Best class to make if i wanted to focus on grouping?

This, 100%. I would take someone that knows what the hell they're doing over a 'popular' class that doesn't 100 times out of 100.
Every class is viable in every era if the person at the keyboard knows what they're doing.

I disagree with this. Yes obviously 3 enchanters can charm 3 mobs, but that's 3 less mobs that you have for pulls, and depending on the camp you have it can cost you xp. Not to mention that you have no FD utility.

Let's take a scenario which ive seen countless times where the bard lull fails and pulls a room of about 5-7 mobs. You have 3 enchanters though right? No problem. Except the charmed pets break as the bard arrives with 7 mobs. Cleric gets immediate heal aggro, shaman trying to not only heal but also slow to help out, but instantly gets slow aggro, spamming heal on himself instead of enchanters that are getting hit, enchanters go down, cleric goes down, there's no hope for the shaman, and bard tries what he can but ultimately bites the farm. You look over and you see a FD'd necro laying there with a rez token and you're like....hell yes. We don't have to wipe and run back.

It all depends on situation. I'd personally rather have 1 enchanter, 2 at the very most, a mage and a necro instead of just 3 enchanters.

The thing with Enchanters is that EVERYONE will be an Enchanter and you don't need more than one for each group. Your going to be competing with a lot of people for those slots. The only good thing is a lot of Enchanters aren't looking to groups since it is probably hands down the best solo farming class in classic.

To be honest, I think your Original idea of going Shaman has some merit. Healers, any healers, will be needed simply because there are never enough clerics. Additionally Shaman slows offer a huge advantage to any party they are grouped with. Those two aspects alone will make you desired in a group setting. As to them being overplayed, honestly, I don't think there will be more Shaman than Enchanters so if your trying to avoid that, avoid Enchanter.

To be honest, the one class you can't go wrong on if you want to focus on grouping, is a Cleric. There are never enough Clerics and honestly they are the most Overpowered class in the game....well at their role. Where a group might struggle or even fail with a Druid or Shaman healer, a Cleric straight up trivials most group content. As long as you have a Cleric almost any other combination of classes can make up a good group. No other class in this game makes as much a difference to the success or failure of a group as a Cleric.

The downside of a Cleric is to me they are boring to play. They are almost too good at their job. You just need to make sure that your parties red bars are filled and not run out of mana and that is it.

If you run into that scenario you probably have really bad Enchanters. I mean it depends on levels, but a single good Enchanter should be able to completely lock down the scenario you envision. At lower levels the charmed MoBs don't really hit hard enough to be a big threat to the Chanter so they should be able to get their charm under control in about 3 seconds flat, then bed able to start rolling out the mez's. At higher levels, Enchanters get an AoE mez that would stop all 10 mobs flat, allowing the Chanter to get thing under control.

Now add 3 Chanters that all SHOULD be able to do the same thing and a bad pull is nothing. Also the chances of all 3 Chanter's charmed pets breaking their charm at the same time is slim. What is more likely would be one chanter suffering a break leaving the other two chanters to send in their pets to off tank 2 of the 7 mobs the bard pulled, while immediately rolling out the Mez's to collect the other 5 off to the side to await their deaths.

I know so many people don't like to admit it, but playing an Enchanter, REALLY PLAYING IT, to its full extent and capabilities, requires a massive amount of skill. No other class in this game, except maybe bard, requires even a 10th the skill to play well or is so reliant on skill to determine the power of your class.

If you have seen that scenario it is because of:

A) Bad Enchanters who didn't know how to play their class
B) Bad Enchanters who let themselves succumb to panic and failed to take control of the situation appropriately
C) The party being dumb, i.e. the cleric running around screaming in panic because he has mobs on him, dumb casters using AoE damage breaking Mez's, dumb players using DoTs, dumb players attacking mez'ed targets, etc.

You know it's funny. I've played on many TLP's (Ragefire, Agnarr, Aradune, Mangler, etc) and I can probably count on one hand where I've seen Enchanters properly use their stuns after charm break. Most just try to straight up charm again with the cast time while they get the crap beat out of them. I've seen so many try to do this while they have 2 or more mobs beating on them and they get nasty when the healer can't keep them up.

I also don't see many Enchanters use spell sets effectively.

I've always done this on my Enchanters that I've played. I'd play on one Yelinak but I hate being an Enchanter in raids, rather be a Necro or other class.

