Favorite class?

[danzibr]

Lots of favorite threads going around, here's another!

I was playing the original Final Fantasy, thinking of classes the other day. A good few RPG's have job systems, drifting from class to class, an abundance to choose from. From some you proceed linearly, or perhaps down a branching path. Some classes seem really cool, others really lame. I don't want to do class bashing here (feel free to, but I don't plan on it). I want to talk about the former.

Arcane Archer of Dragon Age: magic + archery? Cool.

Assassin Cross of Ragnarok Online: pretty typical as far as assassins go, poison and stealth. They have a couple cool abilities, big burst dps, super deadly poison.

Dragoon of various games: this one often doesn't get a lot of love, and it totally absurd, but for some reason I love it. Take up a spear, jump way up, fall on the enemy. lulz

Black Mage of various games: often come with big, flashy spells. Love me some NUKE.

For some honorable mentions, Calculator of Final Fantasy Tactics tried to be cool but flopped, Dark Knight can be cool, as can Time Mage.

Surely there are some nice ones I'm either forgetting or have never seen. Your favorites?

[Hiro Protagonest]

I really like the Etrian Odyssey series for its wide variety of classes.

Hexer in the first two Etrian Odyssey games and their remakes. This class is the poster child for part of Etrian Odyssey's uncommon design philosophy; inflicting debuffs, status conditions, and binds (a mechanic that prevents enemies from using certain skills) is actually useful throughout the entire game, including on every boss (though they often resist them).

Beast, featured in Etrian Odyssey 2, and made really good in the Untold version. You can have a dog, tiger, brown bear or panda be your party tank, what's not to like?
http://i.imgur.com/imAJgjO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3r8o6u0.jpg
Sovereign, used in EO3 and brought back for the remake of 2. Main role is buffing, but isn't really specialized, making a good backup healer (or put it in a party with another secondary healer to get some decent healing), and at least in its second iteration it gets a powerful team-based magic attack, Link Order, where it will inflict elemental damage on its target if another teammate deals elemental damage first.

I could list all but a few classes that are in EO Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight (out of... I think 13, there are 3 that are generic and one that I don't like purely for aesthetic reasons), but I'm going to stick with those three, one from each of the first three games. Honestly, EO4 doesn't really have a class I love, the most promising one I haven't unlocked yet and it will be a good while before I do.

[Triaxx]

Calculator's strength lay in their ability to pass their. Powers on to another class. Then again UltyX completed a True Calc SCC run. So yeah.

My favorites classes have always been one's seemingly out of their elements, but who wind up being very strong indeed because old their weird power combinations. Occaasionally it's like giving Batman a super power that makes him an even better detecticive than he is already.

[JohnTheSavage]

Kreig the Psycho was a blast to play as in Borderlands 2, if I recall. He has an entire skill tree based around getting bonuses for being set on fire!

[Starwulf]

Monk and Black Mage for me.

While neither are "unique" in terms of classes that you see in video games, these two have been my favorite in any game where I can choose them. Monk because there is just something so satisfying about beating on something with just your fists(and sometimes feet), and "usually" being able to heal yourself. Black Mage because hey, what's more fun then entirely blowing someone the heck up with massively powerful spells?!

Most recently, long-distance classes that use bows. Not necessarily limited to Rangers, as Danzbir named off in his OP, classes like the Arcane Archer are fun as well. I just enjoy sniping things from a long distance with a weapon that pretty much makes no noise, so the enemy has zero clue as to where the attack came from as long as I'm well-hidden :)

[danzibr]

I really like the Etrian Odyssey series for its wide variety of classes.

Hexer in the first two Etrian Odyssey games and their remakes. This class is the poster child for part of Etrian Odyssey's uncommon design philosophy; inflicting debuffs, status conditions, and binds (a mechanic that prevents enemies from using certain skills) is actually useful throughout the entire game, including on every boss (though they often resist them).

Beast, featured in Etrian Odyssey 2, and made really good in the Untold version. You can have a dog, tiger, brown bear or panda be your party tank, what's not to like?
http://i.imgur.com/imAJgjO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3r8o6u0.jpg
Sovereign, used in EO3 and brought back for the remake of 2. Main role is buffing, but isn't really specialized, making a good backup healer (or put it in a party with another secondary healer to get some decent healing), and at least in its second iteration it gets a powerful team-based magic attack, Link Order, where it will inflict elemental damage on its target if another teammate deals elemental damage first.

I could list all but a few classes that are in EO Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight (out of... I think 13, there are 3 that are generic and one that I don't like purely for aesthetic reasons), but I'm going to stick with those three, one from each of the first three games. Honestly, EO4 doesn't really have a class I love, the most promising one I haven't unlocked yet and it will be a good while before I do.
Ahh, great. I've heard of the series, but never played it. Great input. I like the first 2 in particular.

Calculator's strength lay in their ability to pass their. Powers on to another class. Then again UltyX completed a True Calc SCC run. So yeah.

My favorites classes have always been one's seemingly out of their elements, but who wind up being very strong indeed because old their weird power combinations. Occaasionally it's like giving Batman a super power that makes him an even better detecticive than he is already.
Oh yeah, pure Calc run, I heard about that.

I mainly used the Calculator to damage stuff based on height while staying way far away. They were strong, but I just didn't like them.

Kreig the Psycho was a blast to play as in Borderlands 2, if I recall. He has an entire skill tree based around getting bonuses for being set on fire!
Ha, that sounds fun.

Monk and Black Mage for me.

While neither are "unique" in terms of classes that you see in video games, these two have been my favorite in any game where I can choose them. Monk because there is just something so satisfying about beating on something with just your fists(and sometimes feet), and "usually" being able to heal yourself. Black Mage because hey, what's more fun then entirely blowing someone the heck up with massively powerful spells?!

Most recently, long-distance classes that use bows. Not necessarily limited to Rangers, as Danzbir named off in his OP, classes like the Arcane Archer are fun as well. I just enjoy sniping things from a long distance with a weapon that pretty much makes no noise, so the enemy has zero clue as to where the attack came from as long as I'm well-hidden :)
Oh yeah... playing Dragon's Dogma, I freakin' loved the archer classes. The game as a whole was kind of lackluster, but the combat was super fun. Not much is more satisfying than spamming the ability that shoots 5 arrows at once into a cyclops's eye.

