While I'm going to be playing Shammy/SK/Monk on Teek my daughter has decided she wants to play again (not played since Covid) and wants to be a mage as she cannot be a beast. I want something to complement her choice of class. I was thinking druid or cleric as I will have a shammy already. Although I am considering taking these 2 to Tormax for a quieter experience while she gets back into it, so shaman isn't totally off the cards.
Druid is nice for harmony, and Cleric for lull. Single pulls is the hardest part of a mage/shammy combo. Yeah you have slow for adds but it is still easy to get overwhelmed. I would probably go cleric, since you will have personas for travel and a shaman for regen/clarity/sow pots. (and some travel, though the port pots get pricey.)
Spot healing and buffs. Druid works fine because of [heals, buffs, DD, minor debuffs]. Frequently my Druids will out DPS the Mage+PET and get unwanted aggro. It can be worked around, just don't use any fire based DPS/Debuffs in the Flame Lick line. ALWAYS have regeneration on the Pet before the fight starts. Only real overlap is damage shields where the Magician is better. Strangely enough, a Ranger works OK. Riftwind's Protection actually stacks with various Mage Flame shield type spells. Mage summon Quiver of Marr is like 50% weight reduction so 17% haste and +3 arrows. Ranger will out heal the Mage for quite a while. Enchanter is not to be discounted. Their Calm spells, Haste, Clarity, are quite good. They work better in doors then a Ranger or Druid. I can't remember the haste levels for an Enchanter, but I think I've seen around 50% on mid level characters. Still some overlap with Tash and Malo, but for tough MOBs Tash before Malo seems to help it stick. Their Suffocate line debuffs and DPS so combined with the Haste, makes for quick leveling. Cleric, is OK if all you need is spells like Temperance. Nobody rezes like a Cleric! Same holds true of HOT, get it cast seconds before the tussle: Makes it easy for the Mage to keep up with healing. Calm line works indoors and out, root for some crowd control where the Mage doesn't have it, workable team. If you have a side Shaman, the Slows and Buffs don't DPS so they can be a non member of the experience group.
I've always liked Mage / Druid. Ports, Snare, Sow, Tracking only overlap you get in buffs is Damage Shields. Mages CoTH combined with ports makes getting around easy as pie and Druid AA buffs will make your already good pet tank into super pet tank for taking down those nasty named. Also Evacs are great to have for those woops I pulled the whole zone times
Are you talking Greater Conc potions? Those stack with Clarity and are very low value compared to Crack. The only thing that helps is the store potion but that is also very low compared to real Crack.
Enchanter or Druid, or even both. Both do lack DPS but are a nice group additions for their utilities. The travel bonus is nice to have but neglectible when not moving around to much. MAG+ENC+DRU is a good group combo on its own also.
Concentration pots are one thing. Clarity potions are another. It can be tricky to find the components for many of the pots but some are available in Kunark. The level 30, 40 and 60 can be made. https://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_item.php?item=20701&menustr=035000000000 Regeneration, healing and HoT potions can also be made. When Luclin comes out the Beastlord health/mana regen buff potions join the list. They are lower than clarity but way better than dragging a chanter around in a duo with no real heals.
If she's going to be playing exclusively grouped with your 3 boxes then an enchanter would make the most sense. Outside of that, if you were only going to run a single box as a mage I'd probably still go enchanter in the early game since it compensates for most of the mage's weaknesses and opens up content that would otherwise be impractical, but a healer can also make sense depending on the target content and playstyle. I believe in Luclin mage pet heals become passable so a healer box's contribution drops off while the enchanter remains valuable indefinitely.
Passable, sure, but you aren't going to be fighting anything too challenging, even with slow and stun. The mage is also the DPS, and if they are the heals too you run into mana issues. And you have no heals if the Mage or Chanter pulls aggro, which they will. Pet's don't pre-taunt so any mez breaks are going to beat on a player for at least a bit before swapping. Charming gets real sketch without a healer. Healer will stay viable and is the safe, easy choice. You will be able to tackle much harder mobs with a healer than you would with a chanter. And letting a healer do the heavy lifting when it comes to keeping the pet alive spreads the mana expenditure more evenly across the two characters.
Not sure what these "much harder mobs" that you're going to 2-box in classic are, but I'd say AoE mez and clarity is the safe, easy choice. Pets have disproportionate health regen in the 40-60ish range when not attacking that covers most of their healing requirements against any mobs you're likely to be 2-boxing, especially with slow. Clarity more than compensates for the the mage's spot heals. Typical gameplay in that era is grinding exp, farming, and camping rares. You're not routinely pushing the limits here to the point that you're spamming pet heals. For the most part you just want to boost your kill rate, and clarity means way more mana for nukes. Double mage is also a solid option, especially if you pick your camps or just want to mass kill lower level stuff. Pre-taunting is a non-issue. You're playing both characters so you're hopefully controlling the positioning and the mez breaks. Pets will pull aggro extremely quickly, and even if the chanter takes a round or two from an exp mob that's literally nothing prior to GoD.
Druid, especially if the Mage may switch to BST later. That's my pair on Test, and I've never regretted it. The only real competition would be a Cleric, but the cleric's ability to contribute damage is nowhere near the Druid's (outside of undead), for a good while. That said, if you're going to be maining these characters on day 1 of Teek and keeping up with the mob, the cleric is probably the better choice since you can build a group basically however you want with the mage/cleric pair. You can technically do that too with a druid, but past a certain level you're going to want another healer or a slower--preferably both.
Yeah, sure, but they want to level these toons when the server opens, not 6 months after the server opens in Luclin when mages actually have somewhat decent pet heals. Cleric > Chanter as a duo with a Kunark mage.
I've boxed Bard/Magician to level cap several times, with the Bard as the main. The only thing a Bard really lacks is DPS and Magician, even without a pet, makes up for that. Coupled with Bard's charm pet and crowd control options, you can break and hold any level appropriate camps and you're not lacking in many abilities. Maybe melee haste for the pets and heals, but I've never needed large heals with the duo. If things go bad, I'll just mez-lock down 1 or more enemies until the mage pet widdles away at what's left or in the rare event the magician needs to re-summon. Unless you're exceptional at playing a Bard though, I wouldn't recommend either class if you're planning to raid a lot.
Shm is only really useful for slow and buffs for melee classes, with a mage its almost useless. Clrc offers paci to split pulls and real healing and res, this is the best choice by far if soloing. If she will always be grouped with a full group of others, the 2nd character matters very little. If she wants to be able to solo, clrc hands down.
There are quite a few choices depending on what you like. Mage/Bard- Can't go wrong with Bard, especially as the game progresses. They do a bit of everything, and make things better. Just not one of my personal favorites. I might try to main one eventually, probably on live though. Mage/Enc- This works well, slow, clarity, mez, charm, but when I do this combo, I tend to main the Enc, so if I wanted to drive the Mage, probably wouldn't choose this. Mage/Shm- Works really well. Slow, dots, and heals. Rarely have to heal for normal mobs with the slow early game. Shaman just gets stronger as game goes on too. Mage/Druid- Another great duo. Dots, nukes, heals, and ports. I've used this one a lot since I like the convenience of ports. Mage/Necro- I played this 1 a bit too, but I tend to main the necro more when I do this. Mage/Cleric- Also works well, but I rarely feel the need to use a cleric. I've even done Mage/Ranger and it worked fine, but wouldn't recommend unless you really want a ranger or mixing with other boxes, or later in progression with mercs. Too early for this, but Mage/Bst if fun, but I usually drive the bst.
