Quote:
Originally Posted by Raev
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P.S. IMO Vex Warriors are still the best group tanks. Unfortunately a) getting good gear is very difficult and b) people are completely unwilling to stop facerolling their keyboards in order to mitigate their mediocre threat. Enchanters need to blur or root, shamans need to either tank a bit or hold off on slow, etc. If you can get gear and train your groupmates adequately, Warriors provide the best dps (inb4 some moron talks about how tank DPS is pointless, a 6-man group with a well-geared warrior will do 10% more damage than one with a Paladin or SK) and also have discs for boss mobs.
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I'll disagree with you here, albeit whilst noting that "best" is subjective so a differing opinion isn't invalid or wrong. If you care solely about raw efficiency, don't bother with a traditional tank type at all and instead use a Monk as tank--you get the same unreliable threat generation as a Warrior but even better damage output. Optionally, get rid of melee entirely and just use all casters. I feel the entire point of having a tank in a typical group is to make the grouping experience as stable and easy as possible for everyone else--and at that, Warriors fail due to their wholly inadequate threat generation and lack of control. As such I don't blame folks for being hesitant to move away from easymode: Why do more work with more personal risk for only small gains? I consider that a false economy.
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If you want to push to level 60 I'd recommend a Halfling Warrior for the combined experience bonus and damage output. That will get you to 60 more quickly than any other melee+Cleric duo I can think of--even Monks come with a minimum 20% experience penalty. However the original poster said that's not his main priority.
If you don't care about leveling rate, and don't particularly care about level 60, then there's nothing wrong with the hybrids. You give up quite a bit of leveling efficiency and power but will probably have more fun on a per-hour basis. Rangers (along with Warriors) are a good choice because they have access to weapons that proc slow; a Ranger with a cheapy Swarmcaller tanking something that's 50% slowed will need less healing than a Paladin or Shadow Knight tanking an unslowed monster. Monks also rate well but he already said he isn't too inclined to make a Monk.
Of course the other potential problem here is the Cleric itself: Most folks find the class a bit boring. If this friend of yours isn't already familiar with EQ, do be sure to explain what the Cleric does for most of its life.
Danth