Exploring Eberron: Which class should I play?
I've been looking forward to this week's column for a while now. I've been wanting to look at the intricacies of class and race selection and setup in Dungeons and Dragons Online for several weeks, but Halloween events and Update 7 took precedence for obvious reasons.
Now that it's settled down a bit, I can finally dive in. Over the next few weeks I'm going to do a series of overviews on getting started. DDO is a funny game when it comes to this sort of thing, because you can throw together pretty much anything (within reason) and get through the first five levels or so just fine. It's not until you get past that point that you start finding out the hard way that the selections you make at character creation are pretty important.
Much of the process is trial-and-error for many newer players. You roll a character, play it until things start getting more difficult than they should, figure out where you messed up, and either reincarnate or start another character. I hope to make this process a little less tedious and painful, so follow along after the jump and let's get started!
When you're choosing a class in DDO, it's often a bad idea to dismiss any class out of hand because of your normal playing style. If you focus solely on the caster classes because you are not a melee fan (as I did for a long time), you're going to miss out on some things you enjoy. Most classes in DDO are extremely versatile -- take the Rogue class, for example. You might skip right over it because you prefer spellcasting, but you're going to miss out on something that could be a lot of fun for you. The Rogue is a nimble and clever class with the ability to disable traps, find secret doors concealing hidden treasure, and pick locks concealing even more hidden treasure. The Rogue can also create traps now, sneaking in to lay down a few landmines of sorts before the group gets a mob's attention, or even tossing grenades from a safe distance.
My point here is that each class has its own brand of versatility, and you should really aim for at least a basic familiarity with each one. This is what I hope to help with today. The DDO Wiki has excellent starting guides for each class, complete with pros and cons divided by race, but they can be a little overwhelming if you aren't even sure which class to play yet. Consider this a CliffsNotes guide -- use it to get a feel for what you'd like to try, then visit the corresponding Wiki guide to learn all the details and numbers.
There are 11 classes in Dungeons and Dragons Online, so let's go through them one by one.
Barbarian
The Barbarian is your standard high-DPS melee role. If you like charging into the fray and mixing it up, this is your guy (or girl). Barbarians are strong, sturdy, and an enemy you want to stay the heck away from in battle. Barbarians most commonly play as two-weapon or two-handed fighters, stunning, tripping, and generally causing big pain and inconvenience to their enemies. The Barbarian's Battle Rage is a fantastic asset as well, helping the class to shrug off damage and wipe out his or her foes.
A more experienced Barbarian player might decide to change things up a bit by serving as a pure tank. It's not nearly as common as the all-out fighter, but if you're looking for a bit of a change now and then, it's doable. Overall, however, this class is for those who are at their best on the front lines.
Bard
The Bard is generally considered a support class, buffing and healing the team as needed, but bards are much more than that. Bards use Bardic Music, gathering the group at the beginning of an outing and playing a few tunes to offer some enhancements to help increase power and decrease incoming damage. The job doesn't stop there, though. Bardic Music is very versatile -- it can be used to hinder enemies just as easily as it can help allies. The Bard can also serve as a handy scout as well, sneaking ahead to see what's in store for the team.
Cleric
Clerics are the primary healers and protectors of DDO. It's a pretty familiar class to anyone who's played an MMO before. They're valuable not only for standard healing, but also for buffs against traps and damage that you know is coming up. For example, Clerics carry protection against various elemental damage types, so if you're planning to take on a dungeon that's heavy on fire traps or monsters, the Cleric is able to buff the entire group's fire resistance, making things a lot easier.
If you get tired of healing and protecting every now and again, Clerics are adequate offensive players. It's not a recommended class for all-DPS-all-the-time, but it's doable for a change occasionally if you're in a competent group. (Warn group members ahead of time!)
Fighter
The Fighter class is much more open-ended than any other class, due to the relatively huge number of feats allowed. You can customize this class as a pure tank or various types of DPS.
