This article is for the original Diep.io Tiers. For the Arras.io equivalent, see Arras:Tiers.
Tiers are separate Tank Classes, organized with the characteristics of their weapon(s).
The official class tree as of December 21st, 2017. The class tree can be opened in game by pressing Y on the keyboard in Diep.io.
Tiers are represented in the Class Tree, shown on the picture to the right, as a series of concentric rings containing every tank in the game. It can be displayed in-game by holding the Y key. In the direct center of the Class Tree is the player's tank. The first ring contains Tier 2 (Level 15) tanks, the second ring contains Tier 3 (Level 30) tanks, and the outermost ring contains Tier 4 (Level 45) tanks. Areas shaded black on the tree indicate an unavailable Upgrade in that tier; for example, the player must press ignore once after the Basic Tank to get to the Smasher.
There is a recurring pattern of colors in the upgrade selection menu and the Class Tree. The first tank in an upgrade branch will always have a light blue background. The second tank will be green. The third tank will be red. The fourth tank will be yellow. The fifth will be dark blue. This is only used for Battleship, Smasher and Auto Trapper. The sixth option will be purple. The Factory is currently the only tank with this color. The color order can also be found in the tank’s Stat buttons, which are color-reversed compared to the pattern in the class tree. The game mode selection buttons and colored Achievements list also use this pattern. Regardless of speculation, these colors do not seem to represent anything other than a simple order pattern to more easily distinguish tanks apart when quickly selecting an upgrade for now.
Tier 1: Level 1
| The tank that the player starts with in Diep.io. The player has one Cannon that can destroy Squares in two hits, Triangles in five, and Pentagons in 22 with no additional Stats. The health, Bullet, and movement Statistics are average and can be upgraded as they gain more points upon destroying Polygons and killing other players. |
Tier 2: Level 15
Upon reaching Level 15, the player may choose to upgrade to one of these Tier 2 specializations, four in total, or ignore them to get to the Smasher at level 30.
Tank Upgrades
Tier 3: Level 30
Upon reaching Level 30, the player may choose to upgrade to one of these Tier 3 specializations:
Twin Upgrades
Sniper Upgrades
Assassin | |
| Overseer The Overseer has Spawners that generate Drones instead of shooting Bullets. Holding the left mouse button, holding "Space", or pressing “E” causes the Drones to follow the player's cursor, while the right mouse button or "Shift" sends all Drones away from the cursor's current location, allowing for manual control. Otherwise, the Drones surround the player and fly out to attack nearby Polygons. Overseers have a maximum of eight Drones. | |
| Hunter The Hunter houses a smaller gun inside of its main Cannon and fires in a two-round burst. The field of view increases slightly. | |
| Trapper The Trapper replaces the Sniper’s Cannon with a Launcher that fires Traps that have tremendous penetration. A Launcher’s range is much shorter than a Cannon’s range as the traps completely stop moving after a second. This creates a protective wall that can stop enemy bullets or block an area. it is advised to stay as a sniper or the basic until level 45 due to the difficulty of farming as the Trapper. |
Machine Gun Upgrades
Flank Guard Upgrades
| Tri-Angle The Tri-Angle features two rear Cannons positioned to provide additional thrust when fired. The Tri-Angle can propel itself with recoil while shooting from the front. The rear bullets are about four to five times weaker than the front cannon bullets, making them one of the weakest bullets in the game and giving them a very poor bullet size to damage ratio. | |
| Quad Tank The Quad Tank has four guns spread over its sides, allowing the player to fire Bullets in all directions. Direct firepower is significantly less than before. Recoil is disabled. (Also selectable from the Twin class) | |
| Twin Flank The Twin Flank adds an extra Cannon in the front and the rear to the Flank Guard. Recoil is disabled. (Also selectable from the Twin class) | |
| Auto 3 The Auto 3 features three Auto Turrets mounted on the side. The tank constantly rotates slowly while its turrets automatically track and fire at the closest entities. The turrets can be manually controlled to an extent; holding down the left mouse button will target the cursor with one or two turrets based on their position. Holding down the right mouse button will make the turrets face away from the cursor. |
Tank Upgrades
Note: This requires players to stay as a Basic Tank until at least Level 30.
