Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Class Tier List

Introduction

Hey folks, Aestus here. This video is a tier list of all of the base classes in Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire. If you didn’t know, Pillers Deadfire is definitely one of my favorite CRPGs and just one of my favorite games of all time, and because I like it so much, I like to make content on it from time to time.

I’m focusing on it more now though because the next game in the IP, Avowed, is due to release sometime this year and I am hyped. Now, there’s going to be people in the comments telling you that I shouldn’t be hyped and you shouldn’t be hyped because they think the trailers don’t look good. I’m just going to put it out here now - I completely disagree. I think the trailers look great and I am optimistic for the game. I want it to do well, so I’m covering this series leading up to its release.

However, even if Avowed is terrible, the Pillars of Eternity series are still going to be some of the greatest games of all time and I want more people to play them. So that’s my motivation for covering a game which is not exactly new these days.

This video has two parts:

1. The tier list proper where I rank all of these classes and tell you my thoughts on them (I actually recorded that part weeks ago)
2. A discussion with one of the top five experts in Pillars of Eternity Deadfire - Thelee

The second part of the video is a discussion that him and I had on the finer details of the rankings. Please check out that part - I think the discussion was awesome and I’ve been a fan of Thelee’s for most of a decade so it was super cool to get to pick his brain on this subject.

Fundamental Assumptions

These rankings and this list is for Real Time with pause, full party Path of the Damned Plus trial of iron difficulty, and that’s the core. So it’s not factoring in:

• Solo play
• Any of Magran’s fires
• By extension, it’s not factoring in Ultimate runs

So don’t go linking ultimate runs to argue with me in the description. I do not consider those relevant to these rankings. The Ultimate is very cool, it is the peak achievement in the CRPG landscape, but the Ultimate is not the base game. They are so different because of the extra rules that are applied to the Ultimate run that they’re really just not relevant to each other.

Also, as usual, I’m not factoring in gamebreaking bugs like Strand of Favor plus Blade Cascade - anything in that realm of cheesiness which is also a bug, I am factoring out. Now there are some things which I consider cheesy which are definitely not bugs that I’m including in this video, which is a little different than how I do it in Baldur’s Gate 3, but we’ll talk about that when we get to it.

Moving on now, I just want to get it on the record that I consider this a low resolution tier list - low resolution in that it only ranks the 11 base classes, which is not the level of detail I would like in a comprehensive class tier list. Right, because a true high-resolution tier list would not just rank the 11 single class classes but every multiclass combo in the game, and that would be I believe 66 unique classes total, which is a lot.

I hope to do that video or that series of videos someday where I rank every single one of the 66 available classes in this game on a tier list, but it’s just not feasible for now. So for now I’m just going to rank these 11 base classes. However, I will be factoring in both their single class and what they offer in a multiclass as well.

What the Tiers Mean

Long-time channel viewers will notice I’ve replaced my typical five tier system with this custom made four tier system. Hopefully the names of the tiers are self-explanatory, but in case they’re not:

Gamebreaking Tier

For classes which offer legitimately gamebreaking strategies that are so powerful they require special ranking. I consider something game breaking when it’s so good you no longer have to interact with the tactics of the game. So of course these are the things I was talking about earlier when I said I ban them from my runs, but I’m including them in this video.

Overloaded Tier

This is for classes which just offer so much that they stand head above their competitors. Typically these classes are the linchpins of what I consider some of the strongest builds or composition strategies in the game.

Bread and Butter Tier

This is for classes which are solid - they offer enough that they are attractive as a class and so you’re likely to include one to three of these at some level in your composition, but they’re definitely not the linchpin of the best strategies the way overloaded classes are.

Niche Tier

This is for classes which tend to be underpowered except in a few niche builds or strategies. We’ll discuss those more as we get into those classes.

Now I also want to say that this is a very well balanced game - that’s one of the reasons why it’s so good. I found this ranking very difficult to make and I had to consult many people who have many more hours in the game than I do, and we don’t all agree. So you can definitely make top tier builds with any of these classes in the game. If there’s a class you really like that’s in niche tier and you think I’m underrating it, you know, you could be right because this is not an easy thing.

Ultimately what I’m offering you here is just my perspective. I think it’s an informed perspective and at the very least if I’m wrong you will still learn something.

So alright, enough of the disclaimers - let’s actually dive into the ranking.

Barbarian

I guess we’re just going to do this in alphabetical order starting with Barbarian. Barbarian is going to go into Niche tier. Let’s look at the class.

Here is the Barbarian leveling tree. Basically, the niche for barbarians is that they are fairly durable weapon strikers that are focused on life steal tanking and dealing lots of AOE damage to mobs. That’s their niche as far as I see it.

Signature Abilities

Carnage

The signature ability of Barbarians in Pillars of Eternity is Carnage. This basically turns your weapon attacks into area of effect attacks - it applies 33% of your base weapon damage in an area. And I do believe you roll attack rolls to make sure that this damage hits, but yeah that’s the basics of Carnage.

I must say that Carnage is significantly nerfed compared to how it worked in Pillars of Eternity 1. In Pillars of Eternity 1, Carnage was so cool - it just, I haven’t got into the math of it, but it just felt like it did more damage. But the most important thing is that you could apply on-hit effects from your weapons in the Carnage attacks as well.

For example, if you equipped your Barbarian with say, Tall Grass Pike or St. Omble’s Hour - these are weapons which would apply the prone condition on a crit - and then you could stack intelligence, like max out intelligence on your Barbarian. So now your Carnage AOE is huge, and also the duration of the prone on your crit is huge, and then you would crit on every swing. You’re likely to crit at least a few people in that Carnage radius, right? So you were not only dealing tons of AOE damage, you were just proning targets and it was super super cool.

All of that has been nerfed in Deadfire. Carnage is no longer the thing to build around. And just as a little rant, I find it kind of frustrating because I do not believe that Carnage was overpowered in the original Pillars of Eternity. My perception is that they nerfed Carnage not because it was overpowered but because a lot of people complained that they felt it was dumb that you would ever want to build intelligence and perception on your Barbarian. Which is really frustrating to me because it’s not like the classic Constitution/Strength barbarian was bad in Pillars of Eternity - it was still probably the optimal way to build Barbarian. It’s just you had this cool alternative route where you had like a wizard intellect Barbarian that was knocking everyone prone with their super cool attacks, and that had to be nerfed because a lot of people complained about it. At least that’s my very anecdotal perception.

