Choosing your class

[Maerryji]

(This posting is to be merged with other branches later.)

1. Experience.
If you have just started playing, you should probably choose a class that is easy to grow with. The newbie ranks (1-9) are now easy to pass for everyone, but later some of the classes meet problems if they don't find powerful friends.

In general,
best at growing are: fighters, knights, outcasts, rangers, assassins;
moderate: thieves, transmuters, druids, invokers;
low: clerics, necromancers.

Two fighters can get a hero rank in ~24 hours. Cleric of Mishakal may waste much more than 120, unless using others' help. But I think he'll die of boredom first.


2. Equipment.
There are easy-to-get items that are recommended for newbies. They are enough to grow with some comfort, but you'll have to find something better if you want to win any tough PK. Most of these items are hard to obtain, sometimes it's a task that may be solved only by a team of 2-3 heroes with classes carefully tuned (not just 3*<best class>).

In general,
best at getting equipment hidden in hard places are: transmuters, clerics, invokers;
moderate: necromancers, druids, knights, rangers, fighters
low: thieves, assassins, outcasts

This scale is very approximate and does not cover the cases when you must kill just a single creature, possibly very healthy but not dangerous.
Also, only mages, clerics and druids have the identify spell that is very useful for newbies.

In addition to equipment, necromancers need to waste much time after each death creating new undead army.


3. Skills mastering
Some classes can improve many skills they would use in PK just while getting experience (well, for minotaurs this is not true anyway...), and some need to waste much time mastering their skills and spells after they've already grown up.

In general,
the best prepared for PK once they've grown and equipped are: clerics, knights, transmuters;
moderate: thieves, rangers, assassins, fighters, outcasts, druids;
low: necromancers, invokers

The scale is also very approximate, and depends on your playing style much. Only the latter two do really need mastering, others can practice the most important skills to 75% and go to the battlefield.


4. Manuals and spellbooks
Some classes' power largely relies on the books they've found. So if you don't want to depend on luck, do not choose them (unless you are sure that the basic set of abilities is fine for you).

The most part of power is available without books to: assassins, thieves, clerics;
moderate: druids, knights, transmuters, rangers, fighters
low: outcasts, invokers, necromancers

However, "low" means something like 75%, so do not worry about that too much, since a proper equipment set and preparation improves your power much more than twice.