most underpowered class in game?

[TomisFeline]

we know who is OP...

...who is the winner of the UP?

and why?

[Ivory]

Probably enchanters. All they can do is turn into ogres to pretend and be shamans, but it not fooling anyone.

[starkind]

Underpowered at what?

Everything...? Sorta rangers. They can snare stuff all day tho.

Wizards aren't terrible ppl just don't understand the class real well or have any decent clickies.

Rogues and wars... tough to solo...without 250k in gear.

Druids at healing.

[Bardp1999]

If you took ports away from Druids they would easily be the most worthless, but as it stands I would have to vote Bard. Problem with Bard is its a very high effort class to play and the vast majority of P99ers are lazy as fuck so most Bards are completely worthless. Its either thinking playing mana song afk is a great contribution to the group, or they charm unnecessarily making kill time go up, or they break enchanter mez, or they are constantly taking damage by doing more of the above bull shit, or they have no idea how to group because they have swarm kited for 50 levels...and are just overall a pain in the ass to be around in-game honestly.

[Fammaden]

Classic/Vanilla: Rogue

Kunark: Magician

Velious: Magician

[DeathsSilkyMist]

As mentioned before, it does depend on what situation you are talking about when saying "underpowered".

Soloing: Rogues

Grouping: Wizards

Raiding: Shadowknights

Overall Toolkit: Magicians

For soloing Rogues lose out. No class is worse at it in the game. The only way a rogue can solo decently well is with a lot of gear, or a lot of time and patience.

For grouping Wizards lose because of the stigma. They are probably the least likely class to get a group on P99. This isn't to say Wizards are bad at being in a group.

For raiding Shadowknights bring nothing to the table on P99. Lifetaps are completely nerfed, they aren't generally allowed to pull, guilds do not employ the harm touch zerging strategy, and they do not have any useful class specific spells/clickies/disciplines.

Toolkit-wise I agree with Fammaden. Magician's get an amazing kit for playing the game when all of the players on the server don't know anything about Everquest. This is because the summoned items they can produce are quite nifty, and basically keep your group where it needs to be. Players don't need to run back to town for food, bandages, etc. Sword of Runes is better than a Fine Steel Long Sword, so they can give under geared players OK weapons too. Their pet is powerful, which means they can handle themselves Solo or in a group. Unfortunately once everybody knows everything about the game, Necromancers have Magician's beat in every way, with the exception of CoTH. There is just no advantage to making a Magician on P99 other than CoTHing.

EDIT: There is one other good thing Magicians can do on P99, and that is level to 50 very quickly on a brand new server. So in the rare instance of starting fresh on a new P99 server, they are quite good as a character you can quickly level to 50 to start farming gear for your next character. This is because their pet is powerful, and they do not need to spend their very limited money on things like food, bandages, etc. They also do not need to rely on bone chips, which are heavily contested early on. They can just buy their spell reagents from the merchant with the money they are saving from summoned items.

[Jibartik]

yeah going with ranger on this one too, nobody is thrilled the ranger showed up except the ranger.

I do think wizards at best are still pretty useless, but I respect them as players.

[PatChapp]

As mentioned before, it does depend on what situation you are talking about when saying "underpowered".

Soloing: Rogues

Grouping: Wizards

Raiding: Shadowknights

Overall Toolkit: Magicians

For soloing Rogues lose out. No class is worse at it in the game. The only way a rogue can solo decently well is with a lot of gear, or a lot of time and patience.

For grouping Wizards lose because of the stigma. They are probably the least likely class to get a group on P99. This isn't to say Wizards are bad at being in a group.

For raiding Shadowknights bring nothing to the table on P99. Lifetaps are completely nerfed, they aren't generally allowed to pull, guilds do not employ the harm touch zerging strategy, and they do not have any useful class specific spells/clickies/disciplines.

Toolkit-wise I agree with Fammaden. Magician's get an amazing kit for playing the game when all of the players on the server don't know anything about Everquest. This is because the summoned items they can produce are quite nifty, and basically keep your group where it needs to be. Players don't need to run back to town for food, bandages, etc. Sword of Runes is better than a Fine Steel Long Sword, so they can give under geared players OK weapons too. Their pet is powerful, which means they can handle themselves Solo or in a group. Unfortunately once everybody knows everything about the game, Necromancers have Magician's beat in every way, with the exception of CoTH. There is just no advantage to making a Magician on P99 other than CoTHing.

EDIT: There is one other good thing Magicians can do on P99, and that is level to 50 very quickly on a brand new server. So in the rare instance of starting fresh on a new P99 server, they are quite good as a character you can quickly level to 50 to start farming gear for your next character. This is because their pet is powerful, and they do not need to spend their very limited money on things like food, bandages, etc. They also do not need to rely on bone chips, which are heavily contested early on. They can just buy their spell reagents from the merchant with the money they are saving from summoned items.

Every raid needs a mage or 2 for pull sticks and rods as well.
Very boring class,feel like a god until lvl 50. Pretty accurate assessment, but they also are a little tough on a fresh server for the first 2 months until the ocean of tears merchant is in game. At that point in the game,we are just worse wizards.

[Jimjam]

What ever I play.

[sajbert]

Controversial opinion: WAR

Pre-kunark WAR is just weak overall. Post kunark they still need a lot of gear and ideally raid-level equipment to perform in groups. Even then WAR lack a lot of utility in comparison to PAL or SK, the lack of snap aggro hurts as well. Finding a group is not always easy for this group-dependent class. Outside of heavy twinking they can't solo unless you're the type of player who's into self-flagellation.

The fact that a raid-equipped WAR with all the bells and whistles is a beast and that they eventually end up being a mandatory component in the majority of raids doesn't carry the class as a whole in my view.

I can see anyone rolling a DRU or RNG having a great time solo as well as in groups whilst also being able to farm plat and at the same time being welcome in raids. Heck, a RNG can even put out decent DPS once geared well. A DRU will always have POTG.

I can't see as many players having a good time with the WAR which it ends up as my pick for the most underpowered class in the game.

[Ivory]

Pre-kunark WAR is just weak overall.

If combat bandaging was still in... warriors are actually really good soloers. They get a ton of EXP per kill, and can kill non-stop at 50% health (at least till mid 30's, as far as I went before going back to something else).

Pre kunark they get a really nice berserk ax from rathe mountains that makes this bandage soloing really effective.

But once they took out combat bandaging, they lost their super regen and it become lot harder.

[bomaroast]

Combat bandaging was not 'taken out.' It was a bug that needed to be fixed. It's designed to be an out-of-combat skill.

I'd say the most underpowered class is paladins. They're either a druid-level healer with underpowered HP buffs if they're willing to sit all the time and never melee, or they're the lowest dps melee class that can toss a fraction of the healing needed to keep a group running.

[Coridan]

For raiding Shadowknights bring nothing to the table on P99. Lifetaps are completely nerfed, they aren't generally allowed to pull, guilds do not employ the harm touch zerging strategy, and they do not have any useful class specific spells/clickies/disciplines.
.

In Classic era SKs aare fantastic raid tanks and taggers.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

In Classic era SKs aare fantastic raid tanks and taggers.

Good point. Before disciplines get added there isn't a huge gap between Warriors and hybrids.

[Keebz]

Before discs, warriors are completely unnecessary.

[PlsNoBan]

I've always felt like druids suck ass outside of porting and PL. Heals are the weakest of the healers. Sustained damage in groups is ass. Raids ur just a crappy spot healer with 1 buff 1 debuff? I'd never take a druid in my group unless I was super desperate and it was the only heals available. Only want 1 in raid for skin basically. Extras can spot heal but in every situation another shm/clr would fill the role better. Lot of ranger hate in this thread but rangers are serviceable tanks in classic for a lot of content and in a chain pulling xp group almost definitely output more dps than a druid due to not having significant mana constraints. I'd take a ranger tank over a warrior in many cases. Threat is very often more important than the survivability difference in group content.

If u wanna be a port/PL bitch then you do you. Other than that the class is a trashcan. I always feel bad when noobs ask what class to make and everyone spams druid and that poor fella doesn't know any better til it's too late.

[Swish]

SK isn't awful on raids if you're a small crew.

[Jibartik]

Combat bandaging was not 'taken out.' It was a bug that needed to be fixed. It's designed to be an out-of-combat skill.


not to turn this thread in to the custom content thread, but combat bandaging should be custom content skill

[DMN]

It's a poor question because there are too many categories of playing the game where the answer will be different. solo, small group, large/full group, small raid, big raid.

[Selene]

Well, well...seems like 3 of the 4 classes i play are mentioned on this thread :D

I'll start with the one closest to my heart...I'll agree with the posters above that a mage's toolkit is limited (and by that i assume you mean no CC). But I think people are kidding themselves when they say a mage is underpowered. I have solo'd past 55 without having to chain summon pets. Fights hardly take any effort. I melt blue cons when facing them 1v1 faster than almost any class besides a wizard dumping all of his mana, and for me it takes - if sticking with one pet - just a 1/4 of my mana bar at most, while with chain summoning i have 90% of my mana remaining. Not sure how that's underpowered.

I get the lack of CC sucks but honestly, there are plenty of places to kill that require no CC. Even past 55. And also, anyone who's actually played a mage for a long time and knows about the class will be able to handle 2 mobs, sometimes 3 if they are weaker, using the earth pet and its root. The pet should almost never have to face more than 1 mob at a time if you do the root dance right.

As for druid, I do feel the class is offensively weak, but that's the tradeoff - it's such a versatile class essentially containing three different gameplay styles (root rotting like a shammy/necro, charm fighting like an enchanter, or quadding like a wizard) but obviously can't be the best at any of them. Good for people who get bored playing in a certain style for too long.

I'm not going to defend paladin, because quite frankly it has been EQ's best kept secret (if you like solo dungeon crawling).

[eqravenprince]

Solo - Rogue and it's not even close
Group - Wizard and it's not even close
Raid - who cares

[arc]

Combat bandaging was not 'taken out.' It was a bug that needed to be fixed. It's designed to be an out-of-combat skill.

I'd say the most underpowered class is paladins. They're either a druid-level healer with underpowered HP buffs if they're willing to sit all the time and never melee, or they're the lowest dps melee class that can toss a fraction of the healing needed to keep a group running.

pallys are great pullers and decent group tanks

fun class but underpowered for sure

not as weak as rangers imo

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Well, well...seems like 3 of the 4 classes i play are mentioned on this thread :D

I'll start with the one closest to my heart...I'll agree with the posters above that a mage's toolkit is limited (and by that i assume you mean no CC). But I think people are kidding themselves when they say a mage is underpowered. I have solo'd past 55 without having to chain summon pets. Fights hardly take any effort. I melt blue cons when facing them 1v1 faster than almost any class besides a wizard dumping all of his mana, and for me it takes - if sticking with one pet - just a 1/4 of my mana bar at most, while with chain summoning i have 90% of my mana remaining. Not sure how that's underpowered.

I get the lack of CC sucks but honestly, there are plenty of places to kill that require no CC. Even past 55. And also, anyone who's actually played a mage for a long time and knows about the class will be able to handle 2 mobs, sometimes 3 if they are weaker, using the earth pet and its root. The pet should almost never have to face more than 1 mob at a time if you do the root dance right.

As for druid, I do feel the class is offensively weak, but that's the tradeoff - it's such a versatile class essentially containing three different gameplay styles (root rotting like a shammy/necro, charm fighting like an enchanter, or quadding like a wizard) but obviously can't be the best at any of them. Good for people who get bored playing in a certain style for too long.

I'm not going to defend paladin, because quite frankly it has been EQ's best kept secret (if you like solo dungeon crawling).

Underpowered doesn't mean they suck or are unplayable. Luckily in P99 all classes can work pretty well in most situations. I wasn't trying to suggest a Magician is unplayable on P99. Their toolkit is simply generally inferior to the other major pet classes such as Necromancer and Enchanter, so they lose out in most class comparisons. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play one, it just means you need to know what you are getting in to when you pick Magician. Same with Rogues. Great DPS class, but you need to know that you are going to have a tough time soloing. That means you should plan on making sure you are good at having groups lined up.

[plzrelax]

I think at different points in the game different classes have various power spikes. Druid for example are very strong in their 20s, easily able to solo yellows. But by 35 or so, definitely by 40, shamans and clerics overtake them in their usefulness in groups and those nukes don’t seem to hit so hard anymore. My modest paladin was a superhero in unrest from 20-40 or so but at higher levels these twink monks running around are stronger in every way

[Trexller]

Raiding: Shadowknights


For raiding Shadowknights bring nothing to the table on P99. Lifetaps are completely nerfed, they aren't generally allowed to pull, guilds do not employ the harm touch zerging strategy, and they do not have any useful class specific spells/clickies/disciplines.



SK's AC debuffs stack with most everything, land easier than cripple, increase raid DPS and also make the SK the rampage tank.

just like nature intended.

[Goldknyght]

What ever I play.

I know the feeling LoL

[Snagglepuss]

Over the years, I felt like knights never got the love they deserved on this server until more recently. Later patches help tremendously, but a well geared knight can really hold his own in a raid situation and should be the preferred tank for trash clearing and many encounters.

When played correctly, I feel like wizards bring tremendous utility and depth to a group, especially in places like Sebilis (grabbing aggro with flux staff and root parking melee and casters out of line of sight, stun interrupts on casters, and ability to burn mobs down). But wizards without VP robe and such are kinda gimped compared to other dps classes. Even mages get that clicky staff from Chardok.

I guess I don't know whether I'm thinking of under powered or under appreciated.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

SK's AC debuffs stack with most everything, land easier than cripple, increase raid DPS and also make the SK the rampage tank.

just like nature intended.

Oh don't get me wrong. I love my SK, and they can bring utility to a raid if the guild agrees to it. But on P99 Shadowknights are typically not used in the raid scene once kunark comes out. AC debuffs are nice, but realisticially only used in a handful of raid situations, and even then guilds would prefer you came with a different class lol. That is just the reality of P99. All of the unique features of a Shadowknight that would be useful in raids have either been nerfed, or simply not used in the P99 metas.

[Loadsamoney]

Would've said Ranger pre-Velious, until they get Call of the Predator. Then they become an ADPS monster like Bard.

Is it just me though, or do most Bards get a bad rap for being lazy?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Would've said Ranger pre-Velious, until they get Call of the Predator. Then they become an ADPS monster like Bard.

Is it just me though, or do most Bards get a bad rap for being lazy?

Yeah Rangers aren't bad in Velious. They have CoTP and Weaponshield discipline, which allows them to tank in some situations. Trueshot discipline can also be decent DPS I believe, albeit for a short period.

As for Bards, I wouldn't say they are lazy. They are simply called that because other classes do not require as much effort as a Bard. Most bards are probably alts, which means most players aren't used to constantly weaving 3-4 spells. And if you aren't doing that, then you are not playing a Bard very optimally. Not saying Bards shouldn't learn to play their class better, but I think the number of players who main Bard is actually pretty small. So Bards more than other classes are just not going to be played as well.

[Skarne]

I got carpal tunnel playing my bard. The pain was so sweet because it meant victory.

[Loadsamoney]

Yeah Rangers aren't bad in Velious. They have CoTP and Weaponshield discipline, which allows them to tank in some situations. Trueshot discipline can also be decent DPS I believe, albeit for a short period.

As for Bards, I wouldn't say they are lazy. They are simply called that because other classes do not require as much effort as a Bard. Most bards are probably alts, which means most players aren't used to constantly weaving 3-4 spells. And if you aren't doing that, then you are not playing a Bard very optimally. Not saying Bards shouldn't learn to play their class better, but I think the number of players who main Bard is actually pretty small. So Bards more than other classes are just not going to be played as well.


I would main a Bard if they would just make it a little more realistic and reasonable for a Bard to be able to get their Epic. It's stupidly and unnecessarily bottlenecked compared to most other Epics, and even if you can afford White Scales, it's SO HARD to find anyone willing to SELL them to you.

[Skarne]

I would main a Bard if they would just make it a little more realistic and reasonable for a Bard to be able to get their Epic. It's stupidly and unnecessarily bottlenecked compared to most other Epics, and even if you can afford White Scales, it's SO HARD to find anyone willing to SELL them to you.

but it feels that much better when you finally get it! It took me a few years but eventually got the scales. I had everything ready up to that point and I had the epic in an evening.

You're right though...Bard epic is probably the hardest next to Magician. I actually think magician is a little harder than bard but that may be open to debate.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I would main a Bard if they would just make it a little more realistic and reasonable for a Bard to be able to get their Epic. It's stupidly and unnecessarily bottlenecked compared to most other Epics, and even if you can afford White Scales, it's SO HARD to find anyone willing to SELL them to you.

I think a lot of people share this sentiment, which is one reason why Bards tend to be alts people play when they are tired of their main. Bards are like Druids in my estimation. Like Bards, most Druids are alts rather than mains. The difference is Druids don't require as much attention/skill as Bards, so it is less noticeable when a player is playing them sub-optimally.

[eqravenprince]

Bard song twisting is why I don't play Bard. Reason I would play Bard is to be one that does not swarm kite. Dumbest thing ever!

[Loadsamoney]

I think a lot of people share this sentiment, which is one reason why Bards tend to be alts people play when they are tired of their main. Bards are like Druids in my estimation. Like Bards, most Druids are alts rather than mains. The difference is Druids don't require as much attention/skill as Bards, so it is less noticeable when a player is playing them sub-optimally.

If anything, I think that would be a much better change to Blue and would differentiate the two servers: Shorter respawn timers on Blue. Make it so, Lady Vox and Gorenaire for instance, respawns in 24 hours instead of a whole stinking week. This way people trying to get their Epics have a more realistic chance of accomplishing it, the price of MQ's wouldn't be so astronomically gouged, and big dick guilds wouldn't have to pencil push each other so hard for mob rights.

[Loadsamoney]

but it feels that much better when you finally get it! It took me a few years but eventually got the scales. I had everything ready up to that point and I had the epic in an evening.

You're right though...Bard epic is probably the hardest next to Magician. I actually think magician is a little harder than bard but that may be open to debate.

Bard Epic is also BiS by far for them, never need to use another instrument. Even if it's a little less optimal, I would just twist with the 1.8 SSS permanently glued in my hand forever. Save bag space, save hotkeys and simplify play.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I feel like its design was inspired by the Master Sword in Ocarina of Time. Has a very similar looking hilt with a broadened blade that narrows at the crossguard, and even a gem at the point of contact.

[Bardp1999]

/Melody for the love of god Rogean

[Trexller]

/Melody for the love of god Rogean

Rogean:

Item Links - Fair play

Rogue Shroud of Stealth - Fair Play

Melody - All bards can go get fucked

Magicians - We're trying to figure out how to delete this class entirely

Sincerely, Rogean.

P.S. fuck you for asking.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Rogean:
Item Links - Fair play


To be fair on item links, it is possible they are simply too difficult to remove. Rogean doesn't have access to the client source code, so some changes are going to be extremely difficult to implement, and probably not worth the trouble. Based on the changes they made to the UI over the years, I am pretty sure they would have removed them if they could.

[cd288]

Underpowered at what?

Everything...? Sorta rangers. They can snare stuff all day tho.

Wizards aren't terrible ppl just don't understand the class real well or have any decent clickies.

Rogues and wars... tough to solo...without 250k in gear.

Druids at healing.

If you need clickies to make the class decent then it's a bad class

[PlsNoBan]

It's a poor question because there are too many categories of playing the game where the answer will be different. solo, small group, large/full group, small raid, big raid.

That's why you look at the overall picture and try to determine which class has the lowest overall effectiveness across all the categories

Druid solo: Okay via quadding. Still gets outclassed by several of the better solo classes. Can't effectively solo in dungeons/named mobs outside of super niche situations with animal charm

Druid group of any size: Bad. Last resort healer at best

Druid raid of any size: Bad. Last resort spot healer with 1 useful buff and 1 debuff

I don't think any other class is OVERALL as weak as a druid is. The whole "jack of all trades" argument is cute and all but in practice it just leaves you with a class that's crap at multiple things and good at nothing.

[Jibartik]

If you need clickies to make the class decent then it's a bad class

TIL all classes without sow are bad.

[Vivitron]

Bard Epic is also BiS by far for them, never need to use another instrument. Even if it's a little less optimal, I would just twist with the 1.8 SSS permanently glued in my hand forever. Save bag space, save hotkeys and simplify play.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I feel like its design was inspired by the Master Sword in Ocarina of Time. Has a very similar looking hilt with a broadened blade that narrows at the crossguard, and even a gem at the point of contact.

