Tier List

[Skeet]

Tier List

Popular and known to almost all PvP/Fighting games is the infamous character/class "Tier List". What do you all think are the best classes? This is just a fun way to see how the community themselves rank every class. I'll be placing 2 types of tier lists to show 2 perspectives of it:

-The first one will be a simple number list, displaying from top to bottom which class is best.

-The second one will be a tier based on letter ranks. The letters will be S, A, B, and C. S being the "top" tier.

____________________________

Tier 1:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)

____________________________

Tier 2:

S:
A:
B:
C:

____________________________

I will update the tier list once people start posting their opinions. As listed above, if you want to contribute your opinion on this thread, please post a number order of the classes you believe to be the best from 1-9. 1 being the highest. Please list all classes too, as this will help complete the chart lol. As for the 2nd list, please list where you feel a class belongs in by the letters S, A, B, and C. S being the highest/best class rank you can give while C being the lowest rank, where you think the classes have the least amount of input. Be sure to think about why and how a class is useful in both FL and WD PvP's before finalizing your lists and compare them with the rest of the classes.

-Please post a small reason why you believe your tier list is accurate.
-Biased posts will be ignored (It's painfully obvious when someone's biased).
-Troll posts or posts that say anything like "This is stupid" or "Tiers are pointless" will be flagged.
-Don't argue or make fun of anyone's list. It's their own personal opinions.

[Destroyer]

Well, each class offers different strengths and abilities in my opinion, I remember fondly a match in wolves' den where, when SMN could still use raise, our team of war/drg/drg/whm defeated a team of sch/smn/smn, this battle was very fun, and of course for frontlines, each class retains its abilities and on the large scale this gets really interesting!

[Skeet]

Well, each class offers different strengths and abilities in my opinion, I remember fondly a match in wolves' den where, when SMN could still use raise, our team of war/drg/drg/whm defeated a team of sch/smn/smn, this battle was very fun, and of course for frontlines, each class retains its abilities and on the large scale this gets really interesting!

This thread is mostly for fun as well as to show how others view each class. This can also be a helpful thread for new players that are seeking information about how to use their classes. If you can, feel free to take the time to rate the classes yourself =p. I'm curious as to what everyone thinks is the top classes in the game.

-Also currently making a post about my own list/opinions.

[Skeet]

So without further ado, here's my personal tier list:

Tier 1:

1) Summoner
2) White Mage
3) Monk
4) Scholar
5) Marauder
6) Paladin
7) Dragoon
8) Bard
9) Black Mage

Tier 2:

S: Summoner, White Mage
A: Scholar, Monk, Marauder
B: Paladin, Dragoon
C: Bard, Black Mage

____

So here's my opinion on each class and how I broke it down in my own tier list:

Summoners: DoT skills attacking over time while allowing SMN's to do other things. Bane makes DoT's easily spreadable. High burst potential class. Can bind-lock players while others attack/kill the target. Can act as mini healers with around 600 heals per Physik. Great AoE LB. Pets adding extra dps along with their double pet buff skill -> Enkindle make for A LOT of damage.

White Mage: Divine Seal + Medica 2 + Regen make for one of the best skill combinations in the game giving you high heals over time. Presence of Mind allows for quick-casting single target spells. Sacred Prism is a great skill that can make this class annoying to kill with added defense/heals. Attunement to escape focus burst targeting by multiple players which allows a second healer to heal them. The ability to DPS with Cleric Stance if needed. Can sleep-stun target as well as slow opponents down with Stone.

Monk: High burst potential. 2 Stun skills. One Ilm Punch to remove beneficial status effects. A long range dash skill that automatically brings them to their target (as well as stun them). Great single target damaging LB. Fetter Ward to remain impervious to negative effects. Weapon Throw to slow down an escaping target.

Scholar: Fast heals with Adloquium that give them a mini barrier which acts as a shield for a bit. Fairies follow them for easy extra heals if needed. Lustrate instant cast HIGH heal ability depending on how much stacks of Aetherflow they have. Also have the ability to cast 3-4 dots on opponents.

