The pros and cons of all classes.

Regarding popularity, what about its effect on the availability of gear for said class? I personally would consider it a 'con' for the sake of a class defining thread since it is a stumbling block in improving its damage.

I'm not even sure prices should be a factor unless it's on an extreme scale. For example, pirates being cheap because they're un-revamped or thieves being expensive because of more slots with potential.

Opinions on a topic like this is some basil s'hit. Functional differences are what this thread is about, not something that literally no one can prove.

Yea, because when someone wants to make a class they've never made before, functional differences are all that matters. I agree that popularity might be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it. But I find a crappy skill animation an obvious con.

And jeez, you sound like you want to strangle someone with your harsh language; calm down man, it's not like the survival of mankind depends on this thread being perfect.

i notice no one has said anything about mechs yet

 mech

pros:

slightly more hp and a lot more (m)defense than other ranged classes like archers and sairs.
insane range in tank mode.
ksing and map defense power.
jump and portal get you and your party anywhere quickly (theyre amazing in cwkpq [RIP] ).
healbot and ampbot offer buffs that dont get overwritten by anything else.
recent addition: you can mine/herb while in prototype mode!
few self-buffs means dispel doesnt hurt too much, but since theyre resistance they dont get undispellable decent skills.
low damage, high hit count 1v1 skills means lots of room for pimping your damage out without hitting the cap (id love to see someone who can hit even 150-200ks in siege mode).

cons:
got nothing against 1/1 for extra survivability. seduce can be really dangerous.
tank mode makes you terribly immobile, making you choose between mobility and damage in 4th job. training can be frustrating if you arent bossing for xp.
the only full screen attack mechs have is unusable between terribly programmed graphics lag/memory leaks and cast time.
rock'n'shock downtime.
the OP days are over chaos nerfs hit pretty hard, but union looks like it offers nice buffs.

And jeez, you sound like you want to strangle someone with your harsh language; calm down man, it's not like the survival of mankind depends on this thread being perfect.

I mean maybe it's just that i got up and took a train for work only to accomplish nothing all day but it's really not that harsh. It's fine if you get offended and stuff but i'm not trying to attack you.

Also i'm only taking it seriously because i was pissed off looking at the other thread since it was an interesting premise but just ended up being a joke. I just wanted this one to be an actually good source because threads like these pop up all the time on other forums and it'd be nice to have a credible, knowledgeable source. That's all.

What you put for bucc makes me not want to live on this planet anymore.

pros:

[currently in GMS]
WindBooster
Iframes
High HP
Time leap is helpful at times.
Not many play this.
Cons:
Hella slow in terms of mobility
Low damage
Demolition is a sucky 1v1
No real mob skill till 4th job.

After union tho, we barely have any cons.

lol at all the "arans has slow mobility" compared to other warriors(except demon slayer) arans mobility beats them, and "arans are bad at pvp" you just suck at pvp lol

I mean maybe it's just that i got up and took a train for work only to accomplish nothing all day but it's really not that harsh. It's fine if you get offended and stuff but i'm not trying to attack you.

Also i'm only taking it seriously because i was pissed off looking at the other thread since it was an interesting premise but just ended up being a joke. I just wanted this one to be an actually good source because threads like these pop up all the time on other forums and it'd be nice to have a credible, knowledgeable source. That's all.

No problem. We're all human. And I share your sentiments for making this a good thread, and eventually a stickied thread. I lmao'ed at the other thread's incompetency.

Thread now may have promise.

 I/L AM

Pros:

- Proficient in harvesting Battle Points in PvP due to it's large arsenal of AoE attacks, status effects and ability to employ "hit and run" tactics effectively.
- High maneuverability thanks to Teleport.
- Chain Lightning has the largest potential directional range in the game for a staple attack thanks to its arcing between enemies, despite only hitting 5 at most.
- A comparable attacker when compared to other adventurer attack classes in terms of %/s in PvE.

Cons:

- Glacial Chain's cooldown is not 5 seconds as advertised, but more like 8-10 seconds due to server latency.
- Infinity has limited use at bosses that dispel frequently due to its 3 minute cooldown and 40 second (1 minute with Buff Mastery) duration.
- Infinity's stance effect is 50% which in practice is not particularly functional, past this easily removed skill adventurer mages have no stance at all.
- Very low HP, very reliant on dispellable Magic Guard for survival at end-game.
- Seal does not work on bosses.
- Vulnerable to 1/1 + seduce.

