I enjoy playing eq but I have to focus a lot on real life when I play. As for my question I was wondering what classes can get the most down by themselves/with a merc. I know mages/necros but I was curious as to what melee classes can molo things well. As in older progression, camping items/drops/augs, group progression, older content(cotf/tds) and the such. I've always favored melee but I'm a bit out of the know as in what melee can get things down moloing. Basically I'd just like to play one class with a merc and get as much down on my own as I can. While I know some stuff, certain hero missions etc. would be out of reach but other things that are I'd like to be able to do as I often have to step away from my computer from anywhere for a few seconds to several minutes. I suppose what I'm asking is what melee classes can do most of the group content themselves/with a merc. Any opinions would be great.
Monk has enough utility to get a lot done with just a cleric merc for heals, and Feign Death + passive merc is one of the safest ways to go randomly AFK for unknown lengths of time. If you like camping for drops in content that you can molo, then you'll appreciate the situational tanking and burst damage the monk can pull off. In general, the ability to say "nope" to a bad pull or lost fight by playing dead (and then simply going AFK long enough for your merc to be summonable again if need be) sounds like it will mesh with your needs pretty well. A shadow knight might do well for you for similar reasons.
For melee, I've seen Monks, SKs, Paladins and sometimes zerkers do well. This is against stuff that isn't light blue or green. I've seen 105 Monks and Paladins basically solo DH HAs and pull people through np with just their Cleric merc. Warriors and Rogues can only really do light blue/green stuff solo (from what I've seen). Rangers (mostly considered melee now) can Headshot any humanoid mob that's dark blue or lower with a bow, so I've seen a Ranger root mobs and just /autofire until the mob dies, but that's not really melee.
I would think the two probable class's would be Warrior+Healer or SK+Healer. But that is coming from me a Pet Class Lover. IF you have access to the Test Server, then you can create a character and Test Buff it to level 50, or at least you use to be able to. BUT if you have never played that class then you also do not know the pain and agony and information of what the roots to that class are. Meh, probably shouldn't discount a Ranger+Healer for the Damage Shield.
Hum, probably just faulty memory but .. /testbuff50? May be a space before the 50. *Shrug* use to be able to do it as a means for testing new content but never know maybe they shut it all off once they allowed testcopy to test server.
I would specifically advise against warrior, paladin, ranger, zerker, or rogue for what the OP is asking for. (Either they're too weak at tanking consistently for themselves, are too situational or weak on DPS, or don't have early enough access to utility tools that enable them to go AFK randomly yet safely between fights.) It's true that paladins tend to be very strong in Gribble HAs with all the undead that show up, but they will definitely feel the lack of party support in other situations if you're planning to be a true, single-character moloer for most things. Beastlord is possible though, assuming you're going to beeline to 85 and get the Playing Possum (FD) AA. The one thing I can say about it is that it's a very high-activity class while you're playing (with a high AA burden in order to get up to speed compared to some others -- dunno if you'll be Auto Granting or not), and it will involve plenty of pet management. If you do roll a beastlord I recommend picking up a 2nd merc slot and carrying both a wizard and a cleric with you, so that you gain flexible options for emphasizing healing or damage depending on what you're doing. There are lots of situations where the beastlord can focus on healing the pet while staying safe and letting the wizard and pet do most of the work of taking mobs down. Caveat: this merc advice above is based on several-years-outdated knowledge; if Rogue mercs are better now, you might get better mileage out of one of them, but I don't know what their balance status is. Monk is basically the less-hassle, "grab lobby buffs and pop cleric merc and go" equivalent to the above, with more personal tanking tools but less flexibility in terms of combat strategy once the fighting actually starts. (At the end of the day, the monk pretty much has to punch the thing in the face personally in order to kill it.)
Monk, SK, BL. Being able to feign death is a game changer, in a lot of ways. You could also 2 box a free to play account and get yourself 2 mercs, which will make your life exponentially easier. You could run a FTP bard, and main a Monk for example. Bard gets fade, monk gets FD, can bypass content you don't need and run a tank and cleric merc. EZsauce. Bard with an SK is really really good as well. Having your own real tank means you can do quite a lot of content that will pose problems post 85 with a BL or Monk. SK/Bard/Cleric merc/Wiz merc is bulletproof.
