As I am writing this post, it is already the end of 2016. So this will probably be valid in 2017 as well. Lineage 2 is a very old game. Some even believe it is a dead game. The truth, however, is that people are still playing it. Not a whole lot of people but quite some hundreds to maybe a couple of thousands on the official servers, so it is still alive. It is a game that has evolved and changed almost into a completely different game. Due to all these changes, expansions and patches, the lineage 2 classes have evolved and changed as well. The greatest change of course was the “Goddess of Destruction” that created the awakened classes. A lot of the mechanics of the game has remained the same, while some of it has improved significantly.
I started playing the Infinite Odyssey 9 months ago, then Helios set in and I did have a a 2 month break from the game last summer. My experience is not that of a master of the game but when I googled “Best lineage II classes” I could not find a satisfactory page. Only few outdated forum posts, with little to no grammatical cohesion… My co-players tell me that I could find good articles on this only in Russian but until google-translate becomes better at translating it… here we are in the English speaking world. So I decided to write this article myself. If you are an expert that can coherently express yourself in English and you think you can write a better article or provide with corrections please do write it for the benefit of us all, or email me any corrections or additions you want to provide to it.
This article is for people who played before the awakening and want to get a feeling of what is going on with the awakened classes, which ones are good for what purposes etc. This will save them valuable time so that they don’t have to reroll. It may also be good for people who have only explored very few awakened classes.
Let me start with the tanks. Tanks have very limited use after level 85. They are very rarely welcome in instances so it is kinda hard to xp them. The only tanks that are really wanted are the non-awakened ones (Shillien Templar). Remember the SOS skill (Spirit of Shillien) of the dark elf class? People are massively leveling non awakened dark elf tanks to box them for the passive skill that increases P Attack by 30%, critical with blunts to 100%, Attack Speed 30% etc . Be careful when leveling a SOS, because if you level it as a main class, you will never be able to make it noblesse. It is better to level it as a dual, so that you can have access to noblesse buff and teleports. Tanks become useful at very high levels, after level 100-101 where the game becomes extremely difficult and the only way to survive hard instances and areas is to tank the bosses. So if you are aiming at becoming a high level end game player then an awakened tank will eventually be useful. Still you would need to find a proper CP (constant party) to make use of it. Tanks are also useful in Sieges I suppose but even though they can endure a lot, their lack of dps does not really make them killer toons. They have some tricks like using tanking skills to change the targets of the opponents which are good. The point is whether you enjoy playing a support class or not.
Healers are probably the most wanted classes for instances. It is very easy to level a healer in the xp instances of the game because they are always needed and rare to find. An advantage of this class is that it does not need a lot of expensive gear to be useful in healing. Damage dealers (dds) need to spent significantly greater amounts of currency to get proper equipment, otherwise they are useless. So if you like to play support classes and healing, but do not intend in investing in the NCsoft shop then you will definitely enjoy playing the healer. There are some catches to being a healer though. As long as you have no other damage dealer as a dual class or separate account, you will be a lot dependent on other people to help you complete quests where you have to kill mobs. You will have a hard time doing daily quests that give money, because they require you to do damage, which is not possible as a healer. So you would have to concentrate on doing instances mostly. After reaching level 100 the game becomes easier because things are mostly organized in groups, so you will not have to be a lone wolf that can’t attack! Healers are very useful in sieges and a good party would have to have 2 healers! You can also enjoy playing at the Olympiad as the healer is one of the strongest classes but for that you need to get better pvp items. In Pve you can get away with lower quality items as a healer but in pvp its different.
Damage dealers. Right now the most popular damage dealer is the ertheia Eviscerator. Along with the Titan, they are considered to be the strongest damage dealers out there. Othells (daggers) are also welcome in xp instances due to their critical wound debuff. The mages of the game are very tricky. All damage dealers need to invest in really good equipment (weapon and armor) to make use of their power, otherwise they do not do any damage. The mages however, seem not to make any damage even when they have some proper equipment. They basically need complete top grade equipment to do some damage and they will have a hard time being accepted in xp instances. Sayha’s seers and Feohs also require insane amounts of blessed spiritshot, which may be hard to buy if you don’t have other chars to fall back on, like dwarfs to do commerce and craft or some other source of l2 income. In PVP however, mages are very good and they do a lot of damage. Feohs have one advantage in pve due to their aeo skills and Seers have an invisibility skill that makes them good as clan leaders to cast the long prayer to capture a castle. Yuls (archers) are not particularly strong in PVE until the level 101. Archers are good until level 85 and after level 101. You will find that a K99 xp party will not accept more than 1 Yul and 1 mage because it may not manage to complete the instance. Yuls are quite dangerous in PVP though, if equipped properly. Wynns (summoners) are the best damage dealers that do not require top grade equipment to make decent damage. They do a lot of damage by using beast shots which are far less expensive that normal shots, so its a huge win-win situation for players who are just starting in l2. Wynns, just like Eviscerators are extremely welcome in xp instances. They are also quite strong in PVP. The best wynn damage dealer is considered to be the dark elf one. I have heard that even though they have more Attack they have less P Def. Pure elf wynns though have more balanced stats. Arcana Lords do less damage and are considered better in PVP. I have not seen many of them in the Olympiad though. But then again, I haven’t played too much! In any case, if you want to do PVE damage, don’t make an arcana lord or you might regret it.
ISS. These are the buffers of the game, extremely useful, just like the healer and they cannot be missing from any party. Especially after lvl 91 when npc buffs are no longer available. Most people level an ISS as their box. They also have the skill of BR (Battle Rhapsody) which gives the party a great boost in attack. Hierophants are supposed to be the best ISSes due to their POM (Prophecy of Might) skill at lvl 101. Dominators are good for sieges, if the parties don’t have their own ISS but their buffs are limited to clan members only. Note that the ISS have a slight more active role than the old buffer one. They also have to keep debuffing the target, they have some useful crowd control skills (transform, petrify etc). They often need to keep changing a certain buff (harmonies) on specific raid situations. The reason to that is because the wizard harmony decreases the skill usage cooldown, so they cast it on the player before using critical skills and then cast immediately the warrior harmony to maximize damage. ISSes just like healers need to be quick in their gaming and can’t remain passive at all.
I have played the Aeore extensively as my main 100 lvl char and also few other classes below lvl 100 though. Kamaels are quite rare and I haven’t had any experience with them. As an old spellsinger lover I did create a Feoh dual but quickly regretted it as it was doing no damage and was very expensive to maintain. For a healer, having a wynn as a dual is very helpful due to the fact that one can use the wynn specific shadow talismans in main class. These provide greater MP regeneration.
Spoilers and Maestros are rare in xp instances, most people only use them as secondary toons for crafts and not a lot as main chars. However, there are people who do chose such classes as their main toons, even though they are not the best damage dealers out there. However in the Olympiad, Maestros can be quite formidable opponents.
If you have any further questions on classes, tweet me your question @ankontini and I will try to reply if I know.