New to the server and seeking advice

[titofuentes]

Hey all. I'm just starting out on the server after playing on one of the boxing servers for a while. I got tired of needing to have a box to get anything done. I'm trying to decide what I should use for my first class on here. I enjoy playing a lot of the classes, but some are just better at making money than others. Is necromancer a good starting class if I want to be able to twink a monk or shaman later on? Or should I just go with the monk and hope to survive long enough to get some decent gear? It's been pretty rough these first few levels as a necro (hooray for 50% pet xp!) and just trying to decide if I should stick it out or cut my losses and go with another class that might need some better equipment to get it done. I'm a semi casual player because family always takes precedence. Thanks for any input. I'm really enjoying the feeling of having to actually work for something again in a game.

[maahes]

Hey all. I'm just starting out on the server after playing on one of the boxing servers for a while. I got tired of needing to have a box to get anything done. I'm trying to decide what I should use for my first class on here. I enjoy playing a lot of the classes, but some are just better at making money than others. Is necromancer a good starting class if I want to be able to twink a monk or shaman later on? Or should I just go with the monk and hope to survive long enough to get some decent gear? It's been pretty rough these first few levels as a necro (hooray for 50% pet xp!) and just trying to decide if I should stick it out or cut my losses and go with another class that might need some better equipment to get it done. I'm a semi casual player because family always takes precedence. Thanks for any input. I'm really enjoying the feeling of having to actually work for something again in a game.

Right now since it is summer, population is a bit down. Which means finding groups can be a challenge some nights. Play a solo friendly class.

[titofuentes]

I was already leaning toward necro anyway. Anyone have some idea about when my DoTs start doing a better job than my pet? Currently they just hit so hard in comparison. Are shaman solo friendly on here? It's been so long since only Kunark for me. Thanks everyone!

[Namegen_Isterrible]

Anyone have some idea about when my DoTs start doing a better job than my pet?

Never, unfortunately. The pet xp nerf is easily the stupidest thing ever. It totally breaks the way mages and necros were designed to be played, imo. Wtf is the point of having a pet, of having a spell that hastes your pet, etc., if you can't hardly use it except to finish off runners unless you want to get 1/2 xp at best? Wtf is the point of having dots that last 2+ minutes if you have to chainlifetap/nuke/poison dot everything you pull in hopes of beating your pet's DPS?

50+ necros don't even use their pets solo, really. They have it out to act as CC when they get an add, or to finish off something that is already below 50% from dots. They just root-dot like a druid would but with the added benefit of lich and lifetaps.

Two of the strongest solo classes in the game can only operate at full capacity on this server if they are not soloing (grouping with just 1 other person totally eliminates pets eating xp).


Are shaman solo friendly on here?

Shamans are powerful eventually, but they're basically a melee from 1-34 imo, in that they aren't very strong unless you spend some pp on a solid weapon and a haste item and some high AC gear. And even then, you aren't an awesome shaman at 45 unless you have 25k to spend on a JBB, or an awesome sham at 60 unless you have 30k to spend on torpor and quite a bit more for your 55 pet and high-level dots.

[username17]

Necro's a great 1st toon. They need Zero gear, can solo, and will be able to do PP camps later on to gear up an alt.
I'm pretty sure you'll always outaggro your pet. Esp with a snare on it. Keep in mind dots get reduced 30% (source. my number is prob off) when the target is moving.
So root rotting kills things faster, but also kills your pet.

Shammies solo well and will always be in demand. Can root/rot with them.

[Supaskillz]

Honestly If your goal is to play a monk roll a monk first. Leveling a necro to 50+ in order to speed up leveling a monk seems like a poor time investment. There are groups to be had bandages to be purchased( or bummed from a Mage), leveling 2 characters bound to be slower than 1

[titofuentes]

Well crap. Heh. It seems necro would be good for pp purposes but not as easy to level as before. I was hoping shammies would be a bit solo friendlier. Looks like I'll be sticking with necro since there are already tons of twinked monks and they are not solo friendly.

[Bohab]

Was in a similar boat as you though I wanted to build a rogue. I started on the server as a rogue but around 20 I found my character just so horribly geared I wasn't enjoying myself. I shelved the rogue and created a necro strictly to farm plat for the rogue. Not only did I make piles and piles of plat to twink out a rogue I also was able to quickly relearned much of the game since I hadn't played since 2001. The necro needed no gear (think I used flayed skin and junk gear till level 52) and leveling it was really fast since I was solo 100% of the time. If you enjoy playing a twinked character from start to finish than I suggest getting a necro built. Once it's in the high 30s you can start farming hill giants easily then move to seafuries around 46.

