Hardest Class to Play in EQ

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Cicelee, May 13, 2023.

  1. Vumad Cape Wearer

    Enchanters and bards. The amount of things we can do, that so many of us can't actually do, is unlike any other class in the game. So many people are not playing ENC and BRD to their potential.

    There can be some close runner ups. ToV was a cool expansion, because of all the undead, I really got to see 1 or 2 NEC flex. NEC are the enchanters of the undead and a skilled NEC in an all undead area can flex hard.

    It would be cool to see more expansion include areas with undead, elementals and animals, and the development of DRU, MAG, etc classes that can really shine. They should give WIZ a full ENC spell line to use against elementals (pacify, charm, slow, mez, etc.) in the same way that NEC have these abilities against undead.
  2. Zalamyr Augur

    Having mained every role at one point or another, if we're focused mostly on raids, I'd say tanks. They typically have the most responsibility when it comes to needing to understand what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and what needs to be done about it. They also have a much more flexible and reactive nature to managing when to use cooldowns compared to most classes.

    Between the tanks, I'd probably vote paladin. In addition to the tanking responsibilities above, they can also cure and heal others, adding another way they can be used.
    Belkar_OotS likes this.
  3. strongbus Augur

    Have to disagree with bst being the easiest of the pure pet classes. that title belongs to mages, they are a 1 trick pony. yes they have the best pets. but it send in pet and spam a key with their dd on it. they don't have to worry bout getting in close to do most their damage and deal other things bst do.
  4. Bobokin Augur


    I disagree.
  5. Cloud the Third Augur

    He said playing the class to max potential and I would have to go with a bard is the hardest most complex class to play. If you do it correctly you can be the slower, puller, mezer, and very good dps at the same time but it takes alot more than just playing melo afk like alot of boxers do.

    A good bard can pull any mob from any point in to the zone to another, it doesn't matter how many mobs are between them and what they want. This can be done with a mixture of fade, mez, lull, and punt blur abilities that they have along with double invs that doesn't break aggro like fade so you can train a mob past a ton of KOS mobs to get it to a splitting point.

    DPS varies depending on what group they are in but pretty simple today if you have a proper twist setup but it can be dangerous because for max dps you have to twist BB and shout (and you must watch out to make sure shout doesn't aggro adds or break mez, this is the hardest step for bards because you have to time which one to cast since the real damage comes when it wears off. You can make auto triggers to help but it still requires paying attention to do it ideally because a resist can cause auto trigger and you have to remember which one needs to be cast from the resist while pulling and mezing and making sure mobs stay slowed at the same time).

    A proper pull makes sure the mob always comes in slow. We have a single slow song not counting ae slows but we also have multiple clickies you can have if you have the dreadstone group version it is a fast backup slow that can be on the mob at the same time as your mez slow, if you have the raid version of dreadstone it is a long lasting slow as good as your song version, there is also another clicky that does dreadstone raid version which last 6.5 mins as well but has a 5 sec cast time so can be used for pulling long fight mobs.

    Add to all that is the clicky debuff drum which doesn't do a ton but is instant cast and can be manually twisted in as long as you don't click it right before a song twist lands or can freeze the songs putting you into limbo until it resets (known bug for clickies and bards)

    Add in some abilities to tank as a bard too if the tank goes down (or if you want to save a tank from dying) with clicky instant aggro abilities and a couple different tank defensives including a proc stun ability that works pretty good on most trash mobs to reduce their dps along with slow but is hit and miss on red mobs.

    That is the basics for a good bard but even past that is a great bard.
    code-zero likes this.
  6. Iven Antonius Bayle

    What does lead you to that claim ?
  7. Iven Antonius Bayle

    Magician is way more complex than the beastlord and if you just play like that you have not even reached half the potential of the magician. The magician pet is weak at the beginning but not as weak as the warder. And because the magician nukes are not as powerfull as those of the wizard and because it does lack root and snare, it is a tricky starting class. The magician is 100% dependent on the pet while the beastlord can also be played without one. Dead pet = dead magician (or gate or zone). The magican has serious problems to handle two blue or even light blue mobs with it's weak low level earth pet while the beastlord is able to tank them better (not the pet) and can even survive.
  8. Sissruukk Rogue One

    I agree with you, but when you've been playing a rogue so long that everything is muscle memory, then try to swap to a different class, it is hard to learn a new set of muscle memory, at least for me. And when you hit that stage where mercs start sucking, unless you learn to either use your heal merc as a tank, or you become a tague (tank rogue, like some in my guild can do) you are pretty group dependent.
    Elyssanda likes this.
  9. Windance Augur


    The OP said:

    "Assume max level, full group/raid geared, BIS augments, max AA, all that jazz.

    Playing the class to 100% potential, which class is the hardest/most difficult/most stressful/non stop playing/always doing something/etc class to play? ... "

    Any class that can create 2-3 spam keys and be 80% of the way to max their role in a raid is by definition not that complex.

