The List: Bill's Five Favorite MMO Classes

I can agree with the ToS.  But cmon, no FFXI?  You gotta get you sum Ninja or Blue Mage.  Phew, good times.

Bill, I like your list. Some good choices there. My list would look something like this...

5) Runekeeper LOTRO..great healing and dps. Lots of fun depending on how you spec it.

4) Bounty Hunter SWG..I felt Iconic when I played this guy. The immersive factor was amazing.

3) Assasin EQ2..The stealth mechanics of EQ2 coupled with the insane DPS made this guy one of my favs.

2) Bear Shaman..Played this guy when AoC first hit. Great heals and great DPS. AoC healing mechanics made this guy a joy to play.

1) Rogue WoW..My first (real) love (161 days played). Really introduced me to the conecpt of stealth in a MMO and the great DPS doesnt hurt too..and did I mention we're getting SMOKE BOMBS?!?! Go ninja!

Notable mentions: Blood Priest (V:SOH), Fury (EQ2), Burgler (LOTRO)

-M

I can always respect a guy with a Spike avatar - rock on monarc333

5. Dark Templar - AoC - started in Beta, nice mix of offense and defense with really cool looking weapons and armor - not to mention blood sucking life stealing magic and sword slashing.

4. Black Orc - WAR - Similar to the Iron Breaker - big, meaty, large weapons and some really good harrassment skills - kicking pansy High Elves in the jibblets was great fun.

3. Warrior - WoW - For a time, great PvP and PvE in Arms spec, charging around laying the wood with a 2H, I never liked Fury, but it's really Protection spec that took the cake. We were "the" tanks, and in PvP such an annoyance... nothing beat spell reflecting some silly mages Pyroblast. I could beat anyone in a duel as Protection spec - wearing PvE Tank gear. Shield slam ftw.

2. Commando - SWG - for a while was the most ridiculously overpowered profession in the game, but man it was fun. Grenade launchers, flame throwers, other fun heavy weapons and composite armor. Totally bad-ass.

1. Fencer/Stealther - UO - If I remember correctly, Fencer's special little trick was that occasionaly you would stun someone with your attacks. Combine that with a shield, some mail armor, stealth/sneaking, and poisons and of course an Orc helmet and you've got yourself one bad-ass PK combination.

Also like your list. ToS and MM would be in my top ten. Mine is:

1. Warshade - City of Heroes. After purple recipes came out, you had a viable tank, dps, and dps/CC in a tri-form alien-human hybrid. For those that have not played CoH, Kheldians can morph into two alien forms. It was difficult pre-Invention Enhancements to make all roles viable and still very expensive now, but I can't tell you how many people I freaked out by taking out packs of higher level foes solo on weak or hasty PUGs.

2. Herald of Xotli - Age of Conan. A two handed sword wielding mage. Need I say more?

3. Ranger - Guild Wars. A don't know why I liked GW ranger so much. Maybe, like my above two, it was the ability to fulfill multiple roles. Trapper, AoEr, CC. Maybe it was that I had a bow made out of bug legs.

4. Sapper - Tabula Rasa (RIP). Loved the sucking gun and timing required to max DPS. loved the little smart mines of which we would say on vent "set them up a bomb."

5. Assault Frigate (Wolf or Vengeance) - EVE. Is that a class? Not in the traditional sense, but in a broad sense I think it is. I like to move fast. I like being in a mob of tiny frigates taking down a battleship.

Hmm....another tough one:

5) Warden - -EQ2 -- Loved the fact that they goal was preventing dmg before taking any.

4) Warlock -- WOW -- First pet class I ever played.  Loved sending in the Voidwalker and really loved the free mount.

3) Loremaster -- LOTRO -- Who wouldn't want to be like Gandalf?

2) Guardian  -- LOTRO -- Ground and pound baby!

1) Ranger -- SWG -- Master lvl camp -- nuff said

Originally posted by Sjostromony

I can agree with the ToS.  But cmon, no FFXI?  You gotta get you sum Ninja or Blue Mage.  Phew, good times.

I don't know what Ninjas are like in FFXI, but they were way cool in FF Tactics. Ninjonk FTW!

#1 on my list, SWG's creature handler....oh yeah they removed that class, but still the most fun I have had with a class in a game.

I will have to admit, I don't really like classes to start with.

No pics for 3, or 1?! A little disappointed to see 2 in there: overplayed, albeit one might argue 'for good reason'. ToS I feel deserved higher- it really was interesting to play much less how they fit into an external approach to the class as well.

A fun list, and spurs enjoyable introspection on which classes one enjoys and why. Cheers!

5 - Mage - World of Warcraft: I played WoW back in vanilla for a few months and the class I enjoyed most was the Mage, not exactly for its combat abilities but for its other tools. Making food and drink for myself and other players was great, along with the power to teleport, create portals and moves like slow fall. Using blink to annoy my guildies was quite fun too.

4 - Warrior Priest - Warhammer online: Hammers and healing are two of my favourite things - combine them into an armoured priestly shell and I am taken. The group healing mechanics of the WP and the righteous fury method mechanic I find particularly pleasing too.

3 - Warrior - Guildwars: This was a great class with loads of options for weapon specialisations, not forgetting the tactis and strength trees. The GW warrior could also be combined well with most of the game other classes using the secondary class system, I had a Hammer based warrior/elementalist for knocking down and shocking with earth spells.

2 - Monk - Guildwars: Another GW class. The monk was great in GW again because of the variety of roles he could undertake: Straight healing, protection, or offensive smiting and he was good in all respects given the right equipment and skill setup. The thing that I really enjoyed about the monk was the extra unique roles such as bonding and 55monking.

1 - Bear Shaman - Age of Conan: This class was great, my first real experience of a truly melee based healer - not only that he uses hammers as well. I really like the conan world as it is, and the whole shamanistic / norse stlye the Cimmerian Bear Shaman has really drew me in. The healing mechanics in Age of Conan made the class a joy to play and I could even do rather well in small scale pvp. Using a melee weapon I didn't miss out on any of the cool fatalities either.  Did I mention that bears are also my favourite animal. This class is pretty much perfect for me combining all of my nerdy loves with great mechanics.

Played and enjoyed a few other mmos too such as Lineage 2 - still my nostalgic favourite and LotRO but none of the classes really stuck out for me when I was playing.

Beast Mastery Hunter during Burning Crusade

Nothing even comes close to the amount of fun it was to level and pvp as this class and spec. The arena was sort of tough, but it was always a lot of fun to play.

I have only played WoW and WH Online enough to judge, so:

1 - Mage (WoW)  I hate long travel times. If I had no other reason, I would love the Mage for those city teleport spells. It's the only class I ever got up to the current max level. It also happens to be one of the best balanced classes I have played.

2 - Warlock (WoW) If I could have only played one class in WoW, this would be the one. So much variety and techniques in this class. I hate that Blizzard is going to dumb it down in Cataclysm.

3 - Shadow Warrior (WH) Don't laugh. This is the archer WoW's Hunter should have been. Even with the wonky arrow animations, I really feel like I am drawing back that (invisible) bowstring when I shoot.

4 - Witch Hunter/ Witch Elf (WH) Both very cool looking melee DPS with a better balanced stealth mechanic than WoW's.

WH with his sword and gun MIGHT be the coolest looking character design ever. WE is both hot and deadly.

5 - Shaman (WH) Great Goblin /special emote. Interesting casting mechanic. 'nuff said.

Originally posted by peacekraft

5 - Mage - World of Warcraft: I played WoW back in vanilla for a few months and the class I enjoyed most was the Mage, not exactly for its combat abilities but for its other tools. Making food and drink for myself and other players was great, along with the power to teleport, create portals and moves like slow fall. Using blink to annoy my guildies was quite fun too.

=== damn this editor ===

By far, my favourite MMO class. As you said - great utility, and some fun tricks.

Nice list. Although, I found Ironbreaker in WAR just your typical warrior class. I agree with Death Knight as a super fun class. Just great to go in and start pulling mobs to you with death grip. Warden...while unique, I felt was annoying in that I had to memorize the abilities. Too much brain process involved there for my tastes. I would have to literally sticky all my combos and put it next to the monitor to enjoy that class.

My list is this:

5. Tempest of Set- AoC - is a ton of fun. Looks, strategy, all make the game worthwhile.

4. Bright Wizard - WAR - just love the look of these guys and the raw fire powa they bring to the table.

3. Runekeeper - Lotro - The seesaw from damage to healing makes this class a ball.

2. Blood Mage - Vanguard - Just love this class. I heal but I do a ton of damage, similar to a warlock from WoW. It rocks.

1. Mage - WoW - I know, seems to simple but I really felt this character was my favorite. Just felt right out of all the MMO's I've played and I even compare other game's wizard type classes to it. Just love blink/polymorph/teleports/food and water vending/ice, fire and arcane bolts flying from my hands!

ToS and Death Knight are a bit iffy, but I agree wholeheartedly with Ironbreaker and Warden. Good list, sir!

Just read YOUR list, OP, and what is it with your #2 picks? They seem to be chosen to elicit antagonism. DK? The worst class in WoW.

Aside from that, yeah, I was an alt-aholic in Warhammer, too. At one point (before the server slashes), I had 70+ T2 alts. You heard me. WH Online is a great game for rerolls. T1 is great & T3/T4 suck.

I love the Dwarves in WH Online. Frikkin HATE that mount, though.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Just read YOUR list, OP, and what is it with your #2 picks? They seem to be chosen to elicit antagonism. DK? The worst class in WoW.

Aside from that, yeah, I was an alt-aholic in Warhammer, too. At one point (before the server slashes), I had 70+ T2 alts. You heard me. WH Online is a great game for rerolls. T1 is great & T3/T4 suck.

I love the Dwarves in WH Online. Frikkin HATE that mount, though.

Holy crap me and Doubter agree on something. Gyrocopters are not friendly to precious cargo, as I mentioned in another thread.

Still, I'd rather see them in those than riding unicorns or some other nonsense. While it's a stretch of lore and imagination, perhaps a "beermobile" could work as an alternative mount.

Originally posted by Comnitus

Holy crap me and Doubter agree on something. Gyrocopters are not friendly to precious cargo, as I mentioned in another thread.

Still, I'd rather see them in those than riding unicorns or some other nonsense. While it's a stretch of lore and imagination, perhaps a "beermobile" could work as an alternative mount.

A beer-powered minibike would have been better than what they chose.

My favourite MMO classes are:

1) Age of Conan - Demonologist (I love lighting a guy on fire and hearing his screams until he keels over dead.)

2) City of Villains - Mastermind (can't wait for Demon Summoning so I can mix my fave AoC class with my favourite CoH/V class!)

3) FFXI - Red Mage (this was a super tough class to play, but there were maybe three of us on my server so I felt unique.)

4) Lord of the Rings Online - Minstral (made even more fun by the music system and the fact that Minstrals can play every instrument.)

5) World of Warcraft - Paladin (this class may have been nerfed to death and neglected by Blizz for most of its life, but I still felt noble and brave when I played my paladin. This should have been a hero class.)

5) Necromancer - DAoC - Pure PvE killing machine.  How many classes in any game can kill 20 equal level mobs at once?

4) Tempest of Set - AoC - Finally a healer that wasn't a wuss.

3) Infiltrator - DAoC - Nothing like walking right up to an elf caster and stabbing him in the neck and hearing his death scream.

2) Loremaster - LotRO - Just a cool class.  Magic, melee, CC, pets...you name it.

1) Jedi - Pre CU SWG - Freakin Jedi!  You know, before they were average Joes.  Nevermind the fact they never should have been in the game in the first place.

Sorry wow druids beat any other wow class.

Name a class that can 1) Tank 2) Melee DPS 3) Ranged DPS and 4) heal :P

Now, thats why I've only had one top level character for 5 years :P don't need anything else :)

I have to say I have a warden in LOTRO and love it.

It's not even about the gambit system so much as it is about being ranged and tough. This is the first class in any game where I love the idea of using a spear. That coupled with the sort of "300" use of the shield and the whole thing feels right to me.

I'll never be any good at it as I have problems memorizing the gambits and am always firing off something that I didn't intend to. However, since I just play it for my own edification I don't intend to wreck anyone's party anytime soon.

My other classes taht I've loved:

LOTRO Guardian

My Lineage 2 Spellhowler.

My Destroyer subclass in Lineage 2 as I like how dark elves wield the huge swords

my Warhammer Sword Master. I realize it isn't the end all and be all but it just feels right to me.

Aion Sorcerer

Originally posted by Xondar123

5) World of Warcraft - Paladin (this class may have been nerfed to death and neglected by Blizz for most of its life, but I still felt noble and brave when I played my paladin. This should have been a hero class.)

Do you feel noble and brave when you bubble yourself? I despise Paladins for that bubble. Bubble someone else, fine. That's heroic. Bubble yourself - and be able to move, cast, attack, or hearth home? Cowardly.

Hybrid classes suck for balance.

Originally posted by Dalmont

Sorry wow druids beat any other wow class.

 

Name a class that can 1) Tank 2) Melee DPS 3) Ranged DPS and 4) heal :P

 

Now, thats why I've only had one top level character for 5 years :P don't need anything else :)

Right, exactly - overpowered class. No way one class should be able to be a top performer at more than one role. Hybrid classes suck for balance.

Lots of good ones... great post!

Lessee...

5.  AoC - Tempest of Set:  for most of the reasons Bill mentioned.

4.  CoV - Stalker:  For those who like to take out 1.8 mobs before they even know you're there...

3.  Lotro- Hunter:  Travel Powers and major DPS to boot.  Great for the impatient gamer in me.  I'd love to see more oil options, though.

2.  Lotro- Runekeeper:  Killing them softly with your words... so many options they're hard to keep track of.

1.  AoC:  Herald of Xotli:  If being able to wield a massive two handed sword while making everyone near you burst into flames isn't enough, you can also transform into a Cthulu inspired killing machine.  Still not enough?  4 words.  I EAT YOUR HEART.

Alrighty then.

5. Shadow Warrior (Warhamer Online) - like above mentioned, don't laugh. Despite it ultimately being a mechanically impossible class to balance, I really liked it's versatility while at the same time being a pure DPS class, only with varying range and types of damage. One of my main beefs about SW is that it never got to dual wield while I was still playing WAR.

4. Mage (WoW) - sheer elemental ranged power and ability to summon your own food/drinks made Mage my favorite class in WoW, despite it not necessarily being the best incarnation of the "glass DPS" archtype (that goes to Bright Wizard). Portals also added to this and led to many great social interactions on my old RP servers in vanilla.

