Haven't posted in months--I'm inactive on P99 for now--but this thread is relevant to me so l'll chime in. I played a shadowknight on P99, paired with my wife's shaman, for many years, and we certainly pushed the limit of our duo as far as we cared to, and farther than most.
Monk/Shaman levels faster than SK/Shaman. This should not be in dispute. The average hourl exp rate difference is not as large as might be expected, however, so a human or dark elf SK paired with a barbarian shaman should be competive with say, Iksar monk/shaman.
At level 60 once levels don't matter overmuch they're pretty much interchangeable. They'll do all the same camps. The SK is favored in some areas, the Monk-based duo has an advantage in others, but in over ten years I never found an area the monk-based duo could do, that my wife and I couldn't. The SK has an easier time keeping aggro when the shaman has to spam slow back-to-back against resistant creatures like guardian wurms, Bledrek/Kerdelb, and such things, and also has an easier time splitting where snare splits are desired. Monk-based duo's get it done too, so it's not an insurmountable problem. The Monk offers a faster killspeed, especially if the SK doesn't use his pet (say, WW dragons), and doesn't need to meditate but again, we kill the same ones too, if just a little slower.
Attached is an image from over a decade ago of my wife root-rotting multiple mobs in a leveling duo with my SK, just to show some people actually do that sort of thing.
|