Advice Needed - Class Tier List

[Aestus]

Hello all! If you have the time, I need your advice.  

I am a Youtuber who’s mostly known for making educational videos on the tactics of Baldur’s Gate 3. The Pillars of Eternity series is, in my opinion, one of the greatest the CRPG genre has to offer. I love to talk about them and am hoping that the overlap of BG3 and the upcoming release of Avowed might renew some interest in these masterpieces.

Toward that end, I am currently scripting a series of videos aimed at introducing the Pillars series to my audience of BG3 enthusiasts. The goal is for the videos to be interesting and engaging, i.e. something to get the listener interested in the playing the game so I can then direct them to Thelee’s much better and more comprehensive guide on GameFAQs.

I want one of the videos to be a Class Tier List for Deadfire, and that is where I need your advice. I have just shy of 700 hours in Deadfire, which is enough for me to have an informed opinion, but not an expert one. To mitigate that, I am offering my draft of the list to peer review, so to speak. I’ve outlined the list below. I can't include my reasoning without this post being to long, so feel free to ask questions. If you have any thoughts or challenges to offer, I’d appreciate your input. Please note though that the finished Tier List ultimately must represent my opinion. I will alter the list if my opinion is altered.

The List:

Game Breaking Tier: Cipher, Priest

Overloaded Tier: Fighter, Wizard, Monk

Bread'n'Butter Tier: Rogue, Chanter, Ranger

Niche Tier: Druid, Barbarian, Paladin.

Why I want to make a tier list

I know that regulars of this forum have been very critical of tier lists as a format, so I will just say something brief about why I am making one in spite of that. If Tier Lists don’t bother you, feel free to skip this.

Put simply, I want to make a class tier list because they are an extremely popular format on Youtube. For context, my Class Tier List video for Baldur’s Gate 3 has around 1,100,00 views, whereas my top performing build video has 31,000 views. People find tier lists interesting and, as I said above, the aim of the video is to be interesting and engaging.

The way I see it, Tier Lists are just a way to visually summarize one’s opinions so that listeners can review at a glance. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Ultimately, the quality of a tier list will depend on the quality of the opinions it represents, which is why I am submitting my draft for peer review.

Thanks in advance for taking the time!

[Elric Galad]

I did commit a tier list a while ago (but that was after the last official balancing patch). As you can read, there were some feedbacks (It was an important step before starting my balancing mod)

Note that many things in the list are debatable, but one thing isn't IMHO : you have to consider separately multi class and single class. Some classes just mix way better than others. Some Single Class are also niche or lacking. 

Ranking the Class Tiers - A difficult task - Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

Edited June 19 by Elric Galad

[Aestus]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Note that many things in the list are debatable, but one thing isn't IMHO : you have to consider separately multi class and single class. Some classes just mix way better than others. Some Single Class are also niche or lacking. 

Ranking the Class Tiers - A difficult task - Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

Why separately? Wouldn't it be best to consider them all individually on a single list? My plan is to do that eventually, but to start with lower resolution list above.

 

 

[Kaylon]

What criteria do you take in account for your tier list? I don't really understand why the cipher and the fighter are so high, while the paladin and the chanter are so low....

[Chaospread]

I'd switch Cipher with Wizard, Chanter with Fighter, Rogue and Ranger with Druid, Paladin and Barbarian. I'm talking from SOLO point of view.
Anyway, even just taking into question, there are top tier subclasses and low level one in the same class, and if you take in consideration subclass and/or multiclass the tier list would be a whole mess, and it would be very long.
Are you considering only "plain" single classes without subclasses?

Edited June 20 by Chaospread

[Elric Galad]

8 hours ago, Aestus said:

Why separately? Wouldn't it be best to consider them all individually on a single list? My plan is to do that eventually, but to start with lower resolution list above.

I stated it above. Because the tier list vary a lots whether you consider a class for Single Class build or as a part of a Multi Class combination. You have many more details about the reasons why under the link above. Feel free to dig it. 

I don't get it. You plan a Tier list for the 55 multiclass and 11 single class combinations ?