3. Barbarian (Age of Conan) - this was a no-brainer for me when I started playing AoC (although I didn't last), being a fan of IP and all that. I know Conan was actually a master of multi-classing, but a DW Barbarian decked in fur lined leather armor just clicked with me from the get-go (intro also sold me) and AoC's combat system really made you feel every blow you made leading to dynamic combat.

2. Warrior Priest (Warhammer Online) - a healer on the frontline? I was already sold, let aside that I'm an insane fan of Warhammer Fantasy and Empire on it's own. WP was great because of it's iconic look, focus on hammers and being insanely OP in Tier 1 (I remember you could easily take posts solo) AND thanks to WAR's interesting take on dual targetting healing wasn't as much of a chore like in other MMOs.

1. Bruiser (Everquest 2) - an evil monk capable of both DPS and off-tanking sounds interesting on it's own (and it is), but what really landed this on the 1st spot is a surprisingly shallow reason - it has AWESOME combat animations. Seriously, probably the best combat animations I've ever seen in an MMO because they actually look so out of place in a fantasy MMO with it's martial execution, especially if you play as Kerra. Loved it.

My favorite 5 would be:

#5 - Shadow Knight (from EQ1)

#4 - Dread Knight (from Vanguard)

#3 - Necromancer (from EQ2)

#2 - Paladin (from WoW)

#1 - Disciple (from Vanguard)

These classes probably won`t make a lot of peoples top 5, but I enjoyed playing these a lot.

Originally posted by Methos12

2. Warrior Priest (Warhammer Online) - a healer on the frontline? I was already sold, let aside that I'm an insane fan of Warhammer Fantasy and Empire on it's own. WP was great because of it's iconic look, focus on hammers and being insanely OP in Tier 1 (I remember you could easily take posts solo) AND thanks to WAR's interesting take on dual targetting healing wasn't as much of a chore like in other MMOs.

=== damn this editor ===

For sure - the dual targetting made healing & DPSing SO much easier than in WoW, for example. One night, I played in T1 in a  group of four WPs, and it was scary how effective it was. We were a wrecking crew.

1. Feral Intendant AC2

2. Defender AC2

3. Berserker AC2

4. Zealot AC2

5. Every other class in AC2

Sorcerer, Enchanter, Alchemist, Ranger, Bounty Hunter, Elementalist, Sage Raider, Tactician, Juggernaut,Healer, Invoker,           Claw Bearer, Hive Keeper

Have no clue what they are? look them up. They all were pretty good. To bad the game is gone.

Some of my favorite -

EQ2 - melee warden

LotRO - lore-master, warrior-skald minstrel

WoW - feral druid, shaman

Aion - spirit master

Originally posted by Xondar123

My favourite MMO classes are:

1) Age of Conan - Demonologist (I love lighting a guy on fire and hearing his screams until he keels over dead.)

2) City of Villains - Mastermind (can't wait for Demon Summoning so I can mix my fave AoC class with my favourite CoH/V class!)

3) FFXI - Red Mage (this was a super tough class to play, but there were maybe three of us on my server so I felt unique.)

4) Lord of the Rings Online - Minstral (made even more fun by the music system and the fact that Minstrals can play every instrument.)

5) World of Warcraft - Paladin (this class may have been nerfed to death and neglected by Blizz for most of its life, but I still felt noble and brave when I played my paladin. This should have been a hero class.)

I've been nerfed, I'm a paladin, and i still kick ass ;)

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Methos12

2. Warrior Priest (Warhammer Online) - a healer on the frontline? I was already sold, let aside that I'm an insane fan of Warhammer Fantasy and Empire on it's own. WP was great because of it's iconic look, focus on hammers and being insanely OP in Tier 1 (I remember you could easily take posts solo) AND thanks to WAR's interesting take on dual targeting healing wasn't as much of a chore like in other MMOs.

=== damn this editor ===

For sure - the dual targetting made healing & DPSing SO much easier than in WoW, for example. One night, I played in T1 in a  group of four WPs, and it was scary how effective it was. We were a wrecking crew.

Indeed. I've always found it almost impossible to play as healer in any other MMO after WAR and it's dual targeting system. It's just very handy and should be a freaking standard by now... MMOs always seem to nick things from their competition, so why not take one thing that actually works?

1. Magician: EQ 1
2. Conjurer: EQ2
3. Mastermind: CoH (robots / dark, I'll be rerolling demons / dark soon)
4. Mystic: EQ 2
5. Shaman: Vanguard

So sad to see so few lists with any classes or games from before 2005. CoH was the exception here. Why no EQ1, DAoC, SWG classes? 

5. Monk (EQ) first class ever played holds a special spot in top 5.

4. Reaver (DAoC) Tank + lifetap = epic!

3. Minstrel (DAoC) so so dps but was a blast.

2. Shadowblade (DAoC) PAing people with a 2her always fun!

1. Skald (DAoC) Simply the best class ever.

Its sad to me that there really hasn't been a skald type class in any other game.

Great list, agree with pretty much most of em, although I'm not quite sure if the Mastermind deserved a spot there. If anything, a good pet class I'd choose is the Engineer from AO. The original idea was great: being able to make a badass robot to fight and using your trade skills to tune its stats with trimmers.

Rather than the Mastermind, I'd personally put the Mesmer in its stead, one of my favourites. Blue magic from MTG tight-packed in a RPG class, what else can you ask for?

Bill,

I still cant believe you put auto assault in your best mmos of all time.

Originally posted by Robsolf

 

4.  CoV - Stalker:  For those who like to take out 1.8 mobs before they even know you're there...

Yeah, this is my second favourite CoH/V class, I love the stealth element and the assassination kills.

Originally posted by Bruise187

1. Feral Intendant AC2

2. Defender AC2

3. Berserker AC2

4. Zealot AC2

5. Every other class in AC2

Sorcerer, Enchanter, Alchemist, Ranger, Bounty Hunter, Elementalist, Sage Raider, Tactician, Juggernaut,Healer, Invoker,           Claw Bearer, Hive Keeper

Have no clue what they are? look them up. They all were pretty good. To bad the game is gone.

You need to try new games. :P

Love your choices OP:)

My alltime favorite Class would have to be my Battle Mage from Asheron's Call that was specialized in Melee and War Magic.

You can't even BEGIN to fathom how cool it was to jump into a Olthio or Tusker cave from above and drop them all with 3 or 4 Magic Ring spells. I could drop a dozen foes surrounding me and I was a Mage!! A squishy!!

And seeing a beautiful ring of fire or lightning emanate from my body and radiate outwards causing massive destruction made me feel like a God! ! The bodies dropped in heaps around me in a circle. It was almost biblical in it's power.

1- AC BattleMage

2 WoW Hunter- so many cool pets to tame

3 LoTRO Hunter-taxi and DPS

4 LoTRO LoreMaster-sparkleys and pets

5 LoTRO Burg- for the CC and stealth

my2c,

Lori

My top 5. 

5. Druid - Vanguard. First caster I ever enjoyed. Tons of utility spells. I could turn into a tree to regain mana, a wolf to run across the lands, I had feather fall, and these awesome real time weather based spells. 

4. Blaster - City of Heroes - I used knockback a lot, much to the frustration of my friends. I would toss mobs off of buildings, into walls all over the place. The use of physX tech really helped the game. 

3. Infiltrator - Dark Age of Camelot - Your typical MMO stealther, It was great fun in the battlegrounds popping spell casters and then running off none the wiser.

2. Armsman - Dark Age of Camelot - Now THIS, is a tank. Realistic looting plate mail, every medieval weapon you could think of, pole arms, two handed swords, scrimitars, glaives, longswords, bastard swords, tower shields, bucklers, crossbows, a true master of arms, wearing a full plate helm. Due to the complexity of the Dark Age of Camelot class system you could either make yourself a complete wrecking ball on the battlefield, or a defensive wall, and anything in between. 

1. Scout - Dark Age of Camelot. The best archery class in any MMO I've ever seen. This is a class that took complete and total skill to play. A good scout, that knows his limitations and surroundings, could hold a keep against 18 attackers at once by himself. Various types of arrows (that you thankfully ACTUALLY had to carry with you) and once again, depending on your spec you could be a powerful fighter with good bow utility, or you could be really sneaky, or a sniper. It was a blast. 

Originally posted by Xondar123

Originally posted by Bruise187

1. Feral Intendant AC2

2. Defender AC2

3. Berserker AC2

4. Zealot AC2

5. Every other class in AC2

Sorcerer, Enchanter, Alchemist, Ranger, Bounty Hunter, Elementalist, Sage Raider, Tactician, Juggernaut,Healer, Invoker,           Claw Bearer, Hive Keeper

Have no clue what they are? look them up. They all were pretty good. To bad the game is gone.

You need to try new games. :P

New games are not really anywhere near as good. 

5. FFXI - White Mage

4. FFXI - Ranger

3. FFXI- Summoner

2. Anarchy Online - Meta-Physicist

1. FFXI - Dragoon

5. Shadow Priest - World of Warcraft

4. Assassin - Age of Conan

3. Mage - Maple Story: I know some people will say: WTF is that doing in his list!? Well, it was on of my first MMO's, and I loved it.

2. Dirge - Everquest II

1. Captain - Lord of the Rings Online

All the 5 are of the more 'popular' MMO's, but those where the ones I had most fun with. 

My top 5 list.

5. Mage: WoW

4. Cleric: Vanguard

3. Barbarian: Age of Conan

2. Wizard: EQ1

1. Rogue: EQ1

5. Loremaster - LoTRO

4. Squig herder - WAR

3. Necro - AoC

2. Beastlord - EQ1

1. White Lion - WAR

(I like pets, sue me)

5. Warden - EQ2 (After AA's were implemented)

4. Cleric - EQ1

3. Mastermind - COV

2. Shaman - WoW

1. Mage - EQ1 (Best class ever. There has never been an equal)

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Xondar123

Originally posted by Bruise187

1. Feral Intendant AC2

2. Defender AC2

3. Berserker AC2

4. Zealot AC2

5. Every other class in AC2

Sorcerer, Enchanter, Alchemist, Ranger, Bounty Hunter, Elementalist, Sage Raider, Tactician, Juggernaut,Healer, Invoker,           Claw Bearer, Hive Keeper

Have no clue what they are? look them up. They all were pretty good. To bad the game is gone.

You need to try new games. :P

New games are not really anywhere near as good. 

"New" as in "games he's never played before." :P

The following are my three favorites:

1 - Burglar/LOTRO - was completely addicted to stealth + burgle skill - I know, quite sad;

2 - HoX/AoC - it's a very hectic/fun class to play - better watch it though - not much survivability if you aggro too much too quickly;

3 - Paladin/WoW - great hybrid class - could tank AND heal myslef effectively in dungeons... so not sure what the "nerf" talk is all about.

Other games such as Guild Wars, Aion, Warhammer, Start Trek, etc. had no standout class for me.

Great list and discussion!  Mine would be:

5. Science Officer - STO

4. Zealot - WAR

3. Burglar - LOTRO

2. Rogue - WoW

1. Chosen - WAR

Honorable Mentions: Guardian - LOTRO; Hunter and Mage - WoW; Darkness Skillset - CO; Assassin - Aion; Shadowknight and Berserker - EQ; Guardian - AoC; Tactical Officer - STO; Scrappers and Masterminds - CoX; Magus and Squig Herder - WAR.

Don't know if I totally agree with all of the top five but I certainly do agree with the Warden for LOTRO.  That was a great class to play in that game.

Guild Wars Mesmer, because their power came from telling everyone else to bugger off

In no particular order:

1. Skald- DAOC

2. Any Class- Asheron's Call 1

3. Trickster - The Chronicles of Spellborn

4. Warlock - World of Warcraft

and I can't think of a fifth off-hand.

No mention of the Animist from DAoC? A multiple stationary "turret" (Pet) class? It was awesome!

My fav class is AoC Herold of Xotli. Not only do you get to choose mele attacks/caster full of firey goodness, you can also morph into this!

AoC has many cool classes that don't just follow the norm. Game with the coolest class selection I vote for AoC.

Honorable mention to the old unlockable Jedi class in SWG, and Dark Melee/super reflex scrapper in CoH. 

Top 5 in no order...

Dark Templar - AoC

Scrapper - CoH

Shadow Knight - EQ2

Paladin - WoW

Tactician - AC2

#5 Warlock - World of Warcraft: This was really my intro to MMORPGs, when I played on my brother's account for a bit. I'm always a fan of dark-based magic that's not automatically evil, so flinging Darkbolts all around was something really entertaining.

#4 Loremaster - Lord of the Rings Online: I went after the Loremaster because I was interested in powerful debuffs, and it didn't disappoint. Though I never became powerful enough to completely freeze enemies or the like, it was nonetheless satisfying to drain my opponent's health with several spells and then beat him to death with a flaming staff.

#3 Death Knight - World of Warcraft: This one I started up when a friend demanded that I play with her. The Death Knight was a quick way to get back into the game and really see how far the game had come. Ice-based attacks are awlays a place for a mage as well, so I was pretty happy.

#2 Assassin - Ragnarok Online: A class that let's me disappear at will, move around while invisible, and dual-wield katars? Sign me up please. The Assassin combines everything I like about stealthy rogue characters into one fun-to-play class.

#1 Custom Class - Champions Online: Reall? A class built from the ground up just the way I want, with the ability to customize nearly every aspect of my abilities? Ding! We have a winner! No system has come close to offering the amount of customization and personalization that Champions Online did.

Really, any sort of custom class trumps all.

I prefer classes from the old school games that were more specialized than today's do everything classes so with that in mind.

5) Fury from Shadowbane - Personal and Group Flight, need I say more?

4) Wizard from Lineage 1 - You had to decide what points to put in while creating your avatar, and I went for a Bugbear wizzy and loved the way my pets rocked the world

3)  Silver Ranger from Lineage 2 - My favorite archer from any game, was mad strong in the early days of the game.

2)  Theurigist from DAOC - Best all around caster in any game, loved the elemental pet attacks that kept killing their opponent even after the Theuri died.

1)  Minstrel from DAOC - Hey with 44 classes in one game, it deserves 2 slots.  I loved my Minstrel in the early days of DAOC, could do decent crowd control, provide the best run speed in the game, and stealth too, what wasn't to love. And I knew how to twist.... not many gamers even know what that is any more.

5) Healer (DAOC)

4) Archer with Life and Item (AC)

3) Commando Profession (SWG)

2) Creature Handler Profession (SWG)

1) Doctor Profession (SWG

1. The Doctor in SWG before the NGE.  I liked the fact that you could make your own supplies.  I had harvesters everywhere. Great times.  And no I did not sit outside of starports selling buffs,

2. Breaucrat in Anarchy online.  Great class for missions.  You had a pet and could mind control one of the mobs to fight for you.

