What Class Should I Play?

"What class should I play?" is a pretty common question on the forums and in-game, as players try to find what fits them the best.  "Play what you like best" is a pretty typical response. 

To help someone decide, I've made two flow charts, the first uses the roles to take you down to a class and the second takes the attack type of a class to narrow it down to a class.  I've arbitrarily color coded Tanks as gray, healers as light blue, rogues as dark blue, and mages as yellow.

Role Flow Chart

Attack Flow Chart

Some notes on the different classes:

1. This is only a very, very, high level summary, there's a lot more to each of the classes.  Age of Conan has great class diversity and each one plays a little differently.
2. Don't quit on a class too early.  Many classes take to level 20 to really start to feel different as each arch-type share many of the same abilities.  For example Dark Templars and Guardians are very different classes but at level 10 and less they feel pretty similar.
3. Healers in AoC aren't healbots.  You don't just spam heals like in many other games.  You have to chip in with damage, add buffs to your allies or debuffs to your enemies.
4. Soliders are tanks.  You will probably have to at least off-tank as a solider at the end game.  As with healers, tanks are also damage dealers.
5. Conan was a Conqueror not a Barbarian.  Cimmerians, in general, were called barbarians by civilized societies.
6. Combat pets like the ones the Necromancer and Demonologist aren't going to auto-kill everything for you.  You have to command them and they'll help out, even taking aggro with special abilities, but you still have to be engaged in combat.
7. Assassin (sins) and Heralds (Hox) are challenging but rewarding (and fun) to play.  I wouldn't recommend either as a starting class for a player new to MMOs.  Likewise, part of what makes Age of Conan so fun is the melee combat system, so start with something like a solider or barbarian to learn how to play a bit before making a caster.
8. All classes have the ability to use some sort of ranged weapon like a crossbow or a bow, but only the Ranger has abilities for both, making it an interesting hybrid class.
9. Don't worry too much about your spec when leveling.  Chances are, you'll end up changing it a few times as you get towards 80.  Spend some time on the forums to see what builds are common.  In many cases, there's a few pretty common variants out there to play with.  
10. Lastly, don't rush to 80.  Enjoy the journey.  With double XP potions, you can reach 80 in about 100 hours with efficient game play (which still lets you take in Hyboria).  Learn your class as you level, play with your spec to make it work for you.