Frenzy

Back to the Barbarian in Pillars of Eternity Deadfire - the other major thing that barbarians do is of course Rage or Frenzy. It adds:

• +25 to your action speed
• Gives you the Strong and Fit inspiration
• At the price of -10 to deflection

A very good trade-off. This is a solid DPS buff especially in the early game and it develops in two interesting routes:

1. Blood Frenzy Route:

   • Deals raw bleeding damage on targets when you crit them
   • When you kill targets it will increase the duration of the frenzy

2. Spirit Frenzy Route:

   • Applies CC debuffs in an aura around you while raging
   • Most important is the tier 7 ability which causes the Terrify affliction

The Terrify affliction is very very important in this game - we’re going to be talking about it a lot. When a target is terrified they will do nothing on their turn except for do a quick burst where they run in a random direction. This does two things:

1. Classic crowd control - targets aren’t attacking you or casting spells
2. They might run away from you, which can proc attacks of opportunity (or as they’re called in this game, disengagement attacks)

Disengagement Attacks

Procing disengagement attacks is a really really good strategy to build around because it’s a straight up injection into your action economy. Those attacks trigger without taking from what you’re normally spending your time doing. In fact, they don’t even have an attack animation - it just triggers the attack in an instant.

That’s really really strong just from an action economy perspective. If you have a guy that’s building to make lots of attacks and deal lots of damage on those attacks, getting terrified on targets that he’s engaged with is just going to give him a half dozen free attacks in any particular encounter, maybe even more depending on how long the fight goes and how many targets there are.

However, it’s an even better strategy in Pillars of Eternity than it is in most games because disengagement attacks are significantly boosted in this game. It’s hard to find the exact numbers (because I believe the wiki misreports it), but my understanding is that an unboosted disengagement attack - just a standard disengagement attack that any character can get - will be a normal attack plus:

• +20 to your accuracy
• +100% to your damage (effectively double damage)

That’s really really strong - by comparison that’s much better than a crit, much better than what you get from a crit. But the +20 accuracy is actually going to make it more likely that you crit, so it even stacks with crit bonuses. It’s just really really good. I am telling you, disengagement attacks in this game slap.

And then you can actually build to make them even more powerful. So they’re:

• Action economy breaking
• Extremely boosted
• Really really strong as a strategy

Key Passives

Blood Thirst

The big one here is definitely Blood Thirst. With the Blood Thirst passive, whenever you kill a target it will immediately refund the recovery of your action. How this works in game is if you make an attack, at the termination of that attack if it kills a target, it will immediately start the animation for your next attack or action that you have queued up.

What’s really cool about this is it’s kind of a way to get a high attack speed and a lot of actions in combat without actually building dexterity and action speed in your kit. It completely bypasses all of that. Technically if you dump dexterity you’re getting more value out of this because the recovery that you’re refunding is higher.

That’s another niche I forgot to mention - barbarians kind of have this weird action speed bypassing niche for builds that really no other class offers. Blood Thirst is very big and that’s coming in at tier seven, so again that will work for multiclassing.

Blood Lust

There’s a lesser version of it you can get in the early game - Blood Lust. That will give you 20% action speed on a kill. That definitely adds up in the early game.

Barbaric Retaliation

Finally there is Barbaric Retaliation. You can only get this on a full class Barbarian and this is very interesting ability. With this, whenever a target crits you, you get to make a full attack back at them. This is weird until you start combining this with life steal effects - any kind of effect in the game which will heal you by a percentage of the damage you deal. There’s a few of them, we’re going to talk about them in a bit. In fact, the Barbarian gets one which we’ll see in a second.

This creates the kind of major loop for the full class Barbarian where you actually want to:

• Just wear the heaviest armor you can
• Dump dexterity
• Invest everything into dealing damage with your attacks
• Attack slowly and just count on Barbaric Retaliation and Blood Thirst to get your attacks in
• Plus all of the bonus attacks (disengagement attacks) you’ll get from your Terrify affliction

If you’re dealing enough damage with all of those, you can imagine it creates like a little loop where:

1. A target crits you and you attack back at them and kill them
2. Which is going to proc Blood Thirst
3. Which allows you to attack again
4. Then a target runs away from you from Frenzy
5. Which gives you another attack
6. And then maybe the Carnage from that attack kills another target
7. Which does Blood Thirst
8. Which allows you to kill the target that just disengaged from you

You stack up enough sources of this damage and there’s enough targets in the area, you just deal enough damage that you’re reliably killing targets, procing Blood Thirst and counting that as your action economy, not the standard dexterity.

The Yell Ability Line

That is when the yells come in because at the final tier of yell you actually get damage on it, and it’s damage that scales deceptively well because technically this is a PL1 ability so you’re getting 8 PLs by the time you reach max level to scale this with. So the damage scales up quite a bit. It also has one rage cost even at max level, so you can really really spam this.

So now you’re:

• Spamming it for tons of AOE damage
• Which makes you more likely to proc Blood Thirst
• Which makes you more likely to do more Driving Roar
• Then you’ve got Terrify and Retaliation
• And if you’re life stealing through all of that damage you can actually just tank all of the hits from retaliation and out heal them with your life steal effects

That’s kind of the core loop for Barbarian, that’s the core niche that I see Barbarian in.

Barbarian Subclasses

There’s four subclasses (most classes have four). I’m probably only going to be able to talk about two subclasses per class for the sake of time. For the Barbarian this is a very simple choice because they kind of have two meme classes which are Corpse Eater and Mage Slayer. What these offer aren’t really good enough to compete with the other options. They can be cool for roleplaying perspectives - I especially like Corpse Eater, I love being able to play like a Hannibal Lecter style cannibal in my games (more games should allow me to do this). Mechanically speaking though, your choices are really between Berserker and Fury Shaper.

