Class help

[manard]

Relatively new, not that new. A few months. I have gotten a monk, a mage, and a paladin to 30's, nothing seems to fit, either im doing stuff 100% of the time, or none of the time.

Is there a good middle ground class?

[Beckoning]

Druid is an awesome class to consider, manard. You can do pretty much everything fairly well and make a ton of money porting (plus it is nice to be so mobile and able to explore every corner of the game). The only drawback is difficulty finding groups at high levels (low 50's and on forward).

[fuark]

I'd think Paladin would be that middle ground class. You basically tank and cast heals, roots or stuns.

Warrior might be good if you'd like to still tank but don't want to heal or use roots to CC.

Rogue is good if you only want to DPS.

The other Melee are all involved in pulling which is the opposite of what you want.
INT casters are either all in (ench, necro) or all out (mage, wiz).
WIS casters are either all in (sham) or all out (clr, dru).


This is assuming you are talking about grouping.

[Pyrion]

Consider ranger. It's a good middle ground class.

[Baler]

I hate to say it because server doesn't need anymore but shaman is the middle ground.

Mage - summons
Paladin - heals+buffs
Monk - pulls/dps

smells like shaman to me.

[RDawg816]

I hate to say it because server doesn't need anymore but shaman is the middle ground.
A shaman is always doing something. I'm usually doing 3 to 5 things at once on my shaman. I don't have time to afk I juggle so many things. I'm not sure where that is anything close to middle ground. I suppose if you're one of those lazy, mediocre shaman you could make that claim....

I'd agree with a druid/ranger as a middle ground class.

[Baler]

A shaman is always doing something. I'm usually doing 3 to 5 things at once on my shaman. I don't have time to afk I juggle so many things. I'm not sure where that is anything close to middle ground. I suppose if you're one of those lazy, mediocre shaman you could make that claim....


This isnt RnF cool it.

Shaman is the exact middle ground for all three of these classes. Look at my initial post and stop worrying about how people play the game.
What you said is even what I said. Shaman's can do a lot of different things. They can do a bit of each of the three classes op listed. If that isn't middle ground then I don't know what is.
Ranger and druid are NOT middle ground between those three classes. I'm not saying op wouldn't enjoy them but they're not what op asked for.

Necromancer is another option as middle ground between those classes.

[RDawg816]

This isnt RnF cool it.

Shaman is the exact middle ground for all three of these classes. Look at my initial post and stop worrying about how people play the game.
What you said is even what I said. Shaman's can do a lot of different things. They can do a bit of each of the three classes op listed. If that isn't middle ground then I don't know what is.
Ranger and druid are NOT middle ground between those three classes. I'm not saying op wouldn't enjoy them but they're not what op asked for.

Necromancer is another option as middle ground between those classes.
The OP was complaining about those 3 classes. The way I understood it was he was either busy all the time (pulling/tanking) or sitting around hitting pet attack. Druid and ranger would be middle ground in that they are more utility. Maybe that's not what he meant though?

As for my comment about shaman... I was saying that if a shaman were middle ground (based on my interpretation of his question) then they would be a mediocre shaman. It wasn't aimed at you specifically.

[Baler]

ah I see. I apologize then for being so rude. I took it from the opposite extreme point of view. You have valid points then. my bad
:embarrassed:

[RDawg816]

It's all good. Internet communication isn't known for being 100% accurate. I can see how you could have read it that way though.

[Amyas]

I think a bard or ranger would fit what you are looking for.

[port9001]

When I think of the classes that land squarely in the middle as far as actions in a group fight I land on Necromancer and Ranger.

Necromancer - Obviously keeping your pet in the fight, but also patch heals, keeping your lich going with lifetaps, sending mana to healers. Lots of utility to make a weird group work too.

Ranger - Sustained dps role of a rogue with spells and a lot more utility. Extremely weak patch heals, some minor buffs to keep going. Sometimes you'll be asked to pull but not everytime.

There's a few other options but they only make sense to me if you don't want to play the class to its maximum. Bard for instance can be extremely busy if you keep 3+ songs going at all times. Or you can be lazy and just run a single song. Actually now that I think about it Bard might be a good choice for that reason because you can choose how busy you want to be at any given time.

