Alright, came back a few weeks ago, reviving an old box set (Monk+Sham+bard). Still learning the ropes again, haven't done much other than solo weak cons in tosk/FoS/katta. I've noticed xp gain seems to go a lot faster right now than I remember. So I was thinking about adding a Wizard to my combo for ports (lazy, don't want to run), and figured I'd make a rogue and level it up with the Wizard for poison making later on. Got me thinking..I've never actually played any of the melee but the monk in EQ. Think I've played a zerker to like mid 20s back when they were first released, but that's all there. Rogue, honestly can't remember ever going past the teens. So I'm curious and planning to play around with this rogue and maybe a zerker to figure out the playstyles, compare them and all. And figured I'd ask for a list of major differences in playstyle and capability? Assuming they'd just replace the monk in the group, how would it change the dynamics of the group? Melee + Sham+bard (+maybe wiz) and I guess a tank and cleric mercenary? Is there a massive difference in how much content I could do between the different classes? I have no interest in inter-class bickering or "This class does better in raids". I have no desire to raid, no time for it, and am just interested in straight facts. Can I box equally with each class? What are the strong suits of each class? I have the monk at 85 or 86 atm, so have an idea of that. Long story short, just want the basic info. I don't care who is flavor of the month or OP or whatever. Just whether or not you can replace the melees with each other with similiar levels of success in a box group, and what changes between each one. Thanks! edit: forgot to mention, leaving state for the weekend so won't be playing, might not respond til sun/mon.
The only difference I would propose is that a monk is going to be more viable as a tank for the lower levels. Once you are 100 they all tank decently the same, but won't be tanking anything major unless you get raid gear. In the group game, they all put out about the same dps, but the zerker is gonna require more support to do it. Rogue is very nice for a group box to SoS (shroud of stealth) corpse recover, scout, pull etc.
I guess you like melee too much to change? If not, I would try a necro/wiz (great dps, and not as tight a requirement for adps classes) or maybe a ranger/beastlord. If you really want melee, the monk will tank better (but nowhere near as well as your merc tank), especially in non-raid gear. With shm/bard I think they would all do similar dps. Rog has some parlour tricks, zerk prolly lacks most on utility front. All much of a muchness really (imo) comparing melee classes. The real differences are melee v hybrid (utility), and melee v caster (win-eqability)..
good to know group game is similiar enough. Think I'll end up trying out the rogue, sounds interesting enough. as far as liking melee too much. Yes, that's a guarantee. I've tried the necro/mage/bard combo, mage/mage etc. I always got sick of it in the 70s. Just not fun to me, nothing against anyone who enjoys it. Tried rangers/SKs/warriors, while fun to a point, I like the monk more, melee wise. Was just curious if a rogue/bers could do as much as or more than a monk in a box-group. Guess that'll start on Monday when I get home. Thanks for answers
Currently monks outdps rogue and berserker, especially on sustained non-discing dps which is what you'll be doing mostly in groups. However dps tends to change every expansion so don't put too much faith in that. Earlier levels it's quite possible that monks maybe weaker, as their big power gains were during this expansion and are possibly level limited. Other nuances: Rogues need rear arc to shine, so aren't so ideal for a busy box group, while monk and berserker don't gain much from rear arc. (Berserker have some positional issues too, but that's more due to raid push.) Tanking wise rogue / ber are comparable, but I disagree with the comment that monks are comparable too - they're not IMO and are significantly sturdier than the other two. For burns, berserkers are currently top with rog/monk being more or less comparable (maybe rog marginally ahead on short burns, but the higher non-discing dps of monk means they pull ahead again unless mob falls over in under 1min). However note that this fluctuates long term. Right now, it's a no brainer for min/max type people. However ultimately you should play the class you find the most fun.
