AO-Universe

My son and I are tyring to make final decsions on our professions, and I was wondering...are there certain professions that are considered "less effective" than others, and others that are considered great?

I know the standard answer to this is "just play what you like" and "every class can be effective if you play it well." That's all obvious, but I'd like to get beyond that to some real opinions.

We both will want to pvp later on, so perhaps that should be our guide for "effective." Right now I am leaning toward the soldier, while my son is leaning toward the engineer. Are these classes considered effective/desireable for pvp? How about pve?

Looking forward to your input. Thanks.

Soldiers always a good choice all around, decent damage and survivability in both PVE and PVP.

Engineer however is a difficult choice, great in pve as pet can tank most normal stuff, but you have to really think carefully about your set up to maximize for pvp, that said with the blinds and special shields and such they can be surprisingly good just remember that in some situations the pets really wont be very effective.

So far, bootstrapping my Engineer (my first AO char) is... a bit difficult/tedious.

An Engi is awsome at lower levels as you can twink on a MUCH larger robot than your level & let it do the work for you, however, even as a fr00b you can get the lvl200 bot on at lvl100 at the latest, then you're stuck with it till you hit lvl201 which you need the expantions for...
This means that untill lvl100, everyone and their dog wants you in a team, but between about 120 & 200, few people want you in their team, as they are all catching up to the sort of damage your bot does.

Docs are an obvious choice, everyone loves a doc, particularly at lower lvls where they're taking so much damage & team wipeouts are frequent.
The problem is that you have to TRAIN your teams to WAIT for you, to WATCH your nano levels & to not SPLIT UP in all directions (& trust me, they DO do this lol).

Advys are a good all round proff, they have serious damage & also some Doc heals (although nowhere near as quick at using them as a doc).

Shades (if you have SL) do excelent damage, but tend at first to be VERY squishy & all the damage you do tends to get you noticed from all the wrong mobs...

Enforcers do lots of damage, have lots of HP & can mongo to keep mobs attatched to them & not the rest of the team, however all that HP is a real pain in the bum to replace between mobs if you don't have a good healer with you.

This is really helpful, Thanks! How about fixers...good for pvp? pve?

If you go fixer make sure your prepared to be hated by everyone in pvp and not wanted by practically anyone in pve

I really wouldn't suggest fixer for PvP as you really don't have much advantage other then evades which of course means everyone will be aimed shotting you or nuking you to heck...

it is however ok for solo PvE or if you have friends that will team with you regardless (lots of people take other classes over fixers as we don't have a lot to offer anymore)