Coming back to AO- I could use some help choosing a class

[Kassiandra]

Hello

I'm an old-time AO player, I'm excited to see the game getting some love from the developers. I've come back a few times over the years for short spells but this time I felt excited to give AO a real long haul go.

I'm having trouble settling on a class. Maybe some of you more experienced players out there can make a suggestion.

My original 2001 character was a doctor and inspired my love of healers through many MMO's. However I've been playing AO for a couple of weeks now and I've spent more time sitting LFT than I have doing anything else. It's depressing and frustrating and I've decided to throw in the towel and try a new class.

What I like:
I like bringing support to teams. I want a team to be glad to have me not feel like they're dragging me along for no good reason. I know being a good player and fun comrade in arms should be enough but usually people are also looking for a more tangible benefit.

I need to be able to solo effectively. No one likes not being able to get things done in their limited amount of play time, teams seem to be few and far between and therefore soloing more of a necessity than a luxury.

What I dislike:
I'm not a pvper at all so I don't need to put any thought into that area.
I get really edgy if I can't heal at least a little bit, heals are my security blanket.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this and for your consideration.
I'm looking forward to hearing some suggestions.

Thanks!

[Cratertina]

Shade.

Can damage, can tank, can solo, can init debuff support can heal... Cannot pvp. Perfect for your wishes. And not to hard to gear. Go opi for the win.

It has emergency heal. And hp drains.

[sultryvoltron]

Disclaimer: I do not have an Advy, Crat, or Trader but team with them often.

I'm going to recommend Advy. The recent rework/rebalance has actually left them in one of the best spots they have been in for years as far as PvM goes.

It sounds like an advy does everything you want. You can heal, DD, or tank effectively, you have some CC abilities, you can solo most things that people want to solo, you can go melee or ranged, you have great access to symbs, the perk lines that advys get minimize gaps in your gear.

I would also consider an Engi. Recent buffs have turned Engis into a very capable single target tank and soloer. You provide reflects and very high damage which are always welcome in PvM. You also have some very minor self-healing. They can do all this while being able to tradeskill.

Crat is the ubiquitous pvm love child. You will have no problems getting teams as a crat, they are mandatory in any small group pvm, and can solo with the best of them even without heals.

Trader is also worth considering. They do respectable damage at 220, have a great toolset for soloing, have a great toolset for teaming, have heals, and can tradeskill.

[Kassiandra]

Thank you both for the replies- Im going to try all these classes out on Arete and see which one I like! =]

[Awikun]

I ll add my comments as well:

Shade is great fun and perfect soloer but it really start to shine at mid/high levels and only if its well geared, which is not easy to do if you do not have high level alts to farm spirits and/or buy top leveling gear. I would not recomend it as your 1st character unless you have a lot of credits or few good friends in AO.

Advy was my first character and main for many years. It meets all your requirement and is easy to level and good soloer. The only weak point is that when you reach level 220 the best choice for adv is to become pvper. In pvm at 220 adv is only minor support and not best DD so is never needed in "perfect team/raid" for any end game instance.

Martial Artist is very similar to adv, also meets your requirements and have the same problem at level 220. One more advantage of MA is that up to level 150 he can use only bare hands as weapons and his dammage goes up with every level without need of buying new weapons.

Trader is also a good choice however bit more difficult to gear up and level as he needs to frequently update his nanos and gear.

What is also worth of planing is your next 220 (which you can start to level at the same time) and for this I would suggest one of key professions for end game instances: Doc, Enf, Sold or Crat. You would have to spend some time leveling them to around level 50 and then you can take an easy and time efficient way of leveling which is only to do all daily missions every day that you play. Daily missions are quite fast to complete and give huge amount of XP as reward. I have leveled some alts up to level 220/30/70 by only doing daily missions. On average it takes 20-30 minutes a day to complete every daily mission and about 9-12 month to hit 220 unless you log 4-6 times a week.

[Aiken]

Roll a Crat!

[Masterengi]

For a prof you want to take to 220 I highly suggest engineer, as stated their pvm abilities since 18.8 have drastically improved. I myself have a 220/29/69 engi and I make most of my creds soloing mitaar and AI raids. I have been able to solo all of alb including the pocket bosses without issue as well. best part is you dont need to be fully geared on an engi to solo you just need to be 220. also in my setup I can TS ql 300 ai armor while still providing a huge DD and support boost to a team through reflects and shields.

[Cratertina]

Infact there are now many good professions, and none are really bad. But some are very expensive to make good.

[Nycrow]

Can I ask a little more detail on your Doctor?
You may have the correct class and I hate for a 2001 era Doc to be left abandoned without due consideration.
Also certainly org and your desired activity make a giant impact on what your time in game will feel like.

In an active org a Doctor is going to find work. An org-less or small org Doc will have more trouble of coarse.

[sultryvoltron]

Can I ask a little more detail on your Doctor?
You may have the correct class and I hate for a 2001 era Doc to be left abandoned without due consideration.
Also certainly org and your desired activity make a giant impact on what your time in game will feel like.

In an active org a Doctor is going to find work. An org-less or small org Doc will have more trouble of coarse.

I only sort of agree with this.

I have a 220 Doctor, 220 Agent, and 220 Engineer. Here are some of my observations:

Doctor is almost mandatory for certain PvM encounters and therefore very useful to have one (Beast, APF, 12man, certain team comps for Collector)
Doctor is subpar for all other PvM encounters.

Agent is the best prof for Albatrum, no competition. It can do OK for any other PvM in many roles, but I think not as well as my Engi.

