Shaman/Monk Duo Question
 

So I may have finally convinced a friend of mine to try EQ/p99!

If he does, he's interested in the monk which is cool and fairly straight forward. My question is, how much does duoing a shaman change from soloing? I know the monk/sham duo is one of, if not the best combo in the game but I also know sham are super expensive/gear and spell dependent at high levels. So I guess I'm curious as to how that changes with the simple addition of a monk. . .

I have a lvl 24 (?) shaman on blue from a couple years ago that I did pretty much exclusively solo. I thoroughly enjoy the class but I know it's way different in a group than it is to solo.

P.S. I'm not expecting us to get even close to endgame/max level but I imagine it's more likely than seeing the kind of funds that max sham need to be fully kitted out, so I'd prefer to be prepared for that content regardless of my expectations and budget.

Doesn't change it to any great extent. You'll want the spells regardless and you'll equip yourself pretty much the same way. You might not miss some of the high level damage spells or Spear of Fate quite as much if you don't have them. You still want Torpor, but it's a reasonably competent duo even without.

Danth

mnk shm is an above average melee+priest leveling duo but nothing close to "OP" or anything like that. it's the best end game melee+priest duo

it's worth noting a few things:

-it's not as good as caster combos for leveling
-gear is very important for any melee comp (outside of maybe a rogue who can get 1 item and be more or less set forever)
-mnk shm doesn't really become as strong as people talk about until both are 60, or at least, especially the shm, because torpor

basically it's a good duo but you're gonna want all the levels and the really expensive stuff to see it shine

OP, ignore this post above shitting on the power of monk + sham. Its a fantastic duo and will easily blow the doors off pure casters in leveling speed to 60 (enc / necro / cleric combos aside). Once you synergize with your buddy and get a good tempo going there is nothing stopping that train.

First thing to do is get your friend playing and comfortable with the "clunk" of EQ.

Next, find a way to get him to 20 as fast as possible to join your shaman for XP.

Your monk buddy's #1 priority is to get used to pulling / splitting out singles to make your life easy. Anyone can press Q and turn on auto attack, but what will make your duo seamless is the monks ability to consistently bring in solo pulls so you don't have to juggle / deal with roots breaking. Remember....your HP is also your mana. You can help him with clean-tagging, but its a good idea to put the responsibility solely on him for a while and get him familiar with aggro / blur mechanics early on.

Keep monk friend hasted, regened, and STR/HP buffed (dex / agi is a waste). Every mob that comes into camp simply root ---> slow ---> sit/canni and enjoy the show.

Protip: later on into your 40s / 50s, there will be situations where you can "downrank" your slows. Say you're in a dungeon with a wide level range of mobs...you can use a lower rank of slow on easy mobs and use max rank on the harder ones. This will save you a ton of mana.


What kind of funds do you have to equip said monk friend and your own shaman?

Don’t underestimate the power of bind wound paired with canni
...esp if you get to 50 and he can bind to 70%

Easily blow the doors off pure casters in leveling speed? Lol no. Not sure why you're shitting on his post when he's right, monk/shaman duo doesn't really come into its own until later levels. Sure twinked you can blow through stuff but untwinked it's just an average duo for leveling which is likely going to be the case here since OP's main appears to be a level 24 shaman.

Mage/cleric, mage/mage, mage/necro, druid/enc, druid/druid with animals, etc. I could keep going with combinations. Basically any caster combo not involving a wizard that can have pets will definitely out level an untwinked monk/shaman duo.

Thanks for all the feedback. Didn't expect this much this quickly. So some points of clarification:

My "main" was a low 30s Necro on blue (again a couple years ago).

We'd be starting afresh on green so funding for anything, much less twinking, is 0.

We'd be rolling iksar as he wants to do monk (actually said melee but in giving him the rundown of options, monk was the only one that spoke to him). I'd rather go caster/caster but c'est la vie.

I guess we could try monk/necro but I don't see those two having much synergy with such different play styles.

Fear kiting, double FD, don’t know what level, but necro gets decent heal over time...
I’m sure there’s other synergy there...always play what you want and it will work, gotta make sure dude is having fun. If you decide to stick with it, then maybe consider the whole min/max optimal class/duo thing!

Listen to Crede and JiJii. Monk/Shm are WAY overrated early. Especially, when you're new to server and ungeared.

Shaman is the most overrated class. Everyone's recollection of shaman early is when they played their twinked shaman with fungi. Slows suck till later. They are insanely high aggro for early levels and not very effective. Their dots are BARELY more efficient than their nukes till 49.

In every situation under lv49, a different class could do what you do better. The only advantage of a shaman is they can do any role, just worse than another class.

At around 51 though, Monk/Shaman feels really good. Eventually, they'll become one of the best duos possible. But, it will take a lot of pain to get to that point.

Has he considered iksar sk? You’ll have more flexibility with looting stuff, and not to mention you can get greenmist pretty easily as a casual. Still has fd but you’ll appreciate the snap aggro on a shaman