Class Picking Guide and Tier List for Classic

Did the OP get written by ChatGPT? or copied from some dusty old Prima guide?

Enchanter should definitely be in its own category. You can swap a cleric for a druid or shaman and be a little weaker on the mana efficiency, but nothing beats chanter for pure DPS and excellent buffs.

I also don't see why you'd ever have a monk pulling in classic except for tradition. They are the absolute best sustained DPS (minus charm pets) in the game at that point. Every second they aren't autoattacking is wasted time. If the group has a monk and there isn't a mob currently being autoattacked at all times in camp by the monk, the group is inefficient. Bards can throw their pet at something and go pull more. Hell, I'd send the ranger out to go pull over a monk. Just keep that monk hitting stuff.

I mean, think about it from the perspective of any other mmorpg. You'd never have your best DPS do side mechanics in a boss fight in WoW. You pick your worst DPS and have them do it.

I'm not sure about warriors either on there. Guilds that have SK's or pallys tanking in raids at that point have always felt far more efficient to me. You need the warrior later with defensive for kunark, but in classic they are just an SK/pally with no triggerable aggro spells and unreliable procs. The one time I did a TLP with a warrior raid tank, there were so many cases where we'd have to wait a full minute to burn because they just get back luck on proccing.

I wouldn't pick a class based on how well they do in the first couple weeks. Any talk of class "tier ranking" should include future expansions as well.

That said, Cleric / Enchanter / Shaman / Monk / SK are basically the A-Team of a TLP's life cycle and are always great. Everyone else is good. The only class I would put in a "bottom tier" would be Rogue, since devs seem to be ok with ignoring their obvious problems in the first few expansions.

Enchanter, Cleric, Shadowknight, Necromancer, Shaman
are the high skill cap classes. If you get a player in one of those roles, you're gonna have a bad time.

If you get a mediocre player, things may go smoothly.

If you get a player that knows their , it may be the best group of your life.

Ranger, Bard, Wizard, Paladin, Monk, Druid
are rather mid-level in terms of skill cap, at least for the classic expansion. Lots of tools, but not the most effective in the output and doesn't dramatically make or break a group.

Rogue, Magician, Warrior
would be your low-skill cap classes for EQ classic. This doesn't mean they aren't strong, or that they are lackluster compared to the other options above. It means that the control over the outcome of any situation in these 3 hands is gonna end badly. Warriors are by far the worst with Agro control in Classic. Mage pets fall off sharply after lvl 30, and most Mage players do not realize that they also have a few spells that do "almost" as much damage as the Wizard next to them. So they're full mana or close to it 90% of the time. Rogue's just sit behind and stab stab stab. If something happens, they can't really do much to stop it.

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A highly skilled player, playing an Enchanter will be able to do a great number of things, with or without the support of their group.

A highly skilled player, playing a Rogue, still requires a Tank to hold a mobs attention, and patience for them to land a backstab (lol I kid.. or do I?)

A new player, or a player that isn't up to snuff, will likely do more harm than good as the Enchanter in your group.

A new player, or a player that isn't up to snuff, will not stand out from the Highly Skilled Rogue and your group will likely be fine with either pick.

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I haven't played every class as a main, but I have played with great players on the classes I haven't mained, and I've played in top guilds over the years.

There is public stigma against certain classes, like wizard, which is completely wrong. Everyone has their different opinions, but my class list gives the overall feel of each class and the tier lists are spot on.

There are those out there that will post parses saying a class is good when their parse itself has them doing 10-15 dps geared at the end of classic. It's sad that there is bad community stigma out there and I hope to change it.

I'm also helping those that want to play specific classes but don't because the community thinks the class is bad.

Reminds me of a joke.
Q: What is the most dangerous animal?
A: A frog with a hand grenade!

Qualified, DOT classes particularity in the 10 to 20 range. Usually I switch to making pp/quests around there over leveling, but I can keep up with the sock poopers for the first 20 levels solo.

You do need to buy potions from Market Place, mainly Clarity and SoW. Necro's present a bit of a problem because of Faction. Even an Enchanter benefits from Clarity potions since they get DOTs early and Clarity is ~level 26 spell for them. What doesn't go into buffing themselves goes into killing/DPS.

DOT classes work well for multiple targets since you can have 4-5 DOTs running on 4-5 MOBs. Single target Boss is a different story of course.

Some of this has changed a bit since it seems like DP has put a cap on the maximum experience you can get from taking down a MOB, but it is still good. For example, a Druid Stinging Swarm spell does about 76 damage/tick, Flame Lick 10 => 4 DOT'd MOBs are taking 344 DPS from a level 10 Druid. This can be ~matched/exceeded by a Necro or Shaman but I think the Shaman has to wait for Tainted Breath.

