Experienced player duo with total newb. Enc/Clr?
 

I’ve been playing EQ for years. I’ve never made it to 60, but I have 2 50+ characters. I’ve introduced a friend of mine to EQ. We started a magician/Enchanter duo and we did miserably. Simply put, he is not a gamer. His ability to quickly assess a situation and manage Agro just isn’t there. Many times he would nuke too hard and get agro and we wiped. Other times I would try to mezz adds, only to wipe because he would attack both. We got frustrated and stopped (he stopped) playing the game temporarily.

We are going to try again, but this time I will remain playing the enchanter and he will be a cleric. A cleric is as simple as it gets right? Heal when health bars get low and buff occasionally basically. I have 57 cleric, so I have an understanding of it. I have never played an enchanter past level 14 though.

When does the enchanter/cleric duo become a viable dungeon crawling duo? Is it only useful at higher levels? We are down to group, but don’t want to sit around twiddling our thumbs because no PUGs are available. What other duo could we play that would allow him to play the most basic simplistic roles possible in EQ?

Rogue is the simplest class to play. Get behind mob and backstab. You be a class that can keep aggro and pull mobs Paladin or Shaman perhaps.

Having done a good portion of healer/ench already - I can say you are not bad right out of the gate at 12 together but clr/ench definitely shines once the clr gets complete heal, up to that point as a duo my personal experience is the best xp is letting the charmed mob get low, break charm and kill both instead of wasting mana on healing it.

CLR can be very boring though if someone isn't in to it, which I am sure you are aware.

Are you sure you don't want to try mage again and just go slow and explain things to him? Don't nuke until 60%, teach him how to use /pet back and /pet attack and how they operate. I believe magician is one of the most noob friendly classes in the game while learning the basics. Heck just having his pet attack is almost enough alone.

I'll add to that, 2 mages with earth pet. You could practically nuke even at 100% if you wanted cause the mob will be rooted 99% of the time.

As cleric / enchanter you will never need anyone else and will be able to tackle any dungeon of your choosing. Adding anyone that isn't a total rockstar twink of a player will simply be a reduction in your XP / hour.

Its simple from the cleric's perspective, but there are some fine details of the role that separate a mediocre cleric from a great cleric. If you're a competent enchanter and you guys are playing within your limits, his mediocrity won't be noticed much. Only when you guys on the highway to the danger zone will his misplays be felt.

A couple things your friend can do to make things easy:

- Always keep your (the enc) HP topped off. Can use lower level spells to prevent overheal / overuse of mana if hes low.

- Have him always have a stun at the ready for when your charms break.

- He can help root.

- I believe the default key for targeting party members / their pets is F2, F3, etc. He should have some way of being able to target your pet quickly...this becomes more important at 39 when your strategy will shift to keeping a pet and CHing it when low. Until he hits 39 its far more efficient to break / kill pets when low and grab another (OR can also calm / break / root / blur and let a low pet self heal up to full and then re-tash / charm).

- If you guys are doing undead at lower levels, he can help by keeping his undead nuke up to finish off low pets. You break as he starts firing off the nuke, you stun the mob, it dies.

- Remember to have him keep gate and/or DAs up. If you die its just easier to double DA to zone out or gate and run back to get you rezzed up.

Basically you're going to do 90-95% of the work....but you'll have your cleric safety blanket.

you can pretty much pair any priest class with enchanter and it will be strong. But you are probably best off asking if he thinks he would prefer druid/shama/cleric. much more important is that he enjoys the class he plays. very few people enjoy playing clerics -- and for good reasons.

I want to stress this: Cleric/Enchanter is a hugely effective duo, which won't do you a lick of good if the cleric quits because he hates the thing. There are folks who enjoy playing clerics as mains, but they are few and far between. One of the other priest types, in particular, could sit back and play "cleric-like" at first with more options to branch out and do more as the player becomes more experienced with EQ. It's something to consider, even if you consider it and ultimately choose cleric anyhow.

Danth

So what are we doing wrong with the magician? I have never played a magician before and it is an exercise in frustration. We are level 11. His pet is so weak. If we don’t start nuking blues, they wipe out his pet. Once we start nuking, the Mobs agro us and we either survive and have to wait eons for our health to regenerate or we die altogether.

Is there a way to make it so the pet does not need to be spammed /back when an ad attacks it? We hate that when I try to mezz an Ad, he has to spam /back so the pet won’t start attacking it again. Does /follow work instead?

I think he won’t mind playing a cleric. He plays mostly to socialize with the online community, but perhaps a Druid would be more fun for him than a cleric? I already have a shaman.

I agree with what Danth mentioned about making sure he plays something he enjoys. I'd consider letting him pick the class that appeals most to him, buying some basic newbie gear to help ease the newbie pain, and picking a class that supports his well.

The only RL buddy I had play quit at level 5 because it was too hard. Make sure he has fun! Having am RL buddy to play with will be worth the effort!

I would let him play whatever he enjoys. If mage, let him. You may not be able to play Ench though. Necro may be better choice for you. You can snare/fear away mobs that should not be being attacked, rather than him breaking mez and you getting slammed. He and his pet basically become an additional big DoT for you fear kiting, possibly 2 or 3 mobs at once.

As far as pet goes, at 11 all pets are kinda weak. New pet spells at 12. But mage pets are the strongest of any pets besides charmed. Don't think you are doing anything wrong with mage.