Lineage 2 Classic Classes - In search of the right one?

Advantages

If you are a solo player, it's the easiest class to play without any extra box
Powerful damage magic and melee
Infinite mana, with the exception of the Phantom Summoner
Unique Transfer Pain Skill: Makes you tankier than any other casters.
A user-friendly character

Disadvantages

Expensive beast soulshots and spirit ore

WARLOCK:

• Recharge pet
• Opportunity to heal
• Paralyze and damage cubics: Paralyzing
• regardless of level difference

ELEMENTAL SUMMONER:

• Recharge pet
• Opportunity to heal
• Damage and healing cubics
• Ranged pet with mage skills

PHANTOM SUMMONER:

• No recharge pet
• Opportunity to heal
• Hex cubic: Decreases enemy P. Def
• High P. Atk Pets and overall char

SUMMONERS
My personal favorite class 

Warlocks and Elemental Masters:

They share common things and characteristic: Recharge pets as soon as you get lvl 20 and complete your first class transfer to the wizard.

This two pets, Boxer the Unicorn, and Kat the Cat will have Masters Recharge, this skill will recharge your mana. Also, you might consider that until level 25 you won’t have: Servitor Recharge a skill that uses your mana to recharge your pet’s mana. When you reach LvL 25 you will learn this skill creating an infinite loop between your recharge and your pets recharge, as your pets recharge will heal your mana for more than the cost of Servitors Recharge, creating the so called, infinite mana.

Why sometimes are Warlocks preferred in AOE parties? Most likely you will find AOE parties that need Poison, this almost all the times refers to the Mass Poisonous Cloud skill, learned by Human Wizards and Dark Elf Wizards at lvl 25, giving the party a powerful poison so that mobs drop to zero HP in order for a  warlord to over-hit them, giving more experience points.

As right now in the NA version of Lineage II Classic, we don't have a Third Class Transfer, here this two differs a LOT. Giving the Elemental Masters, a pet with powerful ranged AOE, and the Arcana Lords a powerful melee pet with crowd control. So if you are planning in a long time check this out, as we will write more info when this content becomes available in the NCWest Classic version.

Phantom Summoner:       

I feel this summoner being more melee focused summoner, at least until level 40 if you play alone. This summoner doesn’t count with a recharge pet, tough a high damage one. And as stated before a Poisonous Cloud skill so your party can perform an over hit.

So, You don't have infinite mana, what can you do? If you have to play alone I would recommend creating a box, a recharger or buffer.   If you don't feel like it, from lvl 20 to 40, I would suggest equipping any warrior weapon, some soulshots and hitting melee when you are out of mana and from you will get hex cubic after lvl 40 making this easier, off course for alone gameplay. Nevertheless, as stated before, you have your Poisonous Cloud, powerful AOE, a strong pet, so finding a party should not be difficult, but alone gameplay could be tricky.
As we look upon Third Class Transfer, we observe a strong melee pet, with powerful crowd control,  a lot of HP so your transfer pain can work wonderfully.

SUMMONERS IN PVP?
Olympiad:

Here is where we rock!

Well, we don’t have this feature yet BUT! Here is where we rock, summoners are an overall 1v1 class, as they have a lot more resistance with Transfer Pain, elevated casting, and powerful cubics. And when you hit that third class transfer in future updates, they will be unstoppable as their nukes will be able to be leveled pass lvl 40.

In 1v1 PvP and Olympiad, you will be able to take down high lvl targets, even if you are 60 , you can take down 70,75 targets, as the cubic debuffs, damage is fixed, so they ignore target levels, for example, a lvl 60 necromancer would not be able to land their debuffs to a lvl 75 target, your cubics can paralyze and you and your pet can finish the job, especially with the paralyze cubic of the Arcana Lord.

Mass PvP:

Summoners in mass PvP are kind of tricky, you have to hit, run heal yourself, send your pet for the enemy, but… the enemy will be behind you so that makes the target almost impossible to hit by your pet, here comes my preference, Elemental Summoners, pets with ranged magical attacks.

In PvP you would be able to assist heal, do damage, cubics on your group, debuff the enemy, and unless you are Elemental Master, your ranged damage will be low compared as other ranged DD classes. Cancel abilities Mage Bane and Warrior Bane is always useful as they remove important buffs from your enemies.

A look into the future:
Final Considerations

In Lineage 2 Classic this has been my all-time favorite class, since Skelth (Innova), then moved to NCwest new servers, specifically Talking Island. When I decided to pick the class, looking over decent nukes, decent melee hitting pet with powerful ranged AOEs, making overall a good class for solo players, and of course even better in a group.

If you are going to play solo, there are many options to buy cookies and buff scrolls, and if you want and can create a box, go for a prophet or a warcryer, and if you can keep buying buffs go for a recharger. Regardless of your level, there will always be a spot where you can kill and get decent grinding rewards, as you are not limited to the fighter/mage classes, as you are both.

Clan raid bosses, sieges, fighting for spots vs any dagger, archer, mage, tyrant should not be of any major problem, as long as your gear difference isn't that much. Tough with the cubic on your side that doesn't care about lvl and gear will be a great advantage for you.

Remember, summoners are one of the lineage 2 classic classes that get exponentially good as you level increases and as updates arrive, nice changes will always be on sight. It should not be difficult to climb through the game as a summoner, you will be able to support your party members and yourself and get the top performance out of your group and yourself.

Hours of fun await for you in the game whether you decide to start in any classic server (Make sure you read the Privacy Policy in Innova and NCWest to make sure you are eligible to receive support in case you need it). Taking into account that summoners are one of the most versatile classes, if you are undecided in what to play, you should totally go for this class!

PD: If you want to disregard all of this and pick elfs cause they are cute (or the best), or dark elf (i don't know why would I pick this one, neither human but yeah) go for the races you like!