When it comes to box characters you need to think a lot about how you plan to use the boxed character and what your needs/wants are from the characters you choose and the content you want to play as it is hard to really pin down all of the nuances that you would find applicable. Each of the pure melee classes have their benefits and perks and its really about your play style which is best for you. Things to consider for all of the melee characters. Raid weapons and fero/cleave/dodge/parry/block are pretty important focus effects for all of them so having access to weaponry will be important regardless which melee you choose. Monk Perks Monks historically have had the best autoattack dps of the 3 so are better low attention boxes. They have FD and mend. Throughout the level ranges they can pull and can usually tank so long as you focus their gear appropriately. It makes them really well rounded overall and fill an important role in the group. Most independent from mercs and the stupid things they do. Also you can take advantage of more merc "tricks" if you often play with others. AKA kick someone from the group and pop a healer merc to save a failing situation. When things go south they are more likely to get and stay off the hate list to allow for a faster recovery. However with Fellowships this has largely gone away as an advantage. Monk Disadvantages They need a lot of aa's to do decent dps, and never really get the biggest numbers with the same support as the other 2 melee. They lose a lot of their advantages with bards doing the pulling and having a merc tank. Rogue Perks Generally rogues suffer "relatively" the least by having group weapons since a huge portion of their damage is from Backstab and not raw ratio limited. Rogues get SoS so it makes travel easier in general. If you are giving them attention they will do very well for DPS throughout the level ranges and burn better too. So long as they are not tanking and getting some attention, even if only enough to hit backstab they will give you some love right back. Fastest reuse burns. More burns more often. Require the least AA's to put out decent DPS numbers. Can assassinate humanoids starting at 46 I think. So can go "slumming" sooner. Rogue Disadvantages Rogues are rather crappy tanks, and you sacrifice a good amount of DPS to when you make them tank due to the rear arc dependence. Position matters the most on rogues. If you are not backstabbing you are loosing between 30-50% of their dps output. Berserker Advantages Berserkers historically are better tanks than rogues and don't suffer the DPS loss rogues do by tanking. They have a few fairly useful utility items like snare and stun which are quite strong for group content as they are instant cast and physical so generally lower resist rates. Annoying in that they require components. Their autoattack DPS is better than rogues, and they can require less AA's to be decent DPS compared to monks. They get decapitation. Very useful for the small level range where you have it and can use it but it isn't limited to just one mob type. They require the fewest weapons and weapon types. Just 1 good weapon will do them just fine, and things like damage shields are the least painful as a berserker. (Unless the other two do secondary only damage). Berserker Disadvantages Many berserker disciplines cause detrimental effects, so it will interfere if you have to move or change positions on the fly. They also will have more issues with AE's and DoT's if you are not thinking through the encounter because of the detriments. Most dependent on support classes to put out decent numbers but they generally will max out higher than anyone. Their discs start out with the longest reuse times. Though at high levels this is reduced significantly. Least friendly fade tools. Endurance hogs on their abilities paired with a rather crappy fade means they generally run out sooner. This is reduced somewhat at higher levels.
I'm afraid I don't really agree with some of the above. Most significantly "Generally rogues suffer "relatively" the least by having group weapons since a huge portion of their damage is from Backstab and not raw ratio limited". While it's true that backstab isn't computed from the weapon ratio, it is computed from the backstab value listed on the weapon and 'lo, it's weaker on group gear than raid gear. Hence group backstab damage suffers just as much as group autoattack does. It's plain wrong to say we suffer less switching from raid to group gear IMO (at least for that reason perhaps). "Berserkers historically are better tanks than rogues and don't suffer the DPS loss rogues do by tanking" - the dps bit is correct (infact they often GAIN dps while tanking due to riposts being high on a 2Her), but I don't believe they mitigate any more than rogues. Both are on par here I think (and both are behind monks as they have slightly superior mitigation). "instant cast and physical so generally lower resist rates" - I'm not convinced that physical resist checks are better. Indeed a lot of rogue skills are physical too and they resist lots! It's the check modifier that really matters here. I haven't checked to see if berserker skills generally have higher resist modifiers though. In general too I think your dps assessment is outdated. Monks at level 100 clearly outdps rogue and berserker on sustained damage, although berserkers can potentially outpace them on burns. This is liable to change though, as it always does and always will with each expansion. (I'm sure monks are good for a little while yet as they have a solid lead on sustained currently.) I'm not sure how the classes stack up without full support though - I'd expect monks to suffer the least here and berserkers the most. So while a berserker can cream a monk when both are in the perfect optimal raid group, the ratio may well not look so convincing when both lack any support.
