I'm a returning player who is dusting off my SK and going in hard. My wife has decided to join me on this foray. She's a veteran of several other games but has never played EQ1. I will be playing my SK, she would be best suited for a Bard or Beastlord. I plan on boxing a character as well. Should we go with SK/Bard and a boxed Shaman? Possibly a SK/BST with a boxed Mage or maybe druid? Any other suggestions? She doesn't want to play a caster class. Also, should I think about the melee or the caster Merc DPS'ers? I was thinking maybe with the bard and shaman the melee dps'ers might outshine the wizards? Thanks for the help everyone, glad to be back!
If you're doing a duo with a boxed char, I'd recommend boxing the bard. It requires the least effort to get to a high value contribution and as much as I loved my bard I'd feel pretty disappointed with the class knowing that 80% of my contribution to the group during combat was playing a melody and hitting quicktime every so often. If you're doing sk/brd and your wife doesn't want to play a caster, I'd recommend your wife plays berserker. Shadowknights and berserker are extremely powerful right now, with a bard support and a couple DPS mercs you'll be able to blow through content. Beastlords are somewhat underpowered right now on their own. If their pet isn't tanking (which it won't be if your SK is properly set up), they are mediocre DPS + good ADPS.
I totally agree Tucoh Beast Lords need boosts. Though Tank + Beast + Bard is money in the bank trio. (That's what I play so bias showing) But Beast requires alot of discipline to truly maximize, if you aren't keeping 2 hotbars of abilities in the red, while dotting every mob on the Xtar, you aren't putting in work. If your wife is good with that they have alot to offer, if not, I would highly suggest something different. On the plus side, Beasts usually avoid major nerfs because they usually aren't a FOTM class. So there's that.
My two groups I box center around SK. SK as tank then Mag/zerk swappable on second account, then ranger/bard/chanter swappable on third account. All of those work well for me. Mercs: all three have wiz merc and healer mercs. One healer merc up for almost everything with two wiz mercs. If something is particularly challenging, not often, two healer mercs.
Zerker or other melee dps (rogue, monk or ranger) could make for a fun character for your wife to play and not be a caster. For the 3rd, it depends on whether you want crowd control or a played healer. The bard can handle cc and make great pullers but that leaves you always needing a cleric merc to be primary healer (blocking their inefficient heals supposedly makes them better but it only works if everyone in the group does it). If you drop the bard for a Shaman, Druid or Cleric you've got better healing but no crowd control.
had great success over the years doing sk , bard , wizard. really wasn't any group content I couldn't do. Im sure you can switch the wizard with any other dps class and do fine.
I dont think I can sell her on the Zerker. It may seem like a horrible idea, but we played SK and Pally in EQ2 with a lot of success. Of these 3 options, which would be the most successful in your esteemed opinions? 1) SK and Bard, boxed Shaman 2) SK and BST, boxed Bard 3) SK and Pally, boxed Bard (or Shaman?) I know option 3 would be light on DPS, but we like doing dungeon crawls, higher end gear farming than we do straight blasting away looking for AA's. If we had her playing the pally, and boxed a shaman, I'm pretty sure we could get away with 3 dps mercs and no heals. Only problem there is that we'd be competing for drops. Thoughts? Honestly, she isn't that great of a player, and the thought of the bard being "fire and forget" is appealing to her and I both. That's no dig on her, I just love that she loves to play as much as I do. She would probably be relieved at bringing a lot to the table for little effort. Bard might be the class for her, if its easier to play than BST esp. I played a ranger through PoP, and while they made a fairly decent solo class, I dont feel like they bring enough utility to a small group relying on mercs.
What's her contention with a berserker? Good thing about berserkers is that you can faceroll your abilities and out DPS every other class. As in, they're very easy to play and contribute a lot even if you don't hit the skill cap. If she isn't excited about being the perfect player and you pretty much carry her, I'd recommend against having her be the bard because while during combat you can set the bard in the corner with melody, you'll probably want the bard to be the puller which requires finesse at times, and you'll definitely want to monitor the track list. My bard/war practically function like a single character with two bodies that perform independent tasks. As for your three groups, I'd say sk/bard/sha is best. Would she want to play a ranger? sk/bard/rng is good, and I think rangers are relatively easy to play.
