Player vs. Everything: Coolest classes ever

[McCheese]

I always loved CoH's defender. It was a really creative twist on the traditional healer role of MMOs. "Healing" by raising groupmates' avoidance, lowering enemy's chance of hitting, and all manner of other buffs, debuffs, and utilities was really fun.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by McCheese

I always loved CoH's defender. It was a really creative twist on the traditional healer role of MMOs. "Healing" by raising groupmates' avoidance, lowering enemy's chance of hitting, and all manner of other buffs, debuffs, and utilities was really fun.

A-fucking-men. It's kinda what the priest was near the beginning of WoW. Reduced allies threat vs. targets, two very powerful forms of CC, a pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-(It's been nerfed 7 times iirc)-nerf HW:S, among other things.

Then they went and fucked it all up and said "LOL SPAM FLASH HEAL ASSHOLES!"

[Fammaden]

NIN seemed somewhat different to me from the outside, but I never leveled the job even one level so I don't know how derivative they might actually be. I'm sure most people who think of playing a ninja in an MMO wouldn't really expect the tank/overpowered subjob that FFXI NIN turned out to be though.

[Northerner]

I'd agree that the Fixer in UO was a fun and potent class, although almost all the UO classes were actually interesting. As well, the Hive Keeper in AC2 was ridiculously overpowered in the right hands (up until the Great Nerf) but was also quite fun and original to some degree. How one could mention EQ without mentioning Bards though baffles me a bit.

Honestly, lots of games have had lots of interesting classes and we could all list of tons and tons of them I'm sure. WoW is probably the least diverse of the bunch and Hunters are probably the least interesting of even the options there. Effective and potent I'll agree but they certainly are not terribly original or "cool".

[Duppin]

Honestly, AO had overall the best classes in any game I've ever played.

It wasn't until Shadowlands fucked everything up that they even had any "standard" classes, when they put in Keeper (basically a paladin) and Shade (basically a rogue).

But up until then:
-Enforcer: Tank, yes, but with awesome self-buffs like Behemoth which actually made you larger in addition to buffing you and some other interesting situational abilities;
-Agent: Nuker class with rifles and the limited ability to mimic other classes;
-Fixer: I don't even know what the hell to compare a fixer to (maybe something like a bard?), but it was awesome;
-Soldier: Tank/DPS hybrid class with shields and big freakin' guns;
-Bureaucrats: CC/pet class. That wore business suits and carried briefcases.
-Traders: probably the best debuffer class I've ever seen in any game.

Even the more generic class types had unique things they could do. Two pet classes, one with monster pets one with robot pets; doctors could poison and do other things; adventurers had all sorts of utility skills.

I would've picked basically every class in AO before I picked a fucking WoW Hunter, for god's sake. Who is the person making this list?

[Jaded]

I always thought the Vampyre class in DAOC that was introduced in the Catacombs expansion was a pretty unique class. They used a piercer in one hand and cast spells with the other. Buffs, debuffs, or they could use that hand as a claw. To get energy for these abilities you had to attack enemies. The more you attacked the more you drained to use for yourself. Pretty cool concept I thought.

Also, when running at full speed they'd float above the ground which was awesome.

[Duppin]

Yeah, DAoC had some really good class design, too. Friars were probably one of my favorite MMO classes ever, beating the shit out of things with a staff = win.

I think some of these games with more unique class designs suffer because people don't know what to do with classes that don't fall into the molds that they're used to.

[Troll]

I'd like to second the Blood Mage thing. Great idea, but, unfortunately, it was in VG.

I'd like to add the Healer class from DAoC. Absolutely fun to play and I don't think there's been a healing class quite like it any other game. Oh, and Thanes and Valekeepers.

[Regime]

horrible article

as already mentioned wow has the Warrior. (Warrior > Hunter lol revolutionary)


Yeah the hunter was above the curve....in DAoC. You know the one with beastcraft, can make tons of monsters/animals their pets, lots of ranged DPS, had stealth, power and buffs.

EQ - Bard for sure, not at all for the enchanter.


Maybe he should lvl characters higher than 25.

[Xequecal]

DAoC Theurgists were extremely cool, nowhere else in an MMO have you been able to send an actual army of pets at someone. So were Necromancers, though they sucked ass in PvP so nobody really noticed.

[Cybsled]

Vampires in Shadowbane were kinda unique. They couldn't be healed by other players via normal means and could only heal themselves via the split blood of their enemies.

[Flight]

Tactician in AC2 is without doubt the most unique and coolest class in any MMORPG; sadly, unlikely to be copied.

Meta Physicist and Trader in Anarchy Online - mainly due to AO's unique skill system. These guys can buff any other class (and themselves) to effectively be dozens of levels above what they actually are.

[Kaxmax]

Originally Posted by Troll

I'd like to add the Healer class from DAoC. Absolutely fun to play and I don't think there's been a healing class quite like it any other game. Oh, and Thanes and Valekeepers.

Yeah, Valekeeper was an awesome class that was never really understood by the general populace. Position based melee chains with varying effects were pretty damn cool.

My first DAoC character was a thane, I'll always remember the first time I cast the spinning hammer of doom, such a badass looking spell. I think that's still my favorite spell effect from any game (along with the runemaster AE spears).

[gavinrad]

class design for most of the archetypes in City of Heroes was great, with scrappers being the shittiest and defenders being the best. There where something like 6 different brands of defenders, ranging from Empathy with a focus on super heals and buffs, to Radiation (which I played) which focused heavily on debuffs, although accelerate metabolism was a fantastic buff.

I did really like my paladin in EQ much more than I ever liked my paladin in WoW. In EQ, without fucking with my gear, I was a fantastic XP group tank, a good offhealer that did some dps on raids, and everyone clamored to be in my groups for shit like PoTime Bertoxx cause no one in my group ever died.

It always amazed me that EQ managed to have fairly distinct roles for so many classes and WoW has trouble defining roles for so few.

[Zehn - Vhex]

They have very distinct roles. It's just that in WoW several of the classes can change theirs for 50 gold and a trip to Orgrimmar.

I can tell you right now though that I will not be quitting WoW for the 'next big game' unless it has the job system. Not sub-jobbing necessarily, multi-classing is an aspect that no current game designer is intelligent enough to handle. Let's face it, WoW dev's still can't grasp why their LFG system sucks balls and have pretty much entirely given up on trying to make tanking spec's useful in pvp.

That being said...

I think the original design intent behind a lot of the VG classes had real potential. The VG Necromancer was going to be fucking awesome until they realized, "Oh wait...we can't have them running around with 30 pets when most peoples computers won't be able to handle them having none at all in the first place." I remember playing mine and walking around with 8 minions at my command. And the bug where you'd get all the XP in a group if your pet killed the mob was awesome. "XP here sucks." "What are you talking about, I've dinged 3 times in the last hour fuckers, haha!"

The original Sorcerer before they said, "fuck it...let's just copy the WoW mage and be done with it" when they were going to design elemental chains and shifting elemental focus to achieve devestating results.

The original mockups for a lot of VG classes had real potential, real interest. But as with everything else in that game, the scope was too large and the people in charge retards.

Honorable mention to the diplomacy sphere though. Not necessarily a class per se, but this is definitely a step in the right direction as far as 'alternates to just whacking shit with a stick all day' mmo gameplay goes. My penis gets hard just thinking what a competant development team could do with it.