I play a shaman who probably will raid. My friend two boxes and definitely won't raid. One of his toons is a ranger. The other is a paladin, but come OoW time, does it make any sense to keep it instead of a mage? Not sure what kind of gear we can get for him, but certainly won't be current tier raid gear. If it's just the two of us with the three toons, will it make any real difference in content we can do?
Join Mischief and you can get raid gear as a non raider ;-) Jokes aside, mage's do get very strong, but a well played tank even in group gear will be better, if you are refering to the Paladin.
The only thing between you and gear on Mischief is the limit on your VISA. Play what keeps you logging in.
If it wasn't free trade I would say if you don't want to put the work into the pally go with the mage. Since its free trade you will just need to make sure you buy all the AC augs if you want to do high end group content. The Mage will be a bit easier on a free trade. You only really need to keep buying the Enhanced minion and the best fire focus and your set.
But the real question is whether the ac augs will drop from only a handful of mobs in rss, or whether they will drop 10x as frequently from all named in oow. Since tanks only really need augs from ~4-5 mobs in the xpac, and all of them are from req 68+ zones, whether they do tiers or not makes a HUGE difference. And since this will be >1 year into the server, whether they will still care even a little makes another HUGE difference.
Depends on the content you're trying to do. Mage is a little underwhelming as a raid dps during that long 70s stretch, but still a very strong solo/group class and not nearly as gear dependent as the paladin would be. Can easily solo most group nameds in era, including a couple of the easier camps in RSS (talking from the perspective of a raid geared mage with max pet focus and epic 2.0). Neither of those comps would have much trouble 3 manning the group instances if you're careful with the pulls. MPG group trials on the other hand you might be able to clear a couple of them, but you'd probably need to bring along more bodies just to meet the dps checks or deal with the mechanics.
AC augs aren’t going to bridge the gap for a tank in 2+ expansion old gear. Mages can get away with pets and the correct focuses and still contribute… tanks not so much. So if ya aren’t raiding as a main with the paladin either break out the VISA or understand you’re going to have difficulty tanking content.
If your able to get the mage pet focuses I would keep the mage. Now make friends with a tank in your raid guild and maybe have your buddy join a casual raid guild so he can get some loot.
It's not just about pay to win though that is always a choice. On Mischief you'll find that you can get a lot of the "crappy" raid gear pretty cheap for your friend's Paladin. You can normally farm some set if Spell/Tradeskill/Quest items that are farmable solo or with a small group to make enough plat/KR to buy sufficient gear. There are also normally a few small group farmable items that sell well also. Still in the long run the Mage will always require far less gear to be useful than a Paladin if that is a major concern for you.
Thanks for the replies. We did decide the mage makes more sense for us in the long run. I worry about getting him a pet focus item at 70 because I fear they will be crazy expensive, but we'll just have to see. I have a feeling I'm worrying a lot more than I need to overall. I want to be able to take him with me and do.group content that is worthwhile at 70, but I'm not talking about doing the hardest group content or anything.
It doesn't matter. Sure, pet focus adds a little bit all around but your EQ experience isn't going to be much different whether you have pet focus or not. Seems that way.
I wouldn't say that. Incremental pet focus upgrades are pretty minimal (never seen the a pet's dps increase by more than 5% with a focus upgrade when parsing on test dummies, usually <2%), but going from no focus to any era relevant pet focus is significant in solo/group play, particularly if the pet is tanking. So if we're talking OoW then anything with Ritual Summoning or Minion of Discord focus effects would be nearly as good as Servant of Chaos, so there are some options for cheaper or easier to obtain focus items.
We're talking about Mischief. I'm saying if you miss a pet focus for one expansion, don't sweat it. There's a better one a few of weeks away. I'll stick to my opinion: a 2-5% increase in pet power won't change your EQ experience.
The 70 group pet focus from RSS is extremely common. You might not get the best raid focus cheap, but there will be plenty of cheap options.
Always go with the class you like the most, and let others do the same. Maybe it sounds a bit cliché to some, but I think its the best advice anyone can tell you. If he's having a good time with the ranger and paladin, why change? You can make it work. It might be a bit more challenging due to gear, but that just gives you a goal to work on. You don't have to be raid geared to play the group game.
