Good grouping/solo class to play?

Monks *can* tank, but without a taunt key they are more an exercise in frustration.

Tanks, if you want the option to solo at times go Paladin or SK, both are viable with SK taking an advantage in damage due to pet scaling.

Healers are a toss up between Shaman and Druid. Both seem to solo pretty well. If you dislike kiting don't roll a druid, and expect to be tossed aside if you are healing a group and a cleric wanders by. At least shaman can buff and debuff, druids are lackluster DPS and heals but can kite better than pretty much anyone.

I would suggest playing a group class if you are going to start around the same time the server does. There will be MORE than enough groups to level to 50 with and making a name for yourself as a good group tank or healer will go a long ways.

We had a really rough time with our Monk tank when we started on Lockjaw. Sure he could hold aggro on singles, but if we had to mez an add, or just got a random patrol mob we had to just suffer through it. No snap aggro is a big deal.

BUT ... they can take the hits and put out the damage that's for sure!

Think i've decided on either a healer or tank. From reading up on the forums Clerics and Shamans seem to be more desired and as for tanks it seems its either Pally or SK. I usually play tanks on MMO's however EQ seems to function on quite a different level tanking wise.

Im also a bit concerned with tanks solo ability (Have chosen to take Warrior out of the running as they seem to only be useful as main tanks in raids and terrible solo ability). Also I realize that Cleric prob has just as bad soloing as Warrior however it doesn't seem to be as much as an issue for me.

Anyone have any input on what would be more desired for groups/interesting to play?

I like enc and everytime people say you'll get groups. I've always found that there are a ton of chanters and then you run into issues with a guild because you don't need more than two until much later.

Clerics are most definitely better soloers than tanks if you find the right spot. There is downtime involved as their offensive spells are kind of mana heavy since they aren't an offensive class, but you will have that with any class to some extent. The undead nukes are quite good and later as expansions roll out you add a hammer pet, some undead dots, and even further along reactive armor buffs and other tricks.

You aren't going to have problems with groups with any class. LFG will be longer for some than others. But if you are going with any of the tanks or any of the priests you will have zero problems.

If you rank all classes on ability to solo and then separately rank their ability to get groups the class with the highest average of the two numbers will easily be enchanter.

If you use social skills though you can always get a group. On Ragefire there was a rogue named Vidae that was just the worst rogue this game has ever seen but people were always carrying him in groups.

You should be thanking the gods you got to group with the best Rogue on Ragefire on a daily basis you scrub Ranger.

Absolutely. Very good points. I agree.

SKs have alot of solo tools, and both have great aggro tools... though Pally doesn't get much until the mid-late 20s.

You need to be aware of just how mana-intensive SK is though. If you play a large race, then your INT is so low you have barely any mana, and SK spells are pretty high mana cost anyway. The pets don't really get solid until late Kunark, iirc. The pets are mediocre at best.
SKs can pretty much only tank, since their heals are personal... but even those are incredibly weak in the classic era, tbh.

Pally has some great survivability with heals/Lay Hands, etc. Pally gets the same heal spells as Druids and Shaman, they just get them slower. I'm not sure which expansion the priests start to pull away. But, really, once you hit greater heal, you can do some nice patch healing or even main heal a bit if you keep some WIS gear stocked. The major difference is that Druid/Shaman get regen spells which help keep health up on the group.

Either can solo equally well. SKs have some better pulling tools with FD and using the pet as bait, but Pally does have Lull spell line like cleric/enchanter. Both are complete garbage for DPS though.
SK has the option of Slam with the large races, so you can bash while using a 2-hander which is great. But, Pally cannot be any of the large races.

There will be way less Paladins than SKs on the server. People like to play SK for the pets and all, but don't let it fool you, their dps is still horrid and they aren't really any better at tanking in most cases.

Oh, I forgot to mention, Paladin also has pretty nice Rez spells. In classic they have 50% rez, iirc. And, by Kunark they have 90%.

In classic and Kunark on LJ, SKs are huge mana sinks for the healer in groups. It is anecdotal, admittedly, but Pally is just way easier to keep healed up.
I play an SK and love it, but when I am on healer I'd really rather heal a Pally for the first couple expansions.
A pally also has the benefit of having some rez if the group is being healed by a shm or dru.

