Rankings in Godtear are meaningless out of context. A huge amount depends on scenario and opponent. We all hopefully know this. Grimgut is much more effective if your opponent has no Maelstrom than if they do. Mourneblade into Maxen is very different from Mourneblade into some other list compositions. Helena in Quest is quite different from Helena in Life. Need I go on?
However, I think ranking is an interesting exercise because it might force us to think about the game just a little bit harder by forcing direct comparisons between champions. Also, it's fun. It's fun to argue about. I expect lots of disagreement about these rankings.
Subjective Ranks
You may agree or disagree and that's fine. This is a nonsensical exercise to begin with. This is based mostly on how I FEEL when I DRAFT. This would probably be a different list from the perspective of a fixed list tournament. I approach this from a draft perspective because I am convinced that draft formats make a wider range of champions relevant. Again, this all depends on who my opponent picks, what my list composition is, and what the scenario is. Overall, though, this is my answer today.
Without breaking it down into any particular methodology or categories or anything, here are my subjective overall ordinal power rankings of all 25 current champions:
Raith'Marid
Kailinn
Rangosh
Skullbreaker
Jaak
Shayle
Styx
Luella
Finvarr
Lilly
Rhodri
Maxen
Mourneblade
Titus
Blackjaw
Halftusk
Jeen
Sneaky Peet
Keera
Nia
Grimgut
Lorsann
Helena
Rattlebone
Morrigan
Honestly, I don't feel strongly about a lot of those rankings, especially 5-21. If you gave me the hard sell that Titus was better than Rhodri, for example, I could probably be persuaded. I feel more confident in the top 4 and the bottom 4, though.
Here's how I recommend reading this list: ask yourself where we differ. If I rate a champion higher than you do, ask yourself what you might be missing about them. If I rate a champion lower than you do, ask yourself what I may be missing about them. Maybe try out someone I rate higher than you do. I am certainly willing to try out champions you rate higher than I do. Hit me up.
If you prefer, here's a tier list:
S
Raith'Marid
Kailinn
A
Rangosh
Skullbreaker
B
Jaak
Shayle
Styx
Luella
Finvarr
Lilly
Rhodri
Maxen
Mourneblade
Titus
Blackjaw
Halftusk
Jeen
Sneaky Peet
Keera
Nia
C
Grimgut
Lorsann
Helena
D
Rattlebone
Morrigan
It's a huge B tier. Really, nearly all of the champions are playable. Even those three I have in C tier have their spots in the right scenario and matchup. I have definitely selected them in drafts. Again, I cannot stress enough how fluid this is based on scenario. If it's Knowledge, for example, Helena becomes A tier and Kailinn becomes C Tier.
This ranking also reflects my play style significantly. I like to fight, so I probably have Rangosh and Skullbreaker higher than some others might.
I'd also like to add that I think all champions are playable. I do not actually hate Morrigan too much in the right list composition, but overall she's at the bottom here because she only blooms in a very particular climate. My thing is - why play Morrigan or Rattlebone when clearly better options exist?
Category Ranks
So, ok, these are subjective too. I know that. I just.. couldn't think of a better term for the previous category. In an effort to get a bit more granular, though, broke different roles a champion might play into eight categories and ranked the top 10 crews in each. By a "crew," I mean a champion and their follower unit. Here are the categories:
Champion KOs: How many steps do I expect this crew to score by KOing champions?
Champion KO Denial: How many steps do I expect this crew to give up by having its champion KOd?
Follower KOs: How many steps do I expect this crew to score by KOing followers?
Follower KO Denial: How many steps do I expect this crew to give up from having its followers KOd?
Banner Protection: How many steps do I expect this crew to score by having banners on the board in the End Phase?
Banner Denial: How many steps do I expect this crew to prevent by crushing banners?
Support: How well does this crew buff other crews (not themselves) and/or debuff enemies?
Board Control: How well does this crew manipulate the board state through sudden, drastic movements of other models and/or objective hexes.
Not all of these categories are equally important to winning the game. Support, for example, just doesn't seem as impactful we hope it is in my experience.
Ok... ready? Enough disclaimers? Here are my top 10 champions in each category, ranked. I have color coded them by class. Don't hate me.
Obviously, this is nonsense. For example, Grimgut is definitely the BEST at not surrendering follower KOs if there is no enemy Maelstrom, but sometimes there will be, so I went with health 5 dragons and potentially Armor 5 Dwarves ahead of the Retchlings. Obviously, the way you think about more ambiguous concepts like "support" and "board control" may lead you to rank champions differently. This table is what happened when one player had a go. I encourage you to try it yourself.
There are a few things which stand out, though. As you might expect, the killy categories are mostly full of Slayers and Maelstroms. The control categories are a bit more mixed, but there's still mostly blue and green at the top. What's interesting to me here are champions which can crack the top 10 in a category where the class is not super well represented. Jaak can really hit hard for a Guardian. Maxen has a lot of support for a Slayer. Luella can really take a punch despite being a Maelstom.These kinds of against-type characteristics can really make a champion stand out.
Ok, ready for some hate? Here are the bottom five in each category. 1 means that champion is the worst in that category and 5 means they're the fifth worst. Why not bottom 10? Because it was a bit too nonsensical at a certain point.
Tbh, this was kind of silly in some places even with just a bottom five. I had to split a lot of hairs. I found this really hard. But for you, reader, anything. Here you go:
This is also kind of what you'd expect, but some trends are interesting. Slayers have soft followers. Shapers have low attack volumes. It's interesting to me that some of the champions that protect banners very well don't threaten them very well. It's also fun to see an outlier. Jaak is a guardian, but his Cronies are soft, for example.
Notice that certain champions that were subjectively ranked highly but who were not in the top 10 very much are also not here very much. Raith is not in the bottom 5 in any category, for example. There's a lot of power in versatility.
Anyhow, those are my current ranks. I regret them already.
Once again, if you don't like mine, make your own! It's an interesting exercise.
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