I feel like somehow everyone agreed that grouping necromancers were underrated to the point that they became overrated. It's weird because all of the individual spells are great, but somehow the total is much less than the sum of its parts:
- Charm is of course amazing, and you can do so in a surprising number of zones (I always wanted to charm the Emperor PH, but never got around to it). But there is a HUGE difference between recharming with Screaming Terror (2.6s) vs Color Flux (1s), and there is no bedlam line. You simply can't handle a quadding, hasted pet without consistent help the way an enchanter can.
- FD is amazing, and in combination with mez and snare and DA you can do a lot. But FD breaks charm, so you can't split anything while also having a charmed pet. And even if you are rolling with the skeleton, you can't summon the probe.
- The only really good necro dots are Ignite Blood and Splurt, which are both efficient and lures, but they both need nearly two minutes, so unless you are root rotting on the side DSM style (which I actually tried to do a bit here and there) they are fairly useless in groups, and you end up using the miserable Ignite Bones.
- Necro heals aren't that efficient unless you can dispel the recourse, and after some patches I found it difficult to do so. Pact of Shadow is nice because the recast is only 12s, so you can stack two, but then you can't use shadowbond, and even 125/tick isn't all that great. And the last thing you want is to get down to 70% hp with lich, nuke yourself for 500hp with shadowbond, and then get a charm break.
- 93% rez is much less interesting in an era where everyone has loads of pocket rogues and clerics
- When I was playing in Kunark, summoned pets were all Luclin level, while melee were in cobalt and shiverback. Now the summoned pets have been reverted to their original Kunark stats while melee are running around in primals and full NTOV. So it's been a bit of a riches to rags transition.
Of course Necros can still be fun to play. Anyway, it sounds like you have spent a lot of time playing high energy CC classes that can carry a group. Shaman and SK will both feel a little different in that they will shine more in duos and trios. Although SKs have good snap aggro, they do not have any decent CC spells (unless you want to snare and fear and pray), so they can't really carry a group the way a good Paladin can, and there simply won't be enough time for them to FD split unless they are in a duo or trio. Shaman aren't great in full groups because everything dies much too quickly for slow to be effective until the very end of the game. Even in the low 50s you can go to KC LCY and slaughter everything in under 20s and there is just no point to casting Turgur's. Shaman are excellent on raids, just expect loads of STA/FOCUS PLZ tells and even more torpor/canni clicks in order to get the mana required. Then some fool wipes the raid and you get more buff tells!
My personal suggestion is Monk: it is a high energy class that can carry a group, but one that plays in a very different way, and it might be interesting for you, even if you know EQ well, because you have to learn all of the zones and spawn patterns to play it well. If you try to play other classes like an Enchanter/Bard, you'll probably just feel gimped.