PlumBrake

(After winning all classes in all challenges, this tierlist takes challenges into account, as well as 0 challenge play!)

S-Tier

Rogue. Best character for both beginners and advanced players, get-out-of-jail card in invisibility can be used for everything, from evading champions, evading ranged enemies, taking a breather, even getting free invis potion on piranha rooms. Assassin and freerunner are both good, but the latter is a bit better for evade-tanking and kiting in 9 challenge. Smoke bomb is the best crown upgrade by a long shot, the blink and crowd control gives so much momentum. Death mark is awful dealing only 25% damage and lasting 5 turns, and cannot kill enemies. Shadow clone is too frail and useless especially with no-armor challenge. In general minion builds should be avoided in this game, due to the high opportunity costs putting players in a worse position.

Cleric. It's too early to say, but after testing, the recent buffs made it very easy for cleric to win in high challenges, as it patched the cleric's only weakness of being weak without tome charges. Some notable skills are cleanse which gets rid of poison, burn, bleed etc. Scroll duping to get more tome charges among other things. Hallowed ground giving crowd control. High shields in ascended form, bless, hallowed, and the future paladin. Cleric has everything for any situation, from tanking to damage to movement control. Ascended's tome charge usage is irrelevant if you have scrolls, and the cleric can keep firing spells that are highly effective against demon halls enemies. On paper, the other crown upgrades are inferior compared to ascended form. While 9 challenge is still difficult, these S-rank characters have the most consistent wins, though cleric has some early-game difficulties.

A-Tier

(There's little difference between A and S, these characters are still good)

Mage. While early game is a bit difficult compared to rogue, once you get tengu's mask the cannibal grandpa starts to shine with soul eater. He's the only character that can comfortably live in the dungeon on high challenges and without items like RoW. High-rank wands like fireblast and lightning are worth slotting into the staff, but avoid the weaker ones. Use warlock, battlemage is an inferior choice due to the staff's low base power, and that the melee effects aren't impactful enough to justify using it over warlock. For crown upgrades, beacon is good for movement (but avoid telefrag at all costs as it actively kills you, it's NOT an upgrade). If I have lightning or frost, I'll take element burst over beacon due to the AoE damage + crowd control. Wild magic is the least useful and requires specific builds and unupgraded wands, but it's not as horrible as death mark etc.

Hunter. Would be almost as good as rogue, if it weren't for the fact that barren lands eliminates most of her warden kit. The fact that she's still A-tier is proof that her kit and bow is strong. Unfortunately she requires RNG to perform well, such as vampiric or sharpshooting, making her require a lot more resets. For crown upgrades, nature power is the best pick as it saves turns by moving fast and dealing more damage, it has more DPS and duration compared to death mark and can kill multiple enemies, with only a +10% cost compared to death mark. Spectral blades is inferior but still usable depending on your melee. Spirit hawk vision is redundant with the huntress's vision perks, and it's too weak and frail for combat and dart usage. The guaranteed evasion skill lets it survive better, but at best it's a small distraction before it dies. Not worth the opportunity cost over nature power!

B-Tier

Duelist. Bad early game, with FIMA and her having so many close-ranged skills she cannot use most of her weapon abilities. But gets better once you find the right weapons such as shields, spear, dagger etc. Champion needs specific weapons to work and it's an unreliable pick. Monk however has every ability you need from chasm kills, healing, parrying eye beams. Pick "challenge" for her crown upgrades, freezing most enemies is great and she heals afterwards. Elemental strike is a much worse option compared to challenge, don't pick it except if you have a shocking weapon. Feint is the worst movement ability in the entire game with high cost and poor movement, it's not worth it and you can just use challenge to reposition.

D-Tier

Warrior. The butt of jokes in high-level play, comparing him to S-tiers is like comparing Meta Knight to Ganondorf in Smash Brawl! The difference is huge, and yet again he gets completely outclassed by new heroes. You can still win with Ganondorf but that doesn't make him good, we can't compare him in a vacuum. He's the worst tank in practice; he doesn't have heals like mage and duelist, he doesn't have dodge like rogue, he doesn't have parry charges to keep like duelist, he doesn't have big shields like cleric and mage. His effective HP is the lowest in the game and he's the frailest character, and yet his kit encourages tanking for some reason. Unlike the above characters he needs Pharma, Barren, and FIMA turned off to heal. With FIMA his entire kit and armor seal is destroyed, and the few ways to play him is with kiting + movement or vampiric, which other classes can do better. Berserker is awful as it requires you to take hits and die, and warrior has no heals to offset this. Gladiator is better, but with decaying combo and poor skills it's just a worse monk. He doesn't have more armor compared to other characters, except very specific circumstances like waiting which kills. The only crown upgrade worth getting is leap, which is a cheaper smoke bomb. Shockwave is a passable crowd control when upgraded, but endure is the worst crown upgrade in the game. Very expensive charge, for 50% damage cut for 3 turns, and whatever HP you've lost is not worth the extra damage. It doesn't even null damage like duelist's skills, the opportunity cost is extreme. Additionally, he's one of the hardest character to use for newbies as they don't understand armor seal. Rogue's button tap is friendlier and more useful.

