Yeah, this is where I started.

I think wizard does make more sense if not replacing the cleric. But wizard is an absolute no if replacing the cleric.

Still, not having constant sow available can be pretty annoying. Nothing sow pots can’t fix I suppose.

Yeah, sow is a huge QoL improvement, but with this group I expect I'd be spending most of the time dungeon crawling. Guk, Permafrost, SolA/B, etc. I've spent a ton of time outdoors on my druid, but I can't think of much outside worth bringing a heavy-hitting group to fight. Unless, like, you want to speed-run Unrest/Mistmoore/CoM/KC, but yuck.

That's perfectly fine. Shaman and Necro is a great combo.

Now we know you are not discussing endgame, we can keep these arguments for a leveling group, rather than an endgame group.

If you want to rebut my points, you need to rebut them from an endgame perspective.

Yeah absolutely. One of the things that's interesting when you're thinking about starting from scratch & untwinked, perhaps on a new server, is that enc/enc/enc/clr becomes a lot weaker. The enchanters can't do all that much until the mid-teens, so there's not a lot of firepower. That's part of why I think a necro or mage is a good group member, because they can do more of the heavy lifting until the enchanter is able to reliably hold down a good charm pet. Same (kinda) with wizard.

The other reason I think a wizard is a decent choice is that any three casters is gonna be pretty damn strong all the way through, and while the wizard won't be contributing a ton on a mob-to-mob basis, they can burn down a bad pull.

That's right. In the early levels other group comps would do better. Four Mages would probably be the fastest to level from 1-20, maybe higher, in an untwinked comp.

Charming in the early game isn't as good, especially untwinked. You have a low mana pool, less of your toolkit, more fizzles, more lull fails due to lower CHA, etc.

If you plan to go past 20, other classes start opening up more, like Druids/Wizards for ports, etc.

Yeah, I think adding a druid for snares/charms/regen/ports/spot-heals would at least be a lot of fun. They can nuke if there's nothing else to do. Having a built-in porter seems pretty necessary on a new server. Wizard gives that, but druid gets ya a bunch of nice utility, so I'm pretty close to 50-50 which one to include.

Agreed.

I feel like maybe we could have some more discussion on stretch targets, and what 4 man comps can do them, and how.

I'm curious what 4 man comp people would use for the following targets, and how they would approach trying for the kills:

--Prince Thirneg
--Vaniki
--Harla Dar
--Overking Bathezid
--Eashen's Guards

Yeah stretch targets are interesting. I'd imagine Vaniki is off the table for this group, simply because casters/priests don't need Willsapper or Neb's. Would be kind of a dick move to kill it just for a stretch goal, unless you had a melee alt lined up to loot it, or were selling loot rights.

Harla Dar sounds difficult with four people post push-to-interrupt change, since she can gate. Wiki says she gated occasionally even with sieves.

You could fight her at her spawn location to prevent gate, but then you couldn't stop AoEs via the water trick. This means Charmed pets are not very effective. They will just keep getting dispelled and/or feared. If you try to MR buff them, you'll get more breaks between AoEs. If you reduce their MR, they will get feared more.

If she can be blinded, 4x bio orbs and very slowly killing her with Dots might work lol. Bring her to an area where she can be blind kited safely, and just spam bio orbs while weaving in the occasional DoT. You'd want a Shaman and an Enchanter so you can Malo + Tash for maximum -MR. Blind Kiting would prevent her from casting and summoning.

Having summoned pets attacking the blinded mob would stop it from running, and the players will not be summoned. This would allow you to keep her in shallow water so you can land spells and block aoe. Maybe 2 Mages as the last two members alternating between summoning pets might work if the pets don't die too fast. Or 1-2 Necros if you want morr DoTs. But you'd need to stop doing this when HP gets into gate range so she doesn't gate.