Hardest Class to Play in EQ

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

  1. Cloud the Third Augur

    That thought did come to me when tanks were assigned to pickup different mobs because I knew you could add invisible numbers at the end of mob names that are the same. Is that the max way to play a tank because if mobs are all over the place a tank would have to run to the other side of the pack to find a mob if they all randomly spawn? Wouldn't it be better for tanks to be spread out and they grab the closest one to them with 1 backup tank to find any that are stray?

    We are talking about playing a class at perfection and assigning them a number makes it easy for them to play but not ideal, a perfect tank would not need a number to be told what to tank.
  2. Elyssanda Bardbrain

    in a raid, this set up is ideal, because not every tank is an ideal player, this avoids mobs not getting picked up at all, and it's easy for a raid leader to check which mobs don't have the correct target , thus letting them know which tank didn't do their assigned job.
  3. Strawberry Augur

    easiest class: Bard
    Bard is the easiest class in EQ. Pulling is a joke when you get unlimited fades. DPS consists of /melody and /autokick. There's not much to this class.

    most difficult class: Druid
    Druid is a stressful main healing/debuffing class in groups, especially with an underpowered tank. A lot of heals are ToT recourse effects. And managing ATK debuffs while keeping the tank alive is a difficult balance. Druids now also have good stuns, which also adds to the complexity of deciding what to cast and when.

    Soloing high-level mobs with druids is also quite challenging. Beast charm with a group geared druid is stressful. Animals are sometimes intermingled with regular mobs, and when an average group geared druid will not survive even 1 round of hits.
  4. Cloud the Third Augur

    Playing a bard average is not to hard but playing a bard at max potential is very hard. We are talking about playing a class at max potential not just playing average here. You can also split this into playing a class in a raid at max vs group at max which is 2 very different things. It also depends on what you have in the group class wise.

    Bards can tank better than merc, pull, slow, and dps but to do this requires alot of work. If you are just pulling and afk melo while dpsing it isn't hard to do. If you are doing extreme pulling then it is hard even with tank and someone else slowing. In a perfect group a bard is pulling non-stop so there is never a mob not sitting mezed next to the tank to pickup when the next mob dies. This isn't simple because you need to time your pulls so a mob is always there switch back to dps after slowing / mezing the mob then running to pull more so the group is never idle. If you are doing that you never use melo and are doing everything manually but most bards that didn't play before melo can't do that well. That and alot of the newer zones are so easy to pull it isn't hard. Not like seb or other kunark zones where pulling solo was hard.
  5. Strawberry Augur

    Slow for a bard is Harmony+Requiem. Couldn't be easier. I literally have this on a macro. /stopsong, /melody 5 6, /melody 1 2 3 4.

    The fact you need to time pulls so you're pulling at 30% health and not when the mob is dead is something I think everyone in EQ understands, and it's not specific to bards. This isn't rocket science, players understand this at lvl 10.

    Bard is the easiest class in EQ imo, and it's pretty damn easy to get used to it because of fade that allows you constant free out of jail cards.

    Dirge of the sleepwalker is yet another free-out-of-jail card. If you somehow still mess up with unlimited fade, calm and borderline unresistable mezzes, you get yet another chance by having an almost instant mezz, a mezz that can even forget the bard target on top of it.

    Pulling with EQ bards is almost boringly easy. EQ has made it impossible to mess up a pull for bards.

    And it's not the bard archetype that is easy, it's how easy EQ bards are. Bards in other games don't get fade that instantly drops all aggro and invises you. Remove fade, and it might add some challenge to bards.
  6. Cloud the Third Augur

    You don't understand how to play a bard if that is how you think it is done. That is amateur bard playing like I said playing a bard average isn't hard but playing at the max potential is something different. You can't use melo if you are playing a bard at max.

