When I came back to the game I thought I might be able to afford a couple of all access subs (tho prob not expansions), and had made a SK to box with my Bard (main) and a Shaman I started as well.. but this is looking less and less likely as I already can't work due to illness and now have news bills to pay. SO I guess I'm looking to play on my 2 silver accounts, and a Shaman or Druid on the my 3rd (ftp) for now. The question is, can a silver SK cut it at high level at all? Or would I be better off going mage and just pet tanking? Like there's a possibility I can get an all access or two somewhere down to line (sad I know), maybe a few months from now - and then get as many AA as I can during that time for whichever toons I'm playing.. but then when I go back to silver again, obviously I lose access to the good gear right? So in that case an SK would probably suffer a lot, but a Mage wouldn't really all that much from the gear/aug loss, right? ...And how is Mag/Brd/Dru(or Shm) as a box combo?
Do a search for the highest EM available to you as F2P for your level cap at whichever expansion you have. That will be your limiting factor. It's also going to depend a whole lot on your AA on the mage as well. The more pet centric AA you have the better the pet is going to perform.
your stuck with mage or bst .. the highest EM earing is T1 Group prolly from ToV (if you have that expansion) if your ftp and only have up to RoS then the group EM from RoS T1 gear iirc would be the only option .. AA's will be key as well as the EM focus as a F2P i think you can only have 250 ? aa's so thats not gonna help much .. even if your a silver account you can get up to 1000 AA's that would help more if you focused on your pet defensive's if you could sub for a month and autogranted say once you hit 105 or 110 then would be alot better then focused on getting more AA's for that month and max out your pets line .. then revert back to F2P .. also dont forget dont rely just on merc's for heals mages can heal their own pet thru just about any fight .. you have pet runes also use them .. you have 2 mod rods to use (on different timers) AA mod rod and self only Rod .. you have 2 pet mana seives that you can use to give you mana regen you have a spell mana gather magnitude and an AA one also (forget name) there should be no reason to go oom .. or if you do not for awhile .. keep your self guard buff up .. use your pet aura .. summon clickies .. personally I would box mage/dru/brd 3 combo .. easy mode really . If truly F2P and you can only use A2 mercs then I would use 1 to 2 cleric mercs and 1 or 2 dps mercs .. depending if you need more heals or if you helping heal your pet and you can settle with 2 dps mercs .. also dont forget to have your pet Taunt on .. you might even have to equip it with rage swords instead of the DD proc ones.. use Air pet on most mobs due to stun only bring out the earth for big named .. even air pet can tank named with you helping it you have the tools necessary to be a great mage .. its how you use those tools that will decide .. dont rely on mercs cause they will let you down .. thats why you have a druid or healer box dont get lazy just cause your using mercs .. my favorite quote " with great power, comes great responsibility" this is so true when it comes to mages and Knowledge is power here.. another lil tip if using crappy mercs A2 thru A5 when pulling on incoming if pulling more than 1 mob put mercs on passive then re-activate once mob(s) are in camp .. sometimes A2 -A5 mercs like to run when they see a few white or yellow mobs incoming .. but if they are passive and then activate once mobs are in .. seems to work out better (not always ) good luck to you and hope you get well soon ..
What level/expansion are you and where do you want to go? What do consider high level? Anything over EOK and I think your going to need a stout tank. But... I run a couple F2P groups and I like doing quests/missions in older zones (pre EOK) and there is so much to do just in TBM and other HA's that you can stay busy for a long long time. Good armor is not limited to prestige now days. There is conflagrant which is pretty nice and if you work the remnants of tranquility and those armor augs you can stay in that into level 105 I like hunting augs and here is a nice list of non prestige stuff - not just for sk but all http://eqshadowknight.net/showthread.php?t=8817 What I am saying is there is tons to do in the game and different ways to play it - you don't have to be top of the hill. Play the game however you can if it helps alleviate even a pinch of the stress you must be going thru.
I have to say that a mage pet, on the F2P side, is superior to a tank. I have played a 110 F2P warrior and a 110 F2P Mage. As much as I've tried to have the warrior be the main tank the agro would always head to the pet. Plus, the pet really needs nothing. 2 good agro weapons and he/she is good to go. The warrior constantly needed armor upgrades as I leveled. The pet just had amazing hit points. I almost always used an air pet as I leveled and I never worried about an EM item till atleast 100. Plus, if the pet died, I had time to evac the group out of there. It's just one F2P person's opinion. I understand that a true Warrior will come on and say I'm playing him wrong. But, for the mage pet, it was just send him in and watch him chew up the mob.
Pet taunt works. If your pet is taunting, it will always steal aggro from the tank. That's how taunt works. I'll cede this. It takes miles more work to make an effective player character plate tank. I would favor a player tank in most groups, unless you are stacking casters/Ench. Then I would favor the Mage pet.
Thanks all for the responses! Think it's looking like I'm gonna go with the Mage (pet) tank then after all. Especially since I got a great name for one that isn't taken yet - Lavos, the evil gnome. And yea I should have mentioned that all accounts, even my silver ones, only have whatever base expansion since I haven't bought one in a few years. I guess that's RoS?
Bard main with FTP MAG and SHM. Use a tank merc on the subbed account and CLR&ROG merc on the FTP accounts. SHM can pickup the slack of the CLR merc and the mage pet can step in if the tank merc goes down. My J5 tank merc is tanking everything in ToV with my raid cleric, and named with my cleric and a J5 cleric merc. You might not have enough healing to take down a current content named, as my CLR vastly outperforms an apprentice cleric merc and a free SHM. TBL was rough on tank mercs. You can also of course use a FTP mage pet and a J5 subbed cleric merc. This would make it easier to molo your BRD. The nice thing about a pet tank is only 1 AA line affects it's ability to tank, so a single Krono is enough to max out the pet tank AA.
Only the last 2 expansions are not free, so CoV and ToV. Everything to TBL is free. I think autogrant is 5 expansions back. Everything through EoK is currently free AA with a sub, and you keep your AA when the sub expires, which is ideal for a mage tank.
Sadly, they haven't unlocked TBL to F2P this time. Maybe it will happen later in the year but it was stated before that they only unlock expansions now when they raise the level limit.
I like this setup .. although the OP stated he wont be subbing his accounts at least not for a few months so all his accounts will be silver or F2P .
In that case, my answer is exactly the same. The first account that might get subbed later is still the account that should have the tank/clr merc as J5.
