Returning player need good class

[Smiles]

Hello everyone im a returning player and having to restart and was wondering if yall could give me some advice on some good classes

looking for something that can *solo * deal damage * but not die on 1 to 2 hits
I thought maybe a kali or lancea or mechanic

[Hentai Dude]

Welp as long as you can gear it just about anything is great for soloing. I would however recommend you pick a lancea considering she has more spammable abilities. However thats just my bias opinion. c: Welcome back and enjoy!

[BowieSage]

I'm not sure how good my advice would be, but these are just a few suggestions you could try based on personal experience:


Tinkerer/Academia > Engineer > Gear Master

With a good few summon skills (most turret-based) and personal offensive power in the form of Mechanic Mode, Gear Master isn't a bad class to start with. Chainsaw Tower alone can shred through most enemies and bosses when placed properly, especially after Awakening. Add Slip 'n Slide and Chemical Grenade for support, and you have a class that can solo most content very reliably. The Awakening just makes her even better, since it greatly improves her ability with summons and Mechanic Mode, and even lets her reposition her tower summons at anytime. Not sure if this is still relevant since I haven't tried yet, but prior to the recent 95 Nightmare update I could place all of my turrets in one section of the map, and they'd clear out the enemy groups there while I focused on another section. They're that effective when placed right. The only real downside is that you have to be good at micromanaging summons (even after Awakening) and debuffs along with your offensive skills to really get the most out of this class, and the Awakening leaves little to no room for variance if you want the full benefits.


Tinkerer > Mechanic > Ray Mechanic (will be disabled after the next update, so make a Ray Mechanic character soon if you plan to use one)

Three words: Mecha! Powered! Destruction! That tells you all you need to know about how good this class can be when played right. You've got plenty of skills that hit multiple times with relatively-low cooldowns and can apply useful debuffs, a useful passive that gives you some healing during downtimes (as an HoT once Plasma Energy is maxed), a mecha transformation that will do the bulk of your DPS when used right, and some utility to let you use skills safely or more frequently. Though even outside of her transformation, she can still deal good damage with skills like Lasernator, Multi Ray Shot (especially with Class Mastery III), and Ultimate Atomic Blade. Pretty good class to use, but the fact that you have to rely mostly on RNG to reduce the transformation's cooldown might cause some concern (not a deal-breaker, though). Also, the transformation loses a lot of its power the moment your HoT triggers while still in the transformation, though you can cancel the transformation at any time if you feel you don't need the HoT while transformed.


Machina > Patrona > Ruina/Defensio

Okay, what to say about the Machina... Well, she has a few hard-hitting skills that can deal some nice damage (especially when chained from her Gear Step skills), with quite a few combos she can pull off, she has self-sustain in the form of Overclock and Aerial Parry's healing energy (as well as Beyond the Wall's barrier for protection), both 2nd specializations are pretty nice with Ruina being pure DPS and Defensio being a dps/tank hybrid... what else... Oh yeah. FREE FINAL DAMAGE in the form of Nitrous Overhaul + Pressure Release + 65 passive for 70%/60% total final damage (Ruina/Defensio respectively). WITHOUT having to gear for it. Yeah, Machina can really do some damage solo and live to tell the tale. But there's one huge drawback: with the exception of 90 INS skills, 95 passive, and a couple 2nd specialization skills, a HUGE portion of Machina's playstyle revolves around properly utilizing her Gear Step mechanic for maximum DPS potential and reliable Pressure Release maintenance. So she's not really a character you can just pick up and expect to be good with right off the bat, and certainly NOT for beginner players. But considering you're a returning player, you likely still have an idea of how the game works, and so it shouldn't be as difficult to pick up the Machina.


Kali > Oracle > Elder Oracle (much like RM, the next update will disable this class, so make an EO if you plan to use one)

Good damage options, a constant action/movement speed buff that only needs to be triggered once upon entering a room, nice self-sustain with Providence (which also restores a good amount of MP, making the MP passives less important), nice utility, and a transformation that greatly improves the Elder Oracle's combos (as well as resetting main skill cooldowns), especially with Class Mastery I and II. A couple downsides, however, is that 1) outside of one of her passives, you have no way to boost her Light% outside of gear, 2) much like the other spin-off classes, she's heavily reliant on activating her transformation as often as possible, which can be a bit difficult if you can't land her main skills, and 3) outside of the immediate 10% HP/MP heal provided with one of EO's passives, Providence takes time to give its full healing effect and has a fairly long cooldown, so you still need to be careful after using it.

