If you don't like Geminate, you're not playing it right. You need to make the Transformers transforming sound effect (from the cartoon) every time you shape shift. Instant enjoyment.
@@Deltium5683 So while everyone is entitled to their opinion I think you may have come to a misunderstanding when interpreting the analysis. What you failed to understand is how fucking wrong you are. Geminate is while not a weak class one of the ones with the most hoops to jump through is genuinely antagonistic to the player because the designer was so set on a stupid theme rather than actually creating a good player experience. Its power is middling its actually fairly consistent which is interesting because other classes near the bottom are just less consistent than others but geminate just performs very "ok" but isn't frequently rewarded. You can say someone had bad analysis all you want but it doesn't stop you from clearly having no fucking clue what you're talking about. Just because geminate is in the bottom doesn't even mean its particularly underpowered its just weaker in relation to the others. Also lets not fucking pretend like geminate is even a difficult class to play I am always so amused with the "you just don't understand it properly" when talking about a game like the haven franchise which isn't even deep enough that any class is too complicated not to get(It's not like you're playing chess or another meaningful strategy game) Its not really fucking difficult to interpret the play patterns of stance dancing and melee becomes ranged. I'm sorry that your favorite class is near the bottom but its generally viewed lower than other classes not just for being marginally weaker(which again isn't actually significant) but for being a complete asshole of a class in terms of player interaction.
I can't believe it. Your ranking for Banner Spear is (insulting | too flattering) given the potential of the class! It absolutely should have ranked (higher | lower) than Geminate, completely ridiculous. This is an outrage, and Banner Spear belongs in the (S | A | B | F) tier with (class whose ranking I agree with).
I really enjoy my Banner Spear. Granted I am playing in a four player campaign with a Boneshaper so it's probably the ideal situation. One thing that people might not realize until playing it is that with a large group your XP will go up like a rocket! I am currently 2-3 levels over the other players. What she lacks in raw damage she makes up for in card quality. The banners are a bit of a letdown though. They are a range attack magnet so I feel I under use them because I don't want to lose a card so early. If I had my way they would be slightly nerfed, but made reusable.
Asterisk on Geminate - when played with Shackles in 4p party, it is easily A tier. So many ridiculous combos to trivialize scenarios when Shackles is playing their condition sink build. Gemmy becomes one of the most consistent damage dealers in the room and at 4p always has a target (or a few) somewhere to crush.
Watching... yet AGAIN! haha I love hearing about all these. We are having so much fun playing and I'm a spoiler freak and love knowing what's coming (in a way.) Thank!
can confirm, I rolled geminate first for the express reason of trying to retire asap before the missions got too difficult - my retirement was to pick some flowers, so that worked out nicely.
Couldn’t agree more regarding Geminate. You do twenty somersaults and a back flip to barely do what others can do without thought. In our experience Deathwalker should be easily in same tier as Blinkblade. Plus there are scenarios that can be extremely trivialized by the damage+teleport potential of the shadows mama. Keep being awesome!
Meteor is phenomenal. It is now my favorite character in any Haven game. Of the 5 classes I played in our first campaign, I got screwed over with Boneshaper the most, in terms of scenario design. Still really enjoyed that character, but scenario 15 can kiss my rear-end. Nice to see Fist and Snowflake get some love. Those are very "fluid" characters that have a lot of utility. Snowflake is probably my second favorite character in Frosthaven, so far. Coral was a very strong tank, though I don't particularly enjoy tanking that much. The water generation and retaliate added some spice though. I'm kinda surprised to see Trap that low, although I can understand the argument you made. While watching my ally play Trap, the scenario design seemed less of a problem. It was the "taking turns off" element that was more noticeable, but that was mitigated by the constant crowd control and huge damage turns when they arrived. Campaign 2 is coming up in a month or two, so I shall revisit this list when making my character decisions.
wanted to say I played with a friend who is analysis paralysis prone, so playing Geminate gave me a reason to spend more time thinking about my turn. I retired early and choose a simpler character. waiting around for my friend every time we had to choose cards was painful. Geminate makes you WORK for that attack 2 move 2!
Fun video! I've been playing Shards from level 4 (and will be 9 in 2 scenarios) and it's absolutely insanely strong if you don't go the wave build and play off Empowering Note (lv 5 persistent). I would consider it easy S-tier personally. It has so many cards that I was like, "wait, that's not a loss?!" power-level wise. The only downside is it's lack of self healing options but besides that you have incredible attacks, multiple non-loss muti-target stuns that you can add another target to with a wave, and brittles. Unsustainable Wave (how is this not a loss?) which can abuse brittle to delete 3 enemies or a whole room if you have items that can add target plus attack boosters. Level 7 gives you move 3 shield 3(!) all adjacent and self (with a wave from the persistent). At level 8 you can brittle up to 4 enemies. And to top it off, you have (what I think) is the best modifier deck in FH. You also have multiple ways to see the top card of monster decks and can see the top modifier deck card which makes planning turns super safe a lot of the time. I thought it was a support when I started but I am regularly near-soloing rooms and that's with suboptimal support items. And while you kill/stun everything it also adds a lot of blesses to your allies (or yourself with the level 3 card when you kill everything too fast and need to spend waves) that we regularly run out of bless cards to add. Empowering note really takes the class to the next level and gives you so much flexibility for range, targets, movement, push, shields, and damage that you can really be super flexible as long as you have waves. The only shame is when/how it's unlocked and how statistically few people have played it. Overall, class is super cracked (almost literally) and very fun.
Gonna second this one being moved up to S. I also started Shards at level 4 and built around Shape the Path, with the idea being to pump every single bless into one ally's deck. I thought this would be a funny meme. Turns out, that's not something you need to build around! There's almost zero downside to it. That's just a fun thing this class can do with almost no effort required. And if giving someone 5 to 10x the likelihood of critting isn't enough, the rest of your cards have non-loss stuns, unsustainable wave for burst damage, damage that bypasses shields, non-loss brittle, and a ton of utility. Because your primary resource is refills by itself and you have ways of refilling it additionally on top of that, it becomes really easy to manage after a few scenarios. I think it would be getting dramatically more buzz if it weren't gated so late in the campaign. My group only got it when we did because we decided the puzzle book wasn't for us and used a guide to speed through it.