(These are usually my best picks for the highest winrate with many challenges! Taking the weaker options consistently decreases my winrate, whereas the powerful stuff increases it. Challenges in this game are horrible compared to other games and roguelikes, because Barren, Pharma, and FIMA removes entire builds like warden, warrior. That's not fun and they really need to be tweaked.)

S-Tier

Fireblast. Deals decent damage, and upgraded it becomes even better for crowd control! It helps survivability in 9 challenge and it's one of the only wands worth upgrading even for non-mages. It has a dangerous downside of burning scrolls and grass however, making it unusable in some scenarios, and the Battlemage's blazing hit can be detrimental.

Blast Wave. Movement options are always important to survive in the dungeon, and blast allows chasm kills and fishing! Not necessary to upgrade, and the Battlemage's elastic melee is redundant.

Corrosion. Deals good AOE damage, and unlike Fireblast it doesn't burn everything. Overall worth using, but the Elemental Blast effect deals terrible damage-over-time, without any extra effects or immediate damage. The Battlemage's caustic hit is unreliable as it doesn't last forever, and water cures it.

A-tier

Warding. Gives ranged damage and vision, good for darkness challenge. Upgraded it allows burst damage with wards but requires high costs in SoU, charges, and turns. The Elemental Blast is very very bad, it only heals nearby sentries and deals no damage or effect.

Lightning. Decent DPS that hits multiple targets especially in water, just don't get close. Battlemage hit effect is awful due to the staff's low melee damage, but it has great Elemental Blast effect as it stuns and deals full damage.

Displacing Dart. Helps a bit with crowd control on 9 challenge, but the fact that it can miss makes it too inconsistent.

Paralytic Dart. Same as above, but this has an awful duration. In a pinch it can help prevent ranged attacks, create some distance, but it's inconsistent.

B-tier

(IMO it's usually not worth upgrading wands past this point due to the high opportunity costs)

Prismatic Light. Good for sight with darkness challenge, and can rarely reveal hidden rooms. Prevents ranged attacks with blind. Damage is mediocre, and it's only passable against undead and demons. Battlemage's cripple-hit duration is way too short, it's extremely difficult to make distance using cripple at close range. Elemental Blast's search effect needs more range.

Disintegration. Good hallway damage against multiple enemies, it can destroy barricades but also grass. Battlemage melee effect is mediocre as it's just a little extra reach, using this staff to do kiting kills on 9 challenge can be difficult due to the low melee power.

Frost. Cooks meat and saves potions on fire rooms. Crowd control with chill is passable but not great. DPS is mediocre as it deals less damage to chill enemies, but it has a great Elemental Blast effect, dealing full damage + freezing.

Incendiary Dart. Decent source of damage that can burn rooms.

Blinding Dart. Prevents ranged attacks and allows surprise attacks to the target.

C-tier

Corruption. Requires too much SoUs + damage for reliable corruption, the opportunity costs are dangerous especially with forbidden runes challenge. And spending one charge + turn to give one random debuff is generally not worth it, as you need luck to find the right debuffs for the current situation. Weakened for example is not useful against mages, and Amok is not useful against single targets. I feel it needs to be a good debuffer in the first few hits before it corrupts? If the shot fails corruption it should give one debuff plus 20% chance for another one. Upgrading increase this chance by +5% each, capping at 50%.

Regrowth. You can get extra seeds, but it's better to farm with RoW as Regrowth requires too much SoU to be viable. Regrowth is especially useless in barren lands... it's a terrible challenge that removes all the fun stuff like dews and plants. The Elemental Blast and Rooted duration is too short for crowd control, and it doesn't deal damage. The Battlemage melee is good as it gives herbal healing on hit, but you unfortunately need to move and make distance on 9 challenge.

Living Earth. Only useful in the sewers. In general, minion builds in this game are very weak especially with challenges. The opportunity costs to upgrade and take care of your summons put players in a worse position. No-armor challenge destroys this wand completely. Elemental Blast is weak as it only deals half damage, and the effect only heals an already-summoned golem. It could instead either heal the golem or summon the golem if we don't have one.

Transfusion. Only useful for the charm to prevent ranged attacks. Sacrificing 5% health to heal allies is a horrible idea, more so with challenges! Almost every ally in the game have low HP and armor (spirit hawk, wraiths, elementals, earth guardian, wards, decoy, sad ghost without highly-upgraded armor). The only exception is prismatic image and shadow rogue as they use your armor, but the opportunity cost of spending one turn + 5% HP to give them measly heals is awful. We can use that turn for so much more, such as killing the offending enemy. No-armor challenge ruins minion builds even more, as it strips their already-frail defense...

Magic Missile. Low DPS but high ammo. Only useful to charge your other wands, and the effect is small.

Chilling Dart. 6 turns of chill (10 only on water) is not enough for crowd control. Frost wand deals more damage, doesn't miss, and is "free". Darts have a seed and gold cost, and the low-tier darts are too weak to be viable options. They need more bang for the buck!

Poison Dart. Poison damage is worse compared to incendiary, with many immunities.