All the others I could think of are based in some way on the person playing. The low cost of %INT equips isn't really a decision-breaking pro to those who could afford most of their end-game equip set without any trouble, but it could be to those who aren't so rich. The idea of having a "spammy" 4th job also may or may not be a pro or con depending on what someone wants out of a class. The idea that employing Teleport Mastery with each (or every other) CL during bosses is "difficult" (and by extension a "con") is also entirely subjective based on the motivation of the player to do so and the scenario. Dealing with absolutes seems to be the only objective way forward.

 F/P Archmage

-You shouldn't list not having party skills twice.
-High MP to cast attacks is ambiguous, change to "Large MP pool" or something.
-Dispellable Magic Guard should be listed on top, it's one of the biggest problem of mages.

I would advise a general spelling/grammar check on the post too.

A con for Wild Hunter that it has the worst mob control compared to the other bowman classes(Bowmaster, Marksman, Mercedes) and their summons (trap, silver hawk) are sub par compared to theit adventure bowman counterparts.

Come to think of it, just as an example...

>AMs have no party skills

Something like that, can it really be sorted as a pro or a con at all? Bar the fact that Medi exists and therefore an Archmage *does* have a party skill albeit a fairly useless one in the vast majority of actual party scenarios, it seems like a general statement that can't really be shifted either way. Not like having no useful party skills was ever considered a "con" of a Corsair or a Hero (Magic Crash isn't a party skill) since they've always had the damage to back it up and now Archmages have that too. Maybe scrapping the whole "Pro/Con" framework entirely and instead focusing on general descriptions of only the immediate facts would be a better way around it since in effect all a "pro"/"con" is is a general statement with whatever positive/negative connotations the one who labelled it as such attached to it, which can ultimately be disagreed with. In effect what I'm suggesting is that for every class whip up a couple of unbiased paragraphs that state something like "This is what class A can and can't do, this is how it interacts with the game environment/other players, this is how it compares to other classes in random criteria, we'll let you decide whether any of this is a good thing or not".

Using unbiased descriptions over a "pro"/"con" list would mean that grey areas like "no party skills", "typically cheaper equips" and "repetitive gameplay" would be easily placed while outright opinions like " would still be ignored. Would also mean that the reader decides what is a pro or a con of the class for themselves rather than having the thread basically decide for them.

I see you've added some of my thoughts on what the FP pros and cons are. I agree with takebacker that "least popular of all the mages" should probably be taken out of there though, since it's not really a pro or a con.

 F/P Archmage

-You shouldn't list not having party skills twice.
-High MP to cast attacks is ambiguous, change to "Large MP pool" or something.
-Dispellable Magic Guard should be listed on top, it's one of the biggest problem of mages.

I would advise a general spelling/grammar check on the post too.

I think "high MP" is a given for just about all mages, not really a pro or con. I also think that dispellable MG is more a slight-inconvenience than a big problem - but I guess it can easily be viewed as a con. What's more annoying to me though is Infinity being dispellable as well (same applies to ILs).

@gobbins: having no useful party skills is an obvious con.

Going to read the stuff since my last post tommorow. Dead-tired from playing Age of Mythology 7 hours straight.
I'll edit everything tommorow and re-check everything.

Iron Arrow/Dragon Breath/Piercing Arrow have limited range compared to other skills. Elaborate?

Because they only move in straight lines it isn't always possible to hit what you need to hit from a safe spot. Arrow Bomb, Inferno and Blizzard don't have this issue.

Because they only move in straight lines it isn't always possible to hit what you need to hit from a safe spot. Arrow Bomb, Inferno and Blizzard don't have this issue.

Oh, as in curving. Gotcha. I think I mentioned that already, because I thought by range, he meant horizontal range. o_e

About popularity, how about just putting a rating next to the name?

Something like:

 Bandit ★★☆☆☆

Pros, cons.

 Mercedes ★★★★★

Pros, cons.

Also, it's Bowmen and Thieves.

I really like this star idea though. Not sure how to rate it though. We'd have to think about that to make that work properly.

The stars would be way too misleading as to what it's supposed to mean. DPS? Author's choice? Trainability? Could be taken as anything.

The stars would be way too misleading as to what it's supposed to mean. DPS? Author's choice? Trainability? Could be taken as anything.

Well if this would actually be done, i would ofcourse explain the stars somewhere at the start of the thread.
Without any information its indeed confusing. But yeah, still the chance of actually using that is still small.
(Back to editing some more).

The stars would be way too misleading as to what it's supposed to mean. DPS? Author's choice? Trainability? Could be taken as anything.

Actually, I have a better idea.

Make each star related to a certain aspect.

1st- Bossing
2nd- Training
3rd- Movility
4th- Economy
5th- Party support

Or something along those lines.

Question: Why is the fact that Stance takes 30 SP only a con for Heroes?