Sk or Pally

Discussion in 'Tanks' started by Archanjel, Aug 19, 2021.

  1. NameAlreadyInUse #CactusGate



    I don't know how they are nowadays, but SK & Druid was my all-around fav a couple years ago.
    Tucoh likes this.
  2. Hellowhatsyourname Augur

    So that's a non-answer on the first one (smart move), and an answer that ultimately contradicts your position on the second one (less so).

    Bards have great AA's... no doubt. But bard songs used to actually be worthwhile... AND you could keep at least four of them up constantly. Now, all of the adps is wrapped up in epic clicks, aa clicks, and synergy. None of which can be constantly up and providing a benefit to your group. That is what I mean when I say bard adps has stagnated. A bard is literally THE adps toon groups and raids want... it's what the class was built around. Now? /melody one or two adps songs and some dots, hit some aa's and epic, /afk.

    There is no longer any reason for a bard to play four-six true buff songs anymore. And that is why the copy/paste song "upgrades" you all get every expansion is not only sad, but insulting.
  3. Elyssanda Bardbrain

    Hora, you get better ADPS from our synergy popping off every 6 seconds. We add 135k to BOTH melee and spells in a group every 6 seconds.
    SK 135k melee
    Necro 135k spell
    Druid 135k spell
    Bard 135k melee
    Ranger 135K melee or spell
    BL 135k Melee or spell
    -------
    total 810K extra DPS every 6 seconds of a fight.

    EVERY 6 Seconds. And we twist in at least 1 ADPS song in a 8 song twist on top of that. And we have DOTS going. yes we COULD twist
    Insult, adps, insult, ADPS, Insult, ADPS, Insult, ADPS. But the group DPS would go down without our dots. You would still get the synergy from the insults, but our dots are good now, WHY do away with that extra DPS?
  4. Tucoh Augur

    Hahahahha
  5. Szilent Augur

    these three double-dip, their main pets get the synergy, too ;)
    +another 405k

    and the Insult's DD itself, 250-300k
    Elyssanda likes this.
  6. Maedhros High King

    First of all, to the OP. Boxing a paladin and a necro is absolutely garbage.
    People have this absurd idea that the necro is going to be turning every mob undead and the paladin is just going to slay them down.
    Slay is a passive ability and streaky.
    Expecting to use a necro to force mobs undead is a terrible use of the greatest dps class in everquest.
    Additionally, a significant portion of paladin dps against undead is from spamming our doctrine nukes, unless youre paying for some software there is no way to play a paladin to anywhere near capacity and still doing anything worth a damn for dps on the necro box.
    You need to pay a lot of attention to a necro to get dps out of it, its not like a mage that casts the same 4 spells over and over.

    Bard is absolutely the best thing to box with a paladin, hands down, end of discussion.
    Shammy is my 2nd choice.
    Necro is like 16th on the list of classes to box with a paladin, yes after boxing a second paladin.
    Its been at least a year since the last time someone brought up the terrible boxing a necro and paladin idea and sometimes I wonder if they went through with it or not, but you never hear any updates. Sad.

    Secondly, Horatio I love ya bro, but your assessment of bard power seems to be focused on the outdated adps songs that have been stagnated for years. Look at it this way, bards used to provide adps using very weak proc songs that had terrible proc rates or through the tiny boosts to caster spell types. Very little of those songs actually did much to add to a bards own power. Now they can dps AND get max adps by casting insults and have plenty of time to dot.
    It must be considerably more fun to play a bard this way, doing solid dps while still providing the best adps in the game.
    Axel and Elyssanda like this.
  7. Chaosflux Augur

    Thats incredibly hyperbolic, necro isn't S tier as a partner for Paladin, but its definitely a better choice than say wizard, cleric, arguably better than numerous dps classes just in sheer dps output in a duo scenario as well, and certainly better than boxing 2 paladins which is just ridiculously shameful to even say its worse than.

    Bards are pretty decent but it really depends what you are doing, if you are a returning player it might not be as good as say a dps class for sheer speed of catching up, where as for a raid geared paladin yeh its great, because adps favors the already geared.
    Szilent likes this.
  8. Axel Furry Hats OP

    Wizard: Ports, which faster than bard speed when traveling. Worth just for the ports (+phat DPS, can multibind their spells and not have to pay much attention to them)
    Cleric: Fast emergency heals, Shining (10% mitigation 100% uptime, invaluable), HP auras, can throw their heals on a multibind and heal easily.
    2nd Paladin: phat DPS against undead, always have a backup tank, can easily box them because you can set up the UI the exact same, great passive heals, with key broadcasting software can literally just press the exact same buttons.
    Necros: ramp up DPS, can't just bind all their abilities to a multibind and mindlessly hit it like literally every other DPS class in the game (except bards, but they get melody)


