[Rendar]

As the thread name suggests. What do you think is the 'strongest' base class, and why?

I'm mostly curious, and wanting to see if people actively avoid classes that are broken. (Like how I try to avoid MA/Duelist because they're so strong).

Put your vote/why down below!

[MegaBlues]

Duelist: Fleur. An extra action each turn. Turns dodging into more damage.

Martial Artist: Infinite sustain, high mobility with no drawbacks. Innate DR rivaling actual tank class defenses. High dodge.

[Lolzytripd]

rogues, best scalings in the game, summoners, because youkai (like really try fighting one without aoes on a hit/crit build.

[Slydria]

Depends on what metric we're talking for strongest:

If we're talking raw damage then duelist will easily win this on just the merit that it has Fleur giving them that extra attack, but on top of that, it also has passive bonuses that further increase potential damage like One-on-One, Flottement, Elangreve, Riposte and Poise, as well as the versatility that it's Offensive Skills provide.

However, if we're talking all around then I think Martial Artist would edge them out. It has good damage options (Geldoren, Heaven Kick), great utility (Meditate, Cleanse Body), massive range and mobility (Shukuchi + the Combinations with HK and Geldoren) and can be built for evade or defense.

It's no wonder that Duelist/MA is one of the most popular combos for classes these days.

[Rendar]

That's mostly why I made this poll Sly. To get a metric of why people like these classes over the other ones. They have their own niche, yes, but MA and Duelist are by far the strongest classes (base wise) in the game.

I was just trying to get a feel for how others feel on the matter. I'll probably make a thread later for both base classes to get feedback on how the classes should change, for the better. Or if they should stay as strong as they are and others brought to their level.

[Lolzytripd]

I think martial artists and duelists strengths are subjective, they are the back bones of their promotions, thats fine.

Soldier doesn't shine that well, but all of its skills are usable, and its passives and innates are appreciated, however ALL of soldiers promotions standout with features that outshine most other promotions in sheer uniqueness or ownership of an archetype, heavy armor =BK, Demonhunter is lulz, and tactician is simply amazing at its role as a support class.

Mage and curate are straight forward aswell, but servicable, and provide utility for their promotions, which once again include some of the most toxic and straight up damaging abilities in the game.

Archer works fine for what it is, sure it should include more gun support in the base class, but that can change in time, all of archers promos have unique feels.

Summoner is toxic, a strong summoner with a good get up , with either a tank or healing based subclass is pretty much going to win any 1v1.

Rogues once again is a great base full of utility, that all of the unique rogue promotions can make adequate use of.

With the exception of boxers, (who flat out want to never use their martial artist active skills if the can get away with it), Verglas and monk rely alot more on their martial artist skills since they cost much less fp (verg) or don't eat their precious Ki.

Duelist is even worse, Ghosts and kensei both go about basically just steroiding up the base duelist class with more of the same.

[Autumn]

Martial artist and duelist both have insanely strong passives and innates, alongside some of the most mobile skills in the game (heaven kick and sidecut) that they really always have prescense in a fight, on any turn they can usually walk up to someone hit them and perform another action.

For this reason I think that Martial Artist and Duelist are strong in their own right, but mage is absolutely phenominal with what it can do in its promotions, not only that but mage itself provides some of the best tanky builds in the game due to the stats that astral belt + 1 enchant can provide.

The reason Martial Artist and Duelist are so strong is because of multipliers, and the reason that mage is really strong is because of stat efficiency, duelists and MAs are picked for more often (either with eachother, or mage) because they're some of the most fun classes to play in the game, especially martial artist.

Not only that but they're pretty easy, Martial Artist requires as little thinking as possible, you just have so much mobility that you don't need to think about your game plan, you have innates that give you tankiness and kip up, so your job is just to mindlessly whack your opponent with little regard to what class they're running.

Duelist is a little harder but all the knowledge it needs is target selection, otherwise a 2h sword will carry you insanely far due to voltiger.

[Ranylyn]

Although I feel that EVERY base class is powerful in it's own way, there really is a definite scale of ones that are objectively superior to others.


