Race/Class Combinations

Please note that the information contained in this post is dated, and was appropriate at the time of its writing, not so much now. For a more concise article, click here.

I’ve had an influx of traffic to my site from search engines. Search engine hits are not new to me, as I cover a broad range of topics, and I happen to talk about things that are popular, i.e. music, movies, everquest, etc. But recently the queries have been about race and class combinations for Everquest 2.

“Best race for x class” has been the most frequently searched phrase, and I don’t quite understand why my site came up on this list, because I’ve never written an article about class and race combinations. Until now.

This seems to be a very common question for newcomers to the game, particularly on the forums. I’ve seen it in every class board, and the newbie section as well. There are currently two sides of the fence; those who think race makes a difference, and those who do not. I reside on the latter side, because ultimately race does not affect the overall performance of a class. If it did, races would have limited class choices, as they did in Everquest 1. Or, from a roleplaying stand point, they would be limited as well, as I depicted in this post.

The most common answer to the question is to “pick something you are comfortable looking at, because you’ll be playing the race for a long time“. This is pretty much the only part a race plays in character creation, as the look is customizable, and the racial abilities are for the most part, useless. For me, when I create a new character, I try to think of what I could picture that race being. My main is a Dwarf. Dwarves seem to be at the forefront of battle, sturdy and stout, and this is why I made him a Fighter class. My alt is a Ratonga is agile and crafty, perfect for a scout class. You see where this is going.

Each race is set with base stats. Sure, some are more optimal for certain classes, but it’s not too detrimental to make a Troll mage, because their low intelligence at level 1 will be made up with gear. So maybe for the first level things will be a little tougher for the Troll mage than say a Erudite mage, but it won’t make enough difference to matter. If you like the way your Troll mage looks, then go with it.

Each race also gets certain racial abilities throughout the game. There are different stat increases, mitigation increases, tradeskill increases, and some others depending on race. Sometimes the stat is one you want, sometimes it isn’t, but it’s not detrimental. Sometimes you get an skill increase for the tradeskill you picked, sometimes you won’t. Sometimes you’ll get an increase to movement speed, or something else that really doesn’t make much of a difference at all.

One exception to the rule, comes to scouts or mages. The best races in the game for scouts/mages are either ratonga, or gnomes. Both races get the best deaggro in the game, that scales with level, something that is actually useful. This is really the only racial skill I’ve found that is best suited for dps classes. Otherwise, it’s a bunch of filler crap that you may or may not find useful.

Hopefully this little tidbit is of use to you, so you can move away from the newbie questions, and get back to the more important ones.