You’ll want to make sure that the class you pick not only matches your playstyle and preferences but also that you’ll be able to play it effectively on your own.
Here’s a quick overview of each class in Hellgate so you can make an informed decision at character creation.
Blademaster
Blademasters are the hyper-aggressive, in-your-face melee class of Hellgate: London. Specializing in dual wielding and single-target DPS, they also made decent tanks in the original game’s multiplayer mode (by necessity, for the most part).
However, you don’t have healers and summoners to back you up in the 2018 version. If you choose to play a Blademaster, you’ll be taking a lot of damage—probably more than you would as any other class. Consequently, you’ll want to spend a lot of money and time building up your armor rating, and always carry a big stock of health injectors. Stamina and Strength will be your primary attributes.
The shift in focus toward survivability means that at least in the early game, the Blademaster isn’t as offensively formidable as its original incarnation. But if you stick with it long enough, you’ll still end up with the best damage-dealing class around by the endgame.
Guardian
The Guardian is more or less the inverse of the Blademaster. Boasting high physical defense that only improves as they get more overwhelmed, Guardians receive many bonuses when fighting alone against hordes of demons.
This is good news for you in single-player mode. Invest plenty of points into Stamina, followed by Strength—but don’t entirely neglect Will, which you’ll need to fuel your stronger abilities later on.
Some encounters will be challenging when you’re up against foes with tons of HP and great physical defense; you may find that you have trouble surviving long enough to deal out enough damage to kill them.
To compensate, choose gear that synergizes well with your skills. Don’t prioritize raw attack power. Many Guardian skills, especially more advanced ones, become incredibly powerful with the right gear sets equipped.
Summoner
The Summoner is my personal favorite Hellgate class, but don’t be swayed by my opinion alone; all six classes are well balanced and any of them can be effective, even solo.
The Summoner controls the battlefield by hiring lots of friends and letting them do the hard work. Built and played correctly, it’s one of the easier classes to handle without human teammates.
Will and Stamina are your top two stats; you’ll want to spend the vast majority of your points on the former, as Summoners need an absolute crap-ton of power to maintain a whole horde of creatures.
The other key point to remember is to stay out of melee combat. Not sometimes, not most of the time, but always. Despite having Stamina as a secondary stat, Summoners are still on the fragile side; they defend themselves by staying out of harm’s reach.
For a more in-depth guide to Summoners, head over here.
Evoker
Arguably the most complex and nuanced class, Evokers are easy to mismanage, but staggeringly powerful if used effectively. They are second only to Blademasters in raw damage output, but their debuffing and damage over time abilities make up the difference admirably.
Evokers rely on Focus items to channel magic into various forms of direct damage and status effects. There are four different types of Focus items, each with a particular… well, focus. Choose yours very carefully; if you’re not buying and using skills compatible with your Focus, you’ll be significantly less effective than you should be.
Evokers may struggle with trash mobs but naturally excel against bosses and bigger monsters. Stacking several status effects onto a single target can turn a formidable foe into a manageable one—just watch for smaller enemies and don’t neglect your AoE damage abilities to keep their numbers in check.
Marksman
The Marksman might seem weak at low levels. This is because they are. At first, their only real advantage in combat is the ability to engage targets from farther away than any other class, but their damage is lackluster at first.
Marksmen truly begin to excel around Level 15, when skills like Smackdown and Ravager Rounds become available. These powerful multi-target attacks really help to thin out crowds long before they can get close to you, leaving plenty of time to damage bigger foes with your stronger single-target abilities.
Prioritize Accuracy and Will, ignore Strength entirely, and keep your distance (obviously). If you can be patient with the Marksman during their less-than-impressive early levels, the class will surely grow on you.
Engineer
Engineers are the closest thing to a jack-of-all-trades class that Hellgate: London has. An effective Engineer is one that plans their skills several levels in advance and invests heavily in their bots (you can have two at a time), as well as their own weapons.
In combat, Engineers function as something of a Marksman-Summoner hybrid, deploying bots to engage enemies while also dealing some damage of their own with ranged weapons. Like Guardians, Engineers are especially dependent on their gear.
Engineers don’t really have favored stats; they need them all to some extent. Which stats are best for you depends largely on what skills you prefer and what gear you choose to equip that synergizes well with those skills.
It may be somewhat counterintuitive, but when you level up, don’t allocate your stat points right away. Take a look at your current gear, and at some higher-level gear you can’t equip yet but want to later on. Spend stat points according to what you ultimately want to be able to wear, and try to keep some unspent points in reserve in case you find better gear with different requirements.
Engineers are not masters of anything, but they don’t suck terribly at anything either. It may be a good class to try if you’re a generalist, or to get an overall feel for the game in order to choose a more specialized class later.
There you have it! Use our handy overview guide to deploy into demon-ravaged London ready to administer justice with extreme prejudice. Don’t hesitate to consult our Hellgate: London hub page for more tips and guides, either.
