I enjoy starting with a Summoner, Ice Mage, and Technomancer (gun focus) for ranged pawns. And a Paladin for Melee and healing. If you get a 5th pawn get a Bladedancer.

Druids/Clerics are great because they can keep your pawns going before you have decent armor. Really though, any caster is great for the start, since you really want the utility stuff more than the damage things at the start. The base utility spells that any caster can learn are just a massive productivy boost at the start and can help get your base up and running so much faster.

A geomancer is especially useful. Increased mining is nice and the gargoyle/imprison options are amazing. Druids/priests are great because of obvious reasons. I spend a lot of mana simply healing day to day injuries and sicknesses. My least useful is the faceless, but I haven't gotten good enough gear to get him into good melee fights yet.

I would say Summoner for defensive capabilities, Technomancer for his drone that constantly works around the base, and either Priest or Druid for their healing capabilities. Sniper is good if you want someone that can easily down pawns for whatever use (failed tames, recruitment, slave marketing, organs, w/e.) Bard and Commander can help on extreme temperature maps.

I have to agree with Razorblade though; Faceless is pretty bad, alongside Death Knight.

Do you mean DKs are bad starters? I thought they were the strongest melee damage class in the mod.

Originally posted by みずかみ(Spardok):

Do you mean DKs are bad starters? I thought they were the strongest melee damage class in the mod.

Yes; we're talking about starting classes here, even though Faceless is pretty bad regardless of time spent in-game. If you were to start off a melee damage class right away, you're probably better off with a monk or bladesman (though personally I've also found that Death Knight isn't the best down the road either, although I'm pretty conservative with my pawns so it may just be me).

I highly recommend the Faceless when starting with one pawn :)
They might not have the big animations that makes them look cool and stuff, yes.
but in my opinion they are quite effective.
If you have problems with the first raids (mostly just one pawn) you take control and strip him for easy weapons (+clothes if youre fast ^^ ) they just walk home then.
I play with several race mods, including AvP - the first raider is often a predator, 1v1 a big nono, they can take out 5 pawns with ease! and i started one pawn tribal start :D
Do not underestimate the Faceless!
let wanted raiders walk in your prison on their own and take him out there lol
Even two or more faceless in your colony are useful, it kind of reduces the raid by the amount of faceless you have. Lategame they can pick out the pawns you want to let join and walk them out of the way of the big attacks.

Tecnomancers are quite strong, can make early game bit easy, not for tribals...
Every colony should have a druid and a wanderer. Never underestimate those.
Ice mage for hot climates, Blood mage if you want problems but a trained medic.

Not to go totally off topic but what would you consider the better mid-late game magic/might classes?

I recently just upgraded someone to a Wanderer. Holy moly are they actually good. Just every basic spell on the one pawn. I didn't expect to like it as much as I do now.

Necromancer is by far the strongest class, but lacks vs mechanoids. Death Knight is also up there, while not doing as much damage as a Bladedancer or Shadow, they are extremely tanky and can sustain themselves really well. Their aura also blocks friendly projectiles, so they require a bit more finesse with positioning to get the most effectiveness. Bladedancer does ridiculous damage, is extremely mobile too, but isn't as tanky. Shadow fills a niche that neither do, their toxins will kill any organic guaranteed when stacked 5 times. So if you play with dragons or alpha animals in your game, they can kill them very easily since the toxins go straight to the brain.

Bloodmage can also be incredibly strong with the proper setup. Hunter is great for tribal playthroughs. The other mages are good for different utilities they bring to the table.

Faceless and chronomancers are the best combo.

Use the Faceless's mimic ability to copy your chronomancers Accelerate Time, the faceless uses stamina instead of mana to case the spell and stamina regenerates in seconds.

The faceless has now become your best pawn, 4 uses of Accelerate Time makes devil stand ready to harvest immedatly, use it 2 or 3 times and corn is ready to harvest, 1 cast for cotton ect.

Cast it a few times on animals to kill them with heart attacks or use them on your own animals (make sure to reverse time afterwards with chronomancer) to age them into adulthood faster.

The technomancer's tech-bit once fully maxed out can give a 150% increase to crafting, as well as other skills the speed and quality boost is insane.

The best starting class in my opinion are Chroma mage(can't play without anymore), monk, bard, priest, and geomancer. Those are pilar.

This bunch make for a solid starting tribe. Other can be selected and recruit later. Chroma as craft/researcher. Bard as warden. Priest as household. Geomancer as miner/builder. And monk as early fighter, hunter, handler. Having a magically gifted pawn to make wanderer is another early priority (for the upgraded extinction spell). Elemental rift is the only event i've seen destroying a colony early

Fighter is not my focus. Most of fighter class are over op, so just pick some...later. For a good warband Monk, paladin, shadow, pridestalker but all of those are over op...

Who is pridestalker? And what is extinction? I don't remember such a spell

Likely from Kure's Class Expansion. I know I saw pridestalker in there at least, so assuming extinction is as well.