Berserker

Here’s what you get from it - basically it buffs your Frenzy from the very beginning of the game where instead of getting the Strong and Fit inspiration you will gain:

• The upgraded Tenacious inspiration
• Hearty inspiration

Tenacious is going to give you on top of your +5 strength, it’ll give you +2 to your penetration. Hardy is going to give you +2 to your armor. So you’re effectively getting +2 penetration, +2 armor and that’s very very strong especially in the early game.

It comes with drawbacks though:

1. You cannot see your health while you’re frenzied (pretty meh if you have enough healing)
2. You’ll take continuous raw damage (again very easy to offset this if you have enough healing)
3. The big penalty is that you are confused while you’re frenzied

What Confused does is:

• Lowers your intellect (big bummer because you want that intellect to broaden the AOE of all of your AOE abilities and the duration of your frenzy)
• Most importantly, it makes it so all of your AOE attacks become both Friend or Foe targeting
• Your Carnage for example or your yell at late game will not only hit your enemies, they will hit your allies and even hit yourself

That is a very very severe drawback. So what you want to do for this class is just build around it to get the awesome penetration and armor bonuses and offset this confused. There’s a few ways to do it:

1. With a seafood dish that you can start making pretty much in the mid game which will make you immune to intellect afflictions (and Confused is one of those things)
2. Equip Modwyr which is a soulbound sword which will give you immunity to intellect afflictions as well

Both are good options.

Fury Shaper

This is the one you pretty much want to go all of the time. The Fury Shaper adds certain summons - they’re like totems that you place on the map that are going to give AOE boosts in the radius of the totem.

There are three altogether:

1. Frenzy Ward:

   • Everyone in the area of effect will get their action speed boosted
   • I believe it’s by 25% (maybe it’s 20%)
   • Incredible when you realize that’s applying to every member of your party in the AOE
   • Really really adds up for damage
   • Big injection to your action speed
   • You’re getting that right at the early game

2. Fear Ward (at tier 4):

   • Will terrify enemies in a pulse out
   • Really good for all the reasons we already talked about with terrify
   • Actually consider this a stronger version of terrify than the one you get from Spirit Tornado
   • You get it early in the game so when you go Fury Shaper you can actually go the blood frenzy route and then get the ward for terrify

3. Blood Ward (single class Fury Shaper only):

   • Will grant a life steal effect to all allies and yourself in the area of effect
   • I believe it’s a 15% conversion
   • 15% of the damage you deal will be converted to health
   • Pretty nice - that’s to all members of your party
   • This stacks with other sources which we’re going to talk about in a bit
   • Really putting the Barbarian in this niche of life stealing compositions

Berserker Final Thoughts

So if we return to our tier list now - yeah, this is the niche for Barbarian. They are a tanky frontline damage dealer that’s focused on:

• Clearing mobs
• Bypassing action speed
• Life steal tanking

The reason I put them in Niche is that they are the kind of brawler archetype melee martial weapon strikers on the front line that are both durable and high damage. And in that archetype they compete with two other classes in this game, namely Fighter and Monk. And as we’ll see when we get to them, both Fighter and Monk are very strong classes. And of the three of them, Barbarian ends up kind of being like the annoying kid brother just tagging along. If you’re trying to pick that brawler archetype you’re going to want to go Fighter or Monk, not Barbarian.

So that’s why it’s in Niche tier.

Chanter

Moving on now to Chanter, one of my favorite classes in all RPGs everywhere. Chanter is going into overloaded tier. I’m excited to talk about this class.

Overview

Chanter is Pillars of Eternity’s version of the Bard, and it is a much better design and cooler version than any Bard I’ve ever seen in any other game. It’s like a Bard in that they do spells through poetry and history and stories and stuff like that. How it’s different is that there’s a natural rhythm to the class and you get to create your own poems that you’re chanting in combat. It’s so cool.

Why Pick Chanter

The big reason to pick a Chanter in Deadfire, in my opinion, is for the chants because it’s easy to overlook how good chants are. You’ve heard me already talk a lot about action economy breaking or action economy income, and having a chant is just a whole other dimension. It’s like a whole another vector of action economy you can tack onto your unit.

You can be like the Barbarian where you completely dump your action economy to make yourself tanking and that won’t affect how fast you chant - your chants are always going to be going independent of that. Alternatively, you could say dual class a Chanter with a Wizard and spend all of your actual actions casting wizard spells and you’d still be benefiting from the Chanter class because while all that’s happening your chants are still going. So it’s a whole other vector.

When I first started playing this game I asked the question - I think it’s a legitimate question to ask - why shouldn’t every member of your party be a multiclass Chanter? Because if you don’t have a Chanter tacked onto your unit, you’re missing out on a whole new vector of action economy, and that is very potent.

Powerful Chants

Healing Chants

• Soft Winds of Death will heal allies in the area
• Ancient Memory will heal allies in the area

Offensive Buffs

• Sure-handed Ila: reduces recovery time and reload time for ranged attackers (very good)
• Myth Fire: adds +15% burn lash on all weapon attacks for allies in radius
  • Actually more than +15% because it scales with power level
  • By late game it’ll go higher, usually into the 20s
  • If you have a team composition that deals a lot of weapon damage, this becomes very potent
  • Even if you go full tank on your Chanter, the damage they deal just by buffing other targets’ weapons can be quite high

Old Sieke

Probably my favorite chant in the entire game:

• Another life steal effect, like the Blood Ward from Barbarian
• In the radius, for as long as this chant is going, you and all allies get 12% damage dealt returned as healing
• Think of this as like a healing lash, just like there’s a fire lash
• Applies to all sources of damage, not just weapon damage
• Works even better with spellcasters in my experience (spells tend to do more damage than weapons)
• Can build glass cannon with your spellcasters and still get durability from healing effects

You can combine that with Mercy and Kindness which:

• Buffs healing even more
• Will buff healing for Old Sieke and Ancient Memory
• Works with Cleric healing or Druid healing
• All around really good buff in any healing-oriented composition

Passive healing is very strong in this game because healing can go on infinitely in theory. It’s kind of one of these bottlenecks where if you always out-heal their damage, you just never die - there’s no other way to kill you unless they drop your health to zero.

