What classes do you think today are underpowered?

There is always a flavor of the month class that is overpowered compared to other classes. Players will gravitate to that class and you start to see more of them showing up in raids and groups. Examples would be necromancer, druid, and enchanter at various points in EQ history. But the other side of the coin are the underpowered classes. Classes that are rarely made by players, because they are weaker to other classes. Even though they are a dps class, you never see them in the top 5 of raid parses.

For me, I think these 2 classes are underpowered:
Wizards - these should be dps kings, but I never see them near the top of parses
Paladins - IMO these have always been the weakest dps class in the game. That is ok, some class has to have that, however they are also the weakest of the 3 tank classes. You can find tons of warriors and SK in groups and raids, but seeing a paladin in a group is like seeing a unicorn - they are so rare. Paladin roles in raids tends to be casting splash and rezzing, and being the tank of last resort if the warriors and SK are dead.

Personally, here is how I would improve the classes:
Wizard - Right now I am playing a newbie wizard on Oakwynd. Classic EQ wizard is so much different than a level 120 wizard of today. My newbie wizard with a single spell can take out 25-35% of a mobs health. One role of a wizard in groups is to quickly burn down a mob on an overpull to protect the health of the tank/healer mana. Sort of like enchanter cc, but by eliminating a single mob instead. This is balanced by the fact that mana is harder to get in classic EQ. You can be the hero for one encounter, and be spending the next 3 sitting on your but trying to regain your mana. This definitely doesn't work well with 30 minute raids in modern EQ. And wizards have totally lost that ability even in the group game of the big nuke. Manaburn doesn't count either as it wipes out your mana pool (or at least it did- not quite sure how it works today). What I would do is the following:
1. Give an AA nuke with a long recast timer that does the 25-35% of a current mob's health. To be clear, the damage is not percentage based. If the average level 120 mob has 100 million health, this nuke would do something like 30 million damage. If you use this ability against a level 1 mob, it still suffers 30 million damage. The percentage is used to plan out the strength of the ability, not to figure it out on a per mob basis. From a raid perspective, this ability would be helpful in situations where a key mob has to be killed very quickly after spawning. Raids have been moving away from this mechanic (which I think is a good thing), but if it exists in a raid, wizards would be the most effective way of clearing a time dependent spawn.
2. Boost wizard AE damage. The problem for wizards is their closest competitor are mages. Mages have nukes plus pets, and if wizards can outdps them, then mages stop having a role in raids. So, in my mind, I am going to accept that a mage with pet will outdps a wizard on a single target. However, to give wizards a raid role, I would boost their AE damage. In raids where you have to kill lots of mobs at the same time, wizard AE abilities would give them (and other AE classes like zerks, I believe) a chance to jump to the top of the raid parse. The goal is to find a way for each dps class to have a situation where they are the parse leader for a particular raid, and boosting wiz AE damage I think is one way of accomplishing this.

Paladin - The goal is having a certain situation where each tank will be the best. Here is how, I would handle it:
Situation: Tanking 1 very hard mob with 1 or more healers backing you up:
Best: Warrior
Moderate: Paladin
Weakest: SK

Situation: Tanking lots of moderate strength mobs at once with a healer backing you up:
Best: Warrior
Moderate: SK (probably close to warrior)
Weakest: Paladin

Situation: Tanking 1 very hard mob with no healer help (self heals only)
Best: Paladin
Moderate: SK
Weakest: Warrior

Situation: Tanking lots of moderate strength mobs at once with no healer help (self heals only)
Best: SK
Moderate: Paladin
Weakest: Warrior

This is close to where things stand right now. Warriors have limited abilities to heal themselves, so if their healer goes down they are in trouble. SK have AE life tap abilities that allow them to heal themselves, and the more mobs they are facing the more they can heal themselves. Paladins are the most effective healer of the 3, but it doesn't scale higher the more mobs that they face. As it stands now, Paladins are the weakest at pure tanking of the 3, and I think it would be better if they were above SK when facing a single opponent. But their tanking would need to remain below warriors so that the warrior role isn't removed. It should also be noted that SK have another role in raids - kiting. I don't see paladins taking that role away from SK.

Even with the above, I don't think that would entice that many more people to play paladins. Ultimately groups want to kill mobs as quickly as possible to earn as much experience/loot as possible. A class with the reputation of being the weakest dps class is going to get fewer group invites. I think the solution would be a dps boost against undead. You want them showing up near the top of group/raid parses when a mob is undead to get people interested in playing paladins again. Maybe the solution would be something as simple as boosting riposte damage against undead targets.