I agree to everything said, and I also think this is easily S tier. It all changed for me getting to level 5 and 6, those felt like huge power increases each. I chose Shrieking Chakram over Empowering Note and have had some totally nuts turns with this one. With power potions and that energy source stone you can do some insane burst rounds and obliterate a room in one sweep. One of my signature moves is an attack 7 on 6 targets (one target with an attack 8 on longer range with the bow) all with advantage. Most of those land a +2 and some even double due to the numerous blesses in my deck. Since it's my lifetime quest to donate to the temple, I always have some blesses in the (already wicked strong) deck. And Unsustainable wave has had some bonkers turns, too. One of my teammates is fist, and he brittles a lot. We've had a particularly nice turn with 18 damage on the initial target and 32 on both of the secondary targets... this can easily go higher of course, on more targets like you said. It's super fun but boy it really feels busted at times. Also, I managed to complete two scenarios due to being a good stamina class, where all other teammates have already expired, except for that hilarious floating claymore that I kept alive and kicking for the remainder :) huge fun. My favorite classes have all been Savvas, and this is I think my favorite one of them.
I take those geminate comments personally! - Hahaha xD - Geminate is way more flexible and powerful than you give it credit to - 14 cards stamina is ridiculous if used right :P - play your losses! Should be at least A tier!
As the only person in two groups who likes/liked the Geminate I will say the following: #1. This should not have been a starting character. Trapper would have been better, the geminate really needs friends who make elements to thrive and the starting 6 aren't those friends. #2. Really needs to be played in 4s. Its patently bad in 2s (range restrictions are broken bad in 2s), 3s are only ok and only if they offer you some elements but in 4s there's enough optionality for you to be the multi-tool you were born to be. #3. You have to become really ok with pitching cards and all of gloom/frosthaven up until now has trained us to preserve cards. That's the hardest thing to learn and most people who hate the class just haven't fully internalized just how free you need to be to maximize this character. I had a blast but I played halfway through the campaign in a 4 player game and I definitely am not averse to pitching cards so I kind of had the stars align.
My group is a bit more than halfway through the game with only 4 classes that are unlocked. I went out to confirm their unlock conditions and was a bit put-out to discover that one class is gated behind the Puzzle Book which we have been completely ignoring so far. Going down that rabbit hole then found out that the end game is also gated behind the puzzle book. I know Isaac is a fan of Puzzles, and that's fine, but gating content via the Puzzle Book has my people a bit miffed to say the least. If he creates another project of this type in the future and plans to gate content again, he's not getting our money.
Me and my wife play two handed with an alternate leveling scheme. That is we start all characters at level 1 and then give double xp up to prosperity levels. For shards in particular, if memory serves, it's pretty weak first few levels.
The tier list should be diffrent depending on the amount of players. Classes with good support is amazing with 4 players. I would rank support build bannerspear higher with 4 players.
Good video! I most of the way through the campaign and haven't played very many classes, and probably never will in the campaign since once you buy a good suite of enhancements it's really tough to switch to something brand new--the game barely rewards switching classes compared to the MASSIVE reward of replaying the same one. Maybe it's because my husband was playing the Meteor at the time, but I took the Snowflake and found we did REALLY well together. We both could create hazardous terrain and then I'd push/pull enemies over it. When we were level 5 we'd play tier 4 (rather than 3) and it was really smooth. Also, at first opportunity I enhanced everything on the Arctic Fox, getting me an ally that moved 4, hit for 3, and rarely got targeted! My husband swears by the Kelp, and he took it through the Unfettered thread. Sure, the Unfettered immunities make them more challenging, but once the Kelp hits level 3 there are multiple ways to get 3 negative conditions onto an opponent. He did a sort of hybrid stab/bane build, but never went for invisibility, favoring a really strong deck.
I played Germinate until this past weekend, when I retired it (Merchant quest) and took Snowflake (so no idea how it plays). I can say the Germinate can be fun, but I agree it's basically it's own tier. You will either really like the mechanics, or absolutely hate them (and there's at least one card, the one where you can transform and choose your lost card with a short rest, that I made sure was in play every game because otherwise the class was way less fun for me).
I had the displeasure of playing Geminate in the final boss scenario of the game and it was absolutely miserable. Every enemy has either 2-3 Shield or is the boss with 2 Retaliate on infinite range. So I basically ended up as more of a burden than anything for my party, trying to play a bit on the support-y side which Geminate isn't made for. But his thing is "lots of smaller attacks" and it completely didn't work for this scenario. There's many other scenarios that are similarly bad for Geminate, but that one in particular took the cake.
Great video. Through the entire first half I was balking at our differences of opinion (how could you possibly not take unavoidable outcome at lvl 2 on trap. Also bane kelp best build fight me I literally had to reroute 6 months of work in the frosthaven Speedrun and was able to save an hour on my time) but then you said infusers is your favorite so we officially agree and your opinions are objectively correct
Thanks this was a fun video. Getting ready to start my campaign. I don’t have a gaming group so playing two handed by myself. Any recommendations on which two to start with? Also do you have a stream ranking the Gloomhaven characters based on 2nd edition?
Only point of contention for me would be Kelp. It is easily A tier imo, since it gets *really* busted with a few levels / items. In particular, power potions and similar items allow it to go crazy when making 8 attacks in a turn. And it’s also very often invisible and attacking with advantage. Finally, its access to long-distance teleports (which can go through walls paired with invisibility allow it to cheese a lot of objective-based scenarios. The bane build is a bit disappointing but the stab crab build gets very overpowered pretty quickly. The only downside of the stab-crab build is that it takes a few levels to “come online” since it doesn’t start getting amazing cards until level 4 (but after that every level is giving you a big power spike).
