Best 4 person all caster/priest group

[Danth]

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

For me, utility has extremely diminishing returns.

This is always going to make this type of debate unending because utility doesn't have a set value and doesn't show up on a convenient log parser. Different folks value it differently. I've had that argument before in game with couple of friends who had a monk and shaman duo. After a friendly competition we were all slightly surprised to see the wife and I (sk/shaman) had more kills over a 5 hour period than they did because they died a couple times and we did not. Even that could've gone the other way. At the end of the game EQ's a fairly loosely-tuned game and offers different ways of achieving success. That success *is* a finite end point: There reaches a point in any player's career where there is no more loot he cares about, where platinum no longer matters. Nearly any group discussed in this thread could reach such a point and in truth there won't be THAT much difference in how long it takes them to get there given equal effort.

(edit--for the post below)

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

... but I do believe most people have an "APM bucket".

Maybe....but equally as maybe the shaman player's already a bit manic and can simply go longer than the lazier dude who picks a magician. I definitely know shamans who are very much capable of maintaining their constant activity for hours on end, and keeping it up for years. I'm married to one such EQ'er. I sure as heck wouldn't do that, I hate shaman mechanics, I'll stick with my SK, thanks. The wife's far enough to the other end that as her health has declined and she's less physically able to play the shaman consistently anymore, she'd mostly rather not play at all than play a lower-activity character like her druid or cleric. Some people are funny like that--and because of that, for the sake of this type of discussion we might as well assume that the characters in question are being played similarly for similar lengths of time. That's really all we can control for. Likewise the magician is WAY better for limited players (kids, non-gamers, etc), dramatically better, but we can't really control for player ability either other than to passingly aknowledge that advantage.

Danth