I know only of a chosen few)

[Rangerpetheaven]

The more I have played the game, the more I have come to appreciate single classes over multi. Having access to higher level abilities almost always matters more than multiclass synergy for me. I also prefer strength at low levels over classes that are strong with ideal gear at lvl 20. A single class ancient druid kind of exemplifies this, mushrooms at level 1 and early powerful insect swarm can carry the early game.

[MaxQuest]

No matter though: it's in the game and it's very powerful. It just proves the point that there's always an effect x with class y that allows that class to be used with a more powerful build

I do agree with this statement, and with the point made

 

I just don't like multiple shots with bows and reloading weapons, when used with cone/AoE weapon abilities that explicitly specify melee weapons ^^ Nor recursion that can get out of hand)

 

Meanwhile I'm ok with somewhat-immersive "AoE" ranged weapon abilities . Think of Twinned-Shot. Or if there was something like: Quadruple-Shot, Rain of Arrows (BFME), Deadeye (McCree from Overwatch, who chain-shots at everyone). Stuff like that.

 

But with the same argument "how can you reload x in y secs?" you could also call HoF and Whispers of the Wind with ranged weapons a bug. Basically you could call all AoE weapon abilities a bug - if reloading a crossbow doesn't work, putting an arrow on and drawing a bow should also be impossible - and so on.

Yes)

 

Unlike Cleave, in case of HoF and WotW, descriptions do not mention "melee weapons". But hey am completely fine if they would. Actually I would be quite glad, and I mean it)

With the only possible exception being sceptres and wands. Since they don't have reload, nor need to draw, don't have AoE, and are not as wonky in melee as a bow.

 

There could also be a middle ground. E.g:

- cleave can be done even with 2H ranged weapons, let's say arquebus. But it is used as a mundane club.

- whispers of the wind, can work with bows, pistols, blundersbusses... but such ranged weapons fire only once. Or are used as mundane clubs.

Edited February 19, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Verde]

What roles does a Soulblade Paladin play? Sounds too jack of all trades. No way its #1

Edited February 19, 2019 by Verde

[MaxQuest]

^ Soulblade/Paladin pros are:

- autonomy (due to the mentioned jack-of-all-trade'iness)

- solo potential

 

But he doesn't seem suited for a specialized party; nor has the best of focus-generating abilities.

Edited February 19, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

It can be very tanky with Paladin passives and Exalted Endurance + Borrowed Instincts while it does pretty good single target damage with Soul Annihilation.

 

So it can be a very good tank which also does good damage. FoD + Borrowed Insticts gives you +30 ACC, +40 with Ring of Focused Flames. Easy to stack up on focus with that. Then dump that focus with Soul Annihilation.

 

That's a lot better than having a very good tank who can only slap a wet towel around. The good thing about Soul Annihilation is that it's does not depend on your build as much as other abilites do. It will even do good damage on a very defensive character (as long as you can land a hit).  

 

At the same time it also has access to all the nice cipher powers which can be used for damage, support or CC.

 

It can be a great class combo for a party - even if the Whispers otEP-cheese is gone. 

 

Since making class tiers is nonsense it can't be #1 though.

 

Therefore all discussions like "Class X is god tier trolololo class Y is trash roflmao" become superfluous.  

[Boeroer]

The more I have played the game, the more I have come to appreciate single classes over multi. Having access to higher level abilities almost always matters more than multiclass synergy for me. I also prefer strength at low levels over classes that are strong with ideal gear at lvl 20. A single class ancient druid kind of exemplifies this, mushrooms at level 1 and early powerful insect swarm can carry the early game.

I absolutely agree. The more I play the higher I value single class characters. In a full party that is. Having access to higher Powel Levels earlier is much more important and has more impact in my opinion than having a bit more resources and a "perceived synergy advantage". Because most synergy effects don't need to be done in a "self-contained" build when you have a party.

[Verde]

And I think that's to Deadfire's credit. The class balance.

[thelee]

Monk 18? The class that can solo the mega bosses. Not really accurate. And opinion of ppl, that played the game through once?

To be fair, just being able to solo a megaboss does not necessarily equate to general power. Solo-ing basically amounts to "is this class lucky enough to have the right inherent toolset to take advantage of some technical tricks." For example, my two solo runs (one Triple Crown, one The Ultimate) for PoE1 used a chanter and paladin, respectively, and it had less to do with any in-built power, but more just about their sheer ability to repeatedly use powers or high defenses themselves (e.g. infinite summons with chanter, bonus defense with paladin) and I would nowhere near put them on the top of the list of "most powerful PoE1 classes."

 

That being said, I think lists like this are pretty useful if you acknowledge their shortcomings. They are essentially a crowd-sourced list of what casual Deadfire players think are powerful (because it'll basically be heavily weighted towards casual players), and if you contextualize it like that, it can be a good guide for other casual players to quickly figure out what are good classes to pick up and play. But if you start picking at it ever so slightly for more details, or expect some high-end guides on class/multiclass power, it's going to collapse really quickly. (Imagine determining Starcraft 2 meta or Super Smash Bros tier lists based largely just on what casual players like to play or worse think they like to play.)

Edited February 19, 2019 by thelee

[Franknstein]

 

Unlike Cleave, in case of HoF and WotW, descriptions do not mention "melee weapons". But hey am completely fine if they would. Actually I would be quite glad, and I mean it)

With the only possible exception being sceptres and wands. Since they don't have reload, nor need to draw, don't have AoE, and are not as wonky in melee as a bow.

 

There could also be a middle ground. E.g:

- cleave can be done even with 2H ranged weapons, let's say arquebus. But it is used as a mundane club.

- whispers of the wind, can work with bows, pistols, blundersbusses... but such ranged weapons fire only once. Or are used as mundane clubs.

 

 

It goes like that:

- to be an AoE attack the ammo has to explosive

- the warrior, in slow-mo, Max Payne style, tumbles between the smucks and sticks the ammo onto (into?) them

- than with a single (!) well aimed shot that warrior causes an explosive chain reaction

- BOOM!!!

 

Edit: best class – none. To much context dependency to develop some relevant ranking, I say.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Franknstein

[JESUSSSAYSNO]

Cipher/Paladin Rank 1 is really troll, sadly not even a good class with any awesome synergy.(This is coming from somebody who absolutely loved these classes in Poe1 and was superhype for the multiclass)

Not counting the subclasses makes this even worse, Bloodmage + anything is so meta and while wizard in itself is good enough to be rank 3 or maybe even 2 or 1 adding the subclasses would make this much more accurate.

There's no front and center synergy, but the two classes supplement each others' weaknesses. It's a solid mixxed def/will Striker with support options. The RP is cool and the build coming online at level 1 are the biggest pros for me. I don't think it's the strongest build in the game, but I think it's pretty good if you're looking for a striker class that has some bulk and the option to spec into utility. It uses Paladin's strong earlygame to build into and support a strong cipher dominant setup mid and late.

Edited February 19, 2019 by JESUSSSAYSNO