Class Comparison

Class Comparison Table

These are GENERAL notes for the classes. Some Sub-Classes' characteristics run counter to the generalities of their class. There are melee styles with AoE skills, there are magic users with melee attacks, etc. Generally every class/sub-class have some version of every skill type and attack style, which (depending on general effectiveness, enemy combatant, or player style) may or may not be used in any given situation.

See Sub Class Comparison for more details.

• Orientation
  • Melee means uses weapons
  • Magic means uses MP
  • Range means use of long-range attacks.

Name	Orientation	Play Style	Range	Defense	Speed	Notes	Popularity
Slayer	Melee	Balanced melee class	Medium	Good	Fast	Easy to use, difficult to master. Its the basic class that specializes with many weapon masteries. Has a difficult time starting out due to lack of skills, but becomes very proficient at PvE and PvP. Skills are straightforward and highly accessible. Magic skills tend to have a dark elemental attribute.	Very common
Fighter	Melee	High speed movement with powerful melee skills	Short	Good	Fastest	Harder than the Slayer due to shorter reach and lack of variety in skills, but very satisfying damage. Has a difficult time starting out until the first grab skill is learned. Magic Skills tend to have the light elemental attribute.	Common
Gunner (M&F)	Ranged	Versatile ranged attacker	Long	Average	Fast	Very easy to use. Has an extremely easy start by keeping enemies away with ranged attacks but later on many enemies have counters against ranged attacks such as super armor or defensive auras. Excels in a keep-away game, and can harass effectively with low risk. Can temporarily enchant bullets with an element, use grenades, explosive robots and subweapons such as Gatling guns and Flamethrowers. there's a few gender differences while executing some skills.	Very common
Mage	Melee/Magic	Tricky melee attacks backed by magic skills	Medium/Long	Poor	Average	Low HP and defense makes the Mage the most difficult to play and start out with. As more skills become accessible, the Mage's damage output and survivability will start to increase rapidly.	Uncommon
Priest	Melee	Slow moving tank with the strongest attack power	Short/Medium	Great	Slow	Easy to use, difficult to avoid getting damaged. Has an average difficulty starting out. Despite the name of Priest, this is not the traditional healer class. While the Priest can heal, it isn't very effective and has heavy limitations. Instead, the Priest excels in melee combat. Skills tend to grant super armor, protecting the Priest from interruptions. This makes melee combat extremely one-sided; the Priest must spend most of his time chasing players in PvP.	Common
Thief	Melee/Magic	Fast movement and fast attack speed maxed out with critical hits.	Short/Medium	Average	Fastest	Similar dificulty than a fighter but combos tend to be aerial, careless play can lead to a quick death, while this class is like a traditional thief class, some skills are magic rather than physical, long ranged and somewhat defensive. Critical damage can be very high and its natural speed makes Thiefs both deadly and tricky on PvP.	Common

Subclass Comparison Table

• Range- usual range of attacks
  • Short- Shortest range
  • Medium- Can be roughly two to three body lengths away
  • Long- Farthest range sometimes off-screen
• Source- source of damage, usually referring to the most often used attack
  • Physical- uses weapons to attack; deals physical damage based on Str stat
  • Magical- uses magic skills to attack; deals magical damage based on Int stat
  • Hybrid- uses both weapons and magic skills to attack uses both Int and Str to calculate damage
• Skill type- the type of skills the subclass specializes in
  • Power- powerful offensive skills
  • Speed- fast/combo/cancellable skills
  • Buff- skills to either improve the character or to weaken the opponent.
  • Nuke- high powered ranged attacks and with wide AoE (Area of effect)
  • Summon- Summons allies to aid directly in contributing attacks most of the time with its own AI
• Difficulty- Minimum level of initial skill required to play the character
  • Easy- Anyone with any level of experience can play this character to good effect
  • Average- Some experience with gaming would be helpful, some learning curve
  • Hard- Should have some experience with gaming and 2D scrollers, there will be a learning curve

