Rogue - Best Duo Partner?

[Bodybagger]

barbarian rogues get slam.... and throwing boulders... and better str sta.... picking any other race is absurd, and you get masks for half of them anyways lol

also I haven't toyed with poisons on p99 like I did back on live but casters were one of the many places they came in handy... as for healing... rogues actually mitigate damage pretty decently and with bind you can at least get 50% hp which if you grab buffs before hand is more than you'd ever have without anyways *shrug* agro swapping and stunning you burn stuff fast and hard and without too much recourse in most cases. definitely not a good combo for splitting groups up though. SK/monk are much better for that... or pal I guess but I'd never honestly chose pal over the others for utility, kill speed, or capability as a duo

[Cecily]

I agree with you as far as selecting a barbarian for PvP. Boulders are neat there. Junk for PvE though. Slam is on backstab timer and is kinda bad. End game, race simply does not matter. There's no barbarian on Blue with better stats than myself or Sckrilla. We're wood elves.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Sckrilla
http://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Cecily

[Tuljin]

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

Rogue/Pal isn't too bad in a dungeon, but there's no situations that a rogue/shaman isn't better terms of difficulty of mobs you can take, kill speed, or downtime.

In theory this is true, in practicality this really isn't the case. Especially when you are considering a 30s-40s Shaman, not a 60 Shaman with Torpor.

People try to run numbers and absolutes in EQ, but the reason we keep coming back is because very little in this game is absolute due to how dynamic mob encounters are.

For example, a Shaman/Rogue duo can't even really traverse LGuk very well. The Paladin gets IVU. The shaman would need potions which he can acquire, but even still most of the camps you can't even split without a Calm. A lot of the splits are multi-caster pops too - - which a sub-50 shaman doesn't reeeeeally want to fuck with due to the lack of CH, even with LoS roots.

Mistmoore Castle also has some nasty splits that really shouldn't be attempted without Calm as well.

Also, Slow really isn't worth much vs. a caster mob. Shaman can deal with melee mobs very well with Slow, but theres no real way to deal with caster threat, which is why caster mobs generally avoided. This limits the dungeons you can enter, especially in 30s-40s.

In 50s, the only Shaman/Rogue duos you see are at Captain camp in KC, which has virtually no casters. HS doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of casters, but the HT mobs make this duo difficult there, as well as the fact in HS you either see Nec or Enc soloers or people full-grouping a wing. I see very few Shaman/Rogue duos running around in Seb, if any, because again there are some caster splits that you just don't even really want to fuck with without Calm.

Fighting paper caster mobs with proper mitigation greatly reduces the necessity for Slow. You can slow tank/rootrot/dot/faceroll Captain camp in 50s with little to no effort. Successfully navigating the notoriously unforgiving 30s-40s EQ dungeons in a duo with a Rogue and moving the XP bar in the process is a whole different story.

[koros]

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

In theory this is true, in practicality this really isn't the case. Especially when you are considering a 30s-40s Shaman, not a 60 Shaman with Torpor.

People try to run numbers and absolutes in EQ, but the reason we keep coming back is because very little in this game is absolute due to how dynamic mob encounters are.

For example, a Shaman/Rogue duo can't even really traverse LGuk very well. The Paladin gets IVU. The shaman would need potions which he can acquire, but even still most of the camps you can't even split without a Calm. A lot of the splits are multi-caster pops too - - which a sub-50 shaman doesn't reeeeeally want to fuck with due to the lack of CH, even with LoS roots.

Mistmoore Castle also has some nasty splits that really shouldn't be attempted without Calm as well.

Also, Slow really isn't worth much vs. a caster mob. Shaman can deal with melee mobs very well with Slow, but theres no real way to deal with caster threat, which is why caster mobs generally avoided. This limits the dungeons you can enter, especially in 30s-40s.

In 50s, the only Shaman/Rogue duos you see are at Captain camp in KC, which has virtually no casters. HS doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of casters, but the HT mobs make this duo difficult there, as well as the fact in HS you either see Nec or Enc soloers and people full-grouping a wing. I see very few Shaman/Rogue duos running around in Seb, if any, because again there are some caster splits that you just don't even really want to fuck with without Calm.

Fighting paper caster mobs with proper mitigation greatly reduces the necessity for Slow. You can slow tank/rootrot/dot/faceroll Captain camp in 50s with little to no effort. Successfully navigating the notoriously unforgiving 30s-40s EQ dungeons in a duo with a Rogue and moving the XP bar in the process is a whole different story.

Sneak pull? Also unless the casters are pretty low blue you're probably not going to want to calm split. And if they are low blue, the raw dps of a hasted rogue + pet + shaman nukes can drop a caster pretty damn fast.

Also, how many pally/rogue duos do you see duoing seb/hs? That seems like much more of a receipe for disaster.

[Tuljin]

Sneak pull works but a glass cannon Rogue really doesn't want to eat a spell or two on the way back to camp, especially without CH.

