What is the best class?

[Samoht]

Lol @ the guy who ranked rangers above anything else. Hands down worse class. Period.

[Vallanor]

I have a wizard and a paladin. People say they both suck, but I tend to enjoy them.

I do tear up a little watching shamans solo dragons in WW though. They are a ridiculously over-powered class. Shaman is the answer to your question.

[Troxx]

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

Lol @ the guy who ranked rangers above anything else. Hands down worse class. Period.

If you look at the sum total of what a class brings to the table across all styles of play (solo, group, raid) from level 1-60, I wouldn't place rangers at the bottom. Decent dps, can tank in a pinch, can solo (something warriors and rogues cannot do effectively), can pull outdoor zones with an unresistable harmony. Are they a power class? Absolutely not. Are they the worst? No. They don't fit into an ideal 'power group', but neither do a half-dozen other classes. They've got a pretty versatile toolkit to work with.

-Warriors? Outside the raid environment they are easily replacable. A well played knight makes xp group content a snooze by comparison. If very well geared for holding aggro they tank extremely well, but bring zero utility to the table.

-Druids? Before 60 (and even then) in most groups are pretty inefficient to add to any well balanced group. In a less than ideal group they might round things out nicely ... but not really more nicely than any other specific class. Yes, group regen is nice. Yes, thorns are cool. But when push comes to shove they're inefficient healers compared to clerics/shamans and poor overall dps compared to pretty much every other class in the game.


-Wizards? Don't make me laugh. If you're not burning down a raid mob or afking 15 minutes between quad kites they add nothing. An autoattacking, otherwise afk bard will sustain more damage over time.

All that said, the nice thing about EQ is you can easily have fun playing any class, and can make things work with very atypical group compositions. Some of the most fun I've had in EQ and here on p99 were in those oddball groups of weird composition.

But back to rangers: they're a blast to play, and quite versatile. Therefore I wouldn't put them at the bottom of any 'best class' list. The bottom of a 'power class' list? Nope. At the high end that spot belongs solidly to wizards (followed closely by druids).

[Naethyn]

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

-Warriors? Outside the raid environment they are easily replacable. A well played knight makes xp group content a snooze by comparison. If very well geared for holding aggro they tank extremely well, but bring zero utility to the table.

Warriors never have downtime. They add a substantial amount of dps and after 50 they proc slow, life taps, incapacitate, dots, snare. It is a bunch of fun having a bag of just utility weapons. A warrior should also carry 10 wooly spider nets for 30 roots at any time to gain aggro when you need. Sure, your group can't be lazy and they need to let you control it, but a good warrior can setup chain pulls for hours and dps.

[Vallanor]

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

-Wizards? Don't make me laugh. If you're not burning down a raid mob or afking 15 minutes between quad kites they add nothing. An autoattacking, otherwise afk bard will sustain more damage over time.

This is actually a pretty huge part of the game for a lot of people. I absolutely love raiding on my wizard, and I'm regularly near the top of the dps parse (not that you'd ever know it since wizard damage doesn't show up for anyone else). Yes, wizards are pretty bad in a standard exp group until you can get a clicky nuke robe, but you're seriously downplaying their strength on raids. If you want to raid, wizard is a great in-demand class.

[Ivory]

I believe ranger has the potential to be one of the most powerful classes!!!! One day I'm going to duo giant turtles and dragons with archery!!

[Samoht]

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

I believe ranger has the potential to be one of the most powerful classes!!!! One day I'm going to duo giant turtles and dragons with archery!!

An do less damage than a meleeing wizard.

[Rararboker]

My wizard has a dagger with a 19/20 dmg/delay ratio. Melee wizards are a real threat to Norrath.

[Speedi]

Druid

[Raev]

Posting in a troll thread!

Anyway, ranking Warrior as the 'second least powerful' is pretty crazy IMO. Warriors may not be the most flexible class, but they are great at what they do: standing toe to toe with anyone or anything and kicking ass. Only the Cleric is more important than the Warrior for raiding, and even for small groups Warriors are surprisingly solid. If pulls aren't a problem, then WAR/SHM and WAR/CLR/ENC are arguably even better than than their monk equivalents, and if they are frequently the Warrior can get creative and/or just tank two or three mobs at once.

Warrior aggro problems are somewhat overrated. When you have 5500+ HP and 1300+ AC (= full set of HOT gear) getting some siren or myconid reaver or chetari rat slowed in under 10 seconds isn't a huge issue. Even for areas where Knights shine, like the Halls of Testing, Warriors aren't incompetent scrubs by any means. Team Debuff has to cool their jets, but evasive/defensive will partially compensate for the additional time before slow lands.

In general I think Velious made some big steps towards fixing class balance, with the exception of shamans (ridiculous) and horrible caster itemization which leads to really well geared melee (HOT armor is balanced, NTOV is not) being facerollingly good.