Five classes carry the whole roster in Architect: Land of Exiles, and the server leaderboards make the split between them obvious. The players sitting at the top of the level and combat power charts are not spread evenly across the roster. Assassins own the PvP board, Hunters dominate monster kill counts, and Mages quietly out-survive everyone during long, unattended farming sessions.
Quick answer: Pick Hunter for the fastest active farming and Mage for overnight AFK farming; pick Assassin only if you plan to invest heavily in gear, since it needs high combat power to win its burst trades in PvP.
Class roles and core strengths in Architect
Each class fills a recognizable job. The differences that matter are range, survivability, and how much gear investment a class needs before it performs.
| Class | Strength | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Warrior | Frontline durability, pull chains, stuns, and gap closers for 1v1 fights | Least popular pick overall; slower at clearing wide packs than ranged classes |
| Hunter | Highest ranged farming speed, strong knockbacks, hit-and-run pressure | Low survivability when enemies close the gap |
| Assassin | Single-target burst, dash stuns, poison damage over time, stealth escapes | Requires heavy gear investment to compete at the top |
| Mage | Wide-area spells, zone denial, mass PvP crowd control, shield skills | Needs allies to absorb damage in group fights |
| Battle Priest | Tankier magic damage with allied protection and multiple water attacks | Hybrid output rather than top-end damage |
Combat power decides leveling speed, not class
Look at the level leaderboard and the pattern is the same across every class at the top: enormous combat power numbers. Players sitting at Lv.99 to Lv.101 are running combat power in the 1.1 million to 1.7 million range, far above what a typical early-game character carries. Class choice changes how comfortable the grind feels, but CP is what determines how fast a character clears mobs and climbs levels.
| Rank | Class | Level | Combat power |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Assassin | 101 | 1,659,632 |
| 2 | Assassin | 101 | 1,712,610 |
| 3 | Assassin | 100 | 1,676,546 |
| 4 | Hunter | 99 | 1,415,485 |
| 5 | Mage | 99 | 1,446,564 |
| 11 | Warrior | 98 | 1,238,424 |
| 15 | Battle Priest | 95 | 1,136,568 |
Warriors and Battle Priests are not absent from the chart, just thinner on the ground. That is a popularity effect as much as a power one, and it shows up further down the rankings rather than at the very top.
Best classes for PvE farming: Hunter and Mage
The Defeat Monsters leaderboard is where Hunters pull ahead of everything else. Ranged attacks let a Hunter pull groups from a distance and kill them before they ever land a hit, which stacks kill counts faster than any melee class can manage. Skills like Arrow Rain, Multi-Arrow, and Rapid Fire cover the pack clearing, while knockbacks keep enemies from closing in.
The weakness is durability. A Hunter that gets swarmed dies, which makes the class best suited to sessions where you are actually watching the screen.
Mages solve that problem differently. Their shield skills give them the survivability Hunters lack, so a Mage can be left grinding overnight without dying to an unlucky pull. Spells such as Spatial Explosion, Ice Spike, Hellfire, and Ice Pillar handle wide groups, and Ice Pillar doubles as a barrier that keeps enemies out of a lane.
Tip: If you split your time between active play and idle farming, a Mage loses less total progress across a full day, even though a Hunter kills faster while you are at the keyboard.
Why Assassins hold the top PvP ranks
The PvP leaderboard leans heavily Assassin, and the reason is the toolkit rather than raw numbers. Stealth lets an Assassin pick fights on its own terms and walk away from bad ones. Dash skills close the gap and stun on arrival, and Annihilation plus Execution turn that opening into a kill before the target recovers. Poison Mist adds damage over time that keeps punishing anyone who tries to disengage.
That burst only lands if your gear is good enough to kill inside the stun window. An undergeared Assassin opens a fight, fails to finish it, and then has to survive the counterattack with very little defense. This is the class that rewards spending, and it punishes players who cannot keep pace with the top of the CP chart.
Warriors remain the counterweight in duels. Leap Slash and Chain Bind give a Warrior a way to catch an Assassin mid-reposition, and the stuns that follow can flip a fight that started badly. In mass PvP, Mages matter more, since their area spells and crowd control shape whole engagements rather than single trades. Hunters contribute the same way from the back line, punishing anyone who stands still.
Incursions, field bosses, and group content
Incursion events, including the Storm Incursion that runs in Giant’s Garden, throw large waves at you at once. Mages and Battle Priests are the reliable picks here. Mages clear the waves with area damage, and Battle Priests survive long enough to keep the group intact while still contributing damage through Tidal Smite, Chain Freeze, and Explosive Torrent.
Field Boss and Guardian Boss rankings tilt toward Mages and Hunters as well, since both can sustain damage from outside a boss’s reach. The Warrior’s value in these fights is holding aggro at the front and chaining pulls so the ranged classes never get touched.
Where to check class rankings in game
The Ranking menu is the fastest way to confirm any of this for yourself on your own server, because it lists each top player’s class alongside their level and combat power.
| Ranking tab | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Level | Which classes are pushing the level cap and how much CP they carry |
| PvP | Current player-versus-player standings, reset monthly |
| Incursion Cleared | Who is completing incursion events most consistently |
| Defeat Monsters | Raw farming throughput, where Hunters lead |
| Field Boss / Guardian Boss | Boss damage performance by class |
| Rift, Collection, Upgrade | Progress in rift content, collections, and gear enhancement |
Matching a class to your spending level
Budget is the cleanest way to narrow the list, because the classes separate almost entirely on how much gear they need.
| Player type | Recommended class | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Free-to-play | Hunter | Ranged farming works without heavy investment and scales into mass PvP |
| Moderate spender | Hunter or Mage | Consistent clear speed and safe AFK farming for steady CP growth |
| Heavy spender | Assassin | Burst and stealth convert a gear lead directly into PvP rank |
| Group or support player | Battle Priest | Survivable magic damage that holds up through incursion waves |
| Balanced budget play | Warrior | Frontline stability with reliable 1v1 tools |
Whichever class you land on, the leaderboards keep pointing back to the same thing. Class determines the shape of your gameplay, how safely you farm, how you open a fight, and what you bring to a group, but combat power is what decides whether you finish near the top of any of those charts.
