That's so funny, on my own while trying to decide what to do I've been thinking of Warrior vs. Ranger as "Juggernaut vs. Marauder" because that's more of a context I understand. I don't think EQ1 Warrior's little 2H Death Mode will ever quite stack up to a Jug in Vengeance spec, but, roughly similar concepts. I like to use SWTOR as my mental comparison to EQ1 because while they have very different group games, the solo game feels roughly similar since they both use mercs (which fulfill similar roles, even) and both have a similar content spread in the leveling game (easy stuff mixed with random hard stuff like a named or group mission). That's actually one reason why I'm so stubborn about being Melee in EQ1 — I like the Casters in EQ1, and I love healing in any game, but I know from SWTOR that when solo, I get really bored as RDPS or healer, even with NPC helpers. I want to just take charge and get in there. Mercs also made it really easy for me to pick up EQ1 coming from SWTOR (well, relatively-speaking) because most of the solo dynamics feel roughly similar. Anyway ... digression off.
I didn't see anyone mention this. Both classes 85+ have similar playstyles, they both melee and both have lots of buttons to spam in combat. But biggest difference is that while the Beastlord (and most other classes) can graduate out of mana problems by 90+, the ranger doesn't. This is huge when solo or in regular groups where combat is non-stop. The BST has 5 resources to keep doing damage: melee, pet, mana, endurance, & AA's. The ranger has: melee & mana. Your ranger will run out of mana, and will do so often. In a sustain situation that means you really need to hold back on your casting (less arrow nukes, nukes, dots, heals). While the beastlord can keep on chugging thanks to paragon & focused paragon, disc attacks, and aa attacks. Another, lesser point is the healing differences. Rangers do get a great quickcast spot heal, very much underrated while in groups. While beastlord gets a lot of sustain healing. Friendly pet line, feralgia line, & focused paragon (they both have a regular cast time heal). While soloing, the beastlord is able to stay in melee a lot longer than the ranger. Sustained healing, mana sustain, and an incredible disc on a sub 5 minutes timer to reduce damage taken. As awesome as the ranger is thematically, it just feels dated in modern EQ as a melee. IMO, they either need to provide more sustain to the ranger (mana or move arrow nukes over to endurance), or provide more support for ranged combat.
The best beastlords I know, even full AA & stacked with raid gear, burn through their mana like it's a new Harry Potter book that only they get to know about, to pour out damage. Paragon & Focused Paragon sure are things, but so are Feralgia + Cry & Maelstrom & Frozen & Roar & Bite nukes going full time
Okay, question — why do Priest / Mage casters talk like they have near-infinite mana? Is this just a Melee-class problem?
Classes that are mana bar-centric (priests & casters) have accumulated pretty good mana recovery tools over the years, such that as long as those are used fully, being good at those classes is more about casting effectively than about carefully managing mana usage. If those aren't used, then those classes OOM superfast and are then 100% useless.
So is this just a matter of oversight for the Melee mana users, or is it a deliberate design decision that they have to stress about breaking their rotation and OOM'ing?
As a BST I never stress over mana. As mentioned I have enough "tricks" to provide a nice regen. On the flip side I can run OOM if I run full burn. But, thats the difference between sustained damage and burst damage. Due to my mana recovery abilities I can burn more mana while staying in that sweet spot. That sweet spot being my regen = my usage. The BST's bread and butter is never having to stop killing. They maintain high sustained damage over an infinite amount of time. The major mana regen tricks come post 50. Well before the ability to go full burn. A BST pre 70 is highly limited in being able to burn. But, once you can, having the ability to burst rounds out the class dramatically.
Tradeoff for not being useless when the mana bar gets low / not having to use mana at all, or hit buttons really, to do half-ish of the job.
How do PAL & SHD compare for mana pressures? (just curiousity) If I'm understanding this right, it's: PAL / SHD: ??? RNG: Lots of mana pressures at all times BST: Infinite sustained, drainable during burn cycles BRD: Has a mana bar, but barely uses it for anything CLR / DRU / SHM / ENC / MAG / NEC / WIZ: Infinite mana BER / MNK / ROG / WAR: Yellow mana? Does End run out or is it meant to be sustainable?