[Toastkart]

Generally speaking, my favorite classes are the magic warrior style of classes. I also don't really have a preference as to what type of magic, so clerics and arcane warriors fit the bill.

From Guild Wars, the Dervish was the most intriguing and fun to play class the game had. Though it started out a little lacking in direction, when it hit its stride the Dervish was a warrior that mixed it up in melee with a scythe that could hit multiple foes, cast powerful pbaoe spells, and buff himself with enchantments to make himself stronger. And then, strip those enchantments for interesting and powerful effects.

From Guild Wars 2, the Guardian covers a very similar style. One of their prominent weapon skills casts a symbol on the ground that pulses damage and buffs allies that stand within it. They also are one of the best support classes in the game, and they can do that without sacrificing damage or standing in the back watching health bars.




For some honorable mentions, Calculator of Final Fantasy Tactics tried to be cool but flopped
I never really could get into the calculator. The Geomancer, now, I always felt was underappreciated. It was pretty difficult to get the most out of the geomancy spells, but I found it to be a solid mid-tier class.

[balperi]

i really like Monk and Black Mage.

[GloatingSwine]

The shooty one, usually. At least in actiony games.

Have also enjoyed tanking when there's a clear aggro mechanic and you can tell you're tanking right.

[danzibr]

Ooh good responses! I'd like to add a few.

I too often like Geomancer. Sometimes they're botched, but I like the idea.

Also, Dervish. I like the speedy two-weapon fighter.

And my personal all-time favorite, I can't believe I forgot about it until now, the Necromancer! Love me some Necromancer.

[Triaxx]

Then you never saw the Holy Bomb did you? Oh, the hilarity. To clarify: Learn the Spell Holy, and CT 5. Most targets will end up with a CT that is divisible by 5. And holy can be not only countered, but actually absorbed by an accessory. Meaning you can spam the Spell and wipe the opposition, and then heal your side. Or give the ability to a Wizard and watch him wipe the field in a single shot.

[Inarius]

Kreig the Psycho was a blast to play as in Borderlands 2, if I recall. He has an entire skill tree based around getting bonuses for being set on fire!

For me it was the Mechromancer in Borderlands 2. I went down the right side tree and got the ability that accelerates your rate of fire and increases your damage every time you kill something at the penalty of losing accuracy. When you're at around 30 or less stacks of that its mostly normal play but once you pass that you start having to rush in closer and closer until you're basically shooting things in the face for so much damage that even the elite enemies die in one shot. The trick though is keeping those stacks up at that point because the more stacks you have the faster they decay so its a rather hectic style of play.

In general though it sort of depends on the game type. I like playing healer types in MMO's but usually more traditional types as opposed to regen or shield healers. Overall though my favorite MMO healer would have to be the EQ2 Inquisitor due to it having a sort of odd reactive heal you don't see too often in other games.

In single player games my favorite is usually the Black Mage type of character. The type that primarily blows stuff up from range with little in the way of defense outside of killing things before they get to you.

[GloatingSwine]

For me it was the Mechromancer in Borderlands 2. I went down the right side tree and got the ability that accelerates your rate of fire and increases your damage every time you kill something at the penalty of losing accuracy. When you're at around 30 or less stacks of that its mostly normal play but once you pass that you start having to rush in closer and closer until you're basically shooting things in the face for so much damage that even the elite enemies die in one shot. The trick though is keeping those stacks up at that point because the more stacks you have the faster they decay so its a rather hectic style of play.



I couldn't deal with that tree. Don't like poor accuracy.

Mechromancer is clearly the best Blands 2 class but I split between the middle and left trees for better robit and better elemental damage.

[GrayDeath]

Usually I like Battlefield controlling, DD and Debuff/Buff Combining, Classes.
Exist in lots of MMO`s, JRPG`s and RPG`s.

I also ahve a small but fierce place in my heart for the most excessive Nukers. ^^

[Vitruviansquid]

The Diablo 2 Necromancer is probably the best designed class I've seen.

He had three skill trees that were mutually supporting and each important in a game where a lot of characters stacked one skill tree, or even one skill. Maybe the class just clicked with me, but I felt like every level up presented real choices that you have to decide on based on your playstyle rather than following a clear build of what's best, which is what most classes in most games seemed to have.

[danzibr]

The Diablo 2 Necromancer is probably the best designed class I've seen.

He had three skill trees that were mutually supporting and each important in a game where a lot of characters stacked one skill tree, or even one skill. Maybe the class just clicked with me, but I felt like every level up presented real choices that you have to decide on based on your playstyle rather than following a clear build of what's best, which is what most classes in most games seemed to have.
I totally agree. When I mentioned Necromancer earlier, that's the one I had in mind.

Daggermancer, while it takes a ton of time for the damage to work, does donkey tons of damage. Run around poking lots of dudes and running away, hilarious and fun. Bone Spear, pierce enemies, lots of quick damage, also fun. Lagmancer, my personal favorite. Ahhhhhh Necromancer.

[LibraryOgre]

LOTRO's Loremaster. A "Pet" class, where I really fell in love when someone described it as "Imagine that you're helping a kinda stupid lower-level player through the game. Your job is to make sure they stay alive and help them out, while they go out and kill things."

I was disappointed that I could never name my wild cat "Furry Little Hate Missile", because that's how I used it.

[Winthur]

The Diablo 2 Necromancer is probably the best designed class I've seen.

It's a great post, but for pure "feel/preference", I have to say I love the Barbarian the most. Necromancer, while very fun and deep, with all the nuances regarding what curses to use, also seems like the best way to play it is "get a corpse out and then trigger a chain reaction with Corpse Explosion".