This became a much longer topic than I was initially planning. Even if you don't want to propose solutions, what classes do you think are underpowered and least popular for players to choose to play?

I didn't read your entire book, but I agree that Wizards are top of the list and need some major improvements.

A dps boost against undead...

How does that help the other 95+% of content for the class. You can go expansions with no or very limited undead mobs.

Paladin can fill multiple roles and do them well, you just have to commit to them one at a time to have quality results.

DRU has done well at various times and can shine in DPS but DRU single target healing is underpowered.

all pure melee dps are under-powered compared to casters, hybrids and even priest classes in the right situation.

Paladin would be fine if SK aggro and lifetaps (including the melee HP return) weren't so ridiculously OP

Devs are aware and haven't fixed it, so I doubt they will. Then again, rumor has it one of the top devs plays an SK so them being OP isn't too surprising

Love Letter To My Favorite Classes: Wizard and Paladin

1. Necromancer. This class consistently struggles to handle solo, group and raid content. I feel that boosting their base DOT damage and increasing the tankability of their pets is a good first step.
2. Shadow Knights. They used to be an excellent group tank, nowadays they cannot tank 84 mobs anymore by themselves. I think increasing the power of their epic and upgrading Mortal Coil will help bring this class back to respectability.
3. Magicians. They are nothing more than mod rod dispensers on raids. And their pets? Please. I think improving the base damage of their Spear line of spells, and doubling the HP and AC of their pets will make them mediocre.

I can provide more potential boosts to these three classes, but I don't want to boost them too much.

*Doesn't post a parse of a necro consistently topping the DPS chart, often doing 2-3 billion damage on his own in a raid.*

You haven't met the right Pallys, the ones I raid with are all monsters.

Speaking from an incredibly biased place; I do wish pallies could get some boost against the living. And I don't think that would have to come as a consequence of a nerf to any other class. I don't expect to be equal to a necro but I wouldn't mind being a bit closer.

Agreed.

Casual raid attendance seems to track with general class power. (takes a little time but over time it's easy to see what classes people think are powerful).

Currently:
Mages are in overdrive. An 8-10 mage raid is not uncommon. (They generally lead the parse too)
Necros are showing up much more. (again, high on the parse)
Pallys: We also have a bunch of pallys recently showing up, and the class is seeming pretty strong.
Other tanks: SK's and wars have not changed much - and it's the same old faces so mostly people just continuing to play the same class.
Zerkers have gotten rarer
Monks have gotten rarer
Rogues have increased
Rangers have increased
Bards are weird. We go from 1 bard to 8 bards with no real pattern other than 1 bard is always there.
Clerics have remained about normal
Druids and shammys have remained about normal although we have weird swings in numbers some nights just due to the casual raid force.

I notice that you didn't list wizards in the above list.

Melee classes do seem to have issues leading parses for the past few expansions, so they are probably in need of more buffs.

Wizards. For a class that is pretty much all about the nukes, theirs have fallen behind

And chanters are not even powerfull enough to mention?

Yea not as many wizards on the BB opens but usually 2-4 depending on night still.

They show up as well, usually 3~

I don't know if open raids are the most accurate representation for which class is actually strong/weak though.
You'll see more people who can solo group content because it will attract more casual people who can't commit to a full time raid guild or alts like mine. DKP nights tend to have less swings in numbers of classes and more consistent ADPS because it is a bit closer to that commitment a main raid guild would see with the long term investment for DKP vs /random rolling.

It was funny when we discussed pet procs being detrimental and the next random roll night there was 12 mage alts to test their pets out.

One thing I can think of what Paladins are in need of is for their Blessing of Life AA to be revisited. That should be procing heals for not only the whole party among with the Paladin oneself but also have it so it procs damage to the Paladin's foes. Kind of like how Hand/Arms of Holy Wrath works when Clerics, Druids & Shamans respectfully wield such weapons.

As for Clerics & Magicians, have it so that their Turn Undead AA & Turn Summoned AA should be merged and changed into something else that affects everything. Maybe even change the name of those AAs since they deal damage over time like say Radiant Burn for exmaple. They should still retain their respectful Infusions that have a percent change of happening.

Clerics need (non undead) DPS boosts. They should be usable WHILE healing.

Monks are in the worst spot of all pure melee imo. At least zerker can get a solid big burst going with mangling/ramp to help carry the rest of the event of suboptimal dps. I am not qualified as to how to fix the class; but I would like to take an educated guess that certain discs get a reduction on cool downs. Also, on super laggy events it certainly seems to hurt the low delay weapon classes (monk,bst,rogue) more so than other classes.