Cleric Main. Box with...?

Cleric is what I know. Cleric is what I do. That said, I'm ready to try to box something on my laptop that will compliment the cleric, but not steal too much time away. I've never boxed much in EQ, but I have a gaming laptop and think I'm going to try to live on TLP as a two box player. In a perfect world I'd be seen as a cleric any group would want and my box would be well tolerated as an average group/raid performer for their class.

My Skills:

• I am capable of, and willing to, utilize key-binds on both characters.
• I know how to program socials to perform various combination of abilities and spell casts.
• I have a solid understanding of EQ, but I haven't spent much time on progression servers. For instance, no xtarget and having to re-learn to manage heal aggro will be a bit of a learning curve.
• I'm comfortable with GINA and feel its a good tool for reminders while boxing (buff has faded, your ducked, out of mana, etc.).

My first thought is that a wizard might be a very good option. It seems that you are often able to play them with out moving around a bunch. They have decent utility to help a group (snare, ports, evac.). My guess is you can set up a decent set of socials and key binds to handle most situations?
Keeping in mind that my focus is group and raid play, and not two boxing on my own, can anyone verify for me that cleric wizard is a good two box? Alternatively, does anyone else have any other suggestions? I have also considered mage and necro, but I have concerns about my ability to properly control my pets escapades as I've never played a pet class before and would have to learn on the fly. I don't want anything distracting in a major way from my cleric.

Enchanter.

Stay away from Enchanter then. You will be expected to CC and have a charmed pet at all times.

Mage is the safer option if you are worried about your ability to manage a pet. Nothing else really compares other than Necro if you want to hunt undeads with your Cleric.

lol. I'm not smart enough to play an enchanter alone. Charming scares the stuffing out of me. Nothing like a pet laying around salivating at the thought of its master dozing off to sleep

Given your criteria, I'd definitely go with Magician. It would not require many keys to handle pet assist, attack, and back off. And other few keys for nukes. Your mage could add a fiery damage shield to your plate armor, which would make it look cool.

Avoid melee classes, because that means constantly managing their position and direction, which distracts from your cleric. Necros, druids, shamans, and enchanters are all awesome with clerics. But they are busy classes.

For the absolute least amount of effort, choose a Bard. Put them on /follow, and have them just sing songs for you. You could configure keyboard presses strictly for amusement. Click a button, and have your bard emote funny stuff:

Brave Sir Robin ran away. Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head, He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet, He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

If your goal is to essentially play 2 mains fairly competently rather than building an effective duo, then Cleric/Wiz is a perfectly fine choice. Other classes that don’t require a lot of attention to be effective in groups/raids are Bard, Mage, and Necro.

If you want to main a clr and be competent i like bard or wiz as a box.

The bard will never be as good as a main that knows bard, but main bards still need boxes otherwise they have to play mana song etc. Sitting your bard by the cleric is also a really easy smart play. Some poor schmuck always has to sit by the clerics for mana song.

Wiz is good because no pet no melee (can help but min max) and you can more or less follow yourself and run off very basic hotkeys.

Problem with bringing your bard in the group is, people are so lazy on these servers they will want you to pull too. I wouldn't recommend it personally, just play a Mage so you can duo, group effectively with both toons, or DPS out-of-group. Plus, you'll have malo, mod rods, pet toys for chanter pets and eventually COTH.

Ranger.

Your guild will appreciate it in Luclin / PoP.
Rangers are not terrible at tanking early on in classic, Kunark and Velious so you are never “short” a tank for a group allowing you to “add DPS” and get by fine enough.

Ranger tanking post Luclin gets more gear dependent but it’s not unheard of. However you’ll mostly find yourself looking for a rea tank so the ranger can autofire for DPS.

You're right about that if you're a bard and invited its usually to pull. In groups though i have found that healing is less critical especially once you get a groove.

Sometimes i boxed clr bard in groups and it can be nice because you basically have the rare parts of a group. Mages are definitely preferred over a wiz in groups but at that point id weigh my focus on raid vs group.

Definitely tradeoffs involved here that the user needs to get personal about.

Personal preference I suppose.

I 2 boxed Bard and Cleric for years back on Stromm, that was my jam. It did indeed fill critical group roles and I often made my own groups as a result of it being so easy. However, the focus was 99% on chain-pulling with the bard and 1% hitting CH on the Cleric.

