Help picking a class...

Jordsang · January 2014

Hi, I'm totally new to MUDs, but not to RPGs. The wiki doesn't really go into alot of detail as to how the classes are different, and the HELP scrolls are good, but I like to hear the opinions of players as well. Stating first that each reply made is only the OPINION of the poster,

what are the easiest classes to learn,
the most difficult classes,
the classes with the most utility,
the classes which are great at combat,
and those just overall a blast to play?

Thank you for your time. This will help me choose, I'm sure!

Kuy · January 2014

what are the easiest classes to learn

The ones that you are most interested in.

the most difficult classes,

The ones you are least interested in.

the classes with the most utility

Utility comes in all forms from all classes.

the classes which are great at combat

I haven't seen or heard of a class that is bad at combat.

and those just overall a blast to play

(This is the most important bit:) The ones you are most interested in.

Basically, look at the classes. Look at the houses that take them. Look at the cities you can live in as that class. When it comes down to it, your class is only one of a great number of things that's going to influence your fun times.

As long as you pick a class that you enjoy thematically, the rest of that stuff falls into place.

Iocun · January 2014

I assume with easy/difficult to learn, you are mostly referring to PvP? Outside of PvP, no class is particularly complex.

As for PvP, the easiest are generally the ones that either are only available through a huge time investment (i.e. dragon is probably the easiest class to PvP as), or require a substantial money investment in weapons/artefacts (e.g. damage knight, damage magi).

Without that kind of time or money investment, all classes have their difficulties if you want to be truly successful in combat. Some, however, require a much better understanding of the game's combat mechanics to even begin any sort of combat, even at a low tier. Primarily, this applies to classes that focus foremost on afflictions (e.g. apostate, serpent, occultist, shaman). Out of these, serpent and occultist still have the advantage that they can do fair amounts of damage too and don't necessarily have to go the affliction route, at least in groups and in lower tiers.

Still, I struggle with actually naming any particularly hard or any particularly easy class, as with pretty much any class you can get initial successes against inexperienced opponents, and with pretty much any class you'll eventually hit a tough point where you're forced to delve more deeply into an understanding of combat mechanics to still be able to kill more skilled opponents.

As for your other questions, I'd love to answer them, but dinner's ready and I'm hungry!

Anedhel · January 2014

The best advice I can give you is- if you have an idea of what your character is like, pick the class that best suits that! Fitting a class to a character is, I've found, more rewarding than picking a character to fit a class, and you'll find that, though, of course, a lot of Achaean life revolves around what you can/can't do, it's at its best when what you're doing is creating a character that's memorable and enjoyable.

Don't get hung up on mechanical things, the admins do a phenomenal job of making all classes workable, and with a little work and time, you can probably get anything to work.

Oh- if you -do- end up joining us, welcome and stuff!

Terra · January 2014

Easiest to learn classes are, I think:
Monk
Paladin
Runewarden
Infernal
Blademaster
Occultist
Priest and Apostate might go here. Not sure.
Maybe shaman
Maybe magi, but you have to learn retardation combat to be good (unless you purchase artefacts), which a lot of people are afraid of/struggle with

The more complex, difficult to learn classes are:
Serpent
Jester
Bard

Classes hardly anyone fights as these days (at least that I see), which doesn't necessarily make them bad, but which I, for that reason, know very little about in terms of how good they are or how difficult they are:
Alchemist
Sylvan
Druid
Sentinel

In terms of utility, you'd have to say more about what type of utility you are looking for. The classes vary so much in what stuff they have to offer. Occultist, Jester, Shaman, and Serpent, are the best at escaping. Occultist, Apostate, Infernal, and Serpent are the best at going into enemy cities without dying. Bard, Monk, Blademaster, Runewarden, Apostate, and Infernal I think are the worst at traveling around the continent quickly, while all of the other classes have pretty good ways to do that.

All classes can be good at combat, I think. There's been a lot of good combat balancing going on lately.

What is fun to play depends entirely on the person. I loved magi and think bard is a lot of fun. A lot of people really like monk and occultist, which have a lot of interesting utility/survival abilities on top of good combat.

Sena · January 2014

Jordsang said:
the classes with the most utility,
and those just overall a blast to play?

Skipping the PvP stuff because I don't have much experience with it and others have covered it pretty well. In response to these two though, it depends greatly on what exactly you're looking for. Even if you don't have any experience with MUDs, if there are any specific roles/archetypes you enjoy in other RPGs, that could help with giving better advice.

Are you looking for non-combat utility, things like travel abilities, crafting/tradeskills, and other convenient things?
Druid is probably the best for that, they have a wide variety of travel abilities, they can harvest/produce their own cures to use or sell, they're a very convenient and self-sufficient class. You won't have many choices for house/city though. Sylvan and sentinel are also pretty nice, both sharing two skills with druid. Those are all forestal classes though, which will greatly limit your choice of city/house/alignment. For some more neutral options, magi and jester both have nice utility.