    Also bards by existing increase your DPS by at least 25% with just their aura. For any player, they're great. Just /follow with aura going and you will be getting more out of a bard than any other class.
  9. Chaosflux Augur

    Necro is extremely dominant DPS in the type of durations and pulling methods a Paladin has, combined with the ability to get anywhere, rez the paladin if they can't get through, or solo through points in a quest or mission to circumvent content and clearing. Can easily off tank with pet walling, or root off adds, theoretically can split but thats a suboptimal playstyle.

    Ramp up dps is an issue, but thats mainly when you have a group and even then some dynamic.adjustments can be made to your tactics.

    People overstate the oh no can't multibind, its a rewarding second box if you are comfortable screen flopping or play on 2 computers (TLP), I've done the 2 computer method personally because I can cycle dot with .y right hand while I run the paladin with the left.

    My paladin/necro duo (i later added several boxes) was first on my TLP server to complete several expansions worth of progression in thr current eras, from COTF through ROS. So sure its not "the best" but it certainly isn't "the worst" if you have any clue what you are doing for maximizing efficiency.

    Clerics are great sure, but without a solid base of DPS support stuff takes forever, idk I am not a patient person, my goto strategy for everything is overpower it with dps, cleric pal certainly can accomplish anything I can, but its going to take them significantly longer.

    Wizard isn't even relevant comparison to the dps a decently played not even top tier played necro box can put out after like level 105, sorry its just not there anymore.
  10. Tucoh Augur

    Necros aren't a terrible box option for a very active boxer because necros and paladins are in such a good state right now. It'd be such a weird box though because you're spending so much time on both characters compared to most box options. It'd be something where two people could make it work just fine or someone who really enjoyed playing both pal and nec could make it work, but there are so many better options for either class, with a bard box being near the top of the list.
  11. Chaosflux Augur

    Yeh like its not optimal, but to make it sound like it's thr absolute worst is just silly, I started boxing one because I wanted 2 gnomes for reasons and I hadn't played one in awhile.

    Theres certainly better choices available, but lol at the worst.

    Bard is definitely S tier if the Paladin is raid geared. But sometimes you just want to mess around with something else idk.
    Tucoh likes this.
  12. Bigstomp Augur

    With a pally+bard on live, anything that does good dps. Pally can generally heal themselves, and dead mobs stop hitting you. Maybe a shaman for dots+buffs if you really feel the need for another healer.
    Tucoh and Chaosflux like this.
  13. Maedhros High King

    The reason a necro is the worst choice as a box is because you have to spend so much time on it.
    What makes a box good, without using software, is the ability to get the most out of the class with the least amount of input so you can focus on the primary toon which is usually going to be whichever tank class youre playing.
    You also probably want your box to compliment the primary toon. In this case a necro brings almost nothing to the table for the paladin other than dps that requires a lot of your time to hit any reasonable number.
    I think you would be better served to box a berserker. More dps in a group settings and the synergy, aura, cry carnage and war cry are all things that add to the paladin.
    The drawback to a berz is its very "button pushy" but even if you get lazy it still gives you some decent numbers for not much attention spent.
    Still hands down best bang for your effort is the bard.
    I love playing my necro, but its just a terrible choice to box.
    MasterMagnus and Tucoh like this.
  14. Tucoh Augur

    "button pushy" is a great way to describe it. Berserkers are just absolutely stacked with different forms of the same instant cast, quick refresh "hit mob" abilities. This was alleviated somewhat with autoskill, but still suffers from multi-bind issues EQ has where if you want to keep an bunch of abilities on cooldown you've gotta spaaaaaam that button. Compared to a mage that can be played pretty cleanly with a few macros you can hit irregularly.

    Note that inner space boxer makes this fairly trivial to do because if you're spamming buttons on your main, you can pick it up on your box.
    Maedhros and MasterMagnus like this.
  15. Chaosflux Augur

    Maed that's what makes a box good for you, thats not a universal thing, I am absolutely willing to put more effort into a box to get more output which really isn't a thing with bards, which is why if I am only boxing 2 I prefer Paladin + a Dps class personally, a strong dps class unsupported will often times do more than Pal + Bard all things considered. Bards are great but I usually don't add one till I am boxing 3 or more personally, for my playstyle it is generally better that way.

