Originally Posted by Bockscar
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It's between the following classes:
Ranger
Paladin
Shadowknight
Wizard
Druid
So let's look at what they each bring to the table.
Ranger has its reputation, but as far as raiding goes, the class does provide a very useful atk buff, top-tier tracking, weaponshield, and the unique ability to do respectable non-magic damage from range (for a limited time). In groups, rangers are very versatile, able to tank just fine in anything short of the very hardest group content. Their DPS is reasonable as well; not great by any means, but good enough that it's fine to have a ranger as one of the DPS, and it's surprisingly useful to have a DPS who can fill in as a tank if the current tank leaves or dies. Having both snare and root is pretty useful, too, and moreso on a melee class than on a caster who will find it impractical to cover snares in particular due to aggro and the mana cost of casting snare on every single mob throughout a grind session.
Paladin lacks a well-defined role in raids as early Everquest just doesn't feature a lot of adds that need to be off-tanked during boss fights. Almost all raid bosses pre-Luclin just have the boss by itself, so snap aggro tanking doesn't have a whole lot of limelight on raids. LoH/SoulFire is useful in emergencies but tends not to have a huge impact on a raid as a whole. It's not like it's something that shapes the overall strategy of a ToV clear. Divine Strength is an alright buff, but again, +200 HP doesn't have a massive impact really. In groups, paladins are excellent tanks but suffer from the fact that their stun spells come too late in the leveling process. They have long cooldowns and you get the first one at level 30, then the next at 49, and it's not until you have two stuns that it feels comfortable. Flash of Light is horrible to tank with because blinded mobs act as if feared if the #1 aggro-holder isn't in melee range. Paladins are kind of unwieldy before level 49 for this reason, and if there isn't Clarity available to the group, using stuns for aggro means you will run out of mana in a chain-pulling group.
Shadowknight doesn't bring much to the raid in terms of actual abilities and shares the paladin's problem of not having much to do during the fights, but there are potential situations where it's very useful to have at least one puller who can a) feign multiple times in a row and b) summon a pet. In hardcore guilds where monks have elder beads, this is somewhat less of an asset, but it definitely has its place if that luxury is not available. In groups, shadowknights are better tanks than paladins during the leveling process as the main aggro spell is available basically from the start and spammable. At higher levels, this advantage wanes as stuns have a useful purpose beyond the aggro they generate. However, the tradeable gear available to shadowknights is much, much better than what paladins can get from EC. Better weapons, better armor. Also, having both types of invis (including insta-click invis) as well as FD makes it far easier for a shadowknight to actually get to a group deep down in a dungeon whereas a paladin will often have to be escorted.
Wizard is a viable damage dealer on raids, especially ones where bane spells are applicable or where resists are so high that other casters can't really land anything. While they don't compete with rogues in general, there's some strategic value in being able to concentrate your damage output on specific parts of the fight instead of just dealing a flat sustained amount from start to finish. With epic and Manna Robe, wizard DPS can be genuinely respectable across the board. Wizards are also required for classic raiding, you're not getting to PoH/PoS without one (or several, realistically). However, wizards suffer terribly in groups as they just can't keep up. Without a pet, the class simply sucks at dealing steady damage throughout a grind session. If measured on a scale of hours, wizard DPS is so low that it's frankly pathetic. A tanking paladin will have dealt more total damage after three hours in Sebilis. This is one of the very worst classes outside of raids. Truly worthless for XP grinding.
Druid doesn't have a well-defined role anywhere in the game. They bring PotG which is okay but not enough on its own to make the class fit in well in raids. Their healing is very poor, the worst by far of the three priest classes, and there's just no good reason to ever have more druids in the raid than absolutely necessary to provide PotG and circles (which provide a whopping +5 more FR/CR than the generic resist buffs, but are at least group spells). In a group setting, druid is at least a little bit better situated but still suffers heavily from the fact that it's very tough for a druid to single-handedly heal a group, and basically impossible without Clarity. A druid alone isn't enough, and if you have a cleric, you don't really want the druid on top. Thorns is kind of nice up to about level 40 when it stops being a significant amount of damage, and while the ability to port is briefly convenient in getting the group to the desired camp, it has no impact after arriving.
So I think druid takes the cake as the most underpowered class overall. If we specified whether it's for raiding or for grouping, the answer would be different; but all other classes are good at at least one of those things whereas druids simply aren't useful anywhere except for PLing 1-30ish and working at DaP for pocket money.
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07-24-2022, 05:02 AM
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