[maskedmelon]

Sounds like OP wants less button frequency or maybe a bit of quiet time? I say go wizard. Blow stuff up and then do nothing while your mama comes back. Can throttle your deeps to tailor button frequency to your lacking^^

[port9001]

Wizard would be more of a 'do nothing' class, at least in groups. I mean not literally do nothing but it's about as close as you can get to a minimally active class in a group setting.

[Ruhtar]

Necromancer - Obviously keeping your pet in the fight, but also patch heals, keeping your lich going with lifetaps, sending mana to healers. Lots of utility to make a weird group work too.

Assuming he's referring to amount of up and down time, this would be the best answer. Similar to a mage in that you'll have a pet one way or another (summoned or charmed) and there's plenty of things you can do during the fights or inbetween fights to keep yourself busy, which for a magician is more put DS on tank and throw a nuke in from time to time.

Rangers would be a good option, but unless there's a monk, you'll most likely be the puller and depending on your gear and your tank, you may also be tanking.

The other plus side to necros is that as a caster, gear doesn't influence your play as much as melee and they're incredibly easy to solo on if you can't find a group or only have a short amount of time to play.

[manard]

Great responses, I guess I could elaborate a bit more.

Paladin was fun, I liked tanking and taking control of aggro, rooting mobs and stunning casters. It was actually a very fun class, but I disliked being so dependent on a group and moving so slowly. The activity was great, unless I was pulling and tanking, then it was just 100% GO, which was OK, but I would notice how often the clerics and wizards were afk. Or I get to the camp with 3 mobs, and I am rooting and running them around for 5-10 seconds before anyone seems to notice I am back yet. VERY annoying.

I went about three days without being able to get a group, which was really strange, and just figured I should go for a solo/group class. I know you can get jboots, but they are out of my pricerange.

The paladin was my first class to 34, so I parked it and sold off most of the gear, but it only amounted to a few thousand plat.

I started the mage with no investment aside from 50p or so, I did like having a strong pet, being able to solo, and groups were pretty fun, helping with items, bandages, ect.

My big problem with the mage I guess is that you dont do any damage compared to a melee class. I just felt like a burden half the time. My pet hits for 28 if I go for a max level pet (lvl 30 mage) but it just doesnt feel like I am contributing anything. Then you get resisted three times and did absolutely nothing but a few hundred damage with your pet.

Utility, I didnt like either, being able to gate and invis is great, but slow movement speed, no root, and if I get caught without my pet, I am done for. It only happened once but it really bothered me.

So I decided to try what all the melee guys were doing damage with, and went monk. I really enjoyed playing monk, I sunk in my savings of 5k into the char and got pretty decked out, and even got a haste item through saving carefully and a few investments. I do great damage, I havent died once with feign death, splitting pulls is awesome, but after 30 levels, I am getting tunnel vision from constantly running corridors and opening doors, spinning around, running back, and find myself envious of resting people again.

So fired up the mage, was /afk lfg coming back every 5 min to broadcast, and about 45 min later I got a group, and i was as pathetic as ever.

The enchanter was dancing around, charming, stunning, seemed pretty neat. but I just dont know what to do anymore.

I'd like to be active and useful, but I don't want to be running constantly and depending on people's reaction time to stop be from dying.

I forgot to mention I also got a necro to 34. I solo'd most of it, just because whenever I tried to group, watching the bar move so slowly was driving me crazy compared to just fear kiting or even root rotting. but its a social game I love actually chatting and doing stuff. Just not running a corridor over and over again.

So I guess my top issues would be

1. Movement speed/mobility -> I know I can get jboots later in life, but thats a lot of money
2. Pulling -> Get tunnel vision and just sick of it after an hour or so
3. Damage/Utility -> I hate feeling like a group leech, I want to be considered a great player
4. Group requirement -> I really find playing solo boring, but I would like the option of being able to, I mostly want a class groups are begging to get, I hate having a few hours to play, then just LFG and browsing the forum

[port9001]

Since you list issue #1 as movement speed then that narrows things down quite a bit: Shaman, Druid, Ranger, Bard are the only ones with a movement speed buff.

Don't want to pull, remove Ranger.

Any of the remaining 3 are good at what they do (Druid gets a little weak 40+ but still serviceable). All 3 are good in groups. In terms of staying busy I'd rate it: Bard (assuming not a lazy one song Bard), Shaman, then Druid.

Since you say you want to be appreciated as a good player I would recommend playing a grouping Bard. People love grouping Bards who are on their game with twisting the right songs.