I find myself playing my Engi the most these days. I can use the Engi to solo Mitaar, or in a small group (Engi + Crat, or Engi Crat Advy, Engi Crat MP, etc) tank Vort, tank TNH, tank Collector, tank DB1, tank DB2, tank Gauntlet, etc.

The rebalance has made so many more professions viable that my org is doing almost everything without a Doctor these days. Very few other profs are this versatile. I feel that the ones listed above (Shade, Crat, Engi, Advy, and to a lesser extent Trader) are the most versatile PvM professions in the game. Doc, while valuable, is simply not that versatile.

[Nycrow]

Is his Doc 220, in an org, well equipped?

Or 197, gimpo and in an org that died while he was away from the game.

The entirety of the game is not at level 220 and indeed heavily influences my advice to tell someone to re-roll their primary class. He is seeking such but like all of us at times, could just be in a slump.
If AI levels and research are low it can influence greatly your solo ability and he may or may not be feeling that.
He states a couple of times his proclivity for healing.

I guess I always liked knowing the whole story before sending someone down a path.

[Aloxe-Corton]

I get really edgy if I can't heal at least a little bit, heals are my security blanket.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this and for your consideration.
I'm looking forward to hearing some suggestions.
Thanks!

Because it is imperative for you to play a prof with healing abilities, the choice is rather short : doctor, adventurer, MA and trader.

Keepers too can heal, but not directly, just via their auras.

[Cratertina]

If you still have doc, gear it and join active org. While most stuff can be done without doc... Most content does benefit from having good doc.

Afterall doc is the best healer. If you are omni 159+ ill be happy to help you level.

[Kassiandra]

Wow- thank you all for the insights and input!

A little more about the doc as requested:

Omni, Level 161, looks like our org has been gone for at least a decade.
Solitus
Dual pistol, one CDR (can't believe you can use 2 now!), one OET CO Jess for the +20 Int/Psy
QL 195-200 Imps from RK
Skills & Imps focused on Heals/Buffs first, then pistols, also a fairly good pharmacist and nano programmer
She was wearing QL 200 Biomech (I know.. it used to be good I swear!) until I re-subbed a couple weeks ago- shes wearing the luxury armor set now because even a retired char deserves dignity lol
One Pad of interest (I think you can get a second one now?)
SL perks, no alien levels yet but its available
350ish tokens (100's upon 100's of missions- but back then only the mission roller got the token. Remember key duping your team into your missions in broken shores? heheh)
I'm not sure what else to put in, shes got a layer of dust on her but you all have me excited to think about dusting her off, I always felt bad she never made it to the end.

Thank you for the kind offer to group, I'd be excited to give it a go for sure! =]
I've been trying out trader on Kassiandra since I got some replies to this post about classes to try, if anyone wants to see a very rusty & dusty doc in action just give me a poke in game

[McKnuckleSamwich]

wtf are engies on these days that they are offering reflects and DD, or Reflects and DD and shields...

Are people who play engies blind to DVP? (Pardon the pun)

It's the MOST OP debuff in game, and nobody mentions it? WTF.

On topic, it sounds like your problem is org related.

If you're sitting on LFT, you're carrying over a perception from other games that you will provide value to a team, one of which might even *need* you. The reality is that if you're not doing org activities, nobody knows who you are, and there is a huge amount of weird impersonal stigma attached to being unknown. It's not impossible to get a team, but if you're lower level than optimal and people don't know that you're geared up and know what you're doing, the automatic assumption is that anyone on LFT is 9 times out of 10 a power-levelled gimp with no concept of how to play his prof.

Hence, the best thing to do is join a good org that has enough people doing stuff at any time to join in and actually create friendships that will persist throughout your toons life and into broader gameplay, (i.e. not just "thanx4theteam. bye!") Repetition in teaming builds rapport as you know and you'll get that in a decent sized org.

Are you clan or Omni?

If you're clan, I welcome you to check out our website and see if what AP has to offer seems agreeable to you.www.athenpaladins.org

Good luck!
If you're clan, I'll refer you to

[Cratertina]

Hit me up ingame, playing mostly Brucegeez or Mrgeez these days. I'll help you out with gear and levels. work on your main. 161 is pretty much sweet level where you can ungimp yourself and level to 220 glory.

[Nycrow]

I have to agree with what others have posted. It is all about the crowd you run with and a few good orgmates or comrades makes the game a different one, especially for a Doc.
The trader can be nice too! Honestly all of the classes can with the right org or mates.

[Kassiandra]

Thank you all very much for the help and the guild suggestions and all the advice

I've got the old doc out of mothball and she's off on her journey with a new org and some new friends!

The one thing I'm so happy to see hasn't changed is the AO community- you guys are all still awesome and I'm so glad to be home =]

[Tinypain]

All these replies and not a single shout out for the keeper profession. I would highly recommend a keeper for any new/returning player looking for solo/teamability. The auras are great for both, but I find since they revamped the aura of revival perk line the soloability has gone way up during progressive leveling. The rest of the auras are instant team benefits. You also have decent perk heals, above average evades, good to above average damage. The ofab armor is considered one of the best sets in the game for the keeper profession so this can make it a very affordable class to play. The 2he weapon line is excellent and has abundant choices from TL1 to TL7.

If you end up starting fresh....start with a keeper!

[Awikun]

You forgot to add that keeper is also:
1. The easiest to play character
2. The most boring to play character

Thats why I would not recomend keeper to anybody that is looking for fun and challange.