There really isn't anything that you can't do with a group where each member just fits the general category -- tank, healer, dps, crowd control. The latter isn't even strictly needed in most places, and while mezzing adds is great, you can do the same basic thing - preventing the add from wiping the group - by off-tanking it, rooting it, sticking a pet on it, or just toughing through the extra damage it does to the group. Class alone will generally not determine what you can or cannot do, unless it's a case of trying to tank with a ranger who's also undergeared and poorly played, or a druid healer who's several levels under the content's limits. Single-group content is not so challenging that it requires a warrior tank or a cleric healer or anything like that, but they make it a lot easier, make wipes less likely, and make the exp come in faster (unless the content is easy enough that the extra power doesn't yield a tangible benefit). What the "top classes" do more than increase the group's chance of success is decrease downtime due to efficiency. It's still a design error that some classes are straight up better than their counterparts, but unless it's raid content or a group trying to take on an encounter with less members or at a lower level than intended, all classes can fill their designated roles well enough to suffice. It's when the players can't adapt, aren't good enough or haven't sufficiently prepared their characters for the content that class choices can determine the outcome.
The vast majority of Everquest's one-group content is very easy. For the most part, it isn't a matter of winning but rather of doing it as fast and efficiently as possible. A group generally doesn't venture into a dungeon wondering if they can survive at all, they go in with the possible question of whether or not their group is strong enough to make the killing fast enough to be worth the time and effort. And as long as there aren't weak links, it almost always is, at least for the players who aren't playing classes that can typically get more exp from soloing. Just look at most of the game's non-raid content; it might be occupied by a group, but it might also be soloed by one of the select few power-solo classes a few levels higher. People were soloing Lord and Frenzy in Guk, duoing or three-manning Efreeti in SolB, even taking on supposed raid target Phinny in Kedge with far less manpower than probably intended. The same does/will happen with Kunark's high-end dungeon encounters, and it's only because the dungeons are still so crowded and groups so frequent that it isn't constantly being done. As long as that sort of thing is possible, any group can do the same with a far-from-optimal class lineup, and while it may be less efficient with a druid healer and necro DPS and so on, it'll still be doable enough to not be an exercise in futility.
The different classes aren't that much weaker than their counterparts. Each has a failing that it makes up for in part with other abilities. It generally doesn't fully compensate for the class' shortcomings - druid buffs really don't make up for their weaker healing, for instance - but it makes the difference less crippling. You don't need CH or defensive discipline for mobs that hit for 150-200ish, you don't need the optimal DPS setup for mobs with 5-10k hp that don't enrage, and you don't need mez for content that can be rooted, pacified, feign-pulled and rarely throws more than one or two adds at you even when it goes wrong. It all makes life easier, but it's plenty possible and mostly worthwhile with anything but a catastrophically weak group.
The reason a lot of people won't group with rangers and druids and necromancers isn't that they're so terrible they can't pull their weight. It's just better to find a cleric, rogue and warrior if you can, and it's a matter of complacency and foolishness when people won't let one of the less-than-optimal classes into their groups. It's also far less common than people make it out to be, and when rangers complain about sitting LFG for days, it's probably because they do it in Sebilis at level 49 with crappy gear, far less because they're rangers. It's much more about feeling and perception than it is about actual class worth, and while a few classes certainly are at the bottom of their archetype's hierarchy, people's aversion comes from the fact that it feels wrong and futile to play or group with a class that does 10% less DPS than others with nothing to make up for it. It feels like wasted effort because it could have been better if you'd chosen something else. It doesn't mean you couldn't do Chardok decently with a pal/dru/mag/rng/nec/nec group. It just isn't quite as good and will yield slightly less pwnage.
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