Rogue Partner

[Estu]

Nec+rogue is the way to go IMO. It seems like the most powerful rogue duo by far. Charm undead, fear kite, and vacuum up that EXP like a boss.

[Wenuven]

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

Nec+rogue is the way to go IMO. It seems like the most powerful rogue duo by far. Charm undead, fear kite, and vacuum up that EXP like a boss.

I would argue that charming while duoing with a rogue will slow down exp a LOT unless the rogue is basically naked gear-wise. Takes too much mana and breaks mess with pulls.

If the rogue has a decent backstabber and some haste, dru or necro basically doing nothing but chain pulling/kiting/fearing is the way to go. I did 40-47 on my rogue in 2 days doing this with a druid. Best exp I've ever gotten on any class by far. That being said, my rogue has his epic.

[Estu]

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

I would argue that charming while duoing with a rogue will slow down exp a LOT unless the rogue is basically naked gear-wise. Takes too much mana and breaks mess with pulls.

If the rogue has a decent backstabber and some haste, dru or necro basically doing nothing but chain pulling/kiting/fearing is the way to go. I did 40-47 on my rogue in 2 days doing this with a druid. Best exp I've ever gotten on any class by far. That being said, my rogue has his epic.

I dunno, I'm skeptical. Charmed pet DPS is huge. If you're smart about charming mobs of appropriate level, you shouldn't be dealing with a ton of charm breaks. I don't see why mana would be a huge issue for a necro, either. Lich form gives a lot of mana, and pulling/fearing/snaring does not use much. If you spend any mana on DoTs, you're better off spending that mana on a charmed pet.

I think a lot of people play charm classes without charming much and they don't appreciate how powerful charm really is. It's an incredible tool.

[hammertime7795]

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

I dunno, I'm skeptical. Charmed pet DPS is huge. If you're smart about charming mobs of appropriate level, you shouldn't be dealing with a ton of charm breaks. I don't see why mana would be a huge issue for a necro, either. Lich form gives a lot of mana, and pulling/fearing/snaring does not use much. If you spend any mana on DoTs, you're better off spending that mana on a charmed pet.

I think a lot of people play charm classes without charming much and they don't appreciate how powerful charm really is. It's an incredible tool.

Charm is down right hax. My necro will charm pets for 10 min + quite often that are 2x the dps of a summoned pet

[webrunner5]

Running around chasing a feared Darkness mob is about as much fun as a sharp stick in the eye. And even a Snared one gets old pretty quick. It is not much fun I can tell you.

Playing a Rogue well is really not as easy as a lot of people think. A lot of Tanks on here make NO effort to position a mob where it ought to be. Either for the Rogue or Casters. But that will change in Velious because the fights will last a LOT longer, and Tanks not worth crap will not be Tanks getting groups. Velious is where you have the old pen and paper ready for the Shit List names. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Wrench]

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

A lot of Tanks on here make NO effort to position a mob where it ought to be. Either for the Rogue or Casters

im curious what you think this means, statler

[webrunner5]

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

im curious what you think this means, statler

I am not sure that is pointed toward me?? But what I mean say a Monk pulls a Mob. He FD on it and hopes that the Warrior can get agro on it quick so the Monk can get up and beat on it without getting agro. Now the best way I like to snag a mob on a Warrior, if you have plenty of them, is with a Arrow. On average it will come right to you. Monk still has to FD but you HAVE agro.

Ok the Positing thing. Say you also have a Rogue in the group. If the Warrior pushes the mob up against a wall the Rogue can not get behind it to Backstab or for that matter probably not even hit it. Same if he pushes the mob up onto the Casters.Where are the Monk, Rogue suppose to go. And guess what, the mob is right there to hit any of the casters sitting there medding. So caster dead, or can't sit to med, and no agro by the Warrior now.

So you can see why a Warrior or ANY Tank has to think about trying to Move, Push, Pull the Mob where the casters have a straight line of sight to even see the mob where it is or how close it is getting, and to have the DPS'ers able to be sort of behind the mob to hit it. A lot of Tanks just give no thought to were the mob is, they just run to it and start beating on it.