If you want control of your play, Ranger > BST. There is simply no comparison between the ranger's tracking, root, snare, pulling/splitting, crowd control and ranged damage and what BST has to offer for these aspects of gameplay. If you like pets plus melee, and need a slower, then BST is for you. Both classes have good buffs for the group. Personally, I find Ranger much more enjoyable since I can be anything in a group. Ranger can tank if need be, or they can let a mage pet tank, or a merc tank. They can pull for the group, and can heal in a pinch. Rangers are simply more versatile.
I think if for a tank to go with either a ranger or beast as your interested in both of those each brings a bit of different things. I have a sk and warrior I'm bringing up, warriors in the low 80s and sks in the low 90s. I will say ranger and beast both bring "something" to each of these tanks as I think either war or sk would benefit more from a ranger or beast. Sks from what I found if you're actively playing it, rotating disc, AAs, spells I can run out of mana very very fast but of course I'm going full burn all the time. Rotating disc, AAs, chain casting my lifetaps, spears, etc etc. It's fun, the sk is very gogo it seems of the tank archtypes where the paladin from what I had found is slower and the warrior from what I have in the low 80s is somewhere inbetween in my opinion. Ranger for a sk or warrior brings some nice offensive/atk buffs, an ac buff, some group utility AAs, offensive and such. They are decent offtanks being the only none offtank having taunt i believe. They are good pullers, can track, can bow for those times. Beast have a similar hp/atk buff than rangers but instead of another atk buff or ac buff you get a hp/mana and at higher lvls end too. They too get a nice atk buff, ferocity line I think. Are decent offtanks, have slow, shaman like buffs, haste. personally if you're looking to box a tank with either a ranger or beast I'd go a war or sk. In my opinion, I'd go ranger with the warrior or beast with the sk. That's just how'd I do it. Sks benefit well from shaman like buffs, and like I said they eat mana like there's no tomorrow, the beast would help that problem a lot, also with his shaman buffs help sks a lot too. For the warrior, they are more "beefy" as you said in another thread of yours, they have less reliance on outside help to tank, they don't have to sit in lobby every night for buffs to do their job, they're just the big bad tank I suppose. I think a warrior would benefit well from a rangers buffs, ac, atk, ds, their snare and pulling ability where as sks can pull quite well with fd, snare and your deathgrip like ability. Also as an sk and beast you both have fd letting you bypass certain places and mobs at higher lvls if you are after a certain piece of loot. The warrior benefits from the rangers pulling ability, the ranger having invis, levi, and such that the warrior lacks. Short version, if you wanna tank with either the ranger or beast, I'd go sk/beast and war/ranger IMO.
Good rangers, beastlords, paladins and shadowknights will all lean on their mana bars as hard as they can, using it to perform to a higher standard. Pal/SK mana usage doesn't run the same way that rng/bst do, since their spells are more particular to their tanking / healing (others/self) roles, but will still see heavy use and run down over time if they're doing all they can. Priest/caster mana being "infinite" depends greatly on making good use of all the tools available, or on slacking on output. The latter is more common than the former, and caster mana not being "infinite" is even more common than either. Bard mana usage isn't high, but it exists, such that they'll be unable to use some abilities after a combat rez (to be particular, their burn nukes, AE mez, and group heal will be unusable) unless they're given time to rest up. Particular to bards is that no mana regen abilities except sitting their down for two minutes will work. They only get their passive regen, no Clarity or mod-rods or Paragon or any of that. Melee classes use their yellow bars at wildly differing rates (ber >>> rog > mnk > war), and are, variably, heavily dependent on the "Rest" line of Endurance-recovery abilities to function well. Warriors need Rest bad to get stuck back in after a rez (which is an expected situation for warriors in the middle of challenging raids), good berserkers need Rest bad just to work at all. Their abilities gobble the yellow bar like I don't feel like coming up with another analogy for Really Fast.
