so many choices... which side should i be on?

[Side]

howdy folks!

my name is side and i'm an altaholic.

anywho... i wanted to start a thread to help me plan my return path, chose 1-2 core characters that will be useful to the org, and get me some direction. the primary thing for me is that the toons are org useful at 220 (or even along the way if folks need a hand). secondary is pvp/pvm viability, and importantly they gotta be fun because to date i have had fun with all of my alts... even the abominations people said i shouldn't attempt

i've been away for a number of years but had lots of previous experience with the low end game. oh, and i believe that nanomages are the best breed for everything... except maybe this new (to me) shade thingy

in my return last week i decided on a nm pistol adventurer because i'm rusty and have forgotten most of the game and thought to myself, "self... an adventurer is the way to go if you wanna adventure and learn stuff!" now at level 51 i've conquered the noob island, dabbled in sl, and gotten trained in totw... somethings don't change

as i begin to plan for who to take to 220 i wanted to elicit your advice.

currently i'm planning to focus on either: (in no order of preference)

1) shotgun trader
2) non multi ranged doc
3) ranged energy soldier
4) fixer
5) crat (this is a very distant option because as it was my favorite previous prof... they are now under every rock on rubi-ka)

so what are your thoughts on both what ap needs and endgame viability. they don't have to be top of the food chain all powerful but viable and supportive

thanks for your support!

[stokken]

I would say play the proffesion you enjoy the most

the most needed today are enf/doc/crat i would say , maybe keeper also as needed for 12m but as i said play the proffesion you enjoy the most , can allways roll a new when you hit 220.

as soon as you hit level 159 you can join on inf missions to get levels fast

breeds i would say all after what proffesion you play

[noobas]

Traders are pretty good at 220 with strong gear selection - just ask traderjill. She can solo well, play well, play good support, and do pretty reasonable DPS (I can verify, I have a 220 trader as well, but I'm not nearly as geared for combat as she is).

Furthermore, with 18.7 just around the corner, trader brings some pretty awesome debuff viability to teams, and with umbral wrangler can seriously boost debuff AR which will be sorely needed with malaise going from an 80% check to 100% check.

That said, trader may not have quite the utility that some other profs may enjoy.

Doctor, for example will perhaps be doubly in demand after 18.7 with much much strong boss mobs who will likely require double the healing to make up for lost mitigation (we're currently debuffing mobs for 2600+burst inits and post 18.7 that number will drop to 1500+only a small selection of burst inits) which will place a much higher emphasis on healing capability. Which also will serve to open the door for new healing capability by MA's (zazen stance who can heal for about 18000-20000 over 12 seconds, or up to about 35000 stacking the team heal+single target heal). both of these rely on serious attention to nano management and nanoskill (both of which are helped by traders).

a Ranged energy soldier is ok, but really not an effective choice because quite simply, a AR/SMG soldier can use RE perks, but an RE soldier can not use SMG/AR perks. So you're basically halving your perk damage capability by poor weapon choice - if you are keen on this, use SMG main hand/RE offhand, in which case you might be ok, but you'll still be hampered by IP while levelling.

crat is always a good choice

fixer is poor choice for a first 220, there's really not a lot of utility for fixers at endgame, and they are very, very hard to do good damage on which makes their primary role of DPS limited at best.