Help me choose

[Mordyth]

My friend has pimped out a warrior and we want to duo. I've got it down to 3 different classes I can't choose between. Please help me choose

Warrior and enchanter

Warrior and cleric

Warrior and shaman

Pretty sure shaman will win out but want some advice anyhow.


Thanks in advabce

[jarshale]

Shaman would definitely be the best out of those.

[Credge]

A warrior and a cleric is pretty classic.

A warrior and a shaman is pretty powerful.

A warrior and an enchanter is.

[cornisthebest]

not enchanter lol

[B4EQWASCOOL]

Warrior cleric for late game grouping.

[Swish]

Hard to beat a shaman, or go cleric but it'll be a rougher ride for the first 39 levels.

[Mordyth]

I like the idea of sow, buffing to hell and slow, but shamans in end game? Not sold at the moment

[iruinedyourday]

I like the idea of sow, buffing to hell and slow, but shamans in end game? Not sold at the moment

you dont like soloing 3 giants at once, looting a crown at the end?

Or killing basically anything that attacks you and being full mana and HP while you do it till the end?

its pretty bawse.

[Troxx]

A warrior and shaman alone can drop content more reliably and efficiently than a warrior and cleric (assuming duo alone).

In a duo:

Shaman slow + not cheal + can haste warrior + has canni >>> cleric cheal

That duo will also have no problems picking up nearly any random lfgs to make a viable group - including picking up a cleric.

Enchanters are boss ... But without a third wheel you don't have the heals.

All 3 of those classes are fantastic, but in terms of viability you won't do better than shaman if your other class is going to be warrior.

[Laugher]

I'd also argue that although a war/cleric would have good odds at killing a named for loot a shaman/war could last longer (which without a 3rd chars dps you'll want) in a fight; you'd probably be a relatively efficient dungeon crawl team by comparison and able to gear yourselves pretty easily as a duo.

[Dr3am]

When you factor all the variables together the warrior/shaman duo really has a lot going for it over the warrior/cleric.

Shaman over cleric:
-SoW at 9. Can't speak to how useful this will be to both of you.
-Str/Sta/Agl/Dex buffs.
-Regenerate at 24.
-Invis at 29. Also can't speak to how useful this will be to both of you.
-Slow. Best pve spell in the game, hands down.
-Haste. Enuf said.

Cleric over shaman:
-Hp/AC buffs.
-Full heal at 34 (or whatever).
-Resurrection.

The cleric is nice but it needs support from either a shaman, enchanter or bard to be truly effective. Shaman/Warrior just cuts the middle-man out and makes you both effective together.

[Lady Julae]

When you factor all the variables together the warrior/shaman duo really has a lot going for it over the warrior/cleric.

Shaman over cleric:
-SoW at 9. Can't speak to how useful this will be to both of you.
-Str/Sta/Agl/Dex buffs.
-Regenerate at 24.
-Invis at 29. Also can't speak to how useful this will be to both of you.
-Slow. Best pve spell in the game, hands down.
-Haste. Enuf said.

Cleric over shaman:
-Hp/AC buffs.
-Full heal at 34 (or whatever).
-Resurrection.

The cleric is nice but it needs support from either a shaman, enchanter or bard to be truly effective. Shaman/Warrior just cuts the middle-man out and makes you both effective together.


I think what most of you are forgetting that Shamans at level 29, get gimped with Greater Healing until level 54, when they get Superior Healing. Clerics on the other hand get Greater healing at 24 and Superior Healing at level 34. Not to mention AoE Heals, HoT Heals and more powerful heals to accommodate a growing Warrior's HP.

No amount of mana can heal a warrior taking more damage than the heal spell delivers. Eventually the warrior will die because a shaman could not keep up with the health demands of the warrior's beat down. HT + Quad attack for 200 HP each anyone? So while it may be fun to go Shaman, unless you are pulling singles, all the buffs and slows in the world wont matter post 50, just a thought. Oh and speaking of pulling singles, clerics get the pacify line of spells :D

[eisley]

This game has one very big bug related to shamans.