3. Martial Artist in Anarchy Online.  Simple easy to play and had some nice heals.  You did not have to worry much about weapons.

4. Frost mage in WOW.  Fun class.  Ports.

5. Trader in Anarchy Online.  What can I say they are a money factory with their buffs.

Originally posted by Xondar123

Originally posted by Bruise187

1. Feral Intendant AC2

2. Defender AC2

3. Berserker AC2

4. Zealot AC2

5. Every other class in AC2

Sorcerer, Enchanter, Alchemist, Ranger, Bounty Hunter, Elementalist, Sage Raider, Tactician, Juggernaut,Healer, Invoker,           Claw Bearer, Hive Keeper

Have no clue what they are? look them up. They all were pretty good. To bad the game is gone.

You need to try new games. :P

 Played em all and those are still the best to me.

My Top 4 favorite classes (i could only think of four i have really liked):

1. Dervish - Guild wars

2. Dark Templar - Age of Conan

3. Death Knight - WoW

4. Necromancer - Vanguard

My favourite, in no particular order

warden and hunter from lotro

monk, ritualist and necromancer from gw

thats it. nothing from wow stands out for me, and besides lotro and gw, there arent any other games I played that have classes.

Nice list/s (from other posters).

Personally my top five would be.

5. Bounty hunter  -pre-cu SWG- interesting purpose for a profession IMO.

4. Witch Hunter -WAR- Intersting look (pirate/pilgrim, thing going on) fun combat mechanics as well as great DPS class.

3. TOS -AOC- for reasons similar to the OP

2. Ranger -AOC- Most fun I've ever had with a stealth class in PVP, tracking, good dps, decent armor, and versatile in PVE.

1. Fencer -pre-cu SWG- I don't really know if it was the professions strengths, animations or varied dot weapons. Their knockdown-dizzy capability or defense, I simply loved this part of my template.

I've played a lot of MMOs but I don't think I have a favorite class so much as favorite abilities I like.

I think in SWTOR my favorite class will probably be the Sith Warrior or Consular though. Frankly though ALL the Sith Classes look awesome to me.

Can we add classes that aren't out yet? Cause I think SWTOR will have some favorite classes for many people.

Thought I'd drop by my own top 5 list:

5 - Templar - SB: Gotta admit, swinging around a sword, casting fire and having badass wings...just cool.

4 - Mage - WoW: Probably one of my favorite classes in WoW. The utility spells with the insane burst damage. One of the few classes I enjoyed soloing with, and it was great fun in instances as well before Wotlk.

3 - Fixer - Anarchy Online: One of the classes I miss from AO. Maybe because of the utility spells, like summoning weapons, ammo, hacking the Grid. Maybe it's because of the insane dodging skills. But it's probably because of the massive running speed and massive roots and snares that made it so damn fun to play.

2 - Mesmer - Guild Wars: I love most of the classes in GW, most of them have an original point of view compared to their counterparts in other games, like the Warrior or the Necromancer. But the Mesmer is definitely one of my favourites because it's just too fun killing the enemy while being extremely annoying. Casting something? Interrupt or damage. Attacking? Damage. Not doing anything because you don't want to be interrupted or damaged? Still damage. As I mentioned before, it's just some of my favourite Blue spells from MTG packed in a single class.

1 - Agent - Anarchy Online: I guess it's mostly out of nostalgy, since it was my main in one of my first MMOs. Still, I'd love to play a class like this in a MMO nowadays. Being able to camouflage as another class and using their spells, having access to nifty gadgets like fake rocks and props to hide in, it was just...fun to play.

I just HAD to go with six.  Once I started making this list I couldn't help it!

Here's my stab at this:

6 - Bloodmage (V:SoH):  I loved the mechanic and the sheer cruelty behind the bloodmage theme.

5 - Disciple (V:SoH):  This was my first hybrid and the first healing/melee class I ever played.  Combine that mechanic with the ability (in Vanguard) to have an offensive and defensive target and talk about a good time!

4 - Shaman (WoW):  To this day I don't know why I felt this class was so fun.  Maybe it was party the mystery back when only horde played shammy -- it kind of had this fun mystique and the class questline was a blast.  A great hybrid class, imo.

3 - Disciple of Khaine (WAR): I'm starting to realize I love hybrid classes...  Melee/heals FTW!

2 - Skald (DAoC/Midgard): In a time when downtime between battles and travel times were long... along came the Skald to speed things up.  It's a fun melee/support class that decreases recovery time and helps groupmates travel swiftly... BAM!

1 - Pacification Healer (Pac-healer) (DaoC/Midgard): In a group oriented game, what can be more fun than a great group healer who can stun and mez monsters in dungeons, freeze escaping pvp enemies in their tracks, and bring the group back from the brink with well-timed heals.  A wonderful strategic class. 

Glad to see EQ1 Made it to some of the lists!

But strangely enough no Enchanters and Necromancers from EQ1

Both Classes were amazing to play!

Originally posted by Toquio3

My favourite, in no particular order

warden and hunter from lotro

monk, ritualist and necromancer from gw

 

thats it. nothing from wow stands out for me, and besides lotro and gw, there arent any other games I played that have classes.

DId you play SWG?

I know they weren't called classes and the leveling process was different. I'd still consider the top tier professions to be similar to classes in most respects. CH, BH, Fencer, Pistoleer, Ranger, etc..

Sorry for the slight derail, as I'm not trying to make this a skill based vs class based argument (thats what the vet refuge is for *wink*), as there is a difference. I'm taking note of that difference, which is the leveling process. The top tier professions had a linear path of progression to reach, you could just pick more than one. Which is very similar to a class based system.

Where's teh Puppetmaster? =/

1.  Paladin - WoW, its not about being OP or nerfed, i just love the lore behind Pallies.

2.  SWG- Commando, flame throwers and rocket launchers....

3.  WAR - Engineer, its like Tf2 meets hunter

4.  UO - Mage lol, guess the game didnt really have classes, but...

5.  Planetside - Liberator bomber :-)

I start playing Lotro a month ago.... I'm hooked.

First class I played was Warden.  My Warden is now almost 38.  After taking the warden to lvl 17, I immediately went to the LOTRO forums to say how much I loved the Warden class and why I thought it was one of the best designed classes of ANY MMO.

When reading this article, I slowly scrolled down to number 1.  You have absolutely no arguments from me.  WARDEN in LOTRO is a brilliantly designed class, that is unforgiving for beginners to the mmo scene and very rewarding to veterans.  Unlike most tanks in other games, and even the Guardian in LOTRO, the warden is a proactive tank.

The beauty about the Warden is that it is the first combination of RANGED DPS and TANKING class in one.  It is also a hybrid because part of the mitigation of a Warden is through HoT (heal over times).  They do not get heals in any other form, other than life leeches from mobs.

I LOVE my warden and it makes me really really happy to see recognition of its brilliance on this site.

As for other classes in other MMO's i've loved?

Warrior/Ninja combination in FFXI was a lot of fun.  Duel wield axes with weapon skills like Rampage.... awesome.

Originally posted by Bruise187

Originally posted by Xondar123

Originally posted by Bruise187

1. Feral Intendant AC2

2. Defender AC2

3. Berserker AC2

4. Zealot AC2

5. Every other class in AC2

Sorcerer, Enchanter, Alchemist, Ranger, Bounty Hunter, Elementalist, Sage Raider, Tactician, Juggernaut,Healer, Invoker,           Claw Bearer, Hive Keeper

Have no clue what they are? look them up. They all were pretty good. To bad the game is gone.

You need to try new games. :P

 Played em all and those are still the best to me.

1.Claw Bearer AC2

2.Lugian TACT AC2

3.Feral Intendant AC2

5. EQ2 - Shadowknight- DoT tank?  Yes, please!

4. Vanguard- Monk- Awesome DPS healer

3. AoC- Bear Shaman- A healer that HAS to fight to heal = non stop action

2. LoTRO- Warden- Just plain awesome and fun to play

1. Anarchy Online- Agent- My first online game.  I remember the agent basically being kinda like Solid Snake.  Awesome.

A Decent list, decided to write down my own:

5. Sith Inquisitor: Sure the game isn't out yet, but this class looks insanely fun, that paired up with the idea that I actually get to be evil in a game and have those actions really effect NPC's and possibly other characters really makes me wanting to get in the beta all the more.

4.Warlock: my first WoW character, still holds a [lace in my heart for watching people running around unable to control their characters as my Dots ripped though their health, and back before Trinkets, human racial, and other junk their was little people could do to stop it, add in the succubus and you could take on 4 people by yourself.

3. Ranger, PSO: This class was pretty hard core, while it wasn't the greatest in end game it definitely had some of the funner game play mechanics of that game, laying traps, ripping though mobs with insane guns, part of me is hoping this class is basicly being revived in SWTOR as the Trooper/Bounty Hunter.

2.Paladin,Protection: my current class, while the class took weird turns in BC it finally hit its stride in Wotlk, being able to come back to life on top of taking less dmg before dying makes it feel like a Hero class compared to the other tanks of WoW. On top of this the AE threat puts Druids and pretty much every one but Deathknights to shame. 

1. Priest, Shadow: Back in the day of good old Vanilla WoW Shadow priest were one of the most broken classes in the game, the fact that you had several very strong spells to get rid of rogues, Shadow word pain could kill classes that couldn't heal unless they got out of combat to eat, and that Bubble took so long to get rid of that most of the time a single rogue couldn't break it before the debuff was gone to reapply.

In Wotlk its a bit harder to really want to play though, lack of any thing exciting in the PvE department besides high AE dmg and some pretty nice single target threat only to get shafted in fights that have you switch off too much.

5. EQ1 - Cleric (first class I ever took to max level, and with the Vow line, pretty awesome soloing)

4. DDO - Fighter  (just for when I feel like slaughtering)

3. EQ1 - Beastlord (cuz Vah Shir are just so darn awesome)

2. LOTRO - Captain  (jack of all trades... like a paladin, only better)

1. LOTRO - Warden  (tanking, ranged dps, healing... a trinity all in one hobbity package!)

1. Red Mage (FFXI) - Healer and enfeebler also can nuke with /blm class not o mention the class can melee. By far the most fun class to play in any mmo.

2. Hunter (WoW) - You can just do things most classes can't like solo just about everything and the pets are cool.

3. Warrior Priest  (Warhammer) - Melee fighter who can heal, how sweet and fun is that.

4. Herald of Xolti (Age of Conan) - The inner demon in me loves demon form and set stuff on fire when i fatality.

5. Bard (FFXI) - The ultimate party class. the class is so good you can get invited twice to the same party! :)

Originally posted by Outkast22

5. Monk (EQ) first class ever played holds a special spot in top 5.

4. Reaver (DAoC) Tank + lifetap = epic!

3. Minstrel (DAoC) so so dps but was a blast.

2. Shadowblade (DAoC) PAing people with a 2her always fun!

1. Skald (DAoC) Simply the best class ever.

Its sad to me that there really hasn't been a skald type class in any other game.

 Amen brother.. I may be bias because it was my number 2 favorite game of all time, but every class in DAOC was fun to play.

II still can hear the flute and drum of the minstrel in my head.

Good times, nostalgia can be sad sometimes.

i agree with most of them.

warden - lotro   favourite         class in lotro got a lvl 65

bear shaman - age of conan           fun class didnt get much time playing other classes though :S

druid/hunter- world of warcraft  -love both classes

engineer- warhammer online              cool turret pet and fun gun action

ranger - guild wars        much like the hunter class with a pet aswell

Bill's lists are always stupid. Warden from LOTRO? Come on. How about Warden from DAOC? Now there's a class worth liking.

Nothing can beat the eq1 classes. Best of all the Bard. Nowhere ever has there been a class like the eq1 bard.

1 Bloodmage. Vanguard!!

2 Wizard. Everquest online adventures (EQOA), loved the dragon. Best game everrr

3. Priest of Mitra. AOC

4. Hunter. WOW

5.  Inquisitor. EQ2

>Ranger< EQ1...nuf said I may have died everytime someone glanced at me, but holy shit did i do some damage :)

5. DDO Cleric ...  Heavy armor, healing, and good dmg?   yes please!

4. LOTRO Warden  really the best class in the game, I played a guardian till they made the warden, and haven't gone back.

3.  WOW  Druid  Shapeshifting, being able to be anything I want, even though I'm not a hybrid since I can't do them all at the sme time like other hybrids.

2.   WH Shaman/Archmage   loved the mechanic and the way it made you want to heal and dps.

1.  AOC  Ranger    lots of fun, and good damage.

Originally posted by thg7f

3.  WOW  Druid  Shapeshifting, being able to be anything I want, even though I'm not a hybrid since I can't do them all at the sme time like other hybrids.

Of course, you're a hybrid. How long does it take to switch form? Two seconds? Play a Mage or Rogue and then tell me Druids aren't hybrids.

2.   WH Shaman/Archmage   loved the mechanic and the way it made you want to heal and dps.

Agreed. A very good mechanic -  and the Gobbies look cool, too.

Only really a few that stick out as favorites as I too am an alt-o-holic...

Sorcerer from DAOC. Before they nerfed them that class was near invulnerable with the right abilities for a short time. Uninteruptible life taps + a pet that that could grow three times it's normal size to pound on people? Super fun to take out a whole group of people who got caught with their purge down.

TOS in AOC. Pretty much for the same reasons as OP.

Scout in DAOC. Shield slamming fun. 

Rune priest in Warhammer.

Necro in AOC. Lots of undead plus interesting utility spells. Currently playing one and having a blast.

In AoC barbarian is the gimp class.

What was FunCom thinking?!

Making the class of Conan so god damn gimped I can't believe it.

If Conan was in the FunCom game he would have died a long time ago thats how gimped the class is.

1. Mesmer - Guild Wars (incredibly versatile)

2. Monk - Vanguard (martial arts, woot!)

3. Warrior - Guild Wars (hammer warrior is so much fun in GVG :) )

4. Engineer - Anarchy Online (fat geeky engineer controlling big ass combat robot to do the combat for him while he sits back and enjoys the show :p)

5. Black Orc - Warhammer (warhammer orcs simpy rule)

Overall, Guild Wars is one of the few games where I liked to have classes. Which is probably because of the 2nd profession and easy changing of builds.

Some classes I really like (in alphabetical order):

* Anything multi-classed in DDO. There is nothing cooler than multi-classing!

* Druids in WoW, due to the shape changing. The main exception is that bears and cats share too many traits - it is too easy to trait in a way that allows both good tanking and good dps: it should be one thing or the other.

