Brand New to EQ -- lots of questions!

[Estu]

You should be OK to find leveling groups on blue. You might have to be proactive at weird hours: don't be afraid to form your own groups, send people tells, rally people from nearby zones, etc. Although, in the most popular grouping zones, it should still be pretty easy, since those tend to be packed to overflowing during peak hours. On red, you would probably have trouble finding groups during awkward hours (or in general). Staying in a group for 2-3 hours is totally fine.

Here's a run-down of the healing classes:

Cleric: Best healer in the game. Also has a couple of useful buffs (HP, AC, resist buffs), spells to help pull (lull line of spells), and CC (roots, stuns). But they spend most of their time healing.

Shaman: Mediocre healer. Has a lot of useful buffs (lots of different stat buffs, HP buffs, AC buffs, resist buffs, haste, regeneration) and the most useful debuff in the game (slow), as well as root spells and (eventually) a weak pet. Also has very good mana regeneration due to the cannibalize spell, which lets them convert their HP to mana. Depending on whether a group has a healer already, the shaman either spends their time healing, buffing, and debuffing (slows are VERY useful), or mainly just buffing and debuffing. The shaman is a very busy and complex class with a lot to do, whereas the cleric is more straightforward.

Druid: Weakest healer of the three. Has useful buffs (HP+AC, damage shield, strength, regen), an extremely useful outdoor pulling spell (harmony, which is basically like a souped-up version of the lull line, but outdoor-only), good CC tools (snare and root), and the ability to charm animals for great DPS if there happen to be animals in the zone. Not as in-demand for groups as clerics or shamans since they are weaker healers, but still useful. In a group, their play style is in between that of a cleric and a shaman: they have more to do than a cleric, but are not quite as busy as a shaman.

In terms of soloability, at least when it comes to getting from 1 to 60 (there's also an idea of soloability in terms of doing challenging cash camps at level 60), the order is reversed: druids are excellent soloers due to their ability to charm, shamans are poor to middling soloers early on but excellent in their later levels, and clerics are very poor soloers throughout.

In terms of guilds, there are lots of leveling guilds that would be happy to have you, though I can't name them off the top of my head. Keep your eyes peeled and ask around.

[maskedmelon]

Estus summed up the healers pretty well. I thinking is also important to note that the pace of EQ gameplay is significantly slower than that of other modern mmos. As a cleric, you will cast your buffs every half hour or so depending on duration and spend the rest of your time sitting except to drop a heal as needed. If your group is wildly efficient, you may have mana to do other things (such as stun, root or if hunting undead nuke) as well, but managing your mana pool is critical. If you want to be main healer though, cleric is without question the class you should play.

I am not sure what things look like during your proposed play times unfortunately. I am fast asleep at that time ^^

I do not play on red, but red population lives at around 1/4 of blue's at prime time and EQ never had any sort of faction penalties or xp loss for PK. However, if you attack a player in town, and are seen by townsfolk, they will defend that player provided they are not KOS to the townsfolk.

[sox7d]

Finding a group takes between 30 seconds and 2 hours.

For you, I recommend make character A, get them to level 20, then make character B and get them to level 10. If you can't find or manage to organize a group on the character A, try on character B. Once A hits 30ish and B hits 20ish, make character C and get them to 10. The difference in leveling areas will allow you not to waste time sitting on your ass LFG.

But if you wanna stick to one character, go for marketability. Rogue (can never have enough), chanter, cleric, shaman.

[Ac888]

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