Many Lives Passed By

One of the strongest chants in the game:

• Summoning chant
• Each phrase summons a skeleton who fights for you
• Skeletons don’t count towards your summoning totals
• Could theoretically summon an infinite amount
• Ways to chant this so quickly that you summon more skeletons than enemies can kill
• Becomes a tanking strategy
• Don’t deal much damage but absorb aggro
• Especially good for boss fights with single target attacks
• A skeleton is just as good at tanking one big hit as your main tank

Invocations

The other niche for Chanters is they are the best Summoners. Their best invocations in my opinion are their summoning invocations.

Summon Options

• Dragon summon
  • Does alright damage
  • Mostly just a massive sack of meat
  • Very difficult for enemies to get through
• Ogre summons
  • Get two ogres
  • Lot of hit points
  • Can tank for you if skeletons aren’t doing it
• Ancient Instruments of Death
  • One of the highest damage summons
  • Summons three animated weapons
  • Deal fair amount of damage
  • Even better with penetration
  • Can buff them with Myth Fire

Every summon you put on the field is another target that can benefit from your passive buffs.

Crowd Control and Debuffs

• At the Sound of His Voice: paralyzes targets
• The Shield Cracks
  • Very important offensive invocation
  • Lowers armor rating by two
  • As target takes damage, increases duration
  • In boss fights, basically permanent -2 for entire fight
  • Think of it as +2 penetration for your entire party
  • Really strong because you can’t ignore armor rating and penetration

Chanter Final Thoughts

If we return to our list now, Chanter is just in overloaded tier because of how much it offers, especially in the healing and summoning angle of things. You almost always want at least one Chanter somewhere in your party. Chanters work both as a multiclass and as a single class - it doesn’t super matter. I usually multiclass my Chanters but it’s up to you.

Cipher

Next up on list is Cipher. Cipher is the first class going into gamebreaking tier. I’ve already talked a little bit about Cipher if you watch my beginning intro video, so I’m going to be a little brief because I’ve talked about this before and you can go back to a previous video to see. But yes, Ciphers really do belong in gamebreaking tier. I kind of think they’re the best class in the game, although it’s hard to see that in your first playthrough. The what makes them so powerful is kind of subtle, very easy to miss.

What Makes Cipher Gamebreaking

The really gamebreaking thing about Ciphers is that they are an infinite resource hack. Let’s take a look at it.

Focus Generation

Ciphers are a natural Gish class. They have all of these spells, and to cast them it’s going to take a resource called Focus. Focus is generated through your Soul Whip ability, where it will:

• Increase the damage you deal
• Take a percentage of the damage you deal with weapons and convert it into Focus
• Can upgrade with Draining Whip to eventually get 100% Focus gain
• Example: If I deal 50 damage with my weapon attack, I gain 50 Focus to cast spells

As long as the combat is still going, that means there are enemies you can be attacking and dealing damage to, which means you can be generating Focus. That makes Cipher spells technically infinite, and other classes don’t really get this. Other classes have a set amount of resources and when they burn through them, they’re done - not the Cipher.

Ancestor’s Memory

They get this tier 7 ability which will put the Brilliant condition on an ally:

• Gives +1 to intellect
• +1 to all power levels
• Most importantly: gives +1 to class resource per 6 seconds

This means that all of your classes now have infinite class resources, because if you have an infinite source of class resources that can return class resources to other classes, now all classes are technically infinite. The game was not built for this - it’s balanced around you being limited, and Ciphers make you unlimited. Especially in long, grind-them-out fights, Ciphers are just invaluable, and some of the toughest fights in this game are long grind-them-out boss fights.

Basic Class Features

Weapon Striking

As a weapon striker it’s kind of meh unless you’re going Soul Blade. You get:

• +20% damage from Draining Whip (scales with power level)
• Hammering Thoughts gives +1 penetration with weapons
• Good but not enough to overcome what other classes offer
• Weapon striking is really just about generating Focus

Spells

The powerful things you can do with this class are in its spells, and its most powerful spells are all single target, both crowd control and damage.

Damage Spells

Disintegrate is standout:

• Deals absurd amount of raw damage
• Scales well with intelligence
• Raw damage cannot be mitigated by armor
• In theory, nothing can stop a Cipher if they can land Disintegrate
• Main interaction becomes stacking accuracy
• Can be reduced by high resolve (reduces hostile effect duration)

Example of interaction: There’s a boss called Dorudugan who has very high armor, so your instinct is to use Disintegrate to bypass it. But he also has absurdly high resolve, so the spell only lasts about 1 second, severely reducing its damage.

Crowd Control

They have excellent single-target CC:

• Puppet Master (dominate effect)
  • Takes an enemy and makes them your ally
  • Like getting two summons at once (removing one from them, adding one to you)
  • More powerful enemy = more powerful effect
  • Stays relevant entire game
• Whispers of Treason
  • Early game version
  • Still relevant due to PL scaling for duration
  • Only costs 10 Focus

Cipher Subclasses

All subclasses are good in their own way, but Ascendant and Scion are probably the best. Let’s look at Ascendant and Soul Blade:

Ascendant

Creates an interesting loop:

• Debuff on spells while not at max Focus
• Once at max Focus, get Ascended buff:
  • All spells are free to cast
  • Massive buff to spell power (+3 power level to Cipher spells)
• Creates a rhythm: attack to get Ascended, then cast as many spells as possible

Soul Blade

The multiclass weapon striker version and one of my personal favorites:

• Gets Soul Annihilation ability
• Makes melee attack that expends all Focus
• Deals raw damage: 10 base + percentage of Focus expended
• Base percentage is 25% (100 Focus = 35 raw damage)
• Percentage increases with power level and weapon damage bonuses
• Can stack to double or quadruple the conversion rate
• Works great with Assassin due to backstab damage bonuses
• Can deal upwards of 700 raw damage late game
• Probably not optimal compared to Disintegrate, but very fun martial version

Note: I wrote an entire article for my Patreons making a unique optimized Soul Blade build for every single faction in the game - it’s just that fun to mess around with.

Druid

Druid is going into bread and butter tier. Druids are really the Jack of all trades class in this game. By the way, I just want to mention while I have tested all of these classes extensively, Druid and Barbarian are definitely my weakest, so I just want to let you guys know that as a disclaimer.

Class Overview

Druids are very good all-around spellcasters. They get:

• Good buffs
• Great healing (probably the best healers in the game)
• Amazing offensive spells

They’re just kind of like a wizard - they do a lot of wizard-like things.