Conceptually (just for the image of a great, stalwart warrior leading the charge - I really like Cecil from Final Fantasy 4 as an archetype), I really like melee classes, and try to play meleers if it's at all interesting or fun (and I'm not above diluting the fighter aspect in favor of some magic or other flashy skills), my favourite from that game would be the Barbarian. Multitude of builds, some of them still very well working even without any budget whatsoever, and a lot of roles you can assume. You can be an undying tank, you can deal a ton of damage, you have a lot of crowd control - and I like being the backbone of party play - you have a lot of skills to help the looting addiction (Leap Attack for traversing places slightly faster, overall very fast running, Find Item as a skill). You can focus on support (Singer) or rip through enemies with great damage and reckless abandon (Frenzy, Whirlwind). Berserker barbs were my favourite for how easy and cheap it was to outfit them and how reliable they were at dealing massive amounts of damage while being unkillable and yet somewhat skill-demanding, because at 0 AC you really have to pick your battles and crowd control properly. About the only thing I don't really like is how the game wants you to meta-game with the Mastery skill selection - not a problem when you can respec, but a bigger problem when you don't know yet what you will use - an upgraded Bonesnap or Steeldriver? A Death Cleaver? A Grandfather sword? An Oath runeword? So you have to save skillpoints if you're savvy or plan for an item in mind.

The polar opposite would be the Paladin, which I'd really like if it were like the Warrior from D1, another favourite of mine. But sadly, the right mouse button is constantly occupied with auras and their use is kinda no-brainer; one aura per build, really, and the outliers, like Avenger or Auradin, are routinely expensive to make. Hammerdin is an annoying build that pops up everywhere and not too fun to play for me.

Why I like Warrior from D1? Purely because of the context of the game. It's the worst class; it has an easy time early on, but even then, killing the Butcher forces you to don a bow. The challenge from utilizing proper footwork and dealing with different monster combinations you can encounter is very fun, though. The limited magic you can use takes some preparation to learn, but proper usage of Healing or Teleport is very important. And even then, an optimally equipped Warrior becomes really strong and great for those addicted to the feeling of power; my end-of-the-line Warrior build was able to take on some really dastardly acts and come out victorious, or even bullrush Diablo in his chamber and kill him before he'd succumb to the room.

But, in general, due to the fact that they usually give the most options and open the most playstyles, I tend to roll casters more often. Most D&D games have a pretty fun spell system while lacking in giving fighters and the like tools; sometimes you get some nice charged items you can use to mix up your playstyle, but in case of something like NWN, your Fighter or Barb really needs a Wizard or Rogue level to do more than bashing or keeping people in permanent Knockouts.

[Hunter Noventa]

Most of the classes in FFT are interesting, but I really love the Oracle, lots of rather accurate status-effect magic in a game where status effects can be really nasty and most of them even work on the bosses.

[Greg_S]

I like Tales of Maj'Eyal's Temporal Warden. You're a hybrid melee/archer/semi-caster type. Your class is themed around making sure the timeline stays clean. Your abilities involve teleports, summoning clones of yourself, and at high levels, becoming a bamf-ing, exploding doom engine.

Your casting mechanic is part of what makes this so unique. Instead of a fixed magic reserve, or building up rage by hitting foes, you use paradox. You can set your default paradox level to whatever you'd like. As paradox gets higher, your abilities get damage bonuses, but you also run the risk of causing anomalies, making your power fail and doing something weird in the process. Using your powers raises your paradox, so you can try to chain encounters together to kill things faster, but you can't be a pure momentum class because eventually you'll hit a 30% failure rate with your powers and that's no good.

They've also got my favorite power, see the threads. ToME's a roguelike (and a good one- you can even turn permadeath off!), so there's no save/load shenanigans, except for the warden. See the Threads splits the timeline, giving you a certain number of turns before "resetting" you to the point where you were when you cast the spell, and then you get to take those turns 2 more times, before choosing which of the 3 timelines you'd like to work with. It's the perfect starter for a boss fight.

[The_Jackal]

Sith Juggernaut. It's what I want to be when I grow up. It's too bad the SW:TOR content is so lackluster outside the single player story, because I could have happily paid for SW:TOR for my entire life, but for the absence of any engaging endgame progression.

[Triaxx]

Ooh, forgot one: Sacred's Battlemage. Fireballs, Ice Shards, Gust of Wind. Any of those will crush your enemies. Meteor Storm used to be tops, but they tweaked it and it's very hard to hit anything smaller than a dragon with it. Gust of Wind stuns and pushes back. Ice Shards at point blank range will hit all it's strikes on a single target. Fireballs... well, kill it with fire? Then the off the wall tricks. Flame Skin and Whirlwind? Flaming whirlwind. Deflects arrows, burns melee attackers. Purgatory is a whirl of fire that chases enemies. Blast it with a Gust of Wind to make it move faster, or drop a Ring of Ice to slow enemies and keep them being hurt by the fire.

[Vitruviansquid]

LOTRO's Loremaster. A "Pet" class, where I really fell in love when someone described it as "Imagine that you're helping a kinda stupid lower-level player through the game. Your job is to make sure they stay alive and help them out, while they go out and kill things."

I was disappointed that I could never name my wild cat "Furry Little Hate Missile", because that's how I used it.

Ah, the Loremaster. I should hand it to this class as well, because most classes in LOTRO can be played with one or two bars worth of skills (10 or 20, total) and there are some obvious combos, like with Guardians and Captains having skills that activate other skills to be used. On the other hand, Loremaster fills up all four bars of skills (40 total) AND has a bar for pet skills, almost each skill does a completely different thing, and any combos they have are branching, so always entail a decision.

[Alanzeign]

Scholar
Specifically from Final Fantasy 11, it is a mage class that can cast both black and white magic. Scholars play a balancing act of channeling power to strengthen one school of magic (black or white) while weakening the other, so it becomes very important to do so strategically and with proper timing. There are limits on how often one can switch between the dual arts, and the 'empowered' school of magic can also utilize various metamagics to change the nature of their spells. Examples include reducing MP cost, reducing cast/recast timers, making a spell area of effect, directly increasing effectiveness, and more.

I also particularly enjoy the lore surrounding them. They are known as military strategists that studied magic in an academic sense to utilize specifically for war. The ability to kick up different types of weather to affect their surroundings is probably the best way they showcase this, although the mechanics in game regarding the weather abilities is less stellar and doesn't really reflect this.

Scholar appears in a few other entries in the series as well. It's pretty terrible in 3, only really being known for being able to analyze enemy weaknesses and double consumable item potency. In 14 it is just kind of strange lore wise, being a healer that can call a fairy to assist with healing. I enjoy scholar in 14, but it's a pale after-image of scholar in 11 lore-wise IMHO.

