Castle Crashers has 31 playable characters, ranging from trusty knights to the king himself. I'll rank the best characters in this Castle Crashers tier list to help you choose ones that'll give you the upper hand in matches.
Castle Crashers Characters Tier List - Best Knights Ranked
This tier list covers all playable Castle Crashers characters. I tend to play the game solo, so that has greatly influenced my thoughts on the rankings. Some of the rankings, like that of the Blue Knight, are universally accepted in the Castle Crashers scene. Whether you agree or disagree with our thoughts, hopefully, this tier list will help you choose the best Castle Crashers characters.
| Tier | Character |
|---|---|
| S | Blue Knight, Iceskimo, Industrialist, Fencer |
| A | Bear, Fire Demon, Orange Knight, Red Knight, Saracen |
| B | Brute, Necromancer, Ninja, Pink Knight, Snakey |
| C | Alien, Blacksmith, Cult Minion, Green Knight, Hatty Hattington, King, Skeleton |
| D | Beekeeper, Conehead, Gray Knight, Royal Guard, Stoveface |
| F | Barbarian, Civilian, Open-Faced Gray Knight, Peasant, Thief |
S Tier - Most Useful Characters in Castle Crashers
Choose one of these S-tier Castle Crashers characters if you want the advantage.
Blue Knight
The Blue Knight is the best choice of the four Knights the game begins with. He has an affinity with ice, giving their magical and elemental infusion attacks the ability to freeze enemies. Their freezing abilities can trap enemies in an endless cycle of being frozen, followed by a combo attack that freezes them again. If you're new to the game, choosing Blue Knight will get you to the top fast.
Fencer
The Fencer is one of two Castle Crashers heroes with saw-themed magical abilities. This makes them perfect for doing a lot of damage to hoards of enemies and bosses alike. Their abilities are identical to the Industrialist with the main difference being in their weapons. The Fencers weapon, called the Fencer's Foil, increases Strength, Agility, and Magic by 1 point each.
Iceskimo
The Iceskimo is the only hero besides the Blue Knight able to freeze their enemies. They start with the fishing spear, a good weapon that increases strength and magic in exchange for reducing agility. Its smaller magical attack is the only thing that puts it behind the Blue Knight. It does not freeze, but the snowball it produces can stun enemies.
Industrialist
Like the Blue Knight and Iceskimo, the magical capabilities of the Industrialist set it above the rest. In particular, their heavy magical attack sends saw blades along the ground to damage all enemies in front of them. This is great for taking down big bosses and small fry alike.
A Tier Characters
While not as all-powerful as the S-Tier characters, these knights still pack a hefty punch.
Bear
The Bear is one of two heroes able to create tornados. These tornados are perfect for juggling enemies and do damage equal to a mix of players' Magical and Physical damage. Their starting weapon is a club that increases Strength and Defense by 5 while lowering Agility by 3. This is already a good weapon, but they can be made even stronger by choosing a weapon that increases both Magic and Strength, like the NG Golden Sword.
Fire Demon
The Fire Demon is one of two heroes who mainly use fire-based attacks. Their Splash attack creates a set of flaming pillars in front of the player that does about as much damage as the Brute's Vine attack. Additionally, their fireball projectiles light enemies on fire as they damage them. Lastly, their Elemental Infusion deals the player's base magic damage, physical damage, and damage the enemy takes from being on fire.
Orange Knight
Harness the power of fire as the Orange Knight! Their Elemental Infusion and magical attacks can set enemies on fire. While it deals one hit of damage over time as Poison does, it does extra damage since many of the enemies in the game are weak to fire.
Red Knight
The Red Knight is the electrocutioner of the four starting knights. Their electric magic attacks can stun enemies in place, allowing you to land devastating combo attacks. Like the other three starting Knights, their original weapon isn't great. Replace it to increase your destructive power and become a force to be reckoned with.
Saracen
Saracen fits into our A-Tier because of their Sandstorm attack and ability to juggle enemies in the air. Their projectile attack consists of several gusts of sand that knock even more enemies into the air. If you're playing with friends, they're the perfect character for taking on hoards of smaller enemies.
