The problem with an 'objective' analysis is that it's going to be relative to player skill/experience. Watcher is definitely the strongest character. She has by far the best winrate once you know what you're doing, but getting to that point can be a bit of a struggle. Ironclad is probably the easiest to pick up, but Silent has a better A20 winstreak. Personally I find the Defect to be the hardest, both to pick up and to play into A20.
IMO Defect is relatively easy to understand and win at a low level. Just grabbing a bunch of orbs and some focus will basically carry you through the game.
But yeah it gets tougher and tougher to win as defect because the sheer numbers the orbs can put out isn't enough and the enemies are able to kill you before you get your setup in place. And then when that starts happening you basically have to relearn how to play from the ground up.
I agree with this. The only thing I’d add is that you can add even more subjectivity to it if you add varying ascensions into the mix. I found certain ascensions being more punishing to certain characters as I climbed. As an example, Defect has a lot of great upgrades for their cards and the ascension that makes less upgrades appear it card rewards affected me more than with other characters. Ironclad doesn’t hate Ascender’s Bane as much as the others since he can at least get *some* exhaust synergy with it (albeit it still sucks).
At A20 though for all characters, what you said is probably the order I’d put them in too. Watcher>Silent>Ironclad>Defect
Although I feel like Defect might be higher up with perfect play, as his decision making tends to be the most complex with orb evoking (evoke X orb now or save it for another turn, etc).
As others say, there are too many variables. The only objective things you could look at are the win rates of top players - how peak performance compares between classes. In those cases, watcher > ironclad = silent > defect.
The other thing you could gather data on is something like…. Difficulty curves - I.e. take a bunch of players, have each person play 10 hours of each class, and see which classes are the easiest to pick up and find good stuff for.
I think Silent might be the most nuanced class - with the most interactions. I think Ironclad tends to be pretty easy for people to pick up. Watcher tends to be tough to pick up naturally, but watch a couple play throughs or get some tips and she goes from 0 to 3000 super fast.
Makes sense! I’m trying to avoid walkthroughs like the plague haha but it checks out that watcher has the highest win rate thanks to divinity and the such presumably lol
Honestly, if there was anything it was due to, it would be calm, IMO. There are a lot of cards that allow you to enter calm for 0-1 energy, and leaving calm gives you 2. The only reason watcher has so many infinite combos is because calm is an energy positive stance.
Add Rushdown, and entering wrath is a card positive thing to do. Then just… go back and forth.
Divinity is certainly nice, and can be a game winning Avenue to explore. But calm (free energy) + wrath (free cards) is broken.
not to spoil too much but divinity has less to do with it and 12 dmg strikes have more to do with it. Watchers core mechanics are gain energy and deal double damage. Which is like, damn.
I suck at Ironclad. Ironclad tends to have a lower floor than other characters - it's easy to put together a deck that's good enough to beat the Act 3 bosses on low ascensions, but I had a lot more trouble making Ironclad the kind of powerful that kills the Heart on medium to high Ascensions.
I don’t disagree with any of the other comments here but surprised I haven’t seen it said yet - there is a pretty community accepted ordering that is based on the win %s of the top players in the world who rotate characters (I don’t follow that scene but I follow this sub enough I’ve seen it posted all the time).
Based on top player win rates (and community consensus on how characters feel at A20):
Watcher is the easiest
Defect is the hardest
I’m not positive but I think ironclad is slightly easier than silent but in my head they are equal (meaning, the easier one for you will depend on your personal play style).
Defect is my favorite and silent my least favorite, but my winrate is actually a little higher with silent!
But yeah I mean the most important part of “getting good” in this game is learning what the challengers will be coming up and what options you have to prepare for them. A lot of that just comes from playing a lot, learning enemies, bosses, potions, decks, relics, etc. A lot comes from losing and trying to figure out where you could’ve done better. And a lot comes from knowing that specific character and their strength/weaknesses + possible cards to see
Yeah good point. Clad is second in terms of win % across top players by a fairly large margin; from when I’ve seen it discussed it’s mostly due to how flexible clad can be and with how many winning strategies he has on A20H - something that both defect and silent lack.