    Your melo is wrong as well you should be something like a basic /melo 1 9 10 2 10 3 9 10 4 10 5 9 10. This still requires you to pay attention for bb / shout which have to be timed and deal with alot of resist to optimize it. If you are only /melo 4 songs you are a beginner at playing a bard.

    Mid range bard uses a setup /melo to start then switches to a main /melo once everything is going.

    Advance bard will use a setup /melo then have 4-5 other /melo to restart based on where you stop it after doing a clicky that requires stopping /melo. Double slow using clickies and song (based off which clickies you have with one being stronger than the other but the clicky lasting longer as a backup if slow fades) along with still doing bb / shout and paying attention to pulling and mezing.
    MmmmBop, Rijacki and Conq like this.
  7. Strawberry Augur

    Dropping melody should be avoided at all cost if you want to add as much ADPS to your group as possible. Bards constantly dropping melody are highly annoying characters.

    Melody is only broken in 2 events:

    1) If a bard is asked to slow. And you could ask what sort of predicament a group bard has found himself in if he has to slow. Considering so many classes have better slows now, even rogues with potions now have slow. Bards need to use harmony to get slow to stick and it is rarely worth it, even in a group without a slower.

    2) During a pull with calm or mess, but once a camp is broken after 5 minutes, melody should no longer be broken during pulls.

    So yes, a bard should be doing melody 99% of the time.
  8. Cloud the Third Augur

    So completely wrong. To play a bard at the max you cannot use melo at all. Melo doesn't take into account resist so if you are twisting 4 dots at any point one could get a resist and fall off (if all you are doing is 4 dot twist than yes you can just melo and unlikely it will ever drop off). So if you want to play a bard at max you have to know when a resist happens and not just let melo keep going. You also can't just use 4 dots in you melo you need at a min 5 if you want to play simple but then make it more complex you need to add in 6 with insults and if you are tanking you need add in 7 for stun defensive as well. Depending on the group makeup there are some other changes you can make.
  9. Strawberry Augur

    You're playing dots in a group as a bard? You're an odd bard my friend.

    As far as soloing. If you're forced to solo charm/dot kill mobs with a bard for 0.001% XP per mob in today's game, it's time to find another game.
  10. Balm Apprentice


    I main a cleric, and I approve this post!

    I rate clerics highly on the "most stressful" level, but sometimes the stress comes from the players not the game - for example, if you're the only healer in the group, and all the remaining members decide to go agro different mobs.

    Or trying to fit in rezzes and buffs whilst still keeping healing going.

    And don't get me started on the Shadow Knights that think they're invincible and overpull all the time... ;)

    ...and as for people asking us for mana, go bother a necro ;)
    Belkar_OotS likes this.
  11. Cloud the Third Augur

    I guess you don't understand bard dps then? you should never not be playing all 4 dots as a bard. They are the most powerful song we have and add more dps then any other song even those increasing other class damage. When they added the dps aura to bards the dots became the primary thing we use. I am in visible ToV raid gear, group NoS non-visible gear, and have all TBM chase loot. I can hold over 900dps for a 2 min burn but average 550+ if I am focusing on playing. If played right bards are one of the best dps classes in the game although without NoS raid gear it is hard to compare to other classes today but at least most of the dps classes I have grouped with that have some NoS raid gear can't touch my dps. The fully NoS raid gear classes that know what they are doing I can't touch because of the gear gap, I have seen SK doing over 1000k dps and I can't do that with the gear I have but I probably could burn in the 1200k if I was geared.
  12. Strawberry Augur

    Well, have fun with manually twisting bard dots in groups then, I'm sure your group members appreciate losing half their DPS. I would personally kick you out of my group.
    Iven likes this.
  13. Cloud the Third Augur

    50% of that dps is from dots. I don't think the loss of 5% of the dps from the rest of the group would mind with the 450k dps coming from the dots. You do know there is very minor upgrade between the spell dps songs and the aura affect correct? So you aren't losing much by not playing those songs. It all depends on the group makup so I may play them if I am in a group with 4 other caster dps but in a normal group it makes little difference.


