Melee type class advice

[keyz77]

Hello,
I’m returning to the game after some time, and I want to start fresh, I usually play as a caster class so this time I think I want to try the game from the melee range of things, that being said I’m going to be fighting at camps where it will be against pure melee NPC, head to head. no kiting (fear or otherwise) allowed.

Items at my disposal
Silver Chitin Hand Wraps (https://wiki.project1999.com/Silver_Chitin_Hand_Wraps)
Hooded Black Cloak (https://wiki.project1999.com/Hooded_Black_Cloak)
Black Sapphire Velium Necklace (https://wiki.project1999.com/Black_Sapphire_Velium_Necklace)
Golden Black Sapphire Earring (https://wiki.project1999.com/Golden_Black_Sapphire_Earring) x2
Velium Fire Wedding Ring (https://wiki.project1999.com/Velium_Fire_Wedding_Ring) x2
And around 7000 platinum.

1) What class would best suit my preferred play style stated above and have the least down time?
2) what gear should I get on top of what I already have? If not specific items then stats best suited.
3) what is the general rotation of skills used by this class?


Thank you for entertaining these questions and your reply’s


:confused:

[Scrumtick]

I’d go with a monk. I’ve soloed on mine. There is downtime, but they’re tanky enough to take hits (if below the weight cap) and have strong dps. Other melee classes that can cast heals are another option (ranger or paladin), but their dps will be less, and thus mobs have more time to inflict damage. Best thing about monk is if you get in over your head, just FD. Oh, and mend is massive. Will always fail at low skill level but will eventually always help

[keyz77]

If Monk then what items should I be looking for? What stat is most important if solo?

[Zemus]

If Monk then what items should I be looking for? What stat is most important if solo?

Weapons: early levels and late levels get a jade mace 800p. Mid levels get either a peacebringer or Imbued Fighters Staff 3.5-4k. Azure sleeves, sarnak hide mask, Drolvarg mantle, tar goo strands.Fill in the rest with wu’s armor and the +hp gear you already have. When you save up a little more, get some black pantherskin armor and a spider fur belt.

[Zemus]

You want +hp/sta gear that is light. Ac is important too. Strength makes a big difference early on too. Resists are also important but you can sacrifice them until later on.

[Jimjam]

IIRC max hp affects how much mend does, so hp is important for monk.

Just makes sure you also have enough AC to mitigate 'sufficiently' (pretty easy and cheap at low levels; azure sleeves, the sand giant turban from Oasis, targishin's mask and other moderate AC / no weight items).

The game is saturated with good weapons, you can get 2x 1:2 1handers or 2:3 2handers for like 50pp.

If you don't go monk I suggest a set of banded for 100 to compliment your weapons and try blag a ceremonial iksar chestplate for the remnants of your 7k. Upsize it to fungi as funds becomae available.

Monk is probably 'best' melee though.

Look up battle bandaging and duel wielding fist with 2handed weapons if you are interested in developing RSI.

[wagorf]

+1 monk

given your budget and your play style

[demonith]

Monk hands down for your play style.

Weapons are going to be your most important purchase starting, to make certain you can crush mobs before they become issues.

*Primary Jade mace (9/18) / off hand Stave of Sheilding (17/28). The SoS will take you all the way to the end game for offhand gear. (knuckle duster is a decent swap and much cheaper if all else 14/28)
*Cured Silk armor set is a total of 50ac and 1.3 weight and a full set is what.... 100pp? Just auction in EC to buy a set or PM and I can craft a set for you for cost.
*After that start dropping plat on Black Panther Skin armor. This is a really great armor set 500-1k per piece and is absolutely worth it.

Just got to 52 on my monk and solo'd pretty much the whole way. Your play style matches how I played so I will list the places I solo'd as an ikky monk.

1-8: Bone pit
8-16: Kurn's Tower
16-24: Oasis Crocs/Caimans
25-40: S Karana KFC (there is a vendor in the tower where you can buy bandages and sell/trade plat for gems to conserve weight)
40-51: Crystal Caverns (This was by far my favorite place. once you are high enough to handle geos effectively you can make some serious plat to start really replacing the holes in your equipment. Spiders till then can sell their silk for decent place in EC as well)

None of these places have casters and everything except CC is old world zones. So those critters have no idea what is coming their way.

Also look up how battle bind (binding during combat) and how that works. It basically is the poor mans fungi tunic and will allow you to keep downtime to a minimum.

