Hello, I’m just here to give my thoughts on each of the currently playable characters, and their viability. Have I done this before? Yes I have, twice. So why I am doing this a third time? 3 reasons. The first being that it’s been quite a while since the last time, with 2 new characters being released who weren’t back then. Second, since it’s been a while, I’ve learned more, and have more knowledge about ETD and it’s characters in general. Third, I kinda just enjoy spreading my thoughts about this game. Eat The Dungeon is probably my favourite game on this site, and by far the game that I have the most hours into.
Similarly to before, this is based entirely on my own opinion, and is not meant to insult who thinks differently from me, or disagrees with me in any way, shape, or form.
Thief - Base Stats:
Power: 1
Speed: 0.4 sec
Thief is a very fast single targeting characted who can attack targets rather quickly, and efficiently, with the attacking types of weapon, and sneak. Currently tied with Spellblade for being the fastest character, Thief has been in the game since the very beginning, and has held up well. For me, her main issue is her competition with Spellblade. Generally, I find Spellblade to be the better option between the 2, with being able to deal magic damage to be able attack more total enemies. However, Thief’s access to sneak means that Thief will never be completely be outdone by Spellblade for the levels that need it, and Thief is currently the only fast option for Sneak damage. One more thing that’s worth mentioning is that even if the enemy isn’t susceptible to either of Thief’s attack types, her high speed means that she can still be good for chip damage.
Warrior - Base Stats:
Power: 2
Speed: 0.8 sec
Warrior is a pretty fast single targeting character who is a mix of Damage and Support, with the attacking type of weapon, and the supporting type of armor. With her slower speed and single attacking type, Warrior is sadly offensively outclassed by both Thief and Spellblade, so if your going to use Warrior, she’s best as a support option. Not all is bad in this regard however, as Warrior does boast the fastest speed of any character who is able to support. This is a big deal when having support is very crucial in ETD, if not necessary in most cases. Warrior may not have much going for her, but what she does have is enough to make her stand out, and viable.
Priestess - Base Stats:
Power: 3
Speed: 1.2 sec
Priestess is a decently fast single targeting character who is a mix of Damaging enemies from afar, and Support, with the attacking type of faith, and the supporting type of heal. Getting it out the way immediately, Priestess is best as a supporting character, as by itself, faith isn’t exactly the best offensive option. However, for supporting, Priestess gets very stiff Competition from Knight. Compared to Knight, Priestess has higher base power, slower speed, a better range, and for me, the fact I generally find heal to be better than armour. At first, between Priestess and Knight, which one was better came down to preference as they both had very good traits, however, after her most recent buff, Knight is the clear winner in my opinion, so being honest, I don’t use Priestess often and use Knight instead.
Witch - Base Stats:
Power: 4
Speed: 3 sec
Witch is a slow AOE character who can attack up to 5 enemies at once with strong magic. I’ve stated before that Witch is very outclassed, beat by Spellblade and Illusionist, Spellblade being a fast single targeting magic user, and Illusionist being a slow AOE character with an even bigger AOE and more attack types. Compared to other characters, Witch does boast the highest base power in the game with 4, however with upgrades, that doesn’t amount to as much as it sounds. The problem is that offensively, Witch is generally outclassed and has no supporting option. That’s basically what I said before, and while I still stand by most of it, I have warmed up to Witch a little more since. I say this because while not in every level, I found there to be some levels where it was faster to use Witch instead of Illusionist, with the stats of the 2 being the exact same in terms of upgrades. For example, a level where I found this to be the case was Storm The Lair!