On live during this era, Torpor drained 50 mana per tick. Here, it does not.

This makes a shaman with Torpor very, very powerful due to their mana regen, among other factors. But, there is the whole ordeal of "getting a shaman with Torpor" which is not easy.

[Danth]

On live during this era, Torpor drained 50 mana per tick. Here, it does not.

I brought that up several years ago. Apparently that 50 a tick mana drain was something that was briefly experimented with on Test and never made it Live due to massive negative feedback.

----------------------------

The Shaman superficially seems to be the winner here, but there's something to be said for the Cleric: Duo with a Warrior is a lot safer for a Cleric than a Shaman. Warrior hate generation stinks, and Shamans who want to malo, slow, and use damage over time spells generate massive hate. Whenever my wife (60 Shaman) has to deal with a Warrior tank, even in a duo setting, she utterly loathes it and generally things are far riskier for her. Clerics tend to generate lower aggro than Shamans by nature, and also come with spells like Pacify to help out with pulling. Not having slow hurts some, but /defensive can compensate a great deal for that.

If I was the Warrior I'd probably want the Shaman, most of the time, but if I had to play a caster I'd have more fun being the Cleric. As noted, Cleric/Warrior also forms a better basis for building larger groups.

EDIT: Not having to pay the best part of 200K for spells is a nice plus for the Cleric, too.

Danth

[Sage Truthbearer]

This game has one very big bug related to shamans.

On live during this era, Torpor drained 50 mana per tick. Here, it does not.

This makes a shaman with Torpor very, very powerful due to their mana regen, among other factors. But, there is the whole ordeal of "getting a shaman with Torpor" which is not easy.

Hm, interesting. That sounds exactly like the level 34 Shaman spell, Fury, used to work until they changed it.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010725175432/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=1149

"It was changed in December from a mana draining health regen buff to the new pure stat bonus buff."

[mr_jon3s]

Shamans just bring too much to a duo compared to a cleric.

[kaev]

Warrior + Cleric is pretty good starting from scratch, but when you say:
My friend has pimped out a warrior...
I love my Cleric, but a Shaman can magnify a well-geared melee of any class like nobody's business. As a duo, for every situation where a Cleric's superior healing ability would give a clear advantage over a Shaman there are the other 1439 minutes in the day. Hell, you'll even get all your potions at cost. You can make it work as a Warrior+Cleric duo, you'd have to be outright terrible to fail as a Warrior+Shaman duo.

[Troxx]

Shaman slows + shaman heals > cleric cheal

Project 1999 is not a game of burst healing for the most part. It's a game of slow attrition, and the shaman deals with it nicely. Damage not having to be actively healed, whether it's from slow ticking regen buffs, faster kill times, or the mob being slowed out to whazoo is far better than a big expensive trump heal on a class that has poor mana regen without support.

In a full group nothing beats the power of a cleric healing. But for a dedicated duo +/- any lfgs you pick up along the way- shaman wins by a landslide.

[eisley]

I brought that up several years ago. Apparently that 50 a tick mana drain was something that was briefly experimented with on Test and never made it Live due to massive negative feedback.

Very interesting - thanks for the comment. Oddly I have memory of the mana drain mechanic, but perhaps I just thought it existed because I didn't know it was removed. I did not play a Torpor Shaman much personally on live. Of course, it was the most desirable spell in the game through Velious on live, as well as it will be 'til the end of time here.

As for the rest of your post, I generally agree.

To OP/bored people: I've got two hours to burn and I'm bored so I'll write out some stream-of-consciousness type advice to the relatively interesting conversation of war/sham vs war/cleric. Source: Some nooblet Shaman. Never been guilded on p99. Bad. Also, Iksar. Also, bad. But, played a lot of this era on live in an "uber guild" (lol) as well as a p99 filthy casual since beta, so I'll talk to myself for a bit.

