Who is the best character in Soulstone Survivors?

For a new account, the Barbarian — and it is already unlocked. All five of its Main Skill Types (Electric, Earth, Swing, Thrust, Slam) are physical, so the skills it is offered reinforce each other instead of splitting your build. For a mature account the ceiling belongs to the Necromancer, whose +20% Multi Cast and +15% Cast Frequency multiply summon output directly, and the Pyromancer, whose +20% damage and +20% area sit on top of Fire, the head of the debuff chain.

Is the Barbarian just a tutorial character?

No. It is the only starting character in the game whose whole type spread is physical melee, which makes it the most reliable engine for the Swing and Thrust skill chains. It also carries +25% Cast Frequency and +20 Maximum Health, so it is fast and forgiving at the same time. Plenty of accounts never find a better all-round pick.

How do I unlock the Necromancer?

Win a match in The Dungeon of Despair with all curses up to tier III enabled. The Dungeon of Despair is the highest-danger map in Void Fields, so this is a genuine mid-game requirement rather than something you will stumble into. The Death Knight has the equivalent requirement on The Frozen Wasteland.

Is the Blacksmith worth chasing?

It has +75% Damage Modifier, +60% Critical Chance, +70% Area Modifier and +50% Cast Frequency, which is not close to anything else in the roster. But it is unlocked by completing the Skill Tree, and it is the one character with no Ascension ability. Treat it as the reward for finishing meta-progression, not as a goal that shortens the road there.

Do I need to level every character?

No, and spreading prestige thin is the most common waste on a new account. Character-specific skill trees only open at prestige level 20, and they reveal in groups of 20 purchased skills, so depth pays much better than breadth. Pick two characters that suit different maps and take both past 20 before adding a third.

Soulstone Survivors Best Characters

Q: Why does my character matter less than my build?

It does not, but the reason it feels that way is that the character controls your build indirectly. Common skills only appear if the character has at least one of that skill's Primary Types, so your five Main Skill Types are the filter on everything you will be offered all run. A character is best understood as a skill pool with a stat line attached.

Most Soulstone Survivors tier lists rank characters by their damage modifier. That is the wrong number to look at, and it is worth knowing why before you read anyone's list, including this one.

Every character has five Main Skill Types, and a common skill can only be offered to you if the character has at least one of that skill's primary types. So your five types are a filter on the entire run. On top of that, the game's best powers are conditional: a "chance to apply Burn on hit" power needs one source of Burn, "on crit" needs two, and the powers that raise Burn's damage or tick rate need three. The buff and debuff synergy chains work the same way — two sources of Finesse unlock Bulwark, two sources of Burn unlock Slow, and so on around the loop.

Put those two facts together and the ranking axis falls out. A character whose five types converge on one identity reaches those thresholds; a character with a scattered pool spends the whole run at one or two sources and is never shown the powers that would have made the build.

The tier list

The Barbarian — Melee, unlocked by default All five types (Electric, Earth, Swing, Thrust, Slam) are physical, so nearly every skill offered feeds the same chains. +25% Cast Frequency, +15% Critical Damage, +20 Maximum Health and +10% Movement Speed is a stat line with no real weakness. The best character in the game to learn on, and one most accounts keep using. The Necromancer — Summon and Mage, curses to tier III on the Dungeon of Despair +20% Multi Cast Chance and +15% Cast Frequency multiply summon output directly rather than through a damage number, so the screen fills in a way nothing else matches. Arcane, Chaos, Ice, Nature and Shadow is broad, but summon skills are the common thread. -10% Movement Speed is the price. The Pyromancer — Mage, kill a Lord of the Void in The Scorching Valley +20% Damage Modifier, +20% Area Modifier and +20% Critical Damage on a Fire-led pool, and Burn sits at the head of the debuff chain (Burn to Slow to Disarray to Bleed to Poison to Doom). Unlocks very early for what it is. The cost is real: -20 Maximum Health and -15 Armor Power. The Elementalist — Mage, complete a match in under 10 minutes +30% Damage Modifier is the largest in the roster, on the only five-element pool in the game (Ice, Nature, Fire, Electric, Earth) plus +20% Area. The unlock is a speed requirement rather than a difficulty one, so it is reachable early with a strong build.