* LotRO Captain because they can do most things, but nothing as well as other classes (except for buffing party members). As opposed to WoW Paladins who can do everything as well as other classes when traited properly.

* LotRO Warden due to the reasons mentioned

my top 5 are :

war : witchelf ( insane dps pre nerf , now not really fun anymore )

eq2 : assassine ( insane dps big numbers , what do u want more ^^ )

eq2 : illusionist ( eq2 classic , buff and debuff bot only !!! )

wow : rouge ( 280 days played until kil jaedan died ! )

age of conan : Herold of Xotli ( i love the transformation into an predator ^^ .. the insane burst dmg and the chance to kite many targets and win if u play well 1vsX )

Definitely WoW mage for me, never played a class in a game with so many gimmicks that can turn into deadly weapons, certainly combined with engineering (back in the day).

I get that they're pretty powerful right now, but there was a time when a newbie player would get kicked in the ass while playing one while a veteran could control the battlefield like none other and take on multiple opponents, great times.

Warden is indeed a great and unique class.

It tanks in medium-armor (leather) with the help of a small shield (not a tower-shield but not a buckler either) and, preferably, a spear for the bleed bonuses, altough it also receives bonuses from swords (better hit ratio) and clubs (to decrease bosses attack speed).

The warden has only 3 very basic skills: Spear (attack), Shield (defend) and Fist (taunt). With those 3 "builders" you create gambits, that are made of combinations from 2-5 of those 3 skills. For example you can do a damaging attack with a DoT with Spear-Shield-Fist. Or a self-heal with Shield-Spear. Or a AoE fear with Fist-Shield-Fist-Shield-Fist.

What this means is the the warden is a proactive tank (and class in general) instead of a reactive tank. That means, just like chess, that you have to be 2-3 moves ahead of your opposition so you can invest in a long gambit and land it at the right time.

It also means that it has zero emergency skills. There's no 10/20 minute cooldown skills with invencibility, aggro-snap or big heals. So it's a very unforgiving class for new-comers and a very rewarding class for veterans.

Since it wears medium-armor, it was frowned upon at first has a tank class, but because it can build gambits to increase avoidance pretty easily plus all its self-heals with heal over time and AoE life-leeches mitigates damage with pure-healing.

Just to say i agree witth the warden being #1. Great class. In essence: it's a one-man army.

P.S. it comes in Hobbit sizes.

It's available from the LotrO's free trial so.. check it out ;-)

1. Alchemist - Asheron's Call  2

2. Tactician - Asheron's Call 2

3. Tempest of Set - Age of Conan

4. Swashbuckler - Everquest 2

5. Shaman - World of Warcraft

So.. You are one of those hunters eh? That explains everything. j/k

I've enjoyed only a few classes, I do not have a favorite, but if I absolutely had to choose I'd pick:

1. Mage/Parry/Dexer from UO

2. Shadowbane's Minotaur Warriors, but I liked the druid's equally as well for different reasons.

3. A Terran Trader in Earth and Beyond, I loved trading in this game at least in the beginning.

4. and 5. The Rogue and Priest from WoW after release and before Burning Crusade and the Warrior after the Lich King expansion.

Now, having said that I personally prefer classless systems where it is possible to be a mage/warrior, or healer/warrior build or something that allows versatility in my choices. Despite this I didn't enjoy the class builds in Darkfall Online where essentially you had to learn all of the skills and not a certain template or build.

 5) Thane - DAoC ... loved The Thor comic books as a kid so loving this class was natural

4) Champion- LotRO ...very fun class to play

3) Paladin-EQ (thru the Velious  exp)...set the bar for paladins to come, and no one has quite reached it since

2) Barbarian- AoC... mixture of rogue and warrior that was fun and fun is very important

1) Martial Artist- Anarchy Online...without a doubt my most favorite class of all time, if Funcom would only make a true AO2

My top 5

5: Shaman DAOC...Something about droping AoE disease DoTs that was awesome.  Then tossing a cave bolt.

4: Shadow Priest WoW....Melting faces was just so nice.

3: Engineer Auto Assualt...I know...a weird one.  But that RV/Van could do so much!

2: Animist DAOC...Dropping 'shrooms in front of a keep or on one of the bridges in the BG's was just plain awesome.

1: Bard Eq1....Where "twisting" began.  You could do so much with the Bard.  Heal/Mez/Speed/Haste DD...ah the good old days.

I 100% agree with the warden being the most fun class to play in any mmo. I don't currently sub to lotro, but when i do play it i play the warden class. It's got a really cool "combo-like" system to it. It reminded me of playing old snes fighter games like street fighter 2, where you had to remember the right combinations of buttons to do certain moves.

I'm very surprised games like WoW havn't ripped off the wardens mechanics yet, since it's incredibly fun to play.

OK I got to say he hit the mark on none of them except wow.

The warden from lotro is one of the most hated classes by most player due to the fact it is so hard to play that most of the folks who play that class totatl suxor.

People have to remember that staff writers have not played every MMO that has ever existed, he said it was a personal list so that’s quite fair.

My list in no particular order:

1. WoW Druid
2. AoC Herald of Xtloli
3. Warhammer Ironbreaker.
4. Vanguard Bloodmage
5. Lotro Warg

The Warden was a odd choice, even fans of the class say it is a pain. But I have seen them do great tanking so if tanking is your thing they are certainly up there.

I haven't played many MMO's but let's see

1. Paladin - WoW...loved the nobility and steadfastness of the Paladin.  I was a Holy Spec Pally before WOTLK came out so took me a while to lvl, but I loved it nonetheless.

2. Blaster CoH -  I love the Super hero genre..and flying around blasting stuff is pretty cool.

3. Shaman WoW -  loved the ultility of this class

4. Hunter WoW - Pets and guns... very cool

5. Stalker CoV - love the assasination skills

...I've played EQ2 and LORTO, but not long enough to be able to really fall in love with a  class type.

My top five "classes":

1. No Class - PlanetSide style

2. No Class - Ultima Online style

3. No Class - Oblivion style (ok it not an MMO)

4. No Class - Darkfall style

5. No Class - Mortal Online Beta style

Classes = Fail 

The above are examples of games that allow your character to do what you want how you want. Classes just add barriers to a game. 

Classes = EQ and its varied carbon copies in the form of WOW, LoTRO, Aion, etc.

WoW is the only game that made classes fun for me. Normally in other MMOs each class is watered down and really boring to play. However WoW made each one very unique with 3 different ways to play each class. Confirming that less = more,

1. Shadow Priest - WoW

2. Druid - WoW

3. Death Knight - WoW

4. Rogue - WoW

5. Warlock - WoW

I've played MMOs since UO and games I loved like Planetside, EVE and SWG had no classes. Other games like WAR and EQ all had boring classes that weren't fun to play.

Top 3 from me:

3) Tech Pistoleer from Fallen Earth. What's cooler then a nerdrage character build? :P

2) HoX from Age of Conan. The only class that actually felt "evil" in that game.

1) Doctor from Anarchy Online. Being a healer in a game that requires grouping to level was the most fun I have had in all MMOs. A pure heal specced doctor ALWAYS found a group and had some good rep with the community. Well....If you omit that one time when I was alone with a group of Agents (just agents/Doc group) and I totally messed up since i kept forgetting which agent I am supposed to heal. :P

5. Dagger/Life - AC    triple hit

4. Blademaster - DAOC    Bit gimped but kinda made them cooler

3. Dirge - EQ2    Buffbot but still fun

2. DOK - WAR    Feels like you make a difference if played well

1. Heretic - DAOC      3rd tick rofl

Honorable mention: Defiler (EQ2),  Disciple (VG), Shaman (DAOC), Druid (WOW) and SquigH (WAR)

Haven't played many MMOs so here goes.

5. SWG Bounty Hunter + Pistoleer + something

4. WoW Hunter

3. LOTRO Guardian

2. WoW Druid

1. LOTRO Loremaster

I agree that classes pigeonhole players but since this is the thread here are mine:

5: Robo- Global Agenda

4. Rad / Rad Defender in CoX

3. Chosen - WAR  

2. Druid / Healer - DaoC

1. Shadowblade - DaoC

My top 5 classes

5 Martial Artist - Matrix online, fists of fury, though the moves you could execute were really basic & there were some that just didn't fit well at all the slo-mo mode + fists in faces was a lot of fun.

4 Hunter - WoW, much maligned due to ease of play & so many poorly played hunters being around but I love this class more than anything else WoW has, despite really wanting the Warrior to be my "Berserker" it doesn't feel right no matter the spec, but Hunter is always fun, playing survival spec & laying traps takes planning & skill but the beast mastery tree is my favourite soloing style class of all time, can do some really fun stuff as long as you aren't lazy this is a great group class.

3 Squig Herder - WAR I loved all the AR classes but the herder was by far the funnest, initially the most gimped of all of the classes the pet & archer mechanic was fabulous & the fact he was such a little guy made him easy to hide in bushes ready for some evil ambush tactics, with the right set up I could tear any Bright Wizard dumbassed enough to not have a pocket healer in range into itty bitty chunks in split seconds, Lost Vale as a herder was a ton of fun too.

2 Warrior - Everquest, hardest class in the game to play well, & nastiest to level up & gear, nothing beats having some huge nasty tearing you up while you have a whole group of healers trying to save you from taking a dirt nap, so many mobs, so many bosses, & so many deaths......damn that afk cleric, oh & Earthshaker rampage team, how I miss thee.

1 Berserker - EverQuest, the last class to be added to the game & in it's original incarnation was totally borked, bad, & underpowered by through the hard work of many in the Berserker community this grew to be a strong & very fun class, the whining & crying & incessant bitching of the few really vocal retards that didn't like them (or beastlords or froglok or...well anything but their own class really) eventually got the class stagnated & relegated to being a nobody class only there in raids for it's 1 trick pony buff, the general direction that SoE took the game (saying they wanted to equalise dps across dps classes & then superboosting wizards to insane levels, rangers to above rogues & then nerfing Berserker dps even more was the straw that broke the camel's back for me & after having played 8 years made me quit in disgust.

I will never forget all the fun times with my Berserker, the slaughter & most importantly, ABASHI rod $$$ & the best community by far that the game ever had, /salute www.goberserker.com

Special mention goes to the DDO Rogue, unlike many games where the Rogue is cast more in the dps centric role, in DDO Rogues are the stuff of dreams, replete with trap finding, disarming & avoidance skills the dependance upon a good rogue to get through most dungeons made the ddo version of this class stand out head & shoulders above any other version in my honest opinion, you don't have to be a trap-monkey either, with careful planning & building & some smart gear choices you could be an Assasin Rogue, an Acrobat Rogue or a full on trap specialist with a nice line in support abilities each played differently & were a hell of a lot of fun, if you haven't ever liked a Rogue in other games try this one, it's that good.

GOtta say the Original Everquest's Monk and Shadow Knight had by far the best class concepts. Feign death pulls that split npcs so you could attack them solo was a great concept. To many games decided to go with the locked pack of mobs once you engaged them.

i only played daoc so my perspective is a bit limited, but since daoc is a classic imho let me pick my fav 5 just from that game:

5. armsman- a true tank- could be specced offensive(polearm) or defensive(my fav shield specced)

4. theuragist- awesome pet class-loved throwing out those air, earth and the mighty ice pets-

3. archer- i never played this class but i truly respected those that played this class-old style when you actually had REAL arrows

2. mercenary- light tank- dual wield, and the charge ability to run down fleeing enemy was awesome

1. necromancer- by far my fav-awesome pve-i was death sight specced-could take down oj-red classes non stop

honorable mention- paladin-because i hated to twist never played one, minstrel-most difficult/complex class- truly respected those that were good, reaver-same reason as minstrel 

I can't rank them, too difficult as I love them all, but these are my favourites:

Global Agenda - Robotics

WoW - Priest, Death Knight, Hunter, Protection warrior

Guild Wars - Necromancer, Paragon

Originally posted by heerobya

 

2. Commando - SWG - for a while was the most ridiculously overpowered profession in the game, but man it was fun. Grenade launchers, flame throwers, other fun heavy weapons and composite armor. Totally bad-ass.

 

Aww, now you're making me all nostalgic!  There are days I really miss my 'mando. :(

Not only did you pick a class from wow, you picked Death Knight, AND you put it as #2. Just terrible.

What a cool topic!!!

5)  LOTRO - Rune-Keeper - The Ultimate Hybrid Class IMHO...A Healer who can Nuke with the best of em.' SUPER fun to play...Those Rune Stones can even tank for you in a pinch...lol

4) *Tie* - Vanguard Disciple and Sorcerer - Had a lot of fun with both these Classes...The Sorcerer could be squishy, but the DPS was crazy, even early on...Cant decide which one I liked best...

3) Age Of Conan - Conqueror - I thought Assasin was going to be My favorite Class in Conan, until I started leveling a Conqueror...Now I have a hard time logging in any of My other Alts...The flexibility, dual wielding madness...I LOVE Conqueror...

2) SWG - Commando - A Tool Bar full of Heavy Weapons, Cluster Bombs...Complete Ranged madness...Super fun!!!

1) LOTRO - Hunter - Easily My favorite still...Tracking abilities, Instant Travel, Great DPS, Dual Wield, Traps, Heart Seeker :) Hunter has it all for Me...

I'll throw my favorites in here as well. LOL

5 - Death Knight (WoW) - I played a warrior from the beginning all the way until I left before the last expansion. I loved tanking and had plenty of epic gear to show it. But when I returned I had to give the Death Knight a try. It was just a cool class to play before I grew tired of the game and finally gave up on it forever.

4 - Demo (AoC) - I have never been a mage type player. I tried a mage in WoW and just did not like it. I tried a blaster in CoH and gave up on it. Mages and healers were just not my type of class. Well giving the demonologist a try changed me. I still have no want to play other mage classes, but the demo is just freaking awesome.

3 - Scrapper (CoH) - After trying the tank and the blaster, I created a scrapper. I was used to the TK in SWG as my Bounty Hunter was part TK and part pistoleer. The scrapper was just plan fun. All I had to do was to beat the crap out of the bad guys while my friends tanked and healed.

2 - Conqueror (AoC) - This is the class I am currently playing most. I am in a friendly competition with a barbarian in our guild for the highest DPS in raids. He is winning at the moment but I am inching closer. This is like the scrapper from CoH but with swords and bad ass graphics. I am having tons of fun and I have an idea that I might level another conqueror up for PvP only. If I do, it will be after the expansion pack.

1 - Bounty Hunter (Pre-CU SWG) - My favorite thing to do in SWG was to hunt down jedi. I lost some battles and I won some battles. I became well known to the jedi community and there was a mutual respect. There was no child like arguing, as we all played our parts and dealt with the consequences. I truly had a great time as a Bounty Hunter. It was my very first class in my very first MMO.

