Whoa has it been a long time......

[Poosammich]

So crazy to think that my kids will get to play this too. Thanks to the P99 team.

Now on to the actual purpose of the thread. My kids, and I will be diving in and leveling as a 3-some. In light of this I'm looking for some input. It's been so long, and I was so one sided in my first experience of EQ that I'm mixing it up this time. I'll be playing a Wizard or SK, solely because in my first experience I was a Necro, I always struggled to find a group even after LoY, and some of the group spells Necro's picked up. I may roll up and Ikky Necro too, but I digress. What I'm looking for is a reasonable 3-some that can lvl efficiently. It doesn't have to be the fastest outright or anything like that.

So far the classes I'm thinking are going to be some flavor of Wizard or SK / Probably a Ranger / and a Monk or Shaman or Druid

I know I can dig up some of my old stomping grounds for good camps for this little group, and truly I'm just interested in us having fun.

[Poosammich]

As I begin to reminisce I'm thinking that my best option is going to either have us all go Human, and start in FP, or all go Elf and stary GFay.... Either way I can't help but feel like I need to be the tank.... So I began digging in, and looking here on the forums. All said, I recall having loads of fun with a Pally friend so maybe the SK is the wrong way to go. Is the XP hit for all Hybrids?

[Spyder73]

Monk, Shaman, Enchanter would be pretty lethal.

[Poosammich]

I think shaman may be out, as they can't start anywhere close to FP or GFay... Best I can tell anyway.

[Groum]

I'd let the kids pick their classes, then take a filler class that compliments them. It also depends on their personalities. If one always has to be running around---you've got a puller. If one really doesn't like to get attacked in the game, then you've got a finger-waver.

So rather than pick their classes for them, I'd suggest that you let them see what's appealling to them, and then run what it takes to make their experience fun. That is probably a Priest, but you never know.

Groum

[evan1612]

Honestly everquest probably isn't as hard as you remember it was, so I say you 3 should just go whatever you like! Heck if you play your cards right all 3 could be clerics and still exp decently until much later levels.

[sox7d]

So crazy to think that my kids will get to play this too. Thanks to the P99 team.

Now on to the actual purpose of the thread. My kids, and I will be diving in and leveling as a 3-some. In light of this I'm looking for some input. It's been so long, and I was so one sided in my first experience of EQ that I'm mixing it up this time. I'll be playing a Wizard or SK, solely because in my first experience I was a Necro, I always struggled to find a group even after LoY, and some of the group spells Necro's picked up. I may roll up and Ikky Necro too, but I digress. What I'm looking for is a reasonable 3-some that can lvl efficiently. It doesn't have to be the fastest outright or anything like that.

So far the classes I'm thinking are going to be some flavor of Wizard or SK / Probably a Ranger / and a Monk or Shaman or Druid

I know I can dig up some of my old stomping grounds for good camps for this little group, and truly I'm just interested in us having fun.

As a 60 wizard, wizards are great soloers and raiders, but they are not cut out for groups. Rangers are solid with good damage and utility, but not much more than you would with a shaman or druid in the group. An enchanter/bard are a very fun, dynamic and crucial class that breaks the "holy trinity" of modern MMOs, you'll be thankful if someone decides to play one. A lot of jaded powergamers that no longer see the game as anything more than numbers are going to chime in here with "Anything beyond warrior, rogue, monk, cleric, shaman or enchanter is useless," but don't listen to them, play what sounds fun. The only useless class in groups are wizards.

You'll be set with any healer and any melee for the majority of the game, but don't be afraid to try something unconventional and interesting.

[foldupmonk]

I personally think the SK/Ranger/Shammy wouldn't be a bad one. Shammy is always good for Melee with haste and slows.

[falkun]

For the wiz/SK...pick SK.
Ranger...meh, but if that's what you want.
Monk/Druid/Shaman...pick druid for better travel or shaman for better grouping with the previous two. If you do go druid, it'll be easier for him to travel to pick up additional members though.

[webrunner5]

I think I would throw a Druid in there instead of a Wizard. They can port, buff heal an do have damage spells, SoW etc. That way when Druid gets high enough can port you guys all around. I would go SK, Monk, Druid. SK can tap heal, Monk can Mend, and Druid can keep up with the spot heals. Win win I think. Lots of DPS, and Druid brings a lot of good stuff to the table, Snare, Root, Damage Shield, etc. Druids are a hell of a lot better than people think in a group other than a Port Whore trust me. They pretty much fade out at say level 54 though. :( All 3 classes can pull which is a God Send. The Druid has Harmony, which outdoors is just a killer spell to have to pull with.

