Which Class to Play (Mangler)

Hi All,

Looking for feedback on which class to play for Mangler. This’ll be my first TLP playing from the very start - usually I’m always a month (or more) late. I am trueboxing - no mutlibox lineups. My list:

1) Ranger. I like meleeing, and I love the utility. My worry is how bad it’ll be to level a melee without any twink weapons or gear at all. It feels like I’ll be left behind, or be using a Fine Steel Weapon pulling 5 DPS in a group with mage pets and charmed mobs.

2) Druid. I like the kit, they’re fun to play and powerful in classic. I’m worried that it doesn’t fit in long-term, because I do really want to start and play a ranger at some point, but maybe not first day. I am not multi boxing either, so I won’t gain any of those benefits from having a buffer to PL. Unable to solo any dungeon content.

3) Wizard. Doesn’t need gear, can solo when not in a group, needed for raiding (which I want to do this time). At the same time, no focus effects hurts vs. pet classes, can’t solo dungeon content. No tracking.

4) Necromancer. Great kit, stronger soloer, able to do dungeon content. Not mobile. No tracking.

5) Shaman. Great kit, strong soloer, can do some dungeon content.. more content with Torpor in later expansions.

Part of me feels like I should level a Druid or Necro first so that I can get in on the first week or two of farming, so I can build some currency before spending. Maybe quickly level a Necro to try to farm for FBSS before everyone hits guk? At the same time, Ive built up 35 krono from previous TLPs to twink a character. Then again, I feel like spending any of it in classic is stupid, except maybe for a CoF, and even then! Anyways, excited to hear feedback. Thank you.

if you want a farming class for a later main i would say enchanter, mage or necro would be your best bets to start out with.

If it was me, I would just play what I ultimately wanted to play from the beginning. To me, progressing from a mino axe to a PGT to a silvery war axe is part of the fun. I mean, if you want to play a melee, you won't enjoy a stopgap farmer of a necro or mage imo. In the time it takes to farm up some gear, you could've just leveled a ranger to 50 the hard way and gotten your full planar set.
My 2 cents.

Leveling a melee untwinked on a brand new TLP is actually the only time it’s fun. Everyone groups, most people don’t care who you are or what you’re wearing at least not early on. As long as you’re smart about upgrades you can progress yourself and don’t try jump into a 20-30s group in cloth and rusties. That just shows you’re lazy and expecting to be hand held. I did SK from scratch on coir using no Kronos. Get a cracked staff and tarnished sword. By level 20 I could solo the Grobb Cleaver guy..boom magic weapon. Get banded as soon as you can. Save up for hp rings and you’re golden. Could even solo a little if played safe on pulls. Exp on mangler gonna be fast. It’ll be easy mode.

Totally a

Totally agree with this. The challenge of leveling up a brand new melee on a fresh server is so fun and rewarding.

It depends where you want to spend your time.

If you're going to spend most of your time raiding, I would pick anything but a shaman, honestly. Especially if you're in a guild with rogues who desperately want to out-parse monks and are constantly nagging you for every buff in the kit.

If you want to top parses in raids, using classes from your list, go Wizard or Necro. Wizard will win a handful of parses and so will necros (mostly in Kunark). Wizards age a little bit better though and become really good in Luclin.

If you want to relax on raids, make a druid. They just hang out with the enchanters - tossing a buff every now and then.

If you want to button mash, make a shaman and buff the hell out of everyone.

If you want to set a record for rezzes accepted, go with the ranger.

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If you want to spend your time farming, then definitely pick a necro.

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If you want to spend your time grouping, you're better off picking shaman.

I've rolled 4 different rangers since '99 so I am biased, but I love the class and I don't think you'll be disappointed. They have tons of utility: pull, tank, buff, minor crowd control and your DPS doesn't suck. The Luclin archery AAs will give your DPS a significant boost and as a bonus you can just outrange AEs during raids. 10/10 would roll a ranger again on the new servers.

Which one do you think has the best Guk/Souselek A solo-ability?

I’m definitely thinking about this, too. Part of me is a little worried because I don’t have EQ raiding experience, and rolling Ranger, which I’ve never played, and raiding as it right off the bat is intimidating.

