All the classes, subclasses and what skills they get are available on the website, which means it's about time someone threw all of that into a program and got down to some number crunching.
Fair warning, what class/subclass is 'best' is highly dependent on what skills you like and what you want to do with them, and you'd be better off using a skill picker (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/skill-picker/) if you want to actually make a character, rather than trying to math out some optimal combination. This is just interesting trivia.
That aside, let's start with some base numbers:
There are a total of 85 skills available in the help file.
3 are psionics.
23 are combat skills.
4 are weapon skills
5 are stealth skills.
8 are manipulation skills.
11 are perception skills.
29 are crafting skills.
2 are barter skills.
For ease of calculation, city and wilderness variants are considered two different skills. Something that gets both city hide and wilderness hide is considered to have 2 skills. Languages, special abilities (eg. wilderness quit) and anything not in the helpfiles is not being considered. Touched subguilds are being considered, but only so far as the skills available on the website, magic counts for nothing.
Total skills
The combination with the most skills is Craftsperson/Touched Whiran (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=craftsperson&subguild=touchedwhiran) with 51 out of 85 skills.
The non-magical combination with the most skills is Dunetrader/Cutpurse (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=dunetrader&subguild=cutpurse) (or Dune Trader + most of the combat extended subguilds) with 50 of 85.
The 0-karma combination with the most skills is Craftsperson/Bounty Hunter (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=craftsperson&subguild=bountyhunter) with 49 out of 85.
Non-crafting skills
The combination with the most non-crafting skills is Scout/Cutpurse (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=scout&subguild=cutpurse) with 41 out of 56 skills.
The 0-karma combination with the most non-crafting skills is Scout/Thief (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=scout&subguild=thief) with 39 out of 56 skills.
Base vs Branched
The combination with the most skills at the start is Craftsperson/Bounty Hunter (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=craftsperson&subguild=bountyhunter) with 35 starting skills.
The combination with the most branched skills is Dune Trader/Cutpurse (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=dunetrader&subguild=cutpurse) with 23 branched skills.
The combination with the least skills at the start is Enforcer/Aggressor (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=enforcer&subguild=aggressor) (again) with 20 starting skills.
The combination that branches the least skills is Fighter/Mercenary (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=fighter&subguild=mercenary) with 6 (!) branched skills.
Least skills
The combination with the least skills is Enforcer/Aggressor (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=enforcer&subguild=aggressor) (or really any combat subguild) with 31 skills, 0 of which are from the subguild.
Master skills
The combination with the most skills at master is Artisan/Apothecary (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=artisan&subguild=apothecary) with 34 skills at master.
The combination with the most non-crafting skills at master is Fighter/Majordomo (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=fighter&subguild=majordomo) with 27 skills.
Crafting
The combination with the most crafting skills is Artisan/Apothecary (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=artisan&subguild=apothecary) (or any other subguild with brew) with 28 out of 29.
Combat
The combination with the most combat skills is Enforcer/Marksman (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=enforcer&subguild=marksman) with 20 out of 23 skills.
Perception
The combination with the most perception skills is Infiltrator/Outdoorsman (https://tristearmageddon.github.io/arma-guild-picker/?guild=infiltrator&subguild=outdoorsman) with 10 out of 11. (Miscreant or Pilferer work too)
There isn't really a takeaway from any of this, I'm just running numbers to see if I can find anything interesting. Tell me if you have any suggestions and I can run a few more numbers on the data.
And shoutout to triste for letting me steal their JSON data and for making the neat skill picker. (:
Looks like a correction needs to be made on the guild picker. No subguild, extended or otherwise, gets skills to master anymore. (edited: with the exception of crafting subguilds)
This statement is in reference to:
The combination with the most skills at master is Artisan/Protector with 36 skills at master.
Good catch! Seems the JSON is a bit out of date, I'm going through the problem ones and editing now on my end (though the guild picker is triste's and up to them)
Though I will nitpick and say that Touched Sukkrathi also gets master, so it's not entirely no subguilds, even excluding crafting ones.
You are right. Also forgot about stuff like skinning. I think it may be just combat skills that can't get mastered with subguilds.
Please send me the JSON when updated or issue a pull request to the guild picker repo to collaborate
The mastercrafting subs get master.
Updated the inaccuracies for Protector and Majordomo, LMK if you find anything else.
Any chance this thread will be updated? It's nice seeing all the skill combos accounted for like this!