    This is a solo fight I did and I will see if I can find a good one with other raid gear players to show comparison of what I do vs them in a single burn fight, remember I am using group / 4-5 expansion old raid gear for this. A spirit of strength in 71s, 69442k @981557sdps | Cloud + pets 66845k@(981.5k dps in 71s)

    Here is a breakdown for the damage I did in that fight. Normally I am not super focused and the dots are over 50% of the damage but this is more of a focused burn where I was trying to play at the max (this is with all rank 2 songs). I never noticed until cwunk told me that the rog venoms can be used by anyone so this is without 9k proc that can be added which would help raise dd damage.
    43.3% dot
    21.8% slash
    18.0% dd
    12.8% kick
    04.1% other
    kizant likes this.
  14. Cloud the Third Augur

    I don't play raids currently so I am just grabbing a random spell from a single wizard cast.

    - The spell dmg song does +2735 (doing this all based on rank 1 so yes going to rank 3 will increase some of this values).

    -The wizard spell says Decrease Hitpoints by 15345 with max 42200

    -This means that song only added 6.4% base damage to the max spell damage (not sure if it can increase the cap or not or if it does alot less than 6.4 because i did that calculating they do a max damage nuke + bonus).

    -The aura adds Increase Spell Damage by 33% (v124, Before DoT Crit, After Nuke Crit) and I am not sure if they stack I know alot of the aura stuff doesn't stack with the normal single song version.

    So assuming this doesn't stack with spell caster song but lets say it does. If you are grouped with a single caster dps does the additional 2735 dmg to a buke pre-crit add enough dps to take away 110k dps from a single bard dot?

    Given if you are in a group on a raid with 4 casters yes I would sacrifice a single dot to give the spell dmg song for all the casters in the group but rarely do you have 3-4 caster dps in your group and you do have to adjust songs depending on who is in the group and what you need.
  15. Fenthen aka Rath

    You spelled "warrior" incorrectly.
    Sissruukk and Metanis like this.
  16. Repthor Augur

    most classes are easy to pick up and do a passble job aslong as the player behind the toon want and can soak up information and have a basic understanding of how the game works then you will have a passing grade of most classes. like multibinding, makeing smart social binds. not standing in bad and paying attention

    when to comes to mastering and min maxing and playing at the top of your class they will all give you a run for your money. theres is so meny small things you can soak up and understand to push yourself and your toon farward that will set you a apart . like undestanding diffrent stacking groups . knowing the diffrence between slow and increased weapon dely , or knowing how take advantage of small things like what skills dont need line of sight so you can use them for cleaver use of game mecanics. knowing the amount fo dmg you will take and when or when not to disc as a tank due to dmg intake thats diffrent between diffrent events
  17. Iven Antonius Bayle

    Every class can chain pull in outdoor zones and in indoor zones a chanter or someone with root can do the CC. A rogue can replace the bard often as a puller and is dealing much better DPS for the few seconds at the camp. Bard pulling is nice for raids, molo and very small groups like two-boxing, but else it is overrated.
  18. Fintank Augur

    Classic forumquest, TLP player doesn't know mathz and tells live player they don't play right. Gottem!
    Raccoo and code-zero like this.
  19. Iven Antonius Bayle

    One of the first things that a bard should do is using a tash proc wep which does solve the resist problem but that job can be done by other group members and even better, so it is more a tool for moloing and dual boxing. Twisting 4 DoTs is for most situations not the best setup as the haste/overhaste/atk songs are much better with several melee classes in the group. The caster songs can also replace one or two DoT songs. Bard does shine better when not trying to imitate the DPS classes. Play a real DPS class instead.
  20. Cloud the Third Augur

    Selos drum is what I use since it is instant cast and puts a debuff on the mob. You can click it while melo is on without breaking if you time it right.
    MmmmBop likes this.