Necro/Mage Duo

[Netherzul]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the sustain of a Shaman in oh-shit situations as well.

Yes, both will have clarity but in the situation of things going south, a Shaman will outlast a Cleric in terms of throughput (Cannibalize ... ).

I will admit, as it stands right now, without Torpor, a Cleric is obviously a faster exp duo using the "CH pet" methodology. Utilizing the "let the pet die once he is low and re-charming one" has worked extremely well with an enchanter friend and I with my current sub-par heals.

Slightly faster killing or take the added benefit of a slightly better slow (also giving the Enchanter less to worry about), the best magical debuffer in the game ... and @ 60, Torpor. The Ench/Shaman duo changes entirely @ 60 with Torpor and this is what pushes this duo to be the best in the game next to a Monk/Shaman.

Prior to 60, Ench/Cleric is very strong but once both sit at 60, it's Ench/Shaman or Monk/Shaman all day.

[pasi]

Monk/shaman is a good duo, but I don't think it's anywhere near as effective as cleric/enchanter in zones where you can field a decent pet. The flexibility of not needing a pet is nice, but that would affect both shaman/enc and cleric/enc.

A hasted 48-50 pet is going to outdps (especially when Torpor is the main heal) and out-tank a 60 monk.

Shaman/Enchanter is better than Cleric/Enchanter, but the difference isn't large enough where another duo comes into play for the #2 spot in Kunark. The stacking of MR debuffs combined with rapture is the reason for this duo's dominance over the cleric version.
Donal BP (or even just plain old Cheal) on a 8-10k HP pet is pretty absurd when even the toughest shit (that you're duoing) is rounding for 1k.

I'm wondering how easy of a time monk/shaman would have with Protector or Korocust (sans Puppet Strings).

[A1551]

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

What you described seems like a much slower albeit safer XP stream then what I would do. I have little interest in keeping a charmed pet and prefer just eating it when it is low health. Unless of course you are rooting both mobs and then breaking charm before one of them dies to avoid the heavy pet XP penalty, but in that case the cleric is mostly useless.

The mala spell line is invaluable to charming mobs since it not only drastically increases the level of the mobs you can charm, it also provides a very strong safety net. Also, if you are charm farming properly, the server would have to take a very big shit(pardon my language) on you for the enchanter/shaman duo to be in any real danger.

Also, shamans can tank better than clerics(assuming you aren't playing an iksar shaman) and can snap agro away from the enchanter if needed. And if the Shaman is a troll shaman, then you can do a janky fear kite on the side while charm fighting.

I admittedly have done a lot less duoing with shamans than clerics but I have done my fair share of both. With that said in almost every case I was exping faster with the cleric -- although every shaman I've duoed with for exp was either an ogre or a troll which would slow things down. Changing pets, requiping them, re-hasting them, etc costs time. Admittedly we are not talking a big difference, but I would certainly put the two duos on par in terms of speed at very worse. And really, if it earns you a single rez you may not have otherwise gotten, we'll thats a big big return [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As to the comment about exp pet penalties -- if you're grouped with the cleric, there is no penalty. You can just let your pet do all the work of killing all night long and it costs you nothing. Don't take my word for it, just make a level one pet class, group with another level 1 and test it out, you'll get same experience regardless of if pet does 100% of damage or if you do all the damage (or any combination thereof). Besides, if there were a pet exp penalty for duos that would hurt ench/shaman duos almost as much.

Malo is amazing for charming no doubts about that. And shamans can tank like machines especially considering they can step in and slow stuff (sparing chanter the aggro / cycles of attention), but pulling aggro off the chanter isnt exactly a problem for clerics either. As to fear kiting -- clerics can get that clicky snare necklace assuming they're dark elves too. Although realistically it is of limited use.

[webrunner5]

I love how lots of people on here are all goo gaw about having Enchanters charm a high level pet. Best combo in the game crap. Yeah sure if it doesn't kill u and the rest of the group. Like Enchanters never die in this game.

There are like 6 Enchanters in this game can keep a pet going, CC and pull. What the Cleric is going to pull? They can but its not really very effective. I am not saying they are a bad combo. Just that is sounds a lot better on paper than it does in reality.