I'll try to give some personal experience at a common benchmark duo camp. I have successfully duoed seb king quite a bit with a Halfling Warrior (gg sneak) but we used one mallet charge per reaver PH/king if my first few Malosinis/Slows were resisted and he got unlucky with procs. This occurred maybe one in five, but I'm just trying to point out the importance of clickies for any successful duo, particularly with a warrior.

General play-by-play: Turgurs self (to up proc rate per swing) & Torpor self (can be a life saver to start with this already rolling on yourself) + haste/avatar war before pull > Torpor tank on pull > Malo (swinging w/ Tash stick) > Malosini (or slow, depending on tash+procs) > If resisted, re-assess, re-torpor if necessary & Sini/Slow again (swap to Howling Harpoon for stun proc when Tash+Slow lands if you wish, beware aggro) > call for mallet if bad proc and/or resist luck > sini/slow as normal > epic/dot/ask warrior friend how monk or enchanter alt is coming along/eat Enrage/etc > win ||| Weaving in Canni's as well, of course, and possibly resorting to nets or power-malleting it myself if uncooperative reaver/king, or having to cap out because this is not a duo where you want to die in annoying places. This all assumes the warrior got that perfect moment/skill required to pull King PH solo and into the water with regularity.

Kind of involved/prone to chaos mode occurring. Getting summoned by an unslowed reaver/king is no bueno, and the warrior is relying heavily on RNG - either taunt or procs - to regain aggro. This is the Shamans fault typically, but it is part of the learning curve.

It's more of a play-by-ear scenario, with this specific warrior using red blade + tash stick, then swapping to truncheon, then back to optimal DPS weapons once the mob is slowed. Obtaining that control and being pro-active, thinking ahead is key with a shaman. From my perspective, I am watching for procs and casting based on number of procs the warrior gets. However, a warrior can always /disc def immediately on every PH if needed, which does make this particular scenario much easier, possibly even precluding the need for Torpor at all. But you'd rather not have to use it. If we accidentally get two/three mobs on the pull? Warrior Malleting, super luck on resists, or zoning is essentially required We were also basically restricted to killing one/two mobs per cycle, just the PH essentially, and relying on fairly difficult solo sneak pulling. With a warrior, slowing was basically required as it just takes a hilarious amount of time to kill a high level mob with a /disc de'd, full-time Torpor'd warrior as the sole DPS. You don't want to have to use either often.

As opposed to duoing with a monk, you've got a MUCH bigger margin for error. Tranquil Staff is a ridiculous weapon and unresistable, their aggro with a variety of weapon setups is great, as is their push ability w/ fists. They can also feign bad pulls, pull faster, self haste, can mend, have access to Slowstone Amber which is a playmaker, Stonestance which is another playmaker, junk buff themselves easier (mobs love to dispel a top-slot Torpor), and do far more damage, and get hella buff with a shaman bro. Far less finesse/guile/proc RNG required, and you're able to kill a lot more mobs, opening up chances at spells, cobalt bracers, iksar hide boots, rbg's, so forth. This tends to free the shaman up to DPS more as well, even further magnifying the dps difference. Did we talk about a shaman with Puppet Strings? But, I digress. Just illustrating some of the differences.

