My two cents, The one melee class that will teach you both basic melee tactics, the need to have your consumables on hand at all times, as well as give you a feel for what eq you should focus on. Neutral Ogre war for warmaster. Seriously being warmaster will teach you more about pk than any other cabal I say, since that [WARMASTER] flag will evoke more challenges than anything. Also Ogres have that nasty vuln, but having 1400ish hp gives you a very nice buffer in which to screw up and still recover. But good luck, I do not recomend normal or small melees, I did that with elf, I have alot of experience with warriors, but bash/bodyslam from a giant will make you curse and scream at the screen and make you want to start assassinating the world.
learning how to play a melee
Also you should take into account the ogre racial bonuses, Given that they get bonuses with weapons period, you do not have to be ultra decked, nor will you need to get one type of weapon (fire giants) Also neutral will give you a huge selection of eq. But ogres will let you try to decide if you like having saves and hit dam, all hit dam, all svs etc etc. Also with the right warrior lore(s) you can pk almost naked.
I challenge anyone to do these combos well:
half-elf/gnome/halfling/human warrior
dwarf/duergar/werebeast/human zerk
of that group, humans are going to be the easiest..warriors easier than zerks...
maybe dwarf/duergar war..but I've not decided how strongly to rate them.
no avatars, any cabal/align..
my gnome warrior had a 75% win rate. not exactly "well", but considering he was a gnome warrior, heh, not too shabby.
Rae was a tough halfling warrior. Tyr was a beast.
half-elf. hrmmm. can't think of any offhand.
humans suck. (winks @ Behrens) they are only here for undead/demon/vamp.
3.0 and after please. Player skill was a LOT lower then, and eq was a lot more available (not to mention the classes were very differently balanced). 
I had a human warrior in 1.0 that did really well and turned into a crusader...
Looking at behren's human zerk's record doesn't suggest that they are particularly good. I wasn't around at the time, but I'm sure he was not --nearly-- as strong as one of the giant races would have been.
bah, you didn't say a specific "point-oh". heh.
bah' date=' you didn't say a specific "point-oh". heh.[/quote']
Well, if she is challenging someone to play one successfuly now, you'd assume 3.0 eh?
Dey
I challenge anyone to do these combos well..
where's the word "now" in her post? 
well..it is implied by the tense...
If I had written..
I challenge anyone to have DONE these combos well...
edit: You cannot "to do" into the past.
you can imply all you want, the implication has to be recieved, else it is lost.
therefore, i refuse to be implied at.
Dey
comeon..you should have all learned from chayesh that I'm not worth arguing (or challenging? oo?!) with!
this is only because women refuse to accept they can ever be wrong.
(PLEASE don't tell my wife i said that.)
Dark-knights
I know what people are going to say already, "That's a Hybrid you idiot!". But I think their dependancy on consumables and thier melee damage plus the added benefit of some spells and summon make a very good learning class.
My two cents.
Honestly, a neutral ranger is the easiest way to go. Human, ogre, halfling, stone? Humans are actually pretty good for beginners.
Think about it, once you get up to ~35ish (whenever you get ranger staff), you've always got a weapon. A trained ranger can solo the stone golems for mithril with a ranger staff, making basic re-equip pretty easy, AND you can flee/cam to hide, so you can have time to look at the battle you ran from and adjust your strategy before you have to resume the fight.
I'd say neutral human ranger. Play with the addict perk. It's awesome.
Yay I beat Behrens!
Honestly, a neutral ranger is the easiest way to go. Human, ogre, halfling, stone? Humans are actually pretty good for beginners.
Think about it, once you get up to ~35ish (whenever you get ranger staff), you've always got a weapon. A trained ranger can solo the stone golems for mithril with a ranger staff, making basic re-equip pretty easy, AND you can flee/cam to hide, so you can have time to look at the battle you ran from and adjust your strategy before you have to resume the fight.
I'd say neutral human ranger. Play with the addict perk. It's awesome.
with a ranger anything you can solo winter and most of discord/deso. PM might be a bit of a biatch 
from someone who has played only ranger and monk as melee types i would reccomend ranger for beginners.
For all the reasons previously mentioned.
edited - because i cant seem to hit the spacebar on time.....
Rangers are like..jacks of all trades.
Pugiling/dual wielding, all major defenses, highly powerful afflictive spell, a way to poison/plague, camo, a way to heal, a way to quickly regen.
Rangers, the reason I say Dark Knight
Rangers with all those advantages won't teach you as much about consumables. You have ways to heal yourself quickly and camo so you can rely alot on damage potential and less on protection. With a Dark Knight, it is easy to see you and you rely more so on consumables, which is more like warriors IMO. Combine that with rangers getting superb archery and you have a class that doesn't NEED to stay in a fight, which most other melees require to actually kill a decent player.