Hey good list! I can tell you are a fan of heavy armor classes (:

Here are mine...

1. Ranger - Final Fantasy XI

2. Priest - World of Warcraft

3. Bard - Final Fantasy XI

This is a good and fun read to see what all people like to play in the way of classes.   Compared to me I generally play archer or healers.    I cannot say which is my fave though because I enjoyed most at first until the designers mucked them up and chased me away.  Blizzard may do that with the changes they are making to two of the classes I play the most Hunter and Priest.  :(    Anyway....I will list mine here.

1) Sniper/Combat Engineer/Reaver Pilot  - Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!  OMG I loved playing as a sniper in Planetside.    Nothing could top this due to the nature of the game and the sheer fun of playing a class that was a challenge and constantly nerfed.    Funnest place to play - bridge battles on Cyssor.  I'll never forget the fun I had playing Shae in the 4475th Ranger Elite - NC For Life!  Booyah!

2) Archer/Mage - Asheron's Call...hybrid class.   Loved it.   Very versatile, fun and wickedly deadly the first couple of years after the game release.   Had a blast playing it on the Darktide PvP server.

3) Druid - Dark Age of Camelot.    Of all the healer classes I have ever played this was the funnest and the most utility of any healer I have ever played.   She could buff, heal, fight and had a pet to boot.   I miss playing her a lot and if Mythic ever makes a DAoC 2 I hope the include the Druid as it is now - awesome class - fun to play.

4) Ranger - Dark Age of Camelot - before the nerfs destroyed the class the first six months of this classes life was incredibly fun and wickedly delightful to play.    You could stealth, you had self healing, couple of good buffs and we could also melee when needed.    To bad Mythic totally trashed that class and nerfed it into the dirt.    ::sigh::

5) Tie - Ranger - Age of Conan and Hunter - World of Warcraft.   Had fun playing my ranger in Age of Conan...what made me leave was them nerfing my horses skills.   I worked hard to get the gold to buy that horse and then after I got it and discovered it had combat skills all its own and could help me fight mobs and they took them away and told me it would cost 300 more gold to get the same back I said screw it...and canceled.   Never give and then take away from a player(especially me) - you take something away that I found enjoyable and I'll cancel that day and never look back.   My Age of Conan character could be at the top of this list if FunCom had not been so quick to swing that stupid nerf axe all over the place.  

Right now I have to say that my Hunter in WoW is my current favorite and I am sad because she may very well stop being played if Blizzard goes through with their screwed up, mucked up changes for this class.    As I stated before it is one thing to change a class it is another to take things away and make the class something new or to change it so dramatically it changes it and changes it for the worse.  

Great list, Bill. :)

Mine would be as follows:

1- EQ2 Warden (priest archetype)

2- EQ2 Troubador (scout/bard archetype)

3- LotRO Runekeeper

4- UO Thief

5- WoW Shadow Priest (tied with Resto Druid)

Originally posted by girlgeek

Great list, Bill. :)

 

Mine would be as follows:

 

5- WoW Shadow Priest (tied with Resto Druid)

I hate Druids on principal, but damn, I love those bling-wearing trees. Coolest dance, ever.

Originally posted by waveslayer

 5) Thane - DAoC ... loved The Thor comic books as a kid so loving this class was natural

 

4) Champion- LotRO ...very fun class to play

 

3) Paladin-EQ (thru the Velious  exp)...set the bar for paladins to come, and no one has quite reached it since

 

2) Barbarian- AoC... mixture of rogue and warrior that was fun and fun is very important

 

1) Martial Artist- Anarchy Online...without a doubt my most favorite class of all time, if Funcom would only make a true AO2

This. Do it Funcom, without Shadowlands, just ol' AO and I'll be able to die happy (after I bust some clan's heads with my sniper rifle, of course)

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by girlgeek

Great list, Bill. :)

 

Mine would be as follows:

 

5- WoW Shadow Priest (tied with Resto Druid)

I hate Druids on principal, but damn, I love those bling-wearing trees. Coolest dance, ever.

Funny you should say that! lol.....I initially rolled a druid in WoW BECAUSE of tree and boomkin DANCING abilities...LMAO!  Found I didn't really enjoy the boomkin (at level 55), respec'd to resto/kitty (leveled from there on that way) and loved resto so much I rarely used my dual spec kitty build.  As you can probably see from my list...I"m rather fond of healers anyway, as a rule, but also enjoy a bit of hybrid, and some stealthy types, and even a support class here and there. Hell...who am I kidding? I pretty much like a little of everything.

Trees are VERY very skilled dancers. LOL ;)

for me

1) Shade - Anarchy Online

 - Just something about the storyline draws me to play it.

2) Tempest of Set - AoC

 - Pretty much same reasons here as Bill.

3) Pre-CU Teras-Ksai Master - SWG

 - Martial Artist born to take down Jedi, Nuff Said!

4) Post-CU Smuggler - SWG

 - The whole smuggling system was fun, and at level 30+ was viable in pvp for thier abilities

5) Mystic - Everquest 2

- Can't heal well, but wards against damage and can rez half a raid if specced for rezzing.

Top five classes?

Hm.

1)  vanguard -- disciple.  Hello, monk who heals well.  Phenomenal, involving, well-animated.  Best class of a great, underrated game.

2)  (classless) -- AC1.  Forget the "class templates" and go for the full design-your-own.  Skill-based FTW.

3)  EQ2 -- Fury.

4)  EQ1 -- Beastlord. 

5)  LOTRO -- Warden.  Completely agree, the game mechanic behind the Warden is exceptional. 

best game for having the most involving classes overall?  Vanguard hands-down.  I played most of the classes and didn't find a single one that turned me off.  (openly laments the fate of Vanguard being so poorly coded initially)

5. Cleric - DAOC - My first love with a support character (just don't try dps'ing)

4. Ranger - V:SOH (only played for a couple months at launch, and Ranger was OP as hell, but what a blast; Massive ranged DPS, solid melee DPS, and even a small heal)

3. Warrior - Warcraft

2. Armsman - DAOC

1. Pre-NGE Bounty Hunter - Can anything beat hunting actual players in a MMO?

Lots of good choices. Mine:
 
5. Rogue - EQ & WoW(pre-BC): Sneaky, pick-pockety, backstabby/light weapony, disarming(EQ), dual-wieldy, poisonous thieves!! Grew up on Quest for Glory aka Hero Quest . Both of these represent the pure thief class to me. Generally my first class choice in any game, but it gets 5th for its originality/complexity. Anyone can play a rogue well. Although, I think it takes depth in comprehension of core game mechanics to be great.

4. Druid - DaoC: This class was amazing. I cut my mmo/rvr healer teeth on this class. Healers are usually needed in every game. When you play rogue primary, you'll likely play a healer secondary(becomes primary :P). Why? Nearly everyone plays a rogue! lol. Druids have a triple threat pet. Buffs as far as the eye can see. Healing that is second to none. Not an easy class to play, but very rewarding and appreciated.

3. Animist - DaoC: Shrooooooms! This class is an alt-aholics dream. I say that because its not a class that is on top of the needed list, for most. Although, it is a very unique class design. Its like creating a mushroom mine field against baddies. Pet turrets that bomb, blast, and harass. Plus turrets to protect and buff friends. I think it is the best summoned pet class to date. Another tough class to play to its potential, but for a support type player it is alot of fun.

2. Coercer - EQ2: The name alone drips evil. This class suffered some after the addition of pvp to the game, but overall is a class that has roots from the original EQ Enchanter. While arguably not as effective as the enchanter, I chose it as my #2 because of its lifespan and representation as the premiere control/support class. Whatever means used to facilitate it, mind control is simply diabolical! This class and those like it are generally very difficult to play well and enjoy.

1. Psionicist - Vanguard: I give incredible credit to Sigil(hope the curse filter doesnt get me for that word, lmao). While this class is also rooted in the traditions of an EQ Enchanter(in regards to mmog's) it has an enjoyable and entertaining playstyle that gave it an almost unique feel to me. Im not sure about some of you guys, but race adds another flavor in conjunction to my class. I love my Goblin Psionicist! A green goof-ball. Plus, with all the illusion spells that psion gets is just icing on the cake. Yes it would have been better if they actually worked for faction boost, maybe a lesson for those in the future. This class, when given the chance, could effectively, though difficult, control or occupy multiple(5+) mobs. It actually has some spells that are found around the world on stone monuments. Some were a real challenge without a group nearby to help. Although not impossible if you were crafty enough. This class brings so much utility to a group, when played well.

HM: WAR - Ironbreaker & Zealot; EQ2 - Brigand & Shadowknight; EQ - Enchanter; DaoC - Nightshade, Infiltrator, Shadowblade; Planetside - Max Falcon(NC)

1. SWG -TKM - PRE CU ... KD Dizzy UH3.  Buff up a TKM and watch an hr long fight between a Jedi and a TKM... Did this in the Tusken Raider fort... We both finally called a stalemate.

2. SWG - BH - PRE CU ... Just a nasty class to come across as well... Eye Shot ftw?

3. Vanguard - Cleric ... one of the few front line Clerics that really worked. Worked even better with DroxUI...

4. WAR - Chaos Chosen.. Just the look even said EVIL!

5.  Vanguard - Dread Knight... Always a blast to play

I just feel any list fails without EQ1's enchanter, circa Kunark-Velious era. It was pretty much the progenitor of the crowd-control class, and far more fun to play than any later incarnations. I know it's been mentioned in passing but I just couldn't get enough of it. I've tried to find an EQ1-esque enchanter recreation in another game but nothing I've come across since has come close.

It seems every game distills classes and skills into doing damage, taking damage or healing damage, so it always blew my mind that such a robust and fun class had sprout up based entirely on buffing allies, debuffing enemies, and mezzing crowds (of which there was no shortage in original EQ). No other class could pull off the dual-stein look and not seem laughable.

Plus there was ogre illusion.
 

Of all MMO's I've played the two classes I found the most original and entertaining are the Mesmer, from Guild Wars, and the Blue Mage from FFXI, both very unique and surprinsingly fun.

EQ1 - Necromancer was insanely fun and powerful. I have never experienced anything like that in any mmo. Druids, enchanters, shamans were fun as well.

 Vanguard has lots of interesting classes, like disciple, bloodmage and others.

If WoW wasn't such an ugly and boring game to me.. the Druid was really nice class to play.

I love this thread, it's interesting to see the difference in tastes people have in MMO's.  Well I've played every major MMO out there, and so I will list mine as well after that. (Prolly sad to admit I played everything I know, but I like to get my feet wet and see what's out there)

1. * Tie* Engineer / Martial Artist (Anarchy Online) - This is my favorite all time MMO I've ever played, and I still constantly go back to it, even though it's one of the oldest and most outdated games out there.  The reason I love the Engineer is because truly, there's nothing in any game I've ever played like it.  I had my pet robots and I had my own skills that I could hone any way I felt, I was one of the rare breeds of Engineers that actually went "MA Engi" (Meaning a martial artist oriented engineer, using fists and such as their weapon). And I made it work well, I topped DD charts and such and had good fun.  The tie'd is the ACTUAL Martial Artist profession itself, I was one of these at close to top PVP title level (back in 2003).  Sadly I got this toon banned during the infamous Anarchy ban wave of exploiters (I admit I did explot, much like half the server did at the time) so it was my own damn fault.  But a profession you can kick, punch, use burning fists to open a can of whoop ass on your enemies is epic. Aside from that I was able to solo mobs on both characters that made most people go "WTF? how?" And I loved that aspect as well :).

2. Squad Leader/Outfit General *4475th Ranger Elite* (Planetside) - I had the pleasure of being a commander in the game Planetside for a group of players that I considered to be the most tactical oriented and skilled players in the game.  We may not have been major killwhores (getting the best kill / death ratio) but we got objectives done and we did the impossible many times over that would make other outfits in the game just look silly.  This outfit was called "4475th Ranger Elite", still kicking today and I do go back time to time to play some good ole' PS, but I usually end up playing alone or just with a few other rangers, and even so last time, we showed that 3 old veteran rangers could hold off a base attack of 15 dudes just fine. Skill and tactics over killwhoring and zombie rushing as they say. Planetside doesn't have classes, but military oriented titles, you got the squad members, squad leaders and platoon leaders (Activitely during operations). Then of course Outfit ranks (or Guild ranks), I enjoyed being a Squad leader and a General in the outfit.

3. *Tie* Jedi (Star Wars Galaxies) / Druid (World of Warcraft)  - God, sometimes I wonder how and why I played this game for so long.  I admit I sometimes bash my friends for playing WoW too much now (I don't play currently *hence currently, I'm sure I'll play again*).  But the reason I love the druid is because of the versatility.  And they used to be viewed as the black sheep of the game in every aspect, I've been a feral druid since wow was launched since beta (Not just saying that, it's true) die hard and never went to resto or balance.  Just pure feral, even my dual spec is feral kitty and feral bear, and I was able to be a tank back in Vanilla WoW, when Bear tanks were laughed at and disregarded.  Well I was one of the few that actually tanked BWL and AQ40, and I must admit that was some really fun gaming times.  I had the plasure of grouping with some crazy Australian people and played from 12am to 3am every thursday and friday lol.

As for the Jedi, well I loved being a Jedi Guardian before the Jedi Patch that braught the village Jedi in the game, and then after that of course the stupid NGE thing where Jedi's were dumbed down to a normal class.  But I grinded and completed 27 professions in the game and unlocked my Jedi, and being able to take on an entire starport of 20-25 people simply because I forgot to put away my Lightsaber (making me PVP flagged to everyone around me) was Epic and gave a sense of danger in the game, not too forget there was Perma death (Was patched roughly a month after I got Jedi luckily) when I first started and I lost 2 weeks of work simpy because I didn't lock my Tatooine house door to outsiders and a Bounty Hunter killed me after tracking me down while I wasn't at the computer. (That really pissed me off). Anyways good times :).

4. Guardian (Age of Conan) - Wow, is all I can say about this class, when I was playing in Alpha and Beta, I was amazed at the imbalance of this class. Even mostly up til 2-3 months after release, Guardians were near industructible in PVP, I really loved exploiting that feeling of invulnerability lol.  Having 4-5 guys bashing on you with all they got and you just laughing and sitting there at 60-70% hp like it's nothing and SLOWLY killing them one by one (Over a course of 30minutes mind you) was epic.  Couldn't really kill anything or quick for that matter, but being a super tank was awesome.

