A Grim Dawn tier list that ranks the nine masteries individually is useless, because you never play one. You play a pairing, and the pairing is what is strong or weak. So this ranks class combinations, which is what you actually pick and what you are stuck with.
Ranked for the campaign through Ultimate and ordinary endgame farming. Nothing here is unplayable; the bottom of this list still finishes the game.
The rankings
| Tier | Class | Masteries | Why it lands here |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Purifier | Demolitionist + Inquisitor | Fire and lightning at range with Word of Renewal covering the defensive gap. Highest damage ceiling that is still easy to gear. |
| S | Death Knight | Soldier + Necromancer | Physical and vitality with enormous survivability. Krieg set is cheap to assemble and carries the whole build. |
| S | Warlord | Soldier + Oathkeeper | The tankiest thing in the game with damage that keeps up. Almost impossible to kill once resistances are capped. |
| A | Commando | Soldier + Demolitionist | Forgiving, tanky, straightforward. The best first character and never the best character. |
| A | Cabalist | Occultist + Necromancer | Pets do the fighting. Extremely safe, slow against single targets. |
| A | Infiltrator | Nightblade + Inquisitor | Cold damage with strong mobility. Needs specific gear before it comes together. |
| A | Ritualist | Necromancer + Shaman | Pets and vitality, with better single-target than Cabalist. |
| A | Sorcerer | Arcanist + Demolitionist | Fire and elemental caster with real burst. Fragile until well geared. |
| B | Witchblade | Soldier + Occultist | Solid and unremarkable. Works, rarely excels. |
| B | Elementalist | Demolitionist + Shaman | Good damage, awkward defensive layer. |
| B | Vindicator | Shaman + Inquisitor | Lightning specialist that spends a long time mediocre. |
| B | Trickster | Nightblade + Shaman | Fast and squishy. Rewards good play, punishes greed. |
| C | Battlemage | Soldier + Arcanist | The two masteries pull in different directions and neither carries. |
| C | Spellbreaker | Nightblade + Arcanist | High ceiling, terrible early game, needs endgame gear to function. |
Why the top three are the top three
All three cap resistances easily. That is the whole reason.
Resistances soften at 80% and Ultimate strips 50 points, so the practical difference between a strong class and a weak one is how much gear pressure it puts on you to reach cap. Purifier, Death Knight and Warlord all reach 80% across the board with ordinary gear, which leaves the rest of your slots free for damage.
Spellbreaker and Battlemage sit at C for the same reason inverted. They want gear that does three jobs at once and there is not enough of it until very late.
Where this list is wrong
Player skill moves things by a full tier. A Trickster in the hands of someone who dodges well outperforms a Warlord piloted badly, and the fast squishy classes reward practice more than the tanky ones do.
Build-specific gear also breaks the ranking. A Spellbreaker with the right endgame set is stronger than most of the A tier; it just spends sixty hours getting there.
If you are new, start at the top. If you have finished the game once, ignore this list and play what looks fun, because at that point everything works.
The Grim Dawn builds guide covers masteries, resistances and devotion in more depth.