Spirit Shift

They also get this Spirit Shift ability:

• Once per encounter ability
• Turn into a were-animal
• Options include:
  • Were-bear
  • Were-boar
  • Were-wolf
  • Were-cat
  • Were-stag
• Each has unique bonuses

Spirit Shift Forms

• Cat is probably the best offensive one for damage
• Bear is probably best for tankiness while casting spells
• Boar is also fine for tankiness
• (Note: Haven’t tested extensively between bear and boar)

Historical Context

In Pillars of Eternity 1:

• Druids were probably my favorite class
• One of the best classes (second only to Priest)
• Were amazing spellcasters on par with wizard
• Spirit shift could achieve weapon DPS comparable to optimized Rogue
• Had powerful Elemental lashes on attacks
• Math for Lashes allowed for very exploitable damage
• Spirit shifts got high percentage lashes on strong and quick attacks

In Pillars Deadfire:

• Spirit shift has been significantly nerfed
• Haven’t found way to make it deal strong damage
• Now use Spirit shift mainly for tankiness while casting
• Druids are now solidly just a spellcasting class

Spellcasting Abilities

Healing Spells

Some of the best healing spells in game:

• Nature’s Vigor
• Moonwell
  • Creates healing over time effect on ground
  • Gives water-keyworded buff
  • Water keyword defensive buff counteracts fire keyword offensive attacks
  • Can negate dragon breath attacks
• Garden of Life
  • Possibly most exploitable heal in game
  • Very powerful according to community

Druid Damage Spells

Strong focus on lightning spells in mid-game:

• Returning Storm
• Relentless Storm
  • Deal lightning damage in radius
  • Can stun targets
  • Passive AoE effect is valuable

Insect Line

• Insect Swarm
  • Deals raw damage
  • Cancels enemy concentration
  • Good for interrupt-locking bosses
• Plague of Insects
  • High raw damage
  • Can melt backline quickly

Elite Spells

Great Maelstrom:

• Big AoE
• Massive damage
• Nearly unavoidable (deals four types of damage)
• Has all the keywords
• Extremely powerful

Druid Subclasses

Ancient

One of my personal favorites:

• Not super strong but enjoyable
• Gets unique Spirig summon ability
• Later gets Wild Grove buff
  • Can buff Spirigs
  • Works on any Beast or Primordial summon
• Spirigs are powerful and adorable

Lifegiver

• Greatly improves Rejuvenation spells
• Boosts all the amazing healing spells mentioned

Druid Final Thoughts

If we return to the tier list, Druid just does everything you want pretty well, but they have no particular niche where they shine except for healing. But to me, healing is one of those things where you don’t really need to overdo it - you just need enough of it.

A single class Druid is welcome in pretty much every party - it’ll always plug in very well. You cannot go wrong with it, so just have fun with the class.

Fighter

Fighter is going into overloaded tier and is probably my favorite class in this game. It’s definitely going to be my most controversial ranking. I believe I’m going to have a very special guest and maybe we’ll debate this fighter ranking.

To be honest, I’m putting Fighter in overloaded tier but I think it is borderline gamebreaking tier. I don’t think it’s quite as gamebreaking as Cipher or the other class I’m going to be putting up there, but it’s close. It’s close.

Game-Breaking Features

Unbending

The first is Unbending - a self-healing ability which will convert a percentage of the damage that you take into healing. It doesn’t sound that good when you just read it here, but once you dive into the actual math of this ability, you realize that under very achievable conditions you can build to make Unbending an invincibility button.

How Unbending Works

• Upgrades to Unbending Trunk (recommended version)
• Scales extremely well with intelligence
• Higher intelligence means:
  • Greater healing numbers
  • Longer duration of healing buff
• Each new instance of damage procs all current healing buffs

Example of mechanics:

1. Take 100 damage:

   • Generate healing condition with value per proc and duration
   • Initial proc of 10 damage
   • Duration for 5 procs
   • Total healing: 60 damage (60%)

2. Take another 10 damage:

   • Converts to 1 initial proc + 5 more
   • BUT also triggers the previous 10 healing
   • Result: Heal 11 damage from a 10 damage hit

With enough Intelligence on Unbending, you become functionally invincible.

Tactician Subclass

The other borderline gamebreaking feature is the Tactician subclass:

• Restores discipline when interrupting enemy actions
• Brilliant Tactician power:
  • Activates when all enemies are flanked and no allies are flanked
  • Grants brilliant inspiration
  • Lasts as long as condition is true
• Drawback: Tactical Dilemma
  • While flanked, get shaken and confused afflictions (prepotent)

This is especially powerful in boss fights or against few enemies where it’s easy to maintain the flanking condition.

Combat Abilities

Mob Stance

One of three stances (mob, conqueror, guardian):

• On kill, proc instant new attack on separate target
• When upgraded: -5 stacking recovery per threatened target
• Synergizes with items like Reckless Burgundy
• Works well with engagement-based weapons

Discipline Strikes

One discipline cost ability providing:

• Intuitive buff (+5 perception)
  • +5 accuracy
  • +10 reflex
• 50% graze to hit conversion
• 25% hit to crit
• Makes you reliable striker for both spells and weapons

Single Class vs Multiclass

Single Class Benefits

• Sundering Blow
  • Cheap discipline cost
  • Bonus penetration
  • Lowers enemy armor rating by 4 for 15 seconds
  • Duration extends with intelligence
• Clear the Path/Clean Sweep line
  • Strong AOE potential
  • Well-documented on forums
• Take the Hit
  • Reduces ally damage by 15%
  • Redirects as raw damage to caster
  • Potentially strong with Unbending

Multiclass Options

Three standout combinations:

1. Brute (Fighter/Barbarian)
   • Synergistic overlap
   • Incredible mob killing potential
   • Strong disengagement attack synergy
   • Maintains boss-fighting capability
2. Brawler (Fighter/Monk)
   • Excellent combination
   • More details coming in Monk section
3. Swashbuckler (Fighter/Rogue)

• Personal favorite
• Details coming in Rogue section

Fighter Subclasses

Tactician

• Should always pick unless bored of it
• Best overall subclass option
• Excellent resource management
• Strong boss-fighting potential

Devoted

Second best subclass:

• Pick one weapon proficiency
• Get +2 penetration
• +25% crit damage
• Apparent drawback of single weapon type isn’t severe:
  • Many weapons have variable damage types
  • Example: Spears with Moaratanga
  • Can always fall back on unarmed strikes with Monastic Unarmed Training
• Has completed full playthroughs with 6-7 different weapon types successfully

Fighter Final Thoughts

Fighter is an incredibly strong class that:

• Is virtually unkillable
• Deals high damage
• Has no real weak scenarios
• Provides excellent utility through brilliant inspiration
• Works well both single and multiclassed

Monk

Monk is another class going into overloaded tier. Monk is so well-designed in this game - the things you can do with this class, it just feels so elegant. If you aren’t convinced that this is one of the best tactical games, play a monk because then you will see.