Name	Class	Range	Source	Skill type	Difficulty	Notes
Blade Master	Slayer	Medium	Physical	Speed	Easy	The Blade Master expands on the basic skills and can now cancel attacks into them, can specialize on the 4 weapons for Slayers and its the only class able to wield Beam Swords. Blade Master is allowed to improvise combos fluidly and easily. In PvE, the Blade Master enjoys easy infinite combo setups (while MP lasts) and benefits of Tempered Attack to reduce the durability loss during long runs. In PvP, they have well-rounded abilities and are able to quickly take down a player with their sheer DPS from proper combos. The Blade Master is the undisputed glass cannon of the Slayer subclasses.
Soul Bender	Slayer	Medium/Long	Hybrid	Buff	Hard	The Soul Bender wears cloth armor, so he takes more damage when attacked. However, he can easily mitigate it with Afterimage of Keiga and carefully trap his opponent with well placed spirits to inflict status ailments. With tools such as Ghost Step to safely avoid all damage and get the first strike, the Soul Bender specializes in a powerful keep-away to overcome his opponent.
Berserker	Slayer	Medium	Physical	Buff	Average	The Berserker uses his own HP to activate skills instead of MP, but gains incredible survivability in exchange. At low HP, he becomes more difficult to finish off thanks to increasing parameters and the ability to heal himself. The Berserker has gained the nickname "cockroach" by the Korean DnF community.
Asura	Slayer	Medium/Long	Magical	Nuke	Average	The magic-user of the Slayers and the slowest of the four also the most common slayer due to its plate armor surviability and the interesting skill preview that GSD shows in some quests. The Asura has the highest physical defense due to Plate Armor Mastery, and uses primarily ranged attacks. His skills have high burst damage, making the Asura great for crowd control and boss killing, but the slow movement speed gives him a difficult time catching other players in PvP. The Asura is recommended for players who enjoy zoning with projectiles and creating fireball traps. Note that skills used by GSD are greatly overpowered and his awakening skill is infinite while players have around 60 second limit for it.
Nen Master	Fighter	Medium/Long	Magical	Buff	Easy	The magic user of the Fighters. Shes attacks are light elemental, She can harass effectively with projectiles, and learns many defensive skills to avoid damage. Most notably, Floating Nen Flowers allows an awakened Nen Master to passively nullify any attack once, after which it reactivates when a set period of time has passed by. The Nen Master sacrifices offensive power for powerful defense and escape tools to play an effective keep-away game, and can handle her own in close combat with her buffs and is the only supportive focused fighter subclass intended for party play.
Striker	Fighter	Short	Physical	Power	Average	The fastest movement speed combined with the highest burst damage in the game. Strikers aim to land a powerful combo string rather than individual hits with a very high chance of receive alot of damage to, though trading hits is still advantageous for the Striker. Landing a combo is usually achieved by using a temporary Super Armor buff to help close in on an opponent. While the short reach makes it difficult to land a combo, the Striker's naturally high movement speed helps to compensate for it. The Striker is a great choice for players favoring "bulldog" or "rush down" tactics (the best defense is the best offense mindset) as they are able to chase enemies unchecked whenever the Super Armor buff is active. Note that Super Armor naturally makes the Striker receive more damage, despite the physical defense buff, so its recomended to use it with discretion vs other Super Armored enemies in PvE.
Brawler	Fighter	Medium	Physical	Buff	Average	Its a versatile subclass that specializes in afflicting status conditions (such as bleeding, poison, stun, and immobility) on opponents. The Brawler has a lot of tools to deal with a variety of situations A.K.A. dirty fight or street fight style. Most notably, they can mount downed opponents for extra attacks. In addition, Brawlers deal increasing bonus damage as opponents are also afflicted with increasing amounts of status conditions. They use heavy armor and claw weapons that allow them to fight on a slight longer range than other fighter subclasses. They have one of the best tools in the game in the form of Heaven's Net, which allows them to pull and immobilize enemies from across the screen for a free combo. Players who like utility will also enjoy the Brawler's harassing ability and its immunity to poison comes in handy with several enemies or dungeon traps poison based.