Epic is good but even the laziest are not going to settle for 1.8 runspeed or downtime regen.

[Loadsamoney]

Epic is good but even the laziest are not going to settle for 1.8 runspeed or downtime regen.

I’m a whole other breed of lazy. I’ll camp a single mob with no risk of aggroing adds, kill it, sit my ass down for 6 minutes and play another game or do some chores until it respawns. All day.

It’s why I love Paineel guards so much. Safe, risk free leveling with good, consistent coin.

[Gustoo]

I'm a ranger guy at heart

But I'd say they're the worst class, all around. Mostly because their dungeon crawling ability is so weak, and on this server a bard with elitespeed song is basically a better tracker, sorta.

On live the ranger track list was dead nuts perfect and hyper range and really put bard and druid to shame outdoors, but it seems always kinda funny here.

[Ivory]

I'm a ranger guy at heart

But I'd say they're the worst class, all around.

No way! Rangers have archery!! Which is a huuugeee advantage over other hybrids / melees.

It basically lets them solo efficiently whenever they want, and kill higher targets (such as sand giants) for money.... meaning they can also farm up cash if they want to.

Sure a warrior "can" use archery, and alone it's pretty effective.... but rangers being able to use spells also means they can dish out some good damage at range (which makes exping that way effective).

If I were playing a melee or hybrid and soloing was one of my big criteria, it's an easy choice to go for ranger. SK's are also good (and can do "shadow archer" stuff, using their pets as extra dot damage).... but rangers are just kings at it. Even more since they have track and can dominate outdoor zones finding exactly the targets they need to level effectively.

[Swish]

/Melody for the love of god Rogean

https://i.imgur.com/LdCm8tR.gif

[Trexller]

https://i.imgur.com/LdCm8tR.gif

neither are item links

people piss and moan and bitch and cry about non-classic features, or when they get removed

but

nobody

ever

says

jack

shit

about

ITEM LINKS

[Trexller]

To be fair on item links, it is possible they are simply too difficult to remove. Rogean doesn't have access to the client source code, so some changes are going to be extremely difficult to implement, and probably not worth the trouble. Based on the changes they made to the UI over the years, I am pretty sure they would have removed them if they could.

so they would just make some other change, like one that prevented a link from appearing in the text bar when you clicked the item icon in the item window. They've fucked us out of enough QOL features, they would figure out a way to prevent item links if they wanted to

care to take a shot at Rogue "shroud of stealth"?

Rogues on P99 move undetected by virtually everything, this was a luclin AA called shroud of stealth.

prior to that, Rogues basically just had an invis ability and some other mobs that see invis were flagged to ignore hidden rogues.

but buff timers, no, no you can't have buff timers.

smh ffs

[Gustoo]

You can bet 100% that Nilbog loses sleep over how to remove item linking.

Getting bags in a trade window from a dude in gfay or freeport is the only way to go. Everything else is new school non classic BS.

Ivory - SK's and Paladins can both solo in dungeons which rangers cant. That is why rangers are the best. I quite enjoy limiting my playtime to outdoor zones exclusively and in velious with all the animals in GD and other places rangers can do quite a bit of great work.

But overall a paladin can lull his way deep into a dungeon and create single pull scenarios and bust through mobs and mana free heal himself and do it again and again while a ranger really can't hack it in a dungeon.

And much of the most valuable content in the game resides in dungeons.

so rangers are not CRAP, they are just the overall weakest class, despite their unique situational advantages.

[Gustoo]

Regarding Shroud of Death vs actual rogue sneak hide - I know that rogue sneak hide worked against regular mobs and against undead mobs in live. Originally on P99 all hide worked against both types of mobs which was bitterly missed by me when they fixed it.

But I'm sure there are some mobs that are supposed to see through sneak / hide

[Danth]

offoptic: Item links could be largely removed if the P99 admins wanted them gone. That came up during development of the P99 Green UI. The folks working on the UI proposed a means of disabling the majority of item links and the P99 admins (Nilbog and Rogean both) wanted it left in. I saw the conversation myself since I was helping out testing/etc. They feel links reduce their own staff workload due to trade scamming reduction. A few other non classic features were deliberately left in place for various reasons as well, such as some non-classicly large fonts and multiple chat windows. There are some other non-classic things left in because they either don't know how to change it or there simply wasn't time/ambition to do so, so "Why is this not classic?" amounts to something you have to answer on almost a case-by-case basis.

ontopic: I thought about this subjectc a little bit and feel it's harder to pick out a "most" under-powered character because there are several classes that might warrant that term in various aspects of the game. No one class sticks out so dramatically as enchanters do on the overpowered side of the spectrum. I tend to be down on Wizards but even those do pretty well for a subset of folks who simply want to level up solo then raid.

Danth

[Ivory]

Ivory - SK's and Paladins can both solo in dungeons which rangers cant. That is why rangers are the best. I quite enjoy limiting my playtime to outdoor zones exclusively and in velious with all the animals in GD and other places rangers can do quite a bit of great work.


It really depends which dungeon. SKs are the best for dungeon soloing, since they can FD off problems and invis and invis to undead to have a range of options.

But paladins are really only going to be able to solo in undead dungeons. Where they can single or double pull.... and burst damage if they need to. And invis to where they need to go to set up for some easy pulls.

And that's true with ranger also. Like going to cazic a ranger could do pretty easily (outdoor, so harmony + invis, do gators or something).

So I would put ranger dungeoning at the level of paladins. Both able to root control (with ranger having superior multi-mob ability, since if you can root it you can bow rot it down... so one or two mobs is no problem for a ranger). Relying on pacify alone would be really risky for a paladin. I would pacify solo as a cleric, and without gate it would be a lottt more of a problem with critical fails.

But, while they may be about equal in a dungeon.... a ranger is FARRRR better outdoors. Making it their playground. A ranger can easily level up to 50 while soloing (and doing it effectively).

And they can even get some good EXP after 50 soloing. Where as paladins are going to start having a lot rougher time with harder hitting mobs. Soloing in karnors, for example, is a lot harder for a paladin than a ranger.

End of day,

Paladin = Great grouping, mid-low soloability (indoors, no fear kite makes them bad outdoors)

SK = Good grouping, mid-high soloability (indoors + outdoors)

Rangers = Great grouping, very high soloability (outdoors)

[DeathsSilkyMist]

It really depends which dungeon. SKs are the best for dungeon soloing, since they can FD off problems and invis and invis to undead to have a range of options.

But paladins are really only going to be able to solo in undead dungeons. Where they can single or double pull.... and burst damage if they need to. And invis to where they need to go to set up for some easy pulls.

And that's true with ranger also. Like going to cazic a ranger could do pretty easily (outdoor, so harmony + invis, do gators or something).

So I would put ranger dungeoning at the level of paladins. Both able to root control (with ranger having superior multi-mob ability, since if you can root it you can bow rot it down... so one or two mobs is no problem for a ranger). Relying on pacify alone would be really risky for a paladin. I would pacify solo as a cleric, and without gate it would be a lottt more of a problem with critical fails.

But, while they may be about equal in a dungeon.... a ranger is FARRRR better outdoors. Making it their playground. A ranger can easily level up to 50 while soloing (and doing it effectively).

And they can even get some good EXP after 50 soloing. Where as paladins are going to start having a lot rougher time with harder hitting mobs. Soloing in karnors, for example, is a lot harder for a paladin than a ranger.

End of day,

Paladin = Great grouping, mid-low soloability (indoors, no fear kite makes them bad outdoors)

SK = Good grouping, mid-high soloability (indoors + outdoors)

Rangers = Great grouping, very high soloability (outdoors)

I disagree a bit about this assessment regarding Paladins and Rangers. Paladins can do dungeon crawling in any place where you can lull to progress. It is slower than FD, and can be more consequential if you fail, but you can get through mobs via lull spamming. Since you have a lull clickie as a Paladin, you aren't even wasting mana. If you do screw up, you can basically Divine Aura and run out of the dungeon. Just be careful of training people. Also, if you are level 60, dying isn't a huge deal due to having a 90% res.

Rangers can't do dungeons because their lull only works outdoors, but a Paladin doesn't have that restriction. That is why Rangers are generally the worst dungeoneers of the Hybrids, because some of their most important kit options are outdoors only.

Generally speaking I would say SK's are better at dungeon diving when speed is the key, and where you can't lull. If you can lull and have all day to play, a Paladin can dungeon dive just fine.

SK's are generally better anywhere where you can fear kite, because that is safer and faster than face tanking and healing. Paladins have the edge whenever you are fighting something that cannot be fear kited.

[Loadsamoney]

I would argue Paladins solo better than SK's solely on the grounds of their healing spells. Makes them much more self sufficient in combat and able to win out lengthy battles of attrition that they otherwise couldn't survive on one health bar. Their HoT's are especially juicy considering their HP to Mana ratio, and that combined with Superior Heal is enough of a spike heal even at 60 to give them all the staying power they need and even make decent secondary healers.

SK's have better DPS but their life leech isn't nearly enough to offset the damage they receive at later levels. And while I play a Ranger, I haven't yet gotten Chloroplast, so I can't weigh in if the regen from that spell is enough to significantly cut down on either incomnig damage or downtime between battles.

[Swish]

I would argue Paladins solo better than SK's solely on the grounds of their healing spells. Makes them much more self sufficient in combat and able to win out lengthy battles of attrition that they otherwise couldn't survive on one health bar. Their HoT's are especially juicy considering their HP to Mana ratio, and that combined with Superior Heal is enough of a spike heal even at 60 to give them all the staying power they need and even make decent secondary healers.


A fear kiting SK doesn't take many hits though <3

[Keebz]

Probably Paladin or SK or Druid.

SKs are like really great in solo/group contexts and are actually strong in certain raid zones like PoF, so I have trouble saying they are under powered per se. Druid gets ports, SoW and Charm animal, so they can solo well enough and get to port, sow and spot heal raids. As for pallies, on raids you still want 1 or 2 to DS and Soulfire people--DA can also be useful, and you're a slightly better ramp tank than SK, though can't do the tagging and flopping. Solo I hear Paladins can do stuff at the top end, but I've never seen it.

I'd say leveling up, it's probably Paladin. At the high end, probably Druid.

All of the classes played well can be perfectly useful though and they all have their niches.

Honorable mentions:
Ranger: saved by WS and not doing wet noodle DPS. It's always nice to see rangers at raids and they can track and FTE race and solo a little. They have a solid niche.
Wizard: saved by flux staff and TL. For 32k dragons they also truck, but the most useful thing they do is kite and move people around at instant speed. Wizards are lowkey important for high end raiding here.

[Tunabros]

probably warrior

they are weak as shit without gear

and they are the most gear dependent class in game

their job is to just soak damage/keep aggro on raids

[socialist]

I would argue Paladins solo better than SK's solely on the grounds of their healing spells. Makes them much more self sufficient in combat and able to win out lengthy battles of attrition that they otherwise couldn't survive on one health bar. Their HoT's are especially juicy considering their HP to Mana ratio, and that combined with Superior Heal is enough of a spike heal even at 60 to give them all the staying power they need and even make decent secondary healers.

SK's have better DPS but their life leech isn't nearly enough to offset the damage they receive at later levels. And while I play a Ranger, I haven't yet gotten Chloroplast, so I can't weigh in if the regen from that spell is enough to significantly cut down on either incomnig damage or downtime between battles.

I mean, if both classes just facetank mobs to death, I'm sure a paladin is better. It's just that SKs don't solo that way. Fear kiting is much more efficient than facetanking mobs and healing afterwards, and from level 45 onwards, SKs can fear kite for free with two cheap clickies. Even if a paladin uses Deepwater Helm to heal for free, this takes so long that I suspect the SK will achieve a higher kills/hour. Then add the immense utility of FD and instant invis, and suddenly the SK is a genuinely decent soloer while paladin remains barely good enough to be worth doing it at all. Paladins only solo better if it's inside a densely populated dungeon where you can't really fear kite, and then I'm not sure a paladin has any business going around soloing in dungeons unless it's a twinked alt fucking around in Kaesora or something.

[Swish]

I mean, if both classes just facetank mobs to death, I'm sure a paladin is better. It's just that SKs don't solo that way. Fear kiting is much more efficient than facetanking mobs and healing afterwards, and from level 45 onwards, SKs can fear kite for free with two cheap clickies. Even if a paladin uses Deepwater Helm to heal for free, this takes so long that I suspect the SK will achieve a higher kills/hour. Then add the immense utility of FD and instant invis, and suddenly the SK is a genuinely decent soloer while paladin remains barely good enough to be worth doing it at all. Paladins only solo better if it's inside a dungeon where you can't really fear kite, and then I'm not sure a paladin has any business going around soloing in dungeons unless it's a twinked alt fucking around in Kaesora or something.

Right. In both cases though they're better off grouping, and in a group setting the SK can pull better/can FD/invis quick and move around more easily...has quicker snap aggro and can aggro multiple mobs with an aoe taunt assuming nobody else has done much to the adds.

Paladins get to LOH because the cleric AFK'd or was caught netflixing.

[Kirdan]

Rangers are more capable of soloing dungeons than people think. Calm animal works indoors, just doesn't come up often. I used it well in perma leveling up. Root splitting is still a thing, and the ability to proc slow while doing significantly more damage makes a big dent in the healing gap between rangers and paladins.

[Loadsamoney]

Rangers are more capable of soloing dungeons than people think. Calm animal works indoors, just doesn't come up often. I used it well in perma leveling up. Root splitting is still a thing, and the ability to proc slow while doing significantly more damage makes a big dent in the healing gap between rangers and paladins.

Rangers also get regen and damage shields, which do make a difference long-term.

[Selene]

rangers soloing in dungeons only works as a practical measure if it's a dungeon where they can use harmony. they won't be doing any dungeon crawling solo in the places where it counts and has good loot (HS, seb, chardok, etc.).

paladins imo are the best melee class in dungeon crawling with the aim of actually taking on camps (and most camps are 3+ mobs, if not more, and a good chunk of them are casters, which rangers and SK suck at fighting if you have to facetank without stun).

monks i guess are the only real competition as a melee class that can solo reliably in dungeons, but even they have tough times breaking camps with multiple spawns, or in fighting casters (without really high resist gear). i do think monks are superior to paladins though in survivability and in terms of risk due to FD.

[Selene]

just to add to my previous post, i think people sort of sub-consciously equate a boring class to an underpowered class in this thread. mages and paladins aren't regarded as particularly "fun" classes, and people play them less than their counterparts in the same archetype, so I guess less people play those classes enough to comment or defend them. i definitely have been bored with both of those classes at various points (it sucks taking forever to kill anything as a paladin, and mages can be a little too simple in fighting style admittedly). but just because they're boring to most players doesn't mean they're underpowered!

[Tethler]

I dungeon crawl a bit on my ranger and am able to break camps with root/snare. Pulling a group of 3 mobs with an initial root. Root a second add. Then root and snare the one you want to kill. Sit and camp. Wait 1 minute or so for all the roots the break so the adds reset and the snared one will be standing where you left it when you re-enter game.

It's a bit of extra work, but doable.

[Jimjam]

My ranger was able to break into and camp frenzied broodling in Velks sub 60.

Roots and snares, combined with zone lines or even just camping out aggro, go a long way.

[Cecily]

so they would just make some other change, like one that prevented a link from appearing in the text bar when you clicked the item icon in the item window. They've fucked us out of enough QOL features, they would figure out a way to prevent item links if they wanted to

care to take a shot at Rogue "shroud of stealth"?

Rogues on P99 move undetected by virtually everything, this was a luclin AA called shroud of stealth.

prior to that, Rogues basically just had an invis ability and some other mobs that see invis were flagged to ignore hidden rogues.

but buff timers, no, no you can't have buff timers.

smh ffs


Rogue stealth was always better than normal invis. It was crazy god tier shit that shroud worked on, the mobs that specifically saw rogues stopped seeing us. Rogues can't move through Chardok, HS, NToV, VP (Dragons). There's ALOT that still sees us, leaning heavily towards raid zones but not always.

[Gustoo]

All the ranger defenders...I agree, they can get the job done.

Track is the main thing that they really are better than anyone else at, and people get by with bard track just fine for the most part, since they are lightning fast so even that is a bit negated. Maybe rangers should have had a self only super travel buff that they could keep up at all times by endgame velious or something.

They can bust into dungeons, but just less well than SK's, Paladins, Monks, and Rogues.

Only warriors are worse in that respect and are a true contender for "most underpowered" but they are the best at so much, that I think the ranger takes the cake.

[MrSparkle001]

I always thought rangers should have an improved Bind Wounds ability, and ability to make healing potions etc. But I always pictured them more like LOTR rangers where Aragorn could heal wounds with plants.

They needed something in classic. Tracking is great but the whole bow thing was a bit of a let down.

[starkind]

Ya.

Rangers need something.

Rogue poisons should be like 1 application for a buff that lasts an hr. I would make it dispellable for pvp fun.

Bards need to be nerfed so their songs effect 5 mobs tops. And maybe give them a small buff in some other way. Like double attack. Or a dd that uses all of their mana to do like 10k dmg. Or something like that.

Wizards should be able to hit 6 with aoe and 7 mobs with alkabors.

[MrSparkle001]

Honestly I think wizard and shaman AOE should have either no target limits or a high limit like 10, and made useful so you might actually consider AOE groups. A simple damage increase for AOE spells might be all that's needed.

One of my favorite group types in DAOC was a PBAOE group, where you'd gather a crowd of mobs and start bombing with those high damage PBAOEs. Risky but oh so satisfying. Everquest is a different kind of game entirely and never really explored the viability of AOE groups. AOE spells felt like more of an afterthought. It was always odd that a bard was better at AOE than a wizard. But that's classic Everquest for you lol.

[eqravenprince]

Ya.

Rangers need something.

Rogue poisons should be like 1 application for a buff that lasts an hr. I would make it dispellable for pvp fun.

Bards need to be nerfed so their songs effect 5 mobs tops. And maybe give them a small buff in some other way. Like double attack. Or a dd that uses all of their mana to do like 10k dmg. Or something like that.

Wizards should be able to hit 6 with aoe and 7 mobs with alkabors.

Rogue poison should be more like 10 sec spell to create/apply poison, remove components altogether.

Wizards already solo good enough, they need something to make them more useful in a group. Every single other class brings more to a group. No healing, no sustained damage, very light cc. I'd argue that Wizards deserve to have the animations that Enchanters get instead of Enchanters getting them.

[socialist]

The most underpowered class depends on what you value most. You can categorize EQ roughly into three levels of gameplay: solo, group and raid. No class is great at all of them (except maybe shaman, but the act of playing a shaman on raids isn't exactly thrilling), so the title of most underpowered class is completely subjective depending on what you care most about. A class like warrior could be the worst in the game for someone who doesn't raid at all, or the best for someone who focuses on raiding.

Ranger is excellent for more casual players who just want to live in Norrath. They're good enough tanks to do the job for just about any group content, and they're good enough DPS to fill that role as well. One of the worst things for a group's longevity is if the tank leaves, so being a backup tank is amazing for keeping a group going. They're great pullers outdoors, and while they aren't particularly awesome soloers, they can do it. And just having SoW and healing spells is a huge boon for a casual player who wants to see the world. Nothing's worse than getting knocked down to 30% hp on a class that has no healing ability at all, it takes absolutely forever to regenerate naturally.

But it's not a powerful class, and it carries that stigma from ancient times when nobody understood that it's actually great for a ranger to fill one of the group's DPS spots because their output is good enough and they bring snare and serve as an adequate backup tank. If I'm taking a group somewhere where it's really inconvenient to replace the tank, I'll gladly bring a ranger as DPS. They're weak on paper because theorycrafting doesn't take into account all those times when the tank goes "oh gotta go sry" and it takes an hour to find a new one. They're great in practice because that shit happens all the time.

[Jimjam]

Wizards should have got monster summon, representing them binding a creature to their will through brute force of magical shackles instead of summoning through pacts and deals or through subtle whispers.

The monster should have an attack and guard button but no back off.

Souldawouldacoulda.

[Jimjam]

Building on the comment about rangers being good as back up tanks / pullers ... they also, when geared aren’t reliant on having haste in group to close to max dps. They aren’t reliant on a shaman or druid in group for str. The group isn’t reliant on druid/mag for half decent damage shield.

Ranger may seem to be a little boy, but he can put his fingers in a lot of dykes!

