Shattered Kingdoms

I am aware that the 'are you new to Pyrathia?' option closes certain options in the halls of creation, like the infamously useless giant warlock.

I propose that the following classes be flagged to noobs as being hard to build, plan and use as hybrids:

Shaman
Hellion
Paladin

I don't think that anyone is going to tell these players how to coordinate their stats with the enchanting system in order to get maxed out on everything and have decent art/hp/mp, so we should just avoid throwing these people into the shark tank.

I propose that the next following classes also be flagged, due to being uncompetitive:

Warlock
Bard

Please name a recent character, of one of these classes, who has shone in PK in the last two years. If they ever do become successful, it's because

In addition, these classes and races should be flagged as high risk for getting killed:

Elf
Deep-elf
Griffon
Paladin, again.
Hellion, again.
Necromancer, twice.

The 'noob recommended' classes, therefore, should be:

Mercenary
Barbarian
Swashbuckler*
Priest
Rogue
Scout
Sorceror

Discuss.

*I'm not familiar with Swashbuckler since the recent changes with kip up and everything. Before those changes I would have also flagged it as seriously uncompetitive. Now, I don't know.

**Before Edoras posts that necromancers are not competitive, I know he thinks necromancers aren't competitive. I've never had a PKing necro, so I can't comment. I think they're so high risk for getting killed, that it's not worthwhile to comment on whether or not they're competitive to highly unrecommend them to noobs.

Sorcerer is not a good newb class, IMO, and newbs tend to pick bad races. Helf sorc is unplayable. Elf/gnome/sprite are a headache. The sorcerer class pretty much requires 23+ int. So human or delf.

Paladin is almost the perfect newb class. Melee survivable, can heal, can locate, can call armor, levels easily.

Swashbucklers are not competitive.

Mercenary is not a newb class. Too easy to mess up specialize.

Warlocks are devastatingly competitive. Find somebody and ask them to fireball you. But they're the swashbucklers of mages, in terms of being boring as [REDACTED] to play.

I will never understand why people worry so much about stats.

I agree that paladins are easy to level up. I think sorc is a good noon class because it allows one to explore safely.

Also, whoaboy, you talked about sorcs needing 23 int at least, but then you talk about stats not being important. I must not have understood you correctly.

Racial caps are important.

What you actually train your stats to, within that cap, is not so important. It can always be fixed.

Disagree with most of that, Anjin. I'd argue that the hybrid classes are some of the best for new players. They have decent survivability in PvE situations, which is really what a new player is learning the most with their first character or two, typically. I would argue that no first character is ever designed for maximized uber-power, so I reject that out-of-hand as the premise behind the suggestion.

Shamans are very easy to play. They're relatively tough on their own, they provide some utility so they are useful to groups, they don't have any particularly stringent RP requirements as far as joining religions, they can fit into any tribunal or cabal in the game. Sanctuary + healing spells + Word of Recall are vital spells to have on-hand for the newbie exploring the game environment. You can still be competitive on a n00b level even if you don't maximize your character build to its toughest specifications. They actually make one of the BEST classes for a new player.

Paladins are also relatively tough on their own, they level easily, plus they have the benefit of the locate & identify spells, which helps a new player learning equipment in the game, they can wear any armor materials, and can wield most types of weapons, making it easy to equip the n00b. Sanctuary + healing spells + Word of Recall again. Plus, and VERY IMPORTANTLY, they have the call armor spell, which is extremely useful for the n00b player and their tendency to get themselves killed. As long as they can find their way back to life, the new player who chooses a paladin is one of the easiest in regard to equipping quickly and easily. The downfall to a new player going the paladin route is the relatively difficult associated roleplay (although arguably, this forces the new player to learn the RP environment) and the need to join a religion in order to get their higher level spells.

Hellions share a lot of the same newbie benefits as paladins, although they're not quite as optimal. Although they don't share the same access to healing spells + Call Armor, they have the ability to disappear with hide/invis and to engage in greater/easier travel options with access to Rift. Plus, having access to cleave + intimidation + domination are useful tools for the exploring newbie.

Mercs, barbs, swashies are all relatively easy for n00bs.
Priests are easy for n00bs, everybody wants to be friends with a priest and they have all the tools for easy travel and easy exploration of the game.
Rogues and scouts are pretty easy all around.
Sorcs are squishy and break easily, but they have a lot of useful tools for traveling & exploring the game and to escape danger for the purpose of surviving.
Griffons of any class are uber-easy for n00bs, minus the alignment/RP/racism drawbacks.

Warlocks don't have quite the same tools for exploring the world quite as well as some others, but access to steady supplies of water and flight and invis and detections, plus a relatively strong pet-on-hand + stone skin + ironguard gives them some help in dealing with the world of PvE. Warlock was my very first class in the game, and it's challenging-- they're not easy for a n00b to level up, either. But while I wouldn't typically advise a newbie to select a warlock as their first character, I would never support removing the option, as this was the build that made me fall in love with SK, and I'd never want anybody else to lose that same opportunity.

Bards... well, they're definitely not easy. They're pretty squishy too, and they take some skill to use effectively. But, like priests, everybody is always happy to have a bard around to help them out, which makes it easy to make friends & find help, and the use of lore helps them to learn a lot of interesting/useful information about the game. Like warlocks, I wouldn't necessarily advise a new player to select a bard as their first character, but I also don't know if I'd necessarily want to see the option removed. But if I were to support any other class removed from the n00b options, it would probably be the bard.

Clarification:

I don't recommend blocking these options to noobs, just flagging them saying 'hey, this is dangerous.'

You can argue more about which should and shouldn't be flagged.

Maybe I should just post a min-maxing guide for noobs in character creation.

The only useful character guide has already been doing this effectively for eight months.

Poor minotaurs. They got left off that guide.

Minotaur is a terrible race.

You could give them helmets, and they'd still be subpar.

You know, I've never played a minotaur, but they seemed pretty good to me compared to giant just looking at the stats, having IIRC 24 str 18 dex 23 con, basically a giant, -1 str, -1 con, -1 size, +2 dex, different weaknesses. I don't really know how the head thing works, I guess that just hitting them in the head with a sonic weapon would probably end them.