Returning player, which class?

Iatar

Returning player. Basically I'm interested in the exploration, questing, and RP aspect of the game, so I'm hoping for help finding a class that fits this bill:

• Little or no credits to do decent (doesn't have to be top-tier, but not super slow/painful either) bashing with
• Interesting or helpful utility or 'quality of life' skills (think portals or runes or such)
• Cool flavor to consider with RP is a plus (but basically every IRE class has cool flavor)
• Prefer no city restrictions, I don't know the feel of most cities these days and don't want to get stuck in a bad fit
  

Hopefully this is a good place to ask this. Thanks

Kshavatra

I'd vote Runewarden for this. I got to level 91 without embracing as Runewarden before I changed class. Jera/Algiz/Berkana are great, fullplate is great, Raido is great

For minimal investment, you can just do weaponmastery and up to jera in Runelore and do fine

Lilu

I've bashed to (at least) 80 with more classes than I care to admit with either no monetary investment or just the no-brainer lesson packages so I'll weigh in. People will always say Runewarden because, yea, it's tanky and has crazy DPS with no investment. The lack of personal utility always got to me, though (no native flight or dashing, which are immensely helpful). Shaman also has pretty ridiculous DPS and can get fairly tanky, but would require trans Curses and a lot of Spiritlore for Marak/Garon. Depthswalker actually isn't terrible when comparing unartied classes, with lots of tankiness and extra crit % in Terminus. Jester, which I play now, has great amounts of utility (flight, dash, Universe Tarot) and great DPS, but a lot of people hate its flavour.

Ginarrbrik

I made Dragon from lvl 76 as 2-Hander Runewarden in like 2 IRL months with nothing but Transed skills, a forged warhammer and a cheapo 200 credit Crit Pendant.  You honestly wouldn't even need the skills Trans or the Crit pendant... but it will obviously take longer.  Raido rune is really all we got for Fast Traveling though but it is rather nice regardless. I don't think your getting much cheaper of an investment than that for hunting.  Upgrading the Hammer isn't even worth it anyways and just a forged one is way faster than hunting with a level 1 Bastard Sword still.