Dancer is also fantastically interesting in 11, being a more martial class with steps and stances rather than the support caster it usually looks like in other entries.

[BlueHerring]

From Guild Wars, the Dervish was the most intriguing and fun to play class the game had. Though it started out a little lacking in direction, when it hit its stride the Dervish was a warrior that mixed it up in melee with a scythe that could hit multiple foes, cast powerful pbaoe spells, and buff himself with enchantments to make himself stronger. And then, strip those enchantments for interesting and powerful effects.Guild Wars was, for the most part, really good at class design. I've played the most with Warrior and Necromancer, so I'll detail those.

Warrior revolved around an "adrenaline" mechanic, where you gained adrenaline upon each hit, and could use skills that consumed them. You also had an attribute that gave you armor penetration on attack skills, so you could effectively wield any melee weapon to hilarious effect. You could even set your secondary profession to, say, Dervish and use a scythe to fuel adrenaline-based skills (scythes attacked in a cone in front of your character, and each hit added 1 to your adrenaline). The only problem was that Warriors were kinda better in a PvP environment, so having one in PvE was a bit silly, especially when compared to a Dervish.

Necromancers were ridiculously abusable thanks to their Soul Reaping attribute, which gave you back Energy (MP, basically) whenever a creature near you died. I've abused Soul Reaping to single-handedly take down the Disc of Chaos (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Disc_of_Chaos) (which, hilariously, involved abusing the fact that it couldn't attack me without line of sight). You also had Hexes that came in a huge variety and could cause numbers to fly everywhere on the battlefield (Spiteful Spirit caused damage to a foe and all adjacent foes when the hexed foe either attacked or used a skill), or just mess with your enemy in hilarious ways.

And, if you were feeling really bored, you could run a Necromancer/Ritualist build where you basically healed your team to victory. Thanks to Soul Reaping, you basically never ran out of Energy.

As for other games...

Dragoon from Final Fantasy XIV counts. It didn't hurt that I was really good with the class, and cared about learning the ins and outs of its skill rotation. I actually got good enough at some bosses to where I could flawlessly go through a battle without getting my skills interrupted. It was a fun class that combined both muscle memory and situational awareness. Plus, there was the fact that you could KO a good portion of a 24-man raid with one of your skills.

Salvador from Borderlands 2 is the literal incarnation of MOAR DAKKA, so I'm pretty sure that's all I need to explain.

[Toastkart]

The Diablo 2 Necromancer is probably the best designed class I've seen.
I've never really played diablo, but necromancers are really fun classes when done right. In addition to what BlueHerring said, the Guild Wars Necromancers could also be very effective minion masters. Most dead mobs leave corpses that can be exploited to produce minions or wells that have different effects, or just explode for damage.



Most of the classes in FFT are interesting, but I really love the Oracle, lots of rather accurate status-effect magic in a game where status effects can be really nasty and most of them even work on the bosses.
heh, I have the worst luck when it comes to that. Probably why I don't like classes like that, I can never hit anything with the status effects.



Guild Wars was, for the most part, really good at class design. I've played the most with Warrior and Necromancer, so I'll detail those.

That is too true. I didn't find them particularly fun to play because that's not my style, but the design of the protection monk was wonderful, and something I really haven't seen since. The Mesmer was also very unique, being based on energy manipulation, interrupting enemy attacks, and punishing enemies for using certain skills.




Another class type that I tend to play in open world games (like Fallout and Skyrim) are the sneaky sniper types. Even though you can take companions in these games, I never do in favor of long range kills from stealth.

[Greg_S]

Necromancers were ridiculously abusable thanks to their Soul Reaping attribute, which gave you back Energy (MP, basically) whenever a creature near you died. I've abused Soul Reaping to single-handedly take down the Disc of Chaos (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Disc_of_Chaos) (which, hilariously, involved abusing the fact that it couldn't attack me without line of sight). You also had Hexes that came in a huge variety and could cause numbers to fly everywhere on the battlefield (Spiteful Spirit caused damage to a foe and all adjacent foes when the hexed foe either attacked or used a skill), or just mess with your enemy in hilarious ways.


In pre-expansion GW1, I ran a PVP necro build that stacked spiteful spirit, a blood magic drain-on-hit hex, and weakness on any warrior stupid enough to charge me. They'd hit me for 15 damage, I'd heal 25, and then they'd explode for 100 and take out their party before they could chain up to eviscerate. Good times, good times.

[JBPuffin]

For me, Blue Mage takes the big furry cake. Hit me with your cool spells, sure. So long as you leave me at 1 HP, I'm casting it back at you, and you'd better believe it's gonna hurt. I wish more games did stuff like this - from my experience, its main exporter is FF. The whole FFTA Color-Coded Mage set (White, Black, Blue, Red) were fun for me, honestly, because I loved their visuals and their abilities. Fire Emblem casters strike a similar cord.

Dragon Age has some fun classes. DA:I is the one I finished (Two-Weapon Assassin, just like my Cole), and I loved my elf's damage-dealing potential. The carnage! Reavers, and Warriors in general, are a lot of fun as well with their Armor-granting abilities. Lemme just not die for an extra ten minutes soloing a dragon. Yeah. I killed at least 1 dragon with a Warrior who had no healing potions, no allies, a sliver of health and maybe one box of armor. Adrenaline all the way.

That...is actually the majority of my video game class experience. Wow. Suggestions for good class-based offline RPGs, anyone?

[T.G. Oskar]

I definitely love the Paladin class on any game, and if it doesn't exist, I gravitate towards the closest thing it resembles the class. It's often the Tank class, and more often than not, it has insane survivability, though at the expense of offense more often than not. Thus, to choose the right Paladin, it has to keep that survivability and ramp up the offense creatively.

