Packrat

Very brief summary of classes
by Didi

This is a very brief summary only - for more detailed and accurate information, visit the class discussion forums. Many have excellent FAQ's and there are experts playing these classes who can give you up to date, knowledgeable perspectives on the class that you won't find here.

Tanks (their role in a group is to TAUNT, and take the hits so the rest of the group isn't hurt).

• Guardian: plate tank, great capacity for keeping aggro but best at single-target, has more trouble keeping aggro on grouped mobs. Most popular choice for raid tank, also fine as group tank. Very slow soloing.
• Berserker: plate tank, good damage dealer at high levels, especially in AE's. Better than guardian at keeping aggro on grouped mobs, but worse on single targets. Better than guardians at soloing (due to more damage output) but not that great (no heals, little utility). Fine as a group tank, second most common choice as a raid tank.
• Paladin: plate tank, but a bit of a hybrid class with healing abilities also. Can do decent damage, particularly AE's, at high levels with the right achievement choices. Not as good a raid tank as guardian/berserker, but can do ok if needed. Has a useful 'amends' ability that is put on another player, and gives their hate gain to the paladin, making them good at keeping aggro. Very versatile class that isn't best at anything, but can fill in various roles in groups or raids, such as patch healing, wards, rezzing so the healers don't have to, and more. Solos well, due to healing ability, though damage isn't all that high so fights tend to be slowish. Tanks groups just fine.
• Shadow Knight: plate tank, evil version of Paladin. Also a more utility type class that isn't best at any one thing but is much more versatile than guardian or berserker. Probably a bit less useful filling in other group roles than the paladin, as abilities are a bit more self-focused. Solos ok, tanks groups just fine, rarely desired on raids however.
• Monk: avoidance tank, leather-wearing. Solos great, with invis and feign there is almost nowhere the monk can't get to. Fine as a group tank if well played, though makes some healers nervous because health tends to go up and down more suddenly than plate tanks. Not a popular choice for raid tank, since when the monk's avoidance fails, one hit from an epic can take a large chunk of his health down very fast. Fine for tanking anything less than epic however. Gets a nice group feign ability, can self-haste to almost 100%, and has a spell called Devastation Fist that can single-shot kill a non-heroic mob. Can do very nice damage particularly with the right achievement choices, sometimes has a problem not getting aggro however if not the one tanking.
• Bruiser: avoidance tank, leather-wearing. Solos great, has self feign like the monk but does not get invis, nor group feign. Fine as a group tank if well played, though makes some healers nervous because health tends to go up and down more suddenly than plate tanks. Not a popular choice for raid tank, for same reason as monk. Also gets Devastation Fist. Can do very nice damage particularly with the right achievement choices, sometimes has a problem not getting aggro however if not the one tanking.

Mages (all cloth wearers - magic damage and utility)

• Wizard: single-target magic damage specialist, mostly elemental direct damage. Pretty good at AE also. Gets to translocate and teleport at level 25, also gets evac and group evac. Solos well, always welcome in groups and usually welcome in raids for damage. Main problems for wizard players are usually running out of power, and learning how not to grab aggro, since wizards have very little ability to reduce their hate gain.
• Warlock: grouped-target magic damage specialist, mostly poison/disease damage over time. Has some single target nukes too though not as big as wizard's. Gets the translocate and teleport at 25, but not evac. Solos ok, usually welcome in groups, but not as popular on raids as not many raids are AE friendly. Same problem as wizards for power and aggro.
• Conjuror: pet class, specializes in elemental summoning and elemental magic. Excellent at soloing, welcome in groups and raids. Gets Call of the Hero ability to summon a groupmate to the group's location. Gives out clicky mana shards to group/raid members for instant power. Excellent damage.
• Necromancer: pet class, specializes in undead summoning and disease/poison damage, particularly damage over time. Excellent at soloing (probably even better than conjuror) and widely regarded as one of the best solo classes, also welcome in groups/raids. Gets feign death, rez, and some healing ability for self and group. Can also summon clicky mana shards for group/raid. Excellent damage.
• Illusionist: mez class and pet class, but rarely uses pets in groups due to large number of concentration slots they require. Excellent at soloing, on a par with necromancers and conjurors, maybe even better. Specializes in buffing up melee classes, gets 65% haste by level 70. Also gets group invis. Low damage without pet, more of a support class with the power regen, and achievements that increase criticals chances. Usually welcome in groups and raids, everybody loves a power regen class. Has a wider range of mezzes than coercer; unlike coercer, cannot charm things.
• Coercer: mez class. Does not get a 'built in' pet like illusionist, can only acquire a pet by charming a monster. This makes their pets potentially more powerful than illusionists, but also more dangerous as charm breaks randomly. Takes a lot of skill to solo with a coercer, those who do it well can solo very powerful things, but it is not easy.Coercers have better aggro control abilities than illusionists and are a popular choice in the main tank group of a raid for helping the MT keep aggro. Usually welcome in groups and always welcome in raids.