Marauder: High burst potential. Well-skilled MRD's can make a DPS's life go from full to zero in seconds. Usually last to be targeted, usually giving them free reign to do what they want.

Paladin: Best defensive character in the game that can buy time for your allies. The only class that can stun-lock a target for a solid 9 seconds straight. Good burst potential. Silence skill to annoy casters and healers.

Dragoon: High burst potential class. Stun jump skill. Also has Fetter Ward and Weapon Throw like Monks.

Bard: The most annoying class for any SMN or BLM in both WD and FL. Can instantly fire to cancel spells as well as having a silence skill. However, their damage compared to the rest of the cast isn't that great.

Black Mage: Highest burst potential out of all classes. Great AoE LB. Can cast Sleep over multiple targets in one spell. Can bind opponents in place with Freeze. Freeze or Sleep -> LB is one of the best skill combos in PvP.

______________

Now, why I rated them as I did:

I rated Bards low simply because their damage isn't as hard-hitting as others. Even as a caster, I personally don't find one Bard attacking me to be a huge threat as compared to the rest of the classes. I rated BLM's as the lowest because they are by far the squishiest and usually the first people to go down. Even though they have the highest burst damage in the game, it is extremely rare to find a BLM free casting if you have two equal teams fighting against each other. They must rely on a Scholar to spam Adlo on them to be of any REAL use , in my opinion.

I haven't had much of a great impression for dragoons, so I put them about average compared to the rest. Haven't had a DRG do anything to me in both FL or WD to stand out besides from having good damage. As for Paladins, I personally feel this class is a sleeper. They are extremely useful to have and with good coordination, can spell the end of an enemy with their stun-lock capabilities.

The only reason I rated Marauder high was because of their scary burst damage potential when most, if not all, of their offensive cooldowns are popped. A really good monk can make or break a victory with your group vs another group. One Ilm Punch is one of the main reasons I rated them so high; of course along with their other multiple great skill assets. As for Scholar, they can surprisingly deal pretty decent dps. Their fairies can heal them in a pinch as well as having Adloquium to give time for casters/healers to cast at least 1 spell. These 3 are very solid classes in my mind.

Summoner and White Mages are easily what I find the 2 most broken classes in PvP. It's not too far of a stretch to claim SMN's as the Kings of DPS's. With their ability to easily cast 3-4 DoT skills on every enemy with Bane, they can rely on other skills such as Ruin II and Energy drain for extra damage. Along with their pets attacking; it's hard to find any faults with this class. Physik can be an extra helper for healers if they're too preoccupied healing someone. A skilled White Mage can stay alive for a long time. It's very rare for a good WHM to die via 1 dps, but it sure as hell is possible. In 99% of the other times, White Mages can stay alive with their nasty Divine Seal + Med 2 + Regen combo. Both their solo heals and AoE heals completely outclass Scholars in terms of pure healing.

And so, this is my opinion on all the classes. White Mage and Summoner are very iffy to me for "best" class and can easily be changed in my list. But to me, these 2 classes by far easily outclass the rest.

[DustySlippers]

you need a separate list for Frontline's and Wolves den. Even then the tier list would be different between organized wolves den and random solo games. I like the idea of a tier list but there is not enough information present in one over arching tier list to have any worth.

In frontlines a WAR > MRD - marginal dps loss for massive defensive gains when over extending and harassing a healer
In organized WD a good BLM is godlike. however playing a BLM in a solo game is redundant since some idiot is bound to break your sleeps
In the current state of WD DRG is useless, because a DRG cant dispell aetherflow and if you have a lolgoon you dont have a MNK. The only thing more useless then a DRG might be a lolSCH without aetherflow vs a WHM MNK

It might be a good idea to just discuss wolves den in terms of team composition instead of a tier list as-well. I'm not trying to be negative I just believe the forms of PvP are too different to apply 1 tier list

[TrueOgre]

Such a nice thread, unfortunately it not received community attention...