That is why I like Ragnarok Online's Crusader, its Transcendent version the Paladin, and its official upgrade the Royal Guard (though I loathe a little bit that they consider Royal Guards to be superior than Paladins). The main reason is because they are the exemplars of Damage Redirection; through the Devotion...spell, I think...they can absorb the damage from their allies so as long as they remain within distance. However, they can project their buffs, of which one of them in particular becomes paramount: Shield Reflect. While the Crusader on its own isn't exactly a damage-dealing machine (it has several good attacks: the 2-hit Holy Cross, the ranged Shield Boomerang, the pushing Shield Slam/Smite, the odd spell Grand Cross), when combining the two, you get to return a reasonable amount of damage to the opponent each time it deals a physical attack to you...but because it's one of the buffs that stacks with Devotion, it means any time the opponent attacks an ally (though physical attacks only), it not only hits you (who can withstand the hit appropriately), you also return part of that damage back. Focusing on survival meant that the opponent could eventually kill itself by combining your normal damage with your retributive damage, but you could also focus on your offense and combine both to cause great damage. Royal Guard made an interesting upgrade that reflected the damage on a small area, turning each attack the enemy makes into a short AoE, though it took the class into an unusual path (purely focusing on Spears, whereas the original had only moderate support, compared to its counterpart the Knight which was more Spear-inclined).

Dragon Age's Templar is also interesting, as while the Warrior on its own isn't magical, and the Templar isn't magical either, it does its work well by becoming an anti-caster. Herbalism does well to create potions you can chug for survival issues, and the Weapon & Shield path works wonders; Inquisition also adds the harpoon style you can use to drag people nearby, which adds some Lockdown to what's basically Aggro tanking and mage-busting.

As for mage-related classes, I'd say the Seer from Final Fantasy A2: Grimoire of the Rift is a good one. While the game has the eponymous Red Mage and its Doublecast ability, it limits the spells to the weakest ones, hoping that Doublecast can increase the damage (at the expense of MP). Seer has the second tier of spells, and has a decent selection, what with Cura, Fira, Blizzara and Thundara on the mix. However, their signature skill of adding an attack (a melee attack, sure, but still an attack) to any offensive spell cast is downright bonkers, particularly since it means you're basically teleporting and hitting everyone you affected with the spell. You can use the stronger Black Magic spells if you want, but you can also combine it with Two-Weapon and the Seer selection of spells and just focus on offense. Pretty fun combination, if you ask me.

Then again, the Red Mage from Final Fantasy V onwards fits the bill. The incarnation from Final Fantasy Dimensions is moreso, as while it has limited spell selection compared to the other casting classes, it retains Doublecast, a good weapon selection, and the Magic Blade ability of the Spellblade, meaning it's a true spell fencer by all means. Considering Magic Blade contains a pretty powerful healing ability AND the best MP-draining effect, while also providing a good amount of debuffs, AND it works with Two Weapon, it's the most interesting upgrade to the class I've seen. Maybe second to FFXI's Red Mage, which is quite surprising...at least as a subjob.

[BlueHerring]

That is too true. I didn't find them particularly fun to play because that's not my style, but the design of the protection monk was wonderful, and something I really haven't seen since. The Mesmer was also very unique, being based on energy manipulation, interrupting enemy attacks, and punishing enemies for using certain skills.My guild, which was primarily a past GvG guild, had one of the best monks in the entire game as a regular. His prot game was so absurdly good that we could be reckless as hell and still be fine.

Also, Mesmers had Power Block. For those you not familiar with GW, this was a skill that, if it interrupted an skill, would disable all skills of that attribute for a set time. It would absolutely destroy characters in PvP, and some Mesmers are good enough to block skills with a 1/4 sec cast time.


In pre-expansion GW1, I ran a PVP necro build that stacked spiteful spirit, a blood magic drain-on-hit hex, and weakness on any warrior stupid enough to charge me. They'd hit me for 15 damage, I'd heal 25, and then they'd explode for 100 and take out their party before they could chain up to eviscerate. Good times, good times.That's kind of the thing about warrior. It had a fairly low skill floor, but a ridiculously high skill ceiling, maybe second to the protection monk and maybe Mesmer. In GvG, you were pretty much the heavy hitting knockdown unit (Hammer) or you applied pressure (Axe) to the enemy group. Both categories required knowing skill animations (some skills had unique animations that you could learn), as well as positioning and techniques like quarterstepping to lower the time between your regular attacks.

Any good warrior would have probably waited for Spiteful Spirit to cast before charging you, and actually should start off with a knockdown of some sort (Bull's Charge, usually). These are also probably the guys that wouldn't cancel Frenzy when they saw Spiteful Spirit on them. Then again, I will admit that I loved bringing my Necromancer to PvP because of Assassins that would do precisely the same thing, only to watch them die quickly.

[Cespenar]

I basically like the "fresh" classes, the ones that the designers went out of their way to create.

ToME has many of them. Solipsist, Paradox Mage, Temporal Warden. Pretty interesting and unique gameplays, each of them.

ADOM had Mindcrafter.

Dragon Age had Blood Mage (specialization).

Mass Effect had Vanguard, pretty aggressive but fun gameplay, bringing your wristblade thingy into a gunfight, basically.

Along the same vein: Borderlands 2, Zer0. Pre-sequel, Athena.

Wizards in most D&D games because of how detailed spell lists are.

Calculators in FFT were pretty interesting, though I liked Monks and Ninjas for their maneuverability as well. Also, Blue Mages.

[Hunter Noventa]

Dragoon from Final Fantasy XIV counts. It didn't hurt that I was really good with the class, and cared about learning the ins and outs of its skill rotation. I actually got good enough at some bosses to where I could flawlessly go through a battle without getting my skills interrupted. It was a fun class that combined both muscle memory and situational awareness. Plus, there was the fact that you could KO a good portion of a 24-man raid with one of your skills.

Dragoon is a barrel of fun, I think it's one of the classes that had the best additions in the expansion.

[BlueHerring]

Along the same vein: Borderlands 1, Zer0. Borderlands 2, Athena.Just to point out, Zer0 was from BL2 and Athena was from Pre-Sequel.


Dragoon is a barrel of fun, I think it's one of the classes that had the best additions in the expansion.Oh, definitely. Blood of the Dragon + the two randomized skills and the risk/reward of Geirskogul made Dragoon pretty fun to play in Heavensward. That, and Battle Litany was the awesomest buff ever.