[mgellan]

Shamans are powerful eventually, but they're basically a melee from 1-34 imo, in that they aren't very strong unless you spend some pp on a solid weapon and a haste item and some high AC gear.

Thats nuts, I soloed my Shammy basically from 1 - 50 (obviously combined with grouping and soloing elsewhere, but my play times were not condusive to being able to play in a group all that often) as follows:

1-9 EF trash, BB teeth
9-19 Kiting mammoth calves with SOW, DOTs
20-34 Kiting mammoths ditto
34-42 Cynthia in RM
42-50 Spectres in Feerott / Guards in Ogguk

This is with very basic (cheap) equipment. At the top end of each level range yes you can melee to add DPS but prior to that a young shaman gets his ass kicked trying to melee. All SOW, root, DOT with disease / poison (and later pet) and run away when root breaks. Rinse and repeat.

Regards,
Mg

[titofuentes]

Necro it is for now. I enjoy the class but am not liking the xp. Oh well. It comes in time. It's not supposed to be easy or fast. Maybe I'll start a shammies alt for when I need a change of pace. Thanks all

[maahes]

If you have the 20-25k PP for JBB Shamans are great at solo'n. If not.. I'd take Mage,Necro,Ench,Druid,Wiz,SK over Shaman for solo'n. Did I forget any classes?

[Ephirith]

SK

for solo'n

No

[lawll]

Server pop is kinda low it's really gonna suck leveling a melee.

[maahes]

Server pop is kinda low it's really gonna suck leveling a melee.

This is true. Summer.....

[Nimoorhs]

stuff is stupid cheap 45/4 jc rings are like 75pp each, wu's crap is super cheap and you can get batons for 100pp. the server pop isnt that bad and generally at every stage (after ec) you can find a group. hang around in ec get buffs, and keep ur eyes open for cheap stuff wraith bone hammers are like free along with a bunch of other low end stuff people give away. if u want to play a monk, just go for it, i'll give u some cheap weps you can use if u dont even wanna make the nec.

hit me up in game as shenanigan/kuato ill totally pimp ur monk out for a pl once u get some levels

[fadetree]

Its true the market's crashed lately. Stock up now, it'll surge right before Velious!

[Namegen_Isterrible]

Thats nuts, I soloed my Shammy basically from 1 - 50 (obviously combined with grouping and soloing elsewhere, but my play times were not condusive to being able to play in a group all that often) as follows:

1-9 EF trash, BB teeth
9-19 Kiting mammoth calves with SOW, DOTs
20-34 Kiting mammoths ditto
34-42 Cynthia in RM
42-50 Spectres in Feerott / Guards in Ogguk

This is with very basic (cheap) equipment. At the top end of each level range yes you can melee to add DPS but prior to that a young shaman gets his ass kicked trying to melee. All SOW, root, DOT with disease / poison (and later pet) and run away when root breaks. Rinse and repeat.

Regards,
Mg

There's a difference, imo, between being able to solo to 50 and being powerful. I didn't say a shaman couldn't solo 1-50, I just said that they become powerful eventually and that they aren't especially strong without decent+ gear.

A cleric can easily solo to 50, especially with kunark out, entirely naked. But the experience would not probably be described as nuts.

A shaman can easily solo to 50 with very basic gear, but I wouldn't describe one as "especially powerful" or anything like that unless you were at least twinking with jaundiced bone gear and other high AC and HP gear, a poison wind censer, and a JBB at 45.

Shamans, without potent gear, lack the difference-maker spells that a necro or an ench or a bard has. Slow is great, yes, but only if you have enough AC to not get totally obliterated by melee in the first place. Canni is great, yes, but only when you have enough hp regen to have a chance to use it. Etc.

Compared to a necro, whose lich and lifetaps are superior to a leveling-shaman's canni and regen, whose FD and HS and snare and root and mez are all vastly superior to a shaman's CC/survivability tools, whose pet is actually halfway decent, whose dots are superior and more numerous... yeah.

Or compared to a bard, who can kill half of overthere in a single pull at level 30 in 1 hour using only a drum and a horn bought from a merchant for like 2pp.

Or compared to an ench, who can spend as much on gear as the sham does but become a 200+ charisma charming beast with that money.