A Beginner's Guide to Choosing a Class in Everquest

I'd imagine enchanter fits that bill. In vanilla they were ok, powerful if you wanted to take time to learn them and the risk of charming mobs that were insane dps.. all the way through what tipt/vxed? after that things tapered off and most people though they were meh, good to have for raids but that was about it. (I don't know how many groups I saw in Cyrstallos that were shaman + tank + dps. ) I think today everyone who hasn't played an enchanter from 1999 would say "wow they are better than I remember someone else playing them."

Silku demonstrating what I'm talking about with the divide between power and perception. Enc charming kept getting more and more powerful through Underfoot, nine expansions past Tipt/Vxed. To the point where two enchanters with charmed robots in Volska's Husk, when it was completely current, the penultimate zone (like, PoShadow in RoF, or ToRot in CotF, or Combine Dredge now), would literally recruit a third and fourth -anything- just to pull mobs fast enough to keep them busy. With an aggressive enough pair of pullers they could all but clear the zone before repop, their dps was so high. That's been reined in HoT+ by a totally new charm mechanic, and much of that power redirected toward personal dps & adps that's super now, but that's neither here nor there, really. Public perception is the subject.

And yes, I think druids as a class are much stronger than people give them credit for, and that stems from endemic ignorance among the players of that class and players in general. Average druids cast a few Vida heals and some Frostweave Crystals nukes, hit their Entrap button sometimes and, to the shock of no one, certainly not the people who don't know to expect SO much more, decide their class sucks but ports are sure neat. The reality is that druids have best-in-game debuffs (ignoring 30 min cooldown Mental Contortion), very good caster ADPS, the best priest dps (wholly respectable overall dps) if they just cast the right stuff, and plenty of very good healing tools.

"Druids are nature healers, and decent nukers. They heal through direct healing, and nuke heals."

While we do have "two" remote nukes (nuke that procs a heal on target's target) they stupidly share a timer.

We have 2 Cold Debuffs. One reflects a small direct heal, the other reflects a small heal over time (to the target's target) There is a Fire Debuff that reflects a heal as well, but it is not used 99.9% of the time due to stacking issues.

Building off of what Drewie said:
While we do have the mana regen bear, there's something else a little fun about Druid mana regen. We have a self-only buff that adds an excellent amount of mana regen (Mask of the __________). Keeping up on your mana regen buffs and using Nurturing Growth (the bear) will usually keep you in good shape mana wise.

I would put druid in as a puller class as well. I use mine to pull far more then my enchanter because I find their calm gets resisted much less often and tends to last longer as well.

I calm the mobs, pull with snare and also hit it with Blessing of Ro as it is walking into camp.

Seems to work very well for me for my box set .

I pull with my druid and have my enchanter as a box for tash, slow, mez when needed and additional DPS. We must be weird.

i'm a level 89 wizard, and i find it boring. i've been playing EQ for years. i'm coming back from a long break, and having ro relearn what all my spells do, how to use the best, when, where, why, how, and with what AA and then all of the above for each AA i find myself not wanting to get back into the class. i have group gear, i was never raid geared.

anyway like i said i find it boring, stand there...casting a spell...watch the health drop only 2-8%...kill the mob, med through the next mob, do it all over again. i find myself wanting to get off the game, and i'm wondering if (from a DPS perspective) berserker, mage, or rogue are anymore fun or at the very least require less thought to be played well.

i understand that the wizard isn't actually hard to play, but i'm bored with having to match this AA, with this spell and these familiars and these harvest spells to get a good dps output. i feel that your guide didn't go deep enough into how the gameplay of these dps classes are different enough from each other to anser these questions. however your guide and information seems more current, where the other guide i seen was for lvl 80's which i think is a different game entirely.

"Fun" really depends on what you enjoy doing. Being melee is more involved from the standpoint of positioning. Some like it, some don't. There is no class that requires less thought than a wizard to play - not that playing one is necessarily mindless. All classes in EQ require actual thought and concentration to play well with many being notably more involved than wizards.

As for an actual in-depth guide, no post can do that. To actually create one for all the classes would literally take a good sized book.

Everquest is one of what I call the pre-WOW games. One that was made before the dumbing down of the MMO-verse that WOW ushered. If you're looking for an MMO that's pretty but with 3rd grade simplicity, you'll have to go to something much newer like NW.