"So wait a minute, this sounds just like the Barbarian. What's going on here?" There are some pretty significant differences between the two, even though they sound alike at first glance. Not only does the class get the aforementioned extra feats, but the Fighter is much more heavily armored and can wield a bigger variety of shields and weapons.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the Barbarian is a "training" class for future Fighters, but if you're interested in pure melee, I'd definitely suggest playing the Barbarian first to get a feel for the basics. Two-weapon and two-handed fighting are play styles that the Barbarian and Fighter have in common, and it might pay to become proficient at them without being overwhelmed by all the extra choices within the Fighter class.
Once you've got the basics down, dive into the Fighter class and see how much you can change it up!
Favored Soul
The Favored Soul class isn't part of the basic DDO package; it can be purchased in the DDO Store for 895 Turbine Points.
Favored Souls are the other primary healing class in DDO, and they are simultaneously more restricted and more powerful than the Cleric class. The class has a more limited range of spells at its command and can only change spells every few days, so it can be less all-purpose in some situations.
On the other hand, they get many more spell points and need less time to recover, so they can cast much more often. The Favored Soul can be viewed as a much more focused healing class.
Monk
Monks are a melee class, but they're a bit more complicated than the Fighter or Barbarian. They fight without armor and usually without weapons (some will wield staves or kamas), and they take down enemies with various attack combinations.
Monks fight with different elemental themes, choosing earth, fire, air, or water to change their attack styles. The Monk's main path offers the chance to play a pure fighter or to offer a bit of support to allies as well.
Paladin
I refer to Paladins as the holy warriors of DDO. Because of their strong blend of offense and defense, they deal extra damage against evil foes, fight on the front lines, and offer heals and buffs to their allies.
The Paladin is a less focused and less streamlined class, but that's not a bad thing, because it fulfills more than one role in the group. If you're a multitasker at heart, you'll definitely want to give this one a look.
Ranger
The Ranger is the standard bow-wielding class with a few fun twists. For starters, Rangers are able to scout ahead without being detected and find traps and secret doors before others in the party (you need a Rogue to make the best use of these, but we'll discuss that in a moment).
Rangers will, of course, stay on the backline, firing their bows at enemies, but any foe that closes in to take out a Ranger is in for a nasty surprise. Rangers are just as proficient with several melee weapons, and a quick weapon change if an enemy gets within melee range will keep them dealing damage.
The bow is still the Ranger's main weapon, and as your character progresses you'll learn some great tricks to make the weapon even more versatile and deadly.
Rogue
The Rogue, of course, is the sneaky and clever class. A Rogue can't take a ton of damage, so if you have a tendency to go charging into battle waving swords around, it's going to go badly for you in this case.
A Rogue's strength lies in a special variety of support: detecting and disarming traps (so the group doesn't find them the hard way) and opening locked doors to reach bonus areas and treasure chests. Much like the Ranger, they make good scouts as well.
As far as damage goes, the Rogue does best by staying unnoticed until a foe is focused on another opponent, then jumping in from behind to deal a devastating sneak attack. Update 6 brought another fun addition for Rogues: Trapmaking. You can salvage parts from traps that you disarm and use them to create your own traps. There are landmine and hand-grenade varieties, both allowing the Rogue to contribute to the group's DPS while staying safe.
Wizard and Sorcerer
I am grouping these last two for a couple of reasons. The Wizard and Sorcerer are the two mage classes in DDO, and at their very core, they're similar since they're both arcane spellcasters.
It's how they work in combat and how they learn spells that make them different, and "Should I make a Wizard or a Sorcerer" is a common question for caster-loving new players. The main difference is similar to the difference between the Cleric and Favored Soul, which I detailed earlier. Sorcerers get more spell points than Wizards and can cast more often, but the acquisition and types of spells are much more limited.
It's very much a matter of personal preference, and this is the other reason I have combined the two: The DDO wiki has a decision-making guide that is much better than anything I have the space or expertise for.
Classes in DDO can seem extremely complicated, right down to the process of choosing one. In each section, I've included a link to a much more detailed overview of that particular class. As I said before, they can be a bit much to take in if you try to refine your decision by reading them all, so hopefully this will serve as a starting guide.
Next week we'll look at races -- I'll see you then!
Exploring Eberron is a novice's guide to the world of Dungeons and Dragons Online, found here on Massively every Friday. It's also a series of short summaries of lower-level DDO content, cleverly disguised as a diary of the adventures of OnedAwesome, Massively's DDO guild.