Duelist is definitely at the top for a combination of Fleur, good attacks, Poise, One-On-One, and the like. Flottement is also good at moving it away from a potential double attack if the first attack is evaded, and it's skills are monsters for positioning, like using Cyclone Spear to pull enemies into Sidecut/Silcut range. An extra attack on a crit, combined with bonus crit, is beastly, and makes Duelist a good option to slap on to a number of class combos that use basic attacks, even if they don't use swords or spears.

I think Rogue is actually at the bottom. Although their promotions get some really neat tools, the Rogue itself mainly only has Winds and Traps. Dagger dance is nifty and offers more chances for crits, but it also locks them out of using Fleur, since both are main class skills. They're not bad at all; they're quite good, but they lack the utility of a lot of other classes, and don't have amazing synergy with enchantments or any of that good stuff. They're much more direct with the "Buff and Shank" approach. That's not a bad thing; they ARE good. It's just a limiting playstyle that can leave them more vulnerable than classes like Duelist.

[Rendar]

(PS: you can select 2 classes for your faves)

I think Spoops brings up one of my major issues with MA in it's current state, so I'll just list MY reasons for picking MA/Duelist!

You don't have to think. Got knocked down and shoved away? Kip up > shukuchi > heaven kick / geldon > PUNISH.

Immobilized? Cleanse Body > Shukuchi > Heaven's kick

No one can get away from you, at all. You have a lot of passive evade, which makes auto-hits all the more likely to deal less to you. Not only that, but basic attacks have a harder time hitting you. Throw in good passive DR, hit, kip up.. and all around every single option that it gives you, without having a general 'bad' area. (Hell, it has guard break too, so it can specifically break your shit). It got nerfed a bit in the past. Shukuchi got hit, Meditate got hit, Kip up got a slight hit (mostly to deal with Turtle Shell shenanigans).

The class is still in a very good spot. Mobility is key in SL2. Being able to move AND attack is a major game changer. Especially whenever you can get +MOV and get a good area of the screen covered by your movement for things such as Shukuchi > Die maneuvers. I feel if Heaven's Kick got a small hit to be MOV / 2 Range (Min: Rank * 1), it would see a lot of more counterplay being possible. Or for Shukuchi to be 'expended' after using movement.. but I digress.

All in all, Martial Artist is a fantastic base class because of the passives/innates that it provides, with REALLY good base class actives as well, throwing into the fact that Monk (since rework) and Boxer are still REALLY fucking strong. Verglas is the awkward cousin of the two, because of it's poor ability to chain with itself (due to high fp costs) and just it's very poor damage overall.

[Inconspicuous Kitty]

I was debating between Summoner, Martial Artist, and Duelist for my two picks, then I realized we were talking base classes and threw Summoner and the Mage I was about to say out the window. It'll have to be Martial Artist and Duelist for me - however, Martial Artist takes the cake.

Duelist generally fit's a niche. Crits and hitting hard. It does it's thing well, slinging yourself all over an opponent. That doesn't make it any less powerful.

I believe that Martial Artist, however - fills too many roles, too well. We're talking about direct power in general, here, so we're probably not going to see many Curate votes, which fills the role of 'healing' and not power; Archer's the sniper, Rogue's the thing that gets behind you and pops you for 400.

Duelist slings yourself across the enemy for that, similarly, thanks to Fleur. Most of these are dodgy critters. An additional 3m is wonderful to have.

Martial Artist... er.. uh...
It smacks hard (most chosen fists scale highl), has some amazing movement (Shukuchi, Heaven Kick), tanks well, (Urawaza Meditate, Weathered Body), dodges well (+20 evade, perhaps +40 if you get the bow passive), and gets some high power in self-utility (Cleanse Body, Kip Up). It doesn't exactly fill a niche; it has no real 'direct' intent, as far as I can tell, so it does everything all around. Which is fine, but it has a /lot/ of room to move with it. You'll still generally need a focus, of course, but if you want my personal opinion, the utility it has makes it the strongest - Shukuchi, Meditate, Kip-up, and Cleanse Body. I feel like some of the other things are fine as they are.