[MrSparkle001]

Wizards should have got monster summon, representing them binding a creature to their will through brute force of magical shackles instead of summoning through pacts and deals or through subtle whispers.

The monster should have an attack and guard button but no back off.

Souldawouldacoulda.

Wizards should have gotten familiars that could either boost a certain spell damage type or provide other bonuses to things like stats and resists. Picture imps, cats, faerie dragons, mini eyeballs etc. They can help in combat more or buff the wizard more depending on the familiar. You know like you could have a puma familiar that is good at combat but doesn't provide a lot of spell buffing, or a faerie dragon that buffs magical damage but doesn't fare as well if attacked, or a fire imp that buffs fire spell damage and attacks with fire attacks, etc.

A similar system was used in Neverwinter Nights, and it was fun and useful. Wizards in Everquest are bland.

[socialist]

Wizards should have gotten familiars that could either boost a certain spell damage type or provide other bonuses to things like stats and resists. Picture imps, cats, faerie dragons, mini eyeballs etc. They can help in combat more or buff the wizard more depending on the familiar. You know like you could have a puma familiar that is good at combat but doesn't provide a lot of spell buffing, or a faerie dragon that buffs magical damage but doesn't fare as well if attacked, or a fire imp that buffs fire spell damage and attacks with fire attacks, etc.

A similar system was used in Neverwinter Nights, and it was fun and useful. Wizards in Everquest are bland.

That would just be a bit too much like magicians, though. I don't think making wizards yet another pet class is the answer. All they needed to do was give wizards better mana sustain outside of combat. Something that doesn't give them unlimited power inside each fight, but gives them the ability to maintain their output in a grinding group. Basically, give Harvest a much shorter cooldown so you can cast it between each pull. Make it 30 seconds or something instead of ten minutes, and suddenly wizards are way more viable in groups without really impacting their performance inside individual fights.

[MrSparkle001]

That would just be a bit too much like magicians, though. I don't think making wizards yet another pet class is the answer. All they needed to do was give wizards better mana sustain outside of combat. Something that doesn't give them unlimited power inside each fight, but gives them the ability to maintain their output in a grinding group. Basically, give Harvest a much shorter cooldown so you can cast it between each pull. Make it 30 seconds or something instead of ten minutes, and suddenly wizards are way more viable in groups without really impacting their performance inside individual fights.

I like pet classes what can I say. And there's a very fine line between making wizards useful in groups with mana sustain and making them OP. Guess the devs never wanted to walk that line.

It is what it is. This game is 23 years old.

[Zoolander]

Honestly I think wizard and shaman AOE should have either no target limits or a high limit like 10, and made useful so you might actually consider AOE groups. A simple damage increase for AOE spells might be all that's needed.

One of my favorite group types in DAOC was a PBAOE group, where you'd gather a crowd of mobs and start bombing with those high damage PBAOEs. Risky but oh so satisfying. Everquest is a different kind of game entirely and never really explored the viability of AOE groups. AOE spells felt like more of an afterthought. It was always odd that a bard was better at AOE than a wizard. But that's classic Everquest for you lol.

PBAOE works just fine in eq, just put wizards with chanters together and watch entire zones explode.

[PlsNoBan]

PBAOE works just fine in eq, just put wizards with chanters together and watch entire zones explode.

Pretty sure P99 hard capped PBAoE at 25 targets didn't they? Seems you haven't played in quite some time lol. Whole zone AE hasn't been a thing in a while

[Zoolander]

yea, waiting for new server, playing on solo servers atm.

anyways...25 targets in one pull ain't bad either id say.

[Raj]

I would disown my own child or psrent if they even invited a ranger to the group for 1 minute. Wizard too if they dont properly disband right after porting us within a mimute or 2... :p

I secretly always hope the warrior will wipe in the 1st 15 minutes after joining our group and properly ragequit or make up a good excuse to log off. Extra kudos if the cleric was "afk" or "oom" and kills the warrior 2 or 3 times shortly after the 1st wipe/rez. "Ive never seen a tank that loses Hp so quickly, sorry :(" pleads the cleric. In whispers, said cleric can orchestrate 2nd or 3rd wipes of the warrior due to "oops didnt realize healer was so lom." with the puller and any1 else in the group with common sense.

[eunomios]

Most underpowered classes got fixed in Luclin/PoP through AA.

Here are things I think EQ devs got wrong or should have considered.

Wizards have been granted the clarity line. Fits better lorewise... in DnD spells that affect attributes are almost always Transmutation and not Enchantment. Puts a damper on enchanter OPness, and makes Wizards welcome to groups (even if their dps is still bad with clarity).

Warrior crits generate additional Hate.

Rangers get a backstab similar ability at lvl 10 except it requires a bow instead of piercing. More added damage than Backstab, but proportionally longer cooldown.

[7thGate]

Rogue poison should be more like 10 sec spell to create/apply poison, remove components altogether.

Wizards already solo good enough, they need something to make them more useful in a group. Every single other class brings more to a group. No healing, no sustained damage, very light cc. I'd argue that Wizards deserve to have the animations that Enchanters get instead of Enchanters getting them.

Rogue poisons just need something. There's just too many things stacked against them; they would be useable if niche as-is if they infinitely stacked, for example, but the bag space requirements hurt for long grindy sessions. And there are effects that would be strong enough to use in raids, except some of them don't stack with better caster debuffs, slow needs the target to not be root immune and all of them need the target to not be poison immune.

I think Vindi may supposed to be rogue slowable only for a brief period in timeline, based on old forum posts I found poking around looking for raid targets that might only be poison slowable, which would be a cool niche. Pretty sure that's not implemented here though, and went away by Blue timeline anyway when they implemented slow immunity flags vs. just stacking MR.

I keep trying to see if I can find something good to do with poisons. Blinding poison looks most promising for raid use, since nothing is immune to it unless its rooted or poison immune, always lasts 108 seconds. I stopped a raid wipe once when I blinded the flurry after it killed the warriors, and was able to live with Nimble while the raid camped out, so that was kind of neat. Dain's fearable with it too, though I'm not sure if that can actually be used for anything. Its too bad its a gigantic pain in the ass to make and use.

I am kind of annoyed that Rogues get a version of Cripple and Malo that both costs a bunch of money, takes up bag space, can fail, takes 10 seconds to apply, is lower magnitude than the spells and doesn't stack with them. Like, come on, couldn't at least one of those not be the case?

[PlsNoBan]

Guys Druid is the correct answer. Enough with all the wrong answers.

[Raj]

BTW my post above in this thread was just an absurd parody! Apologies if anyone thought I was being serious about disliking rangers and warriors :cool:

I actually love grouping with good rangers and warriors - and I have had the pleasure of grouping with lots of them! This was during classic era in 2000-2004 as well as on Blue99, Green99, & Aradune TLP. :cool:

I leveled a couple wood-elf rangers to pretty high levels on both Aradune TLP and on Blue99. Rangering can be alot of fun and also helpful! :cool:

Oh yeah, wizards are often really nice or good players too even if they arent super efficient or there isnt always a bard or chanter in the group to help them wirh mana regen.

[Tunabros]

druids also kinda suck ass if you were to take away ports from them

they cant heal as well as clerics

and theyre not that offensive/defensive as shamans

[DeathsSilkyMist]

druids also kinda suck ass if you were to take away ports from them

they cant heal as well as clerics

and theyre not that offensive/defensive as shamans

Ports are what make Druids not the worst:) This isn't Luclin and beyond.

Magicians unfortunately have the least useful overall kit for P99. Their pets aren't used outside of soloing/normal grouping, summoned items are mostly just a minor convenience due to everybody knowing everything about the game, and their DD's aren't as good as a Wizard's. The only unique things they can do are CoTH and summon Dispel Staff. Mod Rods are good too, but they aren't a unique mechanic to Magicians. Twitch from Necromancers is the superior Mod Rod.

Not saying you shouldn't play Magicians, or that they are bad. They simply have the least going for them in this timeline and on this specific server with how the pathing works, and how the metas are.

[eqravenprince]

This is how I'd break it down.

Solo/Group/Raid

Warrior - Terrible/Ok/who cares
Shadow Knight - Ok/Great/who cares
Paladin - Ok/Great/who cares

Cleric - Ok/Great/who cares
Shaman - Ok then Great/Great/who cares
Druid - Good/Good/who cares

Rogue - Terrible/Great/who cares
Monk - Ok/Good/who cares
Bard - If you can't swarm kite then just Ok/Great/who cares
Ranger - Ok/Good/who cares

Wizard - Good/Terrible/who cares
Magician - Great/Great/who cares
Necromancer - Great/Great/who cares
Enchanter - Great/Great/who cares

Raiding sucks.

[PlsNoBan]

Raiding on p99 sucks.

FTFY

[eqravenprince]

FTFY

We are on a P99 forum after all... kind of implied =)

[Tunabros]

the bad men took eqravenprince's pixels and he's mad

[socialist]

Like a decade ago, I suggested some form of instancing. Not like the wholesale AoC shit from TLPs, but maybe three serverwide instances of raid zones and then people would have to lock themselves into one of them and compete for content within it. Instead we got a janky system of rotations that nobody likes, and it remains a sever where almost nobody gets to raid for real. In other words, raiding on P99 does suck and there was always a much better solution that nobody cared to look into.

[Zoolander]

Like a decade ago, I suggested some form of instancing. Not like the wholesale AoC shit from TLPs, but maybe three serverwide instances of raid zones and then people would have to lock themselves into one of them and compete for content within it. Instead we got a janky system of rotations that nobody likes, and it remains a sever where almost nobody gets to raid for real. In other words, raiding on P99 does suck and there was always a much better solution that nobody cared to look into.

whats the difference ?

instancing doesnt change anything bout the game. you just reach endgame / your goals faster and quit reroll after anyways.

classic eq is p99. instanced eq is daybreak. pick your poison.

[Heywood]

Rangers is the only correct answer.


They can't do anything better that another class can, apart from tracking.

They can't tank, unless weaponshield. But A monk/sk/pal are more reliable.

They can't dps, unless BFG and trushot. Rogues, monks, even wars are better.

They can snare/root. Druid can do that.

In pvp, they're not strong unless they have BiS gear and a windy. Even then they can't stand toe to toe against a melee class.

SoN and CotP are great tho. will give them that.

[Raj]

Rangers is the only correct answer.


They can't do anything better that another class can, apart from tracking.

They can't tank, unless weaponshield. But A monk/sk/pal are more reliable.

They can't dps, unless BFG and trushot. Rogues, monks, even wars are better.

They can snare/root. Druid can do that.

In pvp, they're not strong unless they have BiS gear and a windy. Even then they can't stand toe to toe against a melee class.

SoN and CotP are great tho. will give them that.

But properly equipped Rangers, Bards, Shamans, clerics, rogues can all tank Exp content for groups up to 60 when geared for HP/AC/resists(situationally) against ENC/SHM slowed mobs. :cool: Rogue is the worst of those due to needing good DEX and relying on procs OR abusing root proximity aggro and essentially tanking warrior/monk style but worse.

A good Boneknight necro can prob tank ENC/SHM slowed mobs for groups a long time too, maybe up to 60? I unfortunately have not seen many necro tanks as they seem to usually prefer their solo or small group exps but know it is possible.

[PlsNoBan]

Rangers is the only correct answer.


They can't do anything better that another class can, apart from tracking.

They can't tank, unless weaponshield. But A monk/sk/pal are more reliable.

They can't dps, unless BFG and trushot. Rogues, monks, even wars are better.

They can snare/root. Druid can do that.

In pvp, they're not strong unless they have BiS gear and a windy. Even then they can't stand toe to toe against a melee class.

SoN and CotP are great tho. will give them that.


1: They can tank quite a bit pre-raid and provide some of the best snap threat in the game last I checked. Unless flame lick has been changed since I last played?

2: Their DPS is fine. Their sustained dps is respectable in group settings. Not the best but certainly not the worst. Are they topping parses in raids? Probably not. Who cares?

3: Druid does less sustained damage. Has arguably less important buffs. Can't hold a candle to clr/shm heals. They can definitely snare and root tho u right.

4: Nobody cares about PvP at all. See population of any EQ PvP server.


Druid still worse class

[socialist]

Rangers is the only correct answer.
In pvp, they're not strong unless they have BiS gear and a windy. Even then they can't stand toe to toe against a melee class.

I don't agree with that part. Rangers are actually very good in PvP. In group situations, they can participate in a melee train just fine, even if they aren't necessarily optimal for it. All that matters in group PvP is having more swinging dicks in your melee train than the opponent does. In solo 1v1 world PvP, rangers have great tools available to them.

A ranger might not beat a warrior in a 1:1 mathematical joust, but if you make use of your ranged options, it's perfectly winnable. Same goes for any other melee matchup. You have access to viable two-handed weapons, and if you fall behind in the joust, you can resort to shooting and quick-casting spells between clashes. Ensnare is super good against pets as it lasts like fifteen minutes and largely removes a pet from the equation.

Against casters, you've got solid melee output as well as strong FR/CR buffs, and you have the ability to shoot someone from outside conventional spellcasting range. Nobody can really run from you. You can't stop somebody from gating, but you can't be fought in the manner that casters normally fight melees because you have the option of just standing two hundred units of range away and shooting the dude over and over for 50-100 damage a pop. Nobody can stand up to that very long.

Being one of three classes with SoW is super nice on a PvP server as well. In theory, anyone can just buy SoW potions; but in reality, you get dispelled so much in PvP that most people just make do with jboots. Having that extra 10% movement speed is a huge advantage. Your own SoW might get dispelled, but just the fact that you always have the buff at the start of a fight means you always have a mobility advantage or at least parity (against druids and shamans) while almost everyone you fight will only have jboots speed. This matters way more for a melee class than for casters.

And while your offensive spells aren't exactly amazing, you do have quick-casting nukes and near-unresistable DoTs. They don't hurt a lot, but they do damage, so you're not completely incapable of doing anything to someone you can't get to in melee the way warriors, rogues, monks and paladins are. Among the melee classes, only rangers and shadowknights have the ability to apply pressure from range. When someone levitates off of a cliff just to counter your melee attacks, you can still put Drones of Doom on him, spam your fast fire nukes, and shoot a bow. It'll land you some kills from time to time where other melee classes had no such options.

For overall PvP, meaning not specifically group PvP or focused fully on 1v1 duels, ranger is a great class. It's good enough to partake in a melee train and it has perfectly fine matchups against all classes in random world 1v1s. When jousting against tankier melee classes, just get some distance and heal yourself from time to time, or get off bowshots in-between jousting clashes. Against casters, the ability to self-buff +40 FR/CR is a pretty big thing that allows you to focus more on MR, and no caster class can do much against any melee opponent with high enough resists.

And while ranger heals aren't particularly big, just the ability to heal yourself up after every fight means you're never in that awful situations where you're down to 60% HP and have to sit around for fifteen minutes to regenerate, hoping nobody finds you. Any class without healing spells has to deal with that when not in a group. Ask a PvP warrior how much it sucks to do anything alone just because it takes absolutely forever to regain HP after every fight.

[Imago]

I don't agree with that part. Rangers are actually very good in PvP. In group situations, they can participate in a melee train just fine, even if they aren't necessarily optimal for it. All that matters in group PvP is having more swinging dicks in your melee train than the opponent does. In solo 1v1 world PvP, rangers have great tools available to them.

A ranger might not beat a warrior in a 1:1 mathematical joust, but if you make use of your ranged options, it's perfectly winnable. Same goes for any other melee matchup. You have access to viable two-handed weapons, and if you fall behind in the joust, you can resort to shooting and quick-casting spells between clashes. Ensnare is super good against pets as it lasts like fifteen minutes and largely removes a pet from the equation.

Against casters, you've got solid melee output as well as strong FR/CR buffs, and you have the ability to shoot someone from outside conventional spellcasting range. Nobody can really run from you. You can't stop somebody from gating, but you can't be fought in the manner that casters normally fight melees because you have the option of just standing two hundred units of range away and shooting the dude over and over for 50-100 damage a pop. Nobody can stand up to that very long.

Being one of three classes with SoW is super nice on a PvP server as well. In theory, anyone can just buy SoW potions; but in reality, you get dispelled so much in PvP that most people just make do with jboots. Having that extra 10% movement speed is a huge advantage. Your own SoW might get dispelled, but just the fact that you always have the buff at the start of a fight means you always have a mobility advantage or at least parity (against druids and shamans) while almost everyone you fight will only have jboots speed. This matters way more for a melee class than for casters.

And while your offensive spells aren't exactly amazing, you do have quick-casting nukes and near-unresistable DoTs. They don't hurt a lot, but they do damage, so you're not completely incapable of doing anything to someone you can't get to in melee the way warriors, rogues, monks and paladins are. Among the melee classes, only rangers and shadowknights have the ability to apply pressure from range. When someone levitates off of a cliff just to counter your melee attacks, you can still put Drones of Doom on him, spam your fast fire nukes, and shoot a bow. It'll land you some kills from time to time where other melee classes had no such options.

For overall PvP, meaning not specifically group PvP or focused fully on 1v1 duels, ranger is a great class. It's good enough to partake in a melee train and it has perfectly fine matchups against all classes in random world 1v1s. When jousting against tankier melee classes, just get some distance and heal yourself from time to time, or get off bowshots in-between jousting clashes. Against casters, the ability to self-buff +40 FR/CR is a pretty big thing that allows you to focus more on MR, and no caster class can do much against any melee opponent with high enough resists.

And while ranger heals aren't particularly big, just the ability to heal yourself up after every fight means you're never in that awful situations where you're down to 60% HP and have to sit around for fifteen minutes to regenerate, hoping nobody finds you. Any class without healing spells has to deal with that when not in a group. Ask a PvP warrior how much it sucks to do anything alone just because it takes absolutely forever to regain HP after every fight.

This makes my dick hard for Red 2.0

[Dolalin]

In the vanilla era, warrior rogue and enchanter were seen as the most underpowered. Rogue especially.

That changed by velious of course.

So I think it really depends a lot on the era the server is in tbh.

[Philistine]

How are Rangers getting so many votes?!

They can: solo, sorts. Face tanking with the help of toys or fear kiting animals.

Group: I feel like this is where they shine. Awesome agro and just enough tankiness to tank, solid DPS until about 60 when triple attack and raid weapons leave them behind, snare + root for CC of non-caster and caster mobs alike, spot heals in emergencies, awesome pullers, especially (but not limited to) outdoors.

Raid: OK dps, COTP, SON, COE buffs, and the ability to keep a mob/boss from murdering a ton of DPS if the MT goes down.

Rangers are an awesome class IMHO, and far far away from underpowered

[bomaroast]

Only a ranger would say that rangers have "just enough tankiness to tank." Unfortunately they don't, and anyone who plays a healer can attest to it. Healing a ranger is about like healing a shaman with regards to tankiness.

[Philistine]

Only a ranger would say that rangers have "just enough tankiness to tank." Unfortunately they don't, and anyone who plays a healer can attest to it. Healing a ranger is about like healing a shaman.

You have correctly identified me as a ranger, lol.

I tanked all the waytill 60 though, so I'm going to trust my own experience :)

[PlsNoBan]

Only a ranger would say that rangers have "just enough tankiness to tank." Unfortunately they don't, and anyone who plays a healer can attest to it. Healing a ranger is about like healing a shaman with regards to tankiness.

I've healed ranger tanks plenty of times and I disagree. They tank just fine in groups. I spend waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more mana with warrior tanks that can't hold aggro for shit trying to heal 4 people all the time vs just keeping the ranger (that never loses aggro) up. It's not even close.

[Danth]

Warrior has a special form of weakness all its own: It's the only class in the game that can't perform its primary function without either outside assistance or via the unintended abuse of click items. As a rule a warrior can only tank if someone else lets it. I don't necessarily call it the weakest class overall, but I do call it badly designed.

Indeed, if the stories that physical stun was supposed to generate hate akin to spell stun but didn't due to glitch are true, then the version of the warrior we have on P99 wasn't intended to exist at all. I believe it because of how its an outlier as described above; all other characters are self-contained.

Danth

[Keza]

You have correctly identified me as a ranger, lol.

I tanked all the waytill 60 though, so I'm going to trust my own experience :)

I've healed ranger tanks plenty of times and I disagree. They tank just fine in groups. I spend waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more mana with warrior tanks that can't hold aggro for shit trying to heal 4 people all the time vs just keeping the ranger (that never loses aggro) up. It's not even close.

