Most solid duo for Kunark and Velious

[fohkure]

I think its pretty hard to beat SK/Shaman personally. I played a Shaman for many years, they are a great solo class by themselves, add a plate character with a decent amount of utility themselves and you have a nasty combo.

Monk/Shaman is good, but I think the SK's utilities would come in handy quite often... Nothing ever goes as planned. The only thing a monk has over a SK anyways would be higher DPS. So really you would just be weighing higher dps vs. more utility. Personally I would take the utility, and obviously others disagree.

Chris

[Omnimorph]

Agreed, SK is more useful than monk. Also plate class so better tank etc. Also should you decide to form a group, you have a tank in place, rather than having a dps and consequently needing to find a tank.

[Alleusion]

I don't think the OP was wanting to know what would be a good duo in the end game. I'm sure mages are amazing with their epic pet, but he's not starting out at level 1 with that beasty. There's a long road to go to get there. Branaddar and I have duo'd a monk / shaman fairly well. I think, regardless of the class combo, if you play what you like, and are good at what you do, you can find an acceptible duo with almost any combination.

[Tseng]

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

you can find an acceptible duo with almost any combination.

I think this is the truth, sure there's a question of just how omfg super leet you'll be, as always just play classes you both are going to find fun. Sure, look for some synergy, but play what you want first and foremost.

[Cogwell]

ITT: Classic MNK/SHM vs SK/SHM argument.

I <3 this server

[Tallenn]

Druid + druid

It's simple, one druid quads while the other is medding.. continuous xp!

(yes, that's a joke)

[Uaellaen]

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

I don't think the OP was wanting to know what would be a good duo in the end game. I'm sure mages are amazing with their epic pet, but he's not starting out at level 1 with that beasty. There's a long road to go to get there. Branaddar and I have duo'd a monk / shaman fairly well. I think, regardless of the class combo, if you play what you like, and are good at what you do, you can find an acceptible duo with almost any combination.

that is true, the first few levels would be hard .. up to lvl 4 until mage gets the fire pet, then you will just rip trought the content till lvl 20+ easily ...

and 20+ the clerics heal power increased significantly, supporting the mages fire pet even more ...

[Hatwer]

My EQ experience involved playing on a PvP server with small groups of friends, so we were always focused on getting the most out of duos and trios (because we literally couldn't group with other people, they would kill us).

Based on what you defined, I'd say your best bet is for Shadow Knight/Shaman.

Monk/Shaman is a lot of fun and very versatile as well, but going the Shadow Knight route gives you easy access to Snare and Fear. Snare is very important inside dungeons and gives you the ability to fear kite if needed outdoors which is great for exp.

Fear is important for breaking complete heals (in conjunction with the Shaman's Root, god damn you Old Seb fungus priests).

This combination has tanking, healing, slows, pulling (with FD), root mezzing, snares, fears and above average damage. If you are sure you can secure an Anklesmasher then Monk may be an option, but I wouldn't bet on that at first.

Plus, if other characters come along, you can typically add them to the SK/Shaman core just fine. DPS? No problem. Another healer? Let the Shaman DPS a little more, maybe the other healer can too. Enchanter or bard? Awesome too.

Mage chain petting is totally awesome but there are some dungeon situations it's going to struggle in due to its lack of versatility, and runners can be a pain in the ass even with Earth Root and mage nukes. It also restricts what the other person can play - they can't contribute as a melee to the fight really. A healer isn't going to help much with chain petting. A dps class is just going to rip aggro - they really have to be another Mage or just there to help pull and handle situations (monk, bard, enchanter).

If I was only focused on outdoor stuff and experience, I'd totally double DPS and fear kite.

[Weekapaug]

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

I think this is the truth, sure there's a question of just how omfg super leet you'll be, as always just play classes you both are going to find fun. Sure, look for some synergy, but play what you want first and foremost.

I appreciate what you are saying, but I've played every class in the game to at least 30ish at some point (except ranger, zerker and bst, I think, and I played one of each of those to around 20), and most classes to at least 50ish....They are all fun to me. Some more than others of course, but I'm entirely flexible with this. I'm really interested in hearing specifics about duos people had experience playing during the actual Kunark and Velious eras.

For the record, I played a shaman alt to 75ish with around 500 AA, but I did not really sink into it until around Luclin or PoP. I absolutely love the class and I'm fully aware of what shaman are capable of, just not in Kunark and Velious specificly. The comments here have been most helpful in that regard. I could see us going with a shammy/monk or shammy/mage duo. I play a Warrior main now, and had a SK main during the original Kunark and Velious eras live, so I'm probably going to stay away from an SK, honestly....Loved everything about the class at the time, but the lack of DPS when duoing back then drove me nuts....Just like duoing with our mains (cleric and warrior) does now. And we will likely avoid the cleric/mage combo because we already have a cleric. But that's just personal preference....We will take that under consideration though, of course, as we are trying to be completely open-minded about this.

