Was wondering a few things. Is it honestly worth the 10 bucks plus 15 a month to play this game still? Is it horribly dead? What are the top DPS classes, and are they relatively easy to solo? Any feedback would be awesome. So bored with WoW and Rift and EQ2. I remember loving Vanguard, but at the time my computer sucked so it wasn't a great playing experience.

Telon still has quite a good population. I think if you join a guild there you will find enough people to party with, possibly even raid. Right now, Halgar is more for people who can stand soloing, but I heard a german guild wants to move in with raid power.

Top DPS classes are: Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid (best spike dps), Bard (I would guess, at least Bard dps was great when I left 2 years ago, no idea if that changed).

Top Solist classes are: Dread Knight (gets area of effect lifetap which makes him crazy good against groups, can fearkite), Disciple (extreme endurance at healing strong and endlessly, plus amazing dps if skilled for soloing, too), Necromancer (pet class, can also fearkite).

Plenty of other classes are really good solists too: Paladin (has trouble getting healing spells out if the mob hits really hard), Cleric (low dps and the mana problem gets really troublesome against the really tough mobs), Shaman (Bear Shaman is pretty unkillable, the other two are much more fragile but have better dps and can kite well), Blood Mage (only mage who cant kite, is dead if the mob is able to silence. Cant handle large groups of attackers).

Other classes arent as good, but can still kite: Sorcerer (can either levi or have runspeed; there are items for both though so you can have them at the same time, also has strong slow effects including a shorttime rootlike effect), Bard (extreme runspeed, levi, slow effects, but not much ranged damage), Ranger (runspeed, snare, very good ranged damage esp if skilled for it), Druid (levi, best runspeed buff in game but not as fast as Bard, snare, root), Psio (sh**load of CC), Rogue (reportedly still gets runspeed).

If you want solo abilities, stay away from Warrior and Monk. Compared to what I had with my Shillien Elder in Lineage 2 (at high level, he got slaughtered by gray mobs that wouldnt have given him xp even if he managed to kill them), they are awesome solists that can, with great gear, still manage a 3-dot, or 2 2-dots, with a downtime afterwards. But compared to what other classes in Vanguard offer - no, not really.

I also would like to add that there are other factors, too. Several classes get stealth (Rogue, Ranger, Wolf Shaman) or Invis (Bard, Blood Mage, Sorcerer, Psionicist, Dread Knight in a shorttimed manner) or, much less useful, Invis vs Undead (Bard, Cleric, Necromancer), Fake Death (Monk, Disciple, Necromancer - very useful to pass groups of opponents fast or to survive instead of getting killed) or can drop all aggro (Peace Cleric, Druid, maybe also Psio and/or Bard ?).

And then there is the issue of CC (a ***load of that on Psio and Bard, and other classes have it to very varying degrees, too).

I'm wondering the same thing as well. I have 4 days left on my trial and am really enjoying the trial but I'm not sure in its current state if VG is worth my effort. I'm also bored sick of the MMOs coming out these days (currently subbed to RIFT until it cancel at the end of this month). VG seems interesting and I'm sure the pop will pick up because of dev support but its the pvp I think I'll miss. But I'm sure a good pve game like VG will keep my interest for awhile even though theres no pvp.

And my next decision lol. Do I play disc, shaman or cleric? Researched them all and leveled them to 10 but I can't seem to make a choice lol 

The first class I leveled all the way was Bard. That is by far one of the funnest classes of any game. It is a good soloer class, but is a much welcomed group addition because of the buffs you can bring with your songs. The lul ability is a life saver, it allows you to pull one mob at a time when surrounded by others. The run speed is ungodly amazing when paired with drums. Make sure you make a macro that equips your drums when you play the song of speed lol. You also almost get something at every level, not only every other level like most classes.

The only thing that got annoying was the fact that Sorcerers and Rangers were hitting some crazy high DPS number. I am a bit of a DPS junky so after seeing the numbers they were hitting I went sorcerer  for my first alt. All I can say is holy crap, they have some serious power. But they are very squishy lol. You will fly through the lower levels and can take on mobs much migher than yourself if you can get the kite fighting down.

If you really like soloing and feeling engaged in the combat I would reccomend Disciple. The dps is not the highest by any means but your ability to stay alive with HOT's and instant heals while doing decent dps make the experience a great one. Disciples dont get fun till lvl 10, so if you are playing them on the Isle of Dawn and thinking they kind of suck, I reccomend getting to lvl 10 then cast some judgement.

Some advantages/disadvantages

Bard

Pro - Soloing, Run Speed, Great Buffs, CC, always welcome in groups,fun making new songs.

Con - medium DPS , jack of all trades - master of none

Sorcerer

Pro - DPS!, Run enchantment at later levels, did i mention DPS!

Con - Squishy! Groups fill DPS slots quick, some sorcerers pull agro to much because they cant controll DPS

Disciple

Pro - Great Soloing, good at targeted healing, groups always need healers, very involved combat

Con - lower DPS, not main healer for groups, though some people use them and do fine

I'm currently playing a Disciple on Telon. I think it is one of the most uniques and fun classes ever created in MMORPGS.