Grappler	Fighter	Short	Physical	Power	Hard	Specializes in grabs/throws that enjoys of invincibility frames to avoid any kind of damage while well timed the grappler can dispatch a group of enemies while being untouched. Can even grab ungrabbable enemies even in the air. The Grappler can chain throws together to create a combo, and is very dangerous in "okizeme" (the downed opponent cannot stand up safely). One of its notable advantages is the non penalty of extra mp usage while using grabs while using gauntlet weaponds to enhance basic attacks but grabs are fixed on damage that means damage just relies on skill ranks and not stats or weaponds equiped for this reason also the use of tonfas that gives defense is recomended for this class that stacks with the light armor mastery and the passive skill Iron Body. The Grappler enjoys immense popularity in the Korean DnF community as the glass cannon of the Fighter subclasses.
Ranger	Gunner	Any Range	Physical	Speed	Easy	Can fight at any range, and is especially dangerous at melee range. The Ranger specializes in juggling opponents in the air. The difficulty listed is rather deceptive. While the Ranger class itself is easy to play, dealing damage is very difficult. If one is adept at juggling, one can bring out the Ranger's strength to deal massive amounts of damage in a single juggle. However, if one cannot perform juggles, one will find the damage output to be decisively behind other Gunner classes. Note that carefull skill placement is required as the Ranger is the gunner class with most skills available upon advancement and is very easy to be lost in the growth of skills. Between the male and female version varies some skills on wich females have more efficiency like vacuum effects, and hit downed enemies easier than its male counterpart beacause of being slightly shorter in attack height.
Launcher	Gunner	Long	Physical	Nuke	Easy	The Launcher is a huge threat even from off-screen. His skills are mostly nukes, and can quickly dispatch an opponent with successful hits. While skill usage is very MP intensive, it can also deal generous amounts of damage when chained together in a single combo. Despite the heavy armor mastery of a Launcher, it is deadly to be surrounded by enemies like any other gunner subclass. Between the gender differences the female version carries sub-weapons lower and thus can be more efficient on some grounded or extremely short enemies. It is not recommended to attempt a close range/cancel launcher for PvE since its attack speed is fairly slow with heavy armor compared to leather.
Mechanic	Gunner	Long	Magical	Summoner	Average	The Mechanic is different from the Summoner and the Necromancer in that his summons make a bee-line towards enemies and can fill the screen with projectiles, effectively giving the Mechanic the title of "the PvP Summoner". Despite that title, the Mechanic excels in PvE as well (particularly the Female Mechanic since she can rotate between G1-Corona and G2-Rolling Thunder indefinitely). Since Mechanics wear Cloth Armor, they play keep-away exclusively and put pressure on opponents from afar.
Spitfire	Gunner	Middle/Long	Hybrid	Nuke/Buff	Easy	The Spitfire is very easy to play, and is known as an unfair class in that knockdowns allow him to fire a salvo of enchanted bullets to do extremely high damage. He can zone effectively with grenades, possesses a great Z-axis attack with Crossmore, and can lay mines to stay in control of the field so it a class prepared for almost all situations and types of enemies. Between the gender diferences the female version can carry more grenades and bullets and throw grenades while in the air.
Elementalist	Mage	Long	Magical	Nuke	Hard	The Elementalist is a powerful nuking class and is the bane of all Exorcists in PvP. She can play an effective keep-away game with her spells, and flood the field with projectiles. In PvE, the Elementalist can quickly destroy large packs of monsters with AoE nukes. With careful spell placement, the player can put immense pressure on both players and monsters while remaining safe but like any Mage, a slight error of being caught by an enemy and especially a group of enemies may lead to instant death due to the cloth armor. Note that even though the Elementalist can master the four elements, it is recommended to focus on one or two due to its extensive sp usage.