I'm particularly interested in hearing people's specific thoughts about this on a practical level, because Kunark and Velious mobs tend to be a lot harder to deal with on a kill-by-kill basis, camps are harder to break, etc, primarily because of summoning and casting mobs. Because I was a SK then and had something of a perma-group, I never had to deal with any of it solo or duo on any significant level. I've experienced the groupable content of these expansions a lot, but any soloing or duoing I've done there has been in subsequent eras with everything that goes with that (gear, spells, aa, etc), which is an entirely different thing than actually tackling content when it is the current era.

So, again, I appreciate the sentiment behind what you are saying, but that's really not what this is about. I'm a surfer, for example, and lots of surfers subscribe to the old saying "the best surfer is the one having the most fun." In general, I agree with that. But the fact remains, that no matter how much fun I may be having on my best day, any really good surfer is still a better surfer than I am on his worst day having no fun. I may be having a blast trying to advance from a log to a shorter board, but while I'm just trying to get up on that, the more advanced surfer using every manuverable part of a wave to it's fullest makes him, hands down, the "better" surfer.

We have mains we love and plan to stick with. In this case, we are looking for the most effective and efficient duo for Kunark and Velious specificly, because what we will find "fun" is being able to tackle as much content reliably and sustainably as a duo.

Thank you all again for all of your input. I look forward to reading anything else anyone has to add and hope to read more fresh perspectives on this.

[Phallax]

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

I appreciate what you are saying, but I've played every class in the game to at least 30ish at some point (except ranger, zerker and bst, I think, and I played one of each of those to around 20), and most classes to at least 50ish....They are all fun to me. Some more than others of course, but I'm entirely flexible with this. I'm really interested in hearing specifics about duos people had experience playing during the actual Kunark and Velious eras.

For the record, I played a shaman alt to 75ish with around 500 AA, but I did not really sink into it until around Luclin or PoP. I absolutely love the class and I'm fully aware of what shaman are capable of, just not in Kunark and Velious specificly. The comments here have been most helpful in that regard. I could see us going with a shammy/monk or shammy/mage duo. I play a Warrior main now, and had a SK main during the original Kunark and Velious eras live, so I'm probably going to stay away from an SK, honestly....Loved everything about the class at the time, but the lack of DPS when duoing back then drove me nuts....Just like duoing with our mains (cleric and warrior) does now. And we will likely avoid the cleric/mage combo because we already have a cleric. But that's just personal preference....We will take that under consideration though, of course, as we are trying to be completely open-minded about this.

I'm particularly interested in hearing people's specific thoughts about this on a practical level, because Kunark and Velious mobs tend to be a lot harder to deal with on a kill-by-kill basis, camps are harder to break, etc, primarily because of summoning and casting mobs. Because I was a SK then and had something of a perma-group, I never had to deal with any of it solo or duo on any significant level. I've experienced the groupable content of these expansions a lot, but any soloing or duoing I've done there has been in subsequent eras with everything that goes with that (gear, spells, aa, etc), which is an entirely different thing than actually tackling content when it is the current era.

So, again, I appreciate the sentiment behind what you are saying, but that's really not what this is about. I'm a surfer, for example, and lots of surfers subscribe to the old saying "the best surfer is the one having the most fun." In general, I agree with that. But the fact remains, that no matter how much fun I may be having on my best day, any really good surfer is still a better surfer than I am on his worst day having no fun.

We have mains we love and plan to stick with. In this case, we are looking for the most effective and efficient duo for Kunark and Velious specificly, because what we will find "fun" is being able to tackle as much content reliably and sustainably as a duo.

Thank you all again for all of your input. I look forward to reading anything else anyone has to add and hope to read more fresh perspectives on this.

A few things to remember when duoing with a shaman.

1)Torpor descreases both movement and attack speed. So in theory you want to not be casting this on your DPS as much as you can avoid it. The main thing with a shaman is they have a decent AC paired with Slow and Torpor they usually take the brunt of the dmg in melee hits and dont lose the DPS from Torporing the monk/mage pet.

2)A thing to remember with summoning mobs. They dont summon untill 3% or 100hp is dealt which ever comes first. So breaking spawns isnt that bad as long as you dont do dmg first. Slow/Malo/Root agro is key here. Also summoning mobs are little problem with a slowable mob because of what I stated above.