Don't know much about the other 2, but I played extensively with friends playing clerics and shaman, have to say both of them were great healers. Maybe shaman is a little more geared towards damage, while cleric seems to have more heals/buffs/utilities.

Just pick the one that inspires you most, there are no "wrong" choices as long as you have fun.

Originally posted by X-Apocalypse

Bard

Pro - Soloing, Run Speed, Great Buffs, CC, always welcome in groups,fun making new songs.

Con - medium DPS , jack of all trades - master of none

Sorcerer

Pro - DPS!, Run enchantment at later levels, did i mention DPS!

Con - Squishy! Groups fill DPS slots quick, some sorcerers pull agro to much because they cant controll DPS

Disciple

Pro - Great Soloing, good at targeted healing, groups always need healers, very involved combat

Con - lower DPS, not main healer for groups, though some people use them and do fine

What gives you the idea that Bard is "jack of all trades" ? Bards are tooboxes with simply unfair dps. A raid geared Bard, not even one of the best ones, does more than 60% increase to group dps. They also do extreme amounts of dps themselves. I dont see how that constitutes a "jack of all trades".

On top of that, they have the wellknown set of features, such as runspeed and massive CC, second best to only Psionicist.

Whats true is that the Bards performance when solo is much less good, because they have to kite and their ranged damage isnt that high. But they rarely need to solo in the first place, they are highly wanted in groups.

About Sorc: every dps can pull aggro, I dont think thats much of an argument. Main issue with Sorcs is having the space to stay away at max range for reduced aggro ... thats sadly often not possible. Thus Rogues often outdps them because they have no such issue - they are designed to stand close to the mob.

About Disc: Err ... are you kidding ? Disc can be great main healers. Of course if you skill them +4 Str, +4 Dex, +2 Vit, like so many people do, you cant complain their healing is not as good as if you would skill them +2 Str, +4 Vit, +4 Wis. And even the first one still does good healing.

Originally posted by Hyrim

Don't know much about the other 2, but I played extensively with friends playing clerics and shaman, have to say both of them were great healers. Maybe shaman is a little more geared towards damage, while cleric seems to have more heals/buffs/utilities.

As I am playing both a Cleric and a Shaman, I cannot agree with this description.

Shaman is rather the one with the better buffs, and especially and definitely the one with more utility. Clerics are the ones with the good general heals, and good general buffs, though.

At the core, Clerics are tankish healers with a great set of general heals, including at level 50 an instant cast 8 second recast tank heal (about 10k HP instant, at level 50), but with a serious mana problem if constant high endurance healing is needed (any other of the healers is better for that than the Cleric).

What the Shaman lacks in comparison to the Cleric is good HoTs and good defense. Their best heal, a good reactive heal - they cant even cast that on themselves. On the other hand, Shaman gets a ton of debuffs. All that Clerics get in comparison is a damage debuff.

But what a Cleric or a Shaman really is depends also a lot upon the subclass they choose.

Clerics have 5 subclasses, called Affinities:

- War (straightforward increased melee damage including a stance that improves damage even more)

- Death (additional spell damage + fearkite ability + accuracy debuff + magic dps stanced with massively reduced healing)

- Peace (instant cast no recast time root, various deaggro capabilities including a kind of improved invisibility on self and a total aggro drop on group, damage debuff)

- Preservation (improved defenses, including a stance that adds +15% to block and immunity to stun)

- Purity (the oddball - improved damage only against undead, though against them even more massively than War, and protection from poison)

Shaman have 3 subclasses, called Totems:

- Bear (Tuurgin): Defense, Endurance buff (better than even the Cleric one)

- Rakurr (Wolf): Melee DPS, Stealth, Runspeed (better than other Shamans but not as good as Druid)

- Hayatet (Phoenix): Magic DPS, Energy Regen (not as good as Psionicist)

All these subclasses behave substantly different, even if at the core the class is the same.

Once my 45 days are up, I'll be subscribing. It's such a breath of fresh air to play a game like this again. Extremely nice and helpful community too! So yeah, I'd say it's worth it.

The wife and I are thinking of picking upt he trial to give it a try. Any suggestions for a good duo pair? Typically one of us has always been a healer.

A ranger IMO is the best solo class when they are outdoors.

If you can get the shaman phoenix mana regen buffs ahead of time before you venture out you're all set. Even with out them you're good, but with the bufs you can basically go at it non stop.

Once you get your first run speed buff and AE skill and buy a crafted bow with the mud slide effect (to slow movement speed), grab a few mobs 2 dotters for starters, just run at them and aggro them. Then all you have to do is for a forward side strafe motion going in a big circle and do your AE split arrow skill. If you can master that leveling up is quick and easy.

At level 45-50 All I ever did was go to Swamps of Rumug and kite every 3 and 4 dot mobs, pulling as much as 25 mobs at a time. All dps classes can do extreme amounts of damage, as long if you know how to cycle your skills. They have some hidden combo chains that you can develop as you get more skills. Back when I was still playing and raiding Rogues and Monks are usually on top of the dps list then rangers than sorcs. Although I did out dps some rogues and monks before but rarely. Too bad my old guild website has been taken down. They still had some old posts of DPS logs, but I never saved any of them. I'm sure some guilds out there still keep track of DPS output in their websites just gotta do a lil searching.