The Assassin — Melee, eliminate 100 Lords of the Void Thrust plus Nature and Shadow is the cleanest route to a Bleed-and-Poison stack, and Bleed sits mid-chain where the damage-over-time powers are strongest. +15% Cast Frequency, +25% Movement Speed and an extra Dash make it the most mobile melee option. -10% Area Modifier means you have to actually aim. The Legionnaire — Melee, complete 100% of Endless Mode Cycle 2 +40 Maximum Health, +30 Armor Power and +2 flat Damage Reduction is the sturdiest character in the game, which is exactly what learning high curse tiers requires. The types are wide (Chaos, Nature, Fire, Electric, Thrust), so it trades ceiling for survivability. -10% Area and -5% Critical Chance. The Beastmaster — Summon, all curses on The Whispering Grove The other summoner, with +10% Multi Cast and +10% Cast Frequency plus +20 Maximum Health. Strictly behind the Necromancer because -10% Damage Modifier and -10% Experience Gain both work against you, but it is far more survivable and unlocks much earlier. The Samurai — Melee, Sigil of Wickedness in Titan Hunt Chaos, Fire, Shadow, Swing and Slam with +10% Critical Chance, +15% Critical Damage and an extra Dash. A concentrated offensive pool with mobility attached. It sits here rather than higher only because the unlock is deep in Titan Hunt, by which point you have better-levelled options. The Demon Hunter — Ranged, Ritual of Hate in the Unholy Cathedral Chaos, Shadow, Projectile, Bomb and Blast is a tight ranged pool with no wasted breadth, on +15% Damage and +10% Cast Frequency. Ranged characters ask more of your positioning than melee do in this game, which is the only reason it is not higher. The Machinist — Ranged, Sigil of Vileness in Titan Hunt +15% Multi Cast Chance on a Blast and Electric pool, with +20 Maximum Health and +15 Armor Power to keep it upright. A rare combination of multi-cast scaling and durability. -10% Movement Speed asks you to hold ground rather than kite.

The Sentinel — Ranged, eliminate 50 elite enemies +10% Critical Chance, +20% Critical Damage, +20% Movement Speed and an extra Dash make it the most evasive character in the game, and it unlocks early. But -30 Maximum Health and -20 Body Mass mean one mistake at high curse is the whole run. The Spellblade — Melee, eliminate 10,000 enemies +30 Maximum Health, +20 Armor Power and +20% Movement Speed is a genuinely comfortable body. The problem is the pool: Arcane, Fire and Ice alongside Swing and Thrust splits magical and physical damage, which is precisely the split that keeps you below the three-source thresholds. The Engineer — Summon and Ranged, eliminate 700 Lords of the Void Turret-style summons on Blast, Bomb, Earth, Electric and Projectile, with +20% Critical Damage and +15% Experience. Static summons want you to stand still, and standing still is how runs end at curse 6. The Monkey King — Melee, curses to tier VI on The Whispering Grove +25% Area Modifier and +15% Movement Speed on a Slam and Earth core. Fun and mobile, but -10% Critical Damage caps it, and the tier VI unlock arrives long after you have better-invested characters. The Myrmidon — Melee, curses to tier VI on The Frozen Wastelands +15% Critical Chance, +20 Armor Power and +20 Maximum Health is a solid frame, and Arcane, Ice, Holy, Earth and Thrust covers a lot. That coverage is the catch — five near-unrelated types is the diluted-pool problem in its clearest form. The Paladin — Melee, have 5 characters at prestige 50 or higher +30 Maximum Health, +25 Armor Power and +20% Healing Modifier make it the safest melee character, and Holy plus Swing plus Slam is a coherent physical core. It ranks here because -5% Critical Chance and -10% Movement Speed cap what safety is worth, and the unlock demands account-wide investment first. The Hound Master — Ranged, kill a Lord of the Void in The Whispering Grove The hounds apply a different debuff depending on the weapon you equip, which is a genuinely interesting hook and unusually early access to a debuff source. But -20 Maximum Health and -10% Movement Speed on a ranged character is a rough combination while you are still learning. The Death Knight — Melee, curses to tier III on The Frozen Wasteland +90% Movement Speed, +30% Area, enormous Body Mass and stun immunity, but it cannot dash at all. That is not a drawback so much as a different game — you plough through enemies instead of avoiding them. Very strong once it clicks, and genuinely bad until it does. The Cursed Captain — Mixed, Ritual of Heresy in the Unholy Cathedral +20% Critical Damage and +15% Experience across Blast, Bomb, Projectile, Swing and Thrust. Mixing ranged and melee types is the same dilution problem as the Spellblade, softened by a good crit line and empowering skills that buy damage windows. The Chaoswalker — Ranged, complete Overlord Cycle 2 +20% Damage Modifier and +20% Area on a Chaos-led pool. Chaos skills deal randomised damage tied to Disarray stacks, so the character is high-variance by design. Rewarding when it lands, frustrating when you need a reliable clear at high curse. The Shaman — Melee and Summon, complete Titan Hunt mode A hybrid with modest numbers (+10% Critical Chance, +5% Damage) across Arcane, Nature, Fire, Holy and Earth. Nothing wrong with it, nothing it does better than a specialist, and it unlocks after a whole game mode. The Arcane Weaver — Mage, eliminate 50 Lords of the Void +15% Experience speeds up levelling within a run, which is real value early. But -20 Maximum Health, -20% Armor Power and only +10% Damage make it the frailest mage without the payoff the Pyromancer gets for the same fragility.

