Which would you say is the hardest class to play ?

**Pete Mack** · March 21, 2021, 16:29

You are missing 4 classes, so I don't know which version you are talking about.

**Sky** · March 21, 2021, 17:05

Originally posted by Pete Mack

You are missing 4 classes, so I don't know which version you are talking about.

.. of the "traditional" Angband. It's been twenty years with 6 classes, i think we can wait a little longer before we start adding druids and blackguards.

**Pete Mack** · March 21, 2021, 17:07

Right. But in 3.0 the answer is probably different from 4.1
And I am not really sure there is one real answer even then. Maybe priest? It is such a drag to get started.

**Estie** · March 21, 2021, 17:38

What, priest is the easiest. A sling of power gets you to orb and then some.

The answer to the question is its a matter of preference. There are people who won with warriors but have difficulties with mages and vice versa.

For me, its probably ranger. Arrow management quickly depletes my reserves for precise play so when the situation calls for more I am not inclined to maintain focus and might play sloppily.

**Selkie** · March 21, 2021, 17:47

I think druid is hardest, but I'm not allowed to vote druid.

STOP THE COUNT!

**malcontent** · March 21, 2021, 17:50

Voted, but my real answer is Necromancer and/or Blackguard as those are the only two I haven't won with. Been trying for the last week or so with Necromancer, might have to give it a rest and come back - frustrating - early and even mid game has limited offensive options with low SP - even with a long bow of power there are times where I miss 5 times in a row :/

**DudeMan** · March 21, 2021, 18:21

For me it is the ranger. On paper it is very powefull but I keep dying no matter what. My most over the top damage dealers have been rangers but still somehow I manage to do something really stoopid like for example dying.

**Pete Mack** · March 21, 2021, 18:33

In earlier versions, ranger is the easiest. You start with a longbow, and enchant to_dam scrolls are readily available in the alchemist. At CL 26, your starting bow is x x3 (+4,+7) with two shots, assuming you haven't found better

**Selkie** · March 21, 2021, 23:47

Originally posted by malcontent

Voted, but my real answer is Necromancer and/or Blackguard as those are the only two I haven't won with. Been trying for the last week or so with Necromancer, might have to give it a rest and come back - frustrating - early and even mid game has limited offensive options with low SP - even with a long bow of power there are times where I miss 5 times in a row :/

Blackguard is one of the easiest. If you can grind through the early/mid game then in the late game you are so powerful. Apart from a mage, I'd say blackguard is one of the strongest classes in 4.2.1 (not tried 4.2.2 and I understand there have been some alterations and I'm not sure if they're for better or worse). I recently posted a screen shot of the damage output my bloodlusted clvl 50 blackguard could deal in a single round and it was 4,244 - I think it might be a vanilla record

**Sky** · March 22, 2021, 00:02

for me the hardest class is the ranger. Here is why.

There is no problem in finding a longbow of power, or a decent accuracy. Yes ok you will get your ranged damage.

You suck at everything until well into CL40. Mediocre mana, bad fail rates (even with high initial INT), almost crippling reliance on consumables, and nothing special to rely on. And you need TONS of experience.

Then once you get that TO fail rate down, stats start getting capped, you will then be able to mow down uniques for breakfast, but it's sooo hard to get there, because it's just so long to get there.

By comparison.

A CL23 / 25 priest (depending on stats) can pretty much just nuke everything with Orb, and Portal out when things go bad. By CL30 you have enough stats/mana to be pretty much unkillable, unless you reeeeaaly go looking for it.

Warriors are super-easy to get to CL20, all they need is a dagger and as many potions of cure wounds they can carry. Many will die between 20 and 40, but once you get those resists / sustains up, job's done, it's just a matter of grinding ?Ban ?MBan *Heal.

Paladins are not so easy to get to the point where they do enough melee damage AND also be able to cast, they tend to fail around DL30. Once they can push out 2/3 Heal per battle there is nothing that can stop you.

Mages are difficult to level up, even more than priests, but if they manage to get to Banishment, the game becomes trivial. AND you will have access to as many artifats / consumables as you want. On top of this, mages have enough tools to just avoid uniques entirely, with tons of cheap TO, Rift, and LOS-abusing ball spells.

Rogues are similar to rangers, except they suck a little less at everything. And the spells they really need are just Detect Objects, and Phase. CL30 -> 40 is still difficult, but faster.
TBH not a class i have a lot of experience with.

**bughunter** · March 22, 2021, 03:38

I'm not as experienced in Angband as a lot of players here, but I see my vote was also for the current leader, Ranger.

I used to play exclusively Mage, for years, regardless of roguelike. Because magic. And it took me over a decade before I got my first victory/ascension/whatever.

Lately, out of curiosity, I've been trying out all the classes, and Necromancer and Blackguard are the only two I haven't played yet. And because I've found Mage to be so easy in Angband that it becomes boring.

Warriors almost so, but the lack of spell ability and high failure rates keeps it interesting.

