What is the best class?

[isoka]

EQ offers a lot of possibilities : soloing, grouping, raiding, tradeskills, utility.
All classes have pros and cons depending on which aspect of the game you want to focus on.
I have been playing 8 different classes so far (shaman, monk, enchanter, magician, wizard, bard, ranger, shadow knight) and I have been pleased by each of them in different ways.

In the end, each class can be best depending on how you want to experience the game.

[Superranger]

Ranger best class

[elwing]

Shadowknight of course!

[Thugnuts]

Beastlord.

[Ravager]

Gym.

[Samoht]

The best class? There are a few default "lol no" answers:

Ranger
Magician
Druid
Necromancer

Then there's the best for what you want to do at any particular moment:

Raid tank: Warrior
Group tank: SK/Paladin
Healer: Cleric
Sustained DPS: Rogue/Monk
Burn DPS: Wizard
Puller: Monk/Bard
Support: Enchanter/Shaman

But, indeed, it goes a little deeper than that. Most lucrative tradeskiller? Shaman/Enchanter

Best PLer? Bard/Druid or Enchanter (Chardok style)

Best old world solo artist? Enchanter

Best Velious solo artist? Shaman (Iksar > Ogre)

Character that's going to cost you the most PP buying spells? Shaman.

You want to make a class that's in demand? Cleric

Want to play a class no one else wants to play? Pick any tank.

In the end, an Iksar Shaman is probably the best possible choice for what to play, but it's going to be a huge platsink. And if you actually do get Torpor and your DoTs, that's PP you will never be able to recover. But it might be worth it when you're soloing Lodizal and WW dragons.

There's only room for so many Shamans or Enchanters in a raid, though. Only room for so many tanks. Cleric comes back up for best raiding class. Pick Rogue/Monk/Wizard for best raid DPS.

It seems that the best class is really situational and subjective.

[eqravenprince]

It depends on what you want to do. For what I want to do, nothing beats a Monk. Now that I am higher level, I really enjoy walking into any mid level dungeon and clearing it out if I want. FD is my pause button. With a wife, 1 yr and 3 yr old, I need that pause button. Necro would be my second choice, but I prefer playing melee, plus a Monk will outdo any Necro with any trivial dungeon, just more dps.

[Jimjam]

Well first you need to decide on what the objective measures for 'best' are.

Although I find them completely uninteresting to play (I don't know why) monks do a lot of things well. Classically they would tank better than a warrior with the same worn AC/at the AC cap (not impossible in classic Velious), they do great sustained melee dps, they have some good tools for social play/contingency measures (sneak/fd/mend/best bind wound) and can 'inventively misuse' the game mechanics (bind wound when fighting, off handing a decent ratio fist while using a 2hander, FD split, use FD to make low hp mobs run when they wouldn't normally... I'm sure there are many more tricks I don't know of too). It's weaknesses can be worked around in group play (it's a great tank, but no taunt so have a friend just root the target mob) or are irrelevant while duo/solo.

That said, as good as a monk is, probably being the best melee type character, I don't think it compares to my first love; the shaman.

Classes I also enjoy are Warrior, they are challenging in quite a few ways and do well as group leaders and ranger, because they have lots of tools, admittedly they can't handle cutting edge content but they are good at exploring more bottom feeder zones.

[eqravenprince]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

off handing a decent ratio fist while using a 2hander

You mean to tell me I can use a TStaff and epic fists and get offhand punch damage?

[fadetree]

Ranger best for me.