Sorry if this is annoying, but will you be making an Astral guide? She seems like a really cool character but I can’t find anything online really (same for Shards lol) :(
Astral is also my favorite class and I've been working on a guide for some time. I'm currently on page 72 but still have to cover the masteries and solo scenario but maybe will have it done in a month or so!
Frosthaven feels so much slower than Gloomhaven. Played once a week (with gaps here and there) for close to a year now. I played thru Drifter and I've been playing as Kelp for most of that time. I sorta make Kelp work, occasionally it feels strong, but man, it was a learning curve, there are weekends where I just can't get it together at all and I just suck. It takes forever to retire characters, and man none of us really care about the Outpost phase, we're thinking about just skipping it 😅
Geminate tier 😂 Part of me genuinely loved my Gem. But got stuck out of position or in the wrong form one too many times. One night I was just done. Retired on the spot.
Yeah was the 1st class I played and lowered my initial impressions of Frosthaven, i cheated a little as my personal quest was locked behind some waiting for scenarios to unlock i set it aside and swapped to another character till the scenarios opened and swapped back
It has some great features too. I truly did love parts of this class, and the challenge of playing it well was worth the effort. Spoiler warning… I favored ranged geminate, AOEs super fun and absolutely mowed down monsters with retaliate. And sooooo satisfying going fast and stealing elements from monsters. But when the cards didn’t fall right, sucked to be stuck having to long rest early or with a dead turn or two. But vastly more annoying to me than the fixed range attacks, was the total inability to make my own elements prior to level 5. Lower level cards that make elements are the weakest in the kit and mostly not worth bringing, in my humble opinion. Items that generate elements are critical to making this class feel playable up to that point.
That's an awesome idea. For example three spears is nerfed because of the available items in Frosthaven. Circles and two minis are in my opinion really buffed because Frosthaven now has reasonable items to support a summon build and circles has that new perk to make his summons invisible once a scenario.
GH2e classes are on a similar balance scale. I think Alis agrees that the balance for GH1e classes in Frosthaven is "don't" - but I don't want to speak for her. 😅
Geminate mostly, I feel, needed more repeatable big hitting attacks (4+ damage) unenhanced. It wants you to burn more often but those big hits are core to letting a class actually shine. The precise range didn't really factor that much for me but it did also need at least one or two repeatable short range attacks. It also needed more control over form flipping; honestly a persistent loss that lets you form change at end of turn would solve all its action selection problems, I think. The puzzle is interesting and I like it but I totally understand why folks are frustrated with it.
I think Geminate works really well enhanced since you can cheaply enhance level 1 cards and the double perk lets you play that enhanced card twice in one rest cycle. (Since you usually aim to Loss one card each rest cycle) I was able to create a reliable melee + immobilize(pseudo-stun) gameplay with that.
This is Bannerspear slander! B is for Bannerspear. You just gotta keep granting your friends movement and placing them where they need to be like chess grandmaster. Your damage output is a little low compared to other classes, but you should be enabling your teammates to get more hits in as they don't need to waste time playing as many movement cards. Love the list otherwise. Great job.
No matter how wrong everyone might be about their opinions (PRISM IS THE BEST I WILL NOT TAKE QUESTIONS), it's a good thing that we can all come together and agree that Geminate sucks.
Hmm I would need to look up how to make the coral class busted. I thought the tides were fine, but I never found that Nurse Zoidberg shined as anything other than a fair tank. Mind you, Zoidberg retired at level 5 so maybe I just didn't get to what makes it a busted class.
Hmm.. I must be doing something wrong, meteor has been average at best for me. But must just be my play style cos I 100% would swap that with Prism/ Diamond. That class lives rent free in my head it was so much fun and was the MVP of so many scenarios. Aside from that, seems a well rounded list, and looks like you might know your stuff. Thanks for the vid!
Kelp should definitely be A tier. IMO best in the game. You can load the enemy deck with curses, mitigating hundreds of damage for your group every scenario. Really high damage, slightly lower than BB but a lot more support and versatility, the GOAT. Other than that I think I bump up Astral. Rest I like.
Personally I feel like shackles suffers a bit too much from lack of multi targeting and reliance on persistant losses to really be S tier, though I have only played it as condition striker since that's what fit best with my party and only up to lvl 6 for the time being. Would personally put it in A. Prism at higher levels felt like it completely trivilaized every scenario. Reassemble allows for so many summons on the board without significantly sacrificing longevity, and with recall it just becomes ridiculous, easy S for me (at least summon focused build). Geminate I feel like had high enough output and ridiculous enough stamina to personally put in B tier. I aggree with Trap, super strong, but can be a bit screwed by some situations. Rarely completely screwed but often enough to signifcantly lower contribution. Also agree with blinkblade. Shards seems like it should be S tier based on my partners performance with it compared to their performance with other classes. And those are all my opinions. Also, good video!
Snowflake paired with Meteor makes the former godlike… but useless without his sidekick 😅 As for Bannerspear it’s just a lot better without Banners, or just in some scenarios where you don’t have to move too much… which is kinda meh, but works. Can be quite tanky and damage dealer higher levels.
The only ranking I'm not 100% on is Kelp SPOILERS: We played it at high prosperity and it really just didn't feel as crazy as expected even with great items. We really had to work as a group to get it to do its thing and even with items it felt like armor-haven struck this class to hard. Also just comparing to blink in terms of mass attacks its perk deck is just so weak feeling. I think in gh2e it might land solidly in A but in fh we really experienced it at C.
Weird; I had the exact opposite take and thought she ranked it too low. A properly played Stab Crab with the right items is up there with Shackles in terms of just breaking the game over its goddamn knee. Using power potions and similar effects to make a million Attack 4s at advantage without even losing a card, all while the enemies are powerless to hit you back due to perma-invisibility, is ridiculous , and you've got a few pierce/direct damage cards to deal with shields. Then again, we chose the other crab to unlock first so Kelp had the benefit of late-game momentum on its side when I played it.
