Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes Tier List
If you’re playing Shadowrun Hong Kong, you’re going to want to know which of the classes are the best. Should you make a physically focused Street Samurai? A cyberware specialist decked out in all the best chrome? A physical adept capable of bashing in skulls up close? This Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes Tier List should help you make your decision.
S Tier – Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes
Rigger
Riggers focus on drone control. I have a whole other article about how broken Rigger builds can be, but the short version is this: drone control unlocks the ability to have 2 drones, and each drone gets a full round worth of AP. If you give your guy top shelf cyberware on top of that, you can be getting 9 turns every round. It’s nuts. The recommendation is to go Rigger + Cyberware. If you really plan out your Karma, you can get pretty decent Rifle skills, too, but it’s pushing it.
A Tier – Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes
Physical Adept
Adepts get a bit of a slow start, but once they get the skills and equipment they need to shine, they become unstoppable killing machines. Basically, once you get the Racing Fulmination sword and the Qi/Chi Onslaught, you tear through enemies like butter. With most magical builds it’s still worthwhile to get enough levels in Cyberware to increase your essence so you can tack on a few enhancements without impeding your magic.
Cyberware
Going full Cyberware Affinity doesn’t take that many points, but the benefits you get for it are pretty intense. Not only do you get all the stat bonuses from the Cyberware you can equip, you also get the fantastic melee and ranged weapon options. The monofilament whip is not as good, overall, as rifles, but it’s an easy second best and it’s treated like shurikens in that you can move + attack with 1 AP. The claws and spurs are fantastic melee weapons. Cyberware affinity takes so few points you can easily pair it with another class of your choosing.
Street Samurai (Ranged Rifle)
I’d love to say Mages are the next strongest class, but they’re not. Street Samurai only has one trick, but it’s a good one. Full Auto Rifle attacks. That’s all Street Samurai has, and that’s all Street Samurai needs. Combine that with the cyberware that grants you a free AP and you can be blasting through 3-4 enemies a round. More if you pair it with haste.
B Tier – Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes
Mage
Mages are pretty strong, especially when they’re sitting on a Dragon Line, which makes their spells bounce to multiple targets. Mages don’t have the same flexibility as a lot of the above classes; since Dragon Lines are rarely behind cover, you’re almost certainly going to be dumping tons of points into Body and maybe even dodge. You’ll almost definitely want to pick up some Cyberware Affinity points in order to get some extra stat bonuses without hurting your essence. Mages are definitely no slouch, but they take a bit more effort to accomplish what a Rifle Street Samurai can accomplish by mindlessly using the same skill over and over again.
C Tier – Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes
Street Samurai (Melee)
Melee Street Samurais are just not as good as melee Cyberware specialists, or Physical Adepts. Their weapon skills aren’t that great, they don’t do nearly as much damage, and they don’t have nearly the same amount of survivability. It’s just not, objectively, a very powerful option.
Street Samurai (Ranged, Any Weapon Other Than Rifle)
Basically, Rifles are amazing because of Full Auto, and every other weapon type is considerably worse. Rifles also get sniper rifles, which come in handy from time to time. Pistols are probably the strongest of the remaining options, but it’s an extremely distant second best. Shotguns and SMGs are basically useless. Don’t pick them unless you intentionally want to have a weak character.
D Tier – Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes
Decker
Deckers don’t get any combat bonuses on their own and the hacking minigame is a serious downgrade in Shadowrun Hong Kong, compared to Dragonfall. The hacking minigame is super unfun and Is0bel, the Decker you get automatically, is just fine to power your way through it. Making a decker also means you have no reason to put Is0bel in your party, and she’s one of the better party members for sure.
F Tier – Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes
Shaman
Shamans are so bad. They are just… so incredibly bad. There is one spell that’s useful in the entire Conjuring line, and it’s Haste. Gobbet is perfectly capable of casting Haste. Unless you want Haste IV, in which case you’re forced to go Street Samurai + Shaman, because Haste IV requires almost as much Quickness as it does Conjuring. It’s a shame because Shamans could have been a cool class if spirits weren’t summoned through pricey consumables in a game that’s very, very stingy about money. Conjuring = useless. Spirit Summoning = useless. Shamans = useless.
That about covers it when it comes to the Shadowrun Hong Kong Best Classes Tier List. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more content like this. Click here for more content related to Shadowrun Hong Kong.
