Hey guys, I’m back with the pooled list of the rankings from the previous thread I made (here). I compiled everyone’s rankings and then did some stuff to come up with a final community ranking of sorts, from the whopping 21 people who contributed their lists. Some of the expectedly strong classes end up getting their rightful place in the rankings while there are also some underdogs who felt like they had no business in the top ten but got a spot. The ranking process is detailed below and one can take a look at it before looking at the final list itself.
Ranking Process
The process I used to get the final list is as follows:
- I took the lists contributed by you guys and put it into an excel sheet.
- There were people who responded with things that aren’t classes in their top ten and I put them into the “other” class as can be seen on the spreadsheet.
- I also took some liberties on what to do regarding some unorthodox lists. What I exactly did can be seen on the spreadsheet as comments.
- I then took the number of people who put each class to their top ten (frequency rank) as well as the mean/average ranking that each class got amongst those that voted for them.
- I also took the median ranks but seeing that the sample size is small it ended up being almost the same as the means so I’m not including it as a criteria for the final list.
- I ranked each class for how many people put them into their lists (frequency rank) as well as their ranks based on the mean rank.
- The final score for each class was then determined by:
Final Score = (0.7Frequency) + (0.3Mean) - That’s basically means the number of times a class is put into a list has a 70% bearing on the final ranking and then the mean scores has a 30% bearing.
- I think the above method presents a good balance between the frequency and the mean especially since the lists only cover top ten instead of ranking the entire class roster.
- I’m no statistician so I’m sure the method has its errors but it’s already a subjective ranking, I’m just looking for a way to quantify the results so let’s just get on with it.
The Final List
1. Spellbinder - Frequency rank 1; Mean rank 3
Objectively considered as the best class in the game as per the Grimsheet, it looks like even when talking about feelings and favorites binder still comes out on top. This is not really surprising as with the power of the class in both offense and defense you can almost never go wrong with it especially when going aether caster. And even when playing melee, pets and retal (yes you heard it right. Retal Binder exists), there is a way of playing binder. Powerful classes attract people and even those with biases towards melee or pets can’t help but acknowledge to power of this class. In fact, the ones who didn’t put binder on their list either haven’t played it yet or had incomplete lists that didn’t get into ten entries. The only reason it didn’t get first on the mean ranking is because the two or three people who put Paladin in put it very highly (like 2 1st places and 1 5th) and there’s a surprising underdog that crept up. 10/10 class.
2. Sorcerer - Frequency rank 2 (tied with conjurer); Mean rank 5
If there’s something I learned about ARPG player’s biases it’s that first place comes DW melee, second comes pets and third comes fire. And in this game casters are stronger than both melee and pets so I guess the fire people won. Also sorc is considered flexible by the melee players since a few of them put sorc on their lists too. Another unsurprising placement tho I’m sure the pet group wouldn’t like 2 caster classes at the top, but it’s okay because…
3. Conjurer - Frequency rank 2 (tied with sorc); Mean rank 9
I guess the reason why the scores for this class is lower is because @Maya didn’t vote to put this on the number 1 spot. And amongst the active members of this forum, non pet players outnumber pet players by much. Even if conjurer also has good vit builds, the pet aspect is what it’s most well-known for so some vit players probably forgot about this guy. But the fact that it’s the single best pet class in the game carries it to the third spot. Well done, birbs.
4. Dervish - Frequency rank 4; Mean rank 19
First lemme explain why the mean rank for this class seems so low. So even amongst the melee crowd, the guys didn’t really rate Dervish that high because the lists are more of a “favorite classes” lists than anything. This means that some of the DW people put things like sorc and pyro on the top spots while leaving Dervish on the middle, which shows the weakness of using a mean-based score on a subjective rank and why I put more weight on the frequency rank. This does mean the strength of this class is acknowledged by many though, since it’s still very high on the frequency rank. There’s not much to explain about Dervish. Has some of the best melee builds, especially acid and is very flexible when you can play casters of different damage types too like vit and the meme fire spirits build.
5. Warlord - Frequency rank 5; Mean rank 17
The king of retal! And the king is not dead just yet. Also it seems like people acknowledge its power outside of retal too which is cool.
6 - 7. Tied between Warder (Frequency rank 12, Mean rank 2) and Infiltrator (Frequency rank 6, Mean rank 16)
For infiltrator it’s not a surprise cause it’s one of the two DW kings and DW is popular in this forum. Cold DW, Pierce DW and even casters for those damage types. and you can never go wrong with it. Probably not as popular is it was a few patches ago because nerfs but I think it’s in its rightful place for this list.
Warder, however is an underdog in my personal opinion. It’s only in the middle of the pack when it comes to performance (as per Grimsheet). but turns out the class is very highly rated especially on the levelling side, since with the innate tankiness you can almost never go wrong with it. It got better mean score than binder of all people and it’s not because it’s a meme fanboy class like paladin.
8 - 9. Tied between Warlock (Frequency rank 12, Mean rank 6) and Ritualist (Frequency rank 6, Mean rank 20)
These two are those classes that got super cool names you can’t help but play it. But I’m really more suprised by Warlock. That class was considered to be one of the worst on the same tier as sabo and apostate and stuff but got more steam with buffs. Still the reasons I see for people including warlock imply that it’s just too cool to not be included on the lists rather than its power which is imo very great cause it shows that even the weaker classes can be loved by people.
Now Ritualist is the opposite case. It was traditionally a very strong and solid class backed up by tons of vit meaning you never die. After the vit nerfs it lost a lot of its power and while still solid, I remember seeing a some complaints and data about Ritualist falling off. But I think the remaining solidity of the class made a lot of people still put it on their top 10 lists, albeit not at the top part for most of them.
10. Death Knight - Frequency rank 8, Mean rank 18
One of the most commonly recommended beginner class and it’s not a surprise this makes into the list, tho I think the 10th spot is pretty low. This is one of those classes that can never go wrong and is always solid tho. It was this way since its release in AoM and will probably continue to be like this until the end of the GD lifetime.
Closing
I can say most of the classes that were included were there as expected, except for Warder and Warlock which made waves. This shows the tastes of some of the community that we might not care about the best classes and whatnot, but still acknowledge that some of them are just at the top.
This thread itself is not yet finished, and every class can use at least one sample build which I’ll have to put later. I’m not too updated with some of the classes tho so I’d take some recommendations from you guys as to what builds I’ll put here, both levelling and endgame builds.
Also, if you haven’t submitted a list on the previous thread (or I missed your list) then just tell me in that thread and I can update this thread. If things get shaken up then a second article might happen too, especially since stuff like Saboteur got some love this patch.
Thanks to everyone who contributed and to everyone who read this!
