Welcome to DarkMatters, Thaumork! I wish I had more information to share with you regarding a comparison of the classes...as it turns out, I almost exclusively played High Level Dryads and dabbled a few in the other classes. I myself do love magic, but ranged had become my thing, and the Dryad has an instant travel speed BlowPipe... a sheer delight to use, and capable of deploying with a number of other on demand protections like healthpoing boost which suited my play style. I did play up to Niobium in Hard Core a Dragon Mage, and used an almost pure magic buiild. A lot of fun to play but a tad fragile for my own style and ultimately not as fast as the Dryad. I know that teh Dragon Mage has many different styles, many of them with using other beasts, and there have been some great guides here written by some outstanding players, and I'm hoping they will see your post and be able to offer some advice.
Thank you for finding us and this wonderful game. YOu're now a part of this awesome community (more than a decade! ) and hoping you'll get your gamings worth
gogo