Both of these comments derive from experience, but both are specifically about XPquest. Warriors don't thrive in the grindvironment. Everyone knows that.

The question - even though I love rangers - is where do they thrive?

[PatChapp]

In the vanilla era, warrior rogue and enchanter were seen as the most underpowered. Rogue especially.

That changed by velious of course.

So I think it really depends a lot on the era the server is in tbh.

I don't know who you were comparing to but enchanters were just as overpowered in classic as they are in kunark and velious.
They can solo any named mob non raid mob in kedge/sol b/guk
Only necros even come close.

Warriors and rogues are pretty weak in classic

[PlsNoBan]

Both of these comments derive from experience, but both are specifically about XPquest. Warriors don't thrive in the grindvironment. Everyone knows that.

The question - even though I love rangers - is where do they thrive?

Everyone also knows 1-60 leveling is really the only good part of P99. Nobody in their right mind raids here for any extended period of time. The "XPquest" and "grindvironment" are the meat and potatoes here. They kind of always have been.

[socialist]

Only a ranger would say that rangers have "just enough tankiness to tank." Unfortunately they don't, and anyone who plays a healer can attest to it. Healing a ranger is about like healing a shaman with regards to tankiness.

Rangers tank just fine for anything short of the very hardest one-group content. In fact, for the pre-Kunark era, rangers actually have the same defense skill as the other tank classes and higher dodge/parry than knights. Nobody really struggles with anything pre-55ish so having a ranger tank is good because they have respectable DPS, impeccable aggro, bring snare themselves, and can switch to the DPS role if another tank joins. I wouldn't be thrilled to have a ranger tank for something like juggs in Seb, but anything less than that, I'm perfectly pleased because they can do it just fine and are much more flexible than, say, a paladin.

[socialist]

Warrior has a special form of weakness all its own: It's the only class in the game that can't perform its primary function without either outside assistance or via the unintended abuse of click items. As a rule a warrior can only tank if someone else lets it. I don't necessarily call it the weakest class overall, but I do call it badly designed.

Indeed, if the stories that physical stun was supposed to generate hate akin to spell stun but didn't due to glitch are true, then the version of the warrior we have on P99 wasn't intended to exist at all. I believe it because of how its an outlier as described above; all other characters are self-contained.

Danth

It definitely is the most fundamentally flawed class in the game, but the fact that it's largely the only viable raid tank post-vanilla makes it kind of hard to call it the worst class. Outside of that one raid-MTing niche, however, the class is completely bereft of any merit whatsoever.

[Philistine]

Both of these comments derive from experience, but both are specifically about XPquest. Warriors don't thrive in the grindvironment. Everyone knows that.

The question - even though I love rangers - is where do they thrive?

I think you make a valid point. Rangers don't really thrive any specific thing, though I might (I'm not sure :p) try to argue their versatility is their strength. I didn't take the "underpowered " question to necessarily mean they had to thrive at something specific, but I don't think that's an unreasonable interpretation.

I stand by my Rangers are awesomesauce and not underpowered opinion, but I take your point!

[oldschoolguy]

I would argue Paladins solo better than SK's solely on the grounds of their healing spells. Makes them much more self sufficient in combat and able to win out lengthy battles of attrition that they otherwise couldn't survive on one health bar. Their HoT's are especially juicy considering their HP to Mana ratio, and that combined with Superior Heal is enough of a spike heal even at 60 to give them all the staying power they need and even make decent secondary healers.

SK's have better DPS but their life leech isn't nearly enough to offset the damage they receive at later levels. And while I play a Ranger, I haven't yet gotten Chloroplast, so I can't weigh in if the regen from that spell is enough to significantly cut down on either incomnig damage or downtime between battles.

IIRC SK can solo some white cons in the 50's with fear kite. While Paladin would not be able to. But my memory could be very inaccurate, it's been years since I played an SK. Been thinking of doing that as an alt, but their epic seems so impossible on top heavy server, that I'm more thinking of just buying Cleric epic and playing Cleric alt instead lol.

[PatChapp]

Rangers tank just fine for anything short of the very hardest one-group content. In fact, for the pre-Kunark era, rangers actually have the same defense skill as the other tank classes and higher dodge/parry than knights. Nobody really struggles with anything pre-55ish so having a ranger tank is good because they have respectable DPS, impeccable aggro, bring snare themselves, and can switch to the DPS role if another tank joins. I wouldn't be thrilled to have a ranger tank for something like juggs in Seb, but anything less than that, I'm perfectly pleased because they can do it just fine and are much more flexible than, say, a paladin.


We had a ranger tank DN rat house recently and he did fine once slow landed. Pretty nasty mobs up to lvl 58 to, was funny honestly. That said he is very geared out

[Toxigen]

when your only raid usage is being parked with your face in a wall to get the other real classes to the fight...you're on the shittiest class

its mage by a mile

[Coridan]

Mage armies were the only way most guilds could do Sky when it dropped.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Mage armies were the only way most guilds could do Sky when it dropped.

I believe the topic is specific to P99. Mages are at their best when the player base has little knowledge of the game. That is why they were much stronger on live during the classic era. On P99, where everybody knows everything, a Mage is simply a worse Necromancer in basically every regard. The exceptions being COTH and summoned Dispel Staff. Twitch is better than Mod Rods too.

[Vaarsuvius]

I believe the topic is specific to P99. Mages are at their best when the player base has little knowledge of the game. That is why they were much stronger on live during the classic era. On P99, where everybody knows everything, a Mage is simply a worse Necromancer in basically every regard. The exceptions being COTH and summoned Dispel Staff. Twitch is better than Mod Rods too.

Don't forget temporary 10 slot bags and muzzles for necro & enchanter pets :)

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Don't forget temporary 10 slot bags and muzzles for necro & enchanter pets :)

You don't run necro pets in raids for DPS, and generally I don't see muzzles go on charmed pets in raids either. In solo/group situations I would take Necro utility over muzzle any day.

Temp bags are cool, but a bit too dangerous IMO.

[PlsNoBan]

when your only raid usage is being parked with your face in a wall to get the other real classes to the fight...you're on the shittiest class

its mage by a mile

Too much raid emphasis. Raiding sucks here. It's 1-60 leveling/group game that matters and mages excel there.

[Toxigen]

Too much raid emphasis. Raiding sucks here. It's 1-60 leveling/group game that matters and mages excel there.

Mage is still the worst there too.

Hope this helps.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Too much raid emphasis. Raiding sucks here. It's 1-60 leveling/group game that matters and mages excel there.

On P99 Necromancers are better than Mages in that situation though. Utility is generally better than a bit of extra DPS for leveling/group scenarios. And in any undead zone a Necromancer with charm will out-DPS a Mage.

The only extremely useful and unique thing Mage's can do is COTHing and summoning Dispel Staffs. Both are generally only used in raids, which is why we are discussing raids. Yes, I know they summon Mod Rods too, but Twitch is much better than Mod Rods.

Again, this isn't to say Mage's are unplayable or bad on P99. They are simply the most underpowered compared to other classes.

[PlsNoBan]

Mage is still the worst there too.

Hope this helps.

How so? In what world would you pick a wizard for your exp grp over a mage? Or a necro (assuming no good undead charms nearby)? Or hell even an non-epic rogue? Outside of mega twinked melee or charm classes mage is about the best sustained dps in a group imo

[DeathsSilkyMist]

How so? In what world would you pick a wizard for your exp grp over a mage? Or a necro (assuming no good undead charms nearby)? Or hell even an non-epic rogue? Outside of mega twinked melee or charm classes mage is about the best sustained dps in a group imo

Yes, Necro is still better than Mage in non-Undead zones due to their utility. I would take a Necro over a Mage any day in basically any scenario, unless you need COTH.

[eqravenprince]

Yes, Necro is still better than Mage in non-Undead zones due to their utility. I would take a Necro over a Mage any day in basically any scenario, unless you need COTH.

You'd take a necro over mage cause of utility, but you've also posted you'd take a wizard over a druid. You can't have both arguments, it makes no sense.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

You'd take a necro over mage cause of utility, but you've also posted you'd take a wizard over a druid. You can't have both arguments, it makes no sense.

Context matters:) In the case of Mage vs. Necromancer, Necromancer wins every time. Utility is generally superior to DPS in group situations, and grouping patterns prove this. If DPS was the primary concern in groups, you would see a lot of gear screening. A poorly geared rogue will probably do less DPS than a poorly geared Wizard, but in most cases people would take the rogue anyway due to the Wizard stigma. So even though they picked the less optimal DPS choice, it didn't matter, because in general groups can destroy most content anyway. Having multiple players in the encounter is the biggest factor, not the DPS. But having more Utility allows multiple players to react to a bad situation and rectify it before the party wipes.

In the other thread I say Wizards are better than Druids in grouping scenarios simply because Wizards maintain their full kit both indoors and outdoors, whereas Druids lose important pieces of their kit in most dungeons. Inside a dungeon that doesn't have good animals to charm (most dungeons), a druid is basically a healer/buffer. Other classes can do that better. Wizard will do more DPS than a Druid in a dungeon, and you still get the port support. Druids are only superior in groups half the time (outdoors), and in my estimation that makes them a worse grouping class overall. If you want to be able to group in any zone, Wizard should be the superior choice.

[Tunabros]

incoming deathssilkymist's rants

[DeathsSilkyMist]

incoming deathssilkymist's rants

Incoming silly Tuna comments that have nothing to do with the topic:)

[Danth]

A poorly geared rogue will probably do less DPS than a poorly geared Wizard

In order to get a rogue that poorly-geared on P99 you'd have to either do so on purpose or be naked on a corpse run. Wizard's unadjusted normal hourly damage output is down there around paladin-level. Nobody picks them as damage dealers unless they have no other choice and even then many groups will simply choose to remain short-handed.

In the original game wizards fared better since the culture and style of gameplay in normal grouping differed, but I assume we're talking P99's constant-activity environment here.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

In order to get a rogue that poorly-geared on P99 you'd have to either do so on purpose or be naked on a corpse run. Wizard's unadjusted normal hourly damage output is down there around paladin-level. Nobody picks them as damage dealers unless they have no other choice and even then many groups will simply choose to remain short-handed.

In the original game wizards fared better since the culture and style of gameplay in normal grouping differed, but I assume we're talking P99's constant-activity environment here.

Danth

The point I was making is that nobody checks gear:) Since people don't check gear, they really don't care that much about DPS in group scenarios. This means people not inviting Wizards to a group is more of a stigma than a true mechanical concern. And while I agree that on P99 people are generally twinked, this isn't always the case. If DPS was really a big factor, people would gear screen. Two rogues could perform quite differently DPS-wise based on gear. Gear screening doesn't happen on P99 in grouping scenarios from my experience. People only class screen. Raiding excluded, obviously. Raiding does have some gear checks, but that is unrelated to grouping.

[Danth]

...they really don't care that much about DPS in group scenarios.

I think this plays to the druid's favor on account of the druid and wizard being closer to each other in damage dealt than either of them are to the average rogue. Nobody is going to pick them first, second, or third for damage but the druid does some other things people might pick it for. What else can I say? We play on the same server, and I see wizards and druids both being somewhat shunned in popular group areas (it's a nightmare for either of them to get a fungus king group unless they have friends in it), but wizards have the harder time of it on average.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I think this plays to the druid's favor on account of the druid and wizard being closer to each other in damage dealt than either of them are to the average rogue. Nobody is going to pick them first, second, or third for damage but the druid does some other things people might pick it for. What else can I say? We play on the same server, and I see wizards and druids both being somewhat shunned in popular group areas (it's a nightmare for either of them to get a fungus king group unless they have friends in it), but wizards have the harder time of it on average.

Danth

Oh, I 100% agree Wizards are more shunned. As I have stated multiple times, on P99 Wizards are the worst grouping class due to the Stigma. I am talking about pure mechanics, if the stigma was removed.

From a pure mechanics perspective, I would say a Wizard is a better class than a Druid, simply because Wizards get to keep their full kit in all zones, where Druids lose a lot of their kit in Dungeons. These are good parts of their kit, too. It isn't like they are losing trivial spells. This means in theory a Wizard would get groups more often than Druids, because they have a wider range of zones they are useful in, and dungeons are typically more popular than outdoor zones. This is due to loot and ZEM. This assumes the server doesn't have a severe lack of healers. Druids may eek ahead of Wizards on a server where healers are in dire need.

The reason why I am talking about pure mechanics is because a stigma could be removed on P99 if players wanted to do that. No developer involvement would be needed.

As for Fungi Tunic camp specifically, most classes aren't very good for it sadly, because generally speaking Fungi Tunic camp tries to get by with the minimum number of party members, to maximize loot distribution. This means you want to bring the best classes possible to reduce how many players are needed.

[Danth]

I tend to agree with that. I'm not talking theory so much as daily reality as it presently exists on P1999, so community perception gets included in my assessment. Meaning if a person wants to make a new character on P1999 today mainly for grouping, the wizard's pretty much the worst choice he can make, even if it's not theoretically worst in all cases.

Original EQ circa 1999-2001 makes the point: There was nothing really wrong with wizards both due to different culture and different needs. The community didn't hate them. Burst mattered more in an environment where groups rarely chain-pulled and where protecting against killsteal (or doing it to others) was a real concern. It was only later on when those things began to change that they started to run into problems.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I tend to agree with that. I'm not talking theory so much as daily reality as it presently exists on P1999, so community perception gets included in my assessment. Meaning if a person wants to make a new character on P1999 today mainly for grouping, the wizard's pretty much the worst choice he can make, even if it's not theoretically worst in all cases.

Original EQ circa 1999-2001 makes the point: There was nothing really wrong with wizards both due to different culture and different needs. The community didn't hate them. Burst mattered more in an environment where groups rarely chain-pulled and where protecting against killsteal (or doing it to others) was a real concern. It was only later on when those things began to change that they started to run into problems.

Danth

I agree. If OP was specifically asking what class he should roll on P99 for grouping purposes, Wizard would be dead last on my list. But since OP's question was pretty generic, the theoretical portion of the question is open as far as I am concerned. It is a little more interesting of a conversation as well.

From a pure stigma perspective the worst classes on P99 are Ranger and Wizard, with Mage, Druid, Shadowknight, and Paladin as honorable mentions. Bard as well unless you are great at the class. If you don't want a stigma attached to your class on P99, avoid Ranger, Wizard, Mage, Druid, Shadowknight, Paladin, and Bard.

[PatChapp]

You don't run necro pets in raids for DPS, and generally I don't see muzzles go on charmed pets in raids either. In solo/group situations I would take Necro utility over muzzle any day.

Temp bags are cool, but a bit too dangerous IMO.

Masks go on pets for tuna a lot, and sometimes on the dogs for vindi. About it for that utility

[Philistine]

We had a ranger tank DN rat house recently and he did fine once slow landed. Pretty nasty mobs up to lvl 58 to, was funny honestly. That said he is very geared out

He was probably already doing this, but in case he wasn't , I feel like it's worth knowing that rangers can have mobs almost instantly slowed and hold agro.

Auto attack for a very brief moment (like, 1 round of swings), flame lick, then as the slower starts to cast slow ranger waits a beat then starts to cast second flame lick. If slow pulls agro it should normally bounce back to ranger as soon as second flame lick lands.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Masks go on pets for tuna a lot, and sometimes on the dogs for vindi. About it for that utility

Agreed. There are a few cases where muzzles can be useful. Tuna, Vindi, AoW, and Cazic-Thule all need tons of DPS. I don't remember raids muzzling charmed pets as a requirement, but it has been a while since I was heavily raiding.

[Keebz]

Rangers get a lot of shade but they are pretty balanced.

They are solid pullers and group tanks 1-60. And for raids do reasonable DPS and have some good buffs, while also having great discs for bumping, engaging, and DPS. Additionally, they get easy access to 200 range bows for FTE racing and have excellent track for outdoor camps as well as great QoL spells/toys.

My biggest complaint with ranger is that 1-60 you get used to doing all the things all the time, then when you get to raiding, you just auto-attack for the most part. Kind of a big switcheroo. Though, the same can be said about many classes I suppose.

[Jibartik]

Rangers get a lot of shade but they are pretty balanced.

They are solid pullers and group tanks 1-60. And for raids do reasonable DPS and have some good buffs, while also having great discs for bumping, engaging, and DPS. Additionally, they get easy access to 200 range bows for FTE racing and have excellent track for outdoor camps as well as great QoL spells/toys.

My biggest complaint with ranger is that 1-60 you get used to doing all the things all the time, then when you get to raiding, you just auto-attack for the most part. Kind of a big switcheroo. Though, the same can be said about many classes I suppose.

It may have been mischife, but I found that with dragons that had low fire/cold I was able to do huge damage by mostly spamming spells and using proc weapons and velious that was really fun.

[Jimjam]

People overestimate the importance of harmony to rangers in group. It’s pretty easy to pull with root, root a second, snare one of the rooted and run the remaining mob to camp, snaring the fourth if there is one.

This creates a steady stream of mobs which arrive in camp at a fair pace with a good chunk hate already on a tank. It essentially creates a series of single pulls which pull them selfs allowing the ranger to spend more time in camp DPSing.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

People overestimate the importance of harmony to rangers in group. It’s pretty easy to pull with root, root a second, snare one of the rooted and run the remaining mob to camp, snaring the fourth if there is one.

This creates a steady stream of mobs which arrive in camp at a fair pace with a good chunk hate already on a tank. It essentially creates a series of single pulls which pull them selfs allowing the ranger to spend more time in camp DPSing.

The point of this thread isn't to claim any class is unplayable, and I think a lot of people are taking it that way. I understand why, since everybody has a favorite class.

All classes are playable on P99 today, and each class can do some pretty cool stuff when you become adept at playing them. The point of this thread is simply to determine which class is the most underpowered. That doesn't mean bad/unplayable, it just means worse compared to other classes.

The problem with Ranger is some of their best spells are outdoor only, and they were designed to be played outdoors. This means on average a Shadowknight/Paladin is going to be more useful in a group, because they don't have that restriction. This is especially true considering a lot of higher traffic zones are indoors.

That doesn't mean Rangers can't do well in Dungeons, it just means they have a inherit disadvantage that they can't get around.

[Jibartik]

harmony pulling in crushbone, cazic, msitmoore, is great fun, but from that point forward you gotta wait till kunark to do it again like the old days

[Danth]

...This means on average...

Now there's a word that makes for a possibly interesting tangent: average.

Harmony doesn't work indoors. It's by design kind of overpowered for split pulling outdoors. On average that limitation should then mean it's a good character ability overall since the times it's OP should average out the times it's unavailable. In actual practice not many groups are going to invite a ranger in lower guk due to his harmony being great outside so maybe we need the mode instead of the mean. We see some of this sort of thing with some other classes as well, like paladins and clerics with their anti-undead utility.

As you say, it's a vast game and about everyone has a niche someplace. Worst overall definitely doesn't equate to useless either in theory or in practice.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Now there's a word that makes for a possibly interesting tangent: average.

Harmony doesn't work indoors. It's by design kind of overpowered for split pulling outdoors. On average that limitation should then mean it's a good character ability overall since the times it's OP should average out the times it's unavailable. In actual practice not many groups are going to invite a ranger in lower guk due to his harmony being great outside so maybe we need the mode instead of the mean. We see some of this sort of thing with some other classes as well, like paladins and clerics with their anti-undead utility.

As you say, it's a vast game and about everyone has a niche someplace. Worst overall definitely doesn't equate to useless either in theory or in practice.

Danth

The problem is simply that the distribution of good outdoor zones to good indoor zones is skewed heavily in favor of indoor zones. So while yes we definitely need Rangers/Druids to harmony some monsters, in the main a Paladin is going to be a lot more useful on average, due to having a general lull. A Paladin's anti-undead capabilities aren't actually that great. Their power comes from having a general lull on par with an Enchanter's. And Shadowknights have a close equivalent, which is FD pulling. Rangers sadly cannot use their lull in the majority of popular zones, which means they are below average, even after considering Harmony's superiority in the cases it is used. It's the same issue with Magicians. COTH is an amazing ability. Sadly it just isn't used enough to make Mages a great class on P99.

[Vivitron]

I agree. If OP was specifically asking what class he should roll on P99 for grouping purposes, Wizard would be dead last on my list. But since OP's question was pretty generic, the theoretical portion of the question is open as far as I am concerned. It is a little more interesting of a conversation as well.