Dragoon (before the expansion) had a pretty set rotation where you would alternate chains of attack skills (with either a buff or a DoT in between said chains) and pop your cooldown-based skills as needed. In Heavensward, they added a whole new layer to that. At level 54, you got a skill called Blood of the Dragon, which buffed the damage of two of your Jump skills while it was up. Initially, it only would last for 30 seconds and had a minute of cooldown time. This meant that you couldn't keep it up forever. At level 56 and 58, you got additional attack combo skills (other classes in FFXIV only had skills that chained three times, Dragoons were the first to break this rule) that were randomized, could only be used under Blood of the Dragon, and added additional time to it. So, now, you could keep it up as long as you were fighting, for some pretty spiffy boosts.

And then, at level 60, you got Geirskogul, which was a line AoE with a very short cooldown that took off 10s from your Blood of the Dragon timer every time you used it. So here, you had the risk/reward of being able to push out a decently powerful cooldown attack, at the risk of losing access to your 4th skill combos. In a truly ideal fight (of which there are few), you would be able to get off... 3(?) Geirskoguls in the time before Blood of the Dragon would refresh itself, but in reality, things worked out differently - which is where situational awareness comes in.

For instance, if a boss is about to go into his invulnerable phase and Blood of the Dragon would come off cooldown when he's vulnerable again, you could basically throw your Geirskogul right before the phase started, and you'd be back with a fully recharged skill at the start. The thing that's fun about playing Dragoon is finding the specific rhythm of each fight; when you used a skill, and when you didn't use a skill were both pretty important if you wanted to maintain solid DPS and not die.

Properly played, a Dragoon could push out the best single-target DPS in a team (at least, that was the case last September), but it required you to be flexible and attentive.

[Cespenar]

Just to point out, Zer0 was from BL2 and Athena was from Pre-Sequel.

That's absolutely correct.

[Zigwat]

I really like playing as a Necromancer/Death Knight. However in terms of my normal shtick, I usually play as a Ranger or a Barbarian. Necromancer are awesome but creating one can be a pain in the neck. So put me down for Death Knight as my overall favorite class to play. Summoning skeletons and then knocking the crap out of monsters is all the rage.

[Greg_S]

Also, Mesmers had Power Block. For those you not familiar with GW, this was a skill that, if it interrupted an skill, would disable all skills of that attribute for a set time. It would absolutely destroy characters in PvP, and some Mesmers are good enough to block skills with a 1/4 sec cast time.

That's kind of the thing about warrior. It had a fairly low skill floor, but a ridiculously high skill ceiling, maybe second to the protection monk and maybe Mesmer. In GvG, you were pretty much the heavy hitting knockdown unit (Hammer) or you applied pressure (Axe) to the enemy group. Both categories required knowing skill animations (some skills had unique animations that you could learn), as well as positioning and techniques like quarterstepping to lower the time between your regular attacks.

Any good warrior would have probably waited for Spiteful Spirit to cast before charging you, and actually should start off with a knockdown of some sort (Bull's Charge, usually). These are also probably the guys that wouldn't cancel Frenzy when they saw Spiteful Spirit on them. Then again, I will admit that I loved bringing my Necromancer to PvP because of Assassins that would do precisely the same thing, only to watch them die quickly.

This was before any of the expansions came out, so there weren't many skill options to work with; when I hung around in 4v4 PvP, the main warrior meta was about eviscerate chaining to use deep wound and spike them to death (or IWAY), so maybe early 2006? Hammer warriors existed, but they were rare, especially in open PVP.
You're right about the skill floor, though. Wa/Mos with a sword were giant PvP exp pinatas.

[Knaight]

ToME has been mentioned a couple of times, but I'm going to add to it. Notable classes that haven't been mentioned.

Sawbutcher - You fight with a steam powered circular saw (or two), and the class has a mix of conventional two handed attacks, rush tactics, and using one saw in the ground as a mount while hacking with the other. It's beautifully gonzo, and it works perfectly.
Oozemancer - Mucus auras, slime summoning, distributing health through your slimes, Oozemancer has a theme and rigidly holds to it. It works beautifully.
Anorithil - This one is more conventional, but it's interesting. It's a mage that focuses on sun and moon magic, with two different energy sources. The sun sources generally actually give you sun power as part of the attack, the moon sources use moon power. There are then techniques to convert between them.

[Maryring]

I really like the Etrian Odyssey series for its wide variety of classes.

Hexer in the first two Etrian Odyssey games and their remakes. This class is the poster child for part of Etrian Odyssey's uncommon design philosophy; inflicting debuffs, status conditions, and binds (a mechanic that prevents enemies from using certain skills) is actually useful throughout the entire game, including on every boss (though they often resist them).

Beast, featured in Etrian Odyssey 2, and made really good in the Untold version. You can have a dog, tiger, brown bear or panda be your party tank, what's not to like?
http://i.imgur.com/imAJgjO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3r8o6u0.jpg
Sovereign, used in EO3 and brought back for the remake of 2. Main role is buffing, but isn't really specialized, making a good backup healer (or put it in a party with another secondary healer to get some decent healing), and at least in its second iteration it gets a powerful team-based magic attack, Link Order, where it will inflict elemental damage on its target if another teammate deals elemental damage first.

I could list all but a few classes that are in EO Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight (out of... I think 13, there are 3 that are generic and one that I don't like purely for aesthetic reasons), but I'm going to stick with those three, one from each of the first three games. Honestly, EO4 doesn't really have a class I love, the most promising one I haven't unlocked yet and it will be a good while before I do.

No love for the Arcanist?

I love the Arcanist from Etrian Odyssey 4. She's a fun mix of afflictions and healing, healing enough to be a useful healer, while having fun abilities around setting down circles that cause afflictions to happen at intervals. You also have the ability to dismiss circles for healing or damage. It's a very fun class I think.

I also like Bards and Dancers thematically, but I've yet to find a game that does them well.

[Hunter Noventa]

I also like Bards and Dancers thematically, but I've yet to find a game that does them well.

The FFXIV Bard is interesting. It's mainly an archer, with the songs being a support factor rather than the defining feature of the class. I guess it depends on what you mean by done well. Bards and Dancers in FFT were interesting classes that could be very powerful if setup correctly.

