Newbie needs help choosing a class

Hi all - and sorry for this lengthy post :-/

In the past (Kunark Era) I played a Shaman as my character but couldnt afford the hefty online-cost sum anymore and had to stop playing at around level 40.

Now I want to join you guys on Phinigel but I read up on the forums that much is going to change concerning the classes since I played EQ the last time.

My first thought was to start a shaman again but then I read that they will loose a lot of their power with comming expansions, their slow is not so much desired anymore, high alchemy skill shamans flooding the market right now, shaman dps is quite low and their "new" epic will only effect a special kind of group setup.

Which would be a useful class for a new player without friends on the server, no intention to box and a flexible time shedule (sometimes enough time to group for an evening, something very few time so I would solo around for an hour and log again)?

The shaman class I played in the past was flexible in doing this, Shamans could be one of the strongest - if not the strongest -soloer (with Torpor) and were highly sought after in groups.

I have already read the class infos on http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Classes/ but these are pretty vague and really dont show the usefulness of the classes.

So, long stroy short, what are things that I like doing:

- beeing able to be really useful to groups
- beeing able to be useful in raids
- beeing able to solo if needed
- beeing able to camp nameds (or are they called bosses now) for items solo
- delving into dungeons (back in the day some spells only worked outdoors)
- beeing versatile is nice but not really a must have

Based on the above list, is there any tip you could give me or should I post more info to narrowing down the possibilities a bit more?

For any help I would be really thankful as I am totally overwhelmed with starting a new, not knowing what the next expansions hold for surprises ;-p

So you want to do it all? Enchanter probably. But there are a lot of enchanters around because they can do it all.

Necro, Shaman, or Chanter would meet most of your criteria.

Thank you for these tips, I have a few more questions concerning this ;-p

1.) Is a necro any useful in group content?
Back in the day the enemy died faster than the necro dots could damage to their full potential and in raids they have been pretty much mana batteries

2.) Is a necro able to solo in a dungeon or does he mostly use fear kite?

3.) After Planes of Power, how would you guys arrange these three classes in terms of the ability to be useful in a broad array of groups? (Ench>Shm>Nec?)

4.) After Planes of Power, how would you guys arrange these three classes in terms of the ability to camp nameds? (Ench>Nec>Shm?)

I do not mind to invest a bit of time and effort into not-so-mainstream approaches also, so:

5.) How viable would be a cleric with the above points in mind?
I think I remember it was quite possible with them to burn some solo time in Undead-Infested places and for groups they were very helpful (are they outshined by the versatility of druids and/or shaman in these days?).

6.) As a Deathknight, I understand that I can hold aggro really well, so I would be useful for groups but how about the solo aspect? Could I do some solo dungeon crawling or camp some nameds with this class?

7.) How would a ranger fall into my above checklist?

1. Necros are great, very good solo, but useful in groups. They can DoT, nuke, mezz, charm (undead), and feed mana - which is very useful in groups when things go pear shaped.

2. Necros can root/dot too, mezz adds, charm undead etc. So yes, they can solo dungeons, but often helps to have a healing partner (like enchanters).

3-4. I can't really say.

5. Clerics can't camp many nameds. Possibly some undead. They can't solo much at all, think of a poor wizard (even with undead, their nukes are efficient but not big).

6. Deathknight? Do you mean Shadowknight? They can solo somewhat, but are great with a healing partner.

7. Rangers have great DPS, some solo ability, but not to the level of shamans or necros. They have lots of utility too.

Also, you might like to consider druids. They're very versatile, they don't do anything best, but do a lot of things well. Plus, they have ports and track. And Egress (self only evac) is very useful when exploring dungeons solo. They are very useful in groups, because they can fill different gaps at different times, although in all honesty, in these days of min/max, possibly not as desired as shamans.

And you say that shamans lose their power - that's true to an extent, but what it really means is shaman slow stops being so overpowered as it is right now. Back in the day, shamans were a quiet, underrated class. But now, people know how good they are, and yes, that does fade a bit, but they never stop being a good, useful class, that can add to any group.

From my experience shamans only get better with age, puma line and eventually group puma - malo totem and the healing gets beefed up a fair bit (soe tried to comensate for the lack of clerics in later expansions)
Couldn't really say what happens to necro's in later expansions though I never leveled one past 60 lol.

Thank you for the infos so far, I think I narrowed it down to either necro or shaman again if you say shamans arent really much weaker than in the old days.

I will repost the last 2 unanswered questions so maybe someone might stumble upon them and give some rough estimates:

3.) After Planes of Power and beyond, how would you guys arrange these three classes in terms of the ability to be useful in a broad array of groups? (Ench>Shm>Nec?)

4.) After Planes of Power and beyond, how would you guys arrange these three classes in terms of the ability to camp nameds (with summon)? (Ench>Nec>Shm?)

I disagree about shamans or necro's being weaker in later expansions, i had a necro / wizard basically carry me through group progression in HoT with basically the necro doing all the heavy lifting, the wizard was his box. Lol.
Shaman from my personal experience was a lot of fun in SoF but thats where I stopped. I solo'd and group'd and solo healed almost all of it.

For question 3, I think you've ranked them the same way I would. CC never goes out of style, although much later in the game it does become a bit less necessary to have an enchanter in the group since other classes get some (lesser) CC abilities. Shamans always bring unique buffs and debuffs. Shaman epic 2.0 is fantastically useful any time you are grouped with melees. Necros are one of my favorite classes, but as you said there are some group situations where they really can't shine (no undead to charm around, mobs are dying quickly so dots are inefficient).