A lot of uneducated opinions in this thread, the offical tier list for classic is here.

S - Necro / Chanter / Druid
A - Mage
The Rest

you may ask, no warrior, no cleric , no monk, no sk well fortunately its classic and there are hundreds of these people, loot will be expensive and the best way to roll these classes in kunark/velious for your real tlp journey is to capitilise on there kronos and farm classic hard and early

Tell me you have never played with a good necro without telling me you have never played with a good necro. Just putting dots on is what a bad necro does. They have so many tools in their tool chest that the post you quoted is spot on with the massive difference between a good necro and a bad one. As compared to say, a rogue where you aren't really going to see much of a difference between a good one and a bad one.

The chart priority is a bit wonky, but i applaud the effort put into the post.

People are sleeping on necros. Went necro on oak - and they were a total beast. They mez, they charm, they dot, they lifetap (so don't need healers), and they can pull/FD. The meta leveling path is full of undead mobs. UR -> Lguk -> Hole. All have necro charm pets. They are mini enchanters, who can heal themselves and FD to stay alive or get into a deep camp to replace someone. A group with an enchanter is always good, but enchanters are the golden child and get recruited for groups once they go /lfg. And, lets not forget they tend to be premadonas, only accepted fully formed groups with established camps. Get a necro, or even better 2 since they are always LFG, and just go ham. The downside of relying on Necro CC is they dont get AoE, and they can only keep 2/3 mez'd if they are really cycling targets and dont get a resist.

Bards - are very fun, and good for groups and raids of course, but they get level ranges where their mez/charm is not high enough for the NPC that give good exp. 1 critical lull resist and you get a huge pull. 2 methods seem to be the go-to for bards. They pull, leaving the monk in group to just pewpew all day long. Or, the bard stays in group singing mana song for the cleric/healer. Better yet, make the rogue pull bc they suck.

Rogues - should be dead last in every category. They dps the worst in groups, dps in raids the worst, heal the worst, buff the worst, have the worst kronos, the ugliest women, the worst 401k, and biggest beer guts.

Not even you, Superman, can do all these things at once. All in the course of a camp, maybe. Your point I think is that the best players look to maximize their benefit to the group or raid and help others to do the same. How best to perform your role given the others in the raid or group is the question.
Bards do have a wide range of skills that make this possible. "Camp monks", "melody bards", and oom wizards are not doing their best.
Necros, for example, are often better to use life taps along with a charm pet if available than dots except against a boss. Necro mez, snare, and root should not be forgotten. A good necro is a busy necro. This applies to all.

After all, the best players will shine regardless of class.

As a bard main, this is typical optimized barding and is absolutely possible. If you've played other MMORPGS it's actually not bad compared to the stuff you multitask in something like WoW with a few classes. Play any kind of complex class in WoW pvp and bard seems easy in comparison. Keeping track of cooldowns, CC timers, controlling your pet, prepping for burn vs survival phases, quick swapping targets, interrupting, it's that and way more in a modern MMORPG PVP. I think at my peak over there I had 50 hotkeys and had to be ready to use half of them at very specific moments in a fight. And I was pretty average at PVP compared to a lot of people.

People are a lot better at these games than they were back in the day. There's nothing wrong with being a bard that just plays melody and supportively mezes on the side, but that's not playing the class to the best of its ability. If you can keep a pet charmed, keep things mezzed for mana efficiency, chain pull so there are never any breaks, and twist in mana song as your mez targets decrease, your group will be much better.

Bards are complex, but their tools are redundancies when put agaisnt classes with the same options, besides Selo's, and especially before they have Fade. Sure you have a ton of customization capability, but they struggle to keep more than 2 mobs CC'd, and while they are CC'ing the group loses the buffs from the songs.

This is why they aren't ranked higher in my list. I would argue further that in raids you will have to sit on your healers to provide resists. So if the healers are ranging the event, you aren't gonna be swinging at the mob. Bard's don't reach S tier for me until AA's are available, whiich isn't to say they are a suboptimal choice, because Selo's alone will keep them A tier.

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Clerics? -- Mana Managment, Actual Heal vs Overheal stats, Buff management, are all things that make them more difficult to play properly. Doesn't matter if you're ch spamming if those CH's hit you at 100% health. But Rez alone keeps them firmly in the S column. A bad cleric is oom all the time and no one is buffed with AC..

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Shadowknights? -- Easily the strongest tank out of the gate until Warriors acquire Defensive. Aggro generation for the class doesn't have a "Terror" line until Luclin. Taunting a mob only gives you +1 to the highest threat, and their most effecient aggro tools are not something you can glean from the in-game descriptions.
Pair this with their Utility (Arguably one of the best pullers), the durability and self-sustainability the class has makes it easily the standout amongst the tanks.