I agree this entirely. Stab crab was almost soloing certain scenarios with its ability to be almost always invisible especially if someone else in the party could make dark occasionally @@basssquared
I am still very perplexed that people think Trap is "a strong class". Germinate, in my 4p grp, felt sooo much better than Trap. Trap felt more restrictive to my group than my enemies, and I fully believe he plays better at 2p comps. Also stab crab is just insanity... I cannot fathom how crab is B tier when the stab variant is easily S tier with a few items.
Trap is a phenomenal class that requires a skilled player (and to a lesser extent, a cooperative group) to get the most effort out of. Unfortunately, it can be screwed by a few scenario mechanics - which is its main downside. You can do ridiculous amounts of hard cc by properly positioning your traps. You can lay down more overlays more quickly than any other character. The heal traps are extremely strong support plus cc, and the damage traps are strong damage plus cc. You can also, uniquely, bank up damage in early rooms to unleash in later ones.
Excuse me B for stabby crabby?!? I could easily melt all enemies in the scenario with GT (lvl 4 card)! It, in combination with a top action let me do well over 100 damage in one turn with no losses by stacking power potions, frenzy potion, invisibility etc! Not only that but with the op boots that’s also becomes move 16 as well!!!
Completely agree. The best part about Stab Crab is that it doesn't need to lose any cards to clear the whole map (bosses included, no boss survives that) - just items. It can do just fine, decent CC, solid damage, amazing mobility... and the ability to wipe out the whole map without sacrificing any stamina just gives it so much versitility. Sometimes it's good to save it for the last turn, sometimes it's good to go ham at round 3... doesn't matter. And the ceiling for this class is super-high. We just finished the campaign and my Kelp was absolute beast in the final scenarios. I'd say it's borderline S-tier. Though I must say that Bane Kelp is significantly weaker and I can see why it brings the whole class lower.
From testing and a few campaigns, we found that brittling was lit and burning losses in low-turn scenarios was solid but overall it felt like a lot to ask for the payout that some classes could more reliably do. I also didn't find it as fun? I do enjoy it more at level 6+ though!
Yeah guess it's hit or miss for players, I loved my Geminate. Played 2p Drifter with Geminate we only lost one scenario before retirement (the one with the snowspeaker boss, summoning frost or wind demons on special 1/2 ) The drifter went in one side of the room and the geminate in the other and we just slaughered everything on our way
@costyaalbrecht3082 our initial team was a Geminate & a Blink Blade and never lost a game. Both werexas lethal as each other and it wasn't long before the Geminate retired first.
Kelp is way too low. Kelp, IMO, is maybe the strongest class there is, you have some of the best damage, you can fill the enemy's deck with curses mitigating hundreds of damage per scenario for your entire group. There's literally no scenario it doesn't shine in. We had to bump up difficulty to +2-3 to be able to have a little bit of a challenge when I was playing Kelp.
Any tier list for Frosthaven that does not really consider synergies of classes when making a party is fairly pointless and misleading. Astral and snowflake together are A+, trapper is a really good support class. If you think geminate is bad, then you just need to learn how to play the game at a fundamental level. There are some classes that are kind of boring to play like drifter but are ok if you just want to coast and not really worry about planning. To get the most out of the best classes really requires interaction and cooperation with other players, so this is the main reason that tier lists for Frosthaven are a disservice to new players as well as a waste of time.
Geminate is bad. Ive finished multiple gloomhaven campaigns and im playing 3 frosthaven campaigns, 2 at +2. I certainly know "how to play the game at a fundamental level". Please dont be condescending. The power level to compensate for the many hoops u have to jump are just not there U can certainly beat the game as geminate and u can certainly have fun doing it. But he is just worse than the others
![Frosthaven - What To Build First! [Construction and Crafting Guide]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CPOIDmRflhU/mqdefault.jpg)
![Frosthaven - What To Build First! [Construction and Crafting Guide]](/img/tr.png)
If you don't like Geminate, you're not playing it right. You need to make the Transformers transforming sound effect (from the cartoon) every time you shape shift. Instant enjoyment.
Ok so that's probably what I was missing lol. I should like the Geminate given how much I love shape shifting lol
Exactly what sound I make when I "Mech up" with my Mech Suit with Demolitionist in JOTL. 😆
@@RageBadgerGamingyou don’t know how to play it properly. Terrible analysis.
@@Deltium5683 lol k
@@Deltium5683 So while everyone is entitled to their opinion I think you may have come to a misunderstanding when interpreting the analysis. What you failed to understand is how fucking wrong you are. Geminate is while not a weak class one of the ones with the most hoops to jump through is genuinely antagonistic to the player because the designer was so set on a stupid theme rather than actually creating a good player experience. Its power is middling its actually fairly consistent which is interesting because other classes near the bottom are just less consistent than others but geminate just performs very "ok" but isn't frequently rewarded. You can say someone had bad analysis all you want but it doesn't stop you from clearly having no fucking clue what you're talking about. Just because geminate is in the bottom doesn't even mean its particularly underpowered its just weaker in relation to the others.
Also lets not fucking pretend like geminate is even a difficult class to play I am always so amused with the "you just don't understand it properly" when talking about a game like the haven franchise which isn't even deep enough that any class is too complicated not to get(It's not like you're playing chess or another meaningful strategy game) Its not really fucking difficult to interpret the play patterns of stance dancing and melee becomes ranged.
I'm sorry that your favorite class is near the bottom but its generally viewed lower than other classes not just for being marginally weaker(which again isn't actually significant) but for being a complete asshole of a class in terms of player interaction.
