Necro/Mage Duo

[LizardNecro]

As a mage, I love duoing with necros, and necros love duoing with me. Very fun and very powerful. Highly recommend.

[Stoggieman]

Thanks for all the help here. I'm after hearing this cleric/enchanter duo twice, my interest is piqued. I know that later on, you have those two you have the basis for a strong group. Especially with players who know how to play. Aside from Insta group, I'm sure there are other benefits to this duo.

Right now I'd have to say so I don't have to reroll a monk (that will definitely be an alt however) I think we'd lean towards necro/mage. But Might have to see if he'd be interested in the ench/cleric.

[-Catherin-]

I would argue that the ench/clr duo is the most powerful and safest in the game.

Chanter has crowd control, slow, haste, and charm.
Cleric has buffs and heals


The chanter charms a pet, gives it two weapons and hastes it and just tears through mobs, the cleric just needs to CH the pet occasionally, and most importantly help the chanter stay alive and recharm during charm breaks.

The only combo i would argue that could be better is x2 ench. though its a bit more risky without the heals

obviously play what you WANT to play though. you wont last unless you do something you enjoy

[Splorf22]

100% agree with Catherin with the small exception that for killing really high level stuff (>55) I think shm/enc is better, mainly because getting mobs slowed at that level is so important, and malo + two players chaining slow really helps.

Mage/Necro is ridiculously OP 1-50 because of the insane strength of the classic pets. The Kunark level pets are much more balanced.

[Naerron]

I vote mage/necro for a few reasons. Not all of them are meant to directly contras the shammy/monk combo tho.
1) Much easier to start from scratch with, mostly because they are much easier to gear and offer less downtime
2) Can tackle higher lvl mobs. A) becuase you can bounce pets, and also don't have to worry about the tank dieing. B) Have more burn potential, C) Fear kiting on overcon blues like fog golems vs Haze golem in CoM, both are blue at 43-46 but the fog golem is much harder to tackle.
3) A necro imo can pull eaiser with dots and CoS + FD than a monk. You use less manna on two single pulls than 1 2 mob pull.
4) Necros get snare spells which has become very important especially in old world dungeons
5) You can both bind and gate, making escaping a train and coordination easier. Say one of u is in EC selling shit and the other logs on to xp, but is at some camp u guys were doing, u can both just gate to your XP spot and start.
7) are less mages/necros on server than monks/shammys meaning lower gear prices and easier to obtain planar armor/raid loots and epic MQs.
8) Necros can rez and FD, and corpse summon which make it a great CR class
9) Necro can heal very effectively with shadowbond and dispell
10) Fear kiting will get you both to 60 from paw to KC easily.
11) Less downtime imo. THis could be debatable though, but if anyone was around during classic u remember that a full group of non twinks was needed to keep the XP flowing, and if u took a traditional style group and often needed 2 healers to do that. That's why in classic if u remember there were tons of mage only groups, and would let the necros in if no one could find another mage.
12) Once u can coth the mage becomes much more powerful with getting to camps, a necro can DA in and train it all away, mage coths u back and ur good to go.
13) this is kind of a culmination of points but i honestly believe it is a way better cash farming duo, which is important if it's your first char. Necros espeically shine in HS.
14) The mage/necro duo open up better XP choices. Example. SolA u NEED a snarer to do that camp. SolA has one of the highest ZEMs and is vastly underused these days. It has some good drops too, especially for INT casters. (Yes i know shammys canb root, but not taking dmg for 20% of the mob is very nice) Also zones like kedge, where u both can cast or sumnmon EB items and have a good way to pull and lose roamer agro via coth.
15) you never have to buy food/water, seems silly but really helps when saving for spells during those first lvls where ur scraping buy for spells you need.

Some other things i saw posted which i i feel the need to correct:
1) Mages get the malo debuff spell line

[LizardNecro]

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

7) are less mages/necros on server than monks/shammys meaning lower gear prices and easier to obtain planar armor/raid loots and epic MQs.

Right, easier epic MQs.