Well, made a drakkin rogue today, PLing it up to maybe 60s or so before I start really focusing on playing it. (hate doing the 10 min in a zone hop around with level speeds pre-60) Probably end up posting on the rogue boards with more specific questions on learning to play it. Going to be interesting learning how to do it all over again. Thanks all for the answers!
I suppose I could add more clarification for Brogett with some of my comments. I based a lot of my comments on my personal experience with my brother and roommate as we were leveling a "melee" group together and class trends from year to year by reading other peoples experiences in game and on various class forums. The OP said they were not interested in "flavor of the month" assessments. Berserkers generally "tank" better since they have more agro tools and better control of them with stun and snare paired with much worse fade capabilities. Tanking is about agro control and taking hits both. So basically in our little group of monk monk rogue berserker bard shaman the berserker always ended up tanking and was safer having him tank if we didn't want agro ping-ponging around. Also they have higher HP's at low levels. I mean he wanted general factual information, which if you were to pick any given expansion at any given level, you would find this to be most often true. Ranger physical attacks have very low resist rates. Berserker abilities sometimes have horrible resist rates but they usually get adjusted at some point after each expansion release to be mostly reliable and as instant cast abilities they can be handy. Based on my parses a rogue with group weapons will be closer in percent to their raid counterparts than the other two classes. I am trying to recall the numbers I had personally obtained at the time (think it was 2 years ago) but I recall they were about 10-15% closer than the other 2 classes. There may be a number of reasons for this, but I think they point to backstab and frenzied stabbing. All of them were obviously really far behind those with raid weapons but it was good enough for me to think it a notable observation to share. I have not done extensive parsing on group versus raid weapons since so I may just have a snapshot of how things were, but it was a period when rogues needed a few boosts. I play a raiding monk and my roommate a raiding rogue. I usually get a raid weapon on my berserker before the end of the cycle. Since I play/have access to each I can kind of gauge how each class is doing from a casuals perspective. I am definitely a more competitive person though and see a lot of different play and skill levels. My general feeling is rogues suck as a box character and berserkers kind of suck in group environments. Rogues played as the primary with other characters as supplementary characters is much better but still not that ideal.
That may well be true (I have no data to say either way but am happy to believe your parses), I just disagreed with the logic and reasoning. Eg look at the T4 quested dagger: 86/19 53BS vs 114/19 60BS. On the surface it looks like raiding gains 33% higher ratio and 13% higher backstab. So although backstab *does* come from weaponry and isn't innate, it doesn't seem to change as much between group and pierce. However, rogues get a sizeable chunk of fixed +damage added to all pierce attacks, so you don't really do compare ratios of 114/86 to get the damage scaling. Rather it's (114+x)/(86+x) for some rather arbitrary unknown x. This possibly also helps group players more than the raw ratio appears. I should do some sums to work out the proper scaling factor! At low levels though, for sure rogues big win over other low level classes will be the poisons. They're hugely powerful while levelling up.
