most underpowered class in game?

[Bockscar]

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.

[Fammaden]

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

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.

This entire section is almost completely misinformed. DS is an amazing buff that everyone wants, doesn't block worts like SoN, and is two velious BiS items worth of HP packed into one convenient buff. Soulfires are absolutely amazing in P99 raiding where quite often a minimal razor's edge engage is the norm, and even more pronounced now that reapers have been broken for almost a year.

In pre-Kunark and for much of Kunark (especially VP), pallies were the tank of choice on green, and continue to be for many of the fast dying 32hp Kunark dragons on both servers. Sanctification disc can be incredibly helpful for fast FTE engages on AE mobs as well.

All the benefits of paladins are also multiplied due to the fact that most raiding guilds can never find enough people willing to main one.

[Castle2.0]

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

This entire section is almost completely misinformed. DS is an amazing buff that everyone wants, doesn't block worts like SoN, and is two velious BiS items worth of HP packed into one convenient buff. Soulfires are absolutely amazing in P99 raiding where quite often a minimal razor's edge engage is the norm, and even more pronounced now that reapers have been broken for almost a year.

In pre-Kunark and for much of Kunark (especially VP), pallies were the tank of choice on green, and continue to be for many of the fast dying 32hp Kunark dragons on both servers. Sanctification disc can be incredibly helpful for fast FTE engages on AE mobs as well.

All the benefits of paladins are also multiplied due to the fact that most raiding guilds can never find enough people willing to main one.

Wait, what happened to reapers?

[PatChapp]

Originally Posted by Castle2.0 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Wait, what happened to reapers?

Quest has been broken since October or november

[Zuranthium]

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

Soulfires are absolutely amazing in P99 raiding

Not classic for it to be so prevalent. And even besides that, when the spawn for an item is monopolized, then it's not an ability every Paladin can use anyway. "FTE" raiding is not classic either.

There is no reason to want a Pally tank vs bosses for optimized raid composition in classic. They take more damage (even disregarding disciplines) and have less HP and magic resist than a Warrior. Pally's don't have any needed aggro benefit over Warriors with appropriate clicky usage and they do less damage. This was especially true pre-Velious, when spellcasting could reset the timer of melee attacks (and many hybrid spells also had longer cast times until several months into Velious). p99 has entirely ignored this classic mechanic, to the benefit of all spellcasters in fact. It was only the hybrid classes that received the ability in Velious to not have their attack timer reset by a spell that was still going when the next auto attack is timed. Note: before Velious you could cancel auto attack and then cast the spell and then turn attack back on, but the input delay still results in a lower effective attack speed.

[TomisFeline]

excellent summary and conclusion by Bockscar. Heavily weighing importance of raids if druid indeed is the pick, but perhaps that's relevant to enough ppl playing P99.

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

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.

[Ghost of Starman]

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

excellent summary and conclusion by Bockscar. Heavily weighing importance of raids if druid indeed is the pick, but perhaps that's relevant to enough ppl playing P99.

Nah its a horrible take.

If you're putting heavy weight on raiding Druids bring unique buffs to raids, including a stacking mana regen buff (POTG), circles for highest specific resistances group buffs, and are absolutely vital to raid mobility by porting people in and out of raids and being able to SoW them. They also have the ability to charm in places like PoH and PoF.

SKs bring... nothing unique to raiding that another class doesn't do better. No stackable worthwhile buff (CotP and Divine Strength) or ability (weaponshield) like Rangers and Paladins, nor the ability to even heal themselves given the majority of p99 raid targets are immune to LTs. Their OTing role is better filled by a Pally that brings extra abilities to the table including an amazing 5 instant click charges of CH that have saved untold numbers of raid encounters over the years, and self heals.

Druids are also strong soloers and can do a surprising amount of farming and soloing in high end zones with animals, which includes end game zones with valuable drops like PoM / Chardok.

Honestly, the only place SKs have an edge over them is in group content, I'd say low level group content is the only place SKs really shine, since they have a better early snap aggro ability in disease cloud, until Pally stuns/root/lull put them ahead in that regard too.

[PlsNoBan]

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

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.

/thread

Druids are ass and I'm convinced anyone arguing otherwise is a druid main on copium

[Zuranthium]

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

Druids are ass and I'm convinced anyone arguing otherwise is a druid main on copium

Nah, Charm is powerful, and about 75% of the relevant zones in the game have a very good animal to charm, and another 10% at least have Shaman pets or something of this power level to still generate some extra DPS.

Yeah, they are shit in ToV, Veeshan's Peak, and Plane of Sky (but still worth having 1 around for PotG). I suppose it's also unlucky that The Hole became the level 50+ exp-grind place on p99, which is devoid of animals. But at least Manastone can be used there, allowing a Druid to function better as the healer for a party.

[PatChapp]

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

Nah, Charm is powerful, and about 75% of the relevant zones in the game have a very good animal to charm, and another 10% at least have Shaman pets or something of this power level to still generate some extra DPS.

Yeah, they are shit in ToV, Veeshan's Peak, and Plane of Sky (but still worth having 1 around for PotG). I suppose it's also unlucky that The Hole became the level 50+ exp-grind place on p99, which is devoid of animals. But at least Manastone can be used there, allowing a Druid to function better as the healer for a party.

Druids can charm in sky. The flying horses are handy pets vs bees