Since Monk isn't even on the table, and I don't know if the warrior in question is a halfling, this may be a worthless example. If you plan to duo a lot, I'd highly suggest making your cleric a halfling. The value of sneak, particularly in small group situations, cannot be understated. But if the Warrior is a halfling, I'd recommend going Cazic-Thule Erudite for Terror Forged Mask (http://wiki.project1999.com/Terror_Forged_Mask), as well as Initiate (http://wiki.project1999.com/Initiate_Symbol_of_Cazic_Thule) & Disciple (http://wiki.project1999.com/Disciple_Symbol_of_Cazic_Thule) Symbols of Cazic-Thule, which are... hilariously useful in certain situations. Human Innoruuk is another good choice, swapping the quick-casting undead & animal fear symbols for this (http://wiki.project1999.com/Regent_Symbol_of_Innoruuk) clicky snare, which notably does not prevent higher level mobs from running, but does, I believe, slow their escape. It does stop runners before then, which is very helpful, and there's that whole snare + fear thing as well. Shamans and Warriors can both solve the whole snare issue (http://wiki.project1999.com/Spear_of_Constriction) much later on. I'd recommend putting as many starting points into Dex as possible, if endgame is your goal. That's just my opinion. That or CHA, if Puppet Strings are affected by it. I'm not kidding. But starting stats are mostly irrelevant.

Seb king duo with a cleric/war would be very, very straightforward. CH until someone falls over, or get a Donal's BP and godmode everything where the warrior can survive for twenty seconds. Having never done this personally, I'm not sure how it goes, but I imagine king can be duo'd by a cleric/warrior without a Donal's BP, but it would be very "simple", likely requiring the single mob strategy or clicky usage to clear lower zone out and proceeding, somehow, from there. I suspect you'd run into more "This is impossible" scenarios rather than sham/war where a lot of scenarios would instead be "Okay, how can we do that better, in order to win?"

Also keep in mind the discussion changes a lot when we are talking "Torpor Shaman" vs "Donal's Cleric," rather than just shm vs clr. With the cleric having a higher ceiling, being able to duo mobs like Ragefire, literally essentially anything where the warrior can survive for twenty seconds consistently, but being VERY basic playstyle-wise, and possessing less playmaking ability. The shaman is a far more busy class, with vastly more utility and ability to achieve some very fun, cool feats with teamwork and strategy. The game, and your duo experience changes significantly when Torpor and/or Donal's BP enter the equation. Do note Donal's is effectively removed on Velious release day, whereas Shamans receive a massive boost in Velious to their bread-and-butter in the form of Cannibalize IV, giving them a mana return rate that stretches into "broken" territory - from current 100 hp = 48 mana, to 148 hp = 82 mana.

Clerics get Rez - can't be understated. Shamans get a limited Feign Death (http://wiki.project1999.com/Vermilion_Sky_Ring) - get imaginative. In Velious, your warrior obtaining a Willsapper will become a massive boost for the Cleric duo especially. (Primal) Avatar is a notable thing. Complete Heal becomes more important the further along you get. Torpor's downside as a mid-combat heal only become more apparent the further along you get. Malo (http://wiki.project1999.com/Malo) is perhaps the most under-rated spell in the game. Cleric Velious BP's start off with Celestial Elixir clicky, which is amazing. I guess JBB is a thing people use but I wouldn't know. I get to re-cast epic on mobs at 0%. Puppet Strings open up another world of possibilities. So on and so forth. The question you ask cannot be answered simply.

Torpor and Donal's are the kingmakers and both rather difficult to obtain, and in high demand. I sold a Torpor for 105k a few days ago, and that was after discounting 10k after a chat. The whole spell book runs upwards of 150k, and Fungi (65-70k) is rather important as well, as is resist gear, & as I said - very busy. Learning to GCD reset to Canni dance well and keep on top of buffs is very important. Utilizing valuable proc weapons is important. In my opinion, Shaman and Enchanter provide the most glaring contrast between "good" and "bad" players of each class. Cleric is far less gear dependent outside of Donal's BP (and/or Manastone for old world stuff), which costs like, well... more than I'd advise paying this close to Velious release. It costs joining a successful raiding guild. =) Cleric is a lot more fun to raid as in Velious - again, in my opinion.

Anyways, these types of questions are rehashed over and over again with near-meme responses by this point, so I figured I'd just offer my useless thoughts. Again, keep in mind I am pretty bad. Maybe the worst Shaman on the server. In the conversation at least. Maybe do the opposite of everything I said. Either way, hopefully detailing my personal experiences with one well known, commonly sought-after scenario can help you or someone out a bit.