| Smasher The Smasher is a dedicated ramming tank. Choosing the Smasher removes cannons and all Bullet upgrade options and allows the tank to hold ten upgrades in each body upgrade slot instead of seven. The field of view also increases to sniper level. Any points put into bullets are refunded for use in the now available slots upon upgrading. The only available slots in order from the top down are Max Health, Health Regen, Body Damage, and Movement Speed. |
Tier 4: Level 45
Upon reaching Level 45, the player may select one of these Tier 4 specializations. This is the final tier that most tanks can reach and is also the final level that any player can reach unless they press H in Domination game mode to become the Dominator which is fixed at Level 75.
Twin Flank Upgrades
Quad Tank Upgrades
Triple Shot Upgrades
Overseer Upgrades
| Overlord Same as the Overseer, but now has four Spawners in which the Drones will spawn. The maximum of eight remains the same, but the Reload is essentially doubled. The core reload stat, however, does not change. | |
| Necromancer The player now loses all ability to fire any sort of projectile. Instead, the player must “infect” a nearby Square using the tank’s body. That Square can infect other Squares, and so on until they can have a maximum army of up to 36 Squares (at Max Drone Count). Reload turns into Drone Count, which increases max Drone Count by 2 per upgrade. These deadly Squares do less damage than the Overseer/Overlord’s Drones, but their vast number and sheer force can overwhelm opponents. | |
| Manager The player now loses one Spawner, leaving only one remaining. This is mitigated somewhat since the sole Spawner produces Drones almost twice as fast, and eight Drones is still the cap. The Manager is also able to turn invisible, similar to the Stalker and the Landmine. | |
| Overtrapper A Trapper with two uncontrollable Drones, similar to the Hybrid. The traps are the same as the trapper. Also upgrades from Trapper. | |
| Battleship The Battleship replaces all of the player's Cannons with Mini Spawners that pump out s Drones at an extremely fast rate. Half drones are manually controlled, though half are auto-controlled. However, Drones automatically disappear 4 seconds after spawning. These drones are also known as Partisans. (Also selectable from the twin flank class.) | |
| Factory Instead of spawning Drones, this tank will spawn a maximum of 6 Minions, all of which follow the cursor when either the fire button or E is pressed (Auto Fire). Its appearance is nearly identical to that of a Necromancer, the only difference being the amount of Spawners. There is also a slight chance that newly spawned players will spawn out of one (teammate only), making it the only way to spawn outside of a base in team modes. |
Assassin Upgrades
Tri-Angle Upgrades
| Booster This Tri-Angle upgrade adds 2 extra guns on the back allowing faster movement from recoil. | |
| Fighter This variant of the Tri-Angle has two extra guns on the sides for better defense and offense. The side cannons have damage in between that of the front cannon and the back cannon. |
Destroyer Upgrades
Hunter Upgrades
Trapper Upgrades
| Tri-Trapper The Tri-Trapper has tripled Trap production, faster Reload, but shorter Trap lifespan. It is nearly a purely defensive tank and is best utilized to provide cover for teammates. | |
| Gunner Trapper A unique combination of the Trapper and the Gunner. The two Cannons now point towards the player's mouse and the Launcher at the back now faces the opposite. It launches medium-sized Traps with the properties of regular ones. The Gunner Cannons have half the Reload but very high Penetration in return. | |
| Overtrapper It’s a Trapper with two AI Drones. This deadly combination can make this tank difficult to approach for non-snipers. | |
| Mega Trapper It makes the Launcher twice as large and makes it shoot Mega Traps, the second most powerful level 45 ammunition in the game. The Mega Trapper has lower Reload than the base Trapper, however, and shorter Trap lifespan. | |
| Auto Trapper A Trapper with an uncontrolled Auto Turret on top. The Turret is powerful, has free rotation, and is deadly effective when combined with the defensive nature of the Trapper. |
Smasher Upgrades
| Landmine A Smasher which can become invisible while not moving or taking damage for a full thirteen seconds. Due to the extended time required to become fully invisible, and the quickness with which it can be dispelled, it is strongly advised to use this tank with caution. The tank is made of two spinning hexagons, with one spinning half as fast. | |
| Auto Smasher The uncontrollable Auto Turret on top is the same as the Auto Gunner’s and the Auto Trapper’s, and this tank potentially deadly if enough points are spent on Bullet upgrades or body upgrades, but at the expense of either defense or an effective turret respectively. This tank is the only tank to have 10 upgrades for every stat. | |
| Spike The Spike only increases Body Damage. It is the toughest tank in the game and will always defeat enemy rammers other than another spike. Its hull looks like 12 triangles evenly spaced out. |
Machine Gun Upgrades
Note: This requires players to stay as a Machine Gun until Level 45.