Core Abilities

Monk Fists

The first awesome thing monks get is definitely Monk Fists:

• Transcendent Suffering ability
• Adds damage, accuracy, and penetration to unarmed attacks
• Scales extremely well with power level
• With good power level builds, becomes one of best weapons in game

Swift Strikes

Provides the Quick condition:

• +5 to dexterity
• +15 to action speed
• Combined +30 to action speed
• Only costs one mortification
• Comparable to mob stance requiring 5 target engagement

Swift Strikes Upgrades

1. Shock damage variant:
   • Adds shock damage as lash
   • Decent but not optimal
2. Swift Flurry (superior option):
   • 33% chance to trigger automatic strike on crit
   • Synergizes with Heartbeat Drumming passive (+25% chance)
   • Combined ~40% chance for instant attack on crit
   • Can chain crits for massive damage
   • All abilities available by power level 7 (multiclass viable)

Resource System

Dual Resources

Monks have two class resources:

1. Mortification

   • Standard resource like discipline/rage
   • Start battle with set amount
   • Spend on abilities like Swift Flurry

2. Wounds

   • Usually generated by taking damage
   • Varies by subclass
   • Easy to gather regardless of build

Duality of Mortal Presence

• Bonus to intellect or constitution equal to wounds
• At max (10 wounds):
  • +10 to either stat
  • Intellect most exploitable bonus
• Can be upgraded to:
  • Iron Wheel: Armor bonus scaling with wounds
  • Turning Wheel: Burn damage scaling with wounds (superior choice)
    • Up to +20 burn damage lash on attacks
    • Synergizes with weapon striking kit

Multiclass Potential

Stat Bonuses

Particularly good for casters:

• +10 intellect (strongest attribute in Deadfire)
• Benefits all classes:
  • Fighters: Enhances Unbending
  • Spellcasters: Improves spell impact and duration
  • Universally useful

Build Directions

1. Weapon Striker

   • Excellent weapon (monk fists)
   • Swift Flurry
   • Heartbeat Drumming
   • Turning Wheel for fire lash

2. Caster Monk

   • Stay back with Enduring Dance
   • +15 accuracy
   • +10 intelligence
   • Strong spell support

Monk Single Class Benefits

Gets powerful tier 8-9 abilities:

1. Razor’s Edge

   • Accuracy per wound
   • Stacks with other accuracy bonuses
   • +25 accuracy total at 10 wounds with Enduring Dance

2. Power Level Benefits

   • Two more power levels than multiclass
   • Can take Prestige for +3 power level
   • Significantly buffs fist damage

3. Whispers of the Wind

   • Jumping invisible attack
   • Hits all targets in AoE
   • Synergizes with:
     • AoE weapons
     • Bouncing weapons
     • Blunderbusses
     • Adate hunting cloak for stuns

4. Resonant Touch

   • Applies resonance stacks on damage
   • Consume stacks for 15 raw damage each
   • Excellent boss killer

Subclasses

Hell Walker

• +1 might per wound
• Can reach +10 might
• Stacks with other buffs like Thunderous Blows
• Can achieve reliable +15 might and +10 intelligence

Forbidden Fist

Favorite subclass that changes wound generation:

• Gain wounds when hostile effects expire
• Get Forbidden Fist ability:
  • Standard melee attack
  • Spreads enfeebled condition
  • Enfeebled is top-tier debuff:
    • Cancels enemy healing
    • Increases hostile effect duration by 50%
    • Essential for debuff strategies
  • Earliest and most spammable enfeebled source
  • Can deal serious damage but hurts self
  • Can get wounds from Enduring Dance or spamming Forbidden Fist

Monk Final Thoughts

Monks are the definition of overloaded - they give you so much and can excel in nearly any role. Whether single-classed or multiclassed, they bring powerful abilities and valuable stat bonuses to any build.

Paladin

Paladin is going into Niche tier, which is a shame because I really really love this class from a roleplay perspective. I think it’s one of the most fun in the game, and it’s really the class that got me into Deadfire. I’d say my first 3 hours in this game was just spent trying to perfect the Paladin.

Core Role

The Paladin is primarily a tank which also offers some pretty good support abilities.

Key Abilities

Aura Effects

Toggleable auras that grant:

• +5 accuracy
• ~15% stride
• +1 to endurance
• +1 armor rating

Upgrades:

• Defensive: +1 armor rating and +3 health restored
• Exalted Focus: +5 accuracy and +5% hit to crit

These add up well - they’re low buffs but always active.

