Coming back to EQ and trying to decide if I want to use a real cleric or just be lazy and use a merc cleric. My setup is going to be SK, Enchanter, Wiz x3. Obviously a real Cleric is proly better but how much attention do I need to throw her way? Problem is I have literally 0% experience playing a Cleric past like level 50. What will my spell lineup look like? Is it something like a small but efficient heal, a medium heal, and a large "OH " but very inefficient heal. Also throw in a group Heal for AoE damage and I guess that Promised line spell. Just trying to remember what my Merc Healers used to cast. Would my group be just fine with a Merc healer or will a real cleric make things much easier and allow me more wiggle room for mistakes.
The big difference will be in the heal utility. A cleric merc will never Use Arbitration Use AA heals Toss utility (Divine I* spells, reverse DS, etc) Use group heals Promised is nice... but it's a long time to pay off. In most cases it's not worthwhile. Cleric mercs are for playing it down the middle. If you single pull or kill fast, it's fine. Clerics can't contribute seriously to DPS. If you're playing over your head (major multi-pulls), or hunting hard-hitting named, a PC cleric is better (more mana and wider variety of utility heals)
The difference will also be if you want your group to raid. Mercs are not allowed on most raids like COA etc. So you'll need some sort of person controlled healer.
I'd recommend: SK, Bard, Shm, Wiz, Mage Clr Merc. SK's make very solid group tanks Bards can add a good bit to the group even with just /melody. Shm can backup heal and their buffs partner better with cleric than druid buffs (in my opinion) Wiz is ports & dps Mage is slightly different dps and brings backup tank and CoTH utility & pet toys for SK & Shm A healer merc can heal while you're alt-tabbing between tank to get aggro, bard to mez adds and dps toons to start burn. leveling up a cleric for the times that things are smooth wouldn't be bad but I'd start with the above and add cleric last.
If you are two boxing an SK and an Enchanter already you should be fine on any group content with a Merc Cleric. Probably better than with a third boxed cleric.
^^ I agree add in a mage for dps and pet dps rather than a cleric IMO. Im not at the top level of this game yet, but most beneficial thing the Cleric provides is calms, not sure how this plays out at lv 105 or whatever, but calms are huge breaking into a camp. Ranger has them outside, not sure if enchanter has them or not, but calms are important IMO to breaking camps safely. there are other ways as well, like with root mezzing, regular mezzing, etc so its not the only way to do it, but when I boxed a cleric on a server that did not have mercs, it was a nice benefit to have. On the healing side of things I doubt you could out heal a merc while trying to run 2-3 other toons. I would prefer a healing merc over box any day. Right now im at like lv93 and ding well with a Shaman/SK/Ranger. I find the shaman kind of useless right now since they really dont provide anything other than buffs and a meager slow that only works partially (I heard 30%) Its DPS is severely lacking. On nameds I sometimes have to switch out one of my DPS caster mercs for a second healer just for that extra safety, but other than that for 99% of the content one healer merc will suffice.
I main a Paladin, and for a while, I boxed a Magician with a Cleric merc, but have now changed to a real Cleric with a Rogue Merc.... why? A DPS merc, will always work to its fullest potential. You cant have too much DPS from it. If the merc (or your trio) is overpowered for the content, it just means you kill faster. With a Healer Merc, you can have too much healing. Anything above what you need is essentially wasted, as it wont cast unswerving hammer, wont melee, wont nuke. Also, from between 55-85, Paladins cannot Pacify split mobs, while Clerics can, but healer mercs wont. Mercs wont camp out if you pull 4 too many, and will not root. Mercs are great for pure damage numbers, but I miss the flexibility of the real Cleric abilities above and beyond pure healing/buffs.
I never ever ran into overhealing/mana problems on mercs past like lv 15. , but who cares if they overheal, are not efficient like real cleric if they have no mana issues and can basically go non stop for hours? Or maybe a slight 5 min break after a bad pull. Now this is from 1-95, I have not seen end game 105, so this might be different. The cleric mercs help out too in the lower levels as being tanks too. I remember in my 50s and even 70s, when I had a bad pull of 3-4 mobs, I could not get aggro with my SK fast enough, so they were literally beating away on the merc cleric for the entire fight, they have so much hit points and cast heals right through that . Now if I was that merc, I would definitely leave the party for sure. Those guys dont know how to play. But after I learned this, I used it to m advantage. Poor cleric merc, if he only knew he was going to be assist tanking. Later 80+ this is not viable for too long, but still its a good option, hehe. The calms, yeah i agree, its definitely nice feature for sure. But I would rather just roll up a Ench for so much more rather than dragging a live cleric around. Not only do you get calms, but haste, mana buffs, roots,runes and the ability to dish out some dps too.
............................................................................................ Hey, I'm not trying to say its not possible, but you say your playing an SK and Ranger together? My main is a ranger, and a box a shaman, mage, bard, and enchanter in the group. I have been leveling an SK on my ranger main account as a substitute for for those times I need more tanking beef in the group. Knowing my ranger as I do, and what I know so far about SK's (level 96) I cannot imagine playing them at the same time. They are both so focus intensive classes, with so many aa's, spells, and xtra clicks to play effectively at the same time. I'd love some insight how your playing them together effectively? Maybe Id move my SK to another spot in group if I could see it clearly.
I really dont use all the stuff all the time, I just make sure SK has aggro at all times for 99% of the trash (because trash dies so easily) and only on bosses is where I click all the money stuff. Or those oh crap moments where I need a bit more. But its not that bad though, I use IS boxer which makes it easy being able to send commands from one window to all the others, also allows quick switching between windows and its seamless. So if you have a proper setup and take time to configure hot buttons, you can play SK and click on ranger account at the same time no problem. I know im not playing the classes to 100%, of course not, but im betting that I can eek out 50-70% no problem maybe even more on boss fights if I really concentrate. With the Is boxer thing, its like second nature to me now. Its more muscle memory now than thinking about it.
