Since I need to limit the number of mods per run anyway, my current modded run aims for gameplay and lore compliance. This means nothing
too funky to understand or balance, good art, and good lore (either original or backported).
Cataphract
Modders will tell you this mod aged poorly, because frontline healers are more common now, and it's clunky for a class to want only rank 1 or rank 4 and dance only between these two ranks. Counterpoint: skills that had thought put into them, custom art and animations, comic. Look at the credits lists they need to mimic a fraction of this power. I use her mainly as rank 4 DPS + debuffs.
Duelist
DD2 backport. In DD2
she killed her lover/mentor by reflex when she caught a flaw in his technique when they were sparring. She has an Aggressive Stance and Defensive Stance. Unlike the Abomination, you still have to choose her skills, but they will have different effects depending on the stance, and rather than a dedicated Transform button, certain skills will switch stances. She has a Daze status effect backported from DD2 - Dazed enemies act last. A
Daze Dependency also exists, but Duelist doesn't require it. Used once or twice.
Exanimate
DD2 backport. In DD2 the Flagellant tortured himself until he became a septic walking corpse that Death is personally hunting down. Where the Flagellant uses Bleed, he uses Blight. Unlike the Flagellant who uses Mark and self-bleeds to lower his HP, the Exanimate's skills directly spend HP, and he can't stress heal party members. He has a nightmare (an unpreventable camp ambush, like the Shieldbreaker's snakes) with Death, but I haven't faced that yet. Increasing his Healing Received gives him big self-heals to bounce back from his own attacks. Fun to use in the Ruins and Cove where you wouldn't normally take a Flagellant.
Falconer
Reworked into a non-transforming stance switcher. You can choose 4 skills, or the Adapt skill + 3 other skills and use Adapt to switch the effects of the other 3 skills as a free action. She has a nightmare with her former friends, and also has a mechanic where anyone with a new Marked by the Flock quirk can cause them to show up as fights, which I find too clever by half. Used once or twice.
Judicator
Black Reliquary backport. Used to be terrible, but was overhauled at the end of 2024. I find her animations to lack oomph compared to other mod classes on my list, and I stopped equipping her 2-round stun because I never proc'd it. But I like her for Mark teams and she's useful for quite a few bosses.
Lamia
Transforms between healbot and snek. Having a curing heal and a stress heal that clears horror is a little too useful. I haven't used my Jester at all. Her beast form has a three-rank stun with the drawback of shuffling herself and potentially screwing up your party formation, though some think the drawback is insufficient. Unlike the Abomination, she has no per-battle limit on transforms, so I use transform much more freely than for the Abomination, even if in practice I transform only twice per battle and the drawbacks on the Lamia and the party are similar.
Omen Seeker
A be-boobed
gypsy nomad with a whip and a hammerspace wagon. The wagon is weird, as is her Defend animation. A two-rank stun with no limited use or drawbacks is also odd, as Plague Doctor has set a "standard" that two-rank stuns should be at least limited use. Her main deal is debuffs on attacks, and a gimmick attack which cures enemy bleed or blight in return for guaranteed crit or armor piercing. Used once or twice. Might see if I can make more use of the gimmick, as Trinkets Plus adds trinkets which can give weak bleed or blight on any hit.
Runaway
DD2 backport. In DD2 she
was abused in an orphanage with a fire iron, became a pyromaniac to cope, then was adopted by a loving couple but accidentally burned them to death. Very useful as a healer who can Mark who doesn't do Crit 0 Bleeds like Occultist and can also deal damage against Marked and fire-debuffed enemies. Maybe overtuned.
Seraph
Transformer who can only Ascend at low health. Very easy to understand. Mark, Guard, Bonk, and if at low HP, Ascend and hopefully burn everything to death before the HP costs for Ascended skills catch up with you. A Fire Attack patch adds an extra kick to the burning phase.
Sibyl
Marvin Seo's newest class. She was commissioned by a VTuber, Sanagi Yuzu, but the class itself is mercifully free of cringe self-indulgences (to see a class that does this wrong, see the Squire). Transformer with
three stances. Moon does healing and a utility attack, Eclipse does buffs, a utility attack and an armor-piercing attack, and Sun Blights everything, including your party. Two of her camp skills use art visibly reworked from vanilla. The rest of her art is up to or even exceeds Marvin's usual standard. She has a gimmick where her Banish attack Stealths an enemy to set them up for her attacks that do bonus damage vs Stealth, but I don't see the value unless you have multiple Sibyls or other classes with a similar gimmick. So far I've used her as an Eclipse bot.
Sisters
Transformer whose skills all deal self stress, which increases the longer you stay in one mode. My brain is too smooth for all that. Fortunately, Trinkets Plus adds several trinkets that can help stress damage and stress healing.
Stargazer
Fills the role of a Color of Madness-inspired class, similar to how the Flagellant had a blood theme for Crimson Court. Unlike the Occultist who actively sought out eldritch power, he just got sniped when stargazing one night. Unlike other transformers, he can't transform on command unless it's to exit his Transcendent mode; instead, every skill has a 40% chance to switch. So you can never fully rely on him for healing, stress healing, or DPS, but he's fun.
Thrall
Also very easy to understand. Bonk frontline or throw rocks at backline. You can use him in rank 4 as a gimmick. Just make sure stress dealers die before they hit him or his stacking Stress Taken debuffs will give you fun times. It might be possible to use him in the Courtyard or Farmstead, but those have so many sources of stress it seems like a bad idea.
Wraith
Great comic, but a weird Bounty Hunter variant that does less DPS and more stuns and bleeds. Has gimmicks vs stunned enemies, but they usually clear their stun before he acts. Used a few times, not helped by how my lead Wraith kept accumulating negative quirks and no positives worth locking.
Yet Another Musketeer Rework
Reworks the Musketeer to have stress heals but no HP heals and different utility attacks from the Arbalest, including a Smokescreen two-rank stun that Stealths enemies while they're stunned as its drawback. I often find myself wishing for the HP heal and she can't heal her own stress, but she's fun and I indeed use her in different situations compared to the Arbalest.
I use Fire Patches for the Seraph, Crusader and Vestal.
I also use all Districts for those classes which have them, even though Districts are known to bloat saves and potentially lead to corruption because they apply their buffs to all heroes which use the District, even heroes in the graveyard. Easily solved IMO, just don't die lol lmao