If I roll Ranger to start, I don’t think there will be +HP rings for a few days anyways. I have that Saturday/Sunday/Monday to play, so I can get a pretty substantial head start. I also have tons of DBCash for EXP pots, too. Plus with Mangler experience, I’m guessing I could level pretty quickly. I’ve spent some time leveling toons to 15ish on Coirnav (untwinked/ no pots) to get good routes and strategies for leveling, too. Idk. One of the reasons I’m also thinking of going with a caster first - I can get a wizard to 10 on Coirnav in less than 3 hours played, and that’s with no pots or exp pots or gear.

I think one of the good things about a better XP rate is that it means that leveling alts will be quick, too. Maybe I can do a caster for the first week or two and then bring up a Ranger? I think I can probably get a Necro up to 40ish by that Monday to farm some stuff.

I've opened that last 2 TLP with a Ranger, went to 35 but then switched mains.

But, its really fun the first few levels. Once you get into the MR in Unrest you can equip yourself with a magic hammer and small ringmail. Ringmail is almost as good as banded, but its free. That part is the most fun. After that before too long you can start to do your ivy armor quests. You can solo a lot of them in your 30s.

1) Ranger

Ranger are the best group tank in classic by a lot. Which is to say they suck. They are similarly tanky to other tanks (which is to say not very tanky), but have way better CC (root and snare) which makes groups very safe, they are also excellent pullers, second only to bards. Their damage is very poor until level 49 when it becomes pretty good until kunark where it becomes very poor again. Most groups should be happy to have a ranger, but probably won't because they underestimate them, still way more useful than an SK/pally/warrior in any group. A good ranger can also do pegasus cloaks for decent money, if you can figure out how.

Come kunark they become sorta weird, they're still solid group tanks and solid pullers, but their dps is junk and groups don't really need a tank anyway, they simultaneously seem weak and able to handle themselves. In luclin they get bow AAs but don't really shine till PoP and will require a lot of exp to get strong, but will be the best dps for a while

Main advantages: Root, snare, Best track in the game
Main disadvantages: 6 of clubs of all trades, master of none, low dmg, squishy, not desired

2) Druid

Criminally underrated. Druids are a newbie class that get a bad rep because they attract casual/friendly/less skilled players. Druids are mediocre healers. Snare and root are decent CC if you're fast on your feet. They are decent pullers. Their dot damage is pretty good, it pales to Shaman/Necro in classic, but overtakes necro in kunark. Their dots are convenient as they don't break root, and a lazy druid can solo very easily at their own pace. Druids get a track that is not nearly as good as rangers and not nearly as useless as bards. Ports will make life fast and easy until PoP and are okay money. They get tipped for their buffs. They lack serious/important buffs until PoP.

Druids can charm very well in classic and a skilled druid can be on par with an enchanter or necro at soloing, though they can have some difficulties with mana. When paired with an enchanter in zones where they can charm they are on par with the enchanter in terms of charming and can also impower other charmers (snare is long lasting and makes charming very safe)

Main advantages: CC, decent dmg, Decent track. Ports. Charm.
Main disadvantages: No slow, sort of falls off later, lacks the oomph of enchanters/shamans/necros

3) Wizards

Wizards are heavily underplayed and are basically a much worse druid. They are critical for certain raids and any guild will want you, you will be easy to gear and do top dmg sometimes on some raids. They are also a critical part of aoe groups and can often find a very easy source of major exp come luclin. Their damage in groups is relatively low, especially if they don't have crack, they are simplistic to play and are poor soloers due to their mana troubles. In a group they aren't the worst thing to have, if you have an enchanter they can be a welcome dps, beating out most melee characters in terms of value. They continue to be decent damage in raids and good aoe exp groupers from luclin and beyond

Main advantage: Ports, strongish raider, aoe groups
Main disadvantage: mana troubles, simplistic, low utility

4) Necro

Necro are very strong in classic and kunark. They want to be iksar and you will want to save up for a race change if you do not go iksar, though you can abuse potions/fungi stick to avoid this. Either way it will be expensive and suboptimal to start in classic, costing a ton of DB points or else a ton of cash while having less AC. Necros get charm, their dots in classic are very strong but immediately fall behind in kunark, but who cares because charm, they have an easier time charming and more options to charm than druids. They are a strong soloer and not reliant on clarity. They are mediocre in good groups if they cant charm.They steadily fall off after kunark and become undesirable past PoP, but they are still pretty great in PoP (clicky engulfing darkness lets you do some crazy soloing/duoing in PoF)