I can't believe it. Your ranking for Banner Spear is (insulting | too flattering) given the potential of the class! It absolutely should have ranked (higher | lower) than Geminate, completely ridiculous. This is an outrage, and Banner Spear belongs in the (S | A | B | F) tier with (class whose ranking I agree with).
I'm going to watch the video later, but felt like kicking off some *discourse*, and figure I can fill in the details later.
I really enjoy my Banner Spear. Granted I am playing in a four player campaign with a Boneshaper so it's probably the ideal situation. One thing that people might not realize until playing it is that with a large group your XP will go up like a rocket! I am currently 2-3 levels over the other players. What she lacks in raw damage she makes up for in card quality.
The banners are a bit of a letdown though. They are a range attack magnet so I feel I under use them because I don't want to lose a card so early. If I had my way they would be slightly nerfed, but made reusable.
Asterisk on Geminate - when played with Shackles in 4p party, it is easily A tier. So many ridiculous combos to trivialize scenarios when Shackles is playing their condition sink build. Gemmy becomes one of the most consistent damage dealers in the room and at 4p always has a target (or a few) somewhere to crush.
Finally! Now I can win Frosthaven arguments on the internet! lol fr Alis this is great.
Watching... yet AGAIN! haha
I love hearing about all these.
We are having so much fun playing and I'm a spoiler freak and love knowing what's coming (in a way.)
Thank!
You already did the metal tier list so this is extraneous.
can confirm, I rolled geminate first for the express reason of trying to retire asap before the missions got too difficult - my retirement was to pick some flowers, so that worked out nicely.
Couldn’t agree more regarding Geminate.
You do twenty somersaults and a back flip to barely do what others can do without thought.
In our experience Deathwalker should be easily in same tier as Blinkblade. Plus there are scenarios that can be extremely trivialized by the damage+teleport potential of the shadows mama.
Keep being awesome!
Meteor is phenomenal. It is now my favorite character in any Haven game.
Of the 5 classes I played in our first campaign, I got screwed over with Boneshaper the most, in terms of scenario design. Still really enjoyed that character, but scenario 15 can kiss my rear-end.
Nice to see Fist and Snowflake get some love. Those are very "fluid" characters that have a lot of utility. Snowflake is probably my second favorite character in Frosthaven, so far.
Coral was a very strong tank, though I don't particularly enjoy tanking that much. The water generation and retaliate added some spice though.
I'm kinda surprised to see Trap that low, although I can understand the argument you made. While watching my ally play Trap, the scenario design seemed less of a problem. It was the "taking turns off" element that was more noticeable, but that was mitigated by the constant crowd control and huge damage turns when they arrived.
Campaign 2 is coming up in a month or two, so I shall revisit this list when making my character decisions.
If this is a power ranking, that just means geminate is the Power Bottom and I want to embody that every day. 🥰
wanted to say I played with a friend who is analysis paralysis prone, so playing Geminate gave me a reason to spend more time thinking about my turn. I retired early and choose a simpler character. waiting around for my friend every time we had to choose cards was painful. Geminate makes you WORK for that attack 2 move 2!
SADLY, not a power bottom here. Just a ... ... regular... bottom. Not enough queer tops nearby though, WHICH IS A SHAME!
@@jacobedler296 why did you feel the need to respond to this like so?
Fun video!
I've been playing Shards from level 4 (and will be 9 in 2 scenarios) and it's absolutely insanely strong if you don't go the wave build and play off Empowering Note (lv 5 persistent). I would consider it easy S-tier personally. It has so many cards that I was like, "wait, that's not a loss?!" power-level wise.
The only downside is it's lack of self healing options but besides that you have incredible attacks, multiple non-loss muti-target stuns that you can add another target to with a wave, and brittles.
Unsustainable Wave (how is this not a loss?) which can abuse brittle to delete 3 enemies or a whole room if you have items that can add target plus attack boosters. Level 7 gives you move 3 shield 3(!) all adjacent and self (with a wave from the persistent). At level 8 you can brittle up to 4 enemies. And to top it off, you have (what I think) is the best modifier deck in FH.
You also have multiple ways to see the top card of monster decks and can see the top modifier deck card which makes planning turns super safe a lot of the time.
I thought it was a support when I started but I am regularly near-soloing rooms and that's with suboptimal support items. And while you kill/stun everything it also adds a lot of blesses to your allies (or yourself with the level 3 card when you kill everything too fast and need to spend waves) that we regularly run out of bless cards to add.
Empowering note really takes the class to the next level and gives you so much flexibility for range, targets, movement, push, shields, and damage that you can really be super flexible as long as you have waves. The only shame is when/how it's unlocked and how statistically few people have played it.
Overall, class is super cracked (almost literally) and very fun.
Gonna second this one being moved up to S. I also started Shards at level 4 and built around Shape the Path, with the idea being to pump every single bless into one ally's deck. I thought this would be a funny meme. Turns out, that's not something you need to build around! There's almost zero downside to it. That's just a fun thing this class can do with almost no effort required. And if giving someone 5 to 10x the likelihood of critting isn't enough, the rest of your cards have non-loss stuns, unsustainable wave for burst damage, damage that bypasses shields, non-loss brittle, and a ton of utility.
Because your primary resource is refills by itself and you have ways of refilling it additionally on top of that, it becomes really easy to manage after a few scenarios. I think it would be getting dramatically more buzz if it weren't gated so late in the campaign. My group only got it when we did because we decided the puzzle book wasn't for us and used a guide to speed through it.
I agree to everything said, and I also think this is easily S tier. It all changed for me getting to level 5 and 6, those felt like huge power increases each. I chose Shrieking Chakram over Empowering Note and have had some totally nuts turns with this one. With power potions and that energy source stone you can do some insane burst rounds and obliterate a room in one sweep. One of my signature moves is an attack 7 on 6 targets (one target with an attack 8 on longer range with the bow) all with advantage. Most of those land a +2 and some even double due to the numerous blesses in my deck. Since it's my lifetime quest to donate to the temple, I always have some blesses in the (already wicked strong) deck.