Healers (their main role is to heal and rez)

• Templar/inquisitor: plate wearer, specializes in reactive heals. These are like a buff placed on the tank which automatically cast a small heal when the tank takes damage. They are a very popular choice for healer, especially templars, but solo very very slowly as they have very minimal DPS. They work very well with plate tanks in particular, have to work a bit harder with avoidance tanks who rarely get hit, and when they do get hit, need more healing than just the reactive heal will give. Healers are always welcome everywhere...
• Mystic/defiler: chain wearer, specializes in wards. These are like the runes enchanters got in EQ1 - they add extra health points on top of the tank's normal health, and damage done by the mob is taken off the ward first before the tank's actual health gets decreased. If a ward expires before it's been all damaged, the remaining points are converted to a heal. Mystics and defilers work particularly well with avoidance tanks but may struggle a bit more as the sole healer of a plate tank, though it's certainly workable. They are not great soloers as they have low damage, but can get by with patience. Seem to have a bit of aggro problems at times, the wards sometimes get them smacked on pulls. Very welcome in raids however as they get some very nice debuffs. These are probably the rarest healer class, not because they're not good, but because they're a little harder to play and have neither the mitigation advantage of full plate nor the soloability of the fury/warden.
• Fury/warden: leather wearer, specializes in heal over time. Good all-around healers and the group heal over times can be particularly useful on raids where there are lots of AEs hurting whole groups. Both classes get portal spells to send people to druid rings at 25. Fury gets a group invis, warden gets evac. Fury is the best dps of the healers and both fury and warden get roots so these are the most popular choice for soloing healers. Also welcome in groups and handy on raids.

Scouts (all chain wearers - melee damage and utility)

• dirge/troubadour: the bard classes, great all-round utility classes for buffing, debuffing, and generally making everyone in the group look better. Alone they have only mediocre dps, the lowest of the scout classes, but in groups and raids is where they shine. Dirges are geared at buffing melee types and troubadours for caster types. Most raids will want a dirge in the main tank group, and troubadours with the mage dps. They are usually welcome in groups and pretty much always needed in raids, soloing is doable though they won't generally be soloing any named on their own.
• swashbuckler: good melee damage class (more AE than brigands), does some debuffing of mobs' offensive capabilities. Like any dps class, welcome in groups and raids.
• brigand: good melee damage class (mainly single target), does very nice debuffing of mobs' defensive capability. Like any dps class, welcome in groups. Particularly handy on raids for the debuffing.
• ranger/assassin: generally the highest melee dps classes, assassins specialize in attacks from stealth mode and backstabby-type damage, while rangers excel at long-range damage. Both can get extremely high hits and will generally outdamage mage types in longer fights where the mages run out of mana. Soloing is difficult for both as it's hard to stay at bow range (for rangers) or behind a mob (for assassins) when it's only you and the mob, however, all classes can solo in eq2 with persistence.

You can safely pick whatever race you happen to like the look of, racial stats have no overall effect no matter what class you pick. You may notice some minor differences in the lower levels but by the time you're 20 or so a troll wizard will be just as good as a high elf wizard, or at least it will if you paid attention to getting dressed in the morning and are wearing reasonable equipment for your class. So pick whatever race you happen to like the look of.