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Question - Thinking of Changing my group up, opinions? War Enc Dru Mag currently (1 Viewer)

Joined
Aug 4, 2015
RedCents
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Right now I am playing War, Enc, Dru, Mag. The mage is my main, so I will keep him, but the rest are up for debate. I like the enchanter for locking down adds, so he will probably stay. So here is what I am wondering:

Is druid worth keeping around for ports, or is the guild hall, campfire, mage COH etc enough to not really care about ports or evac these days? I would most likely go cleric, but will have to level it up a bit as I think my only cleric is still 95. I do have a shammy at 105, if people can convince me that would be better, but seems a bit redundant with the ench being able to slow and debuff.

Is the war the best tank for my group setup? Eventually I would like to do some progression in RoS and work on gearing up my toons by camping named, etc. Right now has just been grinding to catch up in levels and AA since I have been behind the times for too long. I have a pal and SK to pull from the stable if people think one of those would be better.

I usually run one cleric merc and one wiz merc. If I switch out the druid and run a cleric, maybe I can switch to 2 wiz mercs?

Thanks
 
I'm always trolling these type of posts to see what people are saying about their group make up, and if I see something compelling then I may just change my own group! Also my response is pretty much the same across the board... So here it is again...

Enchanter + Mage is great DPS even if you don't realize it. The Synergy from Mage will increase your enchanter DPS, and your enchanter synergy will increase your mage DPS. Just need to work out the right kiss files to make it happen. Your enchanter is the best puller, especially in zones where they will get hit and where they could get stunned. If you're worried about snares, you can always pet pull with your enchanter. I made a hotkey that will just tell the pet to stop and summon it to me. I think a monk and bard are also great pullers, but neither can take the hits. I'd keep Mage + Enchanter for sure.

I don't know a lot about a warrior tank, but I prefer the SK. I think the warrior takes far less to get up and running, and is probably cheaper to maintain. For example, you'll only have to buy a few tomes each level, whereas a SK will have spells and tomes. With that though, the SK has a lot more utility. I've said it before... if you're afking (not that you should ever do that) and your puller wipes, you can easily have the puller campfire back and the SK can summon it's corpse to the group. There have been many times where I used Summon Remains for the group just so we can reset and try again (if one of us accidentally trains the group in Howling Stones and there isn't a great place to rez, for example). The SK is more squishy than a Warrior for sure, but the fact that they can heal through makes up for it. There have been many times where my healer has died and my SK has managed to keep on trucking like, "healer is down? Oh I didn't notice!" I think (and maybe this could be up for debate since my experience with a warrior is limited) that an SK is better at grabbing aggro, especially when there are multiple mobs. This allows my chanter to pull 4 or 5 mobs and the rest of the group won't die on incoming. The SK might die on a pull like that, but you just mez, memblur, and he'll rez and go to town.

For your Druid question... well my opinion is like this... The druid is part cleric (heals + rez), part wizard (ports + nukes), and part ranger (crossover buffs and utility). Jack of all trades, master of none. So figure out what you need most from the druid and start there. A Wiz keeps your ports, but will allow for far more DPS than a druid could hope for. Your Wiz would also benefit from the enchanter and mage synergy. If you want to replace the slot with a healer, a Shaman and Cleric are both great. I think that RoS has shown us all the importance of a quick cure... The dots are downright nasty. With a cleric you'll get above par heals and insta-rez, but not much in the DPS area. So I think... this last slot is really going to be up to you. I put a Wiz or a BL in that spot because the BL is just fun for me, and the Wiz ports (God just do the Gorowyn partisan tasks and you'll want a wiz for sure)
 
War (or SK), Clr, Ench, Mage, Wiz (Wiz Merc or BL)

* a PC cleric will outperform a cleric merc (better heals, battle rez, etc)
* Wiz gives you ports which are not essential but convenient and make life easier
* Wiz is pretty easy DPS and not super gear dependant
* Wiz mercs take advantage of Wiz alliance spell (so I've heard, haven't tested)
* imho a War will tank bad pulls easier than an SK whereas a played SK can avoid bad pulls easier. I personally like my warrior more but both work effectively.
* a BL would give you mini shaman buffs that help offset not having great gear on you tank and provide dps & mana to other casters and will benefit from perma mage pet toys.
 
* a BL would give you mini shaman buffs that help offset not having great gear on you tank and provide dps & mana to other casters and will benefit from perma mage pet toys.

Rich (BB code):
/pettoysplz petname

War (or SK), Clr, Ench, Mage, Wiz (Wiz Merc or BL)

* Wiz mercs take advantage of Wiz alliance spell (so I've heard, haven't tested)

Not sure about this either. My parse isn't showing that at all. Gonna look through my log files today and see if it ever fulminated....

- - - Updated - - -

Just checked logs for wiz. Not once was alliance fulfilled with a wiz + merc.
 
Thanks for the replies so far. I think I will switch to pulling with the chanter (was pulling with druid with calm and snare as long as I was in outdoor zone). And look at getting my cleric leveled up to swap out the druid. Sounds like the SK would be better if I was pulling with my tank, but will probably stick to war for now and see how the new set up works.

