Starting classes only
Frosthaven starting class tier list
Ranked by one question: how likely is a new party to get a good result with this class in their first campaign? That mixes the rulebook's complexity rating with how much the class depends on the rest of the table.
This is not a damage ranking. Blinkblade and Geminate are strong classes; they sit low here because they are the two hardest to pilot, and a first campaign is a bad place to learn two engines at once.
S — pick it and it works
Low complexity and no bad opening hand. You can play it well in scenario one.
Flexible melee that can be built into a damage dealer, a bruiser or a support depending on which persistent abilities you keep running. The rulebook rates it low complexity, and it is the easiest of the six to play well on a first campaign.
A — strong, one habit to learn
Low complexity, but the good turns depend on the rest of the table standing in the right place.
The closest thing the starting six have to a tank, with buffs and healing on the side. Damage comes from formations: the big attacks only land when an ally is standing in the right place.
B — fine, if you track your own engine
Medium complexity: the class works, but you have to follow its resource every round.
A summoner with a healing habit. The Boneshaper spends its own hit points to put skeletons on the board and keep them useful, so your health total is a resource rather than a score.
A class that turns killing into fuel. Its abilities work off the shadow tokens that death leaves on the board, so it wants to be where things are dying — and it wants them to keep dying.
C — save it for campaign two
High complexity. Not weak — just the wrong thing to learn the game with.
Fast melee that chooses between a fast and a slow mode each round, then lives with the consequences. The rulebook rates it high complexity: the damage is real, but so is the risk of being caught in the open.
One character, two forms: a melee side and a ranged side, switched by taking actions in the right order. The most complex of the six, and the one that changes shape most between rounds.
How the ranking was made
Complexity is the rulebook rating printed next to each class on page 3, not our opinion. The rest is party fit: a class that needs allies in specific hexes, or a resource that only builds when something dies, is harder to run at a table that is still learning the rules.
We do not publish a power tier list for the eleven locked classes. Their names are a campaign spoiler, and we would rather leave them out than rank classes we cannot test against verified data.
The one swap worth making
If you want a high-complexity class anyway, take Blinkblade rather than Geminate first. Both are rated high, but Blinkblade has one rhythm to learn — fast round, slow round — while Geminate asks you to track two forms on top of everything else.