Shaman is a bit over rated, which I have a really high level one, with the thought of Haste and Slows. If you are the ONLY healer in a group trust me you do NOT have the mana to haste 2 or 3 Melees, Slow every mob that comes and buff people let alone other people coming up to you wanting SoW etc. Canni is only so good lol, unless you want to have a lot of downtime. Plus Canni dancing gets REALLY OLD after about a hour let alone hours. My Druid, Cleric is a breeze to play, no pun intended, compared to a Shaman to play. Then you are sending in your Dog etc., Rogue, Tank want Strength Buff, Dex Buff for procs etc, you get the picture, it is a FULL TIME job.

[Poosammich]

Thanks for all the input! Only a few additional add-ons.

1.) I thought SK's like Necro's had KoS issues?

2.) What happened to Wizards? I thought they were excellent DD, easily out pacing Necro's in burst?

TBH if a Necro can keep pace I'll just go back to that LOL. I remember people complaining about Necro Burst

[Woulf]

I'd play the classes you want like everyone said. But, if you went Druid you'd really help the leveling, what with the healing and damage buffs, SoW is sweet too, especially for the impatient.

If you could talk one of them into being more tank like, say SK/Pal/War/Monk and the other to have any kind of CC ability like a necro/ench or even pulling speicalties like a ranger or monk you'd have a great trio.

Ench might be hard to play, but at low levels it plays like a wizard and the charms and pets are cool.

[webrunner5]

Thanks for all the input! Only a few additional add-ons.

1.) I thought SK's like Necro's had KoS issues?

2.) What happened to Wizards? I thought they were excellent DD, easily out pacing Necro's in burst?

TBH if a Necro can keep pace I'll just go back to that LOL. I remember people complaining about Necro Burst

Yes SK are KoS in a lot of places. But there is tons of them playing on here and they seem to do fine. Do not waste your time trying to get faction on one. Just too time consuming and you may kill something and bam back to KoS.

A Wizard is probably one of the most disliked classes on here other than a few needed for raids and Sky ports. They are always it seems OOM and AFK. I hate them myself in groups. 3 quick DD spells and forget about them for 10 minutes. They can crowd control pretty decent higher up, but so can a Druid, Ranger, Enchanter, Shaman etc. YMMV. :)

[uygi]

From a technical perspective, none of your concerns are going to be a real problem. Starting city and race/class/deity faction issues are easily worked around. Ports are readily available on P99 and if you mention your situation starting out nobody is going to mind offering a free ride. Faction can be largely fixed in a great many places: Highpass, Freeport, Qeynos, Rivervale and even Cabilis, Firiona Vie and Overthere. Also consider that FD classes can bank while FD, sneak classes can do almost anything while sneaked, and anybody can bank if they stand behind a corner and pan their camera around to click the banker.

You don't say how old your kids are, or what their attitudes are. If you just want to play and run around and kill stuff and do some quests, virtually any 3 classes will work for that until you get to epics; somebody suggested 3 clerics which while not being the most practical solution would still work. If you want to be able to progress everybody to 60 and do some higher end stuff, you can go trio Howling Stones or Sebilis Crypt without additional people, but you'll need to be a little more selective.

If you're just casually trio-ing, you're probably not going to kill stuff that really requires a warrior to tank. A paladin, SK or monk will probably be fine. Just consider that you'll need something tank-ish, you'll need some DPS, some heals and some slow for long-term viability. Paladin-Shaman-Monk would give you a lot to work with; Paladin can LoH, heal some and rez later. Shaman isn't a great healer til 60 but offers tremendous utility with root, slow, DoTs, buffs and SoW. Monk gives you some pulls and DPS.

Like others have said, you can min/max this all day long!

[uygi]

Webrunner's comments about wizards are mostly spot-on. They're not desired by groups. Wizards are an excellent crowd control class after enchanters, provided they have a little room to work with (once snare and root can stack [whenever that happens?] the druids and rangers get a massive boost).

I disagree that faction isn't worthwhile on a SK. I've played one here for over four years, and even though I don't really need faction any more for anything, I still think all the ones I worked up were worthwhile.

[Clark]

Monk, Shaman, Enchanter would be pretty lethal.

As long as nothing is a hybrid you'll be good. That is a solid suggestion.

Welcome to the server; hope you enjoy it as much as all of us have!

[Flintt]

are hybrids really that bad? would you really advise a warrior over a knight? just wondering.

[Turp]

If you guys are in the same house than start working for IP exemptions now too.

[Lunababy]

As a 60 wizard, wizards are great soloers and raiders, but they are not cut out for groups. Rangers are solid with good damage and utility, but not much more than you would with a shaman or druid in the group. An enchanter/bard are a very fun, dynamic and crucial class that breaks the "holy trinity" of modern MMOs, you'll be thankful if someone decides to play one. A lot of jaded powergamers that no longer see the game as anything more than numbers are going to chime in here with "Anything beyond warrior, rogue, monk, cleric, shaman or enchanter is useless," but don't listen to them, play what sounds fun. The only useless class in groups are wizards.