Question 4 is kind of open to some subjectivity. Shaman is definitely a distant 3rd to the other 2 classes in regards to soloing summoning named. I think enchanter has the highest ceiling, in that they could potentially kill the toughest mobs of the 3. There is also a higher inherent danger in using charmed pets to solo, and there are some situations where charm pets may not be available, or the surrounding mobs are just much weaker than the target named so charming isn't reasonable. Necro is the all around go to solo artist in a lot of eras. Pet tanks reasonably well, you can single pull most situations with the combination of FD + snare, and dps is always strong. Once you get a mercenary (pretty far down the road of course...) you can really solo/molo huge amounts of group content as a necro.

I used to play a shaman on live (up to TBS), the main reason I didn't answer these two questions earlier is that I never played enchanter that high or necro at all, so I don't know the solo ability of those very well after PoP.

I think you're underestimating shamans though. Shamans can solo pretty well, even summoning mobs. Some will tank it while dotting it, and letting the pet be an extra dot. Some root/dot and back up each time they're summoned. But being able to heal yourself while tanking is something lots of shamans in that era pride themselves on.

I don't know about necro soloing nameds, their pet can't tank that well, can it? Unless they can charm undead. Enchanter's charmed pet can of course, but then if charm breaks at the wrong time, it's highly dangerous, and if the summoning named can't be stunned or mezzed, it's very hard to get things back under control.

All three classes can both solo well and group well, necros might traditionally be less desired in groups, but that's partly because most of them were off soloing so people didn't realise what they can bring.

In a group, haste and slow are big deals. Haste particularly, when slow gets mitigated. Both enchanters and shamans can do these. Other buffs are useful too, but less so in the actual group, when longer duration ones come along in PoP and after.

All in all, I'll say the usual - play what's fun for you.

If you don't like buffing other people, play necro. If you like being able to heal, play a shaman, if you like being able to derail a train, play an enchanter.

Wait for Luclin and play a beastlord.

Only thing you won't be able to do is tank named that have motm (raid targets). With any healer, you'll be able to tank provided you can slow the mob. (I was an under geared BL tanking PoValor with relatively few problems).

Epic procs a slow.
You can cast a slow.
You have a componentless avatar (resists instead of stats, similar attack benefit).
You have group spirituality.
You have ghetto shaman buff options.
You can melee alongside your pet and back out to heal it (or yourself). With pet changes, this should be amazing and not the crutch it used to be to solo.

You'll never top the parse charts, your pets probably useless on raids (as are most). People will love MGB paragon of spirit (1200 HP, 400 mana), key melee will love the resist and attack bonuses from fero.

Druid and Shaman both fit most (all?) these criteria.

I always liked that Rabid bear AA for that reason, if a mob summoned you just dropped hots on yourself and bear tanked until it was dead.

I'd forgotten about that one!

Bear form was amazing for any kinda tanking when soloing especially against summons.

Shaman are one of the, if not the most powerful class for the next like, 6-7 expansions.

Dont know where you got this power fall off thing from.

Yes slow falls off in power but it was necessary.. Right now slow is one of the most insanely powerful mechanics in the game.

SK
Ranger
Beastlord

Do you guys really think the SK could do the above things? Especially this camping of a broad array of nameds for equipment upgrades?
If yes, would this be possible now or only after X amount of expansions?

The same question goes for Rangers, as I honestly thought they are the bottom class after reading the forum (sorry rangers) even though their skills seem intersting.

I ask because I lean more towards martial classes than pure casters - hence my interest in shamans, he wears chain at least and swings a club or spear

Cleric are always useful in groups and raids and the first class people try to find when forming a group. Some raids simply can't be done without enough clerics.

As for solo, clerics are highly under-rated as a Solo class. Stick to undead and alternate stuns with undead nukes, then root to back off and heal as needed. I can solo 3 or 4 dark blue undead mobs before needing to med or 1 even or yellow mob using most of my mana.

Soloing nameds is totally dependent on what named it is and what items you are trying to get. The ability to root and heal really gives you a lot of flexibility, plus if it is a camp that is too difficult, get a group!

Dungeons need a cleric, especially to take out named mobs as clerics have the best heals. If someone dies deep in a dungeon, a cleric can res them back instead of them running back.

Versatility is what clerics do. They heal. They buff. They nuke undead. They crowd control with root parks. They wear plate armor and can tank with chain stuns. They res the dead to regain lost XP. I guess they can't port, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.

Zardnok

Yes, SKs can do this now. In the current era on TLP an SK can solo farm most dark blue named, and a very few even con and yellow named. They only get better at soloing as time goes on, the limiting factor for them(at this point) being their abominably low dps. Within a few expacs they're beyond ridiculous, soloing things that a ranger just couldn't handle. The ability to FD split makes pulling, and thus farming, difficult named even easier.

As for Rangers. we're nothing like the ranger gate spammers of old. A ranger can tank any current group content(albeit not quite as well as a knight or war) just fine, offtank, pull, cc with roots and snares, brings top tier dps to the table, buffs, heals....

On my ranger on Phinny I had a velks group: Cleric fell down off the ramp so there were no heals in camp - 5 mobs in camp, bard had 4 mezzed and I was tanking an unslowed yellow while heailng myself, proceeded to work with the bard(and group dps) to bring the train under control, had it down to two mobs left by the time I ran oom and the cleric had made it back by that time.

Everyone rags on rangers, its a time-honored tradtion: and in the time of verant's original everquest they were pretty low on the totem pole - but this is TLP, not classic.