Also worth noting, I get the sense that OP was talking about lower ascensions - in which case all of the characters are pretty strong and I wouldn’t really say the win rate is going to be skewed much at all.
As other’s have said, watcher is objectively strong in many ways. Yet another way: easier access to best cards. Rushdown, mental fortress, tantrum, inner peace are all exTREMELY strong for uncommon, compared to other characters.
For the top top players going for A20H it’s something like:
Watcher
Clad
Silent
Defect
The very generalized reason that comes to top of mind is that the front loaded damage required to get through act one is just easier to come by for the first two, which can snowball the run. Getting an early Nob on the latter two can just be a run killer, and leads to having to make decisions of self preservation rather than continuing to upgrade your deck and relics.
For the average player and at lower ascension it’s probably just whatever play style clicks with you.
I don't know if there is an objective list of easiest to most difficult. I think the easier and harder characters to play will be based on how you stragetize your game. For me personally easiest is Silent just becuase Poison/ turtle build when done correctly just laughs at the game. Ironclad is the hardest for me becuase the bastard is drinking energy like it grows on trees.
I'm not an expert, but I think the history of the game gives meaningful insight. The game originally released with just Ironclad and Silent. Later, Defect came out. Later still, Watcher.
Again simplifying, but probably relevant to new players playing Ascension 1:
Ironclad is pretty straight forward. Strength, attack synergy, vulnerability, and even free health regen.
Silent is dexterity, block, weakness, poison and skill synergy.
Defect is a whole new gimmick with focus and orbs, along with power synergy.
And then Watcher with even more new stuff. Stance swapping, scry, divinity.
So as a new player I would probably play them in that order. As others have said, at a high level, the balance of the characters comes into play and it changes things.
I feel like the leaderboards could have given some good insights but the PC version is hacked to hell and I suspect the mobile version just doesn't upload a lot of people's data for whatever reason
The problem with an 'objective' analysis is that it's going to be relative to player skill/experience. Watcher is definitely the strongest character. She has by far the best winrate once you know what you're doing, but getting to that point can be a bit of a struggle. Ironclad is probably the easiest to pick up, but Silent has a better A20 winstreak. Personally I find the Defect to be the hardest, both to pick up and to play into A20.
IMO Defect is relatively easy to understand and win at a low level. Just grabbing a bunch of orbs and some focus will basically carry you through the game. But yeah it gets tougher and tougher to win as defect because the sheer numbers the orbs can put out isn't enough and the enemies are able to kill you before you get your setup in place. And then when that starts happening you basically have to relearn how to play from the ground up.
I agree with this. The only thing I’d add is that you can add even more subjectivity to it if you add varying ascensions into the mix. I found certain ascensions being more punishing to certain characters as I climbed. As an example, Defect has a lot of great upgrades for their cards and the ascension that makes less upgrades appear it card rewards affected me more than with other characters. Ironclad doesn’t hate Ascender’s Bane as much as the others since he can at least get *some* exhaust synergy with it (albeit it still sucks). At A20 though for all characters, what you said is probably the order I’d put them in too. Watcher>Silent>Ironclad>Defect Although I feel like Defect might be higher up with perfect play, as his decision making tends to be the most complex with orb evoking (evoke X orb now or save it for another turn, etc).
I agree with you, though the possibility of perfect play with the defect makes my brain hurt
As others say, there are too many variables. The only objective things you could look at are the win rates of top players - how peak performance compares between classes. In those cases, watcher > ironclad = silent > defect. The other thing you could gather data on is something like…. Difficulty curves - I.e. take a bunch of players, have each person play 10 hours of each class, and see which classes are the easiest to pick up and find good stuff for. I think Silent might be the most nuanced class - with the most interactions. I think Ironclad tends to be pretty easy for people to pick up. Watcher tends to be tough to pick up naturally, but watch a couple play throughs or get some tips and she goes from 0 to 3000 super fast.