Or are you more interested in combat utility/support, things that are useful in a fight but don't involve directly attacking someone? Monk is good there, with abilities for keeping an eye on who's in the area, who's entering and leaving the area, and where everyone is, as well as a bunch of other nice things to help in 1v1 or group combat. Priests are also nice for that, with very powerful healing/support abilities. Other good choices are bard, runewarden, and paladin.

Serpent deserves a mention as well, though their utility is very different. They have a pretty nice travel ability (warping through wormholes that connect distant rooms), but to use it effectively you'll have to learn your way around the various wormhole networks. Aside from that, the main benefit is the various stealth abilities. If you're interested in being sneaky, spying on people, getting to places you aren't supposed to be, or just being hard to find/catch, serpent is usually your best choice.

In my opinion, the classes that are most fun to play are serpent, runewarden, and shaman.

Jordsang · January 2014

I like all of the responses! You all left room for me to make my own choice, but contributed in different and meaningful ways. Thank you.

@Sena - I mainly meant non-combat utility, but the information you provided about combat utility was very, very intriguing. Thank you very much!

Despran · January 2014

Alchemists are not bad if you are looking for noncombat utility. You’ll have access to travel abilities, be able to make your own curatives, and having a homunculus allows you to do a number of things from afar.

I don’t really know enough to comment on pvp, but for hunting there are also a number of useful defensive abilities, like bolstered defense and curing.

Kenway · January 2014

Monk and Paladin are both great and I'd say probably require the least money/time investment to get good with.

Monk is by far the best hunting class due to it's three hit combo attack with three chances to critical and all the knights fall shortly behind it with two hits. Both classes have extra healing abilities and both have the potential to do a lot of damage in combat without any artefacts as well as very effective kill strategies for both.

As a Monk you'd be welcomed pretty much anywhere (everyone always wants more monks on their side) and it's a neutral class.

As a Paladin you'd have to choose either Cyrene or Targossas. Targossas has some pretty intense stuff going on right now whereas Cyrene is always pretty relaxed. It really depends if as far as PvP goes you'd rather defend your city or attack another, as well as all the RP implications of being a crusader versus a defender. Either way you're stuck with Good.

Hope this helped.

Averi · January 2014

I think it's as @Kuy said, it's about finding a class that fits you.

I, personally, love bard even though we have no instantaneous travel, skills I can use to make money and average hunting at trans with very frustrating hunting as a newbie. However, the RP around this class is what keeps me at it. I have tried other ones but there is none that draws me as much as bard does.

So choose something that you think feels right. And don't worry. You can switch if you don't like it.

Makarios · January 2014

For non combat utility you'll likely find the most popular options are serpent (subterfuge is packed with utility), the forestal classes in general, or the tarot classes (although a good deal of the utility here is packed into a small subset of abilities, you just get a good deal of functionality with them). Serpent is arguably one of the harder classes to learn if you're looking to pk a lot when starting out, although its also one of the easiest to be useful as in a group pvp setting. So, if you're not intending to be a one on one champion of the people with a minor time investment, don't be put off by the intimidating stigma surrounding it.

Priest is a fairly popular class if you're looking for PVE utility, since the healing skill can help you out a fair deal there. On the other hand, they're not exactly dps machines, so if that's your thing you'll likely find yourself better off with (again) one of the forestal classes (which are all very good PVE classes) or monk (which is generally good at almost everything, and useless at the remainder). Its probably worth noting that some of the things monk is hopeless at are travel and infiltration: if these are something you're looking for in a class, might be worth considering that. On the flip side the things monk does do well it probably does better than anyone.

Hope you have a good time of starting out!

Jovie · January 2014

Monk is a great class, but there is a serious lack of moving utility to it. You walk everywhere without getting artifacts. Those arties are expensive, 800 for a stick, 1000 for anklet of dashing and that other thing to lessen hasty messages (500 each), 800/2000 for the wings, and 800 for the wand to make portals. Additionally if you aren't a monk you can invest in a mount which gives you the gallop/dash ability (mounts are useless to monks).

But monks are really good at everything else. Great bashing, fun PvP from what little I've taken part in, capable of both up-close combat as well as range combat thanks to telepathy, and our survivability is insane, especially when you stack on artifacts.

Finally, you can't really do anything 'nice' for others with monk abilities, like runists can give you runes, priests can give you blessings, etc. When you see a comrade taking the piss you can't do much to stop the opponent defensively, but you can up your offense.

I personally have really enjoyed the monk class. It feels like godmode sometimes. I like the roleplay around it, too. There are many ways to play a monk. But choose what appeals to you and if you don't like it at first you can change class with little to no repercussion.

Arditi · January 2014

what are the easiest classes to learn,

Monk, any of the knight classes, Blademaster, Sylvan.

the most difficult classes,

Serpent and Jester have probably the highest difficulty curves once you factor out sniping for Serpents. Alchemist could probably go in here, but I think that's more that nobody's really figured out the nitty-gritty of combat with them.

the classes with the most utility,

Serpent, Mage, Occultist.

the classes which are great at combat,

Apostate, Occultist, Bard.

and those just overall a blast to play?

Pretend I put "Serpent" fifty thousand times. And once for Apostate because ye gods, that flavor.