Enchanter is the strongest soloer. By a mile. And a half. Bring bandages.

Seriously, if you want to be able to solo AND group...stay away from melee and clerics. Yea you can solo a bit with most of them, but you will only be able to handle a select few mobs and it will be slow as hell, so we can cross out (we'll leave bards in because they're casters at heart):

War / Pal / SK / Rng / Rog / Monk / Bard / Clr / Druid / Shm / Nec / Wiz / Mag / Enc

Then we can look at which characters perform well in groups. Wizards are pretty inferior to mages at group play and you also run into the Ench / Bard issue of "Having 1 is great, having 2 is pretty much a waste of a DPS slot". But in any case, we can probably at least eliminate Wizards (they don't solo really well either anyways):

Bard / Druid / Shm / Nec / Wiz / Mag / Enc

So we're left with: Bard / Druid / Shm / Nec / Mag / Enc. Based on your original list, only Nec / Bard fit the profile you're looking for it seems. I would consider Bard soloing more laborious than anything, but it can be effective (after they get charm of course - around lvl 27). GL!

Sidenote: if you want to tackle dungeons, roll a chanter...bar none the most crucial element to dungeon fighting and you can solo remarkably well but as Iyvy says, bring thems bandages.

Wizards are great raid classes, they're a bad choice at anything else, and are probably the worst group class IMO. Your mana regen is going to hold you back - every other class either contributes something useful, or has better sustained dps - this is why you're horrid in groups. For soloing - you can do it better than some classes, but once again no matter what you do, you're looking at long med breaks.

Only play a wiz if you know what you're getting into exactly. I've had a blast with it, but it's a raid-only character mostly.

This advice is pretty sound, however I will disagree with clerics being bad soloers. They're actually quite strong in undead only areas, and can travel relatively safely through dungeons/areas because of pacify as well as ivu, invulnerability, and if all else fails 90%+ rez. They're a bit boring to solo with and weak for the first little bit, but their nuke is one of if not the most efficient (on undead). It's fast cast and cheap and you are wearing plate and can full heal yourself whenever, plus you get stuns. Clerics are really great soloers if you go to specific zones, and a cleric is always one person away from a strong group. I would argue a cleric is much stronger at soloing than a bard.

I've always like the visceral close quarters combat of a warrior. Dual wield/ sword and board options are nice. They aren't great solo class but I enjoy the playstyle. I'll probably be creating a warrior when the server opens.

I'll give ya that...they can wreck undead pretty well. However, I still dislike the idea of having to rely on root_nuking for soloing. I'm kinda in the same boat when it comes to shamans...they have those darn dd-dots that always break root. I think bard charm fighting is a more effective soloing tool because you can really use it in a lot of places.

There's always grey areas I guess...

Well shamans get ridiculous slows, so when root breaks its not a big deal. With Cleric you just split pull with pacify and nuke their brains out while tanking. If you get low heal yourself or root and back up and heal. Clerics do a ton of damage and they cast so fast you don't really have trouble with interrupts. You don't need to root nuke, just tank and blow it up and med and repeat. It's not bad.

Thanks for the info guys, think i've limited my options down to Cleric, Bard or Paladin.

Am currently trying cleric out on Lockjaw and am enjoying them, however i've been grouped for 90% of my gameplay. Not sure how we'll i'd fare soloing. I know enchanters are really good and I do enjoy playing them but I feel like there will be a whole lot of them being played and have heard they lose their luster as expansions roll out.

Im keen to play a non pure dps roll so either full support, healing or tanking. (Or possibly a halfling rogue, cant help but feeling like Bilbo, but from what i've read its a tremendous uphill battle soloing and finding groups)

If anyone has more info would still enjoy hearing what you have to say.

Well, I played a Wizard main in (real) Classic and have switched to a Cleric on TLP. It has occurred to me more than once that I'm basically playing the same class but watching different health bars while I do it.

It's nice to get groups easily but once you have a competent one it can be exceedingly boring.