No. You don't get to see the full "flavor" of the Characters even at 60. My original (1st replay to this thread) stands. Best to pony up for one Heroic slot and then play 10 levels - trade it in and do it again with the other. Both Rangers and Beast Lords (played agressively) can burn through mana bars fast. As for Boxing - I'll note that I played a very well geared/AA'd Ranger/Chanter pair (with 2 reactive healer mercs) all the way through TDS except for some named in the last couple zones, and the last couple group missions. Ranger tanking is tricky and requires single pulls (or a fast mez on an add), and fast debuffing. Ranger and Enchanter can put out enough DPS to get the kills. (though kinda slowly) -Rat
Thanks for this insight. Primarily, I'm looking to just use boxing as a crutch at lower levels where groups are really sparse, since my play time is super-erratic and sometimes very brief. If I can reach the levels where grouping is supposed to pick up and become more common (I think someone said it's around the 80s+), I'll probably ease off the boxing in favor of real groups as long as I can get them with any kind of regularity, since that's my preferred playstyle anyway in games. Thanks, understood. Not too surprising I guess, it fits the isolate-and-burn solo style of medium-armor MDPS in other games I play. I'm assuming BST is very similar in approach (?), and the same for Pet Tank styles with MAG or other tankless designs (isolate / control down to as few targets as possible). So then, I'm also assuming that in order to be more bold and brazenly smashy / straightforward with pulls while "solo" (merc + box duo or trio), you would need a real Tank character leading things (PAL, SHD, WAR).
If you want to group, start your own, and be in a guild with a large active population; it makes a big difference. Also, the magic tipping point is level 75, which is when you should be able to start HAs (need to have CotF for that). Which require a group of your level. Without that, 85 is the point where a lot of people are "stuck" with Heroic characters, and will be looking for groups.
I never said you get to see the full flavor... but I honestly don't think your suggestion makes any sense. Drop money on two Heroic 85s and play for 10 levels. For one why not just continue with those heroic chars, plus that's a lot of station cash to blow just to try out classes. Plus I'm much more a fan of playing a class up and seeing how it's playstyle evolves *for you*. Since with mercs not all people will play the same class the same way, they have options. So I still stick with my suggestion, play each up 1-30 to get a basic idea and play from there, can swap back to the other char at any point if you want to and heck you might end up wanting to play both up. The idea is to *play* though, don't overthink it, just try and adapt a class and evolve with it's playstyle and your own and see if it works.
Umm no silly. Seems you're only familiar with the free stuff. You buy ONE Heroic slot and you can use it over, and over, and over - to switch out Heroic Toons. You'll get more of a feeling for what you'll get in the end that way. Once you make a choice - you can always roll a Level 1 and play it up for real. Then you can use the Heroic slot for whatever else you wanna test out. -Rat
The key point for understanding classes is knowing that the major change comes at 71. So you can get a reasonable understanding of them from any time spent at that level or above: Heroic or by normal levelling to 71. It's at that level that cookie cutter spells/abilities start coming every five levels, and the expansion design with minimal overlapping of gear and content, gear tiers starts to come in (ok, really that happens with SoD, and level 80, but close enough; the earlier expansions from TBS onwards just build towards it).
Ahhhh, why didn't you guys just say that sooner. (Mostly kidding — I know you've been stressing the diff. between early and late game since my first post — but that magic-number explanation is a lot more concrete and easy to conceptualize) Tough call, kind of. I don't win my $ if I use a Heroic character, but there's no rules about trying classes that way ... and @Ratbo makes a good point about the benefits of knowing what you're getting into in the long term. Hmmmm. (ponders)
70-71 is one of the more important inflection points, in part because of the new spell pattern mentioned by Borek and in part because you run out of easy Kunark-Velious-Luclin mobs that the tank merc can tank without a healer and anyone can tank with a healer. However, it's not the only inflection point. For example, Rangers get Flusterbolt, an important crowd control tool, at level 85 (someone said 90, but Lucy says 85).