Edited June 20 by Elric Galad

[Chaospread]

3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I don't get it. You plan a Tier list for the 55 multiclass and 11 single class combinations ?

To not mention all subclasses and their combinations...

[Aestus]

5 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I stated it above. Because the tier list vary a lots whether you consider a class for Single Class build or as a part of a Multi Class combination. You have many more details about the reasons why under the link above. Feel free to dig it. 

I don't get it. You plan a Tier list for the 55 multiclass and 11 single class combinations ?

Yes! I'd like to do a series of videos where I go class by class and rank every single possible class combination. That seems much more thorough to me than doing separate multiclass and single class videos. Don't you think?

I did read the entire thread you linked. It was helpful! Thanks for drawing it to my attention.

[Aestus]

2 hours ago, Chaospread said:

To not mention all subclasses and their combinations...

Why the ellipses?

No single build can do everything available in a class ability tree. So choosing a subclass is very much like choosing an ability or passive, that is its a class choice with an opportunity cost just like any other. All this is to say, I think its fair to treat subclasses like class abilities rather then like a whole new class. 

Edited June 20 by Aestus

[Aestus]

6 hours ago, Kaylon said:

What criteria do you take in account for your tier list? I don't really understand why the cipher and the fighter are so high, while the paladin and the chanter are so low....

Basically I am considering for a full party, not solo. PotD and Trial of Iron are assumed. I try to leave out the really cheesy stuff from consideration, but as you can hopefully see from the list I do consider some game breaking stuff (Ancestors Memory and Barring Deaths Door). I try to consider both class impact on a build (multiclassing) and overall impact in a team composition and a full run.

The short version for why I consider cipher and fighter so high and paladin and chanter so low is that I just think ciphers and fighters offer more than paladins and chanters. If we can single out fighter as an example, I find fighters to be horribly underrated by most people I talk to.  Unbending is borderline game-breaking. Under very achievable conditions it becomes an invicibility button on par with Barring Deaths Door. Fighters are the best to class for utilizing one of the strongest action-economy breaking strategies, which is procing Disengagement Attacks. Finally, Fighters just have an overloaded amount of weapon attack boosts in their kit. Devoted bonuses, Confident Aim (avoiding grazes is often undervalued due to inversion math), Disciplined Strike (a Discipline and action-economy cheap source of Intuitive), and heaps of attack speed reduction and extra attack triggers (through Mob Stance + Armored Grace + Disengagement Attacks). Its an overloaded kit.

Edited June 20 by Aestus

[Boeroer]

It's fun to make a tier list I suppose. But for Deadfire it's (in my opinion) absolutely impossible to make a simple yet comprehensible tier list of classes and not give out false impressions/information. The game mechanics are way too complex for this, at least if that tier list is about the standard way to play: with a party of 5. 

For solo performance this would be a lot easier.

So I would make clear in that video that the resulting list is mostly based on personal opinion/experience and that the (multi)class mechanic and the overall balanced approach(!) as well as the small but impactful changes that subclasses give as well as the different difficulty settings that do alter the composition of encounters(!) lead to so many potentially good build variants that it's impossible to do the game and the audience justice.
One example: the Psion (Cipher subclass) is one of my favorite classes in the game because it plays so very differently than any other Cipher - because its focus mechanic is totally different. At the same time the more "regular" Cipher subclasses (except Beguiler) and the vanilla class are of little interest to me. So how does one include this into a simple class tier? Another example is that Rogues perform so much better in the lower difficulty settings than on the higher ones. And so on...    

Imo it's much(!) easier to make a tier list that is based on the base criterium "how enjoyable is the class to play?". Obviously that's a subjective assessment and a matter of taste - but people accept different opinions about taste a lot easier than than opinions about stuff they think are "facts". And since having fun is the most important thing while playing a game I think it's very relevant. While it's interesting to know which classes were more fun to play than others, such a tier will not trigger experienced players to object that much.

Like [Chanter below Fighter] and [Wizard below Cipher] as a general statement as well as [Druid and Paladin below Rogue] def. upsets me just by looking at it.  At least when it's about classes in a party. For solo it's rel. easy to sort the classes with unlimited resources above the ones with limited resources. That's not that important in a party though and especially not on the lower difficulty settings.

