Your Top 5 Classes (in order)

[Pumpernickel]

Necromancers don't get as many PP's as wizards, if I recall correctly.
Mine ended the game with only 500. The wizard, on the other hand,
had something close to 1050. There was a bit of a mana stat difference,
but it's hard for me to believe 14 mana points would increase your PP's
by 543.

I suspect some of this was due to humans getting generally fewer PP than those pansy elves, and the mana stat difference must've been quite big, methinks. I have two wizard winners, with ~660 pp each, and two necros, one of which had 550 pp, while the other was close to 900.

Not that it mattered much - once my characters have over 100pp, their capacity for blowing stuff up with magic depends mostly on the presence of the concentration skill - maxed skill gives about 60pp per 100 turns. That's 10 frost bolts or 15 magic missiles. Casting enough spells to run out of mana is usually limited to CoC_50, regardless of max pp rating, particularly since most chars will enter that level with just the mana they've collected in the time that passed since dropping the mana orb.

[dai]

My top 3 would be:

1. Priest
2. Beastfighter
3. Elementalist

As far as I can remember, these are the only classes I've won the game with. My next two would be:

4. Barbarian
5. Wizard

[Dorten]

My ones:

1. Beastfighter. I just love the idea
2. Healer. Also - idea
3. Farmer. My first win
4. Thief. My second win
5. Archer. Yay, powerhouse!

[vogonpoet]

We are talking easy wins right?

1. Archer. I don't get all these people saying they become overpowered in the mid-late game. Create human archer, go straight to Terinyo, successfully slay everyone on 2nd/3rd attempt. Try to repeat with any other class. Archers are overpowered from the word go. Maybe even before then.

2. Wizards.

3. Beastfighters

4. Mindcrafters

5. Barbarians

[Jack the Ripper]

We are talking easy wins right?

1. Archer. I don't get all these people saying they become overpowered in the mid-late game. Archers are overpowered from the word go. Maybe even before then.

In mid-late game you find lots of slaying ammo, shoot ammo with less energy expended in the process and can make a gazillion arrows/quarrels using a fletchery set. You also find some armour, which means you can laugh (and shoot) in a monster's face while it's hitting you, since it will probably miss or fail to hurt you.

[grobblewobble]

> shoot ammo with less energy expended in the process

This is the primary reason imho. Look at the level 25 class power: missile shots cost 600% energy. Add in that the character also receives the Quick Shot and Lightning Shot talents, both reducing energy cost by a further 10%. Add energy reduction from ranged weapon skills. Archers become the medieval fantasy version of machine guns.

[Soirana]

missile shots cost 600% energy. Add in that the character also receives the Quick Shot and Lightning Shot talents, both reducing energy cost by a further 10%. Add energy reduction from ranged weapon skills. Archers become the medieval fantasy version of machine guns.

I've experemnted on these while ago. Actually there seems to be lower limit [do not recall exact value something like 1/3 norm{336?}] and you can not put it bellow.

Archer 60% [not 600] + skill at 13 or 14 actually caps in. Happens even faster with quick shot... Currently i would advocate not taking lightning shot on archer as it not available fast and in end game will probably be wasted talent.

just my two Lithuanian cents of Adom rumours.

[Captain Platypus]

1. Archers
2. Monks
3. Wizards
4. Mindcrafters
5. Weaponsmiths

This list is colored by my relative inexperience (I've been playing for 6 years off and on, but more off than on, and the closest I've come to an ultra was a Law UE drakeling monk that forgot to equip the TotRR for the last hit on AD) and the fact that I tend to do better with the classes I enjoy playing more. That said, justifications follow:

Archers (I tend to play high elves and gnomes) are absolute beasts. More missile damage than anyone has a right to, more missile attack speed than even they know what to do with, and they're decent magicians and melee fighters too. The most outrageous part, to me, is that for a class that can pretty much destroy anything but doppelganger kings without thinking twice about it in the lategame, they have a ridiculously easy early game. See something weak? Stabbity death via spear. See something strong? Shooty death via bow. See a doppelganger? Run.

Monks are similar to archers, but they trade the outrageous missile talents for the ability to get both Healing and Herbalism, a ridiculous movespeed, some extra crowd control (swap through the bastards), and the most awesome backup weapon known to man. The best part is that you don't even have to train unarmed fighting for it to get good; leveling up does that for you. You also don't need to worry about finding decent armor or shields (though this means you can't benefit from really really good ones), let alone smithing them up. Finally, you're a natural DV tank who becomes practically unhittable late in the game, especially if you fight defensively with dual-wielded polearms...And just to make things even better, you don't need to worry about food. Ever. The only reason I rank monks below archers is that the archers honestly do not need all the crazy bonuses to everything that monks get, because everything they see sprouts two or three arrows (at ridiculous +hit and +damage) for every square it moves towards them. They also have a harder time early simply due to the lack of a win button.

Wizards come in third for me because they gain immense magical power for the inability to do shit with weapons. Training a wizard to the polearm proficiency required to be halfway decent in melee is like training a dog to do semaphore. Yeah, you can just blast everything you see into oblivion, but one strange magical shock room at the wrong time and you'd better hope you have teleport in a wand, not just a book.

Mindcrafters are below wizards because, and only because, they can't get things like Strength of Atlas and Farsight, and don't get self-teleportation until ludicrously late. The undead weakness doesn't matter because you're actually competent in melee, the slow, level-dependent start doesn't matter because you have the ID and (if you feel like being slightly sleazy, which I always do) the Good Learner bug, and all you need to deal with killer bugs is some wands of fire and fireball.

Weaponsmiths are kind of my pet class, and it breaks my heart that no one else uses them - Glod training all PCs in smithing for no requirement at all is the worst thing to ever happen to the poor guys. That being said, there's still reasons to play them over other classes. The quadruple speed is awesome, especially when making ingots, as are the stat boosts and the free fire immunity. What really makes this class for me, though, are the crowning gifts. Any list that contains the bracers of war, the ring of immunity, hammer of the gods, Protector, and Skullcrusher is a list I'm half willing to play just for that. Of course, if I get Perion's plate mail, I often have to be dissuaded from seeking out an original way to seek charactercide.

[phauli]

1. Beastfighter
2. Archer
3. Barbarian
4. Assassin
5. Wizard

[zasvid]

1. Ranger (I have 4 wins with rangers and other classes have at most 1 and I even didn't try as much to play rangers as some others. Probably because they are second best archers, respectable melee, can learn some spells, have great utility skills.)

2. Archer (because slaying ammo is the most powerful method of killing stuff in adom and they would get along well enough without it anyway, they're that good. Still they might be fragile and have trouble coping in other situations that do not require killing things, which is why I prefer rangers)

3. Priest (better utility, defense and fighting ability than wizards makes you less prone to early death and deadly mistakes later on).

4. Wizard (too fragile early for my tastes to be considered easiest, even though their power grows very quickly to very high levels)

5. Barbarian (their unequaled power in smashing things and great crowning gifts make them quite straightforward to play in both early and late game).