Healing Abilities

Lay on Hands

• Active heal through touch
• Greater Lay on Hands upgrade:
  • Strong initial burst (scales with power level and might)
  • Grants robust condition
  • Increases armor rating
  • Additional healing over time

Exhortations

Reactive abilities:

• Revive: Brings back fallen allies
• Liberating Exhortation: Suspends hostile effects for 20 seconds

Design Philosophy Issues

Problems with reactive abilities:

1. Action Economy
   • Better to deal damage than heal
   • Killing targets mitigates future damage
   • Prefer passive healing over active
2. Revive Problems
   • Debuffs until next long rest
   • Forces long rests, losing valuable buffs
   • Better to use scrolls for revival

Damage Capabilities

Fire Damage Focus

• Flames of Devotion
  • +20-30 burn damage lash
  • Scales with power level
  • Costs one Zeal (spammable)
• Sacred Immolation (pulsing fire aura)
• Brand Enemy (persistent fire damage)
• Scion of Flame (+1 penetration to fire attacks)

Fire Damage Synergies

Can build around fire damage:

• Arcana scrolls for Firebrand Greatsword
• Benefits from fire keyword items
• Stacking fire lashes

Problems:

• All fire damage
• Many enemies immune to fire
• Lack of damage variety

Defensive Strengths

Passive Defense Bonuses

Strong defensive passives:

• Faith and Conviction: +8 to all defenses
  • Increases with relevant reputations
  • Enhanced by Deep Faith
• Inspired Defense: +1 armor when taking damage
• Stoic Steel: Increased armor when stationary
• Inspiring Triumph: Defense bonuses on kills

These stack well but become less optimal compared to:

• Unbending
• Chanter summons
• Priest strategies

Paladin Subclasses

Kind Wayfarer

• Flames of Devotion heals allies
• Good passive healing while dealing damage

Shield Bearer of St. Elcga

• Enhanced Lay on Hands
• Prevents death effect
• Can make party invincible with enough resources
• Gets outclassed by Priest’s similar abilities

Steel Garot

• Life steal ability
• Works against afflicted targets
• Excellent with Rogue multiclass
• Strong in riposte builds

Paladin Final Thoughts

While Paladin has strong defensive capabilities and some interesting subclass options, it often gets outclassed in its primary roles by other classes. However, it maintains a niche in specific builds, especially when paired with Rogue for defense-based strategies.

Priest

Priests are going into the gamebreaking tier, as I’ve already alluded to. Let’s look at their class.

Gamebreaking Mechanics

Barring Death’s Door

• Creates “cannot die” effect on target
• Lasts 8 seconds (scales with intellect)
• Target becomes literally invincible
• Only counter is direct wound damage (extremely rare)

Salvation of Time

• Increases beneficial effect duration by 10 seconds
• Scales with intelligence
• Can combine with Barring Death’s Door
• Works exceptionally well with Death Godlike’s Pale Justice (+3 power level near death)

The Gamebreaking Combo

• Cast Barring Death’s Door on multiple targets
• Use Salvation of Time to extend duration
• With Cipher’s resource return, can maintain indefinitely
• Makes party effectively immortal
• Removes need for tactics once achieved
• Functions as intended (not a bug)

Support Abilities

Key Buff Spells

1. Litany for the Spirit
   • 60 seconds base duration
   • +5 intellect (Acute inspiration)
   • +1 power level
   • Nearly permanent with scaling
2. Triumph of the Crusaders
   • 60 second AoE
   • Strong condition (+5 might)
   • Heal on kills (80+ health, scales with power level)
   • Excellent for mob fights
3. Devotions of the Faithful
   • Increases party accuracy
   • Decreases enemy accuracy
   • +20 total accuracy swing
4. Dire Blessing
   • 30 seconds base duration
   • Party-wide buff
   • +5 perception
   • 50% grazes to hit
   • Excellent opening buff

Reactive Abilities

• Suppress Affliction (counters charm)
• Withdraw (preemptive resurrection)
  • Avoids death debuffs
  • Better long-term strategy than resurrection

Offensive Capabilities

Priest Damage Spells

• Cleansing Flame
  • High burn damage over time
  • Like lesser Disintegration
• Shining Beacon
  • Decent burn damage
  • Lowers enemy defenses
  • Targets Will (reliable defense to target)

God Symbols

• Vary by subclass
• Example: Berath symbol
  • 35-50 corrosive damage every 6 seconds
  • Effective against mobs

Priest Subclasses (Gods)

Rymrgand (Sidekick Only)

• Adds cold damage spells
• Complements fire damage
• Makes cleric better offensive caster

Skaen

• Adds Rogue abilities
• Shadowing Beyond (exploitable)
• Finishing Blow for boss damage

Wael

• Adds Wizard illusion magic
• Strong defensive spells
• +50 deflection (Mirrored Image)

Woedica

• Gets special Rits
• Can disable enemy abilities
• Special Spiritual Weapon:
  • Summons monk fists
  • Raw damage lash
  • Scales extremely well
  • Potentially best DPS weapon in game

Priest Final Thoughts

Even without the gamebreaking combinations, Priest offers exceptional support capabilities and interesting offensive options through subclasses. The class provides both powerful baseline abilities and unique build opportunities through god selection.

Ranger

Ranger is going into Niche tier and I have kind of been persuaded that it’s probably the worst class in the game even though I like it a lot and its niche is actually quite valuable.

Core Features

Animal Companion

• Like a summon
• Fight in tandem for bonuses
• Primary focus on accuracy boosts

Accuracy Bonuses

• Stalker Link: +10 accuracy when attacking same target as companion
• Survival of the Fittest: +10 to targets below 50% health
• Marksman: +5 to ranged weapon attacks
• Marked Prey: +10 against marked targets (stacks uniquely)
• Can reach +50-60 accuracy on single target with combinations

Class Synergies

Cipher Ranger (Seer)

• Cipher gets +20 accuracy from Borrowed Instinct
• Combined accuracy makes Disintegration extremely reliable
• Excellent for damage and CC

Monk Ranger

• High accuracy enables more crits
• Synergizes with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming
• Works well with Enduring Dance

Additional Abilities

Driving Flight

• Makes ranged attacks bounce
• Action economy hack
• Good for spread damage

Concussive Tranquilizer

• Cleanses enemy beneficial effects
• Critical for certain boss fights

Ranger Single Class Benefits

• Heartseeker (good source of Enfeebled)
• Base 20 Enfeebled scales to 30 with buffs

Takedown Combo

• Animal companion knocks target prone
• Next attack gets +100% damage
• Can exploit with damage over time effects
• Works well with Disintegration
• Limited by companion accuracy

Ranger Subclasses

Stalker

• +1 armor rating near companion
• +5 deflection
• Bonded Grief drawback when separated

Ghost Heart

• Immune to Bonded Grief
• Requires companion summoning
• Solid option

Arcane Archer

• Can be exploited
• Implementation issues
• Needs community patch for balance

Ranger Final Thoughts

While considered the weakest class, Ranger has valuable niches in accuracy stacking and specific combinations, particularly with Cipher and Monk multiclasses.