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Necromancers - Sustainability, FD, Snare, Undead Slows & Charms, CC, Lifetaps, Efreeti Reigning Champion, Pet Management, are all things that make the Necromancer strong. Their potential however is only limited to the potential of the player. Resists can be problematic in a raid setting, especially in the GoD-SoF expansions, but their character power in the rest of the game doesn't diminish.

In groups you should use Lifetaps and Undead nukes where possible.
The more effecient Fire dots are great to provide consistent DPS on the trash mobs, multi-dot as possible, and when a named is pulled you can use Poison over Fire.
Disease dots are great for mobs with high AC and with High HP (Rock Golems)

This is just for classic though. Classic bard buffs in groups aren't amazing. There isn't any overhaste until later, and your ATK/str/haste line is pretty damn minor at this point since there's always going to be a chanter for haste and the other 2 stats are barely going to increase anyone's damage with how low the numbers are. So the only really important song for regular group play is mana. I twist in regen too at this point since anything to help the healer keep mana'd up means more pulls.

Bard CC isn't just the fact that 3 mobs are mezzed in camp. Typically you pull with mez, so you are CCing an extra mob with the fact that they need to travel to the group after mez breaks. This also helps the chain pulls keep going if you time it right, so you don't need to run back out there every pull. I'll typically mez everything on the way in except 1, so they come in over time. This lets you twist in the clarity/str songs, recharm your pet as it comes barrelling at you during the pull, etc.The pull path is just another form of CC. I think too many bards rely too much on lull which is clunky and slow, rather than our excellent 0 mana CC.

On raids in classic, bard is still king of fear/hate. No class is going to pull as reliably as a bard just due to being able to have resist song up while out in the field, and selos being in the song window rather than the buff window for the inevitable dispels. If you gear right, even the nightmare that is Turmoil Toads are completely resistible.

On boss fights, we do tend to just be resist bots. No denying that. Even dirge is terrible that low.

Of course, once kunark/velious hit bards do genuinely suck for a while until we get our luclin mez. I wish they'd fix that. I hate those expansions with a passion for that reason.

Bard's are great pullers, but the situation you describe here allows more room for catastrophie than allowing a Monk/SK/Nec to break the camp. Lull encounters a similar threat in that your instrument skill + CHA stat are directly correllated to whether a mob will attack you on a Lull resist or not

Why work so hard to do the thing? Enchanters are a much better pull option and should be the defacto puller of all groups because those bard songs fall off, and stay off for multiple ticks before being reapplied. Which is 100's if not 1000's of potential regen wasted away.

Chanter Mez is more reliable, lasts longer, their Lull is better, and the only thing they need to be in camp for is to manage other adds.. So if it's just the one, it serves them well to distance themselves from a charm break and prepare the group for the next.

You lose a lot by having a bard be in & out of range of the group, swapping songs etc.. If a group has a Ench/SK/Necro then the bard should not be the puller and your energies need refocusing.

There are so many reasons why a bard should pull over an enchanter, but I think we are just on different planets when it comes to how this game is played most optimally so I don't think this debate will ever go anywhere.

By all means, list your reasons. I could say the sky is green, doesn't make it true. I guarantee you that your group benefits way more having a chanter pull than it does a bard when both are present, and am willing to share the data when challenged. Feel free to PM me if you prefer

If we're still talking about classic, then warriors are not the best raid tank. Not even close

Warriors are worse at their respective role than rogues are in classic. They're a meme.

Any list that excludes shams from S tier is awful. Necros are way too low on your list.

Your best exp group is missing a bard and should have either a sham or druid in it rather than a cleric.

I did not read all the replies, but of all the "guides" I have seen on here about classic classes, This is probably one of the better ones I've seen (at least your not arguing Druids are S Tier as so many want to do)

. Your overall assessment of classes is pretty dang close (with a few minor things Id say, such as Necros are not as good in groups when mobs die so fast or somehow Rogues are higher than rangers in classic but rangers are actually one of the best tanks in that era with almost infinite agro).

Overall though, this was fairly well done and I agree with alot of it. Though your tier list I think is somewhat off IMO

Id move Rangers to C and put rogue and Paladin in D. You could argue Paladin MIGHT be a C just cause rogue is SO bad no other class compares and at least Paladins can CoH rot with deaths (Though who really needs this anymore?). I also think Wizards are not as good in classic as you put them. They are horrible in groups and while very good for Naggy/Vox/Innoruuk, they are 100% useless in Sky. Id put them C for Classic.

Meh, that's nitpicking.

Paladins as D? lol ok