One little example why I think Chanters are more impactful than Fighters in almost any party: they have unlimited access to summons. Summons are the most impactful thing to have in Deadfire (besides several cheesy effects of course). Nothing the fighter can do comes close to an unlimited supply of summons. Now, is it fun to summon lots of creatures and do a ton of micromanagement in order to win a fight? I guess not for most players. It is fun to withstand punishment with Unbending and deliver some cool crits and drop enemies with a cleave and so on? For most players it may be. Does that make the Fighter more impactful than the Chanter in general? I would say "not in the sligtest". But it might be totally valid to place the Fighter higher on a "fun to play" list.   

Edited June 20 by Boeroer

[Aestus]

4 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

It's fun to make a tier list I suppose. But for Deadfire it's (in my opinion) absolutely impossible to make a simple yet comprehensible tier list of classes and not give out false impressions/information. The game mechanics are way too complex for this, at least if that tier list is about the standard way to play: with a party of 5.

I see this as a "perfect is the enemy of the good" situation. Tier lists are imperfect, especially if the listener is too rigid with them, but no form of instruction is perfect. I think they are a decent enough way to express opinions and teach about the game.
 

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So I would make clear in that video that the resulting list is mostly based on personal opinion/experience

I think this goes without saying, it would be redundant to say. Tier lists are a format for expressing opinions. Thinking otherwise is a media literacy problem on the part of my listeners that I can't be held responsible for. I guess it doesn't hurt to be a little redundant for the sake of emphasis though.
 

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Imo it's much(!) easier to make a tier list that is based on the base criterium "how enjoyable is the class to play?". Obviously that's a subjective assessment and a matter of taste - but people accept different opinions about taste a lot easier than than opinions about stuff they think are "facts". And since having fun is the most important thing while playing a game I think it's very relevant.

I strongly disagree. I mean, I agree having fun is the most important thing, but for me and many others "just having fun" isn't fun. One big thing that makes Deadfire and games like it fun is playing tactically and trying to improve at the tactics of the game. The "just have fun and enjoy yourself" attitude actually kills the fun, if that makes any sense.
 

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Like Chanter below Fighter and Wizard below Cipher as a general statement as well as Druid and Paladin below Rogue def. upsets me just by looking at it.  

Great! What am I missing? Lets focus on just one example. Here is a sketch of my reasoning for why I consider the fighter so good: 

Unbending under very easily achievable conditions becomes an invincibility button, one of only two in the game. On top of that, they are the best suited class for exploiting Disengagement Attacks, an ascendant, action-economy breaking strategy.  This is controversial, but I also think they have the best weapon-based striker kit in the game with the combination of Devoted bonuses, Confident Aim (avoiding grazes is often undervalued due to inversion math), Disciplined Strike (a Discipline and action-economy cheap source of Intuitive), and heaps of attack speed reduction and extra attack triggers (through Mob Stance + Armored Grace + Disengagement Attacks). Note, the drawback from Devoted is practically non-existent due to the free proficiency in unarmed attacks. I’ve tested Devoted runs with longswords, spears, clubs, axes, hatchets, greatswords, and pikes and never struggled to output damage.

[Boeroer]

11 minutes ago, Aestus said:

Great! What am I missing? Lets focus on just one example. Here is a sketch of my reasoning for why I consider the fighter so good: 

I edited my post above to give an example whlie you were writing, sorry. I'll quote it here again:
 

28 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

One little example why I think Chanters are more impactful than Fighters in almost any party: they have unlimited access to summons. Summons are the most impactful thing to have in Deadfire (besides several cheesy effects of course). Nothing the fighter can do comes close to an unlimited supply of summons. Now, is it fun to summon lots of creatures and do a ton of micromanagement in order to win a fight? I guess not for most players. It is fun to withstand punishment with Unbending and deliver some cool crits and drop enemies with a cleave and so on? For most players it may be. Does that make the Fighter more impactful than the Chanter in general? I would say "not in the sligtest". But it might be totally valid to place the Fighter higher on a "fun to play" list.   