I started EQ in 2000 as a paladin. Around lvl 46, I was guilded up with an amazing rogue who made me want to start one up. I played my rogue until 55, before I grouped with a truly gifted bard. It seemed like no matter what curve ball the game threw at us, he had a trick up his sleeve to hit it out of the park. I started a bard and he took me under his wing. I played that bard as my main for the rest of my EQ career. Around level 95, I started boxing a magician and a necromancer, to add tankage and dps to my bag of tricks. But as far as making "a case for bards", bards have nearly every utility imagineable. I'm no tank, and my dps is far from impressive. But, what I brought to a group made any group a mini raid force. Superior pulls, CC/ group survivability, incredible adps, and the ability to crank anything the game can throw at your group into the stands. If you like being a jack of all trades, the bard might be your perfect fit. But if you try to play one, try to find someone that can show you the ropes. It's easy to be a decent bard.. the real trick is playing a bard that makes people want to try playing one themselves.

Snowfrog-

Roll a necromancer.

EDIT: Nevermind.

From PoP to TBM, I honestly think you'd get this feeling for any class. Seriously, if you enjoyed the style/feel of a class, I can't think of a single one that hasn't gotten a "WOW, THIS ROCKS" ability some time between then and now.

I think this left a lot out with Bards. Obviously I'm a bit biased, but I'll try to keep my opinions to the minimum and just give a summary of the Bard class.*

*I failed

First I'll get the basics out of the way;

Bards are a Melee caster hybrid, and though they have Mana they don't typically use it as they don't cast spells; they play/sing songs. They have the ability to wear plate armor and use most melee weapons you would typically see with a warrior. They can attack through range abilities using spears and throwing knives, however they cannot use a bow. They have the fastest run speed in the game, and with a drum they can typically outrun the fast mounts at higher levels. Another thing to be noted is that Bards can "cast" while running.

Now this is where things get complex;

To truly explain every nuance of a Bard would take up a decent sized book because they can do a little bit of everything. If you've ever looked up any kind of article about a bard before you'll probably hear them be called the jack-of-all-trades, and that's because they truly are. They can fill in for nearly any class missing in a group if they play the right songs and have the right armor. They can fill in for CC, DPS, AoE, Off-tanking, even Tanking. The only thing they can't do is healing. Bards have multiple health and Mana regeneration songs but that usually isn't enough to cover for heals. Generally Bards are regarded as a very versatile class that basically makes everyone in a group better at what they do. They sing resist songs and buff songs for tanks, Mana regen for casters, and maybe throw in a few damage songs if needed.

But that is not even close to a Bard's full potential.

When you ask other players what they think of Bards, they'll usually say that they're nice to have but definitely not necessary. When you ask what they think of Bard soloing, they'll think you're joking. It's not a joke. Bards can solo absolutely amazingly, (I know from personal experience) and now I'll list a couple ways I solo and a couple other ways I've heard about.

The first and my personal favorite is similar to what you would expect from enchanter soloing. While enchanters get their first charm at a much lower level than Bards (12 I believe) we get to start charming at level 27. Oh did I forget to mention that we're one of only 2 classes that get the charm ability? My bad. *smirks* Anyway I'll go into how to level up before that but I want to start with my favorite technique, especially since this isn't a guide on how to play Bards it's just kind of a "what can we do" type thing. Now, while this is similar to an enchanter charm soloing, it has its differences which I'll explain in a moment. Enchanters charm a pet and use Mana and it's supposed to last for about 5 minutes, (it ALWAYS breaks) and enchanters can't tank or heal. So their goal is to NOT get hit and try to keep the two angry mobs away from them and get them to kill each other. They usually don't go up to the mob/mobs and get in on the melee action, because they can't take a hit. Bards however, wear plate armor. Now, everyone is a little bit different in their strategies, that's what makes a Bard so much fun; their room for diversity. But I personally go for social mobs, charm one and with luck another one follows it and then make the charm pet attack. Now, our charms are just normal songs, which means that they last for about 15 seconds if you're lucky. So in other words it's GOING to break mid-fight, period. I usually don't do anything until the charm wears off for the first time, at which point I have 2 angry mobs rushing at me. I recharm the highest health mob and attack alongside my "pet", making sure to hit *combat melody so that I'm singing as I'm attacking. You'll typically have to recharm multiple times in a fight, and one thing I've seen people do is recharm the lowest mob and keep switching back and forth so that when the lower mob dies you'll have an easier time killing your pet. I typically avoid this strategy as my fighting style makes me the main tank and my pet as an extra Melee damage, meaning that it will have time to regenerate health and the fight will take a million times longer than it should. Trust me, you're not an enchanter; you can tank just fine. Another way to charm solo is basically an enchanter's dream. You charm the mob, make it attack something else and basically cast selo on yourself and stay out of range and just continue recharming until they're both dead or super close to dead. I tried this technique but I personally hated it and went with the above strategy. By the way, not dissing enchanters, they're really amazing at what they do and their disguises are sooo cool, I just personally think that a bard charm is better because we can actually handle when we screw up by Tanking whereas with an enchanter, if they screw up and get hit they're done.

