New to EQ2 and rolling a human swashbuckler.

After rolling many characters and looking at the skill and abilities of race/class smashups, I see that some look better for a scout than others. But after some reading, most people that raid say it really doesn't matter unless you are in a min/max guild that is all about the raid. So is a human swashbuckler a good choice seeing as they don't have a ton of agl but you can have a chance for 2x att and hate transfer with another ability to the tank. Can they go toe to toe DPS wise and utility with a wood elf/rat/gnome, etc race/class combo?

I would suggest you play what you enjoy, as you progress any race bonuses mean less and less.

Striikor@Nektulos wrote:

Excellent! That is what I was hoping to hear! Thank you. Good to know that race/class combo's in EQ2 isn't a game breaker.

Yes, races matter. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just out of touch. But having said that, the question is whether or not you personally care about that fact?
First off, ignore the starting +Ability Score racial traits since they are essentially worthless in the big scheme of things. Your real focus should be on the Racial Traits which each race provides. Every races as a few automatic special abilities associated with it. Then once you hit 10th (and every multiple of x10 afterwards), you can pick from a list of additional special abilities. Each ability trait on that list is shared by at least one other race. Yes, some traits are more useful with certain classes than others. While some abilities just provide minor upgrades in the background, there are some traits which are truly unique and can't be found else where.
However having said that, sometimes you just don't care. Case in point, I wanted to have an asian looking martial artist. This translated in-game to an Erudite Bruiser. The physical appearance of that character is a source of great personal satisfaction. Yet at the same time, Erudite is a caster oriented race. Some of the racial trait choices are kind of interesting for my class selection, but there really were better options. In this specific case, I recognized that fact and accepted it as part of the package. Assuming that you're willing to do the same thing, then just play whatever makes you happy.

There are two subsets of racial abilities. One that all members of the race get, and one which is a pool of abilities you choose from every ten levels as you level. The pure racial ones every member of that race get still retain a smidgin of racial lore (Dark elves hover and Gnomes self repair come to mind)
As a Human Swashbuckler, the only racial from the pool choices that cannot be replicated or made trivial by gear and buffs is the ability some races have that gives 25% more triggers to poisons. So instead of a poison having 100 triggers for a human, it has 125 for a Halfling and the other races with this trait. It affects the wallet when you have to buy five poisons to the other races four, but the power of the class for either race is not impacted by it.
As an afterthought, since that is what PvP is to me, the races that get the enhanced poison triggers can also choose a movement boost while stealthed which would not be available to a human, which I imagine does have an advantage where PvP is concerned

I have to admit that one of my favorite racial traits is the +2% max health heal ability. You can spam that thing about every 3 seconds in between combats, which really lowers you down time as a scout.

There's another one that is under my radar since my playstyle doesn't need it. I see where other styles would benefit though

Seriously though, appearance and "quality of life" racials like glide are faaaaaaar more important than combat effectiveness racials.
Probably the most important racials any class could have are +mit and +HP, followed by primary stat (50 AGI is probably worth a bit more than 1% potency in the endgame), with stuff like double attack and crit coming in a distant third.
Basically if you sat down a character of each different race and had them parse for an hour you would not be able to identify which character was what race, they're that close.

If you're not a ratonga you get -100 to everything and are generally terrible in comparison to a ratonga playing the same class.