TOPIC: Class Power Rankings

The "discussion" currently going on about balancing out the legendary neck pieces (mostly for Druid) got me thinking. There are a ton of opinions about which class is more or less powerful, but that's a very fuzzy and arbitrary ranking. What is power? Is it highest DPR, is it survivability, is it utility, is it buffing the party?

In my mind, TD is a team based game, so what defines a character's power is how important they are to a party's chances of clearing a dungeon. Which classes are most missed when they aren't there, and which can the group do without.

To that end I've created a poll, ranking the 12 classes from most important to the party (1) to least important (12). Please take a minute and fill it out. I am very curious what the community thinks about this. All responses will be anonymous, so please only fill it out once. After a week or two when we have some responses I'll post the results and break down what the power (usefulness) of each class is.

Google Forms Poll

TLDR: I've gotten some questions about the scenario, so to save you from reading them all here is some extra info.

The dungeon is whatever difficulty you tend to play at.
If you only run once then it's the first run. If you run 20 times then it's the 20th.
All party members are trying to help the group win and fully participating.
This is a generic dungeon. There are countless possible scenarios here, so I'm not trying to get which class is mathematically best for specific challenges, just your general impressions and feelings on which are most useful in helping the party successfully complete the dungeon.

Josh M. wrote: The "discussion" currently going on about balancing out the legendary neck pieces (mostly for Druid) got me thinking. There are a ton of opinions about which class is more or less powerful, but that's a very fuzzy and arbitrary ranking. What is power? Is it highest DPR, is it survivability, is it utility, is it buffing the party?

In my mind, TD is a team based game, so what defines a character's power is how important they are to a party's chances of clearing a dungeon. Which classes are most missed when they aren't there, and which can the group do without.

To that end I've created a poll, ranking the 12 classes from most important to the party (1) to least important (12). Please take a minute and fill it out. I am very curious what the community thinks about this. All responses will be anonymous, so please only fill it out once. After a week or two when we have some responses I'll post the results and break down what the power (usefulness) of each class is.

Google Forms Poll

I think this is valid but I have questions.

Doesn't it matter on the party, difficulty and other party members?

Like the importance of a Rogue clue for puzzle rooms is going to vary greatly. Are there lots of puzzles? Is the party bad at puzzles? Is everyone playing for the first time through the dungeon? Is this on Normal? How important is it for the part to solve the puzzle (like do they not care and will just take push damage because they are only here for the combat)? Is the Rogue good at being a rogue and won't mess up the box? Is the rogue able to get the clue and the treasure? If not are they going help the party or get the t-shirt?


So for my group I always make sure we have in no particular order (besides alphabetical) bard, cleric, druid, and rogue. Beyond that I don't care what my players choose for classes and usually don't know till we sit down in the coaching room.

For PUG's I play look to see what the party seems to be missing out of those 4 and play one of them, but that is not a hard and fast choice.

I don't know if importance equals power either though.....

I think that if we get too far into the weeds on this then it's paralyzing, there's simply too many variables. This isn't a hard and fast experiment, it's your own gut feeling on each class's importance. Difficulty is the difficulty that you play on. We're assuming here that all party members are working to help the team complete challenges and clear the dungeon successfully.

Josh M. wrote: I think that if we get too far into the weeds on this then it's paralyzing, there's simply too many variables. This isn't a hard and fast experiment, it's your own gut feeling on each class's importance. Difficulty is the difficulty that you play on. We're assuming here that all party members are working to help the team complete challenges and clear the dungeon successfully.

Excellent with that guidance I can answer your poll about may group.

jedibcg wrote:

Josh M. wrote: I think that if we get too far into the weeds on this then it's paralyzing, there's simply too many variables. This isn't a hard and fast experiment, it's your own gut feeling on each class's importance. Difficulty is the difficulty that you play on. We're assuming here that all party members are working to help the team complete challenges and clear the dungeon successfully.

Excellent with that guidance I can answer your poll about may group.

I appreciate your participation. Very curious to see what this reveals.

I answered it, but to be fair I got to the bottom and realized I forgot to rank the Rogue, so I had to do it again. I definitely didn't over analyze it and went with what was top of mind. I will be interested to see the results when you close the survey.

Yeah when I got toward the bottom I was like it doesn't matter....lol.

OrionW wrote: I answered it, but to be fair I got to the bottom and realized I forgot to rank the Rogue, so I had to do it again. I definitely didn't over analyze it and went with what was top of mind. I will be interested to see the results when you close the survey.

Yeah, it's not the best way to survey rankings, though it is serviceable. It is, however, the free-est way to survey rankings.

Took the poll, but I was definitely basing it on my experiences as a wizard, so #1 was the cleric, then bard, then paladin. Rogue was #4 for puzzle rooms.

I filled it out but a lot of it is conditional to me:

No cleric? Then Druid is very important.

No physical ranged? Then Wizards are important.

But I did my best.

One other way I though that might be interesting (but a lot more work)

Who would you bring in a 1 person, 2 person … 10 person party.

Matthew Hayward wrote: I filled it out but a lot of it is conditional to me:

No cleric? Then Druid is very important.

No physical ranged? Then Wizards are important.

But I did my best.

One other way I though that might be interesting (but a lot more work)

Who would you bring in a 1 person, 2 person … 10 person party.

those would be interesting because Bard is great in 10 party groups, not so good in 1 or 2.

Filled it out and also kind of just went with my instincts. I don't expect a scientific result of which class is "better" or more powerful, but it should provide a ranking of how players perceive the usefulness of the classes.