If you want to play the Cleric as your main, I'd recommend avoiding being a bard, you'll be happier in the long run trying to get things done outside of raids and won't be harassed by other players to go out and pull every-time you join a group. It gets extremely tedious trying to explain you just want it in the group for mana song or you don't have the mental fortitude to pull all night after a hard day at work.

When you have to compete with other groups for mobs and people are regularly cruising by to KS or steal your spawns, you have to be on it like blue bonnet or your whole group will be XP starved or ran out of your camp.

Heh, its just as easy to play another class early on, farm loot, kronos and plat, and PL a Ranger up to 60 right before Luclin. It sucks to play a Ranger for the first 4-5 months of the server unless you just want to tank, because your DPS is completely irrelevant until you get your epics and no one wants you in the group unless they need a puller or tank.

If the XP rate was going to be slow like Coirnav I'd say play the Ranger right out of the gate, so you can level with everyone else. But with an XP rate faster than Agnarr, it really makes no sense to play a Rogue or Ranger in classic.. unless you just really want to start stockpiling DKP in your guild.

People will start doing AE PL's in Unrest or Sol:A/B for 1 Krono that will take you up to level 30 in like a few hours. Makes more sense to play a mage or enchanter and reap the early rewards of cheap Krono accumulation.

If you go with enchanter you will end up maining the enchanter.

A simpler option is a bard.

Also a shaman would work really well on undead, you can canni the shaman down to 1% hp, then cheal it. It can slow mobs for you and do good dps, and you can undead nuke spam. Their buffs stack with yours nicely.

Wizard is another option. Just sit it medding, pull an undead, undead nuke the undead, use the wizard for extra nukage when it has mana. It could port you around, evac you when things go south, will be super great on raids (your guild will love you)

I would choose one of these 4

Reading your post, this will mostly be for grouping with others, not for doing stuff by yourself with your 2 boxes? ( im assuming this is for mangler also)

If so, you can pretty much pick anything your comfortable with. Bard would be easy, solid, and always welcome. Easy to play dps like wizard/mage work also. You could even play a tank, but that will require more multitasking of course. Playing both a cleric and chanter in a group can be rough, so I understand not wanting to go that route.

That said, if you do plan to spend any time just 2 boxing without other people, you'll be kicking yourself for not picking enchanter. The duo is just bonkers, and far and away more powerful than any other class you'd pair with. Keep that in mind.

The range on mana song before Kunark is just god awful so this is a good point

Clerics/warriors/wizards... they work best as part of a 3box setup because of their niche play.

Cleric/Enc or Cleric/Mage will be fine for grouping and raiding. Bard would be fine OOG box and Raid box. As far as duoing and xp'ing.. cleric/bard might be a bit more effort than its worth.

I would say reconsider cleric/wizard. Clerics buff hp and heal. Wizards don't get hit and need mana. Poor synergy. Go all the way and play Cleric/tank/bard and you have a solid trio and all 3 can be managed in a raid. Cleric/bard are Siamese twins. You might not even need to bring the tank?

2cp

I feel like a lot of you are over-estimating what a bard brings to the table in early EQ.

Few options here.

Most powerful combo would be with Enchanter, setting up the best duo in the game of Cleric/Enchanter.

Cleric/Mage is solid. Cleric monk or Cleric warrior in the early to mid game could be fun and decent too.

Bards when micromanaged are incredibly powerful, they are one of the best classes to have in every groups. Lots of bard players are afk /melody players but if you dont think that every ideal group has a bard you havent seen what a bard can do.

But for an afk class they are also pretty solid.


I really can't express enough how good a bard puller is vs anything else by a mile.

Run off with selos, have stacking self resists so no roots, pull 5 mobs, mez the mobs as they come in one after another so that they come in one at a time 15 seconds apart. Soooo good. Then mana song while you're in camp

Hi
like you not much of a boxer
I played and left main servers when boxing was rare (yes that long ago)
I only now play TLP servers and have tried boxing and let me say this I found it gruelling playing cleric and enchanter and quit
I tried cleric and monk which was good for duo but bad for grouping
I would suggest bard and cleric if grouping would be your thing