Whats better for 2 box with a monk, druid or shaman? I know shaman has slow and haste, but druid is better dps?
Shaman would be more compatible with the monk with epic, focus buffs, slow and other melee combat spells/aas.
I have both, I usually end up with the druid. I always think I'm going to use the shaman, but I use it for about 10 minutes, log it off, and log on my druid. A lot of the things that both shaman and druids do has been farmed out. 1. Haste ...pots, and it's pretty easy for most people to be capped given gear. 2. Ports....PoK and guild hall ( I still love having ports and evacs though) 3. Snare...snare has been farmed out via AA and gizmos to a lot of classes now. (once again, I still prefer to have a fast casting fairly reliable snare) 4. Slow....Most of the things that you'd actually *need* or really want to slow, are either immune too it, or the effect is greatly reduced. It's not like it used to be back in the glory days of slow when it was godlike. (besides druid has an attack debuff that's quite good and accomplishes more or less the same thing) 5. Buffs....with characters stats being through the roof, and often capped, once again, it aint what it used to be. So what does that really leave you with on either character? Well....they haven't put evac or port to bind in a bottle yet, and I find both of those to be incredibly handy. Evac, especially when boxing, is not only a time saver, but a life saver. I can't even count how many times evac has saved my bacon. The druid to me, is just more versatile. On paper, and in theory craft, the Shaman is "better", but like I said, I always end up with my druid. There are just a couple of convenience skills that I use every single day, instead of waiting for some min/max situation that a shaman could handle that a druid couldn't. 99% of EQ is fighting thousands of mobs that don't *really* pose a serious threat to you, and in that case, a druid is just a more handy character to have around. I duo'd monk/druid for a very long time, at various times in EQs life. I've always loved it, because I literally have every single thing I need on that 2 box. I don't even come across a situation where I think...damn, I wish I had X. Insta Camo, insta evac, port to bind, damage shields, nukes that also heal. When I play druid/monk, I usually run a healer and a DPS and use the druid as DPS. I really only switch when I'm fighting named or get a tough pull etc. You certainly can 2 box druid/monk with no mercs, and I've done that plenty as well, but using a healer and a DPS or tank merc, is *very* relaxing and easy. Druids are very good at being one button macro wonders. When I play that combo I am playing my monk 95% of the time. TLDR: I prefer druid for the utility and flexibility.
I ended up choosing Druid, for some of the same reasons mentioned. I'll be 2 boxing and having an insta evac for when I mess up seems so nice. Also I like that I will be able to just macro a bunch of dots and dd spells for the druid and focus on monk dps. Probably going to go healer j5 merc on one of them and a DPS caster merc j1. In the middle of a move but I can't wait to get back into EQ dual boxing.
If you take a druid over a shaman you miss most of what melee decent. There's a reason melee group with shaman and casters with druids.
All I can say is woah to the comment about slow and the preference of a druid to a shaman for a melee class. Slow not only slows by a paltry 25ish percent on a bad day but it also removes haste on the target. Which, if youre trying to duo with no mercs is pretty crucial to monk survival. Not to mention the epic 2.0, the melee damage buffs, avoidance, etc. The synergy is just far superior and a shaman never runs low on mana.
Wow I typed that horribly. You'll miss most of what makes melee decent, the shaman will buff and have epic click every 3 minutes for good dps boosts.