Tl;dr - Whatever you do, please... Do not buy JBoots.

[curtischoy]

HT + Quad attack for 200 HP each anyone?

What mobs are you trying to duo pre-54? Also, imagine that unslowed, no thanks.

Warrior hate generation stinks, and Shamans who want to malo, slow, and use damage over time spells generate massive hate

This is true, however; in this situation the mob should always be rooted. Roots are cheap.

[Danth]

This is true, however; in this situation the mob should always be rooted. Roots are cheap.

This works while leveling, but isn't prudent when fighting highly resistant monsters. In that case repeatedly trying to root something only makes it angrier with you, and odds are it's angry enough in the first place after a Malo and four or five slow resists.

Eisley's indepth post is accurate and useful, with additional bonus for self-depreciating wit. It's well worth the read for the elaboration on the relative strengths of the two proposed duos.

Danth

[iruinedyourday]

Lets put it this way, at 55+ if you are trying to group youll be looking for a cleric if you roll a shaman, and a shaman if you roll a cleric.

Personaly, having rez avail at all times, makes me think I would prefer a cleric.

But Duo's are better xp gains by far than full groups, so that would make me want to have a shaman.

With the shaman you could always throw in a rogue or monk, and have an extremely efficient trio.

Id have to agree, that overall the shaman would provide better XP gains, while at 60 the cleric/war would be a more powerful combo to do epic fights and farming.

[Dr3am]

Lady Julae wrote: "I think what most of you are forgetting that Shamans at level 29, get gimped with Greater Healing until level 54, when they get Superior Healing. Clerics on the other hand get Greater healing at 24 and Superior Healing at level 34. Not to mention AoE Heals, HoT Heals and more powerful heals to accommodate a growing Warrior's HP.

No amount of mana can heal a warrior taking more damage than the heal spell delivers. Eventually the warrior will die because a shaman could not keep up with the health demands of the warrior's beat down. HT + Quad attack for 200 HP each anyone? So while it may be fun to go Shaman, unless you are pulling singles, all the buffs and slows in the world wont matter post 50, just a thought. Oh and speaking of pulling singles, clerics get the pacify line of spells "

My main is a 60 cleric so I didn't forget anything, I just didn't mention it because I don't believe it to be a factor. :) At 29 the shaman is going to be fine with Greater Healing and most clerics aren't going to start using Superior healing at 34 when they get it due to the built-in fizzle addition that is currently in play and will go away a bit after velious. So Superior doesn't really start getting used regularly by the cleric anyway until the late 40s (unless he/she wants to be mana inefficient as opposed to greater) and the same with complete heal.
The power loss in the shaman heals as they level is offset by slow. 35% minimum at 29 (but not much slowing going on at this point really) and then 50% minimum at 39 (then 75% at 51).

And the pacify line for clerics... where to start there. First you need decent cha to not crit resist and pull everything to the cleric. Second, you end up pulling with the healer, which is far from optimum if things go bad (typically crit resist = death to cleric if pacify was required to hit in order to pull). Multiple mobs can be handled with root/slow and an add pet- at 34 the companion pet is a decent tank to a slowed mob.

There are definitely benefits to the cleric, but not ones that I overlooked in my assessment that the Shaman would be a hands down better duo partner. You will need a dps and cleric to do any true group content, but other than that the duo is very effective with just the two.

[Fiyero]

Lets put it this way, at 55+ if you are trying to group youll be looking for a cleric if you roll a shaman, and a shaman if you roll a cleric.

Personaly, having rez avail at all times, makes me think I would prefer a cleric.

But Duo's are better xp gains by far than full groups, so that would make me want to have a shaman.

With the shaman you could always throw in a rogue or monk, and have an extremely efficient trio.

Id have to agree, that overall the shaman would provide better XP gains, while at 60 the cleric/war would be a more powerful combo to do epic fights and farming.
Hey are you still playing?