A hint - when it comes to pure mechanical prowess - is to look at the ultimate achievements. There's chanters there but as far as I remember no Devoted. Tactician is there (because potentially unlimited resources). Granted, that's a very special solo experience and some shortcomings of the fighter (for example limited resources) don't matter that much in a party. But it's a hint nevertheless. 

https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/The_Ultimate#The_Ultimate_Roll_of_Honor

 

Edited June 20 by Boeroer

[Aestus]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

One little example why I think Chanters are more impactful than Fighters in almost any party: they have unlimited access to summons. Summons are the most impactful thing to have in Deadfire (besides several cheesy effects of course). Nothing the fighter can do comes close to an unlimited supply of summons. Now, is it fun to summon lots of creatures and do a ton of micromanagement in order to win a fight? I guess not for most players. It is fun to withstand punishment with Unbending and deliver some cool crits and drop enemies with a cleave and so on? For most players it may be. Does that make the Fighter more impactful than the Chanter in general? I would say "not in the sligtest". But it might be totally valid to place the Fighter higher on a "fun to play" list.   

 

Perhaps there is something I don't know about summon strategies. My experience is that they are good, but hardly the most impactful strategy in Deadfire. I find that the armor system in Deadfire strongly incentivizes quality of action over quantity of action. Now, obviously, a high quantity of high quality actions are best, but there is a quality threshold of being able to PENN with your attacks that is really hard to overcome with quantity.

However, even if you agree that summons are the best strategy, that would be a reason for me to bump up Chanter but not downgrade Fighter. In fact, it would be a promotion for Fighter, because being invincible via Unbending means more time to chant summons.
 

[Boeroer]

29 minutes ago, Aestus said:

Perhaps there is something I don't know about summon strategies. My experience is that they are good, but hardly the most impactful strategy in Deadfire. I find that the armor system in Deadfire strongly incentivizes quality of action over quantity of action. Now, obviously, a high quantity of high quality actions are best, but there is a quality threshold of being able to PENN with your attacks that is really hard to overcome with quantity.

However, even if you agree that summons are the best strategy, that would be a reason for me to bump up Chanter but not downgrade Fighter. In fact, it would be a promotion for Fighter, because being invincible via Unbending means more time to chant summons.
 

Summons do not require hit rolls to be impactful. They work in every encounter no matter how high the defenses and armor of the enemy are. Simply by being an additional body and a distraction that enemies do not ignore. As I said: they are a walking CC effect.

Three Animated Weapons for example are hard to kill, deal a great amount of damage and last for a reasonably long time. A Troubadour with Brisk recitation can keep them up. At the same time the Chanter isn't a stone pillar. He can still act and do all sorts of things: shooting fanstastically fast with a reloading weapon for example while giving the whole party more shooting speed with Sure Handed Ila (which affects reloading weapons twice by the way for 2* -20% reloading time). I like to use an Arbalest + modal to prone all sorts of enemies while still reloading reasonably fast. Even against pierce immune enemies this takes them almost out of the game and is great for disrupting the most damgerous foes - just with reloading speed and a modal. This has good impact on the fight, too - even without the summons which come on top.
A Fighter, while decent, cannot compete with that sort of impact. Also a Fighter's coolest tools like Unbeding might get nullified when he gets hit by an Arcane Dampener - which happens a lot at higher level content. It doesn't matter when summons get hit by it - or turned into a piglet.

Also dead summons count towards "allies defeated" triggers. That's a good reason to have a single class paladin with Divine Retribution in the party because their Zeal becomes infinite, too. One can do a lot of impactful stuff for the party with infinite Zeal. For example a Kind Wayfarer can use White Flames for an infinite amount of times, healing the party and dealing damage non stop. Granted, that's late game stuff...

And this is why it's so hard to make a reasonable comprehensive tier list of classes in Deadfire. You can always pick out stuff that is great about a class and ignore - or better circumvent - the shortcomings. And the performance depends so much on the way you play and on your party composition, on the experience of the players and how they utilize those classes and their abilities or even items.