Rogues and Paladins are fun changes of pace and I first took out Morgoth with a gnome rogue. (Of course, he had a massive beatstick randart that did insane melee damage, and the mental image of a short guy beating on Morgoth with a buck-and-a-quarterstaff twice as long as he was will make Rogue a favorite from now on.)

I'm leveling another Paladin now (this will make four starts in a week) and I do recall getting down to the 90's with a paladin and clearing out graveyards, but I don't remember beating Morgoth... either because it was too easy or because it was just unmemorable.

I haven't beaten Morgoth with a Druid or Priest, either, not for a lack of trying. But also, I've only played a few @ of the former class, and haven't played the latter in a long, LONG time. I do recall the priest being very survivable in midgame but not having the punch to take out the higher level uniques... but also it was so long ago that both the game and the player are different now.

That leaves Ranger. I love the ranger. I like the idea of a missile-oriented class. I've been playing them a lot lately. Unfortunately, I can't get past about DL80 with one, their damage doesn't scale up enough. I have to keep going back to town for consumables, praying they have what I need other than Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0). Plus the inventory becomes cramped with both spellbooks and stacks of arrows. And the ranger doesn't have the mana or spell speed to sling arcane DPS like a mage.

The thing that invariably kills my Rangers are gangs of uniques or high level undead.

Perhaps I haven't found the necessary tactics... I confess I am saving my Banishment, Destruction and other end fight consumables rather than using them.

But I don't seem to be alone in finding Ranger harder than the rest.

**PowerWyrm** · March 22, 2021, 07:57

No idea. Mages are a joke, I won with egoless bookless mage before. Rangers are almost as easy once you get a good bow. Priests you die before level 7 or you have already won. Paladins are just warriors with heal. Leaves warrior and rogue, first is just a matter of enough consumables. Probably rogue then.

**Selkie** · March 22, 2021, 08:45

Talking about 4.2.1

During the first, second and third national lockdowns I decided to try to win Angband with every single class (I picked what I thought would be the best race for each).

He's my list from easiest to hardest

Mage - so easy, so powerful. In fact, a high level mage was so Godlike I had to play two games consecutive just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. By 45 I think you're unkillable, any death is suicide.

Blackguard - once I understood the mechanics then blackguard became very powerful. I had a randart mace of disruption with seven blows. At the end of the game I was delivering over 4,000 damage points a round in melee. There are slightly unpredictable things about a blackguard, in particular the tendency to lash out when really you want to run, and on two occasions I technically died but bloodlust kept me alive in minus HP

Priest - a bit like a mage in the sense it felt unkillable by the end game. The healing spell spam was a bit boring though. I prefer just mass banishing everybody rather than tanking and healing.

Warrior - not much to say, a hack and slash hard nut. I don't enjoy playing warriors because I like utility spells.

Paladin - this was easy but I got really bored. (Same with the priest). I had to really force myself to play during that end game gear grind. Plus I had a couple of single combat crashes which put me off using that spell.

Rogue - I love playing stealthy rogues and diving way beyond sensible depths with a wand of magic mapping. I'll stair spam for stat potions and treasure and work out the best route through the danger. It's tense and exciting play. Rogues don't get any really powerful spells, TO and detect treasure are their greatest assets. They're pretty good fighters and a decent randart and it's not too hard.

Necromancer - I didn't win with a necromancer but I got deep into the game. I enjoyed it a lot and am sure I will win eventually. There is a point in the game that seems to last forever though where you're unable to harm undead or evil creatures (even things like trolls and large kobolds are a nightmare). I got unlucky with randarts in this game and had to push my luck a bit too far.

Ranger - it had been a while since I'd played as a ranger and in the old days they used to be so easy that I never played them - all those extra shots were so OP. Well it's not OP anymore. I was really shocked when I discovered how few shots I could get from a randart bow with +5 extra shots. Most of the time I was using melee. Once I'd gotten my head around decoy spell things got easier. Decoy does occasionally cause some strange effects that almost paralyse the unique. I lied to myself and said it wasn't cheating and killed a couple this way. The lack of a decent healing spell is a real loss to the this class, I'd assumed herbal healing would also recover 300-500HP and was shocked to discover it was only useful for curing black breath.

Druid - I found this class the hardest. Haven't won with a druid yet and never really got my head around shape changing. It's a bit of a palaver changing into a bear, fighting, changing back to a dunadan quaffing a potion, changing back to a bear. The early and mid game was so tough and fighting monsters that had resistance to lightning was very tough. I'll return to the class at some point to try to win, but I found it very grindy and stressful. I did love being able to restore all my stats and XP, this was very liberating.

**Adam** · March 22, 2021, 09:46

Based on 4.1.3 and ealier, i voted rangers.
They probably just do not fit my style. Usually I had problems starting from DL40 where summoners (like Medusa) started to pop up and i couldn't control the summons. With rangers I tried to kill from distance but when summons block the way it's hard. I also don't play with ASC so that's not a solution for me.

Which would you say is the hardest class to play ?