B Tier Characters
Any of these little characters would be a solid addition to your playthrough.
Brute
At first glance, the Brute may not seem like a B-Tier hero. Its regular and air projectile attacks deal base magic damage, while its Elemental Infusion is the common 4x damage multiplier. However, its Splash attack separates them from the rest of the pack. It is a series of thorny vines emerging from the ground in front of you, each doing its damage to hit enemies. It's great for stacking damage onto bigger bosses and enemies that can take chain attacks.
Necromancer
The Necromancer is a unique hero that uses a skeleton-based magical attack. Their magic projectile launches a speedy skeleton that bolts into enemies, exploding upon contact. On the other hand, their long-ranged Splash Attack unleashes a set of skeleton hands from the ground. These hands appear quickly and are handy for juggling enemies, but they will stay visible for longer than they do damage. One of the Necromancer's greatest strengths is the Evil Sword they carry, giving them an extra 2 Magic and 7 Defense.
Ninja
Ninja is another non-elemental character that throws a weapon as a magic projectile and does 4x their base damage for their Elemental Infusion. One of the things that sets them apart from other non-elemental heroes is their SA weapon, which gives them +6 Agility and a 2% chance of hitting criticals in exchange for taking away 2 Defense. Additionally, their Splash Attack is a cloud of smoke that does damage quickly while knocking enemies (including Beefys!) down.
Pink Knight
The Pink Knight is one of several DLC characters available in Castle Crashers. Their Splash Attack, Rainbow Chain, rapidly damages and stuns enemies while hitting them multiple times. This puts it on relatively equal ground with the saw attacks by the Industrialist and the Fencer. Additionally, their projectiles can deal critical damage. While I originally placed the Pink Knight in the A-Tier, their inability to stun Beefy enemies dropped them down to the B-Tier.
Snakey
Snakey's power comes mainly from their starting weapon and stronger magical attack. They begin with the Snakey Mace, which increases Magic by 5 and Agility by 3 while decreasing Defense by 2. It also gives them a 2% chance to poison attacked enemies. While their light magic is a weak throwing knife, their stronger magic sends large roots through the ground in front of them to attack unsuspecting enemies.
C Tier Characters
These C-tier knights aren't anything special, but they aren't the bottom of the barrel either.
Alien
The Alien specializes in using ray gun attacks that can potentially light enemies on fire. Their lighter magical attack will not set enemies on fire, while their heavy magical attack and elemental infusion attack will. The major downside is that the Alien cannot use any other weapon—it's the Alien Gun or nothing.
Blacksmith
The Blacksmith is another of the DLC characters available for Castle Crashers. Its magical attacks mainly feature the Weapons Frog found in the Blacksmith area in the game. Attacks using the weapons Frog are only good for crowd control as they don't do much damage and hit enemies fewer times than most other attacks. Its projectile magic is a small flaming hammer that sets enemies on fire for one second after being hit.
Cult Minion
As an enemy, the Cult Minion is a formidable foe. I just haven't found them as useful as a player-controlled hero. They utilize dark magic, with their projectile being a fast-moving dark ball and their Splash Attack being dark energy bursting up from the ground. Their weapon is Glow Stick, which decreases Strength by 4 while increasing Magic and Defense by 5 each.
Green Knight
The Green Knight is the poison-user of the four starting Knights. Their simpler magical attack is a small ball of poison, while their larger attack is a gust of poison. Poisoning an enemy causes it to take extra damage over a short period so long as they are not resistant. It is not a bad hero by any means, but they are overshadowed by the strength of the other three starting knights.
Hatty Hattington
Hatty is a special character available for purchase in the Insane Store in the Remastered Version of Castle Crashers. What makes them special is that they have three magical abilities rather than the standard two. Unfortunately, there is a significant enough delay between casting their Splash Attack and it actually beginning, which makes them a little harder to use.
King
The King is the only hero in Castle Crashers who has healing abilities. He also has a nice starting weapon in the King's Mace, which gives players +3 Strength, +2 Magic, and +3 Defense. However, the slowness of their healing ability combined with their somewhat simple knife-throwing light magic attack has settled them in our C-Tier. However, they could easily rise the ranks if played in the right team composition in a multiplayer game.
