While several roles in Town of Salem are open to opinion, there are a few roles most people agree on.
- The Town
- The Jailor is the most powerful townie, and is generally regarded as the leader of the town (sorry, Mayor) for their ability to Jail and execute everyone.
- Veterans are just below the Jailor in terms of power for being able to bypass Basic Defense with their alert.
- Mayors and Transporters are generally just below that, if only for their ability to carry a game.
- A well-played Vigilante is able to either obliterate targets or find people who are immune to their bullets, so long as they can avoid hitting town. Their usefulness comes especially in killing targets who the town suspect to might be a potential Jester and want to avoid hanging them. Unfortunately, a town with a Witch or a Coven Leader can exploit them.
- As far as investigative roles go: The Lookout is generally considered to be the best.
- A particularly good Spy player can single-handedly both identify what Mafia and Coven roles in the game and be able to entrap non-savvy players into giving their role out. While they invalidate certain Mafia roles, most Coven roles won't care about being called out, and they're very situationally-useful against neutral killers.
- The reworked Retributionist lost the ability to resurrect town members that made it the second best role in the past. After that change, they're a decent, if unreliable but unpredictable, role whose functionality depends on what town members have been killed before them.
- While Sheriff is unambiguously a good role for finding lowly mafia and coven, they cannot see certain evil roles like the Godfather or most Neutral Killing. They can also easily (and frustratingly) be mistaken for being an Executioner, which often claims Sheriff to lynch their target.
- Medium is a role that entirely depends on players being dead and remaining in the game to give them information, if they have any to give, or they aren't simply lying in the first place. Having access to dead investigative town or hearing what evil roles can say privately about their faction's findings are useful, their usefulness is based entirely around other players.
- The absolute worst town role, however, is almost unquestionably the Vampire Hunter. They only have one use; to hunt Vampires. That's it. If all Vampires are taken care of, they become a Vigilante with only one bullet. Since VH usually announce themselves when no Vampires remain, Coven Leader and Witches tend to take advantage of this.
- The Mafia
- The Consigliere and the Janitor are regarded as the best non-killing mafia roles.
- Followed by the Consort, for roleblocking. If the mafia thinks that the confirmed town investigative or protector is being protected, the Consort can invalidate them with roleblocks to cripple the town instead.
- A well-versed Hypnotist can convince even the smartest of towns that they are a Transporter or Doctor if they play their cards right. While this doesn't directly help the rest of the mafia, being able to have a swing in voting or having town protectors be on them because they are "confirmed" can be a godsend.
- Blackmailers are up to contention for how useful their blackmailing can actually be, but their ability of reading whispers are very vital as they can tell the rest of the mafia what players claim privately.
- Disguisers, Forgers, and Framers are on the side of being considered under-powered, even though they received many buffs after complaints were made.
- Disguisers can generate a lot of chaos with how they shift the perception of mafia members to Town Investigatives, but it'll not usually be a sort of chaos they'll be able to control in their favor since it relies on them having the information they're not likely to have.
- Forgers gained the ability to change the role along with the will of the target they killed, which solved one of the problems involved with them, but it's still very taxing to create believable wills out of these kills once per night with the time limit given by the game. Especially if the mafia hasn't decided who will get killed at the start of the night.
- Framers were changed so that their frames remain on the target until they get investigated, meaning they don't have to get lucky by framing the same target as the one Town investigative is visiting, but they also become more obvious as time passes and more and more suspicious roles are found. There's also the issue that the only Town Investigative roles affected are Sheriff and Investigator who may not be present in the game at all.
- Ambushers have a split base. Some think they break the rule of only one mafia kill per night. Others think they suck for their incredibly weak mechanics and easily revealable identity. Everyone agrees they suck, though.
- Godfathers are literally always more powerful than Mafiosos. Basic Defense helps a lot in this regard.
- The Coven
- Potion Masters are at the top of the tier for their flexibility. They can either deal a basic attack, have a player's role revealed to them, or heal another player. This both gives them plenty of potential roles to claim, and have the ability to directly help the rest of the Coven by killing opponents or healing their teammates if they are at risk of being attacked.
- Coven Leader is also right at the top, since starting with night three they gain basic defense and deal basic attacks with their ability. If the Coven Leader gets their hands on the Godfather, they become particularly deadly by directly controlling the Mafia into attacking non-Coven members of town.
- Hex Master is the coven's answer to both the Framer and the Arsonist and while they have to remain alive in order for their power to go off, being able to suddenly end the game once everyone is cursed is certainly not to be overlooked.
- While Poisoners are at the bottom. Despite guaranteeing an instant kill once they get the Necronomicon, they're weak and able to be killed at night. They are also virtually unable to get rid of any role that has high defense without potentially giving themselves away if they're solo.
- Neutral Killing
- Serial Killers have been widely considered the best Neutral Killing roles for at least being consistent with their effectiveness through many nights. There is also a chance for more than one Serial Killer, which can give them an edge if they work together.
- Arsonists went through a few buffs and are overall in strong competition with Serial Killers, as they're still less consistent due to how many targets they doused will die before they can incinerate them, but they're much harder to detect, between the Lookout and the Sheriff both finding Serial Killers much easier than they find Arsonists. And like the Serial Killer, Arsonist is not unique, meaning that another Arsonist can douse more players and have a bigger death toll once they ignite.
- The Plaguebearer is a role that has to infect every town member in order to turn into Pestilence, which can either happen too early (as they become the most valuable target) or too late in some games. Once they do, they have what is easily the best attack in the game (attacking their target and anyone who visits), as well as being invulnerable to attacks at night as well as killing anyone who visits them.
- Werewolves stand below those two for having much less consistency than both of them as they rely on predicting a house which many town members are visiting to get a successful rampage, and they're otherwise killing at half the speed of Serial Killers while having half the same immunity to detection as Arsonists.
- Juggernauts are actually the weakest of all of them. Mostly for taking so long to ramp up. Their reward for this is being a slightly better Werewolf at max power.