I would say it would be easier and also useful to make a tier list for beginners maybe - and favor classes that are impactful without too much knowledge about the game. Like Fighters are. A Barb is harder to build well than a Fighter for sure. Monks might be more difficult to grasp at first because of their wound mechanic - and so on. Such a list I could more easily get behind I think.  

PS: I'm not really upset about the entries in your initial tier list of course.  

Edited June 20 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

PPS: The Herald tank (Paladin/Chanter) is considered by many (at least here in the forum) to be one of the best (if not the best) party character there is. I don't like it particularly (again the "fun-to-play" side vs. effectiveness) but it's undeniable that it is very good to have it in your party in general. Now for me it would be tricky to sort this piece of info into a tier list of classes somehow. 

Edited June 20 by Boeroer

[Aestus]

40 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

And this is why it's so hard to make a reasonable comprehensive tier list of classes in Deadfire. You can always pick out stuff that is great about a class and ignore - or better circumvent - the shortcomings. And the performance depends so much on the way you play and on your party composition, on the experience of the players and how they utilize those classes and their abilities or even items.

Many difficult things are worth doing. I do not doubt there is much I don't understand about the game, but that is why I made this thread.

 

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Summons do not require hit rolls to be impactful. They work in every encounter no matter how high the defenses and armor of the enemy are. Simply by being an additional body and a distraction that enemies do not ignore. As I said: they are a walking CC effect.

This is useful because its the similar functions so we can directly compare. Which will absorb more damage and aggro, summons or a fighter built for Unbending? Its Unbending. Unbending is only limited by time. As en example, imagine both tanking strategies against Dorudugan (an import encounter to build for). An Unbending fighter is under near zero threat of dying until they run out of Discipline. Its simple and takes no micromanagement. By contrast, summons will die to bombs faster then you can summon them unless you can dodge the bombs with them, but that is a micromanagment intensive task.

The Zeal trick is neat, but in a world with Ancestor's Memory, how unique is it really? I wish Ancestor's Memory didn't exist in the game, I think its poor design, so maybe I will ban it for my tier list. But assuming it isn't banned, how do you think that impacts your ranking of that strategy?

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PPS: The Herald tank (Paladin/Chanter) is considered by many (at least here in the forum) to be one of the best (if not the best) party character there is. I don't like it particularly (again the "fun-to-play" side vs. effectiveness) but it's undeniable that it is very good to have it in your party in general.

 I think a War Caller is better in most parties. Herald is overrated in my opinion, mostly because I think Paladin is overrated. A Chanter multi is a bread-n-butter unit that I almost always include in my party.

Edited June 20 by Aestus

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Aestus said:

This is useful because its the similar functions so we can directly compare. Which will absorb more damage and aggro, summons or a fighter built for Unbending?

First, Summons (Ancient Weapons especially) do a freaking lots of damages. You need a very well built fighter to beat that. 

1 hour ago, Aestus said:

Its Unbending. Unbending is only limited by time. As en example, imagine both tanking strategies against Dorudugan (an import encounter to build for). An Unbending fighter is under near zero threat of dying until they run out of Discipline. Its simple and takes no micromanagement. By contrast, summons will die to bombs faster then you can summon them unless you can dodge the bombs with them, but that is a micromanagment intensive task.

Unbending does not make you resistant to Dorudugan status that reduces max health. Summons, who cares ? They will be gone soon. At some point, this becomes annoying.

But the issue for a fighter is to NOT RUN OUT of Discipline. Tactician works, vs Doru at least. 

Chanters (and monks) basically an get infinite ressources to power their summoning. That's quite a big deal. Ancient Memory will help, but then it becomes the work of 2 characters, not one. 

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, Aestus said:

This is useful because its the similar functions so we can directly compare. Which will absorb more damage and aggro, summons or a fighter built for Unbending? Its Unbending. Unbending is only limited by time. As en example, imagine both tanking strategies against Dorudugan (an import encounter to build for). An Unbending fighter is under near zero threat of dying until they run out of Discipline. Its simple and takes no micromanagement. By contrast, summons will die to bombs faster then you can summon them unless you can dodge the bombs with them, but that is a micromanagment intensive task.