5. Warden (Lord of the Rings Online) - THIS IS SPARTA!!! Yah... I love the Warden in LOTRO, why? It's a EFFIN SPARTAN MAN!! Seriously, attacks that make you leap into the air with your shield and spear and jab the enemy when you land is EPIC! I loved feeling like I was a Spartan soldier destroying evil monsters in Middle Earth, nerdy I know, but It felt great.  Never got past lvl42 I think, but lately I've been thinking of going back.  I seem to enjoy playing classes that are hybrids, the warden could deal decent damage but also could tank, not only tank, but tank solo at that.  Plus having to memorize all your attack combos shows that you have at least some sort of skill while playing this class.

My list would go like this.  My list may also change day to day as I am basically insane, sigh, arghh.

5. Age of Conan Ranger, I in no way intended to play the class and had really no interest in the class.  Just made one as an alt and ended up hooked.  A devastating class that takes some thought to plan out your strategy in each fight.  I mean do you salvo or do you salvo?  Hmm or maybe salvo.  I should mention I like Bear Shaman and Dark Templar almost as much as Ranger, hehe.

4. Anarchy Online Engineer, much like a poster above me I loved this class.  I too was unique and used Assault Rifle as my weapon.  Honorable mention to pretty much every other class, AO is still a great game even to this day in my opinion.

3. DaoC Savage, it didn't happen often but every now and then you would have a quad hit go off where all four of them critically hit and you just happened to be hitting something like a Wizard or Enchanter and you get to watch them die pretty much instantly :)  yay!  I also loved the Healer class, pure support and CC, could play as nearly a pacifist.

2. Warhammer Online Disciple of Khaine, despite the overall failings of the game it does have a ton of interesting classes to play and the RvR is fun from T1 to T3.  Just too bad they completely messed up T4.  I like most every class but if forced to pick one I would go with DoK/WP, they are very challenging to get the maximum out of your abilities.  To put forth great healing and great damage and have to work to do it is fun.

1. SWG Bio-Engineer/other crafters, still miss it.  The most fun I've probably ever had in an MMO because I could be my eclectic self and provide support to many other players without actually having to group with them or run around places with them :)

No Vanguard classes? Vanguard has some of the most unique classes in any MMO I've played, which is a lot of them.

Originally posted by Iadien

No Vanguard classes? Vanguard has some of the most unique classes in any MMO I've played, which is a lot of them.

Bloodmage.

Bill! Have you ever played a Bloodmage in Vanguard? The coolest healing class I've ever played in my 7+ years of MMO gaming. Tempest of Set is chump compared to the Bloodmage.

Originally posted by krowxxvii

Originally posted by Iadien

No Vanguard classes? Vanguard has some of the most unique classes in any MMO I've played, which is a lot of them.

Bloodmage.

 

Bill! Have you ever played a Bloodmage in Vanguard? The coolest healing class I've ever played in my 7+ years of MMO gaming. Tempest of Set is chump compared to the Bloodmage.

/concur on Bloodmage being interesting

The only problem was grouping was needed and there weren't a lot of groups to be found.

Lugian Tactician.. What a friggin awesome class.. you built a friggin mini tower and ran around with a wrench!

Oh from Asheron's Call 2..

No particular order:

1) EQ - Magician

2) DAoC - Friar

3) LoTRO - Warden

4) WoW - Ret Pallie

5) EQ - Beastlord

Other notables - WoW huntard, and WAR Disc. of Khaine

eq1 - Bard coolest and fastest running class, could kill just about anything with enough time not even loosing mana,

and being able to run while casting(singing)

eq1 - Necromancer my first class in my first mmo back in may 2001, great fun.

ao - Engineer, bad ass robot pets and nice tradeskills and cool looks, love my engi

vanguard - bloodmage only got mine to like lvl 6 but it sure is different

aoc - bah think all classes are fairly different, but i vote for demonologist since it is my highest char.

DAOC - Thane / Skald

GW - Monk

AoC - Herald of Xotli / Bear Shaman

WAR - Marader / White Lion

I usually play healer classes, but they are for the most part not memorable.

No order, but:

1. Lugian Tactician - Asheron's Call 2 - Walls, turrets, knock-backs.. waaaaaay fun!

2. Blood Mage - Vanguard - Fun healer mechanic and could kick some hiney too.

3. Bonedancer - Dark Age of Camelot - 3 skeleton pets of mixed abilities. I loved taking a couple healers and using lifetap. Pretty much unstoppable and a huge aggro generator letting your team open up a can of whoop-ass. Mastermind in City of Villains reminded me a lot of this class mostly just because of the pets though. Still fun.

4. Creature Handler - Star Wars Galaxies (pre-disaster) - What can I say, I love pet classes and these could have been awesome. The Droid Engineer was right there with this one. If those two classes had been given some good loving from the devs... wow.

5. Lugian Sage - Healers are fun, especially when they can dish it out. At some point they nerfed a couple abilities that used to make them absolutley unstoppable (still took a lot longer to kill stuff, just never died) but even then they were still fun.

Honorable mentions to: Jenquai Explorer (Earth & Beyond), Druid (WoW), Beastlord (EQ), Champions Online (just because you can make so many fun characters it's mind bottling).

5. Radiation/Storm Defender (CoH)

4. Combat Engineer (PlanetSide)

3. Bard (Vanguard)

2. Knight of the Blazing Sun (WAR)

1. Skald (DAoC)

I've spent a lot of time playing and enjoying CoH controllers but....

For an all time favourite I'd have to pick WoW's warlocks.

Sure they were tragically gimped in pvp for the first 18 months or so, and they didn't really shine until soulbags and  extra hotbars were added, but I've never played a class so versatile.

I needed the maximum number of hotbars on screen to accomodate all of my spells - which was fantastic. Playing warlocks well actually took thought, rather than just repeating the same old series of button presses over and over and over....

Druids and shamans were also nice, but....

And while I found Aion to be a well-polished and very playable mmo at release, and I loved the idea of elemental pets instead of demonic ones, I found spiritmasters to be a bit simplistic and dull compared to warlocks.

I was even moreso disappointed with CoH's kheldians after playing WoW's druids.

I really loathe WoW - 5 of weeks of MC raids just about drove me wonko and did drive me to cancel my subscription - but they know how to design good, fun classes.

When I think of "awesome unique classes" the Tempest of Set is the first to mind... agree 100% on that entry.

In all of the games I've played, I still have the fondest memories of my Monk in DAoC.

Just once I would have liked to have seen the face of the stealth class that tried to take me on thinking I was a squishy caster.

for me its

1) Alchemist: Transmuter from EQOA also one of the most unique classes i ever played. throwing explosive potions,popping pills to turn into an ogre,chain casting aoe nukes, throwing potions to turn mobs into rats (debuff), and wearing leather as a caster.

2) Herald of Xolti from AoC just a very fun unique class. caster/melee that turns into demons and uses 2 hand swords and casts fire based spells.

3)Necromancer from Vanguard they just really did the classes right in Vanguard they all had unique twists to them. harvesting body parts and organs off dead mobs you've killed and attaching them to your Abomination pet giving it buffs and all new abilities was very cool.

4) Deciple of Kain from Warhammer one of the funnest healers i ever played.

5) Druid from Warcraft,a friend described this class to me at launch its what made me even want to play wow at all. back then when i played atleast they was fairly balanced you was only good at what ever it was you where specced in. well at the start the only good spec was healing.

5. Pally Archer -UO : more arties in Doom please!

4. Parry Mage - UO : the joy of hearing a dexer miss over and over and over...

3. Barbarian -AoC : sneaking up on someone and smashing them before they knew what hit them

2. Warrior Priest - WAR : Stop! Hammer time! and how freaking cool do they look!

1. Death Knight - WoW : yeah, I said it! if you are not having fun on this toon you have no soul.

Absolutely no way I could put these in order and/or be limited by 5......

EQ - sks, necros, enchanters, monks

EQ2 - warlocks, guardians

WAR - IBs, Bright Wizards

AoC - Barbarians

WoW - dks, mages, warlocks, druids

VG - all classes. And on that note.....

I can say that I hold the firm opinion that VGs healers (blood mages, clerics, disciples namely) are done better than any other mmo's healers, bar none.

I really really hope that as another poster said, mmo devs emulate some of the targeting and spell/ability systems used in VG. Healers are active battle participants. The main focus is the mob for them, without their focusing on the mob, they don't have the power they need to heal. Clerics and disciples do this through melee, while BMGs use ranged,but feels more like a healing necro or warlock than a dd magic user.

To a lesser degree this holds true for VG tanks as well. Aggro control, crowd control, damage opportunities are all intertwined in the combat unlike other taunt, smack, re-taunt tanks from many mmo's.

My twocents.

4. Doctor (SWG) - What can I say, noting like setting up at your favorite space port to sell the best buffs on the server.

5. Commando (SWG) - As mentioned by others, Commando was a fire spitting, grenade chunkin death machine.

Bonus Class: Defiler (EQ2) - I ran with a Shadownight, Warlock and a Necromancer, was a match made in Hell.

Oh, and for clarification, the UO and SWG were the "Pre-*" versions.

The Necromancer class from DAoC, nothing and I do mean nothing beats it's leveling speed.  It was THE class you could level fast, and level friends and alts on different accounts fast as well, it was a powerleveling machine, nothing ever come close.  I wish another MMO would do something like that class, it was the best leveling, powerleveling, grinding toon of all time for me!

<3 my Ranger in Eq1

Yes we may be paper,

but good god what fun it was!

Trueshot ftw!

If i had to list them in some kind of order

1. Enchanter (EQ1:pre-PoP)

2. Ranger (EQ1) Hunter (WOW)

3. Cleric (EQ1) - this is what they can real Heal training!

4. Priest (Wow)

5. Necro (EQ1)

Tried so many games, but in the end EQ1 then WoW captured me the most!

Let's see...

#5  EQ1 - Iksar Shaman === EQ was my frist mmo and I always loved the game but when they introduced Iksars I just couldn't help myself but be a tribal style lizardman. I felt awesome.

#4  WoW - Undead Priest  or  Undead Warlock  === I loved the feeling of being evil to the core. Shadow Priests and Warlocks, especially the undead versions. I felt evil.

#3  DAOC - Troll Skald  or  Celt Reaver === The Troll Skald was amazing because it was the only bard style class that used warrior damage charts. I might have had the worst songs of the bard style classes but I hit like a truck! And then of course the Reaver had no comparison to tanking. Lifetaps. Weapon taps. And let's not forget a CHAIN weapon, I mean come on. Evil? Yea.

#2  Vanguard - Goblin Disciple  === To this day I have never found a class that was more engaging and difficult to play effectively. Yes, anyone can play a Disciple, but to play at your ultimate best? You REALLY had to know what you were doing. I did some amazing things with that class. Easily the best healing class of any MMO I have ever palyed.

#1  WAR - Female Archmage === My #1 pick is the Archmage because of several reasons. With my playing style it was like handing me sticks of dynamite to throw at people passing by. I couldn't miss! I felt epic beyond belief, with healing, damage, and just overall awesomeness. I mean seriously... I shoot lazers from my eyes and rainbow beams of death from my hands.

-Karnage

5.  Night Elf Hunter from WoW: First class I played in WoW.  Enjoyed everything about the class and most notably...the pets.

4.  Ranger from Aion:  Most recent class played.  Had fun for the 2 months I played the game during beta and release. 

3. Squig Herder from WH: Most unique "ranger" type class I've played.  Had some cool abilities to boot.

2. Goblin Rogue/Shamen from Vangard: Pretty cool classes to play in this game, especially as a sneaky lil' bugger.  I like most classes as long as they let me play my favorite race from this game. 

1. Enutrof from Dofus: Not a famous mmo by any means, but I absolutely adored this character of mine.  Unique, greedy, lucky, deadly, and fun.

Although I enjoy reading the lengthy reason why many of you chose your top five classes, I'm going to just name the class (and the race when it matters) and the game.  I'm not sure why, but I've always preferred playing the "underdog"...the class that everyone says is nerfed.  That, and I seem to always find myself in the "underdog" game as well, with a few exceptions.  Anyway, here's my list (with a surprise ending):

#5. EQ2 - Mystic...wards=cool

#4. PotBS - French Privateer

#3. Auto Assault (oh yeah!) - Mutant Avenger

#2. DaoC - Norse Thane...nothin' like Hamma Time!

#1. Ryzom - Whatever the heck I want...because there are no classes!

Honorable mention: WAR - Witch Hunter and Warrior Priest

Originally posted by Phirmware

In all of the games I've played, I still have the fondest memories of my Monk in DAoC.

 

Just once I would have liked to have seen the face of the stealth class that tried to take me on thinking I was a squishy caster.

Is monk a new class, or did you mean friar?

IB really is one of the most fun classes I have played if not the most fun.

5. Age of Conan - Guardian: I just loved PVP with guard in AoC, especialy after fixing bug of charge.. :) Cause than noone can say guard is bugged xD

4. Lotro - Captain - amazing support class something like paladin but way better!

3. Lineage 2 - Swordsinger - support as hell, best run speed of all classes, RUN Forest! RUN! And crazy buffs :)

2. Ragnarok Online - Monk - who knows skill Guilotine Fist, Throw Spirit Sphere a Occult impaction.. knows why im choosing monk :D also heal + buffs.. LOVE this class almost same as mesmer

1. Guild Wars - Mesmer ( Ritualist / Paragon / Dervish ) - Original classes, love all of em - Mesmer ply best of ALL ever! Great debufer and e-drain build FTW! Monk energy <5 :P

Bill,

This was a great topic to have a discussion on. I've had a good time reading everyone's reply.

Here's my list:

5. Barbarian - AOC:  I was instantly hooked on a Two-Hand weiding stealth class. I really wish I could have had more interest in this game.

4. Witch Hunter - WAR: Probably one of my favorites on looks alone. Such a sleek looking killer while dueling weilding a sword and pistol. You can't beat those point blank execution shots to the head, either.

3. Teras Kasi Artist - SWG(pre-cu): Knocking down your opponent with a roundhouse kick to the face never failed to give me that "giddy" feeling. I wax nostalgic everytime I think of this class...oh how I miss this game.

2. Warrior - WoW: While I have a level 80 character of every class on this game, I still think most fondly of my first experience. The warrior. I have over 200k honorable kills and spent a embarrassing amout of time grinding to High Warlord with this guy, but the memory of cutting down one clothie after another will always bring a smile to my face.

1. Commando+Creature Handler - SWG(pre-cu): My first and most memorable class experience. Back in the early days of this game I orginally wanted a Bounty hunter, but then I came across some explosions in the distance on the planet Dantooine. I noticed a commando lobbing rockets at some poor defensless graul and then finishing him off with his flame thrower. My mouth dropped open in awe and I instantly changed my plans. So together with my two sludge panthers: Hicks and Hudson (if anyone can get that movie reference you get a gold star) I made my own personal MMO history.