There is a reason Monk Shaman is the king of the hill combo in this game. It just works if the Monk is worth a damn. FD is a God Send pure and simple.

[Lorraine]

Originally Posted by webrunner5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I love how lots of people on here are all goo gaw about having Enchanters charm a high level pet. Best combo in the game crap. Yeah sure if it doesn't kill u and the rest of the group. Like Enchanters never die in this game.

There are like 6 Enchanters in this game can keep a pet going, CC and pull. What the Cleric is going to pull? They can but its not really very effective. I am not saying they are a bad combo. Just that is sounds a lot better on paper than it does in reality.

There is a reason Monk Shaman is the king of the hill combo in this game. It just works if the Monk is worth a damn. FD is a God Send pure and simple.

You can't belittle enchanters by saying they aren't dying, and then proclaim FD as the end all be all.

FD gets resisted, FD will not save you from wall caster mobs, FD will not save you from potential AoE's that will break it, and FD willl not save you from Icecometing Krups in Seb, or even Kurs in LGuk. It will also not save you from 3+ HTing mobs in a pack. There's a reason some monks refuse to pull inside some Seb areas without geting buffed to the teeth first.

With ench/cler you can get more things that people realise. You get double lull'ing classes. Access to regular invis and IVU. Clerics can nuke better than shamans in regards to undead mobs. And if your enchanter dies while trying to lull break a camp, you pull his corpse back a little, res him and you're back into it without a huge hassle.

If your monk dies inside Chef or in HS south, you're gonna have a much bigger problem than a simple /consent and a smoke break.


Pets were, are, and WILL be a lot better than player classes in specific departments.
From Kedge, to Plane of Air, people have been killing mobs with chain petting / charming , that they would otherwise have no chance to do so.

You think that's bad? Wait till Velious comes out..
Because there WILL be charmed Giants :P

[A1551]

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

Unless of course you are rooting both mobs and then breaking charm before one of them dies to avoid the heavy pet XP penalty, but in that case the cleric is mostly useless.

Hey Lexical just wanted to clarify on this after further thought -- if there were a pet exp penalty when grouped it would totally change how enchanter duos had to be played for maximal xp, it would literally invalidate almost entirely the most effective ways of duo leveling I know (with a shaman or cleric or anyone else for that matter) -- hasting and equipping pets would essentially be useless for exping as a duo, slowing would be a lot less useful (as preserving pets health would be counterproductive), etc. A cleric chanter duo would be severely curtailed under that situation.

A lot of your doubts about the abilities of a cleric/chanter make absolute sense under a pet exp penalty for groups. It might be time to empirically prove or disprove this one and put it to bed either way -- I suppose it is possible, if there were a group pet exp penalty, the exp of a cleric/chanter duo even halved could seem really fast compared to more traditional groups.

-Propo Fol

[A1551]

Originally Posted by webrunner5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I love how lots of people on here are all goo gaw about having Enchanters charm a high level pet. Best combo in the game crap. Yeah sure if it doesn't kill u and the rest of the group. Like Enchanters never die in this game.

There are like 6 Enchanters in this game can keep a pet going, CC and pull. What the Cleric is going to pull? They can but its not really very effective. I am not saying they are a bad combo. Just that is sounds a lot better on paper than it does in reality.

There is a reason Monk Shaman is the king of the hill combo in this game. It just works if the Monk is worth a damn. FD is a God Send pure and simple.

ONE of the best combos in the game, absolutely. Best? Possibly, although it'd be a silly thing to argue about. I'm sure you'd agree the player behind the character has a big impact on whether or not that is true for any duo :P

Webrunner I honestly believe myself to be only an average enchanter as far as things go and I can tell you unequivocally that I can duo with a cleric, manage a pet, slow most mobs, do crowd control, AND pull effectively (for a duo) Most enchanters I've leveled with 50+ can likewise do the same. It's obviously a lot harder in bigger groups as things die a lot faster and you need to spend more time pulling, more time buffing, etc. But lull with high charisma is an extremely powerful pulling mechanic, and AE mesmerization is an extremely powerful ass saver for the very rare cases when lull crit resists. Enchanters die all the time, but I'll tell you its usually not when theyre grinding exp and duoing with their favorite healer. I honestly don't remember the last time I died grinding with my usual duo partner, and we level as a duo almost exclusively in HS wings at this point. I'm sure a monk/shaman could do the same, and probably for similar results.

