let's talk classes

[FoeKilla]

I've tried to read up on each class, but haven't found one that screams "play me!"

So how's about you tell me what seams to be the most played in your experience, the least played, the most broken (both for the good and for the bad). And then, knowing my style of play (those that have WoW'd with me to any degree) what seams most suited to me.

[Creole Ned]

I'm on a PvE server so what I say may differ from what it's like on a PvP one, but my impression is the least-played class may be the assassin. They get high damage but low survivability, perhaps too low. In a PvP-oriented environment they may fare better but I see few on Omm.

I don't think any class is broken per se but at least in the early game the necromancer's pets do not have any aggro ability. If you send them in to attack first, the enemy will immediately set upon you, making the pets more like mobile damage than anything. This is the only MMO I've played where pet classes behaved this way. It isn't an issue in PvP, obviously.

In terms of overpowered, every class is if you read the official forums. :P From my playing and observation, I haven't noticed any one class especially dominating. This is a game that focuses on higher damage, even among the so-called support classes. Postal has reported his dark templar is sturdy but slower to kill while Circuit's guardian (tank) is even sturdier and still dishes out good levels of damage.

Trying to draw comparisons to WoW's classes is tricky. WoW hews very close to the old EQ template where a tank is a tank, a healer is a healer and a mage is a mage. In Conan a mage can be a cloth-wearing melee-exclusive fighter who deals out tons of fire damage (Herald of Xotli) while a priest can heal but also dish out huge amounts of AoE damage (Tempest of Set) and still wear light armor or even use shields. Instead of a single rogue there are three classes that all specialize in stealth, each with a different focus. The ranger is like a hunter without pets but is tougher and more capable in melee right from the start. The barbarian can duel wield and edges the soldiers for damage at the expense of weaker armor and lower survivability. The assassin seems to just die a lot.

The closest to a conventional mage is the demonologist but they also get a pet. The necromancer is built around pets while the aforementioned herald is focused entirely on melee combat.

I mostly recall you in WoW from playing your warlock and there really is no equivalent in Conan because of the way the pets work. If you want a good PvP capable character, I'd probably recommend a ranged class, although skill should overcome a lot of the perceived weaknesses of melee in PvP. You can play most characters to level 10 fairly quickly and by then you get a good sampling of what their basic skillsets are like.

[Circuit]

I still like my Guardian the best. At 36, he can soak up a lot of damage and dish out a decent amount. Besides the fact that I mostly play the tank-type characters in games, the Guardian is also the only class to be able to wear plate armor, which I just like because it's cool. Guardians can either use one-handed weapons with a shield or the two-handed polearms, but I like being able to bash people with my shield and also take a bit more damage so I'm specced for the former. It's definitely not anything like going Protection in WoW in terms of being massively gimped in the DPS department.

The only other classes I've played to ~20 are the Ranger, Priest of Mitra, Dark Templar and Barbarian. Out of those, the Ranger and Priest of Mitra definitely feel the most powerful. The PoM in particular feels maybe a little too powerful, although I have no idea how she'll hold up in the later levels.

Priests in AoC are definitely not your standard healing classes because of how much damage they can put out. Healing's also a much different game as it seems to mostly be proactive instead of reactive with the heals for the most part being of the HoT variety instead of constantly healing tons of HP all at once. This lets the healers keep a stream of heals going on throughout the battle, but also allows them to deal out tons of their own damage in the process. My Priest of Mitra feels more like a Mage with heals than anything. She also wears medium armor and a shield, so she's pretty damn tough.

The Ranger is just plain fun. Like Ned said, they're really nothing like Hunters in WoW where they depend on their pets to tank and hope the mobs never get within melee range. Here, the Ranger still relies mostly on ranged combat, but still does extremely well in close quarters. He doesn't have as many outs as a Hunter when things go awry, but he also has much more of a chance to live through those moments due to his toughness.

I can't say I like what I've seen of the Necromancers. They rely heavily on DoT spells, but their pets seem to be nothing more than a different type of attack since they get absolutely no aggro of their own. The spell effects are cool, though.

[Tai]

My Herald is lots of fun, she wields big two handed weapons and has some buffs and fire damage spells. She has no ranged attack (yet anyway, I know she can wield crossbows at level 50), and seems to be more a damage dealer than a damage taker. Wish I could give you more, but that's all I got. If you want to know about the Soldier though.. ;)

[Harka]

Circ, how is the guardian after the nerf to Overreach? did it gimp your damage output greatly?

And PoM and Tempest of Set are terrors on the PvP side from what I hear and have seen. Not only can they heal but as Circ pointed out they can deal a huge amount of damage.

I have only played my Conqueror to 36 now, but as far as they go they shine mostly in groups as they bring buffs and battle rezes to the group. When weilding tow handed weapons we get something called Furious inspiration when a member of the group gets hit, this bumps up our damage input, should we get up to a stack of 10 and a party member dies, they will be rezzed immediatly.
Two handed tree you get knockbacks and better defense, dual wield tree you get more damage output.

Solo they can hold their own dealing out decent damage and having decent defense but Guardians and probably Dark Templers are better tanking.

[Falhawk]

my ToS is only level 23 but I dig her a lot. At 30 I get my super AoE "holy shit why did that ToS just clear this entire area" spell.

In pvp I'm pretty dang powerful too.