I decided to main a Monk and I wanted to know the opinion of the community about monks ^^

[Atreus]

It's a good thread to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each class, but your personal list seems extremely biased itself even though you called for no bias. Tough to avoid, but just saying.

That said, I can't believe bard and black mage are so low on that list. >______>

Moar discussion!

[Skeet]

It's a good thread to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each class, but your personal list seems extremely biased itself even though you called for no bias. Tough to avoid, but just saying.

That said, I can't believe bard and black mage are so low on that list. >______>

Moar discussion!

Well, a personal tier list is always going to sound biased to some people. I personally don't find any bias in my list as I have explained in detail how and why each class deserves to be in the spot I placed them in. When I said no bias, I was referring to people that say dumb crap like "WHM da wurst class evar" or other nonsensical comments like that. I remember one person saying SMN's sucked and everyone mocked him shortly after. If you notice, the first post still has no spaces filled in the tier lists I placed. This is because it's supposed to be a combined average of what the community thinks.

I've logically explained why BRD's and BLM's are bottom tier on my list. If you have a sound explanation on why they don't deserve to be that low then feel free to tell me =p. To me personally, I have never thought of BRD's or BLM's as good. I've done hundreds of FL matches with my pvp ls and not once do I ever recall a BLM ever posing a threat to us because we would kill them immediately. BRD's are the same. They do not hit as hard as every other DPS class and even as a caster, if one BRD is on me, the damage is really not noticable in the short run.

Such a nice thread, unfortunately it not received community attention...

I decided to main a Monk and I wanted to know the opinion of the community about monks ^^

Idk why people aren't posting to be honest. This is the first forum I've ever been on where a topic like 'tier lists' hasn't gotten discussions. I'm sure people got turned off with negative comments like DustySlippers.

-If you aren't posting because you are afraid other people may mock your tier list, then just ignore them. As I stated before, this is just supposed to be a fun way to see the opinions of the community regarding all the classes.

So I'll ask one more time to the PvP community, don't be shy and make your own personal tier list for us to see. Don't be afraid to have a discussion about classes as compared to other classes.

Edit: I will soon edit my own tier list accordingly to include the removal of Cleric Stance.

[Mutemutt]

Ok, I'll bite, if only to help spur some kind of discussion. I guess I should put a disclaimer: I haven't tried bard, black mage or warrior first hand; so those points will be based solely on hear say, my experience facing the jobs and my overall understanding of their abilities.

So, without further ado, here's my lists:

Tier 1:
1) WHM
2) SMN
3) BLM
4) MNK
5) SCH
6) WAR
7) DRG
8) PLD
9) BRD

Tier 2
S: Whm, Smn
A: Blm, Mnk, Sch
B: War(Mrd), Drg
C: Brd

Okay, explanation time. White mage is easily the most influential member of the party. The high healing capability of medica 2 and regen stems most stray damage while cure 2 can quickly heal through people being focused. Access to heavy, sleep, bind and a knockback means they're pretty much always a nuisance: able heal the party, survive and even protect the other healer(s) if they find even a small moment of freedom. Oh, and sacred prism is really good, more useful than the aoe knockback Schs get.

Both the casters have really high burst. I put Smn over Blm for the simple reason that Smn seems to have more presence when their under attack in party situations. They may not be able to sleep their attackers but bind is still useful against most of them and dots will continue to tick and pets continue to attack, even while the Smn is being chased. Their fester and enkidle give them incredible burst though being tied to dots could be seen as a detriment, it's actually a bit of a blessing in disguise. Unlike sleep, smn dots are not easily esuna'd, so it is not unusual for a healer to spend their purify just to avoid smn burst. Of course they both have a caster lb, not bad I guess. Still, I have to say that Blm is rather powerful. I'd mostly attribute that to the aoe sleep, and high damage. Debilitating and dangerous.