And Unsustainable wave has had some bonkers turns, too. One of my teammates is fist, and he brittles a lot. We've had a particularly nice turn with 18 damage on the initial target and 32 on both of the secondary targets... this can easily go higher of course, on more targets like you said. It's super fun but boy it really feels busted at times.
Also, I managed to complete two scenarios due to being a good stamina class, where all other teammates have already expired, except for that hilarious floating claymore that I kept alive and kicking for the remainder :) huge fun. My favorite classes have all been Savvas, and this is I think my favorite one of them.
I take those geminate comments personally! - Hahaha xD - Geminate is way more flexible and powerful than you give it credit to - 14 cards stamina is ridiculous if used right :P - play your losses! Should be at least A tier!
Hey, you may be correct! DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY WHEN YOU DESIGNED MY FAVORITE CLASS!
I am just messing with you ;) all good and banter
As the only person in two groups who likes/liked the Geminate I will say the following: #1. This should not have been a starting character. Trapper would have been better, the geminate really needs friends who make elements to thrive and the starting 6 aren't those friends. #2. Really needs to be played in 4s. Its patently bad in 2s (range restrictions are broken bad in 2s), 3s are only ok and only if they offer you some elements but in 4s there's enough optionality for you to be the multi-tool you were born to be. #3. You have to become really ok with pitching cards and all of gloom/frosthaven up until now has trained us to preserve cards. That's the hardest thing to learn and most people who hate the class just haven't fully internalized just how free you need to be to maximize this character. I had a blast but I played halfway through the campaign in a 4 player game and I definitely am not averse to pitching cards so I kind of had the stars align.
Hey RB, when are you going to do guides for the locked FH classes? Astral?
My group is a bit more than halfway through the game with only 4 classes that are unlocked. I went out to confirm their unlock conditions and was a bit put-out to discover that one class is gated behind the Puzzle Book which we have been completely ignoring so far. Going down that rabbit hole then found out that the end game is also gated behind the puzzle book.
I know Isaac is a fan of Puzzles, and that's fine, but gating content via the Puzzle Book has my people a bit miffed to say the least.
If he creates another project of this type in the future and plans to gate content again, he's not getting our money.
Gloomhaven 2 doesn't have mandatory puzzles and we're definitely going to tell him to avoid puzzles in future projects for mandatory progression.
Just look up the answers. We stopped bothering with it half way through, apparently most of the community did as well.
Trap is way better than that. He is a beast against shield and retaliate and the amount of pseudodisarms he can dish is absurd.
Me and my wife play two handed with an alternate leveling scheme. That is we start all characters at level 1 and then give double xp up to prosperity levels.
For shards in particular, if memory serves, it's pretty weak first few levels.
The tier list should be diffrent depending on the amount of players. Classes with good support is amazing with 4 players. I would rank support build bannerspear higher with 4 players.
Good video! I most of the way through the campaign and haven't played very many classes, and probably never will in the campaign since once you buy a good suite of enhancements it's really tough to switch to something brand new--the game barely rewards switching classes compared to the MASSIVE reward of replaying the same one.
Maybe it's because my husband was playing the Meteor at the time, but I took the Snowflake and found we did REALLY well together. We both could create hazardous terrain and then I'd push/pull enemies over it. When we were level 5 we'd play tier 4 (rather than 3) and it was really smooth. Also, at first opportunity I enhanced everything on the Arctic Fox, getting me an ally that moved 4, hit for 3, and rarely got targeted!
My husband swears by the Kelp, and he took it through the Unfettered thread. Sure, the Unfettered immunities make them more challenging, but once the Kelp hits level 3 there are multiple ways to get 3 negative conditions onto an opponent. He did a sort of hybrid stab/bane build, but never went for invisibility, favoring a really strong deck.
I played Germinate until this past weekend, when I retired it (Merchant quest) and took Snowflake (so no idea how it plays).
I can say the Germinate can be fun, but I agree it's basically it's own tier. You will either really like the mechanics, or absolutely hate them (and there's at least one card, the one where you can transform and choose your lost card with a short rest, that I made sure was in play every game because otherwise the class was way less fun for me).
I had the displeasure of playing Geminate in the final boss scenario of the game and it was absolutely miserable. Every enemy has either 2-3 Shield or is the boss with 2 Retaliate on infinite range. So I basically ended up as more of a burden than anything for my party, trying to play a bit on the support-y side which Geminate isn't made for. But his thing is "lots of smaller attacks" and it completely didn't work for this scenario. There's many other scenarios that are similarly bad for Geminate, but that one in particular took the cake.
Hey Bandger thank you for your great vids.
Glad you like them!
Thanks for the ranking!
Great video. Through the entire first half I was balking at our differences of opinion (how could you possibly not take unavoidable outcome at lvl 2 on trap. Also bane kelp best build fight me I literally had to reroute 6 months of work in the frosthaven Speedrun and was able to save an hour on my time) but then you said infusers is your favorite so we officially agree and your opinions are objectively correct
Thanks this was a fun video. Getting ready to start my campaign. I don’t have a gaming group so playing two handed by myself. Any recommendations on which two to start with? Also do you have a stream ranking the Gloomhaven characters based on 2nd edition?
Only point of contention for me would be Kelp. It is easily A tier imo, since it gets *really* busted with a few levels / items. In particular, power potions and similar items allow it to go crazy when making 8 attacks in a turn. And it’s also very often invisible and attacking with advantage. Finally, its access to long-distance teleports (which can go through walls paired with invisibility allow it to cheese a lot of objective-based scenarios. The bane build is a bit disappointing but the stab crab build gets very overpowered pretty quickly. The only downside of the stab-crab build is that it takes a few levels to “come online” since it doesn’t start getting amazing cards until level 4 (but after that every level is giving you a big power spike).