From a pure stigma perspective the worst classes on P99 are Ranger and Wizard, with Mage, Druid, Shadowknight, and Paladin as honorable mentions. Bard as well unless you are great at the class. If you don't want a stigma attached to your class on P99, avoid Ranger, Wizard, Mage, Druid, Shadowknight, Paladin, and Bard.

I haven't felt this anti-mage stigma before; I think it's mostly coming from you:p

My biggest complaint with ranger is that 1-60 you get used to doing all the things all the time, then when you get to raiding, you just auto-attack for the most part. Kind of a big switcheroo. Though, the same can be said about many classes I suppose.

If not classes then class+encounter combos. From my bard/enchanter perspective most of ToV is the worst for reducing my roles. At least we can bind sight.

[Jimjam]

The point of this thread isn't to claim any class is unplayable, and I think a lot of people are taking it that way. I understand why, since everybody has a favorite class.

All classes are playable on P99 today, and each class can do some pretty cool stuff when you become adept at playing them. The point of this thread is simply to determine which class is the most underpowered. That doesn't mean bad/unplayable, it just means worse compared to other classes.

The problem with Ranger is some of their best spells are outdoor only, and they were designed to be played outdoors. This means on average a Shadowknight/Paladin is going to be more useful in a group, because they don't have that restriction. This is especially true considering a lot of higher traffic zones are indoors.

That doesn't mean Rangers can't do well in Dungeons, it just means they have a inherit disadvantage that they can't get around.

What I’m trying to say is generally harmony is a crutch, the rangers spectrum of movement control spells split up mobs is far better than harmony. In Kc i’d often not have harmony memmed, for example. The spell that I missed indoors was wolf form, but considering many dps insta click off wolf form, maybe it is just me that values those kind of spells so highly.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I haven't felt this anti-mage stigma before; I think it's mostly coming from you:p



If not classes then class+encounter combos. From my bard/enchanter perspective most of ToV is the worst for reducing my roles. At least we can bind sight.

Lol don't get me wrong, I think Mages are a fun class. They simply aren't as good as other classes. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't play them.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

What I’m trying to say is generally harmony is a crutch, the rangers spectrum of movement control spells split up mobs is far better than harmony. In Kc i’d often not have harmony memmed, for example. The spell that I missed indoors was wolf form, but considering many dps insta click off wolf form, maybe it is just me that values those kind of spells so highly.

I think it is a little silly to say Harmony is a crutch. I don't think Lulls or Feign Death are a crutch for pulling.

Any class can pull. Depending on how well you know the zone, you could even pull fairly well. But most people would still prefer using a safer method for pulling, because death is highly disruptive to the leveling process.

When you take away Harmony from Rangers, they aren't any different from a Wizard in terms of pulling. A Wizard could use snares and roots to accomplish the same thing you are describing. Wizards can also get instant agro with Staff of Temperate Flux.

[Danth]

The problem is simply that the distribution of good outdoor zones to good indoor zones is skewed heavily in favor of indoor zones.

It is, albeit the power of those types of spells tends to make those classes a bit self-selecting in terms of hanging out more where those spells work so that counter-skews the average some. Same as how on my Paladin I much favored hanging out in lower guk than sol-B because it's so much more convenient getting around with invis to undead than with calm.

As for Call of the Hero, it's so good I call it a character-killer: A straight majority of level 55+ magicians I know end up being parked in strategic locations due to that spell, no longer (or seldom) used for regular gameplay. If there's such a thing as a too-strong ability, that must be exhibit "A" because few other abilities kill characters in that manner.

Danth

[DeathsSilkyMist]

It is, albeit the power of those types of spells tends to make those classes a bit self-selecting in terms of hanging out more where those spells work so that counter-skews the average some. Same as how on my Paladin I much favored hanging out in lower guk than sol-B because it's so much more convenient getting around with invis to undead than with calm.

As for Call of the Hero, it's so good I call it a character-killer: A straight majority of level 55+ magicians I know end up being parked in strategic locations due to that spell, no longer (or seldom) used for regular gameplay. If there's such a thing as a too-strong ability, that must be exhibit "A" because few other abilities kill characters in that manner.

Danth

When figuring out generally the most underpowered class, we have to look beyond one-off abilities that are extremely useful in a handful of situations. If that was the criteria, then no class would be underpowered. Every class in the game has at least one situation where they are amazing. In the general context of "most underpowered", you need to look at the game as a whole to determine which classes struggle in general more than others due to their specific toolkit.

In general, Mages are used as CoTH bots as you describe. But it is not because CoTH is so good that it trumps a Mage's other abilities. It is because CoTH is one of the only good abilities they have. If Mages had other great abilities, you would see Mages being used in more situations. Unfortunately a big chunk of a Mage's toolkit is their pets, which cannot be used in many situations due to poor pathing. Another big chunk of a Mage's toolkit is summoned items. Most of those items are not useful on a server where the population knows everything, and good gear is easily accessible. Their third chunk of abilities are DDs, which are inferior to a Wizards. And their Mala is inferior to a Shamans. This is why on P99 Mages struggle. Most of their kit is either not used, or inferior to other classes. They also don't have much in the ways of CC, which further lowers their utility.

[PlsNoBan]

I don't think the majority share the same lowly view of mages in group scenarios as you do. I also think you overestimate necro utility/dps in comparison. Necro will blow mage away if a good undead charm target is available BUT if there isn't an undead available mage damage is going to be consistently a good bit higher. Especially in a fast killing group where a necro's dots are practically 100% useless and is resorting to lifetaps for DPS. Necro utility is also situational whereas raw DPS is not. A solid group with a good enchanter and a cleric that isn't struggling for mana has very little use for necro utility.

It depends on where the group is and what classes it has but I'd say I'm probably taking mage over necro the majority of the time. Exceptions being undead heavy zones and if the group lacks CC. Even then it's a bit of a toss up cause like 90% of necros don't know how to play in a group and you don't get anywhere near the full potential benefit of having them around anyway.

[Vivitron]

Lol don't get me wrong, I think Mages are a fun class. They simply aren't as good as other classes. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't play them.

I think "best" is a great bar for class selection at a contested raid, but I think classes mostly thrive in the xp environment by being "not worse than good." And mages are good dps. I haven't seen groups I've been in passing them up for the role.

At raids mages are the "best" cothers, mod rod summoners, and invuln trainers; often making a few of them necessary. I think a lot of classes have a similar situation where a few of them are necessary but more are suboptimal; I know I frequently log a guild cleric or rogue instead of my enchanter in tov, for example.

[PatChapp]

I don't think the majority share the same lowly view of mages in group scenarios as you do. I also think you overestimate necro utility/dps in comparison. Necro will blow mage away if a good undead charm target is available BUT if there isn't an undead available mage damage is going to be consistently a good bit higher. Especially in a fast killing group where a necro's dots are practically 100% useless and is resorting to lifetaps for DPS. Necro utility is also situational whereas raw DPS is not. A solid group with a good enchanter and a cleric that isn't struggling for mana has very little use for necro utility.

It depends on where the group is and what classes it has but I'd say I'm probably taking mage over necro the majority of the time. Exceptions being undead heavy zones and if the group lacks CC. Even then it's a bit of a toss up cause like 90% of necros don't know how to play in a group and you don't get anywhere near the full potential benefit of having them around anyway.

A good necro simply brings a lot more utility than a mage. A good necro will keep mana up for healers and enchanters,do half decent DPS with their pet. Their crowd control is very useful, necros are just a very well rounded class whereas mages can do very few things.

My first lvl 60 on p99 was a magician.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I don't think the majority share the same lowly view of mages in group scenarios as you do. I also think you overestimate necro utility/dps in comparison. Necro will blow mage away if a good undead charm target is available BUT if there isn't an undead available mage damage is going to be consistently a good bit higher. Especially in a fast killing group where a necro's dots are practically 100% useless and is resorting to lifetaps for DPS. Necro utility is also situational whereas raw DPS is not. A solid group with a good enchanter and a cleric that isn't struggling for mana has very little use for necro utility.

It depends on where the group is and what classes it has but I'd say I'm probably taking mage over necro the majority of the time. Exceptions being undead heavy zones and if the group lacks CC. Even then it's a bit of a toss up cause like 90% of necros don't know how to play in a group and you don't get anywhere near the full potential benefit of having them around anyway.

I don't have a lowly opinion of Mages:) Just because their kit is underpowered doesn't make them bad. Please do not get analysis confused with insult.

Luckily on P99 no class is actually bad or unplayable. Even the most underpowered class can still get through all of the game's content. However, some classes are better than others. In any asymmetrical game, classes are tiered. There is no way to avoid it, as this game isn't completely balanced like Chess.

Some people like to know which classes are better than others, as it is part of their decision making process when rolling a new class.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I think "best" is a great bar for class selection at a contested raid, but I think classes mostly thrive in the xp environment by being "not worse than good." And mages are good dps. I haven't seen groups I've been in passing them up for the role.

At raids mages are the "best" cothers, mod rod summoners, and invuln trainers; often making a few of them necessary. I think a lot of classes have a similar situation where a few of them are necessary but more are suboptimal; I know I frequently log a guild cleric or rogue instead of my enchanter in tov, for example.

We are talking about underpowered in general, not one specific set of content. I 100% agree with you Mages are amazing in raids. They are one of the top classes due to their utility. But If the argument is that most players spend most of their time outside of the raid scene, then this is only a small part of the evaluation. Also, only a very small part of their toolkit is used in raids.

[oldschoolguy]

which class is more solo capable monk or SK? what about just killing stuff in higher levels. i played both long ago, been thinking of doing an alt. likely minimally geared.

[Jimjam]

I think it is a little silly to say Harmony is a crutch. I don't think Lulls or Feign Death are a crutch for pulling.

Any class can pull. Depending on how well you know the zone, you could even pull fairly well. But most people would still prefer using a safer method for pulling, because death is highly disruptive to the leveling process.

When you take away Harmony from Rangers, they aren't any different from a Wizard in terms of pulling. A Wizard could use snares and roots to accomplish the same thing you are describing. Wizards can also get instant agro with Staff of Temperate Flux.

A good necro simply brings a lot more utility than a mage. A good necro will keep mana up for healers and enchanters,do half decent DPS with their pet. Their crowd control is very useful, necros are just a very well rounded class whereas mages can do very few things.

My first lvl 60 on p99 was a magician.

The pulling meta for groups the past year or so is no longer pull singles but groups of 2-4 mobs. It’s interesting you mention wizards as they are very good pullers/cc for such groups, even better than rangers!

They pull / get target with eye, hit the pull with aoe snare at the choke point into the camp and get things rooted quickly. The snare and root on inc really helps tank establish aggro as they can use proxy aggro from root initially, and taunt off the snare to piggy back a big boost to their hate.

The servers are very twinked at this point and groups close to pure melee do fine into the 50s. Often the only caster is a bard or enc focusing on heals or slows or a necromancer acting as healer.

[Zoolander]

which class is more solo capable monk or SK? what about just killing stuff in higher levels. i played both long ago, been thinking of doing an alt. likely minimally geared.

you already answered your question

[Vaarsuvius]

I don't think the majority share the same lowly view of mages in group scenarios as you do. I also think you overestimate necro utility/dps in comparison. Necro will blow mage away if a good undead charm target is available BUT if there isn't an undead available mage damage is going to be consistently a good bit higher. Especially in a fast killing group where a necro's dots are practically 100% useless and is resorting to lifetaps for DPS. Necro utility is also situational whereas raw DPS is not. A solid group with a good enchanter and a cleric that isn't struggling for mana has very little use for necro utility.

It depends on where the group is and what classes it has but I'd say I'm probably taking mage over necro the majority of the time. Exceptions being undead heavy zones and if the group lacks CC. Even then it's a bit of a toss up cause like 90% of necros don't know how to play in a group and you don't get anywhere near the full potential benefit of having them around anyway.

What would a mage offer to be higher dps than a necro of the same level ?

I have both and I can't think of anything aside from a DS and magic/fire nukes that will be resisted a lot more than Deflux / Touch of Night / Vexing Mordinia ?

[Questors]

Rogue. Period. Mic drop. Elvis has left the building.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

The pulling meta for groups the past year or so is no longer pull singles but groups of 2-4 mobs. It’s interesting you mention wizards as they are very good pullers/cc for such groups, even better than rangers!

They pull / get target with eye, hit the pull with aoe snare at the choke point into the camp and get things rooted quickly. The snare and root on inc really helps tank establish aggro as they can use proxy aggro from root initially, and taunt off the snare to piggy back a big boost to their hate.

The servers are very twinked at this point and groups close to pure melee do fine into the 50s. Often the only caster is a bard or enc focusing on heals or slows or a necromancer acting as healer.

As I stated before, any class can pull. But your pull game would be even better with Harmony/Lull/FD. Just because people can pull in some zones without it, doesn't mean it is always a viable method to pull. This makes classes without Harmony/Lull/FD more limited in terms of where they can pull successfully. If you are in an area where you can pull that loosely, the area is already trivial, so a SK/Necro/Monk/Paladin is going to be just as good or better.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Pulling a bunch of mobs in an easy zone is not a new pulling strategy. I was face pulling mobs in KC on my Shadowknight 5/6 years ago lol, no FD or snares needed. In any situation where your group can melt all incoming opposition, you don't really need a puller class, so anybody will do.

The reason why Rangers will never be great pullers is because when you DO need FD or Lull, they will not be able to do it if they are in a dungeon. So you will need to get somebody else to do the job. Having an actual puller class to begin allows your group more flexibility, because you can choose when to use their pulling power. If you are able to just face pull for faster kills, go for it! But when 2 people in your group leave, and you are no longer able to kill a 4 pull, then you can use FD/Lull to get safer pulls, instead of disbanding the group or waiting for a new player.

[Gustoo]

Rangers peak pulling happened in dreadlands groups in 2000, when there was 200 people in zone all the time and on live archery worked right and you could sniper mobs from a billion miles away and other melees probably didnt have a good bow.

[Jibartik]

Yeah that was amazing, in those days I was getting half a level after a full day of grinding at that terrible exp spot! :o

[Heywood]

I don't agree with that part. Rangers are actually very good in PvP. In group situations, they can participate in a melee train just fine, even if they aren't necessarily optimal for it. All that matters in group PvP is having more swinging dicks in your melee train than the opponent does. In solo 1v1 world PvP, rangers have great tools available to them.

A ranger might not beat a warrior in a 1:1 mathematical joust, but if you make use of your ranged options, it's perfectly winnable. Same goes for any other melee matchup. You have access to viable two-handed weapons, and if you fall behind in the joust, you can resort to shooting and quick-casting spells between clashes. Ensnare is super good against pets as it lasts like fifteen minutes and largely removes a pet from the equation.

Against casters, you've got solid melee output as well as strong FR/CR buffs, and you have the ability to shoot someone from outside conventional spellcasting range. Nobody can really run from you. You can't stop somebody from gating, but you can't be fought in the manner that casters normally fight melees because you have the option of just standing two hundred units of range away and shooting the dude over and over for 50-100 damage a pop. Nobody can stand up to that very long.

Being one of three classes with SoW is super nice on a PvP server as well. In theory, anyone can just buy SoW potions; but in reality, you get dispelled so much in PvP that most people just make do with jboots. Having that extra 10% movement speed is a huge advantage. Your own SoW might get dispelled, but just the fact that you always have the buff at the start of a fight means you always have a mobility advantage or at least parity (against druids and shamans) while almost everyone you fight will only have jboots speed. This matters way more for a melee class than for casters.

And while your offensive spells aren't exactly amazing, you do have quick-casting nukes and near-unresistable DoTs. They don't hurt a lot, but they do damage, so you're not completely incapable of doing anything to someone you can't get to in melee the way warriors, rogues, monks and paladins are. Among the melee classes, only rangers and shadowknights have the ability to apply pressure from range. When someone levitates off of a cliff just to counter your melee attacks, you can still put Drones of Doom on him, spam your fast fire nukes, and shoot a bow. It'll land you some kills from time to time where other melee classes had no such options.

For overall PvP, meaning not specifically group PvP or focused fully on 1v1 duels, ranger is a great class. It's good enough to partake in a melee train and it has perfectly fine matchups against all classes in random world 1v1s. When jousting against tankier melee classes, just get some distance and heal yourself from time to time, or get off bowshots in-between jousting clashes. Against casters, the ability to self-buff +40 FR/CR is a pretty big thing that allows you to focus more on MR, and no caster class can do much against any melee opponent with high enough resists.

And while ranger heals aren't particularly big, just the ability to heal yourself up after every fight means you're never in that awful situations where you're down to 60% HP and have to sit around for fifteen minutes to regenerate, hoping nobody finds you. Any class without healing spells has to deal with that when not in a group. Ask a PvP warrior how much it sucks to do anything alone just because it takes absolutely forever to regain HP after every fight.


Can't take this post serious when you mention ranger nukes. Rangers don't nuke in PvP. I take it you're talking about duels on blue/green. Which isn't really PvP, but can't hold that against ya.

Rangers still the correct answer as the most UP class.

[Selene]

I was going to move past this thread until I checked back in to see my poor mage being slandered relentlessly!

I get a lot of the points that are being made about mages but this whole debate hinges on what's weighted as being more important. We'll have to agree to disagree, but I think naming mages as the most underpowered class of the game is very incorrect!

Solo-wise, they are very capable. Sure, camps with 3+ mobs are probably off limits unless they're weak, but a mage can take 2 mobs with an earth pet pretty consistently. They can do dungeons solo in some circumstances (but then again, which class besides enchanter can reliably do all the dungeons in the game solo?) Unlike a wizard, a mage can actually do dungeons. And don't get me started about farming.

Grouping wise, the argument for necro over mage is completely predicated on the composition of the group. In the vast majority of grouping experiences, there is a cleric and there is an enchanter or bard, or at least someone who can root (even if it;s just the cleric). and in 95% of the cases, that's all you need - the extra utility of a necro, like the argument about druid/rangers' abilities being overshadowed by other classes that can do the same in the group, is usually nullified. I'd take a mage's DPS over the situational utility of a necro (if it is needed in the first place) any day.

A mage's DPS in a group is not to be trifled with. Imo only a rogue can compare --- their pets hit harder on an average hit than a rogue, a 33 point damage shield adds up a lot, plus mana free nukes from the chardok staff (333 dmg) or velks boots (600 damage) - and that's not even considering the 1k nuke we can drop to help burn down a mob. Given that the vast majority of groups is about grinding through mobs mindlessly, a mage is head and shoulders preferable to a necro in most groups. And if it isn't one of those xp grinding groups - but instead a loot camp involving a tough named - well, in most cases the group is pre-configured with a cleric and a CC (usually enchanter). Given the elite DPS class of a mage, they belong there over a necro, too.

Mage roles in raids are lame, but it is a critical one. Given how boring raids are with autoattack and heals being the crux of it, who cares if it is lame? simply being critical with a spell or two is enough for me, personally

I think people get too hung about mages being weaker than the other casters, especially with no CC (and I grant that they are - certainly weaker than enchanter, necro, shaman, and in some cases even druid) - but they are a specialized class that specializes in dealing sustained DPS in a manner only rivaled by a well geared rogue or monk.

as for utility, you can't discount malo just because shamans get it too - only 2 classes get this line of spells, and it is so useful for any other spellcaster in the group who needs resists lowered when there is no shaman (which happens frequently enough)

[PlsNoBan]

I was going to move past this thread until I checked back in to see my poor mage being slandered relentlessly!

I get a lot of the points that are being made about mages but this whole debate hinges on what's weighted as being more important. We'll have to agree to disagree, but I think naming mages as the most underpowered class of the game is very incorrect!

Solo-wise, they are very capable. Sure, camps with 3+ mobs are probably off limits unless they're weak, but a mage can take 2 mobs with an earth pet pretty consistently. They can do dungeons solo in some circumstances (but then again, which class besides enchanter can reliably do all the dungeons in the game solo?) Unlike a wizard, a mage can actually do dungeons. And don't get me started about farming.

Grouping wise, the argument for necro over mage is completely predicated on the composition of the group. In the vast majority of grouping experiences, there is a cleric and there is an enchanter or bard, or at least someone who can root (even if it;s just the cleric). and in 95% of the cases, that's all you need - the extra utility of a necro, like the argument about druid/rangers' abilities being overshadowed by other classes that can do the same in the group, is usually nullified. I'd take a mage's DPS over the situational utility of a necro (if it is needed in the first place) any day.