Kuy · January 2014

Arditi said:
what are the easiest classes to learn,

Monk, any of the knight classes, Blademaster, Sylvan.

the most difficult classes,

Serpent and Jester have probably the highest difficulty curves once you factor out sniping for Serpents. Alchemist could probably go in here, but I think that's more that nobody's really figured out the nitty-gritty of combat with them.

the classes with the most utility,

Serpent, Mage, Occultist.

the classes which are great at combat,

Apostate, Occultist, Bard.

and those just overall a blast to play?

Pretend I put "Serpent" fifty thousand times. And once for Apostate because ye gods, that flavor.

hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng apostate

Skye · January 2014

well I haven't played all the classes so I can't really list it all out... but I think out of all the classes I've tried out, I've had the most fun as a Serpent. The amount of utility you get out of that class is amazing when you realise that people pay a lot of money for artefacts that mimic those same abilities (when are we getting our damn Pauldrons of Shrugging btw?).

Sylvan is also a pretty great all-rounder and quite straight forward but I actually found the class a little boring (partly because I was Sylvan for a very long time). I can't speak for others but at a certain point, I didn't appreciate how your main offensive (Viridian form) required a delayed power-up sequence leaving it necessary to walk around as a big pile of vines all day. It's not even like we got a unique entry/exit message either. It was just vines totally covering your description. You don't get a whole lot of flavour in the class because it's an amalgamation of Druid and Magi with a few changes in between.

Last year I ran around as a cityless Blademaster trying out all the new city quests and stuff. The sword quest was fun (for me cause I knew where I was going), and because I was rogue there was no pressure or anything, I could just keep making new swords over and over like cheap gambling. But that's just me >_> It's a straightforward class, definitely one of the easiest to learn once you get over the first hurdles. The only thing is that you won't get any utility out of it until you embrace class since that's when you get all the neat stuff like dashing and what not. I've always wondered why they didn't give you Striking as your embraced skill instead of Shindo, but the more experienced PvP players probably know better, I guess. I can't speak for the PVP of this class because I was mostly just playing to try out quests and stuff without any alignment/enemy statuses.

In a toss up between all of it I'd still take Serpent, but then I'm not a combatant.

Jurixe · January 2014

You say that but you LIE </3

Skye · January 2014

You're always in my heart.

That's me rubbing your cheek against the chesticle that contains my heart that is full of you.

/heartception

Iocun · January 2014

Jovie said:
When you see a comrade taking the piss you can't do much to stop the opponent defensively, but you can up your offense.

I don't completely agree with this, since between batter, cripple, and disrupt monks have a nice amount of hindering they can use to slow down an opponent, and what's more: said hindering can barely be hindered itself. And even jumpkick has a hindering side effect.

Granted, it's less than they used to have when banish still banished people and gaining kai to cripple was faster, but since we're talking about a melee group situation here, kai gain should still be quite good.

Oh, and there's mind empathy! :P

Sylvance · January 2014

Bard.

Siduri · January 2014

Being you is the best class there is and will ever be.

Xith · January 2014

Arditi said:

what are the easiest classes to learn, Monk, any of the knight classes, Blademaster, Sylvan. the most difficult classes, Serpent and Jester have probably the highest difficulty curves once you factor out sniping for Serpents. Alchemist could probably go in here, but I think that's more that nobody's really figured out the nitty-gritty of combat with them. the classes with the most utility, Serpent, Mage, Occultist. the classes which are great at combat, Apostate, Occultist, Bard. and those just overall a blast to play? Pretend I put "Serpent" fifty thousand times. And once for Apostate because ye gods, that flavor.

He's pretty much covered it. Serpent has awesome utility and stuff, noobs can play them in raids too.

One thing to stress is do NOT pick a locking class if you're new, unless you have great patience and are willing to learn the details and cures of every affliction in your arsenal and how locking works.

Jovie · January 2014

Iocun said:

When you see a comrade taking the piss you can't do much to stop the opponent defensively, but you can up your offense.
I don't completely agree with this, since between batter, cripple, and disrupt monks have a nice amount of hindering they can use to slow down an opponent, and what's more: said hindering can barely be hindered itself. And even jumpkick has a hindering side effect. Granted, it's less than they used to have when banish still banished people and gaining kai to cripple was faster, but since we're talking about a melee group situation here, kai gain should still be quite good. Oh, and there's mind empathy! :P

Those are all offensive abilities. I was referring to things like deliver, lay hands, defend, and somewhere referred to empowerment, runes, blessings, etc.

Iocun · January 2014

They may be technically "offensive abilities" since they affect your opponent rather than you/your allies, but practically speaking, they are still defensive in effect, as they don't contribute to your opponent's death (cripple can, but not in the sense I'm referring to it here), but to your/your ally's survival.

But sure, monks don't have much "directly beneficial" to use on/for other people. But in the end, most of the actually "helpful stuff" someone can do in-game is entirely class-independent anyways. Using defend or giving some blessings from time to time is, in the end, a much less valuable contribution than teaching novices, helping out in a city's ministry, etc.

And since trade skills are going to be separated from classes anyways, the differences between different classes' potential "helpfulness" through class abilities is going to shrink even more.

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