Sorry if this is annoying, but will you be making an Astral guide? She seems like a really cool character but I can’t find anything online really (same for Shards lol) :(
Patrons just voted that as the next guide! I anticipate it in August?
@@RageBadgerGaming Awesome! :D
Astral is also my favorite class and I've been working on a guide for some time. I'm currently on page 72 but still have to cover the masteries and solo scenario but maybe will have it done in a month or so!
@@Cyclonitron :0 awesome!
@@DistressedCrab Annnd it's done: drive.google.com/file/d/1z_uk5JIrG5xVkAewmvhNuRDpoDpKXAhn/view?usp=sharing
Class guide for the other FH Characaters, when? :)
Frosthaven feels so much slower than Gloomhaven. Played once a week (with gaps here and there) for close to a year now. I played thru Drifter and I've been playing as Kelp for most of that time.
I sorta make Kelp work, occasionally it feels strong, but man, it was a learning curve, there are weekends where I just can't get it together at all and I just suck. It takes forever to retire characters, and man none of us really care about the Outpost phase, we're thinking about just skipping it 😅
Geminate tier 😂 Part of me genuinely loved my Gem. But got stuck out of position or in the wrong form one too many times. One night I was just done. Retired on the spot.
It's honestly just not for me and prone to wonkiness. Can definitely be played well though!
Yeah was the 1st class I played and lowered my initial impressions of Frosthaven, i cheated a little as my personal quest was locked behind some waiting for scenarios to unlock i set it aside and swapped to another character till the scenarios opened and swapped back
It has some great features too. I truly did love parts of this class, and the challenge of playing it well was worth the effort. Spoiler warning… I favored ranged geminate, AOEs super fun and absolutely mowed down monsters with retaliate. And sooooo satisfying going fast and stealing elements from monsters. But when the cards didn’t fall right, sucked to be stuck having to long rest early or with a dead turn or two. But vastly more annoying to me than the fixed range attacks, was the total inability to make my own elements prior to level 5. Lower level cards that make elements are the weakest in the kit and mostly not worth bringing, in my humble opinion. Items that generate elements are critical to making this class feel playable up to that point.
What about a tier list for how well gloomhaven classes port into frosthaven?
That's an awesome idea.
For example three spears is nerfed because of the available items in Frosthaven.
Circles and two minis are in my opinion really buffed because Frosthaven now has reasonable items to support a summon build and circles has that new perk to make his summons invisible once a scenario.
GH2e classes are on a similar balance scale. I think Alis agrees that the balance for GH1e classes in Frosthaven is "don't" - but I don't want to speak for her. 😅
Very nice. Thanks
Geminate mostly, I feel, needed more repeatable big hitting attacks (4+ damage) unenhanced. It wants you to burn more often but those big hits are core to letting a class actually shine. The precise range didn't really factor that much for me but it did also need at least one or two repeatable short range attacks. It also needed more control over form flipping; honestly a persistent loss that lets you form change at end of turn would solve all its action selection problems, I think. The puzzle is interesting and I like it but I totally understand why folks are frustrated with it.
I think Geminate works really well enhanced since you can cheaply enhance level 1 cards and the double perk lets you play that enhanced card twice in one rest cycle. (Since you usually aim to Loss one card each rest cycle) I was able to create a reliable melee + immobilize(pseudo-stun) gameplay with that.
This is Bannerspear slander! B is for Bannerspear. You just gotta keep granting your friends movement and placing them where they need to be like chess grandmaster. Your damage output is a little low compared to other classes, but you should be enabling your teammates to get more hits in as they don't need to waste time playing as many movement cards.
Love the list otherwise. Great job.
No matter how wrong everyone might be about their opinions (PRISM IS THE BEST I WILL NOT TAKE QUESTIONS), it's a good thing that we can all come together and agree that Geminate sucks.
Hmm I would need to look up how to make the coral class busted. I thought the tides were fine, but I never found that Nurse Zoidberg shined as anything other than a fair tank. Mind you, Zoidberg retired at level 5 so maybe I just didn't get to what makes it a busted class.
Hmm.. I must be doing something wrong, meteor has been average at best for me. But must just be my play style cos I 100% would swap that with Prism/ Diamond. That class lives rent free in my head it was so much fun and was the MVP of so many scenarios. Aside from that, seems a well rounded list, and looks like you might know your stuff. Thanks for the vid!
Kelp should definitely be A tier. IMO best in the game. You can load the enemy deck with curses, mitigating hundreds of damage for your group every scenario. Really high damage, slightly lower than BB but a lot more support and versatility, the GOAT.
Other than that I think I bump up Astral.
Rest I like.
Personally I feel like shackles suffers a bit too much from lack of multi targeting and reliance on persistant losses to really be S tier, though I have only played it as condition striker since that's what fit best with my party and only up to lvl 6 for the time being. Would personally put it in A. Prism at higher levels felt like it completely trivilaized every scenario. Reassemble allows for so many summons on the board without significantly sacrificing longevity, and with recall it just becomes ridiculous, easy S for me (at least summon focused build). Geminate I feel like had high enough output and ridiculous enough stamina to personally put in B tier. I aggree with Trap, super strong, but can be a bit screwed by some situations. Rarely completely screwed but often enough to signifcantly lower contribution. Also agree with blinkblade. Shards seems like it should be S tier based on my partners performance with it compared to their performance with other classes.
And those are all my opinions. Also, good video!
Snowflake paired with Meteor makes the former godlike… but useless without his sidekick 😅 As for Bannerspear it’s just a lot better without Banners, or just in some scenarios where you don’t have to move too much… which is kinda meh, but works. Can be quite tanky and damage dealer higher levels.
god i love watching tier lists for games i own but havent played yet ^^
I agree with everything you said.
I love the Gemski but I wont lie I cant wait to retire and try something new.
Kelp in B is INSANE! dude was hella good for me! Absolutely S tier boi
Jemmmy-naaaaaate
GEMMYYYY
Germinate is a word.
