which archetypes are easiest to learn for combat?

Jaxeus

Yup, as above. By easier to learn I suppose that could be defined as "effort, fact-finding, experimenting, practice taken to reach near optimal use of guild abilities" I understand that the new flavors of mage are easier to learn than the original melding flavor. I understand that the different flavors of warrior have differing complexities. I'll take a stab at my own question though I'm sure I'll be way off.

Easiest to Hardest:

chemantic mages, bards, guardians, melders, warrior (in this order: pureblade, blademaster, axelord, cavalier, skullcrusher), kata users

I don't have any knowledge of the commune archetypes so I don't know where they fit in but I assume they mirror their city counterparts.

Thanks gang!

Enyalida

While chemantic mages are set and forget, it may be very hard to learn to use them effectively, because very few have worked that out at all. Other than that, seems pretty accurate. Of course, having another monk to copy forms from makes that much easier

Lerad

Having another monk to copy forms from speeds up the process, but not by much. To be fully functional and comprehensively making use of the kata/spec skillset, a monk needs at least 20 or so forms. It depends on what you mean by "learning combat". If you're aiming to be an established midbie monk that take advantage of most of the useful things in the skillset, just getting someone to dump their forms onto you is useless. You still need to spend a huge amount of time and effort learning how to use them and the momentum system. (I personally find it counterproductive to not build your own forms, because you will have no idea what's going on if you just take hand-me-downs from someone else.) If you just want the latest cheese or most effective strategy and to be a one-trick pony with not much versatility, then yeah, just grab the 3 or 4 forms from someone and spam them over and over.

I'd say guardians/wiccans are easier to learn than bards. Set-and-forget ents give a huge survivability boost to the budding combatant, and gives them that much more leeway to learn about combat spam and the feel. Bards have the enemy list to deal with, and bard effects are both not as potent as guardian passives as well as require active stripping of deafness in order to work at all.

Kio

I think I have to disagree with Lerad a little. Bards are really, really simple and have an easy, rythmic playstyle along with being immensely useful with even a minor lesson investment.

Wiccans are in the mathy side of things and require good timing and tracking of your enemy. They're a little simplistic after you learn to do these things, but they're gonna be challenging until then.

Guardians can't be lumped all together (this is where I start disagreeing). I think Nihilist and Celestine are pretty easy to learn and straightforward. However, Illuminati and Researcher are definitely more intricate are going to take a longer time to get the hang of.

Enyalida

Bards also get everything they need to be pretty darn effective in a group setting before reaching their primary spec skill.

Siam

Bards rock.

Ssaliss

Siam said:

Bards rock.

Only Cacophony rock, I believe. I'd imagine Harbs dirge, Cantors chant and Spiritsingers ditty.

Tarkenton

And Minstrels sound vaguely Irish.