D-tier

Healing Dart. Same reason as Transfusion; the opportunity cost to spend turns and resources to help allies is terrible as they die quickly. Sungrass seed in particular is valuable for "food" and safely dropping into chasm wells.

Cleansing Dart. Spending turns and seeds to clear ally debuffs is even worse! 10 turns status immunity for dumb allies is too small, and not worth using the seed as Mageroyal is also valuable for "food" with cleansing potion, and curing bleed on chasm wells. I've tried the dart forget effect on enemies but it's unreliable, and enemies never utilize buffs to remove. The only two mobs that use buffs is monk focused (which blocks an attack so cleansing dart is useless), and gnoll brute. I wonder if this works on gnoll? Though it'll still be useless as it's a dying buff from a single enemy in the game. Crystal Spire and Gnoll Geomancer's weapon immunity could be a buff instead, and if you remove it, you can attack them with regular weapons!

Adrenaline Dart. 5 turns of crippled is far worse than 6 turns of chilled, as the former only affects movement. It needs much more turns. Giving 10 turns of adrenaline is also too short for allies; most of them have poor DPS to make use of it. It's better to spend your turn whacking enemies manually. Not worth using the haste seed!

Holy Dart. The damage to undead is very low, and the blessed status duration is too short and unviable for frail allies. Starflower is another valuable seed for blandfruit and exp potion, and it's never worth crafting this dart.

Shocking Dart. It ignores armor, but the damage is extremely low. The electricity also doesn't do AOE like Lightning wand. Most enemies in the game have low armor anyway, the thrown weapons you find early on will deal more damage, and doesn't use up a seed.

Rotberry Dart. Low amount of uses, and extremely high opportunity cost, it doesn't justify giving up an upgraded wand from wandmaker, even if the wand is low-tier.

A-tier

Exotic Crystals. I like this. Exotic items are generally better and yield more energy, but there's some huge downsides like losing important items (transmutation, invis, etc) and cluttering the bag. It's probably not worth spending the energy cost to +3.

Mossy Clump. Water and especially grass floors are useful. Not worth upgrading to +3, as by the time you can pay the astronomical 81 energy, you have explored more than half of the dungeon. You can refund the cost if you energize the seeds you get from trampling grass, but you'll need to burn over 40 seeds. It's only worth upgrading if the game is longer.

Petrified Seed. Another favorite, as seeds are unusable with challenges. Somewhat worth upgrading to +3, but only if you can pay the energy cost early. In general, trinkets like these should only be upgraded if there's many more floors ahead.

Mimic Tooth. Dangerous, but gives more rewards in return. Very interesting and I love it, but the mimics are deadly later in the game, and at that point you can throw it away.

B-tier

Wanderous Resin. Can be fun with mage, but some effects will destroy items and damage the user. This trinket icon should be changed, as all the catalysts, resins, dust and moss in the game is hard to differentiate for colorblind users, they all look like the same hairball.

Salt Cube. This one's weird. I think it's below C-tier on normal gameplay, but shoots up to high-tier when playing with many challenges. Fast health regen is much more important and satiety is never an issue, so I always avoid taking this when I play normally, but it's useful when doing the diet challenge. The buff to 40% finally made it okay-ish in normal gameplay.

Eye of Newt. Kinda useful with darkness challenge, you can constantly throw and pick it up to adjust the vision, but can be annoying.

Shard of Oblivion. The drop boost is not that great, but it can make getting loot a little easier. The unidentified gimmick is an interesting downside, I like how the shard can identify items that are ready for it.

C-tier

Parchment Scrap. Purely advantageous at +3, but it's too costly and equipment drops are too rare for this to be useful. I think getting enchants normally (with arcane stylus) is cheaper and better. It could've been good if you can combine this with mimic tooth.

Trap Mechanism. You can kill enemies with traps and pitfalls, it's fun but I'll only take it if I have blast wave early, and that is very rare. This trinket got more dangerous without disarming.

Dimensional Sundial. Only useful to speed up ring of wealth farming runs, and the energy you use to decrease enemy spawn rate should just be used to create helpful items, to combat said enemies. Could use an additional effect.

Vial of Blood. Very harmful downside and the extra healing is not necessary on normal gameplay. Might need to be less severe, the immediate potion heal is too important to prevent deaths.

Rat Skull. Only useful if you want to collect rare bestiary monsters. You need to find crazy bandit, chaos elemental, and crystal mimic for it to be useful, because their drops are the best, but it needs too much luck.

D-tier

Chaotic Censer. You use up items for puzzle rooms to get a magical catalyst in a treasure box, spend energy on it, only to get a harmful challenge that can kill you and destroy items? The gimmick looks fun, but not knowing when it will activate is too dangerous.

13-leaf Clover. Needs a more interesting gimmick. It doesn't matter if you roll high or low, it will average to the same damage as the game progresses, so ultimately it doesn't have any usage. The trinket has a very specific use if you equip +0 fast weapons against highly armored enemies, it can overall deal a little more damage, but the usability of this trinket sharply decreases when you upgrade your weapons. It's also too dangerous if enemies can do high rolls to you, it's probably best for it to never happen again.