Monks doing more dps than rogues? Gha! I would have gone monk if I had known that, they are a better tank and much better pullers than rogues due to FD. Too late now to switch though spent too much time on my rogue . As for the OP question: I've noticed that all of the melee dps classes have utility. Berserker have a very nice snare, it's very important in certain camps (unless you have another snare class of course like druid or ranger). They can also buff group melee damage, but so can rogues. Rogues potentially have snare, slow etc poisons, but in reality you probably won't be using them much. 1. When boxing I've found my rogue stealing aggro too much when he's not using the aggro reducing poison (which takes up the same slot as the snare or slow poison). With a good tank this wouldn't be a problem, but when boxing I don't have a good tank . 2. Poisons are friggen expensive and time consuming to make. I wouldn't waste my money on them IMO unless absolutely required. (The DPS poison is of course always required, but that's relatively cheap) Also with rogue you need to be behind the mob to do full damage, those backstabs will be pretty pitiful otherwise (you can backstab from the front after you get an AA, but they will be weak). So unless you're a really good boxer, or you use [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] or a program like that, I'd take berserker or monk over rogue for that reason alone. So really what I gain from my rogue utility wise is simply SoS (corpse dragging). I rarely need to use it as my other boxed chars have invisibility which usually suffices, except in certain zones. I'd say utility wise berserker and rogue are pretty equal, unless you have a good tank and lots of cash to buy the utility rogue poisons, then rogue has the edge. Monk FD and superior tanking ability is better than rogue or berserker utility IMO, so if their dps is the same I'd choose monk. If you lack snare Berserker is also a good choice.
Rangers don't have physical resist attacks. We have skill attacks that cost mana much like the berserker frenzy line and monk synergy line which cost endurance. Recently our root/blur line was changed to physical resist, and the resist rate went through the roof until the resist check was increased significantly. Edit. I forgot about our reagent arrow nukes that are resisted far too often and were only used for one expansion unless you want extra hate. If you were referring to those, they do not have a very low resist rate.
Rogue is sitting at 60 or so now, haven't been doing much on her though. Was farming LGuk for the armor /weapons and stuff last night so can upgrade out of the pretty much nothing she's wearing. Just to respond to Dday99, I'm not *boxing* the rogue so much as I am maining a rogue and having a shaman and bard follow me around. At the poison comment, money isn't really an issue, and I have fun tradeskilling to some degree. Can't say a lack of snare bothers me much, either. My monk has a snare, don't think I've clicked it in years. Might change at higher levels, but I find majority of the time when something runs I can kill it before it gets too far. If anything, can always root the mob. Guess I'll be finding out for myself how everything works out with this once I get the rogue levels and AAs. If it turns out I can't do what I want as well as I want, can always just hop back on the monk for the "main" position. Thanks for all the answers all Edit: And offtopic, not sure if you're the one to ask, but do you have ability to flag my account on safehouse, Brogett? Under the name of Senthane
Sorry no I don't. Try Taoden or one of the other hands. Good luck with the rogue. Remember having fun is the most essential reason to play the toon.
This statement is extremely misleading. Monks are nowhere near rogue and berserker dps unless you are level 100 and max dps aa. Even with those you'll need a good group setup with bard/shm and good timing with your discs and the best weapons you can get which are extremely rare compared to weapons for other classes. Before RoF Part 2 (SoF), monks were in really bad shape but we got some nice AA upgrades in SoF to help us out and even group monks non raid geared could push out some nice numbers, however, all that is locked behind levels and a massive amount of AA. Monks are great, but they need a lot of work. Wax on wax off.
Pick your class based on unique (even if massively farmed out) abilities that you enjoy having. Tuning is relative and ever-changing. All you need to know.
I don't think so, nor do I believe "they need a lot of work" compared to the other melee. If you the entire sentence you quoted I even mentioned that prior to HoF they were weaker. I stress again, *currently* monks in current content at max level are strong and I don't believe that is at all misleading. Don't bet on it staying like it though as nothing ever does.
You need to PM Savager on Xegony and see what you are doing wrong then and weapons are not rare since currency was introduced?.
He's thinking about group monk rather than raiding monk. However I don't believe the best monk weapons are much harder to find than the best rogue weapons. We both have an obvious best set along with lots of suboptimal ones that are equivalent to 1-2 tier lower down.