Bard - Base Stats:
Power: 2
Speed: 1.2 sec
Bard is a decently fast double supporting single targeting character, with the supporting types of heal and boost. Bard is, in my opinion, the overall best character in the game. While it’s true that she pretty much can’t do any damage (regardless of whatever her power stat is, Bard will always do 1 damage to enemies, 2 damage if the target is Bard’s favorite food), her supporting capabilities are just that damn good. First off, the fact that Bard has two supporting types means that the fullness she extracts from her allies is effectively double her current power stat. Secondly, and Bard’s bigger claim to fame, is her access to the boost support type. For those unaware, boost increases the power of the target equal to whatever the power of the user’s boost stat was (for this reason, Boost does nothing to another character’s boost stat to prevent them from infinitely boosting each other and getting infinite power from nothing). Thanks to this, Bard does more than just extract weight, but also increase the target’s power to possibly necessary levels. Funnily enough, this means that you can bring attackers who have 0 power upgrades into a level and still be perfectly fine if Bard’s power is sufficient. All thing considered, Bard is consistant and reliable, a great addition to any team composition, and can be the necessary backbone of the team, if nothing else.
Spellblade - Base Stats:
Power: 1
Speed: 0.4 sec
Spellblade is a very fast single targeting character who can attack targets rather quickly, and efficiently, with the attacking types of weapon and magic. Spellblade is without a doubt, very good. She is tied for the fastest character in the game with Thief, and her attacking types are weapon and magic. Those two attacking types being combined, on it’s own speaks volumes towards Spellblade’s viability. The reason for that is of the 4 attacking types in the game, weapon, magic, faith, and sneak, the former two (the ones Spellblade has) are so ridiculously common, with the latter two being so ridiculously rare by comparison. While sure, you will see plenty of enemies susceptible to faith and sneak, you will not see plenty of enemies exclusively susceptible to faith and sneak. The only enemy exclusively susceptible to sneak are the watermelons, and the only enemy exclusively susceptible to faith is the milk dragon boss. The former shows up in 5 levels, with the latter only shows up in 1. Of the 42 levels that are currently in the game, Spellblade can (at least easily) solo all of them, except for the following:
2. First Course. 3. Trapped!!! 15. Bread Dojo. 22. Escape! 23. Milk Dragon. 27. Graveyard. All things considered, Spellblade is great for her very desirable attacking types, alongside her great speed.
Knight - Base Stats:
Power: 2
Speed: 1 sec
Knight is a decently fast AOE character who is a mix of Damage and Support can attack or support up to 2 enemies or allies with the the attacking type of faith or the supporting type of armor. It certainly has been an interesting road, and a bit of a story for Knight. Starting out, at the time of her introduction, Knight was basically a copy of the already existing Warrior, having the exact same base stats and the only difference being that Knight had faith as an attacking type instead of weapon. This wasn’t very good at all for Knight, as Warrior outclassed her from the sheer fact that if you do need to use one of them for offense instead of support, Warrior is more likely to be useful, and even then, Knight was outclassed for faith damage by Priestess, who while slower, had higher base power and much more range. So after a little bit, Knight got re-worked a little bit to where while her base speed had become 0.2 seconds slower, she was given a small AOE attack. Still only able to support 1 ally at time, this buff was more than worth it, as it gave Knight as a reason to be used offensively over Priestess, and thanks to also still being faster than Priestess, was better in some cases, mostly leaving it down to preference between the two. That’s how it was for quite a while. Now, lets fast foward to Engineer’s introduction into the game. Engineer’s gimick is that she is a slow double supporting character boasting an AOE support, at the time unheard of. However, there was one side-effect of this. In reprogramming the game to make Engineer’s AOE possible, this change also applied to Knight, allowing her AOE to also be used for supporting purposes. While Knight’s AOE support wasn’t as big as Engineer’s, being able to support up to 2 allies at once was still a huge deal for Knight. With that buff alone, Knight went from around the midpoint of viability, to the very top, and thus far has shown little signs of slowing down.