Summoner	Mage	Long	Magical	Summoner	Easy	The Summoner suffers from poor minion AI, extensive sp usage, a lot of skills to rank and high mp usage, but still enjoys flooding the screen with her minions. In PvE, she is able to solo while avoiding all damage, but she solos very slowly due to how attacking with summons work (target must be set using a skill). Summoners can enjoy mild success in PvP since they have different minion attack patterns that players are unable to deal with. Interestingly, Summoners can lag out some party members when they create enough summons. Note that not all the skills should be ranked or maxed in order to have an effective skill build.
Witch	Mage	Medium	Hybrid	Speed	Average/Hard	Several skills are based on chance, with a possibility of failure, success, and sleeper success. Uses weapon buffs and close-range attacks to perform damaging juggle combos, while using AoE skills to trap enemies. They are able to air-dash and air combos due to unique movement skills related to the broom, making them the most mobile of the Mage subclasses and with the skill Befriend Florae, Ancient Library can affect party members as well as increase Intelligence.
Battle Mage	Mage	Medium	Hybrid	Speed	Hard	The top tier PvP class in Korea, the Battle Mage enjoys unrivaled attack and movement speed (via Chaser buff) at high levels of play. They specialize in combos much like the Ranger, but are not limited to just air juggling. They use Chasers, which are generated automatically upon landing certain skills and are manually launched at enemies to inflict AoE damage, stun effects, negative attributes, and most importantly, to continue combos. The Battle Mage is equipped with strong survivability as well with maxed Mana Shield. Players who are adept at combos and juggling will find the Battle Mage to be very rewarding and very open to creativity in combat.
Crusader	Priest	Short	Magical	Buff	Easy	The support class of DFO that is able to tank and mainly buff anything in its sight, with skills that heal, protect, and buff. Offensive melee attacks tend to be short ranged. Careful skill allocation is needed due to multiple available builds, and healing skills can be cast only a certain number of times in dungeons. Depending on the number of party members, MP usage can be light to very heavy. This is also the most uncommon class played due to its niche role. PvP Crusaders can be found online, but are a rarity due to the bigger advantages of PvPing as other classes.
Monk	Priest	Short	Physical	Speed	Average	Will Driver allows the Monk to plant his weapon in the ground to use a special boxing style move set, sacrificing staying power for incredible speed and powerful burst damage. The Monk uses high speed dashing and dodging followed by a combo to take down enemies. Fast reflexes and quick thinking is essential to mastering this class. The Monk is recommended for players excelling in "footsies" (dancing in and out of opponent's attack range) as they are able to punish misses with deadly precision.
Exorcist	Priest	Short/Medium	Hybrid	Power	Average	One of the most versatile subclasses in the game, both skill types (physical and magical) are well represented with either high damage potential or utility. Very careful skill planning is necessary as there are many build options, such as physical-based (focus on raw damage) or magical-based (focus on AoE and zoning), or hybrid (focus on PvP utility). Physical exorcists are famous for being able to kill other players in a single combo (though at great expense since they are unable to deal with keep-away play styles). They also tend to spend the entire match trying to catch the other player. It is notable that Physical Exorcists almost never win against Elementalists, while hybrid builds allow the Exorcist a chance to trap them with spells of his own.
Rogue	Thief	Short/Medium	Physical	Power/Speed	Average/Hard	One of the faster damage dealing subclasses in the game, leather armor mastery and weapon bonuses fully enhances the effects of critical hits for extremely high damage output, skills are both aerial and very mobile. Very careful skill planning is necessary as there are many skills and skill points can be tight, and is important to connect combos successfully, in PvP they're Glass Cannons mainly because being caught by a Rogue can be deadly but leather armor makes them fragile to attacks. It is notable that its mobility is very helpful in both PvP and PvE.
Necromancer	Thief	Medium/long	Magic	Summon/Buff/Nuke	Average/Easy	Magic user of the Thief, this class is aided just by a few summons like Nicholas Rapport that can take orders from the necromancer, summon zombies and drain health from enemies and Vallacre the Slaughterer that works as a buff of sorts. While its gameplay tends to be tactical in both PvP and PvE compared to the Mechanic, some nuke attacks and skills are made to inflict enemies with damage over time skills.