Monk/Shaman is an awesome duo. I don't know if its a "better" duo than cleric/ench or shaman/ench they're all certainly overpowered beyond all reason. But to say that ench/(healer) is only an excellent duo on paper is absurd and that most of the server sucks too bad to pull it off is equally laughable. Ench/cleric or shaman is massively overpowered for the same reason monk/shaman is -- you have a full group's worth of functionality crammed down into two people.

-Propo Fol

[pasi]

Originally Posted by webrunner5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I love how lots of people on here are all goo gaw about having Enchanters charm a high level pet. Best combo in the game crap. Yeah sure if it doesn't kill u and the rest of the group. Like Enchanters never die in this game.

There are like 6 Enchanters in this game can keep a pet going, CC and pull. What the Cleric is going to pull? They can but its not really very effective. I am not saying they are a bad combo. Just that is sounds a lot better on paper than it does in reality.

There is a reason Monk Shaman is the king of the hill combo in this game. It just works if the Monk is worth a damn. FD is a God Send pure and simple.

I main an enchanter and the only other enchanter I really talk to is Loraen, so I guess I'm biased at what the class is capable of.

I don't really group (do duo with a cleric and shaman a lot though) since I can solo every named in Sebilis that isn't Emp, Tola, or Protector (and those are easy duos) so why split the $$$. Oddly enough, I'd probably pay way less attention in a full group making a epic hasted 48-50 frog a lot more dangerous.

FD is nice, but if you know what you're doing (or just invis pull, lol) - pulling isn't a huge issue over here. ToT makes it easy to pull, buff, CC, slow (for bigger mobs), and keep a pet as ToT eliminates the need to med.

[Splorf22]

So the reason enc/shm is so powerful is for high end mobs its all about getting them slowed. Tash+malo+rapture sometimes+two players slowing is just extremely useful for high level mobs like the Protector that resist up the ass. I'm pretty sure that Svenn and I could have a relatively decent kill rate on the Protector, Tolapumj, or Korocust (80%+) as a duo - we killed them all on our first try. Monk/Shaman just doesn't have that: you're counting on the monk to proc his tash stick and even then you have less MR debuff than an enchanter and only one player slowing. Even on a relatively easy mob like the fungi king I think Monk/Shaman has like a 10% chance of just getting screwed by resists.

For leveling I think Cleric/Enc is about the same Shaman/Enc just with different playstyles. It's also extremely effective on mobs <=55 where the enchanter can do reasonable CC on breaks. Both will level much faster than Monk/Shaman: a L60 for example an epic monk with shaman haste is probably 60-70 dps while a charmed krup is 100+. I think Monk/Shaman really starts to rock in Velious, where the monks get higher AC and better weapons and Enchanters take it up the butt with high MR. Although if the server stays classic there will be a few months of giant rampage in Kael.

[Stoggieman]

Wow, I figured this would evolve into this sort of discussion. Lots of great points. Yes, there are great points to all 3 of these groups. I'll be quite pleased to play any of them. I agree that the player behind the toon is just as if not more important than the class of the toon itself. The number of monks I dragged back for rezzes with my own monk is too high to count. That being said, I think we'll probably grind all three pairs up to their 20's figure out which we enjoy the most, and then keep going up with those two.... Thanks for adding the sham or cleric/ench to our dossier of character pairs, as I think that will be a lot of fun.
As far as epic's.... the Raster and I have a great relationship. I show up, he pops some 40 minutes after I leave every time.... even after my 21 straight hours camping him (thanks to the old room mate for covering the beer/bourbon pickup for the second half). The necro mage might be the duo exclusive but i do shudder thinking of their epic weapons......