The only ranking I'm not 100% on is Kelp SPOILERS:
We played it at high prosperity and it really just didn't feel as crazy as expected even with great items. We really had to work as a group to get it to do its thing and even with items it felt like armor-haven struck this class to hard. Also just comparing to blink in terms of mass attacks its perk deck is just so weak feeling. I think in gh2e it might land solidly in A but in fh we really experienced it at C.
Weird; I had the exact opposite take and thought she ranked it too low. A properly played Stab Crab with the right items is up there with Shackles in terms of just breaking the game over its goddamn knee. Using power potions and similar effects to make a million Attack 4s at advantage without even losing a card, all while the enemies are powerless to hit you back due to perma-invisibility, is ridiculous , and you've got a few pierce/direct damage cards to deal with shields. Then again, we chose the other crab to unlock first so Kelp had the benefit of late-game momentum on its side when I played it.
I agree this entirely. Stab crab was almost soloing certain scenarios with its ability to be almost always invisible especially if someone else in the party could make dark occasionally @@basssquared
I am still very perplexed that people think Trap is "a strong class". Germinate, in my 4p grp, felt sooo much better than Trap. Trap felt more restrictive to my group than my enemies, and I fully believe he plays better at 2p comps.
Also stab crab is just insanity... I cannot fathom how crab is B tier when the stab variant is easily S tier with a few items.
Trap is a phenomenal class that requires a skilled player (and to a lesser extent, a cooperative group) to get the most effort out of. Unfortunately, it can be screwed by a few scenario mechanics - which is its main downside.
You can do ridiculous amounts of hard cc by properly positioning your traps. You can lay down more overlays more quickly than any other character. The heal traps are extremely strong support plus cc, and the damage traps are strong damage plus cc.
You can also, uniquely, bank up damage in early rooms to unleash in later ones.
Yes, Geminate is garbage Tier. 100% can confirm. Not a toolbox class if you are restricted from making best use of the tools when you need them.
loving my meteor right now. So versatile..
Excuse me B for stabby crabby?!? I could easily melt all enemies in the scenario with GT (lvl 4 card)! It, in combination with a top action let me do well over 100 damage in one turn with no losses by stacking power potions, frenzy potion, invisibility etc! Not only that but with the op boots that’s also becomes move 16 as well!!!
Completely agree. The best part about Stab Crab is that it doesn't need to lose any cards to clear the whole map (bosses included, no boss survives that) - just items. It can do just fine, decent CC, solid damage, amazing mobility... and the ability to wipe out the whole map without sacrificing any stamina just gives it so much versitility. Sometimes it's good to save it for the last turn, sometimes it's good to go ham at round 3... doesn't matter. And the ceiling for this class is super-high. We just finished the campaign and my Kelp was absolute beast in the final scenarios. I'd say it's borderline S-tier.
Though I must say that Bane Kelp is significantly weaker and I can see why it brings the whole class lower.
Stab crab is drifter?
@@Enhdros No, kelp class!
Germinate is a fantastic class! Its a shame you dont appear to get the most out if it
From testing and a few campaigns, we found that brittling was lit and burning losses in low-turn scenarios was solid but overall it felt like a lot to ask for the payout that some classes could more reliably do. I also didn't find it as fun? I do enjoy it more at level 6+ though!
Yeah guess it's hit or miss for players, I loved my Geminate.
Played 2p Drifter with Geminate we only lost one scenario before retirement (the one with the snowspeaker boss, summoning frost or wind demons on special 1/2 )
The drifter went in one side of the room and the geminate in the other and we just slaughered everything on our way
@costyaalbrecht3082 our initial team was a Geminate & a Blink Blade and never lost a game. Both werexas lethal as each other and it wasn't long before the Geminate retired first.
Infuser Guide please :')
Kelp is too low imo Stab crab with items that add attacl damage has insane damage output, can clear rooms in a single turn
Kelp is way too low. Kelp, IMO, is maybe the strongest class there is, you have some of the best damage, you can fill the enemy's deck with curses mitigating hundreds of damage per scenario for your entire group. There's literally no scenario it doesn't shine in. We had to bump up difficulty to +2-3 to be able to have a little bit of a challenge when I was playing Kelp.
Same here tbh, the only enemy Kelp is weak to is retaliate, which isn't super common, easily A tier and I wouldn't disagree with S either
Trap is too high.. Shenanigans!!!
No way, traps are the best!
"amdirt"? More like "am dirt" ahahhahaha
;)
@@dwarf74 Pipe down amPerv
Would you say Drifters power level drifts away over the levels?
Ayyyyyy
Gimme the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drifter-way
This sounds great if only I knew what gloomhaven is
Coral s tier
Tbf at max prosperity, max level, all unlocks, it's definitely up there.
Any tier list for Frosthaven that does not really consider synergies of classes when making a party is fairly pointless and misleading. Astral and snowflake together are A+, trapper is a really good support class. If you think geminate is bad, then you just need to learn how to play the game at a fundamental level. There are some classes that are kind of boring to play like drifter but are ok if you just want to coast and not really worry about planning. To get the most out of the best classes really requires interaction and cooperation with other players, so this is the main reason that tier lists for Frosthaven are a disservice to new players as well as a waste of time.
Geminate is bad. Ive finished multiple gloomhaven campaigns and im playing 3 frosthaven campaigns, 2 at +2. I certainly know "how to play the game at a fundamental level". Please dont be condescending. The power level to compensate for the many hoops u have to jump are just not there
U can certainly beat the game as geminate and u can certainly have fun doing it. But he is just worse than the others
@@villardileonardo2411preach! 😊
lol at the idea that Alis needs to learn how to play the game.
Geminate is not a bad class, but the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Can always tell the ones who are purely nothing but cowards when they block comments.
... who blocks comments?
By the way,....when you are doing tier lists you are only giving your opinion. Not everyone has otagree with it.
Correct? Obviously. Are you ok?