War/Cler/Enc/Mag + 2 wiz mercs. Thanks all. Now time to level cleric from 95 and get around 10k more aa... :)
 
War is the best tank period. Chanter best cc. Cler best heals. Then u can go pretty much anything for dps zerk zerk wiz is my current line...... i also have 3 zerk line too but travel is a mess.... mq2nav works well, thanks devs
 
I'd level to 101 and then grind out some AAs because they will go much quicker if you do it that way. When you are ready, go up to 106 (for conflag gear) and grind more. A 105-6 well AA'd and well geared can heal just fine.

Pulling with the enchanter works great, either mez-blur to pull, or pull all 4-5 and just lock them down. Beam of Slumber is a short but quick way to hold off the mobs until you can actually mez. Just manually cast it, then AE tash, then unpause your macro and let kiss mezz them. It's faster to mez with Slumber since it is almost instantaneous and you're less likely to mez yourself as you would with your AE mez.
 
I always was from the school of "Whatever works best" but after messing around with War,Brd,Clr,Zerk,Zerk,Zerk the game got kind of boring. When you can mow everything down without a second thought the fun gets taken out of it. I guess all those people that say you should play whatever you enjoy really do have some merit to their way of thinking.

I'm currently playing around with:

Sk,Clr,Ranger x4 (I just replaced the SKs 8/8 group armor with RoS/EoK visible armor and EoK Rings/Ears and RoS shoulders.. I added a 5th ranger and dropped the healer completely and have one of the rangers toss in a heal if needed. Believe it or not I haven't had a lot of deaths with no healer in that situation. I understand this is an exception to the rule but it's still neat to watch 5 rangers all shooting at Sarnaks) in FM and it's a bit of a laugh how fast the mobs die. The rangers are in group gear and actually kill things faster then 3 RoS raid geared zerkers (RoS Arms/Legs, EoK 6/8 and EoK non-visb Raid Gear using Graves).

I end up getting about the same amount of XP in FM as I do in Gor/HS/VP with the 3 zerk group.

I have a Pal,Dru,Ench,Wiz,Wiz,Wiz group that kills slightly less then the Zerker based group. (I had a cleric in the group but swapped it out once the Paladin was geared enough that it didn't need it)

I have a Mage,Mage,Mage,Mage,Ench,Clr group that I wanted to test pet tanking with. If needed I can flop around which pet has agro and there have been times where the Ench fails to mez messy pulls and the multiple mage pets pick up the slack.

War,Clr,Brd,Rog,Zerk, + <flavor of the day> I have an account that has 1 of every class and i've slowly been maxxing all their AAs>. I'm not sure if i'm doing something wrong but Rogue DPS seems to be really far behind<? Anyone ?>. While various classes may not offer the pure DPS output of a Zerker (or Wiz) they at least offer some kind of utility with their spells and AAs. My personal experience is that Rogues; a class that can't tank, CC and really only DPS don't keep up. Does anyone else have any experience with Rogues currently? Have you parsed their damage Vs a Wiz/Zerk damage? I try to go over all of my ini files every week or so and make small changes but I can't seem to get him to pump out the dps.

I have a Monk that I play myself in random groups with friends, it's always been one of my favorite classes and is a nice break from the heavy use of MQ2.

I have a War,Clr,Brd,Zerk group with 20 Mages ontop that is use for PLing / Funding all of my other characters





I guess there really is no "perfect" group. I too am curious to hear what make-ups other people play and why? If you could press a button for a 110 max AA character what would you replace in your group?

Question:

Is the need for CC really as strong as everyone makes it out to be or are you better suited using another DPS? It seems like in most zones I can get away tanking 2-3 mobs and burn them off quickly. Maybe the situation where I pull a named + adds I would welcome not taking that extra damage but in 90% of my pulls my groups are just fine without CC. I haven't had the chance to test it out but does anyone else or has anyone else ever run a group successfully without any CC class in the mix?

I would rather have the security of cleric healing over the bit of DPS a druid tosses in.

Also as eqgeek just mentioned I highly suggest stopping at 101 or 102 to max your AAs. The rate at which the experience falls off at 105,108,110 seems ungodly awful. I killed off characters I rushed to 110 because it was faster getting those two levels back rather than spending days and days (or weeks or months for a lot of people), countless XP pots and a bottle of Advil grinding them out at the snails pace that is AA's @ 110.

~Random waiting for patch ramble
 
I have a friend who runs a group without CC but she manually pulls with her monk and it's single pulls only. I've found CC to be really handy for:

1. Saving time - Pull as many mobs as you want and keep your auras in camp while you kill them vs running back and forth one mobs at a time (which really sucks when you have snaring and stunning mobs).

2. Preventing wipes - sometimes my tank will randomly take a huge DPS spike and flop on incoming. So I just mez the crowd and get him rezzed.

3. Dealing with those jerks that think they can train you and take your camp.

4. Easier to break camps if you need to keep the named solo. (Pull all but the PH then give yourself 7-10m and pull it)

There are a few more reasons for CC but those are the top few.

I agree with eq1984 just play what you enjoy playing! That's why I sometimes play the Beastlord instead of a Wiz. The DPS dips a little, but I enjoy it a bit more. Especially with Alliance...
 
Question - Thinking of Changing my group up, opinions? War Enc Dru Mag currently

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