A mage's DPS in a group is not to be trifled with. Imo only a rogue can compare --- their pets hit harder on an average hit than a rogue, a 33 point damage shield adds up a lot, plus mana free nukes from the chardok staff (333 dmg) or velks boots (600 damage) - and that's not even considering the 1k nuke we can drop to help burn down a mob. Given that the vast majority of groups is about grinding through mobs mindlessly, a mage is head and shoulders preferable to a necro in most groups. And if it isn't one of those xp grinding groups - but instead a loot camp involving a tough named - well, in most cases the group is pre-configured with a cleric and a CC (usually enchanter). Given the elite DPS class of a mage, they belong there over a necro, too.

Mage roles in raids are lame, but it is a critical one. Given how boring raids are with autoattack and heals being the crux of it, who cares if it is lame? simply being critical with a spell or two is enough for me, personally

I think people get too hung about mages being weaker than the other casters, especially with no CC (and I grant that they are - certainly weaker than enchanter, necro, shaman, and in some cases even druid) - but they are a specialized class that specializes in dealing sustained DPS in a manner only rivaled by a well geared rogue or monk.

as for utility, you can't discount malo just because shamans get it too - only 2 classes get this line of spells, and it is so useful for any other spellcaster in the group who needs resists lowered when there is no shaman (which happens frequently enough)


Agree with all of this. I'm not even a mage and have no particular love for the class. There's some people with seriously clouded judgment and/or mage hate around here. Mage is a super good group class. Decent solo'er and fills an important (maybe boring) role in raids. Underpowered is crazy talk.

[Balimon]

When figuring out generally the most underpowered class, we have to look beyond one-off abilities that are extremely useful in a handful of situations. If that was the criteria, then no class would be underpowered. Every class in the game has at least one situation where they are amazing. In the general context of "most underpowered", you need to look at the game as a whole to determine which classes struggle in general more than others due to their specific toolkit.

In general, Mages are used as CoTH bots as you describe. But it is not because CoTH is so good that it trumps a Mage's other abilities. It is because CoTH is one of the only good abilities they have. If Mages had other great abilities, you would see Mages being used in more situations. Unfortunately a big chunk of a Mage's toolkit is their pets, which cannot be used in many situations due to poor pathing. Another big chunk of a Mage's toolkit is summoned items. Most of those items are not useful on a server where the population knows everything, and good gear is easily accessible. Their third chunk of abilities are DDs, which are inferior to a Wizards. And their Mala is inferior to a Shamans. This is why on P99 Mages struggle. Most of their kit is either not used, or inferior to other classes. They also don't have much in the ways of CC, which further lowers their utility.

You're forgetting Mod rods, they are more mana efficient than twitches. You need at least a couple of mages at raids to be mana batteries and to do train aways. Also mage DS is superior to druids because of the fire resist component.

[Tunabros]

no one likes playing mages

sorry you are a coth bot

hope this helps

[PatChapp]

no one likes playing mages

sorry you are a coth bot

hope this helps

Jokes on you, I don't even have coth on my mage and still(occasionally) get asked to bring my mage to a raid instead of my enchanter.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

You're forgetting Mod rods, they are more mana efficient than twitches. You need at least a couple of mages at raids to be mana batteries and to do train aways. Also mage DS is superior to druids because of the fire resist component.

I have mentioned mod rods plenty of times, but between this thread and the other one you may have missed it. Twitch is better than mod rods because mod rods are lore. The disruptive nature of having to eat one and then pick up another one makes it worse than twitch. Mod Rods are twitch support to help fill twitch gaps, not the other way around.

And I have said before Mages are an amazing raid class. But for most people raiding is a fraction of their total play time on a mage, so raiding is a lower consideration in my opinion. It's the same problem with COTH. It's an amazing spell, but not too useful outside of raids.

[Balimon]

no one likes playing mages

sorry you are a coth bot

hope this helps

My favorite grumpy troll! Glad you found an original one liner there.

[Tunabros]

do yourself a favor and leave force of will

have you no honor? no pride?

yikes

[Balimon]

I have mentioned mod rods plenty of times, but between this thread and the other one you may have missed it. Twitch is better than mod rods because mod rods are lore. The disruptive nature of having to eat one and then pick up another one makes it worse than twitch. Mod Rods are twitch support to help fill twitch gaps, not the other way around.

And I have said before Mages are an amazing raid class. But for most people raiding is a fraction of their total play time on a mage, so raiding is a lower consideration in my opinion. It's the same problem with COTH. It's an amazing spell, but not too useful outside of raids.

I must have missed you talking about rods, I just saw the post where you were saying that mages don't bring anything besides COTH that others don't already do. Just pointing out that's an overstatement and there are things that only mages can do.

Your point about twitch vs rods may be true, I'm not sure, all I know is rods are 100% needed for raids. I can also build up a stockpile before the fight, I just don't think necros can pump out as much mana as I can through rods. I get that they are annoying, but that doesn't stop anyone from eating them up!

[Balimon]

do yourself a favor and leave force of will

have you no honor? no pride?

yikes

Keep drinking that koolaid man

[Tunabros]

sorry I dont talk to people who sell their bodies for loot

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I must have missed you talking about rods, I just saw the post where you were saying that mages don't bring anything besides COTH that others don't already do. Just pointing out that's an overstatement and there are things that only mages can do.

Your point about twitch vs rods may be true, I'm not sure, all I know is rods are 100% needed for raids. I can also build up a stockpile before the fight, I just don't think necros can pump out as much mana as I can through rods. I get that they are annoying, but that doesn't stop anyone from eating them up!

And don't get me wrong, I am not hating on Mages or discouraging people from playing them. I think they are great. I am simply pointing out the problems Mage's have on P99's timeline, which make them struggle more than other classes in general. All classes on P99 are good enough to play, and not at a point where they are bad or unplayable. That is one of the things I like about P99, no class is straight up broken to the point of being unusable.

Mod Rods are great in raids. No question. Twitches overall are better because the healer doesn't need to worry about Mod Rods running out, not being able to click on them properly to pick them up, having someone sit on them, etc. They are more of a gap filler for twitches. Mod Rods are used a lot less than twitches. From what I remember they are mostly used for the toughest fights like AoW. You aren't always able to build them up due to raid targets needing fast response time or camp movement. With mod rods being lore, it's tough to coordinate 60 raiders to all pick up a mod rod, move it, and place it every time.

[Balimon]

And don't get me wrong, I am not hating on Mages or discouraging people from playing them. I think they are great. I am simply pointing out the problems Mage's have on P99's timeline, which make them struggle more than other classes in general. All classes on P99 are good enough to play, and not at a point where they are bad or unplayable. That is one of the things I like about P99, no class is straight up broken to the point of being unusable.

Mod Rods are great in raids. No question. Twitches overall are better because the healer doesn't need to worry about Mod Rods running out, not being able to click on them properly to pick them up, having someone sit on them, etc. They are more of a gap filler for twitches. Mod Rods are used a lot less than twitches. From what I remember they are mostly used for the toughest fights like AoW. You aren't always able to build them up due to raid targets needing fast response time or camp movement. With mod rods being lore, it's tough to coordinate 60 raiders to all pick up a mod rod, move it, and place it every time.

Your analysis is pretty good, mages power wanes as the timeline progress that's for sure. There's a big difference between ToV and outside ToV raids as well as far how useful mages are. Inside ToV they are invaluable, every raid needs at least two, because of the constant cothing, the train away meta and for rods. I can't think of a single fight that we don't pile the rods down, even for trash depending on the situation, like HoT or Flurry drakes. I think people use rods more now then when you remember, especially on the Velious targets.

[Heywood]

Mages have their place in raids.


Thus proving my point that rangers are the most underpowered throughout the Classic - Velious timeline.


Thank you for coming to my TED talk, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

[Danth]

All classes on P99 are good enough to play, and not at a point where they are bad or unplayable. That is one of the things I like about P99, no class is straight up broken to the point of being unusable.

More than merely being able to function (a very low bar indeed), every class in the game has something it's genuinely good at. We might rank the classes as a sort of composite score for the entire game, but in truth few players use or want to use the entire game. Even the much-maligned wizard has jobs it's well-suited for and specific types of players i'd highly recommend it to; just the things it's best at might be more limited in scope than the strengths of what I'd call a stronger class. That's no problem at all if the player in question likes those specific jobs.

Function across all aspects of the game only becomes a problem when MMO-gamer minmaxer perception starts to creep in and you get people who think if you can't tank Vulak then you can't tank a Scrawny Gnoll, either. They're out there, although there are seemingly less of them on P1999 than there were in the original game.

Danth

[Fammaden]

Rangers really have the most awesome hybrid toolkit, its just overshadowed as a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none by the bard, which is essentially a broken OP class in some phases of the game. Paladins are stacked with tools that many overlook as well. Really SK is kinda the lamest hybrid IMO, despite its popularity. A lot less diversity, but of course having FD and snare goes a LONG way.

[zillabunny]

It's warrior

[socialist]

From a pure mechanics perspective, I would say a Wizard is a better class than a Druid, simply because Wizards get to keep their full kit in all zones, where Druids lose a lot of their kit in Dungeons.

You really overstate how much a druid loses from being indoors. It's, what, Harmony and SoW and a couple of totally inconsequential mid-level nuke spells? Harmony obviously matters, but it's hardly the primary function of the class. In groups, the fundamental purpose of the druid class is to be an okayish healer who isn't totally useless in case a better healer joins the group and removes the need for the druid's healing. That's pretty much it. They have that weird little niche carved out, the one where you can tolerate having one of them in the group even if there's also a cleric, just because druids can do some damage and be ready with emergency heals if the situation calls for it. And if you can't find a cleric, the druid's healing is good enough on its own to get some measure of grinding going, even if it leaves a lot to be desired.

[socialist]

Rangers really have the most awesome hybrid toolkit, its just overshadowed as a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none by the bard, which is essentially a broken OP class in some phases of the game. Paladins are stacked with tools that many overlook as well. Really SK is kinda the lamest hybrid IMO, despite its popularity. A lot less diversity, but of course having FD and snare goes a LONG way.

I've never actually agreed with the notion that the bard is a jack-of-all-trades. I mean, that particular phrase was used by the developers themselves to describe the class, and printed in the manual and shit, which is why it lives on to this day; but if we look at the actual jobs that a bard can do, they're not particularly versatile. A bard can't tank, heal or DPS. It's basically a puller and CC class, with some buffing and mana sustain thrown in. If we look at it in terms of actual group roles, there's only a few classes that can fill more than one to any meaningful extent, and bard certainly isn't among them.

To gauge the versatility of a class, take any given group with one of that class in it already and then add another member of the same class who has to take up a different role. How happy are you with that? In the bard's case, nobody in their right mind would ever want two of them in the same group. Meanwhile, you can have a perfectly serviceable group with two rangers in it, and they can be filling two different roles.

The versatility of bards is generally overrated. They have a lot of different types of abilities, but the vast majority of them are pointless garbage that never gets used. When you get right down to it, there's really just a handful of bard songs that are ever called for in a typical grouping environment. Haste, mana regen, Selo if outdoors, lull if pulling, mez in exp groups, resist songs in raids, and I guess slow if there's no other slower. That's 98% of what a bard exists for, and they don't have the kind of versatility where you could have two of them in a group and feel fine about it.

The class was designed in spirit to have a bit of everything, but it's not as if anybody genuinely considers the bard to have any relevant melee capabilities, or tanking, or damage-dealing. Having a long list of ability types doesn't mean much if most of them are either weak as piss or serve no particular purpose in ordinary gameplay. Many aspects of the bard class are comparable to a car with two wheels--technically it's better than a card with no wheels, but it's still not a usable car. Having dual wield but no double attack means your melee output is irrelevant, having plate armor with garbage hit points and defensive skillcaps means you're not really tanky, etc.

[Tethler]

Mages have their place in raids.


Thus proving my point that rangers are the most underpowered throughout the Classic - Velious timeline.


Thank you for coming to my TED talk, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Rangers have their place in raids too. CoP on the melee and they're the speedbump of choice for tank transitions.

[Keebz]

Rangers have their place in raids too... they're the speedbump of choice for tank transitions.

I feel like WS is consistently undersold on the forums. It's amazing for all sorts of situations--engages, tanks unexpectedly dying, picking up random trash, etc. It's tank any mob in the game for 18 seconds guaranteed. Basically a save the raid every 72 minutes button.

Deftdance, Nimble and Voiddance are also great, but WS is the longest lasting and Rangers can pick up aggro at the drop of a hat.

Additionally, Rangers are like most of a rogue DPS wise esp. when geared and like it or not, good Ranger-only gear drops.

[Fammaden]

Still starts to feel like a one trick pony in raiding for the most part though, at least there's so few and CotP is so good that usually you can slip by not being told to play a cleric bot when there's no ranger bump needed. But there's very often bumping needed or at least desired.

Despite the value, its just a boring class for most people on raids, but way more useful than SK in high end raiding for sure

[Cen]

Every class has a place in the game where it is fantastic, and places that it dreads. I can generally fabricate a situation that every class really hates to be in where others have a slightly better time, though some classes of course also can uniquely do something that no other can in terms of content too. ;)

[Ennewi]

I've always felt like druids suck ass outside of porting and PL. Heals are the weakest of the healers. Sustained damage in groups is ass. Raids ur just a crappy spot healer with 1 buff 1 debuff?

Animal charm DPS in Fear, Kael, Sky, etc. IIRC revultant rats used to be incorrectly classified as animals and those were used for DPS as well. Also, no other class can turn off the rain, manipulating the environment, zone-wide, to improve visibility/QOL for other players.

rangers ... in a chain pulling xp group almost definitely output more dps than a druid due to not having significant mana constraints.

Not if there's something for the druid to charm. If a class has any form of charm, it is closer to being overpowered than under.

[Jimjam]

Shaman pets are classified as animals, so druids can take spite golem pets in fear and caller of sathir pets in KC, even if it is mostly a novelty.

Druids are great in overgeared groups where tanking can be shared as everyone is a beefcake, which really synergises with group regen. In these groups not every mob needs a slow which synergises well with damage shield.

Was in a group like this at the weekend, pulling like 5 lvl 50 mobs at a time thru the back wall of RCY and it was no problem and great xp (enc, war, war, ranger, monk, druid, max level 56). No deaths just chain kills of knights/protectors, bodyguards, hands and occasional decayed mobs.

Also shout out to Fistii who taught me some RCY pulls I didn’t know how to safely achieve previously, great job!

[Ennewi]

I've never actually agreed with the notion that the bard is a jack-of-all-trades. I mean, that particular phrase was used by the developers themselves to describe the class, and printed in the manual and shit, which is why it lives on to this day; but if we look at the actual jobs that a bard can do, they're not particularly versatile.

I get why people have this perspective, but ultimately I think the original box description fits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades,_master_of_none

The original version "a jack of all trades" is often a compliment for a person who is good at fixing and has a very good broad knowledge. They may be a master of integration, as such an individual who knows enough from many learned trades and skills to be able to bring the individual's disciplines together in a practical manner. This person is a generalist rather than a specialist.

It's an int caster that can wear chain/plate, benefits from sta 4 to 1 by comparison, isn't dependent on mana (with few exceptions), can move around while casting, has a defensive discipline, and isn't reliant on weapons but can eventually shift into melee attack role at higher levels thanks to groupwide procs. Its version of the wand/staff actually enhances its version of spells and it has multiple, one for each type of magic; granted, only two are tremendously useful. Every "spell" is a three second cast and the class gets at least one per level unlike other casters.

Borrows a little from all over the class list. Safe fall (mnk, rog) helps prevent a lot of inadvertent runspeed damage before travelsong. Forage, track (dru/rng) and pick lock, sneak, hide (rogue). Separately none of it stands out, esp at the skill cap, but together all of it equates to a general convenience/QOL feature.

Can't bind, gate, or port, but it has the fastest movement speed to compensate, turning West Karana into a leisurely jaunt.

A bard can't tank,

Not ideal, but group tanking is possible depending on the level/zone, esp since bards have slow on demand. Equip a shield and lute of the howler, deftdance if/whenever possible, and hold on for dear life.

heal

True, but the regen put out is fungi+ depending on lute/level. And shield of song complements canni, allowing shamans to put out heals more readily.

or DPS.

Bard charm can put out respectable damage, esp if there are rogue mobs in zone, and it costs no mana until higher levels (insta killing an NPC's pet via charm counts towards bard DPS imo). With a decent drum, dot damage isn't a terrible alternative either for smaller groups, esp with other dot classes present. Is it ideal? No, but ideal isn't required to fill a role because, from those who are LFG, choices are limited.

It's basically a puller and CC class, with some buffing and mana sustain thrown in. If we look at it in terms of actual group roles, there's only a few classes that can fill more than one to any meaningful extent, and bard certainly isn't among them.

Bards can assist in preventative ways, spamming mez to interrupt casters, highsun/PBAE fear to buy time for evac. They can also assist with CRs using any combination of sneak, bind sight, and other songs, the most obvious being locate corpse.

Jack-of-all-trades might not be a perfect description, but how else could they be described? While technically INT casters, they aren't dependent on mana, who can move around while casting (assuming the INT caster doesn't return to the original loc to finish channeling). At higher levels they can once again do decent melee damage, having every excuse to downshift into that role thanks to groupwide procs and epic modifier.

To gauge the versatility of a class, take any given group with one of that class in it already and then add another member of the same class who has to take up a different role. How happy are you with that? In the bard's case, nobody in their right mind would ever want two of them in the same group.

It could be made to work. Excluding SS helm clicks, one bard pulls using charm/highsun liberally, the other bard covers the usual lineup of beneficial songs while remaining in camp. Or one bard could maintain charm. In lower level groups, one bard could weave in AE mez on incoming while the other chain pulled; at those levels either of the two could also stand in as tank.

The versatility of bards is generally overrated. They have a lot of different types of abilities, but the vast majority of them are pointless garbage that never gets used.

Bards are versatile but their extra abilities rarely ever get used by players who mostly swarmed to max level.

When you get right down to it, there's really just a handful of bard songs that are ever called for in a typical grouping environment. Haste, mana regen, Selo if outdoors, lull if pulling, mez in exp groups, resist songs in raids, and I guess slow if there's no other slower. That's 98% of what a bard exists for, and they don't have the kind of versatility where you could have two of them in a group and feel fine about it.

Charm and AE snare/slow are two of the more important song types. Charm preoccupies two mobs instead of mez's one and it lowers their health/mana in the process. AE snare/slow is great when used in tandem with enchanter mez; if anything resists/breaks early, it won't catch the enchanter and even if it does, it won't do multiple rounds of damage...more often than not it will be slow-motion chasing the bard instead. Other class slows will prevent its application, but the aggro generated should still redirect targets from enchanter to bard. Resist songs in group, not just raids, prevent a lot of potential damage while pulling/on incoming on top of adding a damage shield. Dex from chant of battle with drum helps warrior proc more, so if haste is already covered by another class, there's a decent alternative to use and it's the very first song on the list.

Having a long list of ability types doesn't mean much if most of them are either weak as piss or serve no particular purpose in ordinary gameplay.

OT hammer costing a single jade? No charming nonsense required, just illusion mask and faction song. Faction song is also good for MQing. Sneak? Access to otherwise uncooperative merchants. Jig of vigor would be in greater demand if endurance use was the same as in classic, but it's still good to have ready for warriors discing depend on raids. March of the Wee is more trouble than it's worth in groups, but it still has its uses elsewhere. Even something like cassindra's elegy has its place and time (tradeskilling). The list goes on.

Many aspects of the bard class are comparable to a car with two wheels--technically it's better than a card with no wheels, but it's still not a usable car.

A motorcycle would be a good description of the bard class in this case.

Having dual wield but no double attack means your melee output is irrelevant,

Yeah but through melee attacks the bard gains access to certain procs that benefit the damage output of group members who likely do have double attack. That's pretty relevant.

having plate armor with garbage hit points and defensive skillcaps means you're not really tanky, etc.

Still tankier than the traditional purecaster though.

[Cen]

bard single target DPS when three-chanting is often overlooked. it's above average without the epic and with it's very high

[Ennewi]

bard single target DPS when three-chanting is often overlooked. it's above average without the epic and with it's very high

Yep, I haven't been able to test this out thoroughly at max level/with epic yet, but others have reported 60+ dps from percussion dots alone and having been capable tanks in zones like the hole, seb, and skyfire, not excluding guardian wurms.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198946

Originally Posted by Cherry23
Bards can not mezz or charm high end content, their haste and slow is not as good as a shaman or enchanter which almost evey high end group has one of... You can't use run speed indoors...

