[DrKvothe]

I wouldn't worry too much about the raid scene. I'm hardly the person to ask about it, but I'm pretty sure most people here would agree it's a toxic cesspool. It's definitely worth it to experience the encounters once or twice, but obtaining pixels usually means repeatedly subjecting yourself to those encounters. There's so much to do in this game, solo and in various sized single groups, that raiding shouldn't be a top priority. Hell, once you're 60, you can farm the plat to PL an alt, or twink it with a fungi and OP weapon and solo your way there very quickly.

Ranger is a fun class, imo. It's not the min/max dps slot like rogue, but you can snare, snap aggro from a loose mob, SoW, and pull really effectively in outdoor zones with harmony (a lot of dungeons are outdoors). You'll probably have to put a lot of your own groups together, but what's wrong with that?

SK and Pally are tougher to enjoy, IMO, because you really need at least a 4 person group to really kick ass. You're fantastic aggro, but not great damage, so you'll also need a healer, slower, and some dps. Best would be full groups. That's not a problem if you don't mind sticking to the most overcamped zones, but you'll probably miss out on a lot of the less popular but still amazing leveling zones. You've also got no speed buff and long corpse runs since you can't bind yourself, which isnt a great combination.

Bards are really excellent for pretty much anything you want to do other than high melee dps, though you can solo mobs face to face using your dots + health regen songs or other various strategies. You get your run speed buff at level 5, which is flat out fantastic, and you can get some really good instruments for under 50 pp each. You can level faster than anyone else by aoe kiting, or your can use any number of different strategies to solo smaller groups. You're hugely beneficial in groups as a puller, crowd control, charm dps, and hp/mana regen + dmg absorb buffer. You can actually solo casters without using fear, which is actually quite the feat. Bards have a single major downside: they're by far the most active class to play, to the point where it's pretty exhausting to play at even half of your total potential. Doing nothing but playing health and mana regen songs is more work than most classes have to do.

Shaman and enchanter are the big name solo hunters. Enchanters do it with cheaper gear, but are more likely to get f'd by RND. Shaman need to farm a lot of plat for torpor (>100k) to realize the majority of their potential, although I find mine very fun without it.

Clerics have no problem finding groups, make pretty great cash passively at high levels from tips for rezes in whatever zone you happen to be in, and they can join groups a few levels earlier than other classes, which expands your options for leveling. A lot of people seem to find this class boring, but I don't. You can duo/trio to great effect for a lot more excitement.