On Dwarf Paladin I have calmed lots of splits in all kinds of zones with CHA gear, but I won't say that there isn't a fair amount of butthole clenching involved =) In high 40s a Paladin can calm in LGuk with little trouble. I was successfully calming frogs in Seb at level 51 and 52, but that wasn't without a few bad breaks. Mid 50s and up a Paladin calm really isn't bad at all. The big thing is is getting that initial stun off so you don't eat a spell on your pull. If a Rogue sneak pulls a Shaman and eats a Slow, its way more detrimental to the group than if the Paladin eats it.

The Rogue can sneak pull melees while Paladin sits for some mana, and the Paladin can deal with caster pulls. Also, I am thinking leveling up 30s-40s and getting dungeon XP, not "safe" XP bar movement in outdoor zones.

I have duoed Seb with a Rogue quite a bit, there are a few bottlenecks that nobody really wants to mess around with though (the "stage" right before the Chef camp and some of the rooms in Disco, for example) A major point is the way the Paladin can hold agro very reliably for very little mana, whereas a Shaman will hold agro with Slow which is very high mana and has really nothing to deal with caster spells.

Like I said in my first post, you really don't see Paladins ~anywhere~. Its certainly not a class for the faint of heart, and I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few who has even attempted or done Pal/Rog duo extensively (my RL bro has a rogue alt and we would just camp out in safehall in LGuk, log in, and get xps and pick up usually another person for trio) At this point I have a Paladin in his mid 50s, which is something very few people on the server can even say. I still manage to move his bar despite my duties and commitments on my main.

At the end of the day Shaman is OP and turns the game into EZ mode, we all know this. I can say from experience, however, that Pal/Rog is a kick ass duo that really is capable of great things while leveling, especially for those who want a challenge and experience the awesome mid-level classic EQ dungeons.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

The largest drain on efficiency in any group is hp management or healing (outside CE, Torp or CH). There are essentially no group setups out there where this doesn't flesh out.

You add DPS to the group to speed up kills and negate damage by time standing in front of a swinging mob. This reduces the healing load or extends the effect of each heal over X number of mobs.

You add a tank to the group to mitigate damage lowering the amount of healing or damage taken/mob.

You add a cc class to lower or eliminate additional mobs hitting you where you are not hitting them.

Other classes added as accessory for whatever reason will be in there to either reduce the need for healing or bolster your healing abilities.

Simply put, any group approaching their peak efficiency will be one that does not need to heal because you can factor that out of the equation completely. It goes without saying that any skill that can be used do that should be used.

At this point, it comes down to a partner who can use their class in a way that allows the rogue to do the most damage (from behind) while still meditating. There will always be a SMALL need for healing so this eliminates other pure melee, rangers, wizards and Druids because agro kiting requires spell casting and running, paladins because tanking, clerics because tanking, shamans because tanking, mages because no cc, enchanters because no snare and absolutely no healing and leaves shadowknights, Necros and bards. Of those three, only Necros and bards have the ability to cc in any capacity and bards come with a larger shared xp penalty. Fear also exposes the back which is now making use of the rogues best ability, backstab.

Necros are the best partner in MOST scenarios and if you're in the right place (open area, plentiful mobs etc...) will give you the most xp per hour. They have the ability to snare, pet DPS, charm DPS if you're adventurous, small DPS ability themselves and most importantly fear which allows everyone to **eliminate the need to heal. Damage taken on breaks can be reduced by the more recent changes to pet agro which should allow the rogue to back off and pet tank while the necro gets another fear together.


**barring fear and charm breaks.

[stakha]

Bard can also fear.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Necro has a pet that will out DPS a bard and doesn't come with a shared xp penalty.

[Priceline]

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

Necro has a pet that will out DPS a bard and doesn't come with a shared xp penalty.

if the necro was an iksar wouldn't that xp penalty be almost the same? I don't know the exact % but an iksar monks penalty is worse then a hybrids. bard can also charm any merb type for a pet and that will very much out DPS a skelly pet.

bard can also haste/str/dex buff during a fear kite to further push rogues deeps.

[Mentathiel]

I've been in groups with tanks who can't hold aggro, healers who are too busy fighting adds to heal and enchanters whose mez never holds. I'd say that these were all good groups, just not fully optimised due to our low levels and beset by random wandering orcs; we're mostly talking Crushbone groups here.

In almost every single one of these groups, I had another rogue standing across from me as we played ping-pong with aggro. Yes, we often needed healing afterwards, but two rogues make for a lot of damage in a very short space of time no matter which direction the mob turns.

And very few classes can just sit down in the middle of a busy zone and /afk while trains run rampant all around. Two rogues can both hide (and know whether they are hidden) without needing to find a safe spot. They can sneak past mobs which are too tough to reach the softer targets, no need for invis and IVU.

When the party runs, I've been one of two characters left behind to finish the fight as duo more than once and it's always been a pair of rogues. It works out more often than you'd expect because I could usually hand off the mob to the other rogue via evasion and/or switching off auto-attack briefly when my health dipped too low.