[Hiro Protagonest]

No love for the Arcanist?

I love the Arcanist from Etrian Odyssey 4. She's a fun mix of afflictions and healing, healing enough to be a useful healer, while having fun abilities around setting down circles that cause afflictions to happen at intervals. You also have the ability to dismiss circles for healing or damage. It's a very fun class I think.

I also like Bards and Dancers thematically, but I've yet to find a game that does them well.

I'm still in the Windy Plains of Tharsis.

I'll definitely be replacing my Medic with an Arcanist/Medic once I get there.

And I like the skills of the Dancer in EO4, but the designs are just... no. Compare the EO1&2 Troubadour to the EO4 Dancer.
http://i.imgur.com/CsXFjxC.jpg
EO4 designs in general seemed a bit more... pandering. There's always been stuff like the Dark Hunters, and that one really cute and pencil-thin Hexer girl (who, according to the short comics of the first game's artbook, is 12 years old), but the Nightseeker girls have outfits that Dark Hunters would be embarrassed to wear, nothing like the Shinobi from EO3. You can already see the difference between the Troubadour and Dancer, while the Ronin girl has a more badass pose in the official art than her Sniper lookalike, and to some extent, that's also true for the Protector and Imperial.

[Calemyr]

I am always a sucker for a good bare-knuckle brawler. Not a monk, really. Not some guy with a shaved head and a spiritual bent, but just someone with stereotypical fingerless black gloves, two fists, and no cause to stop while anyone in sight is still standing. Love playing that type of character.

I also like sword-mage type characters, people who blend weapon and magic into a single attack. There's just something beautiful about blending two seemingly contradictory arts together into one brutally effective whole. Spellblades in Final Fantasy are a great example, the various specialist Knights in Final Fantasy Tactics (Holy Knight, Sword Saint, Dark Knight, Divine Knight, Templar, etc). I have often thought of putting a Dark Knight Ramza, Agrias, Meliodohl, Orlandau, and Beowulf in the same party, but that would be a painfully broken combo. But I definitely like painfully broken combos, so I might do it.

Finally, I like anachronystic combatants. Gunfighters in an age of swords and sorcery. Swordsmen in modern Detroit. That sort of thing. For some reason I can't stand guns in an FPS, but I take utter glee in using a flintlock pistol in the Elder Scrolls.

Also: Calculator in FFT was absolutely wicked, especially in the hands of the right characters: namely Agrias and Reis. For Agrias, give her Excalibur, Chameleon Robes, and either the immortality perfume, or her lipstick, and CT 5 Holy destroys everything in sight, heals the party, and leaves the few potential targets easy pray for Holy Blade techniques. Reis has an incredible growth in Magic Power, innate double attack, and access to the same broken female accessories as Agrias. Give her the unarmed support skill and she a brutal double attack combined with a CT 5 Holy that is backed by a most unholy magic stat. Add in Frog for extra insult to injury and some utility for good measure.

[KillianHawkeye]

My favorite Calculator trick was to use CT 5 Raise at the very start of a battle against undead. :smallcool::smallbiggrin:

[MagmaCam]

black mage all the way!!

[BeerMug Paladin]

I'm still in the Windy Plains of Tharsis.

I'll definitely be replacing my Medic with an Arcanist/Medic once I get there.

And I like the skills of the Dancer in EO4, but the designs are just... no. Compare the EO1&2 Troubadour to the EO4 Dancer.
http://i.imgur.com/CsXFjxC.jpg
EO4 designs in general seemed a bit more... pandering. There's always been stuff like the Dark Hunters, and that one really cute and pencil-thin Hexer girl (who, according to the short comics of the first game's artbook, is 12 years old), but the Nightseeker girls have outfits that Dark Hunters would be embarrassed to wear, nothing like the Shinobi from EO3. You can already see the difference between the Troubadour and Dancer, while the Ronin girl has a more badass pose in the official art than her Sniper lookalike, and to some extent, that's also true for the Protector and Imperial.

It's been a long while since I played that game, but I remember the classes overall being rather fun and well designed. The Arcanist was probably my favorite, at a certain point, I always had one in my party for its general support functionality.

The character designs were a little weird.

[Vitruviansquid]

I dunno, I thought the characters in Etrian Odyssey look cute.

I mean, when they're not creepily sexual.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I dunno, I thought the characters in Etrian Odyssey look cute.

I mean, when they're not creepily sexual.

EO4's Fortresses, Runemasters, and Imperials all look great great. I think the Fortresses look better than their previous iterations, Protectors and Hoplites (but Hoplites had a good armor design, I always see great fanart of them. Then I go back and look at the official designs and think "oh yeah, these look awful"), and same with the Runemasters compared to Alchemists and Zodiacs (though they're all quite different in design). Landsknechts have always seemed kind of generic, so nothing new there. Medics, despite also being a generic class, look cutesier in EO4.
http://i.imgur.com/mIhxUbi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GCxE0gg.jpg Not the K-On eyebrows. :smalltongue:

Despite always having an aesthetic that's cute to contrast with the actual Wizardry-esque game, EO4 seems to dial it up on the both the cuteness and vaguely fetish stuff. Most of the designs are just okay, but the Nightseekers and Dancers make me wonder what the hell the artist was thinking (all the character art for the series was done by the same artist).

In EO1 and 2, I don't even think the Dark Hunter is bad, since their concept is amusing.
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_super/0/238/783398-etrianii_1280_wallpaper04b.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0e/9f/bd/0e9fbdff35fb9cc49123354143f9be65.jpg

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_super/0/238/783412-dark_hunter_11.jpg
They had a Teen rating from the occasional surprising bit of story, may as well use it for something. :smallamused: And the Nightseekers look far worse.
http://i.imgur.com/u5ZaQU3.png One of the few good pieces of EO4 fanart floating around is a redesign of the pink-haired Nightseeker inspired by the guy's outfits, and it looks much better even though it's a catsuit:
http://i.imgur.com/ccIJlV3.jpg

So far, EO5 is shaping up to look very similar to EO4 in art direction...
http://i.imgur.com/qMXn0mb.png
http://gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/EOV_03-22-16_010.jpg

[The Artisan]

I really liked the Scholar in FF3 for the DS. Items being 2x as effective was one of my favorite exploits for massive damage in the mid game when I had plenty of money and was finding/stealing a lot of them.

