Stonewards Classes: All 8 Dwarves and How to Unlock Them

The eight dwarves

Stonewards ships with eight playable classes. Six of them have a dedicated Steam achievement that fires on unlock — Hunter, Archer, Healer, Mage, Rogue and Artificer — and the two that do not, Miner and Warrior, are the pair you start with.

Since Hotfix 0.1.6 the Character Screen shows the missions required to unlock each character. The studio has never published those requirements as text anywhere, so if you want to know what you are signing up for, the closest public measure is how many owners have actually got there:

Class	Status	Global unlock rate	What the record says
Miner	Starter	—	The digging phase is built around it. Hotfix 0.1.7’s gold rebalance was effectively a Miner buff.
Warrior	Starter	—	No Warrior-specific balance change in any of the six Early Access hotfixes.
Hunter	Unlockable	52.4%	Fights with a Companion. Buffed in four separate patches.
Archer	Unlockable	52.1%	The only class the studio has reduced damage on.
Healer	Unlockable	41.2%	Buffed three patches running; can heal itself and the Hunter’s Companion.
Mage	Unlockable	25.7%	Fireball and Slow spells; three fixes to make its hits land properly.
Rogue	Unlockable	20.8%	No balance change of its own in 0.1.3 through 0.1.8.
Artificer	Unlockable	11.1%	Bombs that destroy blocks and drop gold. The rarest unlock in the game.

Unlock rates read from the public Steam achievement page for app 4502710 on September 1, 2026. Full table on the unlocks page.

What each class actually does

Because Stonewards publishes no stat lines, the honest source for class mechanics is the patch notes — the studio describes systems clearly when it changes them. Here is what six hotfixes have established.

Miner

One of the two starting dwarves, and the class the dig phase revolves around. It is not a damage class; it is the reason your crew can afford wall repairs. Hotfix 0.1.7’s rebalance — digging “should now reward noticeably more Gold and feel fairer compared to combat” — moved the whole class from filler to economy engine. There is an active Steam thread titled “Miners are people too”, which tells you both that the class was undervalued and that the community noticed.

Warrior

The other starting dwarf, and the frontline melee option. It is the quietest class in the patch record: nothing Warrior-specific was buffed or nerfed between 0.1.3 and 0.1.8. What most Warrior runs are actually built on is the melee Frozen Tome, which at an 85.3% unlock rate is the second most common achievement in the game.

Hunter

The Hunter fights alongside a Companion — a bear, going by the Steam threads about healing it. It is the most patched class in Early Access:

0.1.4 — increased the Companion’s Attack and Health.
0.1.7 — the Companion moves faster and travels farther, more health, slightly more damage; its Poison and Fire damage now scale with the player’s attack damage, with Poison duration reduced to compensate.
0.1.7 — the Companion can now be healed at the Fireplace with the Fireplace upgrade, and can be healed by the Healer.

Four buffs in, a thread called “Hunter feeling underwhelming” is still open on the forum. Take that as the honest state of play rather than a settled verdict.

Archer

The ranged specialist, and the only class the studio has nerfed: Hotfix 0.1.6 slightly reduced both its ranged attack damage and its charged attack damage. The Bouncing Arrow ring (22.2% unlock) is the Archer’s signature upgrade, and Hotfix 0.1.8 added a minimum speed for bounced projectiles so they no longer crawl after repeated rebounds.

Healer

The support dwarf, and the biggest beneficiary of the Early Access patches:

0.1.6 — Projectile Bonus upgrades now apply to the Mage and Healer.
0.1.7 — the healing projectile’s collision area was improved, and healing projectiles now deal a small AoE on impact. The studio spelled out the consequence itself: this “allows Healers to shoot at their feet to heal themselves”.
0.1.8 — fixed Staff rarity not correctly affecting Healer healing. If you played a Healer before August 26 and a rare staff felt no better, that was the bug.

Mage

Casts Fireball and Slow (both named in the 0.1.3 collision fixes). Like the Healer it received Projectile Bonus support in 0.1.6, improved Fireball collision in 0.1.7, and the Staff rarity fix in 0.1.8 — which affected Mage damage as well as Healer healing. Community sentiment has been rough on it (“the Mage feels pointless” is a live thread), but most of that predates the staff fix.

Rogue

A melee skirmisher, and the class with the least public information. It received no balance change of its own in six hotfixes, and there is an open forum thread asking for its removal. With no published stat line there is nothing to argue against — but there is also nothing to defend it.

Artificer

The bomber, and mechanically the most distinctive dwarf in the game. Its bombs destroy terrain blocks, which makes it a mining tool as much as a weapon:

0.1.4 — adjusted Gold Coin drops from Artificer bombs; fixed bombs destroying resource veins without dropping all expected resources.
0.1.7 — bombs can now roll for a Gold Coin drop on each block destroyed, instead of being limited to one coin per explosion.
0.1.8 — fixed bombs merging or sticking together when thrown close to each other, and fixed other classes taking Artificer bombs left on the Crafter.

At 11.1% it is the rarest unlock in the game, which means most parties never see the class that most directly prints money.

What is not on this page

No damage numbers, no health values, no cooldowns. Stonewards does not publish class stats, and the achievement descriptions shipped empty. Anywhere you see a Stonewards stat table with precise figures, ask where the figures came from.

The roadmap says more dwarves are coming: two new playable characters in Q4 2026, two more in Q1 2027 and four more in Q2 2027 — see the official roadmap.

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