They have pulling ability and mana regen. Not much else. They are as bad as rangers at high end but fun when levelling

Originally Posted by falkun

With Ervaj's line, non-epic bards now have better haste than shaman (55 vs 50%). Also, epic'd bards have had better haste than shaman since Kunark (60%, 70% with ervaj). You could also argue their pulling ability is not as good as a monk's yet that's not strictly true either. And as Astuce pointed out, bard song DPS is respectable. Bard slow is also the single best snare in the game.

We also have unparalleled resist buffs, an unresistable debuff, group-wide DA, we've had eyeball pulling since Kunark (lol @ holgresh camp), among many other tools in our toolbox. Bards are still quite valuable in almost every raid composition: DS/epic proc for tank+spank, resists for resist fights, melee buffs for burn fights, mana batteries for endurance fights, etc.

If you think bard's are one-trick ponies, you do not understand the class.

[TomisFeline]

when this thread was started i never expected to see someone trying to argue bards were at the bottom. same for druids (though underpowered, their versatility definitely prevents them from being the most UP)

wiz takes my vote unfortunately
would be mage, but their sdps and peripheral utility to others keeps them out of the bottom.

hard to argue that, if rogbog offered to non classically buff a single class, that it shouldn't be a wizard

[PlsNoBan]

when this thread was started i never expected to see someone trying to argue bards were at the bottom. same for druids (though underpowered, their versatility definitely prevents them from being the most UP)

wiz takes my vote unfortunately
would be mage, but their sdps and peripheral utility to others keeps them out of the bottom.

hard to argue that, if rogbog offered to non classically buff a single class, that it shouldn't be a wizard

Wizard is great for raiding just doesn't have the sustain to be effective in groups. Druid is just "meh" at everything. If you ignore the PL capability and ports. What does anyone actually want a druid for? Worst of the healers by far with weak sustained dps and little utility. Snare and a couple buffs I guess? Mage has equivalent DS. Cleric has equal/better HP buffs. Multiple classes have SoW. Shamans have regen/str.

I've played EQ since beta. Not once have I been in a situation (outside of wanting a port or PL) where I was like "Man I wish we had a druid"

[socialist]

Yep, I haven't been able to test this out thoroughly at max level/with epic yet, but others have reported 60+ dps from percussion dots alone and having been capable tanks in zones like the hole, seb, and skyfire, not excluding guardian wurms.


Eh. Chants will tick for 56ish each w/epic, which is something like 30 DPS if you maintain three of them. That's if you can maintain them all, because while they do apply a resistance debuff, it's not exactly huge and plenty of things in the endgame will be immune to one or more of magic, fire and cold. Add the shitty melee on top and it might amount to 50 DPS. No, bards do not do real DPS. It's marginally higher than a paladin, and that's if the bard is doing nothing other than DPS, which is not a scenario that ever actually happens in reality. Ask a level 60 bard how big a percentage of his time is spent in DPS mode. He'll probably chuckle at you and recite a dirty limerick.

As far as tanking goes, bards are on par with rogues. They get marginally higher HP and they can wear plate, but their parry and dodge skills cap significantly lower, so it's about equal. If you take a fully ToV-geared bard to tank the Hole, I'm sure it'll probably be fine. Under real-life conditions, it's not a thing. A ToV-geared cleric could probably tank leveling content with a slower. Shamans tank guardian wurms all day and they don't even have any real defensive skills. This is not a measure of viability in conventional gameplay settings.

Maybe you can come up with some fantastical scenario where there's a group in which the bard is forced to be the tank, and then it's probably better than having the fucking wizard do it. But in reality, it's not a thing that happens with any sort of regularity, and it certainly isn't good. Bards are certainly useful in the one role that they inhabit, but they don't have the kind of versatility that lets them fill more than one role. They're pullers with mild CC and haste/resists/manasong. Stop pretending they're also DPS and tanks.

When was the last time you had a bard in your group and then invited another one, when it wasn't the only option available? Yeah? Yeah.

[branamil]

Literally no one has called bard's a "one trick pony" in like 20 years. It's funny when people are pretending their some wizened prophet when they're just like "diD you kNow bards cAn MeZ and Haste????"

It's not like they're going to do ALL of those things in every group. The average XP group is so mind numbing that it's not worth it to give yourself carpal tunnel to squeeze an extra 1.5% xp per hour.

[Ennewi]

Eh. Chants will tick for 56ish each w/epic, which is something like 30 DPS if you maintain three of them. That's if you can maintain them all, because while they do apply a resistance debuff, it's not exactly huge and plenty of things in the endgame will be immune to one or more of magic, fire and cold. Add the shitty melee on top and it might amount to 50 DPS.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54582

#8
Old 11-15-2011, 07:41 PM
Lazortag Lazortag is offline
Planar Protector

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At level 60 assuming the tank has perfect aggro I can do about 68 DPS once my best dots have landed. In reality though if you're casting Angstlich's Assonance, Denon's Bereavement and Selo's Chords of Cessation on the same mob you're likely to pull aggro pretty quickly.
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Project 1999 (PvE):
Giegue Nessithurtsithurts, 60 Bard <Divinity>
Starman Deluxe, 24 Enchanter
Lardna Minch, 18 Warrior

Project 1999 (PvP):
[50 (sometimes 49) Bard] Wolfram Alpha (Half Elf) ZONE: oasis

No, bards do not do real DPS.

That wasn't the argument being made. Bards aren't real CC either. Compared to other classes they aren't really anything, which is why there isn't a place for them in the class discussion section of these forums; they're lumped in with the melee classes for lack of a better choice, because they're a little bit of everything rolled into one. That was the argument. They're a jack of all trades. And, by definition, a jack of all trades wouldn't be capable of upper case DPS.

It's marginally higher than a paladin, and that's if the bard is doing nothing other than DPS, which is not a scenario that ever actually happens in reality.

But it likely has happened over the years and, more to the point, it could happen. If it can be done, that means there's versatility. A warrior can remain at the low health threshold for berserker frenzy damage. Will their damage be equal to the hasted enchanter pet? No, but it is an option if another tank is present. A necromancer can be the sole healer in a group. Will their heals be as powerful as a torp shaman's? No, but it is an option if no priests are available.

Ask a level 60 bard how big a percentage of his time is spent in DPS mode. He'll probably chuckle at you and recite a dirty limerick.

Again, it isn't a matter of how often it's done but whether or not it's an option. Besides, there are other less direct ways bards can contribute towards DPS. Charming one of two shadow knight mobs so both harm touch each other is an example of the creative DPS bards are capable of. Adding to their damage versatility...

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=390809

08-30-2021, 01:51 PM
Naethyn Naethyn is offline
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I’ve been fighting for damage shields for a long time. My biggest gripe is on raids with cleric groups demanding every available bard, instead of giving one bard to the tank group. Here is some rough math I’ve come up with to prove how little bards do for clerics in a dragon fight. For things unslowable it’s not even close, the bard will do 3 rogues of dps.

Bard produces 20 mana a tick.
20 mana a tick = 200 mana per minute
Complete heal = 350 mana
17.5 bard ticks = 1 Complete Heal
10 minute fight = 2000 mana
5 complete heals
7 minutes = 1,400 mana
1,400 mana / 350 = 4 CH
5 clerics * 4 CH = 20 CH per 7 minutes

Bard produces 61 damage shield.

As far as tanking goes, bards are on par with rogues. They get marginally higher HP and they can wear plate, but their parry and dodge skills cap significantly lower, so it's about equal. If you take a fully ToV-geared bard to tank the Hole, I'm sure it'll probably be fine.

The quote from the first reply came from a bard tanking before SoV's release, without any of the 100 raw hp gear from this expansion.

Maybe you can come up with some fantastical scenario where there's a group in which the bard is forced to be the tank, and then it's probably better than having the fucking wizard do it. But in reality, it's not a thing that happens with any sort of regularity, and it certainly isn't good.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134988&page=2

Old 01-13-2014, 05:49 PM
Laok Laok is offline
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I like to think I'm pretty good at Bard. I played one on live for almost 10 years and got him to level 85. I played pre /melody and post. /melody was nice, but as was stated earlier, made bards easymode. There was a large influx of PL'ed bard alts that weren't very skilled and it got to be difficult to get a group because nobody wanted a dumpster bard.

...

I was tanking in CoM in my 40's with mediocre gear with a Shammy main healer. I have pulled, tanked, CC, snared, slowed, hasted and even main healed (Lots of downtime lol). Try mezzing 2 mobs while keeping agro on a third some time, it's fun in a twisted, massochistic kind of way lol.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232580

Old 03-24-2016, 11:34 AM
-Catherin- -Catherin- is offline
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Bards are literally the best at holding agro with three second single target and AE songs with tons of agro with no global cooldown, no mana cost, and can be used while moving around.

A decent bard can pretty much tank any dungeon, probably as good as or better than your typical stereotype tank. but once you get into a raiding situation the bard tanking situation ends once the deftdance wears off...

This of course applies to people who actually know how to play their bards. the majority that have only swarm kited thier entire lives will have no idea what i am talking about. And that is where the problems lies. Good luck finding a bard that knows how to play a bard.

I have tanked the kith general a few times on my bard, as well as offtanked some HoT trash when it was neccessary. I think that is getting about as far as you can take it.
Last edited by -Catherin-; 03-24-2016 at 11:39 AM..

Old 03-24-2016, 03:26 PM
Rygar Rygar is offline
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Sadly I agree with one poster that most bards leveled up swarm kiting and don't realize the true potential of their class, when I asked bards to tank groups (even post 50) they are like, "Umm... I'm a bard, I can't tank", to which I immediately face palm.

Bards are a plate class with some low capped defensive abilities, but awesome agro potential. I have seen a bard in the Hole tank, lull pull, song twist, and CC without issue.

Best Bard I've ever been with is Thald, dude seriously knows his class. He is spot on with adds, pulling, song twists, you name it. I recommend you ask him any questions, he probably can give you some serious tips.
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Old 06-10-2016, 12:45 PM
Troxx Troxx is offline
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Bards have reasonable AC but lack a lot on those secondary skills. Dodge caps low. Parry caps extra low at 75 and isn't available until 53. Riposte is achieved even later in the game and caps at 75 also. On top of that, bard hp pools are low compared to warriors and Knights.

Having said that, in good gear they actually tank decently. Aggro lock is simple, and before the mob is even in camp you can have it preslowed by22/23% to 35% depending on your level AND the real slower (if you have one) can slow very early in the fight without taking any hits.

Bards make stellar tanks on more trivial content. On moderate content they can manage without too many problems. In higher end content their defensive weaknesses start to show more obviously ... And on the hardest group able content they really don't hold up that well.

The vast majority of Everquest grouping content is a game of balanced attrition. In those scenarios you potentially save the healer mana with preslows (20-35% is a lot) and fast real slows where aggro doesn't bounce around.
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^ Argue the point with them.

Bards are certainly useful in the one role that they inhabit, but they don't have the kind of versatility that lets them fill more than one role. They're pullers with mild CC and haste/resists/manasong. Stop pretending they're also DPS and tanks.

The AE snare/slow is reliable CC, much better in emergencies than bard mez/charm. It can derail trains and prevent wipes. The only risk comes from casters, but with everything moving slowly in lockstep, it becomes easier to target and mez/charm casters. The bard can keep mobs corralled, without getting hit, even in cramped rooms like KC basement. So if the enchanter dies, rezzes can go out and the group can remain in camp, picking off the casters and more resistant mobs.

Bards can provide CC or DPS. Bards can also tank. Pulling is probably the role that suits them best though.

When was the last time you had a bard in your group and then invited another one, when it wasn't the only option available? Yeah? Yeah.

Two bards one group can be done and done well. Misconceptions about the class keep that from happening often. There also aren't a whole lot of bards and not many who would know how to make the best adjustments. I've seen a druid charm a pegasus in sky and get the group raid xp. Just because it doesn't happen often doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Shadow knights don't typically pull on raids. Might that be because there's an overabundance of monks on the servers? Could SKs pull raid targets? Yes, and that's where their versatility lies beyond being tanks.

It's not like they're going to do ALL of those things in every group. The average XP group is so mind numbing that it's not worth it to give yourself carpal tunnel to squeeze an extra 1.5% xp per hour.

The average group is a PUG, with composition changing somewhat regularly. So while all of the abilities might not be used in every group, many of them will be used in one xp session.

The average XP group is so mind numbing that it's not worth it to give yourself carpal tunnel to squeeze an extra 1.5% xp per hour.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176915

#6
Old 01-06-2015, 01:25 PM
zanderklocke zanderklocke is offline
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For me, it wasn't actually pushing keys. It was the mouse moving motion while holding down the right click button without releasing for so long. I dunno why people say twisting causes carpal tunnel; that's just pressing a key every 3 seconds.
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#7
Old 01-06-2015, 01:28 PM
Danth Danth is offline
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Twisting shouldn't cause carpal tunnel--the mouse is more likely to do that, as you say. However, excessive button spam can and does cause RSI-related injury instead. Both are issues any long-term player should be aware of.

Danth

[cd288]

Just to add to the replies to socialist, gauging a class's usefulness by whether you'd be happy having two of them in a group is moronic. The only people I'd be happy to have two of in a group is like maybe a Rogue or a Monk and only then when the other important roles are filled, maybe Enchanter if they're both willing to charm pets.

Other than that I don't need two of anything.

[cd288]

Eh. Chants will tick for 56ish each w/epic, which is something like 30 DPS if you maintain three of them. That's if you can maintain them all, because while they do apply a resistance debuff, it's not exactly huge and plenty of things in the endgame will be immune to one or more of magic, fire and cold. Add the shitty melee on top and it might amount to 50 DPS. No, bards do not do real DPS. It's marginally higher than a paladin, and that's if the bard is doing nothing other than DPS, which is not a scenario that ever actually happens in reality. Ask a level 60 bard how big a percentage of his time is spent in DPS mode. He'll probably chuckle at you and recite a dirty limerick.

As far as tanking goes, bards are on par with rogues. They get marginally higher HP and they can wear plate, but their parry and dodge skills cap significantly lower, so it's about equal. If you take a fully ToV-geared bard to tank the Hole, I'm sure it'll probably be fine. Under real-life conditions, it's not a thing. A ToV-geared cleric could probably tank leveling content with a slower. Shamans tank guardian wurms all day and they don't even have any real defensive skills. This is not a measure of viability in conventional gameplay settings.

Maybe you can come up with some fantastical scenario where there's a group in which the bard is forced to be the tank, and then it's probably better than having the fucking wizard do it. But in reality, it's not a thing that happens with any sort of regularity, and it certainly isn't good. Bards are certainly useful in the one role that they inhabit, but they don't have the kind of versatility that lets them fill more than one role. They're pullers with mild CC and haste/resists/manasong. Stop pretending they're also DPS and tanks.

When was the last time you had a bard in your group and then invited another one, when it wasn't the only option available? Yeah? Yeah.

I like how in some ways you moved the goalpost to they suck because they can't do a certain role as well as another class of that role, when the whole conversation is around being a jack of all trades master of none

[Vivitron]

The class was designed in spirit to have a bit of everything, but it's not as if anybody genuinely considers the bard to have any relevant melee capabilities, or tanking, or damage-dealing. Having a long list of ability types doesn't mean much if most of them are either weak as piss or serve no particular purpose in ordinary gameplay.

I mostly agree with you about the bard's role in a typical 6 man group.

I also think bards look more versatile if you consider the breadth of their "ordinary gameplay" instead of their role in a 6 man group.

I did quite a bit of time in those 6 man groups, but I also charm soloed multiple levels. And pbaoe kited a chunk, whether solo or small group or pling. And duoed, doing slow/haste/regen/melee; or with aoe dots and support for root rotting or cluster charming; or fear kiting.

That's if you can maintain them all, because while they do apply a resistance debuff, it's not exactly huge and plenty of things in the endgame will be immune to one or more of magic, fire and cold.

I haven't felt limited by specific immunities very often, but it's a bummer that non-lure damage spells are garbage against high level mobs in general (talking ToV, not Seb).

For raids it would be nice if Ervaj exceeded the haste cap to make it closer to justifiable to put a bard in a rogue group. And if songs went to a separate buff window to make it nicer to put a bard with a tank. And if mana pump were somehow less mind numbing.

[Jimjam]

Having 2 bards in the group does solve the dilemma of whether to pump mana or pull.

[starkind]

Someone should do 6 bards fear kiting indoors. Or 5 bards 1 ranger.

Would be fucking hilarious.

[socialist]

I mean, you can literally do the math. Look up the numbers and add them up. EQ DPS is not some advanced science. If something ticks for X every 6 seconds, it does X/6 DPS. For three chants, add them together. Multiply for instrument modifier. That's the DPS of chants. There isn't any mystery to it. There's no debate. You have quoted demonstrably incorrect values that anyone can look up and see for themselves.

You're capable of fourth grade maths, right? Some idiot posting a number on Allakhazam a decade ago is meaningless. We know the numbers. We can add numbers together. Get with the program. Bards do not do real DPS, even if some imbecile in the Allakhazam comments from 2007 said he does great DPS. You know, I learned from the Allakhazam comments that if you sit too close to a mob's respawn point, it delays the respawn timer.

[cd288]

I mean, you can literally do the math. Look up the numbers and add them up. EQ DPS is not some advanced science. If something ticks for X every 6 seconds, it does X/6 DPS. For three chants, add them together. Multiply for instrument modifier. That's the DPS of chants. There isn't any mystery to it. There's no debate. You have quoted demonstrably incorrect values that anyone can look up and see for themselves.

You're capable of fourth grade maths, right? Some idiot posting a number on Allakhazam a decade ago is meaningless. We know the numbers. We can add numbers together. Get with the program. Bards do not do real DPS, even if some imbecile in the Allakhazam comments from 2007 said he does great DPS. You know, I learned from the Allakhazam comments that if you sit too close to a mob's respawn point, it delays the respawn timer.

But again you're moving the goalposts. The whole discussion is that Bards are jacks of all trades master on none. They don't need to do tremendous DPS for that description to apply. That's the point

[Ennewi]

I mean, you can literally do the math. Look up the numbers and add them up. EQ DPS is not some advanced science. If something ticks for X every 6 seconds, it does X/6 DPS. For three chants, add them together. Multiply for instrument modifier. That's the DPS of chants. There isn't any mystery to it. There's no debate. You have quoted demonstrably incorrect values that anyone can look up and see for themselves.

Angstlich's Assonance, Denon's Bereavement, and Selo's Chords of Cessation. Those were the dots quoted as doing 68 DPS and none those are chants. They benefit from brass and string mods, not percussion.

You're capable of fourth grade maths, right? Some idiot posting a number on Allakhazam a decade ago is meaningless. We know the numbers. We can add numbers together. Get with the program. Bards do not do real DPS, even if some imbecile in the Allakhazam comments from 2007 said he does great DPS. You know, I learned from the Allakhazam comments that if you sit too close to a mob's respawn point, it delays the respawn timer.

Again, that wasn't the argument being made. You're capable of fourth grade reading, right?

[Ennewi]

As to which class is the most underpowered during this era, it's common knowledge what all classes are the least popular still (wiz, mag, etc.) and that is as good an indication as any. But the whole point of EQ was just that, not being overly powerful, not trivializing content. Even the more OP classes on p99 aren't nearly as powerful as the weakest classes in newer MMOs. Enchanters are still dependent on wizards to get to hate and sky. Shamans are still depending on magicians to get cothed to PoM click-in. Etc. And it could be argued that the least powerful classes are getting the most out of the game. Race/class xp penalties, night blindness, unremarkable disciplines all require the player to be creative and do more with less.

[socialist]

I'm too drunk to read this tonight, but I promise I'll reply tomorrow.

[Skarne]

im too drunk to light the bong im too stoned to write this song

[Dolalin]

I don't know who you were comparing to but enchanters were just as overpowered in classic as they are in kunark and velious.
They can solo any named mob non raid mob in kedge/sol b/guk
Only necros even come close.

Warriors and rogues are pretty weak in classic

People didn't charm much back in 99, for many reasons but especially network lag and low framerates.

Without charm, an enchanter is reduced to pet soloing which is what most did, and it resulted in a "weak" perception of the class, as it was seen as very group dependent.

[Ravager]

Mage and Warrior. Both rely on groups and die to a wipe.

[NPC]

As mentioned before, it does depend on what situation you are talking about when saying "underpowered".

