Enc/Clr or Enc/Dru?

On Mangler I played my first Enchanter and absolutely loved it. I mained an Enchanter and boxed a Cleric, and then eventually added another box Ranger for DPS. The combo was absolutely beast. I was late to the server though and didn't join until a week before Luclin.

I would like to play an Enchanter again on Mischief and I am thinking that starting with classic the Druid would be the better box. Sow, Ports/Evac, Dots, Damage Shield....all great additions. My only concern is the buffing and healing. Is there any downside to the druid in the early game? Without keeping a Dire Charm alive I think I will swap charms more when they get low HP.

What is the consensus on Druid vs Cleric as a box for the first few expansions?

I don't think anything competes with ENC/DRU as far as duos go. The HP buffs are negligible considering the insane health of the charmed pet. CH definitely poops on any druid heals--and will be a lot more handy 50+, but the Druid has such insanely good utility/PL and the heals/regen should be more than sufficient against all but the toughest content.

They are both great combos, but I'd do DRU, myself. In fact--I will have ENC/DRU in my box as well. Also forgot to mention those situations where both DRU and ENC can charm. The DPS is sickening.

I completely forgot about the druid charm. I don't know that before Dire Charm I will be charming with both though. I can easily see the druid with a dire charm and an assist/attack hotkey but managing two charms breaking seems like it would just be a death sentence.

Absolutely agree! I never even attempted to do it if I was just boxing alone because the upkeep is absurd--even with tons of hotkeys. Also not really even necessary. In this box, you play the ENC and the DRU is just an extension of extra spells for your ENC, lol. I bought a USB num pad for my box laptop and I don't even have to look at the screen anymore.

That is what I used on Mangler. I had 2 PCs of my own for my Enchanter and Cleric. The wife decided to join so she played the Cleric and I made a Ranger box. I had number pads and hotkeys for both so I could play all 3 when she wasn't around. I was never a huge fan of boxing until that combo. I will still drop all the boxes any day though just to main the enchanter in an actual group.

If you plan to play past Kunark, then it's cleric. I used to be all about druid/enc then I finally tried Cleric. You want to go cleric.

Particularly with the PBAE stun nerfs. The utility of cleric stuns is much higher now, especially Stun Command dear god Stun Command is GOOD.

Cleric if you want to gear up a pet and keep it, Druids struggle to keep charmed mobs alive, on Mangler my Druid could just keep up with a pet in most places up to C1 in Fire, if we moved to F2/C2 I fell way behind, but that was with full elemental/time gear, max FT and healing AA for the era. Also clerics have better stuns to assist with charm breaks and rez for the inevitable oopsies.

If you're happy to treat pets as disposable I think a druid could be good, especially in the earlier eras. The extra utility is certainly nice but you trade off quite a bit of healing power that's often needed.

I've played both duos from classic up through OoW and overall both are really good. The trade-offs are fairly straightforward. Druid has a lot of nice conveniences, but in the end I feel that the healing power of the cleric wins out. As mentioned above, I started to notice it the most in PoFire trying to keep pets alive with KR is just awful compared to CH. Also, the stun from the cleric is really nice for charm breaks.

Earlier expansions where pets don't need as much healing or can just be replaced, a druid is fine and it just comes down to which utility you prefer (ds/port/snare/sow vs rez/stun).

People understate the utility of cleric stun. It complements the enchanter really well.

I've done both combos multiple times. Enc/Dru can XP faster and is better for PLing other chars. Enc/Clr is more stable and capable.

With the druid, you'll eventually be cycling through pets (which works well for XPing, but limits killing higher level mobs), or you'll be breaking charm, mezzing your pet, and using blur to heal it (most npcs without agro will regen very quickly). If you go enc/dru, you'll want to prioritize getting "Memory" from the cursed cycle in luclin. Dual charming even without dire charm (which, frankly, is near useless), isn't as bad as it sounds; extended target enables macros for recharming or mezzing a charm break. The biggest issue with dual charming is finding a suitable pet for the druid. There's exodus in later expansions for uh-oh moments. Enc/Dru is a really good PL duo. You won't have a rez, but in the rare case you can't get one from another player, you can XP so quickly it's nbd.

Enc/Cleric is capable of killing more difficult mobs. There's less work in keeping the single pet up and keeping it around perpetually. Clerics can stun, which helps control loose pets. Druids have a far better snare, but the clicky snare DE clerics can get is good enough for handle fleeing mobs. A cleric with DA hammer can often /q out safely in a pinch. Clerics can take a beating better than a druid and will pull agro off the enc faster.