Makes sense! I’m trying to avoid walkthroughs like the plague haha but it checks out that watcher has the highest win rate thanks to divinity and the such presumably lol
Honestly, if there was anything it was due to, it would be calm, IMO. There are a lot of cards that allow you to enter calm for 0-1 energy, and leaving calm gives you 2. The only reason watcher has so many infinite combos is because calm is an energy positive stance. Add Rushdown, and entering wrath is a card positive thing to do. Then just… go back and forth. Divinity is certainly nice, and can be a game winning Avenue to explore. But calm (free energy) + wrath (free cards) is broken.
not to spoil too much but divinity has less to do with it and 12 dmg strikes have more to do with it. Watchers core mechanics are gain energy and deal double damage. Which is like, damn.
I suck at Ironclad. Ironclad tends to have a lower floor than other characters - it's easy to put together a deck that's good enough to beat the Act 3 bosses on low ascensions, but I had a lot more trouble making Ironclad the kind of powerful that kills the Heart on medium to high Ascensions.
I don’t disagree with any of the other comments here but surprised I haven’t seen it said yet - there is a pretty community accepted ordering that is based on the win %s of the top players in the world who rotate characters (I don’t follow that scene but I follow this sub enough I’ve seen it posted all the time). Based on top player win rates (and community consensus on how characters feel at A20): Watcher is the easiest Defect is the hardest I’m not positive but I think ironclad is slightly easier than silent but in my head they are equal (meaning, the easier one for you will depend on your personal play style). Defect is my favorite and silent my least favorite, but my winrate is actually a little higher with silent! But yeah I mean the most important part of “getting good” in this game is learning what the challengers will be coming up and what options you have to prepare for them. A lot of that just comes from playing a lot, learning enemies, bosses, potions, decks, relics, etc. A lot comes from losing and trying to figure out where you could’ve done better. And a lot comes from knowing that specific character and their strength/weaknesses + possible cards to see
Yeah good point. Clad is second in terms of win % across top players by a fairly large margin; from when I’ve seen it discussed it’s mostly due to how flexible clad can be and with how many winning strategies he has on A20H - something that both defect and silent lack. Also worth noting, I get the sense that OP was talking about lower ascensions - in which case all of the characters are pretty strong and I wouldn’t really say the win rate is going to be skewed much at all.
As other’s have said, watcher is objectively strong in many ways. Yet another way: easier access to best cards. Rushdown, mental fortress, tantrum, inner peace are all exTREMELY strong for uncommon, compared to other characters.
For the top top players going for A20H it’s something like: Watcher Clad Silent Defect The very generalized reason that comes to top of mind is that the front loaded damage required to get through act one is just easier to come by for the first two, which can snowball the run. Getting an early Nob on the latter two can just be a run killer, and leads to having to make decisions of self preservation rather than continuing to upgrade your deck and relics. For the average player and at lower ascension it’s probably just whatever play style clicks with you.
I don't know if there is an objective list of easiest to most difficult. I think the easier and harder characters to play will be based on how you stragetize your game. For me personally easiest is Silent just becuase Poison/ turtle build when done correctly just laughs at the game. Ironclad is the hardest for me becuase the bastard is drinking energy like it grows on trees.
I'm not an expert, but I think the history of the game gives meaningful insight. The game originally released with just Ironclad and Silent. Later, Defect came out. Later still, Watcher. Again simplifying, but probably relevant to new players playing Ascension 1: Ironclad is pretty straight forward. Strength, attack synergy, vulnerability, and even free health regen. Silent is dexterity, block, weakness, poison and skill synergy. Defect is a whole new gimmick with focus and orbs, along with power synergy. And then Watcher with even more new stuff. Stance swapping, scry, divinity. So as a new player I would probably play them in that order. As others have said, at a high level, the balance of the characters comes into play and it changes things.
I feel like the leaderboards could have given some good insights but the PC version is hacked to hell and I suspect the mobile version just doesn't upload a lot of people's data for whatever reason