Illusionist - Base Stats:
Power: 0
Speed: 7.2 sec
Illusionist is an extremely slow AOE character who can attack an entire room of enemies at once, with the attacking types of magic and sneak. Here’s some good advice for using Illusionist: DO NOT let those base stats turn you down from using her, as Illusionist is without a doubt, one of the best characters in the game, and those base stats are as shitty as they are for a reason, dammit! All things considered, the low base power really doesn’t mean much of anything with upgrades, and while that low speed most certainly is a pain (the next slowest base speed is literally half of Illusionist’s), the fact that Illusionist deals magic damage, as well as sneak damage, is great, the latter making her one of currently 2 characters who can even deal sneak damage, with the other not being an AOE, and also, MUCH MORE NOTABLY, the sole fact that Illusionist can attack an entire room of enemies at once, which would be 9 at most. Her speed being so low means that unless her speed stat is upgraded to a very high level, Illusionist pretty much requires support to be useful in any way. However, if that support can be provided, usually from Bard or Engineer, Illusionist can become an absolute monster, ripping and tearing through enemies in record speed. Other than that, Illusionist’s other main issue is that from attacking so many enemies, she will get KO’d very easily, so be weary of that as well. As a whole, Illusionist’s viability is dependent on support, but can be amazing under correct conditions.
Engineer - Base Stats:
Power: 1
Speed: 3.6 sec
Engineer is a rather slow double supporting AOE character who can support 2 - 3 allies at once with the supporting types of boost and armor. Engineer, while very good, is a unique character to say the least. What stands out at first is that AOE. Engineer is capable of supporting all other party members at once. What also might stand out is that Engineer, alongside Bard, is one of two characters who has access to boost, meaning that Engineer can increase the power of all other allies. One thing that also might be worth mentioning is that while Engineer has the option to only support 2 of the other 3 party members, 2 is the minimum, she cannot only support 1 at a time. While these traits may seem amazing, which they are, Engineer also has some glaring downsides. First off, she’s slow. Not nearly as slow as Illusionist, but still slow enough to where speed can very easily be an issue without upgrades. Engineer’s other main flaw is that extracting from all other party members at once, as well as the fact that Engineer also has armor for a double support, means that Engineer can get KO’d very easily, and may need someone else supporting her, usually Bard. Speaking of Bard, as long as you don’t mind only bringing two possible attackers into a level (which is almost never a big deal anyway), Engineer and Bard actually work great as a team. Keep in mind while the boost stat of the two won’t effect each other, it WILL effect their other stat (Bard’s heal, or Engineer’s armor). So them extracting each other, along with Engineer extracting the other two party members, I’ve actually found it to be a very viable strategy, having Engineer support everyone, and then Have Bard support Engineer, and then attack with your attackers when they’re ready. Also, while I usually prefer heal over armor, I have found a high power armor to all allies (except for Engineer herself) to be rather useful. In short, while Engineer’s talents are a great addition to basically any team, without good investment into metabolism and speed, Engineer can be poor and unreliable as a teams only support option, and I’d recommend bringing another support option alongside her.
Ranger - Base Stats:
Power: 1
Speed: 0.6 sec
Ranger is a pretty fast single targeting character who can damage enemies from afar with weapon damage. While Ranger isn’t completely terrible, she definitely isn’t exactly great either. Sure, she is the only weapon damage dealer to have a ranged attack, with said range being her “gimick” and defining quality, Ranger doesn’t have any support options and can only deal weapon damage, making her offensively outclassed by the faster Thief and Spellblade, and even Warrior at times since Warrior at least has a support option. While yes, some of the later levels in the current game do take advantage of “one-shot enemies” in order to give more incentive to use ranged characters (which I did appreciate for that reason), the thing is this is currently only the case for 2 levels in the entire game; The Butter Burglar! and Blue Cheese Cyclops. With that in mind, even for those 2 levels, you may have better options than Ranger to deal with them, such as Illusionist.
Psychic - Base Stats:
Power: 1
Speed: 3 sec
Psychic is a slow AOE character who can attack up to 5 enemies at once with faith damage. Psychic is currently the newest edition to the ETD cast, and in my opinion, is currently the overall worst. In short, Psychic is Witch, but with much less base power, and can only deal faith damage, instead of only magic. Also no supporting options. The best thing I can really say about her is that she is currently the best way of dealing faith damage in the entire game. The problem with that is faith damage isn’t exactly the most desired attacking type. Of all the current levels in the game, the only one where I find that Psychic particularly shines in is against the Milk Dragon, which is still only 1 level of the current 42. Being honest, I want to say more positive things about Psychic, but at least in my eyes, Psychic has been put in a position where it’s hard to do so. At least for Witch, Magic is a very common type.