However, if you never ever want to pull again I'd go with Shaman or Druid since you'll be expected to stay in camp and keep medding. Bards are occasionally called on to pull, although much less so than Monks, Rangers, and main tanks.

[Zuranthium]

My big problem with the mage I guess is that you dont do any damage compared to a melee class.

You do plenty of damage as a mage. Especially when factoring in damage shield. Were you giving your pet weapons so that it dual-wields? Should be doing a lot.

I'd say Mage is a quite ideal "middle ground" class. You won't often have to be 100% active but at the same time your gameplay isn't just about sitting around medding all the time, since you can order your pet around while you med.

[manard]

Resurrection!

I got a druid to 16, bored out of my mind waiting for mana.

Got a ranger to lvl 9, was very fast with silver swiftblade, but I am scared of just saving for/using woodsman staff until I get epic, seems really boring compared to dual wield.

Bard lvl 9, cant kite for beans, was very fun in a group to remove downtime.

I've done all these untwinked 100% so have an extra 500p towards whatever I stick with.

I am sort of stuck between bard or ranger. I like going fast, but I also like to melee. So probably ranger?

My only problem is woo delves are so small. Would it be stupid to reroll a human ranger? I've never done qeynos before

[Danth]

...I would notice how often the clerics and wizards were afk. Or I get to the camp with 3 mobs, and I am rooting and running them around for 5-10 seconds before anyone seems to notice I am back yet. VERY annoying.

This sort of thing seems commonplace on P1999, and from what I read elsewhere it's common nowadays in most any online game. For some reason a culture of laziness has taken root in online gaming; a fair potion of the population simply wants to be carried rather than contribute in a useful fashion. Odds are some of 'em spend half their time tabbed out reading Facebook or watching Netflix. I dislike it, but that mindset seems here to stay, so the rest of us simply have to adapt. Years ago I did full groups almost all the time, but I increasingly duo or trio so as to avoid having to put up with the dead weight.

----------------------------------------

This is EQ, and in this game no class gets everything. Some of the most popular group classes, like Rogues and Clerics, are mediocre to bad solo'ers. The strongest solo classes that also have good group desirability, Enchanter and Shaman, are busy to play (and extremely expensive, in the case of the Shaman). Classes good at pulling (Monks) get asked to do so, meaning constant activity. When picking a class, you don't only have to know what you want, but you have to know what you can live without.

There's nothing wrong with Human Rangers. They have good baseline starting stats for that class.

Danth

[Cen]

I'm also trying to decide between a Dwarf Paladin, Cleric, or Warrior :P But I want to be a dwarf

[fuark]

So I guess my top issues would be

1. Movement speed/mobility -> I know I can get jboots later in life, but thats a lot of money
2. Pulling -> Get tunnel vision and just sick of it after an hour or so
3. Damage/Utility -> I hate feeling like a group leech, I want to be considered a great player
4. Group requirement -> I really find playing solo boring, but I would like the option of being able to, I mostly want a class groups are begging to get, I hate having a few hours to play, then just LFG and browsing the forum

1. It doesn't cost much money since you can just camp it yourself between levels 40-50. Don't base your char on this. Jboots and buying ports is not worth choosing a character over. Since you think Jboots are expensive, shaman is out considering the spells will cost you over 200k eventually.

2. If you don't like pulling then monk, ranger and bard are all out. If there is no monk in group (or you are outdoors) then you are being lazy to not be the puller on a ranger / bard.

3. If you like damage and utility then shaman, enchanter, rogue and possibly necro / SK are in depending on your idea of utility. Druid, mage, wizard, warrior all severely lack in either damage or utility. Druid has both of these but is incredibly weak at higher levels outside of very specific circumstances.

4. If you want to be able to solo then rogue, SK and paladin are out. All are possible to solo with but it's slow and it sucks. No one will beg to have a necro in their group (even though they are good in groups) so that's out.



Literally the only class left is enchanter. Which would be my recommendation.

Enchanter is semi-OP, is only gear dependent on incredibly cheap items, is the second best soloer, one of the best groupers, has an easy-ish epic, has multiple different playstyles, can join chardok AE, has no faction issues... the list goes on. The only class better is a shaman with 350k to blow.