*Combat melody is my melody for combat. Say I have my spell gems as 1: regen song 2: DD song 3: snare 4: AoE song 5: DD song 6:mez 7:charm 8:selo (run speed) Basically you make a hotkey, start it with /stopsong then /melody and then the number of spell gems in order you want to sing them. So if I wanted to twist a snare, then a targeted DD song, then an AoE song, then another DD song onto a mob, my melody would like this;
/stopsong
/melody 3 2 4 5

Melody does repeat so don't worry about reclicking unless you get stunned and your song gets interrupted. (Don't worry it happens to everyone)

Another strategy involving charm is swarm charm kiting. I have tried this before, however I'm not very skilled so I'll just explain the general premise. The idea is that you get a train of mobs, (usually social) and then constantly charm one to have it beating on the rest while also twisting selo on yourself in order to stay out of the way of the hits. This is probably the hardest soloing strategy ever hands down, however I've seen it done right and it's beautiful. These guys get a string of 10 yellow to red mobs and just beat them down to nothing, and not only that, but literally NO downtime. Not even for your healer Merc because if this is done right then you won't get hit once.

But if you're hesitant to try to charm I understand. Having a monster help you one minute and turn on you the next may seem scary and that's ok. There are other ways that are less fun but still effective.

One obvious way is to just simply tank the mob and pair yourself up with a *healer merc. It's slow, it's boring, but you're gonna have to do it for at least a little while until you get to level 27.

*You could also use a damage caster Merc. I always have a healer for the buffs and everything, but depending on what you're fighting a damage caster can be very useful.

Another way to tank and avoid stuns and hits is to twist selo and your other songs at all times and run around in wide circles so the mob can't hit you. I have never used this much but I imagine it would be more effective with a damage caster Merc than a healer Merc.

Honestly, the most important thing about playing a Bard is doing what you feel comfortable with. Bards have everything from charm to tracking along with the unique ability to run while singing, (casting) which means if things go to crap you can escape. They can do well with groups and with soloing and honestly can tackle pretty much anything with the right combination of songs. I'm not joking, literally the only things they can't do are summoning stuff like mages and *disguising themselves like enchanters. The only bad thing about playing one is that once you get used to a Bard, every other class will feel really restricted and slow. You'll get used to the diversity of Bard songs and the sheer foot speed, and getting used to mezzing up for Mana and NOT BEING ABLE TO CAST WHILE RUNNING!! Yeah once a Bard, always a Bard.
*At higher levels though there are a lot of disguise items you can camp that are restricted to Bards and Rogues.

Anyway, being a Bard is a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun. Even though we're underestimated, groups will notice how much better they seem to do with us around, (and we'll piss people off by dominating a whole camp solo). Bards are for fast paced players who like to have a million different options of play and a quick escape if all else fails. If this sounds like you then Bard is the way to go.

While rogues provide good DPS they are no longer on the top. Berserkers, monks and wizards do often provide more DPS. The rogues role has been changed over the years from being a pure DPS class to grant them more diversity generallly and usefulness for groups beside DPS. Today a rogue has limited pull and snare abilities, can distract and mez mobs for a short time and can debuff and stun. The rogue can also greatly increase the melee accuracy of a group and increase their poison damage for a short time. A rogue can even craft poison vials that other melee classes can use. So the modern rogue has alot more usefull tools to offer beside disarm and intimidation (fear) and its group role is better described as tactical support than simple DPS. In a group situation the rogue will increase the DPS of the whole group especially when there are alot melee classes in it. This usually does not get parsed so maybe the rogue is still the top DPS class when counting this in.

why necro this post ,this is just someones opinion from 5 years ago