*Imperial Agent - SW:TOR: I really hope to place this guy on my list in the future :)

Proof that almost all Hunters became DK's in WoW...

I think my favorite classes are:

5: Runescape, no class system  :P

4: WAR, Sorc because only Bright Wizards could do as much damage as they could. Ultimate dps class.

3: WoW, Rogue because the ability to completely make someone unable to do anything for 30s if you wished.

2: WAR, Warrior Priest because they got beast looking hammers, look freaking awesome, and can survive anyone 1v1.

1: WoW: Hunter because it was my first range class and the first hard class that required a lot of skill to play but gave me a lot of reward in BC.

Originally posted by Zorgo

Absolutely no way I could put these in order and/or be limited by 5......

EQ - sks, necros, enchanters, monks

EQ2 - warlocks, guardians

WAR - IBs, Bright Wizards

AoC - Barbarians

WoW - dks, mages, warlocks, druids

VG - all classes. And on that note.....

I can say that I hold the firm opinion that VGs healers (blood mages, clerics, disciples namely) are done better than any other mmo's healers, bar none.

I really really hope that as another poster said, mmo devs emulate some of the targeting and spell/ability systems used in VG. Healers are active battle participants. The main focus is the mob for them, without their focusing on the mob, they don't have the power they need to heal. Clerics and disciples do this through melee, while BMGs use ranged,but feels more like a healing necro or warlock than a dd magic user.

To a lesser degree this holds true for VG tanks as well. Aggro control, crowd control, damage opportunities are all intertwined in the combat unlike other taunt, smack, re-taunt tanks from many mmo's.

My twocents.

I love that you try many classes in the games you play. That's admirable:)

Its true that vanguard had some amazing classes that are much stronger or more original than their counter parts in other games but my list includes quite a few from other games that pushed the boundaries or worked better in their archetype.

healers: vanguard blood mage, disciple, cleric; war archmage, war priest; daoc druid; lotro runekeeper, minstrel; wow shaman, druid

ranged: vanguard  druid, ranger;  war engineer; allods mentalist; lotro hunter; aoc priest of mithra

melee: vanguard monk, rogue, paladin, bard; eq2 dirge; wow death knight; war choppa, iron breaker, black orc; aoc guardian

pet: daoc necro, enchanter, theurgist; wow hunter, warlock; eq beast lord, mage; allods druid; aoc demonologist; eq2 illusionist

If I had to try to put a list of 5-10 down it'd go like this:

1. war engineer 2. wow death knight 3. daoc theurgist 4. war archmage 5. daoc necro

6. wow shaman 7. war choppa 8. vg bard 9.  allods mentalist 10.  wow hunter

Its odd that the 2 classes I've spent by far the most time with are both druids (eq, wow) and they don't make my top ten!

no Bloodmage or Psionicist? Hard to believe especially considering all WAR tank classes are essentially the same thing ..

FFXI- Red mage. The game itself was/is a testiment to what MMORPGs are about, and the class inside of this setting was truly one that fit the bill. Flexible but needed- somewhat hybrid.

WoW- Warlock. Each of the 3 specializations played completely different the one from the other 2. The idea of pets offering another row in the matrix of their play really showed variation and customibility to fit the overall class feel.

WAR- Zealot. The bispec of healer/nuker with an myriad of dots/ hots/ straight heals/nukes ressonated with my personal style of play. I recognize superior class design in offerings like the squid herder... but for a 'favorite' listing, I'd have to choose this one.

EQ- Bard. Inside of the EQ setting, this class was amazing. Mezzes all day.... *all* *day*.

I'd have to stop my list at four, barring repeating a game and choosing a second class from that game. I haven't touched LOTRO nor much of DDO to warrant an opinion on either. I feel like a class must be evaluated based on its gaming context, and choosing a second class fav from an already mentioned title would do injustice.

The funny thing, for me, is to see I've listed casters. Oddly enough, melee/physical is most often my preferred playstyle.

This was a fun article and discussion.

My favorite classes would be:

5. Shadowknight (Eq2): Pvp was a blast on this one.

4. Bright wizard (War): Oh, the power the power.

3. Shadowknight (EQ1): I enjoyed being the aggro machine.

2. Mage (WoW): Being a frost mage in arena pvp is the best. You control the fight and outcome.

1. Herald of Xotli (AoC): Perhaps the best class ever made. HoXs are a blast in pve and pvp. AoC has come a long way.

Awesome article - I have to agree with you on the Death Knight as being awesome in World of Warcraft. However, I have to add the Retribution Paladin to the mix. Yes, its a little harder to play, the dice are stacked against it at level 80, but man is it fun.

My other three would be The Warden in LoTRO, The Paladin in EQ2 & The Paladin in EQ1.

Great article, keep up the great writing. :-)

I could name a few good classes among all MMO but nothing up to SWG class less system : skillz FTW.

From Cook/Smuggler to Entertainer/Rifleman through TerasKasi/Doc, although it was before levels so Pre-CU only.

Originally posted by catlana

This was a fun article and discussion.

My favorite classes would be:

5. Shadowknight (Eq2): Pvp was a blast on this one.

4. Bright wizard (War): Oh, the power the power.

3. Shadowknight (EQ1): I enjoyed being the aggro machine.

2. Mage (WoW): Being a frost mage in arena pvp is the best. You control the fight and outcome.

1. Herald of Xotli (AoC): Perhaps the best class ever made. HoXs are a blast in pve and pvp. AoC has come a long way.

Wow, what a list!  It's apparent that you like the most widely proclaimed dps OP classes available!  lol ;)   Like a bit of DPS and mass slaughter with your gaming?

5.  - Knight of Creation - Horizons - incredible fun class... even though the game's strong point was not the adventuring

4. - Knight of the Blazing Sun - WAR - say what you will about Aura Twisting - I prefer it to "Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt..." and he looked so frakkin amazing

3. - Vampiir - DAoC - Love/Hate relation with this class ;) loved the mechanic to death, hated all the utter retards populating the class

2. - Warden - LotrO - Agreeing with the OP... the Gambit System is just awesome

1. - Herald of Xotli - AoC - to this day my definite favorite.... love this class to death

top ten would include: Bear Shaman - AoC, Burglar - LotrO, Warden - DAoC, Magus - War and Bloodmage - V:SoH

I haven't read through every single post on here, but I see very little love for the BURGLAR class of LOTRO - I never play "rogue" type characters in all the MMO's i've played, but the Burglar was one of the most fun classes I've ever tried.

Self heals, Crowd control, dps, solo-ability, being a Hobbit ! ! !   I had an amazing time with this class...

Anyways,. for what its worth. My top 5

5- Warrior (WoW) - Charge! - possibly my favorite spell/action of all time,

4- Shaman ( WoW) - Totems, Sheilds, Elements - very well rounded class, textbook hybrid - thoroughly enjoyable

3- Ranger (EQ) - My 2nd MMO character ever made ( behind an EQ warrior) - this class was the butt of all jokes until the AA system came out, and Rangers started dealing massive damage w/ bows - loved the concept of a warrior / druid hybrid - guardian of the forest, and protector of the land.

2 - Warden (LoTRO) - i mean after 300 - how do you not like this class - hurling javelins from 30 yards away, shield gambits for self heals, and Brad Pitt offensive moves - awesome class and extremely challenging and fun at the same time.

1- Burglar (LoTRO) - this was the 3rd character I created on LoTRO - i was very skeptical at first, but my Hobbit Burg turned out to be the most fun class I've ever played.  I could solo just about anything, handle multiple mobs in most cases, and had a huge bag of tricks to pull out if I ever got into trouble.  Very unique class - and took the traditional rouge to a completely different level.

Great Article!!!

5. Ranger (RYL) older game but man......they were fun to play a true cloaking ranger.

4.Squig Herder (War) nothing more annoying than getting wtf bbq'ed by something you cannot catch.

3. Vagabond (EvE) was the most fun ship for a long time, able to catch small stuff, and still take out big ships without a problem and slip away with ease. I managed to go 1931 to 1 loss in a faction fitted vagabond mostly null sec ganking. Took skill to fly and not get pinned.

2. Smuggler (Swg) AOE popping 1-20 people with a one shot was classic fun. Not to mention just solo ownage all day long.

1.Witch Elf (War) even tho they got nerfed once they still are the most fun class to solo pvp in, not much survives if you hit them.

I have to say, EvE over the years gave me the most joy in gaming than any other so far. Sadly it's going down hill far away from small gang/solo pvp. But oh the memories and fraps of going into deep 0.0 slaughter them all day and laughing cold heartedly.

Cool someone mentioning RYL - I have to post. :)

5. WoW Warlock, I love dots and defensive casters, after half of a fight you knew "ok even if i lose now the other guy still dies".

4. WAR white lion. While at first I laughed about it and was sure that this character would be the last i play (i dont like pets and the guy just looked hilarious) later it became one of my favourites. Especially jumping into the the suporters kill a guy then jump out or run away in panic was great fun (before the overall damage went out of hand).

3. CoX Mastermind (Thugs), Gangwar was just great. Dozens of Punks with baseball bats and stuff coming to help you.

2. WAR Magus. Again at first I though hm ugh stupid disc. But later I missed the disc so much when I played any other Character. And again defensive caster with dots  - yeah. adding funny demons and before everyone got too much damage I could withstand several enemies chasing me for a long time - great fun.

1. My Priest 'Harmless' in Ryl. Level 72 second highest Character on Human side at that time in a game where leveling past 60 was incredible slow and no one would reach max level 99 (that was a xp x1 original Ryl1 server and I wasted way too much time). While the top enemy Gunner could one shot about anyone I took like 100 Damage from his finisher (with 14K HP and incredible Regeneration). Only one or two Runes were a threat. Melee could not even scratch. Demigod.

Since I have been around a while in class-based games and you might notice a trend:

#5  Necro - EQ:  When I got my Spectre pet, man I thought I was in heaven.

#4  Monk - EQ and VG:  My favorite class mechanic ever.  Sadly never really done as well as I wanted.

#3  Creature Handler / Ranger - SWG:  Boy did I love finding little babies to train and then setting up a huge camp.

#2  Teras Kasi Artist - SWG:  Yeah, just a variation on my old Monk, but I still loved it.

#1  Friar - DAOC:  My all-time favorite class to play.  What a joy he was even at release, nothing beats swinging a big stick at a Lurikeen.

My favorites in order

Enchanter - EQ1

Fixer  - AO

Shadowknight - EQ1

Shaman - WoW

Originally posted by Ozmodan

#1 on my list, SWG's creature handler....oh yeah they removed that class, but still the most fun I have had with a class in a game.

I will have to admit, I don't really like classes to start with.

Lol, I was curious if someone would mention this class (but fully expecting it). Whenever the topic of best/favorite classes comes up in any conversation that my cousin is a part of, the Creature Handler is all he talks about. Although I never had the chance to play one, he is sure to enlighten me once more about just how great it was and remind me of the fact that I missed out.

I was also shocked to see that one of my new favorite classes made the top of your list, Bill. Not sure why I'm shocked though, the Warden is one helluva class to play, but shhhhhhhhhhh...

Not sure if I can put them in order. I'd really have to give that some thought, but here are 'some' of mine that haven't been mentioned:

• City of Heroes - Invul tank (before they nerfed 'em):  I always wanted to know what it felt like to be Superman/Juggernaut/The Hulk, this class showed me exactly that.
• Warhammer - Shadow Warrior:  I know there were a lot of people complaining about this class being gimped from the start, but I just loved frustrating people enough to make them want to come after me, just so I could frustrate them even more by punting them off a cliff at Nordenwatch or STC a second before they tasted the kill.
• City of Heroes - Fire/Emp Controller:  It was always a joy to hear the surprise in the other players unfamiliar with my class, when they realized that the teammate that was continuously locking down the enemy to the point it was barely a threat was also the same teammate that had been healing them the whole time! More importantly, there was just something mesmerizing about watching those little orange monkeys do their thing.
• Aion - Spiritmaster:  Too early to tell if it will remain a favorite, but so far it's been fun.
• Warhammer - Witch Elf:  The definition of 'most frustrating class to play against', before the class was nerfed. Could truly decimate and decide the outcome of any SC if played correctly. Never in any game, was I so keenly aware that I had pissed so many people off on the opposing side. My blades simply loved the blood of their healers to the point you could almost hear those healers shout, "kill that f'n Witch Elf". You knew that was indeed the case as soon as it became obvious that every one of the opposition was completely ignoring the objectives and your healers and making a B line for you!

Originally posted by girlgeek

Wow, what a list!  It's apparent that you like the most widely proclaimed dps OP classes available!  lol ;)   Like a bit of DPS and mass slaughter with your gaming?

Unless you are only talking about the first few months (before I started playing), WoW's Mage was never OP.

Honorable mention to herald of xolti in AoC because although i never played one since i hate leveling, turning into a demon and building up a chain then running up and 1 shotting someone looked like endless fun, same with the corpse explosion demonologists could do and wipe out powerleveling groups.

5) Monk- EQ 1 I played on Tunare and Greater Feydark was out 'trade zone' early in the game.  Nothing was more fun than agroing a bunch of guards, running them to the wizard spire and then feign deathing them onto all the evil classes who were KOS to the guards and getting them all killed.  Also the pulling system with feign death was a lot of fun and made you a very important part of the raids, so the ability had 2 uses =)

4) Bear Shaman - AOC- I want to believe I was the first max level on my server from what I remember, I definatly got gobbled up into the top guild on the server and was the -only- bear shaman in the guild for a while.  Being in that position i got everything that dropped since i had no competition.  So being in the most progressed guild, and having no competition on loots, im pretty sure thats the dream of every MMO player?  Too bad the game sucked back then so I up and quit.

3) White mage - FFXI The only time i have ever played a healer class, and although the first few levels sucked, once you start grouping it was a ton of fun because my wait time to find groups was a negative number.  As soon as i would log in i would get multiple tells asking to come join groups.  Coming from a history of playing DPS classes that was a very enjoyable change of pace, also having the red mage sub class was great for the ability to cast the mana regen spell and the hp-mana spell, made me a healing machine.

2) Hunter - wow- played the hunter class since the beta and never made an alt aside from maybe 1 pvp twink.   Like all of wow classes it went through a lot of changes but I always seemed to be able to out damage almost everyone no matter what people were crying about on the forums about gimping the class.  Not to mention it had feign death also, arrows 70 silver, rarly dying during weeks of 'boss learning' - priceless.

