Good Duo

[Lyrith]

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If Druid is definitive, I would suggest:

Druid/Necro - Second most powerful companion for Druid, significantly easier to play effectively than chanter.
Duid/Chanter - most powerful companion for Druid, high skill required
Druid/Monk - best choice if you want a melee + Druid
Druid/Rogue - would rely on animal fear, not ideal.

Great information here! For my first Duo on the server it was a Warrior/Cleric which worked out great for us, because we NEVER had a problem finding monks/rogues/etc for dps. Only hard to find an enchanter at times. Second Duo was a Monk/Shaman, same deal... DPS is almost always easy to find! If you play the Tank/Healer setup you will have an easy slow ride to 60. The good thing, is each level you get the faster it speeds up.

[Crypto]

Thanks for all the great feedback.

Having played a Druid in the Kunark era, I can understand the low grouping/raiding desirability; it's a problem I had on my main (druid at the time) a lot. I ended up soloing up the levels.

I'm not 100% sure that we'll ever get to raiding status as we have pretty busy lives, but I'd like to raid if we do reach that level.

Having thought a great deal about this, I'm currently thinking of rolling a Druid to play mostly in the event that my wife doesn't want to play at a given time, as I get a little more into these things than she does. That would give me something to play when she's not around and eventually provide us a source of income (farming, ports, etc.). My thought is that starting from the ground up, we'll need a way to make money and gear up.

I think I like the idea of tank/Cleric + whatever pickups we can find. My wife wants to "heal and buff" so Cleric would be a pretty good fit. The class I've played most in my EQ history is SK, which is what I'd want to pick as a tank (over Warrior). I haven't really played SK though in classic/Kunark era (mainly POP era), so my knowledge there is weak. I do recall a lot of people saying that SK was a bad choice in the early days.

Thoughts?

[Waedawen]

Playing Everquest in a 'linear' fashion (like tank, spank, pull, repeat, or root rotting) is really boring. And you're going to be playing the game for a long time in order to get any adequate amount of money or experience.

Playing a double caster setup or more rounded classes in general really allows you to make fun out of any thing. In EQ, 'fun' is exploration, killing mobs, getting loot, gaining levels. Pigeon holing yourself into very narrow classes doesn't help that. Tank classes aren't pliable enough to adapt a given situation. Priest classes in general are all great, so if your wife wants to 'buff and heal' (although I'm of the opinion people never know what they truly want) any and all of them are great for doing just that and much more.

[maskedmelon]

If you want to go cleric + tank then I think SK is probably your best choice. They offer slightly higher DPS than a Paladin, with comparable aggro management and no spell overlap that you get with the Paladin. She can lull and root to help with splits/cc ^^

Paladin is also a great tank despite the spell overlap, though outside of battling undead, they probably excel more in a group setting than a duo due to their low dps. They are capable of some fantastic crowd control if played properly, are great pullers, decent back-up healers and can effectively double their dps for short burns if needed on undead.

Warrior is desirable for raids and there are many who love them just because, but they have terrible Afro management until they obtain some decent proc weapons at later levels and cannot single pull their way out of a wet paper bag ^^. On the upside, they offer superior dps ^^

Cleric/chanter is an excellent choice as well, but requires some cha gear to be effective (charm dependent) making things slow starting off, but very fast once that requirement has been satisfied.

[Crypto]

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Cleric/chanter is an excellent choice as well, but requires some cha gear to be effective (charm dependent) making things slow starting off, but very fast once that requirement has been satisfied.

Never seen this duo. Could you summarize what makes it strong? I can deduce the charming and cleric healing charmed mobs; not to mention rez when things go south. What beyond that? I've never played Chanter or Cleric, though. I do think I could play a hard character like Chanter pretty well.

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by Crypto [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Never seen this duo. Could you summarize what makes it strong? I can deduce the charming and cleric healing charmed mobs; not to mention rez when things go south. What beyond that? I've never played Chanter or Cleric, though. I do think I could play a hard character like Chanter pretty well.

That is about it. The chanter does not need to waste mana on crappy nukes to finish pet. cleric augments the chanter's ability to charm solo, by offering stuns on charm breaks (in addition to be chanter's own) and less mana spent on buffing pet (or providing the option to buff it where it otherwise wouldn't exist) via heals on the pet. Healing efficiency goes through the roof with complete heal and cleric hp buffs + heals nullify any errors on the chanter's part. Basically, the chanter can kill non stop and at a faster rate with the cleric.

High cha is required for this to work effectively (cha is one of 3 checks for charm break). The lower your your cha is, the lower your average charm duration will be. Cha gear is not that expensive though and as a high elf you could get around 170 for less than 1kpp (that is 3 or 4 stein of moggok sales, which you can quest at level 8 as a high elf).