Choosing a class in an MMO can be different for everyone. Some players will decide on a class because it looks stunning visually. Others want big numbers on the damage meters and will choose the class nicknamed “the flavour of the month”. There are also players who wind up playing same class in every game they play, such as a person who will only play priest-like characters or the person who will only play archers. However, class choice is not always easy and it can leave MMO players feeling a bit lost.
Looking for the coolest looking class? Looking up the end-game armour sets is usually a wise choice, but combat animations should also be taken into consideration. In most MMOs, the combat animations are tied to the race of the character, so this will need to be taken into consideration as well. In World of Warcraft, for example, different races will draw a bow at different angles and some players will refuse to play certain races because they feel the race does not hold a bow properly.
Looking for big numbers while you nuke down mobs in the damage role? Casters are often the best at this and usually go by names such as “mage” or “warlock”. Duel-welding dagger classes such as rogues or thieves are also great choices because they usually score a lot of critical hits. Of course, it helps to keep in mind that class choice isn’t always the main cause for dealing the most damage and knowing a class inside and out can often be the most important factor.
A more interesting way to decide on a class is to choose one that is unique to the MMO. Final Fantasy XIV has a healing class with a pet and it is very rare for MMOs to have pet-summoning support classes. Similarily, Wildstar also has a unique healer which has short-ranged attacks and uses defibrillator paddles as a weapon. Most importantly, by choosing different classes that cannot be found in other MMOs players are less likely to feel burned out or feel as though they’re just playing the same MMOs with different graphics.
Choosing a class can become more complicated when different classes can have multiple roles, such as the different specs of World of Warcraft‘s classes. In these situations, the best choice is to choose the class that has the most enjoyable specs. For example, if a class like a paladin offers a tanking role, a melee damage role, and a healing role, but only the melee damage role was fun, the class might be a poor choice for that player. A patch which drastically changes the only melee damage choice could make the player feel as though they must make a new character that is more fun. This all could have been avoided if the player had selected the rogue with three different melee damaging roles instead because there would have been two other melee damage choices to choose from.
Finally, one of the best choices of all is to try a little bit of everything. Many MMO classes show their true colours once players get to either level 15 or 30, depending on the game. Watching videos of high-level players can help, but nothing beats actually playing the class to find out what the game experience is truly like. That warlock player on YouTube might be killing everything in sight, but do you really want to track all of those DOTs when you could just be casting a single spell over the whole area instead? Alternatively, people may be praising the professional player who shoots like a cannon, but if they’re only pushing the same buttons over and over, you might find the class lacking when it comes to playing it yourself.
Class choice is an important decision because it can heavily impact how much you’re going to enjoy the MMO. If you end up having to remake your character a few times, don’t sweat it! This happens to just about everyone and there’s no point in holding onto a character you don’t enjoy. Besides, most games have catch-up mechanics that will help you get caught up to where you left off in no time!