The Blacksmith — Mixed, complete the Skill Tree +75% Damage, +70% Area, +60% Critical Chance, +50% Cast Frequency and +70 Maximum Health — nothing else is close. It is in C because it cannot be a plan: you unlock it by completing the Skill Tree, and it is the only character with no Ascension ability. A victory lap, ranked honestly rather than flattered.

How to read the tiers

These tiers describe how much curse difficulty a character carries comfortably, not whether it works. Every character on this list clears the base Void Fields run. If you enjoy the Chaoswalker, play the Chaoswalker — you will need a few more prestige levels to reach the same curse tier, and that is the entire difference.

Two things skew every tier list for this game, including the ones that disagree with this one.

Unlock timing is not power. The Necromancer and the Elementalist sit high on almost every list, and both are gated behind real requirements — curses to tier III on the highest-danger map, and a sub-ten-minute clear. A character you unlock at hour forty will always look stronger than one you had at hour one, because your Skill Tree, runes and prestige levels have all moved in between. The Barbarian gets unfairly marked down for being free.

Weapons change the pool. Each character has five weapons across Common to Legendary rarity, and the Legendary only becomes available at prestige level 100. A weapon sets your starting skill and your special skill, and can shift your effective identity — the Hound Master's weapons change which debuff the hounds apply, for example. A ranking based on a character's default weapon is describing the first hour of that character, not the character.

What actually separates the top from the bottom

What it looks like	What is really happening	What to do about it
"This character does more damage"	Damage Modifier is additive with everything else you pick up during a run, so a +20% headline is a small share of your eventual total	Weigh the multiplicative things instead — Multi Cast Chance, Cast Frequency and Area Modifier all compound with your skills rather than adding to them
"My build never comes together on this character"	The five Main Skill Types are too spread, so you sit at one or two sources of each effect and the conditional powers never appear	Pick skills that share a primary type on purpose, even when a flashier option is offered. Two sources is the first threshold, three is where the real powers unlock
"The summoners feel broken"	They are scaling a unit count, and Multi Cast Chance and Cast Frequency both raise that count directly	If you want that feeling without the Necromancer unlock, the Beastmaster gets most of the way there far earlier
"I keep dying at curse 5 and up"	Each curse point adds 5% enemy health and 20% extra health to Lords of the Void, so difficulty climbs faster than your damage does	Bring a character with an actual defensive stat line — the Legionnaire's +40 health, +30 armor and +2 damage reduction is the reason it exists

Who to actually level

1

Take the Barbarian to prestige 20 first

Character skill trees unlock at prestige level 20, and they reveal in groups — each 20 skills you purchase opens the next group, up to 60. There is no shortcut, and the Barbarian is the most forgiving character to do it on.
2

Add one mage or summoner second

The Pyromancer unlocks from a single Lord of the Void kill in The Scorching Valley, the lowest-danger map. That makes it the earliest realistic second main, and it plays nothing like the Barbarian, which is the point.
3

Add a defensive third before pushing curses

The Legionnaire or the Paladin. You are not looking for more damage at this stage, you are looking for the character that survives the curse tier you want the achievement from.
4

Only then chase the gated unlocks

The Necromancer, Death Knight, Monkey King and Myrmidon all require specific curse tiers on specific maps. Those are achievements you complete with a levelled character, not goals you approach from scratch.

For how builds actually assemble once you have picked someone, see the build guide — the synergy thresholds are the whole game. For turning curses on in a survivable order, see the curse guide. If you are still in your first hours, start with the beginner guide, and the honest review covers whether the whole thing is worth your time.

Soulstone Survivors Tier List — All 23 Characters Ranked

Key Points

The tier list

How to read the tiers

What actually separates the top from the bottom

Who to actually level

FAQ

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