[KillingAScarab]

I really liked the Scholar in FF3 for the DS. Items being 2x as effective was one of my favorite exploits for massive damage in the mid game when I had plenty of money and was finding/stealing a lot of them.You really do need a thief in order to supply your scholar with all the items they need to not just be the character who uses potions and occasionally hits things with fire/ice/lightning books. That said, healing with potions with scholar is so much more powerful shortly after you obtain the job. Once you run into more multi-target attacks, their healing is secondary at best and are mainly incredible elemental offense against bosses.

FF3 geomancer (at least in the DS version), however, has absolutely unbalanced offense from the moment you get access to the job. All you need is a party member who can heal you and you're pretty well set to use that job for the rest of the game. FF5 geomancer, before the iOS/Android/Steam port at least, is more limited.

I believe the job I have been assigned the most often in FF5 for the Four Job Fiesta (http://fourjobfiesta.com) has been red mage and, even when I am limited to using the job without being able to assign another job's abilities to it, I still find !Dualcast and its array of equipment very fun. I haven't had every job, though. I can't call it my absolute favorite, yet, but it is certainly up there.

[Wardog]

For me it depends somewhat on the type of game.

For single-player CRPGs, I tend to play most as ''scrapper'' types (i.e. mlee fighters that can dish out damage, but also take it as well). ''Fighters, but with some extra abilities'' (i.e. paladins, rangers, magic kinights, etc) are also good. I generally find pure tanks boring in such games, as you end up just standing there getting hit while your NPCs actually win the fight for you. Glass cannon / fragile speedster / stealth characters can be fun, but I usually lever those until second play-throughs.

I also like wizard-types, especially if they have more interesting mechanics than just blasting stuff. (Although blaster-wizards are fun too).


For MMOs, though, I generally prefer ranged characters to melee, because I find in such games big melee fights often end up a confused mess (the original meaning of melee, after all), where its hard to see what is happening or what I should be doing to be useful. Standing back and dpsing (or whatever) makes me feel more useful.

I don't normally play as healers in such games, although in certain games with interesting healing mechanics, that can be quite fun. (Example: elven archmage in the sadly-defunct Warhammer Online, where casting damage spells gave you healing buffs, and using heals gave you damage buffs).

One specific class in one specific game I found very enjoyable was the tank-spec Trooper in SWTOR - I don't think I've seen any other game with a ranged tank class. (Also, there's something very satisfying about running up to a Sith Lord and smashing him in the face with your rifle-butt. Especially if that is the killing blow. Especially if its a boss that was mouthing off to you in the cut scene about how superior the Sith and the Force are).

[Ninja_Grand]

Great thread idea OP! But oh boy, where to start?

All time fav is kinda a class. The Longsword weapon style from Monster hunter. I have a fetish for graceful two-hander use. Personally, I rather NOT use a katana for things like this. Think more of Sigfried and not Mitsurgi from the Souls games.

Any kind of Dark Knight works for me. Best I seen is from Bravely Default

FFT Archers are a great idea, but poor in gameplay. The waiting for a perfect shot style just is not meant for that game.

FFT (again) Samurai was sick as all hell. Drawing out sword spirits to deal effects? Hell yes.

Also a fan of Pathfinder Hunters, if I dare get to the tabletop. The idea of a bond with you and a beast that more martial then the druids is bad-ass


Would be here all day if I could.

[Tvtyrant]

I am a big fan of summoning, and nearly always play a summoner. This can be veru frustrating in mmos as there is always a bias against summoning, from DDO where they are little more then distracting pets to Firefall where they repeatedly nerfed my turrets until I gave up on the game.

[KillingAScarab]

I am a big fan of summoning, and nearly always play a summoner. This can be veru frustrating in mmos as there is always a bias against summoning...I remember when I looked into The Matrix Online I was leaning towards making a coder. The limitations on simulacra seemed OK at the time, but the worst part was the game's crafting system. Coders excelled at being able to make only exactly the same items they had encountered and picked up... by taking them apart unsuccessfully dozens of times.

[KatarinaKate]

Monk forever!

[SiSoo]

No, no, no.. Dragoon forever, or Barbarian :smallsmile:

[Hunter Noventa]

FFT (again) Samurai was sick as all hell. Drawing out sword spirits to deal effects? Hell yes.

Yeah those Samurai were pretty amazing. I hope they have something similar when they add them to FFXIV.

[ranagrande]

The Mastermind from City of Villains was my favorite class in any game ever.

[JBPuffin]

FFT Archers are a great idea, but poor in gameplay. The waiting for a perfect shot style just is not meant for that game.

Have you played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance at all, or its sequel? Archers in that game have special shots (largely debuffs) for their skills, which you can use in melee if you put Aim as a secondary on a melee-weapon person...

[Ninja_Grand]

Have you played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance at all, or its sequel? Archers in that game have special shots (largely debuffs) for their skills, which you can use in melee if you put Aim as a secondary on a melee-weapon person...

Yes, I have. I love those games to death, but I was calling out the original style as my fav class idea.

[siati]

Barbarian-type classes for sure. I was never much for squishy classes and I always liked the idea of blindly running into certain death, frothing at the mouth with rage. :smallfurious: : ]



ADOM had Mindcrafter

ADOM! Beastfighters were fun. It's been so long since I played that game.. Last I seen they had a graphical overhaul.

[thethird]

I couldn't deal with that tree. Don't like poor accuracy.

Mechromancer is clearly the best Blands 2 class but I split between the middle and left trees for better robit and better elemental damage.

I loved mechromancer's anarchy you need to get ricochet from the first tree. Getting a ricochetting weapon also helps and the smaller the weapon's chamber the better.

[Triaxx]

FFT Archers are all about Height. Give it the Lancer Ignore Height ability, or teleport, remembering that while it's max perfect range is your move, but there's no Height limit. And the higher you are the more places you can hit.

Of course it's better tricks come from taking Knight abilities and applying them via arrow. Speed Break from halfway across the map is hilarious. Fast high move Archers will run literal circles around anything without a ranged attack.