It would be a tough choice for me. I always love a druid box. They make leveling up an alt 30-40 levels a breeze and its nice to have a port available at will.

That being said, I think cleric has the edge for me. One, groups will rarely turn down a enc/cleric combo. You can also do decent just duo'ing if needed. Second, having a self-rezzer is huge...especially as a chanter. Third, it pairs up very well with charm pets. Charm pets tend to have huge HP pools later on, and you want the cleric to fill that back up.

Also, if you ever plan to expand your duo to 3+, the cleric is even stronger since you can fill in the druid utility gaps with other classes. I've been rolling SK / enc / clr / wiz the last few TLPs and I really like it. Gonna try Mischief without the wizard and go with mage and see how much I hate not having ports! I've had a porter on every TLP since ragefire.

didnt read the other replies.. so this might have been said.

Clr if you want to be super OP (Complete heal on your charmed pet tank is godly)

Dru if you want to be more chill and have ports.

Thanks guys. I know the Enchanter/Cleric combo well up until PoP. Because I joined Mangler at Luclin I didn't have to much trouble with ports and Pop was around the corner. I thought the Druid might be a big help due to ports starting at Classic but I wasn't sure of it's ability to keep up with heals later. With my Enchanter, Cleric, Ranger trio I was able to do things like Tactics or BoT by myself with no issues. I will probably stick with the Enc/Clr and hopefully my wife will play something to complement it.

Druid, because if you are healing a charmed pet you're doing it wrong. You don't heal charms, you kill them when they have 10% health left with the new charm. Charm is going to break, the magic of playing chanter druid, is using those breaks to get a new charm, and kill the old one. This process drastically speeds up your leveling, and allows the druid to contribute DPS instead of just being a heal bot. In the very rare case where you have something so special you just don't want to lose it, druid can do fine keeping it alive. The other problem with cleric, is that because of mana issues, even with clarity, you're going to end up often using lower level spells anyway.

Ports, SNARES....there is no over stating how great this is, damage shield, sow, attack debuff,... I'd take a druid any day of the week over a cleric.

99% of the time, you are pulling the same mobs over and over, so wasting mana healing a charm, vs killing that low hitpoint mob for exp, and then having a fresh charm is just silly. You're chanter is going to spend that mana on recharm anyway, why not use it for a full hitpoint charm instead of a half dead one?

It's not wrong, it's just a different style of play, most Enchanters that run with clerics will also hand their pets a lot of gear like haste items, proccing weapons etc to up their dps, constantly killing, looting and re-equipping isn't everyone's idea of fun.

Druids just aren't viable for healing anything really meaningful early on. Tunare's Renewal doesn't come into the game until Luclin and is only 2925 hp while still having the same cast time and mana cost as a Cleric CH, aka its trash. Karana's Renewal comes in PoP for 4680 hp but 1.5 times the mana costs of a CH, aka more trash.

Druids early game just get the shaft by getting double bent with lower heals and higher mana cost comapred to clerics and they don't have the buffs, slows, dots, or mana regen of shammies. Later on, they get some love, but not early on in a TLP. Early on, you make one to port your real characters to where they want to go.

Ench+Druid using charms then use snare+fear can take you a long ways...
2x pets will just wreck things.
As long as you have a level-appropriate & plentiful area of mobs, pulls are endless and continuous:
Using Overthere, a duo can do ~20-38 in about 4hrs.


Conversely...
I've used an Ench+Cleric to duo Vessel Drozzlin at L48. I've done the same with a Druid, but it took L54ish to have the spells & mana for it.

I used to heal as a druid in early era EQ allll the time back in the day. Never really had an issue. The biggest issue is druids that don't really want to heal, so do a half job of it, they give druid heals a bad name. Once I was known back then I'd get pulled into groups with no problems at all. In really good groups I'd even be able to toss in damage now and then.
Just have to know the class and how to conserve mana.

This just isn't realistic in many cases and not efficient. So many cases finding an appropriate level pet and then moving to a different camp makes this advice awful. Have fun going back to F1 in PoFire to replace your pet and then run back to C2 every time it dies. Or down the tunnel in SG, or a dire wolf in kael, or your 53 dragoon in chardok that you have buffed/equipped down at kennels. Or dozens of other places.

Sure this maybe works fine at lower levels but once you graduate beyond cav/sav/exe in lower guk, it doesn't make nearly as much sense.