Monk's usefulness is directly related to the danger they pose to Scholars. I feel the main advantage to Sch is their ability to quickly heal someone with lustrate, in sort of an anti-burst kind of way. Whm only have the 5min cooldown, benediction, and the cast time constricted cure 2 to depend on in those situations. Mnk's ability to reliably remove aetherflow stacks makes mnk a bigger threat than other melee dps when there is an enemy scholar, while still having good damage compared to the other dps jobs. The aoe pacification can also be particularly nice when your healer is being ganged up on by melee attackers.

Sch is a good healer, but doesn't really have a tool to compare to medica 2. It's not unusual for stray damage to turn into a focused, and unexpected, burst; or for the team to eventually start dropping from the low amount of aoe heals. Still, lustrate can be frustrating, thwarting many burst attempts. Essentially a benediction every minute, with the catch of being vulnerable to dispels. Lack of CC also means sch needs more support from their teammates; luckily, many of the others have binds, sleep, heavy. Adloquim is okay, usually can buy time for a cast or 2 when 2 or less dps are attacking the shield. Unfortunately, the shield doesn't protect against stuns, silence and such. Oh and there's also disease; it won't be the most useful when there's a smn around but still...

The only thing I know about mrd is their high burst potential. From what I understand, there is a pretty long wait before it becomes available again. Healing debuff is nice. Has a few tools to increase the survivability of the party, kinda meh. I put warriors in the same place merely because I didn't want to put another class on the list. I don't know, I may change it at some point.

Drg is pretty much average to me. Deals good dps. Lots of off cooldown skills for a nice burst. The 2 stuns are more accessible than mnks, again helping that burst capability. Positionals are not that hard to land and they increase the damage of friendly bards as well. Not bad.

Paladin's main boon is the stun lock. Stun locking, along with coordinated dps can easily down any enemy especially with full swing in tow. Cover and tetsudo are nice to give your healer some defense, still not that amazing though: the cooldowns are just too long. Glory slash is nothing to special, may catch an aetherflow when used offensively; on the defensive, that is using against everyone attacking your healer, you'll probably just catch protect or some medica 2 ( can't expect the monk to go dispelling everyone, though smn's wither may help catch something useful) instead of any useful buff. At least it has a knockback...

Brd's main use is in just being annoying to casters. The problem is, pretty much any other job can be annoying to casters. Still, healers have a harder time getting away from them since they're ranged and have no cast time while having decent damage. Blizzard 2 may not be a very good option against them, but tri-disaster, shadowbind and sleep work well enough. Another problem is they have no flag presence, that or they have to trade all their damage for it. Oh and healer lb... yeah, not very useful at a 2 bar limit. Still, they seem to be the best caster harass you could ask for

[Cidel]

This is a... "interesting" concept for an MMO team-based PvP given that most, if not all tier lists are made specifically for 1 on 1 match-ups that actually reflects just that; who has the most favorable match-ups. Then jobs have different ranking in survivability, killing-potential, usefulness in a group setting, etc. Party composition and enemy tactics can change the usefulness of pretty much every job in different circumstances, but I guess I'll go with what I tend to observe in Frontlines (since that's clearly the more active PvP at the moment)

Tier 1:

1) SCH
2) WHM
3) WAR/MRD
4) BLM
5) MNK
6) DRG
7) BRD
8) SMN
9) PLD

Tier 2:

S: SCH
A: WHM, WAR
B: (in no particular order)BLM, MNK, DRG,
B-: BRD, SMN
C: PLD

Scholar: I think a decent-to-great SCH is grossly underestimated here. I don't know if maybe I'm just missing a trick or something, but SCHs are by-far the most annoying job to try and kill (down-right impossible without help in many cases) and are arguably the more durable out of the 2 healers. Mostly because of the fairy, I'd say. It seems like they can reliably handle being targeted by a couple of enemies, and if their fairy is available, they essential can mitigate everything those 2 DPS try to do. Just interrupting the SCH isn't always enough in these cases unless you can manage to burst them down quick enough.