Soloing: Rogues

Grouping: Wizards

Raiding: Shadowknights

Overall Toolkit: Magicians

For soloing Rogues lose out. No class is worse at it in the game. The only way a rogue can solo decently well is with a lot of gear, or a lot of time and patience.

For grouping Wizards lose because of the stigma. They are probably the least likely class to get a group on P99. This isn't to say Wizards are bad at being in a group.

For raiding Shadowknights bring nothing to the table on P99. Lifetaps are completely nerfed, they aren't generally allowed to pull, guilds do not employ the harm touch zerging strategy, and they do not have any useful class specific spells/clickies/disciplines.

Toolkit-wise I agree with Fammaden. Magician's get an amazing kit for playing the game when all of the players on the server don't know anything about Everquest. This is because the summoned items they can produce are quite nifty, and basically keep your group where it needs to be. Players don't need to run back to town for food, bandages, etc. Sword of Runes is better than a Fine Steel Long Sword, so they can give under geared players OK weapons too. Their pet is powerful, which means they can handle themselves Solo or in a group. Unfortunately once everybody knows everything about the game, Necromancers have Magician's beat in every way, with the exception of CoTH. There is just no advantage to making a Magician on P99 other than CoTHing.

EDIT: There is one other good thing Magicians can do on P99, and that is level to 50 very quickly on a brand new server. So in the rare instance of starting fresh on a new P99 server, they are quite good as a character you can quickly level to 50 to start farming gear for your next character. This is because their pet is powerful, and they do not need to spend their very limited money on things like food, bandages, etc. They also do not need to rely on bone chips, which are heavily contested early on. They can just buy their spell reagents from the merchant with the money they are saving from summoned items.

The wizard is like a mage with no pet. Sustained DPS is challenge for a class that ONLY does DPS? Wizards need more help than any class. They have no utility, just DPS. Rogues can corpse drag, mages can CoTH. Other classes have some sort of valuable utility to bring to the table. Druids, PoTG. The one advantage wizards did have, being the king of quad kiting, but this bunk azz server has nothing set classic. Exp is wrong, mob population is wrong, spawn timers are wrong. My mage solo'ed faster to 60 than my wizard quad kiting? WTF, quadding was one of the fastest ways to level on classic EQ, how can they get this so wrong? Server tilted more to Enchanters and Shamans than the original EQ

[PatChapp]

The wizard is like a mage with no pet. Sustained DPS is challenge for a class that ONLY does DPS? Wizards need more help than any class. They have no utility, just DPS. Rogues can corpse drag, mages can CoTH. Other classes have some sort of valuable utility to bring to the table. Druids, PoTG. The one advantage wizards did have, being the king of quad kiting, but this bunk azz server has nothing set classic. Exp is wrong, mob population is wrong, spawn timers are wrong. My mage solo'ed faster to 60 than my wizard quad kiting? WTF, quadding was one of the fastest ways to level on classic EQ, how can they get this so wrong? Server tilted more to Enchanters and Shamans than the original EQ
Did you forget that wizards can port as well? Quite the utility spell.
A class that can solo to 60 with relative ease,and is the king of raid damage really isn't underpowered

[Jimjam]

Wizard

Can store unused dps as mana. Unused melee dps is wasted (e.g if the camp is empty or afk happens).

Eye of Zomm allows pulling while meditating. Convenient proc target too.

Instant cc as mobs come in to camp with aoe snare.

Has a variety of roots, and gets them early on. Can be heavily leaned on for pulling, tanking and CC. IMO best type of spell in the game.

Huge number of stuns and push nukes to assist in caster control, positioning and damage reduction.

Instant group evac via sky neck.

Amazing burst dps in groups by dropping a couple of rains and a nuke at once.

Fair grind dps with correct group composition. Said group composition also opens up swarm AOEing too.

Excellent at forming groups.

Grants access to an entire mid tier raid zone.

Neutral faction.

Bind sight scouting.

Strong mobility and fte ability.

I’ve never felt my wizard was underpowered. Only done 1-56 though.

[Jhadree J'Hadaan]

I’ve never felt my wizard was underpowered. Only done 1-56 though.

My son has been having a blast with his wizard (literally :p), also level 56. very powerful. The FTE thing gets a big upvote for wizards when there is 15 players waiting for AC pop in Sro. My son was running through Sro once and the AC popped right in front of him. He smoked it, and pissed off everyone who'd been waiting for 20 minutes, hehe.

As far as the gimpiest class? Tough call, really, because I think it all depends on how you play. If you are a lazy fucker, any class will be lame. If you are obsessed with squeezing every ounce of power from your class, I still think they are all the same.

Most assholish class? BARD, hands down. There's nothing like doing some soloing in a spot that has a decent mixture of mobs, with not too many dangers, and some blue suckhole waltzes up and sucks up every mob in the zone. The other night I was having a good time in EK pulling undead reavers, and when I got done, I sat down by the water's edge. I heard footsteps and got up to see what was going on, and there was a bard, swarming all around right in front of me. A whole huge area there, so it wasnt like there were any constrictions, so I felt like he was taunting me. I darknessed one of his swarm and gated. I was overloaded and ready to sell and get some food anyway, but sweet geebus, does every bard have to be a jackass? Why do they have to swarm in spots that a lot of people go to solo? Surely there are many spots that can be had that won't anger other players. Fuck bards.

[Vormotus]

Most assholish class? BARD, hands down. There's nothing like doing some soloing in a spot that has a decent mixture of mobs, with not too many dangers, and some blue suckhole waltzes up and sucks up every mob in the zone. The other night I was having a good time in EK pulling undead reavers, and when I got done, I sat down by the water's edge. I heard footsteps and got up to see what was going on, and there was a bard, swarming all around right in front of me. A whole huge area there, so it wasnt like there were any constrictions, so I felt like he was taunting me. I darknessed one of his swarm and gated. I was overloaded and ready to sell and get some food anyway, but sweet geebus, does every bard have to be a jackass? Why do they have to swarm in spots that a lot of people go to solo? Surely there are many spots that can be had that won't anger other players. Fuck bards.

https://i.imgur.com/ITyYgrt.gif

[Zuranthium]

Paladin are the weakest to me. They have no unique ability that's needed for gameplay, bad DPS, bad movement, and one of their key tools (stun) doesn't work much of the time in Velious.

[Zoolander]

expansions resolved many classes weakness.

oh, we are talking about P99...bad luck.

[Toxigen]

From a raiding perspective, its SK by a wide margin. They bring essentially nothing. You could replace every SK in a raid with a soulfire'd paladin and be far better off.

Single group: mage, wiz, ranger all pretty poop.

[eqravenprince]

I mostly solo, some small groups and the occasional full group. Rogue is by far the most underpowered. They cannot solo worth a darn. And in a group, the only class I'd want less than a Rogue is a Wizard.

[cd288]

I mostly solo, some small groups and the occasional full group. Rogue is by far the most underpowered. They cannot solo worth a darn. And in a group, the only class I'd want less than a Rogue is a Wizard.

Lol what? Rogues are some of the best DPS in the game. You want to slog through those high HP mobs in the 50s without good DPS in your group? That sounds awesome

[cd288]

From a raiding perspective, its SK by a wide margin. They bring essentially nothing. You could replace every SK in a raid with a soulfire'd paladin and be far better off.

Single group: mage, wiz, ranger all pretty poop.

Pull team

[eqravenprince]

Lol what? Rogues are some of the best DPS in the game. You want to slog through those high HP mobs in the 50s without good DPS in your group? That sounds awesome

I didn't say that. DPS is needed. However, in a full group, Rogue could easily be replaced by Monk, Warrior, Magician, Ranger, Necromancer, Enchanter without hardly noticing a dip in DPS.

[cd288]

If I already have an Ench I would much rather have a Rogue than a second ench taking up another of what may sometimes be limited mobs as a pet that we could otherwise be getting EXP from. Lol at Ranger or Necromancer.

Warrior if they are super geared sure, but even then I'd rather have a geared Rogue especially if the Rogue has epic. Monk, yeah if they are really well geared (this is assuming you don't already need a puller, we're just talking about DPS here) they can blow stuff out of the water but really don't add much value vs. a geared Rogue (especially Rogue with epic) if we're just talking solely playing a DPS role and you already have a puller.

[eqravenprince]

If I already have an Ench I would much rather have a Rogue than a second ench taking up another of what may sometimes be limited mobs as a pet that we could otherwise be getting EXP from. Lol at Ranger or Necromancer.

Warrior if they are super geared sure, but even then I'd rather have a geared Rogue especially if the Rogue has epic. Monk, yeah if they are really well geared (this is assuming you don't already need a puller, we're just talking about DPS here) they can blow stuff out of the water but really don't add much value vs. a geared Rogue (especially Rogue with epic) if we're just talking solely playing a DPS role and you already have a puller.

If you have a limited number of mobs, what does it matter if you have a Rogue anyhow. You contradict yourself.

[eqravenprince]

Rogue leaves a group, no one cares, any group can continue without a Rogue. Tank or healer leave group, then group often falls apart and in some cases CC leaves group, then group falls apart.

[cd288]

Rogue leaves a group, no one cares, any group can continue without a Rogue. Tank or healer leave group, then group often falls apart and in some cases CC leaves group, then group falls apart.

Ok yeah no shit. Now you’re just changing the argument. As I said above were talking about dps slots in the group. Saying you’d rather have anything other than a rogue in a dps slot is just moronic lol

[eqravenprince]

Ok yeah no shit. Now you’re just changing the argument. As I said above were talking about dps slots in the group. Saying you’d rather have anything other than a rogue in a dps slot is just moronic lol

I will grant you that Rogue would be ideal for the "perfect" static group, 4th class chosen at the earliest even in that. And that's really only with amazing gear and really only level 50+ even in a static group. You've changed the argument to fit into your lens of end game, amazing gear, and not even considering pick up groups where utility is worth a lot more.

[Castle2.0]

most underpowered class in game?

Power = DPS?
Power = self-reliance / soloability?
Power = desirability for group?

People are talking past each other because they mean different things for the same word, or just go off on tangents in their brain based on w/e they are thinking about.

[Zuranthium]

in a group, the only class I'd want less than a Rogue is a Wizard.

Your understanding of the game is shitty then, unless you're doing a full pet group.

Rogues are definitely a top class for grouping, they do the highest DPS outside of using Charm (and don't need "amazing gear", as you've wrongly stated). There are pretty much only 3 things needed in the game:

1. DPS
2. Survivability
3. Abilities that reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a task in the game (which basically comes down to - Travel, breaking into a camp and/or pulling, recovering from deaths if they happen)

A group of Monk, 3 Rogues, Enchanter, and Shaman or Cleric is a pretty ideal killing machine. In general you want as much DPS as possible after meeting the minimum requirement of "survivability".

[cd288]

Your understanding of the game is shitty then, unless you're doing a full pet group.

Rogues are definitely a top class for grouping, they do the highest DPS outside of using Charm (and don't need "amazing gear", as you've wrongly stated). There are pretty much only 3 things needed in the game:

1. DPS
2. Survivability
3. Abilities that reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a task in the game (which basically comes down to - Travel, breaking into a camp and/or pulling, recovering from deaths if they happen)

A group of Monk, 3 Rogues, Enchanter, and Shaman or Cleric is a pretty ideal killing machine. In general you want as much DPS as possible after meeting the minimum requirement of "survivability".

Yup

[PlsNoBan]

Reminder: If you said anything other than druid you answered incorrectly

Hope this helps

[Castle2.0]

Rogues are the most powerful melee DPS class in the game and melee DPS is the most sustainable DPS. They also are great for CR and the exclusive lockpicking class to get past doors. Poisons are just for fun but cool nonetheless.

[eqravenprince]

Not denying Rogues are top DPS. I put 50% weight on soloability and 50% into groupability. Rogues are a zero for soloability, even if they were perfect score for groupability which they aren't in my opinion, they max out at 50. Every other class I score higher than 50. That's really all there is to it. And I love Druids, they are a top 5 class for me. Everyone puts too much weight into the "perfect" static group which Druids will never be that. How many static groups have you been in? How many are pick up groups have you been in? How many pick up groups start off as a duo/trio and even stay as a duo/trio? Druids are great, healing is needed in most situations to function well, even if it's just Druid healing, Druids so far from underpowered. Rogues generally speaking are at their best in a full group grinding out kills over and over, you need good gear, you need good tank, you need a healer, lot of needs there. And it's just my opinion, it doesn't make me a moron, I play the way I play. Rogue was my first main back in the day, and I always felt like the most underpowered class.

[Zuranthium]

Putting 50% weight on soloability makes no sense, the game is made to be played with other people and that's how you will accomplish the most. You don't need a full group with tank and healer for Rogues to work; EVERY class has a way to maintain aggro while duoing with a Rogue, allowing them to get their backstabs in. Two rogues duoing together is even workable if one of the Rogues has the clicky self heal from Trakanon to reduce downtime.

Reminder: If you said anything other than druid you answered incorrectly

They can do high DPS in some places with animal charm and are versatile. I would put them above the bottom 3 of Paladin/Ranger/Wizard.

[Ennewi]

Reminder: If you said anything other than druid you answered incorrectly

https://wiki.project1999.com/Call_of_Karana

[eqravenprince]

Putting 50% weight on soloability makes no sense

Why not, I spend most of my time soloing.

the game is made to be played with other people and that's how you will accomplish the most.

Game is meant to be played however you'd like. Accomplishments come in many different forms. Right now I'm working on leveling up a warrior and only wearing what I loot or create in tradeskills. And I solo 90% of the time and pick up groups the other 10%. I enjoy playing this way. To each their own.


You don't need a full group with tank and healer for Rogues to work;

Yeah, sure, you don't "need", but far from ideal. Rogue is the worst duo partner for several classes, and certainly not the best for any class as duo. Give me a scenario with any duo where adding a Rogue is the top choice. It's really not til you get to maybe 3rd member of a group where Rogue might be the top choice, and that's under ideal situation of having tank capable of keeping aggro and healer. Mix up any random 2 classes, Rogue still comes in near the bottom for most trios.

[cd288]

Putting 50% weight on soloability makes no sense, the game is made to be played with other people and that's how you will accomplish the most. You don't need a full group with tank and healer for Rogues to work; EVERY class has a way to maintain aggro while duoing with a Rogue, allowing them to get their backstabs in. Two rogues duoing together is even workable if one of the Rogues has the clicky self heal from Trakanon to reduce downtime.



They can do high DPS in some places with animal charm and are versatile. I would put them above the bottom 3 of Paladin/Ranger/Wizard.

It also makes no sense to weight it on 50% so liability in this specific instance because the dude had been talking about how he’d rather have anything else other than a rogue (except a wizard) for a dps group spot. Now that he’s been proven wrong he’s shifting the goalposts lol

[eqravenprince]

It also makes no sense to weight it on 50% so liability in this specific instance because the dude had been talking about how he’d rather have anything else other than a rogue (except a wizard) for a dps group spot. Now that he’s been proven wrong he’s shifting the goalposts lol

You've referenced me changing the goalposts. You've gone from trying to argue 50+ game to DPS slot. The original post was a generic post about most underpowered class which I initially gave a generic answer. I have tried to give more details on why I answered the way I did. Sorry you don't like it.

[Zuranthium]

Give me a scenario with any duo where adding a Rogue is the top choice. It's really not til you get to maybe 3rd member of a group where Rogue might be the top choice, and that's under ideal situation of having tank capable of keeping aggro and healer.

This shows your lack of understanding. Necro/SK/Wizard/Druid/Bard/Ranger can all snare kite targets while the Rogue does maximum DPS. Monk/Pally/Cleric/Sham/War can face tank (warrior may need root net or blind orb to reliably hold aggro, but still). Enchanter and Mage can pull a mob directly on top of their pet and root so the pet takes proximity aggro (need Earth pet for Mage, if not using root net).

And while you might play the game solo 90% of the time, that wasn't the point of the thread. That's not an objective analysis.

[eqravenprince]

This shows your lack of understanding. Necro/SK/Wizard/Druid/Bard/Ranger can all snare kite targets while the Rogue does maximum DPS.

Yeah, who is going to heal the Rogue when he inevitably gets hit. Can't do any dungeons either. IE Rogue is not top choice, I didn't say you couldn't make it work.


Monk/Pally/Cleric/Sham/War can face tank (warrior may need root net or blind orb to reliably hold aggro, but still). Enchanter and Mage can pull a mob directly on top of their pet and root so the pet takes proximity aggro (need Earth pet for Mage, if not using root net).

I've never seen a mage pet take aggro over any player within melee range. Calling your bluff on that one. Sure you can make it work with those other classes, but none would choose Rogue as top choice.


And while you might play the game solo 90% of the time, that wasn't the point of the thread. That's not an objective analysis.

I suppose you can read the OP's mind and tell me the point of his generic thread. Your guess is just as good as mine. So I formed a conclusion based on how I play.

[plzrelax]

This shows your lack of understanding. Necro/SK/Wizard/Druid/Bard/Ranger can all snare kite targets while the Rogue does maximum DPS. Monk/Pally/Cleric/Sham/War can face tank (warrior may need root net or blind orb to reliably hold aggro, but still). Enchanter and Mage can pull a mob directly on top of their pet and root so the pet takes proximity aggro (need Earth pet for Mage, if not using root net).

And while you might play the game solo 90% of the time, that wasn't the point of the thread. That's not an objective analysis.

A rooted mob will aggro a PC over a pet regardless of proximity

Rogues are good.

[PatChapp]

Someone out here arguing that rogues are bad?
Your never lfg on a rogue long
Viable duo options,amazing trio options. Raid hero's, easy to gear
Rogues are amongst the best.

[Zuranthium]

Yeah, who is going to heal the Rogue when he inevitably gets hit. Can't do any dungeons either.

The rogue doesn't get hit unless you're doing something wrong. You really don't seem to understand some game mechanics. They can take a couple hits regardless. You can definitely kite in some dungeons, run in a circle while the target is snared.

A rooted mob will aggro a PC over a pet regardless of proximity

The mechanic has been changed to not be classic then.

[fugazi]

Someone should do 6 bards fear kiting indoors. Or 5 bards 1 ranger.

Would be fucking hilarious.

I did the fear-kiting thing with a mate on our bard/paladin duo. Amazing xp, and if you find the right spots, downright broken. Unrest, Kaesora, Tower of Frozen Shadow, Guk: all of it was doable and super good xp.

We're doing a bard/ranger combo now, untwinked for the extra challenge, and it's surprisingly solid. I'm not sure if an untwinked ranger can face-tank like a geared paladin can, so perhaps it will all come crashing down soon as we head into Mistmoore, Guk, and beyond ;)

[cd288]

The rogue doesn't get hit unless you're doing something wrong. You really don't seem to understand some game mechanics. They can take a couple hits regardless. You can definitely kite in some dungeons, run in a circle while the target is snared.

It's weird that that guy has seemingly been playing this game for nearly a decade and a half (maybe longer) and still doesn't understand this.

[Jimjam]

Rogues are legitimately good at taking hits. They’re a chain class with better defensive skills (with practice) than rangers and have small bonus to ac from agi

[Questors]

Rogue. Period. Mic drop. Elvis has left the building.

Power = DPS?
Power = self-reliance / soloability?
Power = desirability for group?

People are talking past each other because they mean different things for the same word, or just go off on tangents in their brain based on w/e they are thinking about.

This entire post, especially the part in bold.

My qualifications would be the three mentioned here and over all toolkit.

I said the rogue at one point in this thread, but after rethinking it, I would have to change my belief of the most UP class from rogue to ranger or warrior. Maybe both.

Ranger: The reasons are legendary at this point. Snare, tracking and SoW don't overcome those reasons.

Warrior (possibly): No run speed, no root, no sow, terrible dps, no snare, no invisibility of any kind, nary a quality of life tool and can't hold aggro to save your life, their primary function.

[Castle2.0]

Warrior (possibly): No run speed, no root, no sow, terrible dps, no snare, no invisibility of any kind, nary a quality of life tool and can't hold aggro to save your life, their primary function. Jboots/sow pots, root nets, sow pots, DPS is actually decent, scepter of forlon, cobalt greaves/indicolate BP/ring of shadows/invis pots, slow clicky hammer....

Oh wow, it's like a ranger but better.

[Zuranthium]

I hate most clickies, especially because they were more rare in actual Classic, but now everyone gets them. Abilities should be restricted to certain classes. Warriors essentially gaining a bunch of spellcasting abilities via clickies is wrong. Although even without them they can't be considered the weakest class (despite being the most boring), thanks to their very good raw stats and being the best raid tanks.