Class balances

[NoShooty]

SInce I'm fairly new to Aion, I was wondering if somebody could tell me how balanced the classes are.

I chose Scout without thinking to check if they are the "Get pwned all day" class. Also are there any classes out there that I need to watch out for cause they are "extremely awesome kill me all day class."

[izembo]

on scout are you planning to go ranger or assassin? one is a run and kite class, one is stealthy, both die fairly easily but are good burst dps

[Trichocyst]

Ranger and Assassin are your typical spike damage melee classes. They do high damage both PVP and PVE, can sneak around, and will be the bane of your existence in the mid levels when they come to gank you. Well geared lower level alts designed for nothing but mid level PVP (commonly known as twinks) are almost exclusively these classes for a reason.

Gladiator and Templar are your tank classes. Gladiator doubles as a pretty hefty damage dealing class, but is extremely gear dependent. Templar is a complete chore to kill PVP and PVE at pretty much every stage of the game without as much of a need for top flight gear. Both classes can tank well as long as the player is good, but the enmity mechanics of Aion lack consistency at times.

Sorcerer and Spiritmaster are your mages. Sorcerer is the primary crowd control and magical spike damage dealing class. Your typical black mage. Spiritmaster has a lot of debuffs, damage over time abilities, and uses a summoned pet. Both classes are good PVP, but extremely soft (and easy to gank if they're not paying attention). Fear is crazy good.

Cleric and Chanter are your support classes. Chanter is like bard except that you're encouraged to deal damage since your party buffs self cycle. Chanter can deal decent damage, but isn't a replacement for any of the other damage dealers and can serve as back up healing. Cleric is your standard white mage, but can also be effective in dealing damage. Both can be a chore to kill PVP, depending on your class. High level clerics are especially difficult to deal with.

[izembo]

yeah, really though id recommend just playing what you think you have the most interest in cause gear matters a lot in this game.

unrelated: we were all on the same ffxi server? XD

[Darkdreamer]

IMO, each class has it's high points during the leveling process and others not so much. Rangers and Sins rely heavily on being able to sneak up on someone, burst damage, and stunning, and in rangers case keeping their opponent at a distance. Sorcs also rely on burst damage, but they can also sleep/root you so they can toy with you, again keeping people at a distance. SM's steer towards fear locking someone and debuffing them to death (I really wish they would add resistance to fear among the Aether, Stun resistances). Clerics can cure themselves till you get bored and just leave and they can fight you at a distance as well as up close, Chanters are more of an up close fighter relying on knocking you down. Gladiator and Templar are on the short end of the stick and have no choice but need to keep you close in order to fight you. But they're also a huge pain in the ass to kill and are capable of bursting you down before you an run away.

Overall class balance, kind of piss poor. Some classes are amazing low level pvp (Sins, Rangers, Sorc) and others really aren't that amazing in comparison till much higher level (Templar). I'm a Templar and I got my ass kicked up one side and down the other while leveling, I was free AP for all. But now that I'm 50 and have a little gear under my belt I'm a huge pain in the ass to kill and usually requires lower levels to gang up on me to take me down with any efficiency, and they still don't fair so well.

But no matter the class so much is gear/consumables dependant it's stupid. A dumbass in full golds is going to rape a skilled player of lesser gear.

I'm sure there's going to be somebody that will chime in and tear apart what I said. But the balance in the game sucks and you will be on the short end of the stick if your gear sucks.

In the perfect world where 2 people of actual equal gear fight then the skilled player will tend to win regardless of class, but the button mashing dumbass will tend to squeeze one out once in awhile.

[Trichocyst]

unrelated: we were all on the same ffxi server? XD

Apparently so, that's pretty weird.

[NoShooty]

I played on ragnarok for about 3 years.

I had a 75 THF so I think I'll be able to play assassin pretty well.

Total in FFXI I had 75 COR, RDM, THF, MNK, and SMN.

I was pretty burnt out after that. I thought RDM was the shit, until people became so obsessed with having one in their pt that I couldn't do shit until we found one. I liked it when we didn't have a RDM just so you would have to play a little different, and I felt bad for all the white mages who liked their class and couldn't do much with it.

Also, for all those people who invited me when I'm playing Summoner and told me to do nothing else but heal...FUCK YOU!

Anyway, That's my vent on that game. Let's hope 14 exceeds my expectations. It looks pretty decent.