Advice Needed - Class Tier List

[Chaospread]

On 6/29/2024 at 12:36 AM, thelee said:

a tactician is just so unlike a fighter and enables so much cheese that it deserves a cordon sanitaire when discussing the fighter.

About tactician, a question raise in my mind: ok, SOLO tactician can achieve brilliant easily, but is it still true in party? Or maybe in a party is restoring resources with interrupt so good (keeping in mind that disadvantages are simply superable)?
Thanks.

[Chaospread]

On 6/28/2024 at 10:38 PM, limaxophobiacq said:

Chanters also get the best class-specific item in the game with Sashas Singing Scimitar, which with Robes of the Weyc + the Weyc's Wand makes the chanter better at granting the rest of the party the brilliant inspiration

With Sasha's Scimitar you restore an empowering point (and 3 phrases) per every invocation, so you don't need to rest to regenerate chanter's empowering points; Robes of the Weyc is the source of Brilliant; but why do you need The Weyc's Wand? For recovery refreshed after empowering? But isn't it necessary for this strategy, is it?

[Kaylon]

3 hours ago, Chaospread said:

With Sasha's Scimitar you restore an empowering point (and 3 phrases) per every invocation, so you don't need to rest to regenerate chanter's empowering points; Robes of the Weyc is the source of Brilliant; but why do you need The Weyc's Wand? For recovery refreshed after empowering? But isn't it necessary for this strategy, is it?

It's for Attuned Channel. It's not necessary for spreading Brilliant, but it's part of the build (as is also Least Unstable Coil).

[limaxophobiacq]

4 hours ago, Chaospread said:

With Sasha's Scimitar you restore an empowering point (and 3 phrases) per every invocation, so you don't need to rest to regenerate chanter's empowering points; Robes of the Weyc is the source of Brilliant; but why do you need The Weyc's Wand? For recovery refreshed after empowering? But isn't it necessary for this strategy, is it?

Yeah its not necessary but the recovery skipping and +3 PL is very nice and if you are getting the robe there's no reason not to get the wand.

I didn't bring up unstable coil because the OP specifically wasn't interested in bugs and if you only trigger one inspiration it's not anything special 5 out of 6 times.

[Chaospread]

22 minutes ago, limaxophobiacq said:

I didn't bring up unstable coil because the OP specifically wasn't interested in bugs and if you only trigger one inspiration it's not anything special 5 out of 6 times.

Yeah, I see, LUC is game breaking with i.e. Storm of Holy Fire.

[thelee]

On 6/28/2024 at 4:37 PM, Aestus said:

The distinction I drew is not arbitrary though. Again, the distinction is between:

(Category A) Choosing your leveling tree.

(Category B) Choosing an option within your leveling tree.

Category A is choosing your class. Choosing Tactician is solidly in  Category B.

I don't think being transformative is a good reason to treat something as its own class because there are a lot of Category B choices which are extremely transformative.

I agree with your assessment of Tactician though. I consider it so strong that I kind of soft ban it from my runs. Assuming I don't count it as its own class, would you say its worth upgrading Fighter to Game Breaking Tier?

to your latter point, that's exactly the reasoning I'm trying to avoid. A tactician doesn't make a fighter a game-breaking or overloaded class, because the typical fighter is nothing like a tactician.

put another way, the category A and category B distinction is a false one. Tactician is so warping, that one chooses within the leveling tree before choosing the leveling tree. When I pick a tactician, it's almost accidental that I end up with a fighter, I'm picking specifically the tactician and it just so happens I end up with a fighter's skill tree.

 

7 hours ago, Chaospread said:

I think Priest only with BDD + SoT (and a source of brilliant) is game breaking, Skaen with Shadowing Beyond make it easier, but not so much from "base" Priest with BDD + SoT, don't you think so?
I soloed a PotD game with a corpse-eater / priest of berath, beating all megabosses counting on priest's abilities.

I have to adjust my earlier statement. While Skaen is really good, in retrospect what actually made is game-breaking in particular was multiclassing with, once again, Tactician, which let you recur Shadowing Beyond and BDD and SoT infinitely (also withdraw early on before shadowing beyond or in some other situations). Shadowing Beyond is still pretty good with the strand of favor cheese that eventually got discovered, but yeah it's really the tactician that enables skaen to be extremely good.

 

6 hours ago, Chaospread said:

About tactician, a question raise in my mind: ok, SOLO tactician can achieve brilliant easily, but is it still true in party? Or maybe in a party is restoring resources with interrupt so good (keeping in mind that disadvantages are simply superable)?
Thanks.

Restoring resources with interrupt is extremely good and on its own is pretty overtuned. But the payoff for tactician brilliant is so good that it would warp a party into enabling it... which on the one hand is kind of the intent of the class design, but on the other hand is the problem of the class design, that the pay-off is so amazing that it's worth managing the rest of your party to enable it.

that being said, even if you do nothing else, tacticians in a party are S-tier in any boss fight situation. it's basically trivial to flank a boss and then not be flanked yourself (though you may need to get a source of perception resistence for bosses that have persistent distraction), and then of course you have basically infinite interrupts to go along with your briliant.

Edited July 1 by thelee

[Chaospread]

16 hours ago, thelee said:

I have to adjust my earlier statement. While Skaen is really good, in retrospect what actually made is game-breaking in particular was multiclassing with, once again, Tactician, which let you recur Shadowing Beyond and BDD and SoT infinitely (also withdraw early on before shadowing beyond or in some other situations). Shadowing Beyond is still pretty good with the strand of favor cheese that eventually got discovered, but yeah it's really the tactician that enables skaen to be extremely good.