    We just had a thread about how mages can map most of their spells to a gaming mouse to maximize their spell spam timing and they generally parse at the top of the chart.

    Berserkers are similar in that they can run with just a spam key and a burn key.

    I can see those who are voting bard. Especially if they are manually twisting the songs, but, I highly doubt most bards are doing that. /melody is a wonderful thing.

    To an extent clerics in the main tank group that can just spam single target heals. On the other hand clerics who are also trying to keep multiple OT's and playing whack a mole with the xtarget window are very busy. Always doing something, stressful because the tanks are yelling HEAL ME, BUFF ME.

    Tanking on raids does take a fair bit of preparation. You need to make different spam keys to pick up your assigned mobs and move them around. They have a fair number of tricks that need to be used at different times. A good tank will also switch rolls on the fly going from "tank" to "DPS".

    As far as most stressful I'd still vote healer.

    If you don't agree. Sign up to play one TODAY!
    Belkar_OotS, Viciado and Raccoo like this.
  10. Sissruukk Rogue One

    Spam keys are useless if you don't know when to use them.
    Elyssanda likes this.
  11. Metanis Bad Company

    In modern raiding environments I'd give the nod to tanks (especially add tanks), followed closely by either shaman or bards. Then clerics and/or enchanters.

    Although the categories listed tend to be somewhat exclusionary. For example, a cleric is the epitome of non-stop while not being particularly hard to play well.

    One reason I rank the tank classes so high is their need to be situationally aware in 3 axis and capable of understanding movement complexities that most other classes don't.
    Bigstomp and Elyssanda like this.
  12. Bobokin Augur


    For a rogue to tank, it must have raid op gear. The rogue is the only position dependent class, and that has to give rogues credibility as one of the most difficult to play well.

    But yeah, after two decades, rogue players do get used to it. In fact, when playing non-rogue melee, rogue main players still get behind the mob instinctively unless they are tanking.
    Elyssanda and Sissruukk like this.
  13. Razorfall Augur

    Necros will never reach their full potential in group content unless they are with terrible dps or if they are soloing. The mobs just die way too fast.

    For raids I'd say Shaman or Druid, although it's hard to find an enchanter
    Sprooce likes this.
  14. Shirrkarn New Member

    Hardest class to play is the one you least enjoy
  15. EagleTalon99 Elder

    Maybe a monk. I box a Warrior, Shaman, Monk, Berserker, and the monk takes up the most time, with the pulling and all. Although I'd say in general, by the time any class hits 85, it's all downhill from there, as far as figuring out what to do. Sure you still get the occasional new hotbutton, but by 85, all the core hot buttons are available.

    Personally, I think a better question would be "Whats the hardest class to play in Classic/Kunark eras".

    Hands down it's a warrior. No other class even comes close. It's entire aggro generation is mainly well times taunts and DS shields in a vain attempt to keep aggro. Yet, warriors still can tank, they just suck at it.. but in the long game, when warriors get high enough level (and plenty of AA stuff), there's no other tank class that even comes close to a warrior.

    Although in group content, there are only edge cases in which a knight would have trouble keeping aggro.
  16. Tarvas Redwall of Coirnav, now Drinal

    None of them.
  17. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    You're right, you are wrong. These are nowhere near the worst at top end.
  18. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    Only way to maximize a rogues potential is to include backstab, which is harder to solo in a flow. invis/sneak takes time.

    Bards and enchanters have the steepest learning curve to max out potential.

    Difficulty and be read as- Survivability and capability or it can mean character management of abilities.

    Rogue ability is easy, but one of it's primary tools is essentially nerfed when the rogue is the aggro target.
  19. Cloud the Third Augur

    I do understand movement issues with bad pathing so if they want to move a mob they need to be aware of what the mob will do when moving it. However it is harder to pull a mob as a bard with the pathing than just reposition it as a tank. I have never played a tank on a raid but have played them in a group and I still would go with bard being harder then a tank. Given I am normally the only slower in a group so missions where there are random adds a tank needs to be quick to pick them up but as a bard I think to play it at the max they need to be faster than a tank so that the mob is already slowed before the tank hits it. Bards also have to be aware that if they are twisting and change to a mob that is an add they don't dot it by mistake if it is mezable because they can mez it, slow it, and the tank just has to turn off attack and do a non-damage aggro ability to get it aggroed.

    Both have to be very aware and quick to be perfect. I can't speak for raids so I don't know from a tank perspective how they decide who picks up which add if alot spawn at one time. So maybe tank does have to be more aware since bards generally don't mez or slow during raids with enc / sham taking over most of that.

    I don't think bards are the hardest for raids but for single group yes.
  20. Elyssanda Bardbrain

    Mobs with the same graphic model/name are listed as mobname_01, mobname_02, mobname_03... with the _# being invisible to players, but it is there serverside, so hotkeys are made, tank 1 gets mobname_01, tank 2 gets mobname_02. and as bards are often used for mezzes or banes, we do the same thing, so we create hotkeys that say /target Mobname_01 (or _02, _03 etc).
    Metanis likes this.