A Question to those with multiple 60s

[zelld52]

Which class was the most fun / easiest / quickest or most painful / slowest / hardest to level to 60?

I've levelled Shaman, Necro, Druid, Enchanter, Ranger and Monk to 60*. Here's how I'd break my toons down. [Note: I soloed close to 80% of the time (or more) on each of these toons, so these are all mostly solo evaluations. In group, they all were slow to get exp.]


Easiest to 60:
Enchanter. The ability to charm any level appropriate mob in any zone made a huge difference. Levelled the ENC during the 7m pacify duration, so getting around any dungeon was a breeze. Dinged 60 in Sebilis @ NG. Honorary mention to NEC, DRU and SHM

Quickest to 60:
Druid**. Charm of course is super quick. Adding the ability to port around for clarity, PoTG, etc made it even quicker. Started charming around level 30 in Overthere and dinged 60 in Permafrost @ Bear Pits. Honorary mention to ENC, NEC

Most fun to 60
Ranger. Track is the most fun skill to have while levelling. Need to know where the dark blues are? Track em down. Want to snipe named spawns in KC? Track is the best for this. Outdoor pulling is great. SoW and Levi made travel less painful - and soloing wasn't too bad (once Earthcaller was obtained). Dinged 60 in PoM Rat Maze. Honorary mention to MNK, SHM, NEC

Slowest / Most Painful to 60
Monk. My second favorite class in EQ. First favorite to play on raids. But, compared to the other classes - Monk was painful and slow to 60 (Even with T Staff, Fungi Tunic, Cloak of Flames and other BiS droppable items). Compared to the ranger (w/ mainhand epic), monk doesn't get slow - so after EVERY fight against dark blues at 51+ I needed to bandage. Iksar, too - and the EXP penalty at 59 was B R U T A L. It would take nearly 10 dark blue kills in Howling Stones to get 1%. Dinged 60 in Howling Stones @ North wing. Honorary mention to SHM #3.***


Interested to hear others war stories about experiences on different classes getting to 60.

*My first shaman had mediocre gear, but then each subsequent toon was able to be mega-twinked from a combination of plat and DKP purchases.

**Druid had pretty wild gear, including Fungi Tunic, Fungi Staff, Elder Spiritst Greaves and Manastone. There was almost 0 downtime levelling this toon 1-60. Especially in the bear pits, without the need to port back to old-world to MS.

***After I'd reached 60 on a Ogre and Barbarian shaman, the Troll shaman with the 20% penalty was pretty brutal, despite being easy. I was also sick of all my old EXP zones on this 3rd shaman, by the time it was 55+.

[PatChapp]

Also found my enchanter the easiest to hit 60. Mostly grouped, but I did solo now and then.
Before the server pop was circling the drain,early velious era I could get group invites within minutes of logging in. Lots of hole groups,flew through the 50s by my standards.

Magician was painful 55+,Mostly solo though. Had I grouped I think it would have been fine.

Geared to heck warrior wasn't bad,even when I solod sometimes it still didn't feel painful or terribly slow. I think a trash geared warrior would have been much worse.

Fun wise,definitely enchanter. I did mostly a static group 1-50,once a week with friends and was the most enjoyable time I've had on p99.

[Ciderpress]

Druid and shaman tied for easiest. Chanter became easy later but at low levels it sucked.

Druid definitely quickest because of porting as stated by op, plus the ability to quad and then later charm in bear pits.

Most fun probably chanter, you just feel so powerful. Some original dev obviously made that class because they wanted to play it. It's like getting the keys to dad's car.

Rogue most painful by a mile. You suck at soloing without tons of gear/clickies and glitchy exploits like front backstabs, and it's not even necessarily easy to get groups cause so many people are always leveling rogues that groups usually already have one (or two). Hide\sneak is sweet though.

The rest of the classes in the game I've never gotten to 60. I rolled a bard and figured it would be easy but swarming is insanely tedious and it makes everybody hate you.

[Bardp1999]

I have Monk, Necro, Bard, Shaman, Paladin, Cleric, Shadow Knight. 50+ enchanter, rog,

Easiest by a mile was Necro, followed by Shaman who had epic at 53 or 54. Paladin was surprisingly easier than Monk just due to tanks always seemingly being needed. Cleric is a chore but still on the easier side. Bard was fun when you could swarm in dungeons with a group... and very fast.