    Like in a 2 box scenario id absolutely say Zerk > Bard if I plan on doing content alone as an example. That's just me obviously but its worth considering other playstyles when you say something like XYZ is the absolute worst option.
  16. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    It's true, I just can't see a necro as a good second in any duo (but another necro or bard). I usually main necro, other boxes are support. And I'm not high level. So I defer to Maed and your superior knowledge.

    Not proposing this makes it any better, just saying boxing a necro can be pretty close to 'set it and forget it', maybe never 100%, depends on the main and other factors. But it's a different animal, and why I favor key repeating over binds or broadcasting.

    You can set up a Necro on macro repeats (timed as opposed to mash keys) and get quite a lot there. You'd want to have a few keys that are not common and only for the necros 'extras' in a broadcasting setup.

    You have to know your spells and be meticulous with the timing. Necro key is never clip a dot.

    I have a macro repeat sequence to keep on darkness(snare) and two long dots. Never clips and casts again very shortly after falling.

    Then also have a few super long and a few super siphon you can hit on demand. I also hate 'swifts', I'm a necro damnit, my whole concept of fight pace is different.

    SPLxRT you want to get on there soon, and just let it ride. I don't macro this, just alt-tab and hit it when needed.

    You can flow health to others, you can siphon health from mobs, you can siphon mana from mobs, also paralysis cc. These are some of the extras you may want handy based on the situation.

    Necro is by far my favorite class in the game, but I can admit Pally - Necro is just an awful duo. At the end of the day, I don't need any undead thing a pally can do, and the pally doesn't need a necro slowing them down.
  17. Hellowhatsyourname Augur

    One other toon. They're talking about boxing a bard with a pally. That's it. The adps coming from the bard added to the pally's dps + the bard's native dps is not equal to or greater than the pally's native dps + a pure dps toon. I would bet Maed's paycheck on it.

    My point about the other songs being crap I guess is mostly just boohooing what I used to love about my bard... none of the songs were game breaking, but they all had situational uses. Now, there's CLEARLY a very narrowly optimized use of very, very few songs and some AAs. Bards can celebrate their personal dps gains and the impact synergy can have, but as I said, bard synergy is one nerf away from cutting bards off at the knees (again). Then what?
  18. NameAlreadyInUse #CactusGate

    I think this is important for everybody to take note of, and keep in mind when discussing boxing: there are two different ways to do it, and they have vastly different results.

    If you aren't using InnerSpace, your boxing capabilities are vastly hobbled. Like, if you are Alt-Tabbing between two accounts, you are probably 50% as effective as somebody 2-boxing using InnerSpace. But you shouldn't even try to box more than 2 without it.

    A good 6-boxer with InnerSpace can be more effective than many 6-man real-person groups, definitely better than most PUGs.
    Tucoh likes this.
  19. Tucoh Augur

    You could add a berserker, mage, beastlord, druid, sha, necro(lol) to a paladin and do just fine, but I think generally the pal/brd will be top tier in terms of overall lethality, utility and variety of hunting options along with sha/bst. A big part of this is that melee mercs are so good at DPS these days that the bard's, bst and sha's increase in their DPS is significant.

    If I had to bet, I'd wager that BST + PAL + 2x melee mercs would beat other combos if the paladin was able to wield a 2H. Until the bst ran out of mana... Against tougher mobs you'll need to swap out to healer mercs making you wish you either had a dru/sha or a bard that substantially boosted the group's healing.


    To your other point, I generally agree with the sentiment that bards have lost their way a bit. I lamented this a few years ago: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ideas-for-next-expansion.251416/#post-3700402 back when I suggested they buff charm, CC and bard's tanking. To bring it back to this forum, a big part of the reason that bard's utility has stagnated is that plate tanks are so good at being tanks in 2021. CC, clever pulling and other (bard, ranger, monk etc) tanks used to be a thing but pal/sk/war have stacked up so many layers of defensive/aggro abilities we make so much of the game that bards excel at irrelevant.
    Hellowhatsyourname likes this.
  20. Hellowhatsyourname Augur

    I'm not sure if this is allowed (because I forget when we decided to go with Pally and ignore the SK), but SK + BST + 2x melee mercs may even be better. A well-geared and AA'd SK, frankly, rarely needs true heals in the group game. The BST could be there to slow (a better slow than bards get), spot heal, buff, provide legit adps, and DPS while the SK just pulls with or without FD (I don't recall the last time I bothered splitting).

    There's lots of stuff that bards could get that would improve their relative utility, but I'm not certain the devs are looking to get creative with songs anytime soon.... since we've mostly only gotten AA consolidations and copy/paste spells/songs for the last few years.
    Tucoh likes this.