Rogue

Rogue is going into bread and butter tier. Rogue is another one of my favorite classes in this game - it’s powerful and just so fun. It does what you want Rogues to do, which fundamentally is about being a high damage skirmishing striker class.

Rogue Core Abilities

Sneak Attack

• Scaling flat damage bonus
• Triggers on flanked or afflicted targets
• Can be doubled with Death Blows at 2+ conditions
• Very reliable to trigger late game

Escape Abilities

Two main paths:

1. Shadow Step Line
   • Attack paralyzes target
   • Then hobbles
   • Offense-oriented
2. Shadowing Beyond
   • Increased duration
   • Grants invisibility
   • Adds Swift condition
   • Better for backstab combos

Tanking Capabilities

Riposte

• 20% chance to counter when missed
• Free action economy attack
• Weaponizes defensive stats
• Excellent with Paladin/Wizard multiclass

Persistent Distraction

One of the best passives in game:

• +1 engagement limit
• Applies distracted to engaged enemies
• Distracted provides:
  • -5 perception (reduces accuracy)
  • Procs sneak attack
  • Counts as flanked
  • -10 reflex defense
  • -1 armor rating
• Applies automatically on engagement

Rogue Subclasses

Assassin

• Assassinate ability
• Takes more damage but gains:
  • Massive accuracy bonus
  • Increased penetration
  • Higher crit damage from stealth
• Excellent with Soul Blade

Street Fighter

When bloodied/flanked:

• 50% reduced recovery (even more with inversion math)
• Extremely fast attack speed
• Huge weapon crit damage when both conditions met
• Works well with Barring Death’s Door

Trickster

• Gains illusion spells using guile
• Mirror Image for deflection
• Great for Riposte builds
• Gets Ryngrim’s Repulsive Visage (terrify aura)
• Worth reduced sneak attack damage

Rogue Final Thoughts

Rogue excels at both damage dealing and surprisingly at tanking. All subclasses are well-designed and offer distinct playstyles, making it a versatile class that fits multiple roles.

Wizard

Wizard is going into overloaded tier. Wizards are so strong at this game, probably in the top five best classes. It would have been nice to cover wizard first because they really are the lynchpin of several amazing strategies.

Core Strategies

Will Attacking

Built around Miasma of Dull-Mindedness (level 2 spell):

• 20 second duration (scales)
• Applies:
  • -10 perception
  • -10 intellect
  • -10 resolve

Effects breakdown:

• Perception reduction:
  • -10 accuracy
  • -20 reflex defense
• Intellect reduction:
  • Reduces buff durations
  • Reduces ability AOE
  • -20 will defense
• Resolve reduction:
  • -20 will defense
  • Reduces hostile effect resistance

Total impact:

• -40 to will defense
• Stacks with Enfeebled for 80% increased duration
• AOE effect
• Enables will-targeting strategies

Defensive Abilities

Strong defensive buff spells:

• Arcane Veil: +50 deflection (limited)
• Wizard’s Double: +40 while unhit
• Llengrath’s Safeguard:
  • +20 all defenses
  • +5 armor rating
  • +5 all armor
• Arcane Reflection

Summon Strategies

Essential/Substantial Phantom

• Creates duplicate of caster
• Copies all items and effects
• Essential Phantom advantages:
  • Duplicates item proc effects
  • Works with summoned weapons
  • Example: Káte bald’s Black Bow strategy
    • Deals corrode damage
    • Jumps between targets
    • Can terrify on will save
    • Phantom doubles effectiveness

Buff Management

Cleansing

• Arcane Cleanse
  • -1000 seconds buff duration
  • Effectively removes all enemy buffs
  • Crucial against enemy wizards

Buff Enhancement

• Wall of Draining
  • Steals enemy buff duration
  • Adds to your buffs
  • Can be made nearly permanent
  • Better than Salvation of Time

Wizard Crowd Control

• Resonating Terror (targets will)
• Arduous Delay of Motion (33%+ action speed reduction)
• Early game Chill Fog (blinds)
• Gaze of the Adragan (petrify)

Wizard Damage Capabilities

Strong damage spells:

• Minoletta’s Missile Salvo
• Wilting Wind (raw damage + weakens)
• Ninagauth’s Freezing Pillar
  • Large AOE
  • Triggers every 3 seconds
  • Scales well
• Secrets of Rime synergy
  • Bonus penetration
  • Works with Freezing Pillar and Chill Fog

Wizard Subclasses

Specialist Wizards

• Throwback to original Baldur’s Gate
• Trade two schools of magic for power
• Evoker can be strong with power level focus

Blood Mage

Dominant subclass choice:

• Blood Sacrifice ability:
  • Self raw damage
  • +1 wizard power level
  • Returns spell resource
• Strategy:
  • Combine with Kanahloog’s Corrosive Siphon
  • Heal back sacrifice damage
  • Spam powerful spells
• Drawback:
  • -5 to all defenses
  • Manageable with life steal tank build

Wizard Final Thoughts

Wizard excels in virtually every aspect:

• Strong multiclass and single class options
• Diverse strategic options
• Powerful control and damage
• Blood Mage subclass particularly strong
• Complex but rewarding to master

Final Tier Distribution

Gamebreaking Classes

• Cipher
• Priest

Overloaded Classes

• Fighter
• Wizard
• Monk
• Chanter

Bread and Butter Classes

• Rogue
• Druid

Niche Classes

• Barbarian
• Paladin
• Ranger

Final Thoughts

I’m not super happy with this distribution. I would love to adjust it, but there’s a kind of problem where in my opinion there is a gulf between Fighter/Wizard and Monk/Chanter.

Initially, I thought about moving some classes around because while Monk really does belong in overloaded tier (I feel pretty strongly about that definition of an overloaded class), it doesn’t offer as many gamebreaking things as Fighter and Wizard. But I take that back - you can’t take Monk out of overloaded tier.

Chanter is flexible - you can test them and decide for yourselves. But yeah, here’s my finished list. I’m happy with this as a low-resolution tier list.

Interview Note

The remainder of the video features an in-depth discussion with Thelee, one of the top experts on this game. The interview portion is conducted podcast-style with minimal visual content.