That's why you see so few shammys and monks with epics, but every mage and necro is running around with an epic. Because the epic MQ is so easy. I mean, I have a hard time getting any guilds to pay attention when Inny is up, because really, nobody cares. I think Inny was left up for three weeks once. Once the MQ price for an Inny staff came down to 500p, people stopped even trying to farm it. Just so common.

Yep, good old easy mage epic MQ. Yesirree, most common epic in the game. Not like those ultra rare shammy/monk epics.

[Slave]

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

Right, easier epic MQs.

That's why you see so few shammys and monks with epics, but every mage and necro is running around with an epic. Because the epic MQ is so easy. I mean, I have a hard time getting any guilds to pay attention when Inny is up, because really, nobody cares. I think Inny was left up for three weeks once. Once the MQ price for an Inny staff came down to 500p, people stopped even trying to farm it. Just so common.

Yep, good old easy mage epic MQ. Yesirree, most common epic in the game. Not like those ultra rare shammy/monk epics.

From the words he's using, it may seem like he is agreeing with the guy but in actuality, this is a form of humor known as sarcasm.

[Vladesch]

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

The chanter charms a pet, gives it two weapons and hastes it and just tears through mobs, the cleric just needs to CH the pet occasionally, and most importantly help the chanter stay alive and recharm during charm breaks.

Druid enchanter can do this better. Druid has plenty of healing for the pet especially with mind buff, plus you have snare, sow and ports.

[Splorf22]

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

Druid enchanter can do this better. Druid has plenty of healing for the pet especially with mind buff, plus you have snare, sow and ports.

CH on an 8k hp pet is 20 hp/mana. Druids can't do that. Personally I think Druids are a very underrated class; they are great at low levels and decent at high levels. But anything that Druid/Enc can duo, Enc/Enc, Enc/Clr, Enc/Shm/ and Enc/Mag can do better.

[A1551]

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

Druid enchanter can do this better. Druid has plenty of healing for the pet especially with mind buff, plus you have snare, sow and ports.

Druid and Enchanter are plenty powerful but druid is probably the least desirable partner for a chanter of the three (shaman/cleric/druid). Complete heal is pretty ridiculous on charmed mobs -- you basically have an entire group of functionality in 2 people, the pet tanks and does massive dps with an incredibly deep HP pool, chanter can slow/cc/stun and pull very well, haste pet, clarity, etc. Cleric gives you the CH and massive HP buffs and quick heals needed to survive charm breaks (plus occasional rezzes). You do also have the core of a great group as chanter/cleric but said group is entirely unnecessary to level up if you guys just want to duo. Shaman chanter is also amazing but others have discussed why.

As to druid / chanter it has some advantages and is undoubtedly powerful. Druid snare on pet makes it much easier to avoid damage on breaks (a big positive). Ports on tap are certainly convenient (but I'd rather have rez). Sow is a non issue once you get jboots but very nice before that. Druids can also charm animals which can be a very powerful combination in certain zones, and druid roots are amazing which can really help when things go south. The downside is druid heals are entirely inadequate for healing pets (superior heal barely moves my pets health bar, a big minus) and they can't slow to make up for it, druid HP buffs are fairly limited, druid dps is almost irrelevant in comparison to a pet, etc. Bottom line besides ports and snare (and maybe animal charming) they may as well be a shaman without the shamans most powerful abilities.

As to the original poster -- the cleric/chanter or necro/mage really don't need gear to excel. The chanter just needs +cha gear for charming / lulling etc and for the most part it is fairly inexpensive, certainly something a new player to the server could gear themselves with while leveling up. At least personally I'd be reticent to re-level the character I played on live -- half the fun of EQ is mastering a new class. A mage and a necro are gonna be a fun duo -- probably more balanced in terms of the fun for each player. The cleric in a cleric / chanter duo might find things a little boring (the chanter will be doing much of the work), but for a shaman / chanter duo this wouldn't be the case as the shamans also going to have to be pretty active to excel.

Finally, keep in mind thanks to a chanters CC and pulling abilities a chanter/(any healer) duo will basically be able to go anywhere and do anything.

-Propo Fol