You'll be set with any healer and any melee for the majority of the game, but don't be afraid to try something unconventional and interesting.

I can't help but feel that you fell into your own "powergamers" trap. Wizards are one of the only two classes in the game with ports - an invaluable non-combat utility that can't be understated.

[sox7d]

I can't help but feel that you fell into your own "powergamers" trap. Wizards are one of the only two classes in the game with ports - an invaluable non-combat utility that can't be understated.

It can be understated by the fact that druids can do it too WITH heals, WITH buffs and WITH only 12% less nuke mana efficiency than a wizard at level 60.

[webrunner5]

It can be understated by the fact that druids can do it too WITH heals, WITH buffs and WITH only 12% less mana efficiency than a wizard at level 60.

And they have SoW which Wizards don't have when they port you. Another reason for hate on a Wizard lol.

[uygi]

are hybrids really that bad? would you really advise a warrior over a knight? just wondering.

No, they aren't that bad. If the three of them play together as, for example, Ogre SK (1.61), halfling cleric (0.95) and human monk(1.2), then as a group they'll all ding at the same times and will have an effective overall penalty of 25%. It doesn't sound like the OP is really concerned about leveling fast. I leveled to 60 with a 61% penalty and I did just fine.

[webrunner5]

No, they aren't that bad. If the three of them play together as, for example, Ogre SK (1.61), halfling cleric (0.95) and human monk(1.2), then as a group they'll all ding at the same times and will have an effective overall penalty of 25%. It doesn't sound like the OP is really concerned about leveling fast. I leveled to 60 with a 61% penalty and I did just fine.

I agree with you completely. Play the class you like no matter what the Penalty is. This is not a race to the top. It is suppose to be sort of fun. If you look at I think, all the Hybrids, they can all solo pretty well. Not a bad thing in the long run for sure. :cool:

[Poosammich]

Thanks so much for all the input! So far we have a Necro/Shammy combo(Iksar), and a Bard/Warrior combo(* Elf/ Gfay). Just waiting for the boy to dig in and choose where he wants to land. Warrior's seem very ability starved early on, is that the case? I'm hoping that my son will either choose an Enchanter for the bard/war group, or an Ikky Monk for the shammy/ necro combo. Either way, as stated thanks again.... So much! The last time I leveled a Necro it took me almost a full year... Thus far though the 2nd time through seems much faster. =]

[uygi]

Just let me reiterate, there is no need to worry about location. Have everyone pick the race they want, whether that's based on stats, look or lore. I'd be happy to personally escort you each the the starting area of your choice and get you bound together, and I'm sure there are plenty of others that would too.

There's actually probably some strong value in having your characters NOT similarly faction aligned; you usually only need one person to go to the vendor, so if you have one Iksar, one traditional evil (dark elf, troll, ogre or evil class) and one good/neutral (most everything else) you'll always have one character that can go buy/sell no matter where you are.

[Poosammich]

Still waiting on my son to choose, and I legitimately need to get them both to choose. I need more of the attitude I had when I started in '99..... I had no qualms about Necro/KOS everywhere. I did have to trudge through getting my FP faction up, but with a 3-some as mentioned one of the carebears can go to town for me =]... I must say I'm impressed by the community as a whole, while there are the obligatory trolls. By and large seems to be mostly d-bag free! Kudos!


EDIT: On the KOS note, in cities where other KOS factions are okay.... Does that inherently mean that non-KOS folks from other factions are KOS? Ie: Are Druids KOS in Cabilis?


**
Once they've sussed out what they want I'll get us together. Either by fishing for rides here, or in game!

[uygi]

On the KOS note, in cities where other KOS factions are okay.... Does that inherently mean that non-KOS folks from other factions are KOS? Ie: Are Druids KOS in Cabilis?

Generally speaking, yes. There are places, especially in the old world where illusions like wolf form avoid being KoS. Enchanters can use a combination of illusions and factions spells to avoid KoS 90% of the time anywhere. Any class with sneak can carefully use most any city's vendors and trainers.

That said, there isn't necessarily any reciprocity. For example, there are neutral race/class combinations that get to use both Firiona Vie and The Overthere. Agnostic, neutral class gnomes are pretty welcome everywhere on norrath except Grobb, Oggok, and Cabilis. A good rule of thumb is that if you're any kind of evil character, you can only assume you'll be safe in your home town; even your home towns non-evil sections should still be safe.

[Poosammich]

I'm loving relearning the depth that the game has, and I'm pleasantly surprised at both the community thus far, and my memory! I've been able to help a few folks in my guild with grind spots, and PL spots based off info from nearly 15 years ago! And everyone said that particular plant would ruin my memory! HAH!