The only problem I see her having about berzerkers is the lore. She likes classes with magic abilities. It may seem trivial, but warriors, rogues and zerkers dont do much for her. I guess when it comes down to it, she's gonna end up playing whatever class she wants to play, I'll play the SK...and box whatever I need to in order to fill in the gaps. haha. I agree that ranger was pretty easy to play. I'd just like to get more utility out of our characters than ranger has to offer.
I'd love for her to play a shaman, but I think they are both far to "castery" for her. When I looked at the classes again, the only ones I can see her enjoying are pally, bst and bard.
I played a ranger for 75 or so levels "back when it was hard". Honestly, I never felt as though the class brought anything "special" to the group other than amazing tracking. You're right, the ranger can do all of the things you said it can do...but it didn't have BST crack or haste, or anything else that made the RNG stand out head and shoulders above another class. I invested god knows how many days of my life playing a RNG...I dont regret it, but I do wish all that time had gone into a different class.
Can you please justify your statement as to why you wouldn't run with a shaman? I like this idea, but I'd like to know your thought process behind it.
If the main limitations are "no caster classes" and "no classes without magical abilities", then you are pretty much limited to the following choices: SK, Paladin, BST, Bard, Ranger. The first two are rather pointless given your SK, especially considering the coming nerf of tanks' DPS. Which further narrows things down to BST vs. Bard vs. Ranger. The final limitation is that she is not "a great player", so she will probably be on DPS duty for some time, at least until she becomes more comfortable with pulling. A Bard is great at amplifying other party members' abilities, especially DPS, and at pulling/CCing, but Bards do very little melee DPS. So if she decides to play a Bard, she will have to pull from the get go (someone has to!) and won't be doing much melee DPS. It sounds like your team will be better off having you box the Bard/pull and have her play another DPS class at first. Later on, once she becomes more comfortable, she can give the Bard a try and see if she likes it. In the meantime she will be playing a DPS character. Whether it will be a BST or a Ranger depends on personal preference: they both can DPS and they both have a fair amount of utility. Just list their abilities and ask her which set she prefers. Does she likes pets? Would it be useful if you could both FD? Does she like the ability to do ranged damage?
Rangers have gotten massively better at everything they can do since level 75. I love my beast lord don't get me wrong, but beast crack and ferocity alone aren't a solid reason to pick one. If it has to be a hybrid have her read some guides and maybe make a heroic and play it a tad. Rangers are slightly easier to get peak PPerformance out of, I mean as I said earlier I have a beast (I also have a ranger though haven't leveled her since 100 was current. Just trying to lay the cards on the table so you can help make an informed choice. Either way is solid. Hell paladin.+ sk is also a solid team (ssaw it mentioned earlier) as well for that matter
Because healer mercs exist and unless you plan on main healing with the shaman and maxing out dps concurrently you'd be better served with another choice.
Why don't you just let her study the characters and pick? So much easier and she can do what SHE wants.
my thought would be bard & shaman are both utility classes , being that there will only be 3 non mercs in the group. 1 I would be a tank , you got the SK , 1 should be a dps , does not matter what class imo. SK/shaman/ ( insert melee dps) SK/ bard/ Insert any dps. Also one more reason to have a DPS player . AS you go through the game gain power , you will see huge noticeable power gains in the Tank & dps. Witch will make the game more enjoyable in the long run. just in my opnion This is how I got my wife in it so , we originally started as a sk/shaman/ranger few years later we dropped the shaman for a bard , got insane pulling power, cc and increase spell damage , added a wizard to that group. Was about when house of thule came out , smashed that whole expansion with that group . towards end of voa we dropped the ranger for a mage. and been playing sk/bard/wizard/mage for at lest 3 years. anything you want box will work , can always change it later.