Ok, thanks, I absolutely agree with you.

16 hours ago, thelee said:

Restoring resources with interrupt is extremely good and on its own is pretty overtuned. But the payoff for tactician brilliant is so good that it would warp a party into enabling it... which on the one hand is kind of the intent of the class design, but on the other hand is the problem of the class design, that the pay-off is so amazing that it's worth managing the rest of your party to enable it.

that being said, even if you do nothing else, tacticians in a party are S-tier in any boss fight situation. it's basically trivial to flank a boss and then not be flanked yourself (though you may need to get a source of perception resistence for bosses that have persistent distraction), and then of course you have basically infinite interrupts to go along with your briliant.

Yes, good, now I understand what you mean 
I didn't think about building whole party for brilliant tactician, but you're right that it's worth it and you can achieve it easily sometimes in boss fights (maybe except Nemnok like encounters ) and in other situation when you can't get it at the start of combat you can count on other abilities.

[Aestus]

@thelee Sorry for the delayed response, I was traveling to visit family and didn't have a chance to check for updates..

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put another way, the category A and category B distinction is a false one.

Okay, I can see you don't like the way I am approaching this, but can we at least call a spade a spade? Its not a false distinction. A false distinction is distinction without a genuine difference. For example, if I tried to distinguish "the author of The Hobbit" from "J. R. R. Tolkien" that would be a false distinction, because they are the same person. The two categories I outlined aren't like that; they are genuinely different. Moreover, they aren't some arbitrary distinction I pulled out of thin air. Rather, they genuinely represent the way the game was designed. Its just a matter of fact that in Deadfire subclasses are choices one makes within one's selected leveling tree. My big reason for wanting to treat subclasses as a choice within one's class is because that is exactly what they are and I don't really see what there is to gain from saying otherwise.

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Tactician is so warping, that one chooses within the leveling tree before choosing the leveling tree.

In your opinion, what is wrong with just saying this? I can just say in the video "Tactician is the most impactful thing the Fighter class offers. It is so strong it warps the Fighter's ranking."  I don't really understand why saying that is so bad that I need to completely change the way I treat subclasses to avoid it. It seems to me this is the core point of disagreement between us on this issue.

On 7/1/2024 at 9:42 AM, thelee said:

To your latter point, that's exactly the reasoning I'm trying to avoid. A tactician doesn't make a fighter a game-breaking or overloaded class, because the typical fighter is nothing like a tactician.

Ok, noted.  However, if I remember correctly, I was specifically asking you NOT to avoid that kind of reasoning. I know that's not how you prefer to think about it, but you already have your own guide that communicates your perspective. I'm trying to offer a different guide that communicates my perspective. I think hearing different perspectives is useful, so long as those perspectives are well informed and carefully constructed.  I know you prefer to think of Tactician as separate from the Fighter, but I don't (at least right now). So, hypothetically, assuming we treat Tactician as part of the Fighter kit, do you think its strong enough to boost the Fighter up to Game Breaking Tier? Its fine if you'd rather not answer.

Edited July 8 by Aestus

[thelee]

17 hours ago, Aestus said:

So, hypothetically, assuming we treat Tactician as part of the Fighter kit, do you think its strong enough to boost the Fighter up to Game Breaking Tier? Its fine if you'd rather not answer.

yeah, that's just a question i can't answer. i just can't reconcile how i think about the tactician with a general fighter rank. sorry

[Aestus]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

yeah, that's just a question i can't answer. i just can't reconcile how i think about the tactician with a general fighter rank. sorry

Fair enough!

The truth is, while I am very interested in your opinion because I greatly respect your thoughts on this game, I've thought about this a lot and I feel pretty strongly that Fighter belongs in Overloaded Tier, so it was unlikely I would be swayed. I think a charitable and informed  reader of this thread will agree I've made a respectably case.  I knew my opinion on the Fighter wasn't widely held, but I admit I'm a bit surprised at how unresponsive/resistant everyone has been to my arguments for it. I know better than to hope for agreement, but I was still hoping for something more than this. No big deal though! Stuff like this happens!

Thank you for your help! I've offered this to others, but I will offer it to you as well. If you'd like to record a dissenting opinion and/or discuss the list with me in the video I'd be happy to include you in it. It would be audio only, so no need for webcams. If you are interested, let me know and we can discuss the details.

Edited July 8 by Aestus

[thelee]

1 hour ago, Aestus said:

Thank you for your help! I've offered this to others, but I will offer it to you as well. If you'd like to record a dissenting opinion and/or discuss the list with me in the video I'd be happy to include you in it. It would be audio only, so no need for webcams. If you are interested, let me know and we can discuss the details.

i'm happy to chat deadfire and i've never recorded for a video before and that might be fun. don't feel the need to include me though, i think your analysis can stand on its own

[Aestus]

21 minutes ago, thelee said:

i'm happy to chat deadfire and i've never recorded for a video before and that might be fun. don't feel the need to include me though, i think your analysis can stand on its own

Yes, it COULD stand on its own, but it would be a much more interesting and informative video if it didn't! I'll DM you to discuss it further.

[Aestus]

Here is the completed video for anyone interested! Thank you so much for your thoughtful critique, y'all saved me from making some embarrassing mistakes! Special thanks to Thelee recording a discussion with me which is included at the end of the video.

Here is the link:

 

[Banjodark]

Just jumping in here to say that I just reinstalled this game after backing it and putting in 200+ hours around release/dlcs after watching your Tier-list video!

thanks for re-ignitinig my love of this game and making my mind whirr with lots of fun ideas for a fresh playthrough/build.