It is certainly not Unbending. Summons prevent your whole party from taking damage, Unbending only protects the fighter.

In order for it to be very strong so that you can outheal most things the fighter needs high INT and decent MIG. It's also not a very early ability - I think those things have to be taken into consideration when compiling a list, too. Unbending also doesn't protect the Fighter from disabling or debuffing effects at all. If you get hit by an Arcane Dampener your healing is gone, if you become enfeebled or suffer a similar effect it's not as useful. 
And as you said it's gone if the Fighter runs out of Discipline. Since we are looking at the classes seperately I don't think it's viable to make the argument that one could uphold Unbending with the help of a Cipher. That would be a point for the Cipher but not the Fighter imo. With the same line of argument we could put the Druid in a higher tier - because with the help of a Cipher the Druid could heal the whole party forever... or cast unlimited amounts of Great Maelstrom which ends almost all fights. 

Chanters do not run out of phrases, so in theory their summons can absorb infinite amounts of damage - and also disables and debuffs which would hurt the party otherwise. A Chanter with infinite summons (and his party) are indeed under near zero threat of dying. That's how you can easily kill the Crystal Empress or win over Dorudugan: you don't even need to come out of hiding (boring of course, but effective).

About micromanagement: We are back to the argument I made: that a list based on "what's enjoyable to play" might make more sense. Enjoyable to play doesn't mean "just have fun and do whatever". It means the class is potent enough to be successful (else it would be frustrating and where's he fun in that?) but at the same time not tedious to play. And it would have some very entertaining, "cool" abilities. They might not win you boss fights but they can make you hoot and holler. Chanter summons are absolutely tedious to maneuver and imo not much fun at all. Most players even consider a Ranger's Animal Companion an incarnation of tedium. But since we are not judging fun and convenience I think the point about added micromanagement isn't valid: 

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One big thing that makes Deadfire and games like it fun is playing tactically and trying to improve at the tactics of the game. The "just have fun and enjoy yourself" attitude actually kills the fun, if that makes any sense.

But even then: in case of Dorudugan the Chanter can switch to the Many Lives Pass By phrase and send one skeleton after the other to the enemy - every 3 secs (as Troubadour with Brisk Recitation). It's zero micromanagement (they are run by AI like a Wizard's Phantom or the Monk's Dichotomous Soul summons), enough to distract any single enemy from your party - and they don't count towards the summoning limit so you could add aome Ancient Weapons and order those to attack with their special attack abilities, too. this helps the whole party, not just a singular character.
 

Here's a Psion/Troubadour Ultimate run vs. Dorudugan (by @abot) using summons:

 

 

Edited June 20 by Boeroer

[Aestus]

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Summons prevent your whole party from taking damage, Unbending only protects the fighter.

I think you know this isn't the whole story. In both cases it will depend on how well you control enemy aggro. My experience is, and I am sure yours is the same, that a single, unkillable character with proper aggro management can absorb enough damage to reduce kill potential in most encounters to a safe, manageable level. One Unbending fighter and a little bit of healing in your composition and you're set.
 

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In order for it to be very strong so that you can outheal most things the fighter needs high INT and decent MIG. It's also not a very early ability - I think those things have to be taken into consideration when compiling a list, too. Unbending also doesn't protect the Fighter from disabling or debuffing effects at all. If you get hit by an Arcane Dampener your healing is gone, if you become enfeebled or suffer a similar effect it's not as useful. 

Quite right. These are all factors to consider.
 

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Chanters do not run out of phrases

Yes, this is huge. Its a big reason for why Chanters are so valuable in my opinion.
 

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About micromanagement: We are back to the argument I made: that a list based on "what's enjoyable to play" might make more sense.

I respect your opinion on this, but I am not interested in making that list. It may be worthwhile to do, but its just not what interests me about Deadfire. I still think micromanagement should be taken into account though. I think its best to think of RTwP as a system that uses attention as resource. YOu might say there is an attention economy in the same way there is an action economy.  You will get more out of a build the more attention you pay towards micromanaging it, but there is finite amount of attention. Realistically, a good composition will take this into account. So if there are two strategies that perform equally well, but one requires less attention, then that one is a better strategy. 

