The Best Classes in Interlude, Ranked by What You Play
Ask ten veterans about the best classes in Interlude and you get ten answers, all defensible. Interlude is really four different games stacked together: Olympiad duels, 9v9 skirmish, siege-scale PvP, and solo PvE farming. Almost nothing sits at the top of all four. What follows sorts the 31 third-class jobs by the work they actually do, and covers the gates you clear before any tier list applies to you.
What Interlude changed, and why old tier lists do not transfer
Interlude launched as The Chaotic Throne: Chapter 1 (Korea in December 2006, NA and EU on April 11, 2007). Five races only: Human, Elf, Dark Elf, Orc, Dwarf. No Kamael, no Awakening, no dual class. The entire roster is 31 third-class jobs, capped at level 80 on your main and 75 on a subclass.
Two additions moved the balance more than any single skill did.
- Weapon augmentation. Bring a C-grade through S-grade weapon to a Blacksmith with a Life Stone and a Gemstone (Gemstone D for C and B grade, Gemstone C for A and S) and the augment always succeeds. The bonus itself is random. Life Stones drop from mobs, and the high-grade ones come mostly off raid bosses. A skill augment on the right weapon can move a class up a full tier, which is why Interlude rankings are gear-contingent in a way earlier chronicles were not.
- Around 80 new skills, including Celestial Shield for Bishops (a brief invincibility window) and Sonic Move for Gladiators. That is the reason a C4 tier list and an Interlude one disagree, and why advice written for later chronicles is worse than useless here.
The gates: level 76, Saga of Legend, and Noblesse
Third class arrives at level 76 through the Saga of Legend chain. You collect roughly 700 Halisha's Marks, use them to spawn and kill the Archon of Halisha (Four Sepulchers or the Shrine of Loyalty, depending on the step), then finish the class-specific Saga tasks. Every ranking below assumes you got there.
The class you test at 40-60 is not the class you are judging. Most Interlude jobs are half-built before third class, and a couple of them are actively bad. Do not quit a class at level 55 and call it weak.
Olympiad adds a second gate. Noblesse requires a subclass at level 75, the Path of a Noblesse chain, and a Barakiel kill at the end, with the last-hitting party taking the Staff of Goddess Song. So "best 1v1 class" quietly means "best class after you have leveled a second character to 75." Budget for that before you commit to a duelist fantasy.
Best classes in Interlude by mode
| Mode | Classes that lead | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Olympiad 1v1 | Duelist, Storm Screamer, Adventurer, Ghost Hunter, Sagittarius, Titan | Burst inside a short window with nobody to cover a mistake. Daggers and Titan usually win or lose in the first few seconds. |
| Small-scale 9v9 | Cardinal, Sword Muse, Spectral Dancer, Adventurer, Sagittarius | Focus fire plus one healer who does not break. Songs and dances count for more here than in any other format. |
| Siege and mass PvP | Storm Screamer, Archmage, Mystic Muse, Dreadnought, Duelist, Dominator, Cardinal | AoE magic punishes clumped defenders, polearm sweeps punish the rush, and mass debuffs plus in-fight resurrection decide long pushes. |
| Solo PvE | Spectral Master, Arcana Lord, Elemental Master, Soultaker, Hell Knight | Self-sufficient. A servitor or drain magic replaces the buffer and healer you do not have. |
Notice how little overlap there is. Cardinal is close to mandatory in group content and nearly pointless solo. Titan tops damage charts and loses duels to a competent archer who kites. Pick the row you will actually spend your evenings in.
Solo, with no buffer box
This is the most common real question, and the answer is not the highest-damage class. Without a second window running a Prophet or a Warcryer, you want a class that carries its own sustain.
- Spectral Master (Phantom Summoner). Transfer Pain moves damage to the servitor, which is as close to a free tank as Interlude offers.
- Arcana Lord and Elemental Master. Same idea, different flavor. Slow, safe, cheap on consumables.
- Soultaker (Necromancer). Drain magic keeps you topped up between pulls, and the summon absorbs the first hit.
- Hell Knight (Dark Avenger). A tank with a servitor kills slower than a nuker but almost never dies, which matters more when there is nobody to resurrect you.
- Archers work solo too, with one honest caveat: arrows and soulshots eat your adena. On a low-rate server that bill is real.
Buff slots are the hidden variable in every ranking
Retail-style Interlude gives about 20 buff slots, with Divine Inspiration books adding up to four more. Books turn up from the Black Marketeer of Mammon, level 70+ raid bosses, the epics (Baium, Frintezza, Antharas, Valakas), and Olympiad rewards. Plenty of private servers ship more slots by default.
Slot count silently reorders the tier list. Buff-hungry classes (Duelist, archers, daggers) climb hard when they can hold a full stack. Self-sufficient classes barely move. Before you trust anyone's ranking, check how many slots that server runs, because a 28-slot server and a 20-slot server are not ranking the same game.
Titan and daggers: the top of a conditional list
Titan looks unbeatable on paper and frustrates a lot of new players. Frenzy only reaches full effect below 30% HP, and Zealot activates in the same window, handing you speed, accuracy, attack speed and critical rate. Guts works at any HP. In practice that means deliberately keeping yourself near death to hit your real numbers. It is a great second character and a rough first one.
Daggers have a similar shape. Backstab must land from behind and carries the higher damage plus a lethal chance, while the frontal blows are the weaker fallback. Focus and Critical Chance toggles push your landing rate. That makes Adventurer and Ghost Hunter excellent in Olympiad and open-field ganks, and unreliable in a siege where you cannot hold anyone's back arc for more than a second.
Rates and server settings move the answer
Nearly all Interlude play now happens on private servers running anywhere from x1 to x1000 and beyond, and many of them tune skills, buff slots and drop tables. On a low-rate server, adena efficiency dominates, so Fortune Seeker (Bounty Hunter) with Spoil earns its slot and gear-hungry classes suffer. On a high-rate server everyone hits full gear in a week, augments included, and the list collapses toward raw PvP output.
Farming spots follow the same logic. Blazing Swamp and the first floor of the Tower of Insolence are the standard 40-55 stops, while Ketra Orc Outpost and Varka Silenos Barracks carry the 76+ grind once alliance ranks open up. On a x100 server you will barely see any of them.
Pick the mode you enjoy, check the server's buff slots and rate before rolling, and level the subclass early if Olympiad is the goal. If you want to put this into practice, browse the Interlude servers opening soon and compare rates before you commit a month to a character. Playing a different chronicle instead? The full list of all servers is there too.