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_Magus_
How many people make it to the exploring levels with their first character?

If they're a healer who knows how to press the "heal" and "gr" buttons? I'd take one.

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_Magus_
Any low level mob will destroy a healer and transmuter. That makes them dependant on other players to level them up.

As if a newbie assassin is not going to be dependent on other players to level him up? He doesn't know any areas, any gear, or really what any of his skills do. And you expect him to solo rank?

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_Magus_
Healers depend on the staff to empower their character.

True. But it's solely role-play based, which is something a newbie shouldn't have a big problem with. There's no knowledge pre-requisite. Plus it gets them immteraction.

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_Magus_
Not the type of character to just get into the mix and start learning things.

Granted, you're not going to learn much about offensive PK from playing a healer. Hopefully you can learn something about basic survival, and get a grip on the game's areas, gear and skills, enough so that with future characters you can begin to explore offensive PK.

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_Magus_
Their support role are extremely important to groups, and someone who doesn't know what they are doing will probably die a lot more.

Someone who doesn't know what he's doing is going to die a lot more *period*. At least with a healer or muter he's not suddenly worthless to any and all ranking groups because he's suddenly buck naked.

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_Magus_
Which do you think would be more enjoyable to someone just trying things out for the first time? Getting raped by everything and everyone (for healers, sanctuary might save them / for transmuters, a/b/s saves them), or being capable of actually fighting mobs and doing something productive on your own?

How about "sitting in your guild sulking because nobody wants to group with you"?

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_Magus_
Like I said, getting a feel for the game, and beginning to understand roleplay and religions, and the system, is much better than trying to dive head first into a support character.

Really? I would imagine the duties of a support character to be significantly less "demanding" than those of someone expected to tank, or pump out lots of damage.

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_Magus_
As a healer or transmuter, you're going to get dragged all over the map, and never know where the fuck you are, too.

Again, that's always going to be the case for a newbie. At least with a healer you stand the chance of people taking you someplace interesting. And you have free word of recall and teleport if you get lost. Not to mention sanctify room. As for learning areas by walking around, that's really where a transmuter would stand out. Rank up to duo and you can walk around most areas to your heart's content without worrying about people jumping you.

For the record, I wasn't necessarily talking about "first character ever". I'm assuming most people's "first character ever" is going to look around the academy, maybe read some helpfiles, then delete. So in that case it doesn't really matter WHAT you roll.

Some other suggestions I'd make:

offense/air shifter
forester/explorer ranger

Offense air shifter, like healer and muter, doesn't need gear to be an effective group mate. Nor does he need to be competent at monitoring people's health or haste status. Basically he just needs to know how to enliven haste and autoassist. He gets locate and identify. If he makes it to an upper-tier air form, that greatly expands his ability to explore Thera and figure out where areas lie in relation to one another.