| Sprayer The Sprayer gains a secondary Cannon in the center of the large Cannon, which shoots Gunner Bullets at about half the Reload of the larger Cannon, albeit much more accurate. The Sprayer also has increased recoil and increased rate of fire when compared to the Machine Gun. It fires in a sequence of 3 Bullets where it shoots 1 normal-sized Bullet and then shoots another normal and 1 smaller Bullet simultaneously. The larger Bullet is as strong as a Machine Gun bullet, and the small one is seven times weaker. However, the big Cannon is wider and therefore less accurate, though the small cannon is not wide (and so, very accurate, just at the cost of doing significantly less Damage). |
Gunner Upgrades
Auto 3 Upgrades
Removed Upgrades
These Classes existed at one point in the game, but have since been replaced or removed altogether.
| Mega Smasher (From Smasher) Back when the Smasher had knockback resistance instead of 10 upgrades as their special ability, this tank increased the knockback resistance. On August 7th, the knockback resistance bonus was replaced with the 10 Stat capacity bonus and thus this tank was removed. |
| X Hunter (From Hunter) The X Hunter was the Predator without the zoom ability. It was removed when it and the Old Predator were merged. | |
| Machine Gun II — (Machine Gun in-game) (From Machine Gun) This class decreased the spread and had better Reload and Bullet Damage. | |
| Mega Destroyer (AKA Destroyer II) — (Destroyer in-game) | |
| Auto 4 (AkA Auto Tank) — (Auto Tank in-game) (From Gunner) This tank had four Auto Turrets instead of three or five. It didn’t have Auto Spin on all the time. It was deemed too weak for Tier 4 as the player couldn't control the turrets and they don't attack invisible tanks and was subsequently replaced by an unnamed Flank Guard upgrade (now the Auto 3) and the Auto Tank (now the Auto 5). | |
| Mothership — (Removed on September 22nd) (Special Removed Tank) The Mothership is a tank that used to Exist in the Mothership and Sandbox Gamemode. It used to be available in Sandbox but was taken out of it. In the Mothership gamemode, players had to defend their team’s Mothership and take over the opposite team’s Mothership. Right now it is unlikely to return. | |
| Ball — The Ball is a tank that was secretly added on 13th January, 2017 and removed on the same day. It could defeat a fully upgraded Spike and still stay alive, but it didn’t have any cannons, so it couldn’t fire, many believe this tank was added thanks to a bug in the script. | |
| Mounted Turret — The Mounted Turret is a tank that was added on 19th November, 2016 and removed 10 minutes after its release. It could control Auto Turrets of other tanks by pressing H, it also had no cannons, so it couldn’t fire, many say it was removed due to Multi-Boxing. |
Other Upgrades
These are classes that used to be in a different Tier, had a different design, or used to work differently but were kept around and tweaked.