[BowieSage]

Frikinhel Yeah, Plasma Boost really helps make reactivating the transformation much easier. Only real issue is that it has a long cooldown itself that can't be reduced in the same way, so it's still a good idea to know how to hold your own outside of the transformation and when to best use the multi-hit main skills.


And now that mercenaries have been mentioned, Nerwin is a VERY good ally for Engineer and Machina if you solo, since she can provide a 50% AGI buff to boost your damage output for a short time (I think the buff also boosts action/movement speed, but I'd have to double-check to be sure). As for Elder Oracle, use either Varnak for his 50% STR buff or, as Frikinhel suggested, Rampaging Jasmine/Rampaging Typhoon Krag (or their rare/epic versions if you can't get their Unique versions) for their light def% debuffs. Argenta can also be a great ally in general with her buffs, assuming you can EVER get your hands on her card. Don't ever consider Ignacio as anything other than Exploration fodder. Despite also having a light debuff(s), he's interrupted WAY too many combos for my taste, and is generally a pain in the rear since he constantly pushes enemies around.


Oh, and if you go with HD's suggestion to play Lencea, use either Nerwin or Kasarana (50% INT buff)/Jasmine/Typhoon based on if you choose to become a Dragoon or a Valkyrie.

[Frikinhel]

BowieSage - RM's CM3 is heaven-sent, too bad it doesn't work in PvP.

Yup, Nerwin does give a 40% boost in action and movement speed for 15 seconds. Become a super speedy tink for 10 seconds with slip'n'slide on top of that.

Ignacio is good for a laugh, he plays dead 90% of the time. XD

Dragoon is a physical-STR class, so Varnak is good choice for an epic-grade merc. He gives 50% STR for 15 seconds, like Nerwin with AGI, and he actually does a good job assisting. (I had him solo Minotaur nest earlier, I didn't have to lift a finger to help.) Berlin would be good for Dragoon as well. Lencea is already pretty speedy so I wouldn't really recommend Nerwin for her.

I synthed a Berlin for my EO so she didn't have to level alone; 40% physical & magical attack and super armor on you & your allies, that's not too bad. I plan to get her an enraged unique or legend later but Berlin's been pretty good so far.

I also really like the Teram merc, he give 50% VIT and super armor for 15 seconds.

[BowieSage]

Right. Forgot that Dragoon is STR-focused (don't know why I thought she was an AGI class, when I clearing remember seeing one Dragoon BDN Memoria video with Varnak), so Varnak or Belin would definitely be better if one was looking for a pure damage boost. Still, if one wanted to push their Dragoon's action/movement speed to even more insane levels for a few seconds while gaining a tiny crit boost on the side, nothing's really stopping them from giving Nerwin a try (not that it's really recommended to have +65% action speed when you want your i-frames to work properly, especially since said crit boost is very insignificant for a non-AGI class given the current crit cap).

Ignacio was funny the first time, but quickly grew to annoying when I would always find my Silver Hunter's targets for Death From Above getting knocked out of the kill zone (especially in 93 Nightmare dungeon. Thank you for making a dungeon that my Silver Hunter already had a tough time soloing quickly even longer). Neither was he any help at all whenever I was setting up for a relic nuke with my Saint. Also, the fact that, afaik, Argenta's level 10 skill completely outclasses Ignacio's level 20 skill doesn't really help him, the only saving grace being that Argenta's much harder to obtain.

And yeah, definitely gotta agree that Belin and Teram are nice mercs to go with for solo. Especially Teram for current content thanks to his level 20 skill, which can be very useful for classes that don't have a block/parry skill or any form of damage reduction/healing to reliably counter the growing enemy damage (which is only an issue because the average player HP is lower this cap if one isn't using properly-enhanced 93 main stat/VIT gems or 95 U/L-grades).

[Smiles]

thanks for some of the info im still not sure ... back when I played I had played as a chaos mage and loved it but this time around I had wanted something that could take some hits but deal out just as much damage
that's why I thought maybe something like a lancea or Machina

[Axxon]

For Damage the current top are : Black Mara, Warden and Ray Mechanic. Dark Summoner will soon beat all of them in a patch or two (Mini-rework incoming)

Top damage changes alot from patch to patch. Not long ago Warden was considered the weakest and now it's very strong, so I wouldn't chooe solely on damage...

Pyromancer, Dark Summoner, Dancers, Oracle Elder, Ray Mechanic, Black Mara and Valkyrie (Post awakening) should fit your needs. Machina is hard and Weird.