Really on p99 you can seperate classes into 2 tiers. Tier 1, charmers + cleric. Tier 2 everyone else. Shaman is maybe the exception to the rule because of how busted slow is and the over all tool kit

[sajbert]

Don't have a lot of 60's but a few 50+ where I mostly got tired because the 50-60 stretch is a hefty commitment no matter twinking or what class you play.

DISCLAIMER: Taking bards out of the equation here. Swarming will beat everything else outside of powerleveling. This also looks at the solo aspect only. Leveling speed grouping depends on too many different factors.

Fungi, haste and a good weapon will carry most melee classes to 30-50 faster than casters who're still limited by their mana. I guess manastone and FT1 can help that issue but not to the same extent as the downtime reduction a melee class gets from fungi. Priests can take good advantage of fungi too of course but they lack in damage output compared to classes like monk and that aside from spawn uptime will be the biggest leveling speed limiting factor.

After 30-50 mobs start to grow too big, well past the point for most untwinked characters fighting fair (i.e. no spells) and even twinked characters start getting downtime due to larger HP pools and increasingly uphill fights. This is where charming starts to become more powerful. Slow becomes more important to minimize downtime. More and more powerful mana free clickies for casters and priests start to become available at this. point (e.g. JBB, VP wizard robe, epics) allowing. These are reasons why I felt a twinked shaman was an easier experience than a heavily twinked monk at 50+. Overall the shift in ease of leveling pivots towards the priests and casters. The notable exception being Mage which has enjoyed powerful pets but due to mob scaling start falling off hard after 50.

Bar some no-drop clicky shenanigans that escapes my mind at the moment I'd wager a twinked monk is the fastest 1-30 outside of powerleveling. Simply due to DPS.

At 50+ I'm not so sure. I think a Wizard with a VP robe, Epic and manastone or mannarobe should be potent, that's basically infinite 60 DPS and anything rootable that doesn't summon is a free meal. Wizards like druids can zoom around the world and find camps easier than most as well. I haven't compared the DPS to a Shaman with Epic + JBB, pet and autoattack but perhaps the shaman comes out on top. As an added bonus Shaman gets JBB earlier making 45-50 a breeze. Now enter the contender: The charming classes: Enchanter, Necro, Druid. I don't know how bear pits hold up at the late levels in comparison to places like Howling Stones or how camp availability in Permafrost is at this stage of the server's life. If that's not an issue then Druid looks like a strong contender with great manarecovery with manastone and fungi regen as well as some fast levels with the AoE clicky staff and more. Necro with the Soulwell staff should have little to no downtime charming either I'd imagine. An enchanter, is well, an enchanter. Bottom line is that I believe charming to result in faster kills and when downtime can be avoided by means of technique and/or powerful items that should put one of the charming classes on top.

And I'd just like to add troll or Ogre SK as a notable mention: Levels reasonably fast in the early levels with fungi and if you can get your hands on a Skydarkener, jboots and weighted axe (ideally someone to slow you as well) you can swarm-bow-AOE-kite in places like Cobalt Scar for some easy levels.

[Jimjam]

Easiest wiz - you can always find xp but lots of med time between kites

Quickest ranger - fits into any group but solos well too.

Funnest warrior- I enjoy finding solo spots and working out how to make them work… but mainly I like the fact that grouping is far better so you meet lots of other characters and go on many adventures.

[Keebz]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Funnest warrior- I enjoy finding solo spots and working out how to make them work… but mainly I like the fact that grouping is far better so you meet lots of other characters and go on many adventures.

Despite the suffering, it really is a good time. Easy to chat when you're not pressing buttons. And it makes minor things like faction and racial abilities actually matter. Truly EverQuest as it's meant to be played.

[sajbert]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Easiest wiz - you can always find xp but lots of med time between kites

In terms of actual playtime Wiz is the fastest. Basically AFK 90% of the leveling experience.

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by sajbert [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In terms of actual playtime Wiz is the fastest. Basically AFK 90% of the leveling experience.

Haha yeah, it is slowest but also maybe fastest!

[kjs86z2]

I had a lot of fun on my warrior after being parked for months at level 46.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Cooshinfer


Druid was by far the easiest (also parked for months at 46):

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Meloin

Honestly the play is to get a bunch of alts to 46 and get them properly twinked. 1-46 is short compared to 46-60.