Each of your Heroes in Puzzle Breakers represent a certain class. There are five distinct classes: Warriors, Mages, Rangers, Assassins, and Priests.
Warriors are a melee hero class - they have high defense and health, but their attacks are low. Notably when on a defensive team, Warriors cannot be knocked back by any rune attack; only by certain abilities. When they are directly in front of the attacker, they attack once every 2 turns.
Mages are a ranged class that have the strongest standard attacks, but have low defense and can only attack once every 3 turns (on a defensive team).
Rangers: the ranged heroes with high-damage attacks and low defense. However, on defense, Rangers attack once every 2 turns - making them suitable for teams that focus on a quick-damage strategy.
Assassins are the melee class that deal the highest damage, but have weak defense and can be knocked back by an attacker with a rune attack of 4 or more. Apparently, on defense they are able to move more quickly than Warriors...however I have not seen anything in the game that makes them different with this trait.
Priests have the most balance, as there are Priest heroes that are either Ranged or Melee. They have medium strength attack and defense, and Priests generally have special skills that heal the caster, as well as his/her team. While on defense, Ranged Priests can attack every 2 turns, while Melee Priests start the round with a 3-turn delay.
Class Cycle[]
While there officially is no true strength cycle for Hero Classes in Puzzle Breakers, there is indeed one that exists, particularly for the first ranking of War Academy book upgrades.
The reason why I say this exists is because Academy Rank 1 is where you will spend most of your time as you progress through the game:
is strong against
- is strong against
- is strong against
- And both and are strong against each other, but weak against their own Hero Class.
Check out the War Academy page to see the specific combat bonuses for each class in Academy Rank 1.