Given your options this is probably your best bet unless you make a mage to box... set up a dps hotkey with /pause on the druid to cast 4 spells or so with each press. I mainly play on my enchanter and alt tab over to the mage and hit my dps hotkey to cast 4 spells. When I see the 2nd fireball fly I know it's time to alt tab back over and hit it again. You will figure out best way to do it with druid DoTs and what not.
I do the same but my last line on my mage sends me a tell. It starts a countdown timer on Gina that ends when the mage begins to cast a spell. It's 20% less efficient because of losing that line to a tell but I like being able to completely ignore my mage. Another option would be to have the last spell in the hotkey be different from the other. Then Gina can trigger when the mage casts that spell and the timer end when she begins casting again (hotkey press). I'll probably switch to that from the tell because the tell screws up my R for replies. There's no reason I can think of to swap the druid for a mage. The warrior merc tanks pretty well and with ENC pull/CC and DRU patches you should be good on most content. Track and snare are some pretty big quality of life things and I often wish I had a DRU instead of a CLR.
Thanks for the feedback. What if I was to go with the Cleric just to fresh things up since I've played the druid for 15 years. My cleric is 85 and I expect to be 70 on my Enchanter in a couple days, then I'll probably do her 1.5 this weekend. I completed the 1.5 on the cleric two weekends ago. Could I pull with the Enchanter, using a Gold account Tank Merc, tab over to cleric, have it casting heals via a Macro every few seconds x 5 times or something, with a silver account rogue dps merc? Would this get the job done?
I main an enchanter and box a druid and cleric with it. If I had to drop 1 character it would be the cleric. The DPS the druid / enchanter combo brings (especially during burns) is going to out perform anything a merc or even 2 or 3 dps mercs will bring. Using max AA and geared Rogue J5 mercs they deal about 180k dps consistently. The druid is doing about 500k dps not using burns, and with burns on named can do triple that number if lined up with the Enchanter adps. Milage will vary if the druid is your main healer and depending on gear etc. but it should give you an idea. Also having Teleport Bind, Teleport Anchor, Exodus, Track, etc. is a huge help.
My pet did 73k DPS on the last raid (single boss fight, sustained) without NPT, I've yet to find a mob in TOL that comes near that to charm. It's pathetic compared to an actual pet class, but still exceeds the DPS on charmed mobs, even since their recent boost. The benefit to the charmed pet is really in the hp so it can be used as a short term tank. The reward compared to the risk just isn't really there anymore.
A group pet with max AA is about 40k sustained dps. I am pretty sure NPT doesn't work for pets, I remember parsing it a few months back and stopped using it.
I used to main one for like 20 years, but i just dropped it. Enchanters are great, if the content is very challenging and hard but for the other 99% of the game they’re just lack luster.
You should play what makes you happy. My opinion however, boxing a cleric is not worth it if you are boxing it with a heal hotkey like that. It is unreliable because of fizzles and doesn't work on other targets unless you change them. Boxing a cleric is a commitment to healing. Boxing a SHM would not be. I do box a cleric, so I would be a hippocrit to tell you not to. However, I have been boxing that cleric since before mercs existed. It is becoming harder every day to continue to justify CLR/MAG over SK/BRD. Edit: I'll never switch out the ENC though. I box to support Vumad. If I didn't need to box, I wouldn't.
Funny you say SK/BARD because I have a 94 SK, and 104 Bard. I stopped the SK because even tho Ive put so much time into him because of the gear situation. I'm not even sure what gear to buy him but seems like he is still pretty weak compared to the BST pet.
Tanks take a lot. My mage pet became a top tank faster than a SK. The mage needs 1 AA line (fortification) and a EM earring (1 raid slot) and it is a peak pet tank. The SK is going to take a lot more work. What is it... 23? pieces of armor. Type 5 and 8 augs so what... 46 augs? Multiple AA lines. That is a lot. Meanwhile, a merc tank needs 4 pieces of armor from TBL and you can get the AA from overseer. There is definitely a tradeoff there to consider. Time vs peak. Some options get you there fast, but they plateu. While other take much, much longer, but peak much much higher. I probably wont switch out my cleric because, for the time to invest to catch back up to where I already am, I'll have a net loss. Again, if you like the cleric, you absolutely should use it.
Being the only enchanter on a raid refreshing NPT for 20ish people is maybe the worst gameplay I've experienced in EQ That's all I have to say
Or someone chiming in about missing a mgb enchanter buff, and I'm just sitting there waiting on TB to refresh! Sorry Mr. Raid Leader buffs are not done yet. I have 5 to mgb separately.