[phacemeltar]

shadowknight (when played correctly) can make for a great DPS class. requires little healing, and can offtank in a pinch

[Trollhide]

shadowknight (when played correctly) can make for a great DPS class. requires little healing, and can offtank in a pinch
Enlighten me

[Trollhide]

not knocking SKs, they are fun to play and that's my main on live but I would hardly consider them a "great dps class" relative to a comparatively-geared actual dps class, especially in Velious era

[Vexenu]

My big problem with the mage I guess is that you dont do any damage compared to a melee class. I just felt like a burden half the time. My pet hits for 28 if I go for a max level pet (lvl 30 mage) but it just doesnt feel like I am contributing anything. Then you get resisted three times and did absolutely nothing but a few hundred damage with your pet.

Utility, I didnt like either, being able to gate and invis is great, but slow movement speed, no root, and if I get caught without my pet, I am done for. It only happened once but it really bothered me.

If these are your major complaints about the Mage, I think you should give it another shot. Your DPS becomes outstanding around level 50. The level 49 pets are ridiculously powerful, you've got a very nice 25 point DS and most importantly you can click the Burnt Wood Staff for a 333 dmg nuke every 12 seconds. That is massive sustained DPS, and that's not even counting your ability to dump your mana on nukes if burst DPS is required. Mages are some of the best DPS in the game.

As for movement: you can easily, easily either farm the plat for Jboots on a Mage or simply camp them yourself. Really, it's quite easy either way. Mage is the absolute best (you might argue tied with Necro) class for pure plat farming. You can't solo the high end mobs like an Enchanter or Shaman, but your pet can absolutely mow through guards, seafuries, hill giants, spectres, etc... and do so with essentially no risk.

As for the roots, get a bag full of Wooly Silk Spider Nets or Crystalline Silk Nets. The latter are dirt cheap and will save your life repeatedly even with a 2 second cast time. Eventually you will get a full bag of the instant cast (and rechargeable) Wooly Silk Nets, at which point not having the actual spell root becomes more of a minor annoyance than a big deal, since you can carry around 30 instant casts of root with you in one bag, which is more than sufficient for breaking camps solo or for the occasional emergency root when caught without a pet up.

Mage is a great middle ground class in terms of actions per minute. You aren't running around pulling or casting all the time, but you've got to keep your pet attacking, hasted and well positioned, should be spamming your Burnt Wood Staff as much as possible, recasting DS on the tank frequently, and summoning mod rods and other items as needed. You've also got a surprisingly diverse (for such a seemingly limited class) range of playstyles depending on whether you are soloing, duoing or grouping. Example: solo you should be using the pet reclaim method with a fire pet, duoing you might fear kite with a Necro or Druid, or pet tank with a healer. And grouped you'll be keeping up a DS, summoning items (and players with CoTH) and occasionally blowing your mana bar on nukes or emergency CCing with pet offtank and root nets on an overpull.

tl;dr there's a lot more to the Mage class than /pet attack while you med or run around in circles.

[Raev]

OP I think your issues are more with your playstyle and less with your class itself.

Playing monk for a full group kinda sucks. Go for a duo with a shaman or a trio like mnk/shm/nec or mnk/clr/enc and you'll have a lot more fun.

Mages at low level only look bad due to ridiculous twinkage. Especially now that NPC DA/DW checks are up, Mages do a LOT of damage at high level.

There are plenty of people on the server who are lazy/bad. You have to make a friends list and/or join a guild and find the ones who don't suck.

[alphys]

I might try to level up an enchanter. I like to HAVE things to do, I just don't like pulling 24/7.

I have a pretty decked out monk, and lots of alts with their own gear, so thankfully I can level each without too much fear

[Xeras]

I might try to level up an enchanter. I like to HAVE things to do, I just don't like pulling 24/7.
Highly recommended... Definitely one of the most enjoyable classes (they make great pullers, too~)

[skarlorn]

Enchanter is so cool!

[Kotopes]

I don't know why jboots are even an issue. I play an enchanter and just get by using SoW potions. Eventually you slay enough guards with either mage or enc or necro to buy your jboots. Don't even need to farm any rare drops in some deep dungeon to get enough cash.

Shamans are incredibly powerful, but it's a very long road and extremely expensive too. Having SoW from lvl 9 on is convenient, but not enough to suffer the weakness of the class before shaman gets all tricks of their trade (pet, JBB, epic, Torpor etc.).

Shamans are mediocre soloers before they get most of their rather expensive equipment.