| Old Triplet — (Tier 3 upgrade) From Twin This was the Triplet when it was one of the most popular easy-access classes around. It was deemed too strong for Tier 3 and was moved to Tier 4 as an upgrade to the Triple Shot. Triplet also had 2 different designs in the past, although the only differences were the layering of the Cannons. | |
| Old Sprayer — (Tier 3 upgrade) From Machine Gun This class previously used to shoot identical Bullets from both cannons, but this was deemed too strong for Tier 3 and so it was moved to Tier 4. However, even at Tier 4 it was still considered overpowered, and so its normal Bullets from the middle cannon were replaced by weaker Gunner Bullets. | |
| Old Predator — (before merge with X Hunter) From Hunter This class was the Predator without the third Cannon. It was removed when it and the X Hunter were merged. | |
| Old Landmine — (before the August 7th Update) From Smasher This class had the exact same design as the original Smasher, but was changed, probably to have players not confuse this tank and its predecessor, the Smasher. | |
| Old Master (AKA Factory) — (before the November 9th Update) |
| Old Arena Closer — (Before Domination Update) Unplayable Tank The old Arena Closers were easier to escape, as they were smaller, and had less Movement Speed and Bullet Speed. They were later buffed around the time of the Domination Update. |
Special
These do not branch off anything; they are only obtainable in Sandbox apart from Developer which is only used by the Developer, Zeach himself. The Dominator is the only tank that can be obtained in another game mode by any player by pressing H; that game mode being Domination.
| Arena Closer The Arena Closer is a tank that can only be used by a player in Sandbox Mode. The Closer only spawns in when a game is outdated or has been won by a team. The Arena Closers are much bulkier and faster than normal tanks and can one-shot any player. | |
| Mothership The Mothership is a tank that used to exist in the Mothership and Sandbox Gamemode, now it only exists in the Sandbox Game Mode, in the Mothership game mode, players had to defend their team’s Mothership and take over the opposite team’s Mothership. Right now it’s unlikely to return. | |
| Dominator The Dominator is the only Tier 6 tank in the game, so it is special. However, it is only existent in the Domination game mode and cannot be obtained by upgrading; instead one will have to press H to control it. | |
| Developer The Developer Class is an unconfirmed Class that can only be used by the Developer Zeach himself. It can transform into basically anything and can go beyond the level cap of 45. Although it cannot be obtained in Sandbox, some of the cheats that the Developer uses are in the Sandbox Game Mode. |
Trivia
- All Tier 4 tanks are 126-175 pixels wide.
- The basic tank has a surprisingly strong bullet compared to other bullet shooting tank classes, only weaker than Trapper branch traps, Overseer branch drones, and Destroyer branch bullets.
- If there were to be a seventh tank from a branch, the background color would be pink, as shown by the Game Mode selection, the colored Achievements list and the reversed Stats colors. For an eighth, it would be tan. It is unknown what a ninth tank would be, but since the colors used by the achievements list cycle through the eight colors, it would most likely be light blue.
- There was a running theory that the background color of the Upgrade icon corresponds to the base Stat debuff it gets, as it
typically matches the color of the respective Stat bar.
- There are several issues with this:
- If the background color were to depend on the tank’s Stat debuff, there wouldn’t be color variants, as seen in the Overtrapper, Auto Gunner, Streamliner, and Battleship, for example.
- The Stat de-buffs aren’t necessarily true: For instance, the Battleship may have a dark blue background, but with its notoriously fast Drones, it certainly doesn’t get a de-buff to the Bullet/Drone
Speed.
- In general, the theory can be debunked with simple Sandbox testing.
- There are several issues with this:
- Most of the fully removed tanks had a light blue upgrade background. The only removed tank with a different background color was the Auto 4.
- These Stats are not changed upon upgrading to every tank (which means no buff or debuff): Health Regeneration, Movement Speed, Max Health.
- The Auto 3 and Gunner are the only Tier 3 tanks to have no Tier 4 upgrades exclusive to them. Strangely, both share an upgrade between them, the Auto Gunner.
- The Overseer has the most Tier 4 upgrades of all Tier 3 tanks, with 6 options. It is followed by Trapper with 5 upgrades, and Destroyer with 4. All other Tier 3 tanks have only 2 or 3 Tier 4 upgrades.
- The Battleship is the only Tier 4 tank capable of being upgraded to from 3 of the 4 Tier 2 tanks.
- Smasher and Sprayer are currently the only two tanks that jump a Tier when upgrading to; they can only be upgraded to by a tank 2 tiers lower than the upgrade's tier, and require the player to reach 30 levels past the previous upgrade's threshold, instead of 15.
- There are 48 tanks.