Black Panther set: https://wiki.project1999.com/Black_Pantherskin_Armor
Stave of Shielding: https://wiki.project1999.com/Stave_of_Shielding
Jade Mace: https://wiki.project1999.com/Jade_Mace
Knuckle Duster: https://wiki.project1999.com/Knuckle_Dusters
Battlebind macro link: https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222964

P.S: My personal preference is dropping your plat on the best weapons you can get. you already have a great starting set up and you weapons will allow you to mow down critters. I have a jade mace and etched velium battle hammer (11/20) gathering dust in my bank. PM if you want them at a discount.

[Scrumtick]

Lots of good advice. For monk, I'd rank stats in the following for solo leveling:
AC>stamina>strength>resists>all other stats.

If you wanted to group and be a puller:
resists>strength>AC>stamina>all else assuming you can avoid being hit most of the time (i.e. you're not the tank) and really only need to worry about nukes.

End game:
Resists>AC>stamina>strength since you can easily cap strength with buffs and decent gear at high lvl.

It's very important that you stay below the weight cap for monks. The monk wiki page describes this aspect. Going above the weight cap will drastically lower your AC.

[demonith]

Oh forgot to mention, if you choose ikky as the race for your monk. There is a pretty easy way to raise faction in Neriak so you have a town you can actually interact with near EC. Keep in mind this will make the town guard and the merchants love you. However the clerics will still want to murder you on sight

Red wine quest: https://wiki.project1999.com/Bottle_of_Red_Wine

[Zemus]

Also try to trade in your earrings for the melee version Black Sapphire Electrum Earring

[Pyrion]

+1 for monk for what you want to achieve.

But: There are a lot of monks out there precisely because they are so good. If you want to be different and really valuable for almost any group, go paladin. Paladin can not FD, but he can LH which arguably can not only save himself but the whole group. He can't FD pull, but he can lull and root to deal with pulling. DPS wise a paladin has less to offer, but he should be sturdier and those heals are really nice.

[Jimjam]

+1 for monk for what you want to achieve.

But: There are a lot of monks out there precisely because they are so good. If you want to be different and really valuable for almost any group, go paladin. Paladin can not FD, but he can LH which arguably can not only save himself but the whole group. He can't FD pull, but he can lull and root to deal with pulling. DPS wise a paladin has less to offer, but he should be sturdier and those heals are really nice.

This raises a good point. It is well known there are two types of monk players; one who wants the class to do all the work for him, and the other who will try to exact every advantage available to him (and probably expect the same thing from others).

I.e. monks are played by lazies, or crazies.

[Jimjam]

Regarding rotations, if you really want an active play style you can

kick,
auto attack on,
un equip 2hb,
re equip 2hb,
target self
bandage
/stand
retarget enemy
auto attack on
un equip 2hb
reequip 2hb
un equip 2hb
reequip 2hb
feign death / disarm if appropriate
...
and keep doing that on cycle until it is time to get a new mob.

Really its best to just turn on auto attack and just hit your special attack every 10 seconds or whatever and avoid repetative strain injuries. EQ wasn't really designed to be a button roller.

[Legidias]

BW during combat can out heal what you would normally get from a fungi, so its pretty useful when you cant afford one (and it stacks if you do he one). Only limitation is the BW hp% cap.

[Legidias]

It wont do that at lvl 1, but once you get relatively high BW skill at like lvl 30+ (and if youve kept it at the max training amount) it does

[Nagoya]

Combat Bind Wounding is a real thing you must have really never tried it to say otherwise? I won't argue on the effectiveness of it vs whatever other thing you could be doing, but it is healing quite well, can be done super fast with the appropriate macro, and has saved my life many times :)

[Jimjam]

Fake news

Fake fake news, even at 100 skill it does 25 hp every 10 seconds, aka 15 per tick (assuming no interuptions, so perhas not entirely fake fake)

And with deep velious out, classes are no longer capped at 100 skill from 20-50 anymore.

The other bandaging trick, is to stack it with clicky heal breastplates. between fights.

Click, bind wound (gotta use the combat abilites window, ctrl c to access), stand (gotta use the main abilities window, ctrl m to access) then repeat. 73 hp per tick.

[Legidias]

BW is even better on monk 51+ with the cap restriction to 70%. My monk @ 51 is decently geared with some netted kelp, black panther, and kael pieces. A BW use is like 3-4% hp gain.

[Legidias]

Its the difference of just face tanking a thing, hitting attack on, and occasionally hitting flying kick vs maximizing your combat / minimizing downtime. It wont instantly let you solo something you couldn't normally do, but it will expedite your killing process for more xp / hour.

Youll still kill the mob, but you might finish a fight with like 10-20% hp difference in the end.