Whitemage I feel like both healers deserve to be at the top here. Many complain about the Cleric Stance nerf, but aside from not plausibly being able to kill enemies "alone" anymore, healers' jobs should first and foremost be to increase the longevity of their party members in a fight; even if it means being a target sometimes and kiting/tanking. Unlike most of the others jobs in Frontlines, you can see a big difference between clever/experienced healers and inexperienced ones. I feel that it's more true for WHM, who can't hide behind dmg negation in their heals or rely on support from a off-resource (fairy) like SCHs can and need to make use of Repose and Aqua Aura to stay alive in many cases. WHMs do heal bigger than SCHs and are more party-friendly, and also have Stone for slowing down potential running targets and "ousting" some targets (even for a few seconds) with Repose if they find the chance to. Divine Breath also makes them a huge nuisance if they are not the 1st to go down.

However, as I mentioned earlier, I scored SCH over WHM in survivability on this list. WHMs just don't fare well against concentrated efforts without help. Even one low DPS job like BRD (who barely dent SCHs) can eat-away at WHMs simply by attacking it over and over (thus preventing them from healing as well) unless the WHM can swiftcast/equanimity to do something. A WHM just can't survive a concentrated effort against 2 or more enemies alone the way an equally-skilled SCH can.

Warrior/Marauder: I'm not going to lie, I am not knowledgeable on this class/job, but the two observations that I made on them (and touched upon in previous lists) is that they have high burst potential and usually the freedom to be targeted last. I think they have the tools more than any other class to effectively shut-down healers and are not nearly as squishy as other DPS who would try to focus on healers. For this reason, I feel like they get away with being high on the tier list for not being glass cannons.

Blackmage: I put BLM over SMN simply because Sleep is a decisive tool in flag struggles and will at least oust enemies with purify down for a bit or force them to use it. True, people can accidentally wake slept targets, but that's the worst case scenario where there is no communication/ party members who don't acknowledge the "kill this first/last" list. They have the damage, and true, they can be interrupted, but in situations where the entire enemy party is focusing on your healer(s), you'll usually have free reign to cast some spells. And you can't deny the sleep/LB combo effectiveness.

Monk/Dragoon: I'm currently not a fan of playing melee classes, so refer to previous lists and explanations as to why these two are placed where they are. But I acknowledge that MNK does come out ahead of DRG in terms of utility.

Bard: Bards possess no real danger in terms of their damage; but as stated already, they can be the bane of all casters (save for SCH), so that's the trade-off. And that's pretty significant. A Bard doesn't have to be able to kill that WHM/SMN/BLM they're on, but their ability to be keeping them from having the freedom to cast things without using their respective cool-downs (bonus, if they don't have any) can mean the difference between people on the flag eating a flare or the enemy WHM topping-off everything with medica (or saving the other healer). Bind, silence and knockback are also pretty valuable at times too. Can't forget Requiem if applicable.

Summoner: Yes, I stuck SMN all the way down here; here's why. SMN is an extremely momentum-based caster in FL. They may be a beast in WD, but in FL they are banking on a few things: will they be left alone long enough to get/keep their spells up? Will their targets be smart enough to avoid their DoTs while they are casting it? Will they have enough time to get all 3 off on one target? Will their egi get slept/bound/etc? Yeah, Fester hurts for burst damage, but it's hardly instantaneous and needs some time to be set-up. For being extremely situational and having no real CC advantages over BLM, I placed them this low.

Paladin: Stunlock. It's nice but PLD can't really capitalize on it unless their teammates are on the same page. That's... All I got on them other than them being extremely defensive. Not saying they're useless, but they do end up being targeted last with MRD/WAR but have less presence.
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If people discuss/ disagree, fine. But this thread seems to be doomed to be neglected (for now).