There is a LOT of thought involved in Tanking. And it will be more important in Velious because fight last minutes instead of seconds on here now. Now a lot of fights only last 30 to 45 seconds now so it is not as big of deal. But IF you do not try to learn how to do it at lower levels than if you do it becomes second nature to do it because you have seen how mobs can be moved, pulled, pushed by Tanks. In Raid situations usually the MT will push the mob up against a wall, to basically keep it penned up away for the healers out front and the squishy Casters behind them. If they die everybody dies.

I could go on longer here but I hope you get some of the points I stated to help you and others. Hope it sort of answers your question. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Wenuven]

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

I dunno, I'm skeptical. Charmed pet DPS is huge.

I dunno, I got most of my levels on my rogue via duo. I duod a LOT with both necros and druids. I'm not saying necros are a bad choice--just that druid was the clear winner in my experience.

But assuming you're right and the charming is worth the tradeoffs, lets not forget that when it comes to outdoor zones, there are probably more options with animals (for druid charm) than there are with undead.

The choice is partially correlated to how well-geared the rogue is. The worse gear the rogue has, the more the extra DPS from necro pet or charmed pet will skew the results. But in the end, the druid will still win due to the time-saving utility of SoW and ports. Easy choice IMO. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Estu]

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

I dunno, I got most of my levels on my rogue via duo. I duod a LOT with both necros and druids. I'm not saying necros are a bad choice--just that druid was the clear winner in my experience.

But assuming you're right and the charming is worth the tradeoffs, lets not forget that when it comes to outdoor zones, there are probably more options with animals (for druid charm) than there are with undead.

The choice is partially correlated to how well-geared the rogue is. The worse gear the rogue has, the more the extra DPS from necro pet or charmed pet will skew the results. But in the end, the druid will still win due to the time-saving utility of SoW and ports. Easy choice IMO. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't want to have a nitpicky argument here, since it's kind of a minor question and probably is not going to change anything, but I really don't buy that a druid would be a better duo partner. SoW and ports are vastly overrated; you can easily find ports on this server with variations on "/who all", and you don't need SoW to kite a snared mob. In terms of outdoor zones, it's true that there are a decent number of animals to charm, but there are quite a lot of undead as well. However, I think that a rogue/necro duo could venture into a dungeon and fear kite effectively - certain open, relatively sparse areas could be cleared out mainly by the necro root-dotting stuff, and then used as arenas for fear-kiting. Then you could soak up that ZEM.

A big factor is that necros are better at fearing. Druids can only fear animals; necros can fear anything. If you're in a druid-rogue duo and the druid isn't fearing the target, that means the druid is aggro kiting with snare, which means he's less free to med and hence contribute his own DPS. The necro can lay down a snare and a fear, med, and add additional DPS as mana permits... not to mention, his mana regeneration is far superior due to lich form. So even without a charmed pet, the necro is going to be contributing a lot more DPS through damaging spells. Meanwhile, without a charmed pet, the druid is going to be contributing very little DPS; the necro at least has his little skeleton dude.

I don't really see any way in which a druid-rogue duo would beat out a druid-necro duo. The necro is just a more powerful class in almost every way than the druid.

[Wenuven]

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

...

All of that stuff sounds good in theory, but doesn't mean diddly when fights last 30 seconds on average (didn't make this number up--its an average of a sample from 200 fights in OT from my logs).

I see from your sig that you have a level 53 rogue, but I question how much time you spent duoing with druids and necros. If you did a lot of it you would quickly see that you don't need any extra DPS from pets (or dots or whatever) to make the duo more effective. All you need is someone who can chain-pull at maximum speed with minimal downtime (i.e. druid). (Note about downtime: the extra mana cost of darkness, fear and lifetap FAR outweighs the mana regen provided by lich).

I spent many hours duoing with BOTH necros and druids on my rogue. It's how I got most of my levels. Despite having a druid main, I have no bias here. These were just my observations over time and the results were very clear.