On the Ultimate footage you posted. That was impressive! I should do a more summoned focus run again to reevaluate, I may be overlooking this strategy. In general though, Ultimate run strategies don't translate to my tier list one-to-one in that the Ultimate Challenge is a very different game then the full-party, PotD, Trial of Iron rules that I assume in my list.

Here is where I stand on this question right now. I have a ton of experience with Fighters and Fighter multi's. On the basis of that experience I find many people badly underestimate how easy it is to get Unbending to invincibility levels, and how effective having an invincible unit is tactically. However, I don't have the same experience with summon comps. Maybe they are just as good or better. I will need to test them more. Thank you for drawing them to my attention!

[Aestus]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

First, Summons (Ancient Weapons especially) do a freaking lots of damages. You need a very well built fighter to beat that. 

Unbending does not make you resistant to Dorudugan status that reduces max health. Summons, who cares ? They will be gone soon. At some point, this becomes annoying.

But the issue for a fighter is to NOT RUN OUT of Discipline. Tactician works, vs Doru at least. 

Chanters (and monks) basically an get infinite ressources to power their summoning. That's quite a big deal. Ancient Memory will help, but then it becomes the work of 2 characters, not one. 

I've done tests with a solo Brawler where all I did was auto attack Dorudugan and refresh Unbending when it timed out. It took forever to die. If my memory serves, I never died until I ran out of discipline, but I tested it last year so I may be misremembering. Regardless, I can attest that a decent Unbending Build can face tank Dorudugan for long enough to kill him with minimal micromanagement. Perhaps I am underestimating Chanter, but wouldn't you say that is worthy of a Overloaded Tier rank? To me it is borderline game-breaking. What do you think?

[Kaylon]

From a party perspective, if you make a list with the most powerful combos for each role (tanking, dps, support/CC) you can see pretty well which classes appear more often and how should look the tier list. The paladin is the top of the list for tanking because he has the highest passive defenses, armor and also infinite healing, basically being the most desirable class for that role; the forbidden fist can be also considered a good alternative. For dps the rogue, the monk and the bloodmage come easily on top. For support the chanter, the priest and the cipher have many desirable tools for any party. The fighter, the barbarian, the ranger and the druid suffer because of weak passives or the inability to restore their own resources. 

In the case of the fighter, besides the devoted bonus and armored grace, his passives are mediocre. He has indeed some very good active abilities (Unbending Trunk, Clear Out, Disciplined Strikes, Mule Kick) but their high cost and his limited resources cripple their effectiveness in medium/long fights.

[Chaospread]

17 hours ago, Aestus said:

Why the ellipses?

No single build can do everything available in a class ability tree. So choosing a subclass is very much like choosing an ability or passive, that is its a class choice with an opportunity cost just like any other. All this is to say, I think its fair to treat subclasses like class abilities rather then like a whole new class. 

With the difference that you can't "respec" the "ability" subclass.

The ellipses because there could be many things to say: basically i.e. Psion is another class as compared to other Cipher subclasses, Wizards subclass are weaker than a "pure" Wizard, Bloodmage should be played different from other wizards, and you can do similar consideration for almost any other class/subclass. Ok, abilities are the same (not completely true because subclass wizard haven't some "core" spells for an example, so saying "subclass is choosing another ability" is very reductive), but two subclass of a choosen class can seem two different classes most of times.

Edited June 21 by Chaospread
added content

[Chaospread]

17 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Chanters (and monks) basically an get infinite ressources to power their summoning. That's quite a big deal. Ancient Memory will help, but then it becomes the work of 2 characters, not one.

Or one Spiritualist

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Chaospread said:

Or one Spiritualist

Nope.

Ancestor's Memory isn't self target.

(Anyway, I was speaking about Anscestor's Memory helping recast Unbending, so the real answer is Psyblade doesn't work. Chanter class needs no help to get infinite ressource.)