Skeleton
Like the Cult Minion, the Skeleton utilizes dark magic to attack enemies. It has the same abilities consisting of dark magic projectiles and bursts of dark energy emerging from the ground. Its weapon is the Skeleton Mace, which increases Defense by 3, Agility by 5, and decreases Strength by 2.
D Tier Characters
Playing as any of these D-tier characters will be an uphill battle. Look for better options as soon as you can.
Beekeeper
The Beekeeper uses interesting bee-themed attacks to deal damage to their enemies. While the premise itself is cool, there are too many weaknesses to make them a great knight to pick. Their Splash Attack drops bees directly above enemies' heads, allowing enemies to block it using their shields. This makes it one of the few Splash attacks that can be blocked in Castle Crashers. Additionally, its other magical attacks only damage basic magic without applying status effects or stuns.
Conehead
The Conehead has the same magical abilities as the Gray Knight, with the bonus of their Elemental Infusion, which is doing 4x their base attack instead of 2x. These factors, plus the fact that their projectile attack is a bomb instead of a knife, push them into C-Tier. Their starting weapon is the Light Saber, which buffs Agility by 2 and has a 2% chance of applying the Electricity effect to enemies.
Grey Knight
The Grey Knight kit is a mixed bag. Like many weaker characters, their heavy attack consists of arrows raining down from the sky. Unlike them, their light, magical attack consists of a bomb that can set enemies on fire. They potentially would have been higher on this list because of that. However, they dropped a tier because their Elemental Infusion attack does half the damage of other non-elemental characters.
Royal Guard
The Royal Knight is on a similar playing field as the Conehead. Their projectile attack is a thrown bomb, while their splash attack is a barrage of arrows. Their Elemental Infusion does the same 4x base damage, with the major difference being their Falchion sword, which increases Strength by 1 and Defense by 3.
Stoveface
Stoveface has the same knife projectile and arrow Splash Attack that has put many characters in the F-Tier of our list. They're a pretty average character, with their main advantage being their starting weapon. They begin with the Gladiator Sword, which increases Strength by 1, increases Defense by 3, lowers Magic by 1, and adds a 1% chance of critically hitting enemies.
All F-Tier Characters in Castle Crashers
Playing as any of these characters will be an uphill battle.
Barbarian
The Barbarian is only a small step up from the Civilian and Peasant heroes in the F-Tier. Like them, their Elemental Infusion attack does 4x their normal damage. While their magical abilities seem different, they are essentially variations of the basic throwing knife and arrow rain abilities. There are just so many other characters that will serve you better than the Barbarian.
Civilian
To be honest, the Civilian doesn't have much going on. They have the typical knife-throw basic magic attack and the heavier magic attack that rains arrows. These are shared among multiple playable characters and don't do as much as other characters.
Open-Faced Gray Knight
As the name and appearance imply, the Open-Faced Gray Knight is almost identical to the regular Gray Knight. The first major difference between the two is in their basic magic attacks. While the Gray Knight has the bomb, the Open-Faced Gray Knight has the weaker throwing knife attack shared by the other weaker heroes. The second major difference comes in their Elemental Infusion attacks. The Open-Faced Gray Knight has a stronger Elemental Infusion. However, the rest of their kit leaves them at the bottom of this list.
Peasant
The Peasant and the Civilian feel like the same character in two different appearances. The Peasant has the same knife-throw and arrow-row magical attacks that most heroes without elemental effects have. The only reason you'd need to play the Peasant would be to unlock the Civilian.
Thief
The Thief is the final hero with a basic starting weapon, the knife-throwing light magic attack, the larger rain of arrows magic attack, and the Elemental Infusion that does 4x their base attack. Their weapon is the Thief Sword, which decreases Strength by 1 and increases Agility by 3. The Thief's main use is in unlocking the B-Tier knight Snakey.
Want to try out all of the Castle Crashers characters to make your list? Check out How to unlock all characters in Castle Crashers here on Pro Game Guides.
Published: Dec 17, 2024 03:30 am