Main advantages: Charm, strong soloer, strong dps, safe
Main disadvantages: Low utility for others, mistrusted, fall off longterm

5) Shaman

Shaman start off fairly weak in classic, they get progressively stronger as they level but are still not great soloers at 50. They are a great addition to any group, providing buffs, malo for charm pets, and slow. They are mediocre healers but as they provide other utility their healing is more of a bonus for emergencies. Their pets are made of such thin paper that you can actually see through them, and they can only charm until like level 30. Alchemy is very very useful, but expensive to level in classic and will take up a lot of bag space to use on the go, still can be very profitable or just helpful to yourself and especially others.

Come kunark shamans immediately get very very not that much more powerful, they get their epic which provides a great deal of strength, especially for soloing. They get their good slow which strengthens them even more. They do not truly become top tier until they have a fungi, an epic, and most importantly Torpor. Torpor can be very expensive (3 or 4 krono, drops to about 1.5krono by velious) but can also be farmed with a duo. With torpor they become the strongest solo class in the game, with some exceptions.

Pros: Extremely strong at 60, alchemy, slows, buffs, strong soloers against single mobs
cons: Have trouble with multiple mobs, have trouble splitting, very busy class, expensive to reach full potential, weak early.


Hope this helps

DPS > MONK, ROGUE, MAGI
TANK > SK
GG HEAL 39+ > CLERIC

A Druid is the 3rd best nuker. With dots, melee (which is a dot) and nukes, they can do tons of damage. Can also heal and evac.

Enchanter.

This is accurate for group content. For raids, once Defensive disc comes in nobody main tanks but Warriors. Pal/SK are perfectly capable of it, but not as optimal as War, and there are always available War.

Play a necro, farm plat, buy lots of Kronos early on while they're 300-600pp, eventually swap to a twinked Ranger and have tons of Kronos stashed for later. Enjoy!

My thoughts/response to each:

1) Ranger: one of the worst classes in the game until Luclin or PoP, if not later. If you can suffer through the first 9-12 months or so could be fine.

2) Druid: Very useful utility class, but not powerful at any one thing. On the bright side, if you level your druid up in the 3 months of classic, you'll have a great character for powerleveling future alts/twinks or a future main. Not terrible at soloing, but soloing for XP is basically irrelevant on TLPs because the XP rate is so bad.

3) Wizard: I like this one, they are very underrated and it may be hard to get a group due to this however, they're very useful for raids.

4 & 5 Necromancer/Shaman: The two strongest classes of the 5 you mentioned, I would suggest one of these two for overall power in and outside of groups.

A tank.

Tanks will be like the golden child and loved by everyone.

Shaman never have a lull, the class is always borderline broken on what it is capable of throughout the entirety of the game. As far as power level goes, easily one of the consistently strongest classes in the game.

You will be busy, there is a ton to do as a shaman in a group. Especially playing to its full potential.

Looking at your list - I would say druid.

I personally like the relaxed pace that a druid is arguably the best at playing. They are reasonably powerful at just about everything except meleeing. Ports are super handy, groups *kinda* want you most of the time, raids kinda want you most of the time, soloing is nice, and they can track a bit.

As a bonus, no one ever really *mains* a druid, so you can get your epic pretty easily, and any druid-specific raid items are also easy to snag. Also, you can team up with an enchanter and wreck everything.

My second choice would be a necro - they're super fun.

Rangers are alright, but their DPS is pretty weak until SoL / PoP.

Shamans are pretty awesome after lvl 50 or so, but they're too busy for me.

Wizards are just too boring for my taste. Maybe when I have kids I play one so that I can hardly be present at the PC without anyone noticing.

Ivvy lists root and snare as an advantage for Ranger, and lists low utility on a bunch of the other classes when literally all 5 classes have root and 4 of the 5 classes can snare, and even shaman can snare if you go innoruuk troll.