A necromancer is great for solo action, a great choice when you just want to play with yourself and get it done. Of course they have a trusty undead at there disposal and together you can tag team any mob, even if they get away they will shortly thereafter drop dead of the disease they have been infected with. With the slows the wont hardly be able to walk right afterwords anyway. So you should be easily able to catch up and finish them off. Hey, much of the time your undead servant can do it for you while you just stand there and watch. Its great for when like you say, you don't have much time and you just want to double team a mob, and get the job done, and unlike say, a rouge there are no positioning requirements so you don't have to rely on group participation....or have to ambush them from the rear.
Well, just to point this out about a Necro, it is called Fear Kiting but it is also viable (when space allows it) to be save my skelly, especially when you have a backstabber up. You snare the mob, fear the mob, sic the backstabber on him, now put as many dots on the mob as in required to kill it. Another is DON'T sic the skelly on it, just load the Mob up with DOT's and sit down and wait for the mob to DIE or Come back for more.
Oh, definitely sic the skelly on him...just wait until you've got 2 or 3 dots working him first. The mob will completely ignore that undead rogue stabbing him in the back as he death marches after you.
I don't know how it works at higher levels, but I found with my untwinked Paladin that combining it with a wizard merc made my life a whole lot easier and a lot more fun. As a relatively inexperienced player I have been able to get in and out and survive pretty much everything I've faced from reds a few levels above me to whites and blues with relative ease. I can safely tank 3-4 dark blues at a time while the wizard merc does most of the damage. Note, this is also as a free player, and that means just a tier 2 wizard. I'd imagine a much better merc would yield even better results. A paladin isn't a dps machine, but it seems to me that played right, constantly hitting your keys or clicks for stuns and roots and bashes and all the other fun stuff Paladins get, along with being able to heal yourself and having high AC stats with level appropriate gear, Paladins have a high survival factor moloing smartly. There have been a few times when I've been able to ascertain that I was in over my head. When that happened I hit myself with an SOW potion and hoofed it out of the danger zone. After level 40something you get Divine Aura and get invulnerability when you need to back off. When far enough away I self heal, make sure my self buffs are back up, then go right back to the fight. I very rarely have trouble getting away from danger when I find myself in it. Obviously one-hit or two hit reds surprising you is a problem for anyone in any zone. But, your HPs and AC are going to be higher than almost all the other classes so it moves that bar of what's instantly deadly up a bit higher. So the difference between a Paladin and a Monk or SK would be, while they're able to play dead if they can pull if off in time, what then? What if their HPs are already low? What if the mob hangs out right there? With your Paladin, you're able to Lay Hands to recover massive HP loss, and after you get invulnerability you have 18 seconds to put distance between you and danger when it comes up. I've only used it a few times myself, but it works. As for the merc with the Paladin, the nice thing about having the wizard merc instead of a warrior merc (at least at tier 2) is that they tend not to run off as often if you take on a red or a few blues at a time and they run away with you when you run away and the mobs don't seem to target them. Starting around in the 40s you start getting some decent self buffs and from there on it seems to have gotten quite a bit easier. The main difficulty was in the really low levels after Gloomingdeep, killing things fast enough to be effective and not make a drudge of everything. Having a healing merc was a mistake. A warrior wasn't much better. Trust me, at least through most of the lower levels of the game, if you choose a Paladin get a wizard merc to go along with you. I hope this input was useful. And to my guild mates that might read this in EoE, know I'll be back soon.
What you describe is so far outside of anything I'd consider "fun" that my only honest advice is to play a different game.
Well that's exactly how I play, and I find it fun; so each to their own I suppose. I play a SK, solo, and often with a Cleric merc. Taking a lot of time to get clickies and utility items helps to make things easier; but you can do fairly well. You're not going to be smashing through current top level group content, but things from an expansion or two ago are doable with a bit of time and effort. It's not always easy, but it certainly can be fun if that's the kind of challenge you enjoy. I came back after 3 years at level 92, and (m)soloed up to 99 (currently) and am enjoying myself doing it. I have a 90 shm f2p box I use to get missions with, then leave him in the guild hall (after buffing) while I do the mission - as honestly I don't have the coordination (or manual dexterity) to play two anymore.
