We have the first tally for Season 8 of the Tower of Chaos in Raven 2. The headline here is the expansion of the summit to 45 floors, a change that has thoroughly shaken up the environment. Most notably, we are seeing the Assassin’s grip on the meta slip. While the Assassin previously dominated the speedrun records, leaving the Night Ranger and others to scramble for scraps, the expansion has handed the keys to the kingdom to the Night Ranger.

In the early stages of Season 8, Night Rangers '훼이뫄둬****유엔쒸잇' and '신화FRED' have claimed the throne, clearing the 45th floor in a blistering 23 seconds to tie for first. They are followed by four more Night Rangers who clocked in at 26 seconds. In fact, Night Rangers currently occupy 16 of the top 20 slots. For context, the Season 8 final winner, '파괴된엉꼬가매우쓰랄이다', landed in 12th place with a time of 34 seconds.

The task for the remainder of the season is simple: shave off every millisecond possible. Since we have only just unlocked the 45th floor, players are still in the phase of character progression and optimizing their routes. Given that records on the 40th floor eventually plummeted to just 6 seconds, I expect the competitive fire among the top players to reach a fever pitch. May the best build win!

Tower of Chaos Class Ranking TOP 5

Looking at the top 5 records by class, the Night Ranger’s early dominance becomes even more apparent. The top five all cleared the summit in under 26 seconds, while other classes are hitting a wall at the 30-second mark. Assassins, Vanguards, and Destroyers are in hot pursuit, but the Berserker, despite a recent surge in popularity among high-ranking players at the end of last season, is struggling to keep pace in the speed trials.

The laggard of the pack is clearly the Elementalist. Finding rankers who have cleared the 40th floor has been a chore. It brings back memories of the Destroyer, who followed a 'slow burner' trajectory, gradually improving their record as the season progressed. One assumes the Elementalist will follow the same path to whittle down their clearance times.

Tower of Chaos Ranker Class Distribution

The Berserker secured 3rd place in the class distribution ranking during the final tally of Raven 2's Season 7 Tower of Chaos. Considering the Night Ranger and Divine Caster held the top two spots firmly, the Berserker was effectively the top contender. Surprisingly, they have held their rank in the first tally of Season 8. While their total share has dipped, that is perfectly natural at the start of a new season—at this stage, rank matters far more than the size of the pie.

The most significant shift in these metrics is the decline of the Assassin. Their share dropped from 12.3% to 11.7%, resulting in them losing 4th place to the Deathbringer. The Assassin has consistently been a high-performance class in the Tower of Chaos, but this serves as a stark reminder that having a few elite top-tier players is a different beast than having a broad base of high-ranking class users. We shall see if they can claw back their share and ranking as the season unfolds.