Summary
- Alchemist is the hardest class with versatile skills but not worth the effort due to weak attacks.
- Bandit is the most enjoyable and challenging class with powerful shotgun shots that require micro skills.
- Archer is the best class overall, offering a variety of strong upgrade options for devastating attacks.
Talented is an indie synergistic theorycrafting experience that strips away pesky elements like plot, characters, and traversal for an almost pure buildmaking experience. There are 500 talents to choose from in the game in procedurally generated skill trees, across six character classes.
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In addition to having unique starting stats and means of attack, each of these characters have talents exclusive to them, granting them their own wildly unique ways to mow down enemies and defend themselves. So which one of these are the best at knocking down foes and running their way up the increasingly difficult masteries? Here they are, ranked.
6
Alchemist
The Alchemist is the last class you’ll unlock and, unfortunately, it’s the worst. It’s a shame because it has some genuinely cool elements. Unlike the other classes, the Alchemist crafts their skills by picking ingredients on the stump or boot talents. These ingredients are used to craft a variety of potions at cauldron talents, which function as skills.
Each of these skills has a limited number, and when they run out, the skill goes away. While these skills allow for great flexibility, the juice ultimately isn’t worth the squeeze as you spend too many points on the Talent tree for skills that are on par with what the Wizard unlocks for the whole run. Combined with a weak, short ranged (albeit penetrating) attack and Rune traps that require a spell cast to activate, the Alchemist is basically Talented’s hard mode.
5
Bandit
Based on enjoyability alone and not effectiveness, the Bandit is number one, having the coolest mechanical gameplay of any class. The Bandit uses a shotgun, which fires multiple projectiles, giving it the highest per-shot damage in the game. This is hampered by the fact that you only get three shots before entering a lengthy reload, during which you’re vulnerable to attack.
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The same way that Alchemist is the most macro-intensive class in the game, the Bandit forces you to refine your micro-skills to stay alive. Knowing which mobs to shoot, and how many shots it takes is an important to know, lest you end up reloading as multiple monsters bearing down on you. Gold, found randomly on enemies or generated by Coin Flip kills, is an important resource to balance. It’s used to power-scale at shop nodes, but they are also spent on skills in combat.
4
Warrior
The Warrior can take some getting used to, since it’s got the shortest starting range of any class, forcing you to let enemies get close to be able to kill them. This is balanced out by having above-average attack damage and attack speed.
Warrior build options are surprisingly flexible, letting you lean into your strengths by empowering your basic attacks, or shoring up your weaknesses by passively throwing weapons around, or becoming large and doing both. The Warrior’s general talents focus on durability, attack damage, knockback,and attack speed. Getting these are even more necessary than it normally is for the other classes, given the short range the Warrior fights in. However, they also generate more rage, their main resource, when they’re hit.
3
Summoner
The living embodiment of ‘Slow and steady wins the race’, the Summoner sends their minions down the lanes to smash into the opposition. While slow, they’ll always make it to the end of the path unless intercepted, so range is never an issue.
The Summoner’s default attack is to send snails, but skills allow you to increase your menagerie to slimes and ghost dogs as well. They also have a subset of skills that summon and empower gravestones that in addition to possible upgrades, also block the lanes temporarily. The Summoner’s biggest downfall is that it’s not always clear if you’re scaling well into later nights. Every night could be trivial in difficulty, but the next one could catch you off guard and kill you.
2
Wizard
The Wizard is about what you’d expect and is all the more powerful for it. Their skills and talents have a lot of variation and are all pretty potent, leveraging ice, lightning, and fire to apply status effects. In addition to some of the most powerful skills in the game, the Wizard can also gain orbs that orbit the battlefield, passively damaging enemies that they run into.
This is mitigated somewhat by the Wizard’s short-range, low fire-rate attack, which makes mid-game a bit of a hump. But even this weakness can be turned into strength with upgrades that turn you into a short-range arcane machine gun, spitting status effects down lane without even using your skills.
1
Archer
Unfortunately, sometimes the first solution is also the most effective. Right out the gate, you already have the best class unlocked. Now to be fair, it takes a few mastery levels to get there, with some of the other classes being better right out of the box. But a few successful games and no other classes ever hold a candle to the mighty Archer.
While it’s unlocked first, at least it’s not a boring class, arguably boasting more viable upgrade options than the other classes. The simplest choice is to simply pump attack speed, attack power, and range to spray the lanes with arrows. However, you can also invest in skills that orbit the level with deadly arrows. Most ridiculously, you can also spec into homing missiles that blow enemies into smithereens.
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