Hi all, I'm returning after a several year break, and considering a class to start from scratch with. My primary goals are solo-moloing, light grouping, and exploring old raids. I generally prefer caster classes. How do the classes play in 2020 for those goals? I'm leaning towards necro, but am curious how wizards/mage/ench do these days. I'm a silver player currently, but might go gold. Thanks in advance!
Returned recently myself. The roles of the casters haven't really changed, with the significant different we now have mercenaries - i.e. NPC group members. This means that you can play any caster class and have a tank on hand, so soloing is no longer restricted to...well, necs In fact I'd say that mercs now lend solo-ability to classes other than necs better, because merc tanks are poor at keeping aggro against multiple dots. I find myself dropping the merc and snare kiting more often than not for solo play. There's prolly a bigger difference at the top level raids; from what I understand, necs struggle to keep up DPS in comparison to classes such as zerkers/rogs/wizzies, but that may no longer be valid and you didn't mention top tier raid efficiency so... TL;DR pick exactly what you want to play. They'll all work
Most all classes will play well for you. I prefer Rangers, kinda the all around guys - they cast/tank/and I can't give up track. I think the Wiz would be best then the Enchanter then the Mage. Not sure about Necros - that class seems to be pretty quiet except recently when they apparently got nerfed or not depending on who you listen to. I have a feeling since not much was said about them previously that they are kinda powerful but players wanted it kept quiet lol. There is nothing stopping you from making one of each and trying them out. Now since your Silver you have 4 character slots which is nice but you can buy another 3 slots with your loyalty tokens that you have on that Silver acct. Personally, I would wait to go Gold till higher levels - like 80 and above. The only real benefit to Gold is the Auto Grant AA and the J5 Merc. Also make sure you do a run thru the tutorial - not sure how long you were gone but it doesn't take long and most new stuff would be in there.
Can confirm, if nothing else you walk outta the tutorial with a clicky stick with a weak SoW effect - small and can only be kept up 50% of the time but it's better than nothing when you are in an indoor zone and don't have a run speed buff on hand.
I've never really been a caster class player but necro or mage would probably suit you best. Great solo/moloers and having the pet + AEs will help with your old raiding.
I recently returned as well.. I ran the Tutorial a few times with different classes and eventually it comes back. I ran into same issues as the past.. sometimes I have to really wrack my brain to think of where to level next. I am really liking Ranger and Mage. The tank J1 merc is great until about 40.. then he gets to be much more delicate.
Truthfully, I don't see many wizards. I don't know why, I don't play one. But magicians are strong as usual, especially with AA and a good enhanced minion item. Combine that with a mercenary, and you have a good group by itself, albeit less options overall for utility. But, necromancers of course have more options. You can crawl deeper, safer, escape better, arguably have better solo capability and in raids you can act as a DPS and not a coth-bot, rod-bot, and general bot. Sorry mages, I love you
ENC and necro's are going to be the most versatile of the classes. Necro's the the enchanters of the undead so if you are going to gravitate towards undead mobs then Necro's are great. For non-undead the ENC can be more powerful due to charm, CC and pulling. However ENC are level limited on pets. What I mean is, at L100 in a L50 zone the ENC charm is pointless, but the necro brings their level appropriate pet everywhere. ENC are more demanded in groups as a needed support role, while NEC is more commonly just placed in a DPS role (despite being able to pull, etc). The advantages of one of the other is dependent a lot on your play. I am biased toward ENC because I play one and edge out the necros, but ToV being an all undead expansion is really letting the talented necros stand out. I really hope going forward devs continue to develop expansions with undead presence so nec/pal/clr can stand out. Mages are great, I box one with my ENC. They are just limited since they can't slow, pacify, snare, etc like ENC and NEC. Their pet tanking is the main thing they bring as their pets can readily stand in place of a plate tank. Wizards have very little versatility. Not a bad class, but you wont see wizards splitting mobs, doing CC or tanking. Sure, good wizards can snare and root to CC, but in general they are the most specific, thus least diverse, of the 4 casters. I think NEC and MAG are going to be the best for you. Wizards are the weakest for molo since they have nothing to tank. ENC are great for groups, but MAG and NEC have a molo advantage. A silver player is going to struggle to charm due to squishiness from a lack of AA and armor. ENC may find it easiest to get a group however, as they are only competing with a few classes for the support slot and not judged harshly for lower DPS output.
I'd agree with a necromancer or mage being the way to go. They work very well alone, especially with a merc, and they can fit into DPS roles for groups as well easily. They also have a couple built in "get out of jail" features, such as a pet to tank for them while they run to safety or feign death or gate.
