[Lore] Which class is the most powerful?

[Kerathras]

From a purely lore perspective, not gameplay, which class would you say is the strongest and why?

For me I would have to say the Archmage just because mastery of Qhaysh, or High Magic, can grant the wielder immense power with very few limitations. A fully trained Loremaster of the White Tower can take on a Greater Daemon (one of the most powerful entities in the Warhammer Universe) in single combat and win. Several examples of this exist in lore, most notably of Teclis banishing a Keeper of Secrets, a greater daemon of Slaanesh, with a single spell. A skilled (or reckless) practitioner of Dhar, or Dark Magic, like Dark Elf Sorcerers can achieve similar levels of raw power but their grasp on it is tenuous at best and often dependent on deals struck with daemons and thus inherently unreliable; same goes for a Chaos Magus. The only other class that could come anywhere close to this would be a Greenskin Shaman channeling the WAAAGH of an entire Greenskin horde but again that power is very unstable and reliant on others whereas an Archmage draws refined power directly from the Winds of Magic. Human mages like the Bright Wizard, are of course only able to tap into one of the Winds and are thus inherently limited. Not really sure about cleric-type classes like the Warrior Priest or Runepriest who derive their power from the divine or cultist-types like the Zealot, Disciple of Khaine, and I guess even the Chosen who get their power from eldritch entities but there too I guess I see the inherent limitation of being beholden to your patron's whims and favor.

What do you guys think? I would love to hear your thoughts!

P.S. I am not including non-magic users because, again from a purely lore perspective and disregarding game mechanics, someone wielding a sword or an axe or even a gun would get destroyed by anyone capable of magic nor would they be able to do any real harm to someone who can conjure a magic barrier at will to protect themselves. Also not including Liches or Vampires because they're not playable classes.

[tazdingo]

chosen demolishes everything in melee. AM is probably the strongest caster. chosen likely wins that fight too, they're so broken in lore

[diegomess]

imagine if chosen where like in lore, give us back discordand winds lol.

chosen here is more like a chaos warrior, still strong tho.

IMO i think a magus of tzeentch is the strongest class... weakest one a knight

[Cqengi]

Engi mate, what you talking about "gun" a bullet thru a throat and that's all she wrote mate here's some RL lore for ya cob. Ain't no barrier or some poisonous dot going to compare to a nine millimetre my friend. Much less a .50 cal or a M3 cannon smash. You got some magic? we got 3-stage cold launched hydro propellant intercontinental ballistic missiles

[MMXX43]

You are correct, a Loremaster is the most powerfull archetype lorewise, then again the Slan Priests might come off as equal or probably better.

[CountTalabecland]

Archmage, Bright Wizard, Shaman, Sorceress, and technically Magus are all the hero level mage characters that could just as easily be level 4 wizard lords from tabletop.

Slayer, Warrior Priest, Witch Elf, Black Orc, and most others more or less have either lord or hero type characters in the lore. For example Daemon Slayers, Arch Lectors, Hags, and Warbosses are all lord levels of the same thing in the lore.

There are only a few classes that come strictly from a troop/special/rare troop such as Ironbreakers, Chosen, Knights, Black Guard, White Lions, and do not necessarily relate to a more powerful character. But by all means a rr80 Ironbreaker is more or less the same thing as a Thane or Dwarf Lord one would think.

As far as who would be the most powerful non-mage it would depend. A Knight of the Blazing Sun equipped as a Grandmaster with a Runefang was always a super strong table top melee character.

Otherwise, Chosen ascending to Chaos Lord, kitted out Dwarf Lords with rune weapons, or any other melee character with special items would be very powerful in the lore.