Quote:
Originally Posted by guineapig
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I say both are solid choices for a starting character. You will probably level up faster with the shaman than the bard due to the hybrid class experience penalty (even the troll and ogre race exp penalties are not as severe as the bards).
I think the shaman will be slightly more gear dependant but also more capable of soloing in multiple environments. I have seen quite a few shaman soloing their way to at least 50. For bards you have swarm kiting if you like the idea of running in circles for 20 minutes at a time. And everyone loves bards in raid groups.
Good luck to you what ever you choose, there is no bad choice.
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Assuming leveling swiftly is his concern over digesting content, if he levels a shaman faster than a bard, he is playing his bard the wrong way. Bards are not gear dependent for anything, vendor instruments can carry you to 60 and you shouldn't be tanking so armor is secondary and no party is inviting you for your personal DPS, so weapons are also secondary. As Guineapig mentioned, everyone loves bards in raid groups, but they also love shaman.
Both will be busy during fights, shamans have slows to dish out to mobs and multitudes of buffs to hand out to the raid while bards can do just about anything, in 18sec bursts.
But paladins can be just as busy on raids and they are staple tanks for all group content. Groups will love your instant aggro (knights > warriors for groups imo), although the min-maxers will whine about the 40% exp penalty they have to share b/c you're in their group (I personally hate the min-max mentality being brought back to EQ). In raids, you can pick up adds easily with stuns (without breaking mezzes too!), they are the best healing hybrid, they are the only other class to receive 90% rez, and you can interrupt the casters before they get gates off.
As far as desirability, all the classes you are deciding between are welcome in groups.
You did mention that you wanted to try some solo dungeon crawling. I do not know how well shamans do in dungeons solo, but I will say that I enjoyed
crawling into LGuk and soloing my Mask of Deception. I have also drunkenly logged out in Chardok, died trying to run out, CRing myself (no rez though), and then remembering to put my OT hammer to use all while solo at L50/51 (unding sucks). Bards are jacks of ALL trades, masters of very few, and the greats can pull off some remarkable stunts.
Whatever you decide, you cannot go wrong with any of these 3 classes.
EDIT: As Motec pointed out, I think Guineapig means AoE-kiting, swarming does not work on this server due to an issue with aggro not transferring the same way it did on live.