"FD utility" If you think that the "best" group should ever be using Feign death you are wildly out of your element. You could literally pulln the entire undead guk side and CC it all forever with 3 enchanters. While there is somewhat camp limitations in Guk, there is no shortage of mobs in Hole, and even in guk groups can often dominate the entire undead side.

Bard lulling? Feign death?

The groups you are in are far below the the one I mentioned in terms of mob pulls. The bard doesn't lull, he pulls as many as he likes, with a resist set and resist songs and speed he is unstoppable. as the mobs come in the bard mezzes, he can mez up to 4 at once, and he does little mezzes as they come in. If any enchanter pet breaks or evne if all enchanter pet breaks all 3 enchanters aoe stun.

Enchanter also has aoe mez.

Such a group can pull all of undead guk or an obscene amount of the hole. There is no wiping, the group you have constructed is inferior and you've never been in the "perfect group".

I've sat near AM in undead guk with 3 charm pets pulling literally up to gargoyles. Yes 3 mobs are wasted as pets. But that's trivial when you are so low on mobs that you are considering minotaurs, 3 mobs out of what, 200?

Sorry but you're wrong

Yeah I am with you there. I remember getting a compliment from a player I was grouping with while in my low 60s. He was like, "Wow when I saw you charm a MoB I winced and prepared for a party wipe, but holly hell, all I noticed was how fast the MoBs went down when you sicked you charmed pet on them. I didn't even know Chanters could do that!!". I was just sitting there reading this mind boggled thinking, "Seriously, your level 60 and have never seen a Chanter who could control his Charm and be a major advantage to his group?!?!?". What is even more mind boggling is that I don't feel like I am an especially skilled at playing a Chanter but he was acting like I was an Elite Chanter that walked on water. Crazy.

best group is 2 enchanters 3 wizzies and a cleric . Til around level 60 or so

tank / enchanter / cleric

everything else is just interchangeable filler

Truth, raiding as an enchanter sucks.

Fixed

I have to agree. It is one of the reasons why I don't think I will go Enchanter as my main.

How much better is a druid with the reclassification of mobs that are charmable in the first few expansions along with their utility spells? Worth a spot as a dps/back up healing?

It's funny because new mmo players think that the "Holy Trinity" was always Tank/Heal/DPS

But in Everquest at least, the backbone of any group the first few years was the Holy Trinity (and the term was used) to refer to Warrior (maybe SK/Pally), Cleric (maybe Dru/Sham), and Enchanter (maybe Bard)

Be sending tells to people to come help you form/finish group and it'd be like "well do you have ____ yet?"

There are never enough enchanters. On Aradune when I flipped on lfg, I'd always start getting tells within 2 minutes.

The problem with Charm and any classes that can perform Charm is that its effectiveness is entirely dependant on how much you can debuff Magic Resistance on the MoB your trying to Charm. If you can't significantly debuff the Charm's Magic Resist, the Charm is going to break early and often.

Enchanters get a MR debuff spell that solves most of the issues, I don't believe Druids have any spells that can also do this. Also, I don't think there are many if any items with clickies or procs that a Druid can equip to debuff MR either.

That being said, if the Druid has someone that can keep a magic resist debuff on the MoB they Charm, I am sure they can wreck thing every bit as good as a Chanter.

Yeah that is possibly true in Classic but later on not so much. I quit a TLP because once I hit like 65, it was nearly impossible to find a group and none of the good guilds wanted me because they were Enchanter heavy. Hell it felt like pretty much everyone had a Chanter on a second box by the time I was in my 40s.

Druids get an animal mr debuff spell in Kunark iirc sec looking it up Yup Glamour of Tunare. Druids can also snare their charm pets and if you watch your distance, recharming before they get to you is not hard, normally. Druid's can charm fairly well the problem (imo) was/is? availability of targets in good zones.

That's not an enchanter problem. Assuming you were in PoP, charm pets are as OP as ever. The only thing better than having one enchanter in Fire is having two enchanters in Fire. I leveled an enchanter to 65 during PoP on Mangler and never had problems finding a group when I wanted one.

I can't speak to the Guild side of things. I can see how that would be a less than ideal time to find a new raid guild as an enchanter.

You are grossly overstating the effectiveness of the MR debuff. The difference it makes is negligible. Charm can and will break early and often even with tash and malo. I have an enchanter and mage on Mischief. With tash, malo, and max Total Domination AA's, Command of Druzzil still rarely lasts the full duration (around 6 or 7 minutes iirc). I'd say my charms wear off naturally maybe 1/4 of the time.

You don't "need" an MR debuff to successfully charm.