1) Theif - original shadowbane- Hands down probably one of the most gun games due to the class dynamics, you could be like 20 different variations of any class, it was rediculous.  To name 1 class as your favorite is hard but the theif when the game came out was completely rediculous.  You could pickpocket people and steal everything in their inventory WHILE remaining invisible.  Only the scout class could pop stealth'ed people out of stealth and at that time hardly anyone had any of the runes like bounty hunter which would allow them to track and AOE around where a theif was.  To top all that off you could backstab people and basically 1 shot them if they were sitting.  Needless to say my friends and I spent a large amount of time griefing leveling groups and stealing all their plunders.  Say you were leveling up, grinding a camp and over the course of a few hours had piled up a substantial amount of gold and gotten lucky and actually won the role on a super rare item.  Well a theif could come along, check out everyones inventory, see that you had the best stuff and steal it all, then steal everyone elses stuff and run off typically before anyone noticed their inventory was empty.  It was glorious.

--edit--

Thinking back about it all the classes in EQ 1 were probably some of the best, its just been so long its hard to remember them all.  Watching bards with sellos drums of march <sp is wrong im sure> flying across zones in bright blue lambet armor with a trail of mobs slowly dying behind them.  Enchanters mind controll'ing mobs or their ability to mass mezmerize everything.  Rangers being synomonous with defining uber fail ( everyone just gave them crap).  Clerics having COMPLETEL HEAL as a spell, gg.  Necro's getting lich form and dying from going afk while their hp was turned into mana.  Warriors not being sword and board tanks but having 2 bad a** swords and kick/taunt mashing to keep agro over rogues who would backstab things to death.  Paladins with soulfire back when it was the only weapon with cool effects.    Halfling druid's kiting giants around.  The classes were all really fun in their own way and having people that were good at their class made all the exp grinding a lot of fun.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by girlgeek

Wow, what a list!  It's apparent that you like the most widely proclaimed dps OP classes available!  lol ;)   Like a bit of DPS and mass slaughter with your gaming?

Unless you are only talking about the first few months (before I started playing), WoW's Mage was never OP.

You must have never had the tier 2 set from BWL.  The effect was a chance to have an instant cast spell but it was totaly broken and the effect would keep happening for whatever reason.  So mages would run around the BGs spamming instant fireballs and raping everyone. Aside from that, most games have a typical rock paper siccors system for pvp.  Where a Warrior beats a mele dps and a rogue beats a magic dps and a mage beats a war.  Well you had this mage class which could do this awesome thing called dead zones where a mage could frost nova a hunter and then sit outside his mele range and inside his ranged attack range and wand him to death.  It was stupid.

Nice topic! I did enjoyed reading all the favorites!

Mine are as following with heavy bias on pet caster:

HM: Runes of Magic: Mage/druid is a very nice class combination, EQ1 Shadow Knight: Pet, Dots and tanking, DAoC Reaver, DAoC Thane, DAoC Valkyrie, Runes of magic: Warden/Scout quite similar to the EQ1 Ranger with pets

5: WoW Hunter and EQ1 ranger Fun with ranged attacks while the pet was tanking.

4: DAoC Bonedancer and WoW Warlock fun with several pets.

3: VG Necro: Somewhat similar to EQ1 necros with upgradeable pet.

2: EQ1 Necros: The ideal class on a PvP server. Smacking DoTs on the target, send pet in and then cast fear on it.

1: CoV Mastermind: Nothing more was fun to see the zombies vomitting on the enemies or feeling like a lieutenant with the soldier set while watching the enemies constantly sitting on their butts after the knock backs! Nice also was that some powers was for upgrading the pets! (I think I should play that one again! :-) )

hm.. think i would have to say...

5) WoW - Hunter: a lot of fun, but after only 3 month the game got really boring.  Don't care for raids. Tried a Death Knight, just doesn't have much to keep me wanting to play.

4) DAoC - Paladin: very versitile especially once you get a few skills from doing RvR points.  Lay on hands is a big lifesaver for your healer if they start getting pounded on by mobs. RvR is a fun concept, just wished you could build your own forts etc, rule land the whole 9.

3) Guild Wars - Warrior:  with many combos you can be really useful in many areas of game, have beaten all areas with heroes and henchmen.  Assassin: because it's the best and funnest to me for solo and farming.  love the pvp portion of the game.

2) CoV - Brute: I played a majority solo and made it to 50 with no problems, just all around fun to pulverize everything in your path.  Get your rage up and the damage just keeps on flowing.  Lots of fun skill set combos.  PvP is ok, would have been better if they stuck to their guns on Hero vs. Villian base raids, wished there was more to it also like outside and inside portions of a base raid. but overall the pve is still intertaining, and i still play it quite a bit on and off. 

1) Asheron's Call - UA/Life/Melee D Spec: May not be the most damaging specialization, but with life specialized and with a decent amount of points in focus you can make your skill high enough to debuff most anything within 1 to 3 tries.  then hard to kill creatures are toast pretty quick. you can eventually learn item and creature magic as well.  Very self sufficient build.

5. ProGen Sentinel from Earth & Beyond, still love the look of their ships.

4. DDO Paladin: Mine being a Warforged, but the DDO Paladin is, IMO, the Pally done right - not overpowered.

3. CoV Mastermind: Adding to the Necromancy Love here, my necro/poison mastermind 'Mister Scratch' has been in CoV since Closed Beta for that and i still have the love for the class and the character.

2. LOTRO Warden: Adding to the Warden kudos, I play this class as a tank for my fiancee when she plays with me, making a team of Warden and her Minstrel.

1. LOTRO Burglar: My main character in LOTRO, not the sneaky uberassassin from WoW who ganks with near impunity and vanishes, the Burglar makes you think about what you are doing, and is a great asset to any Fellowship forming.  For added challenge my Burg mostly plays solo.  And since the class is mainly a debuffer rather than a DPS machine its very challenging at times indeed!

1. Warrior @ WoW

2. Archmage @ Warhammer Online

3. Trader @ Anarchy Online

4. Monk @ Guild Wars

5. Sacrier @ Dofus

1. Minstrel - Dark Age Of Camelot  (fun class and one of few that I had to practice besides leveling to become better)

2. Loremaster - LOTRO (extremely fun, lots of skills, crowdcontrol, both melee and range, pets)

3. Druid - WoW (many tricks and ways to play it)

4. Ranger - Dark Age Of Camelot (Very fun, played a hybrid melee/range)

5. Hunter - WoW (first time the pet became personal and was fun to kite)

Ironbreaker from WAR? DK from WoW? I didn't know anyone could admit to listing "easy mode" classes in their top 5 favorites. ;)

Yeah, when you mention "Actually, the reason I adore the Ironbreaker can be summed up by two words: knock back. I know other classes have it. But what makes the IB so fun for me is the ability to launch attackers away from my healers, to punt healers [and everyone else] into lava, and to in general be an annoyance to the opposing team."  (underlines added for emphasis) you're actually listing the reason why I left WAR altogether. Knock backs were the silliest system in that game because they were a win-all in most scenarios--or at least in every scenario that Order players would actually queue for. Mythic had an awesome title on their hands that I enjoyed playing until I realized that the knock backs were king in that game, and that they were unevenly distributed to benefit the Order classes, both in the number of classes that had them and the level at which they became available. When your Black Orc spends 50% of a match being knocked into lava and you have zero knockbacks in return, or you only see the scenario with the lava because Order won't queue for anyone else, it kills your drive to play a game. Sorry Mythic, you screwed up there, and Bill's lists have dropped a peg in my esteem for including the Ironbreaker as one of the top 5 classes.

That said, here's the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

5) The system in Champions Online -- Class-less, sure but come on it's worth a mention. The Forces powerset in particular was quite a bit of fun.

4) Warden, Lord of the Rings Online -- the Gambit system plus the skill it took to be a medium-armor shield+spear tank that chucks javelins and make it work was a wildly fun experience. Turbine's on the ball when it comes to classes (in PvE, that is. PvP has never been the strong point in LotRO).

3) Necromancer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes -- Pets like few other classes can do on top of some cool status abilities and fantastic damage. Best rendition of this class type in any game I've played.

2) Psionicist, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes -- The classes in Vanguard are especially deep and explorative, with abilities that would seem totally unbalanced in a PvP setting. Fortunately, the game has virtually no PvP to hamper these class developments. The skill in juggling the CC of 4 to 6 mobs at once, in addition to mana manipulation and damage dealing make the Psionicist an acrobatic class of combat awareness and quick reflexes.

1) Creature Handler: Star Wars Galaxies (pre- and post-CU, but pre-NGE QQ): Because nothing beats going into a fight with my pet rancor Chompy, or my trio of 6' tall sledge panthers, Larry, Curly, and Moe. RIP Creature Handler class. :*(

And since they don't fit into classes well, of course EVE has some incredible "roles" that are fun mainly because you have to figure them out as you go as far as your skills and "equipment", not by some set archetype of class or even an ability set.

My top five "classes":

1. No Class - PlanetSide style

2. No Class - Ultima Online style

3. No Class - Oblivion style (ok it not an MMO)

4. No Class - Darkfall style

5. No Class - Mortal Online Beta style

Classes = Fail 

The above are examples of games that allow your character to do what you want how you want. Classes just add barriers to a game. 

Classes = EQ and its varied carbon copies in the form of WOW, LoTRO, Aion, etc.

^^ This

You guys are all funny....FFXI is all you need in your life...if there was a new game coming out that was exactly like it and it was really populated, there wont be a wait to find a party. The linkshells were sick especially with end game content and receiving help if you were just starting. The combat was nice with the skillchains....overall that is my ideal game, a wide variety of classes and they are forced to work together so you can just experience 6 different combinations of classes every time you want to level. Sometimes you gotta deal with a decent party but the excitement of trying to survive is sick. It is a hard game dont get me wrong. You are basically dropped into a world knowing nothing but then you get to know people because you ask questions. It was my first mmorpg and i am glad it was because i have never found a game as fun as it was in its prime. Hope FFXIV is like its father lol. Rdm is the best. So versatile for a main or a sub class. I wanna play nowww lolll....thats it haa   

Mine are all pretty easy but when I say classes its a pretty loose term...since some of these are from skill based games...

5. Cleric - EQ1

4. inquisitor and a Defiler were probably my most played especially the Defiler and I loved the wards and the drains my lizzard did. I also enjoyed my shadowknight for roleplay rushing into the fight on my dark steed. (EQ2)

3. Bio-engineer/Creature handler- Played this for a number of years much fun hunting , pets and making stuff.  (SWG Pre/CU)

2. Carbineer/Creature handler-this was after the CH nerf and had to be the worst combo in the game but for some reason I enjoyed the pain of trying to fight and level the most gimped professions in game combined.   (SWG/PRE/CU)

1. I have a tie on this one, My favorite for PVP fun was my java (bothan) Bounty Hunter. I once hunted a jedi with my mission for several days and the guy kept logging off on me, I once waited 14hours outside the guys house waiting for the guy to spawn back in while hiding in some bushes, blew up his bike soon as he pulled it out and then pwn'd him into smithereens to get my mark. Gawd i loved that and felt great.  (FYI - I 2 boxed while waiting ont eh guy so i wasn't bored)   

1. The other part of the tie was my Sword/Doc combo, I used to go krayt dragon hunting on Tatt solo and Kimo huntin on LOK solo and had all kinds of great stuff from the loot back then..personally I think it was the best PVE combo going..great fun over the years that I had played it..

The good thing about classes diversity is that they appeal to different peoples' preferred playstyles. I, myself am a big favorite of hybrid classes, because it gives me versatility, and I like solo play.

Here is my list on top of my head.

1. Dark Templar. AoC.

2. Druid, WoW

3. Death Knight, WoW.

4. Warden, DaoC.

5. Shaman, WoW.

But I have enjoyed other classes such as the Rogue, Hunter, Shadowpriest in World of Warcraft. Probably some others also from other online games, but my memory fails me. I have mostly played Eve-online, where being a specialist is better than a jack-of-all-trades.

Hmm k I'll chime in. All seems the same Fantasy crap over and over to me.:

5: Any Class/Vehicle/Armor in Planetside (BFR's FTW)

4: Warhammer - Diciple of Cain - MeLee Healer better than Vanguard Monk and AoC Bear Shaman imo

3a: WoW - Paladin - Only avatar that made me feel indestructible and Badass no matter what area I ventured into.

3b: EQ2 - Dred Knight - Plate Armor, melee and ranged powers that damage enemy while returning heath to u (all AoE), and an "I WIN" button in "Death Touch" renamed to harm touch after a healthy nerf.

2: Earth & Beyond - Jenquai Warrior - Spaceship armed with Steath, Lasers, Rockets, what else could u want for?

1: Champions Online - Simply because you can make your avatar out of what ever powers are in the game. For this  reason alone how could anyone argue this is not their favorite class ... you create it you can literally be whatever you want.

The Corsair from FFXI was my favorite mmo class ever. Sittin back playing slots while poppin off heavy lead. Awesome, just awesome.

5. Hunter - WoW 

4. Disciple - Vanguard

3. Sorcerer - Vanguard

2. Warlock - WoW - 

1. Druid -EQ1 - I loved this class having played most in EQ (my 1st mmo) but in a game where death came with such a high cost being able to run away from a bad situation with Spirit of the Wolf was the best plus teleports (pre POP) and the buffs could always bring in much needed cash

For me Warden is one of the most boring classes in any MMO. Even more so then classes in EQ2. My personal favourites are:

1. Hunter in WoW

2. Bard in Vanguard

3. Burglar in LoTRO

my top 5

1. enchanter - everquest1

2. mesmer - guild wars

3. warlock - wow

4. Favored Soul - Dungeons and Dragons Online

5. midgard hunter - DAOC, spear and pet, will travel

1. Crafter SWG - Loved crafting although armorsmithing was my niche, all the others saw some play time

2. Droner- Neocron2.  One of the best classes I've ever played and by far the coolest concept

3. Ranger/Squadleader - SWG: Everything and more to help out a group.

4. Brigand EQ2: A debuffer to the extreme and a bit tanky if you let him

5. Dark Templar AOC.  Love the theme and playstyle.

I don't need 5, there is only ONE class that is supreme over all others for all time:

The Templar from Shadowbane.

1) EVE Online - no class.

2) UO - no class.

3) SB - Mage Assassin

4) WoW - Warlock

5) RIFT - Mage

Originally posted by Lypheus

I don't need 5, there is only ONE class that is supreme over all others for all time:

The Templar from Shadowbane.

 

Mmm... Shadowbane.

Rogue Barbarian in Shadowbane was one of my favorite characters to play in any MMO.