Best class to duo with Cleric?

[Danth]

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

P.S. IMO Vex Warriors are still the best group tanks. Unfortunately a) getting good gear is very difficult and b) people are completely unwilling to stop facerolling their keyboards in order to mitigate their mediocre threat. Enchanters need to blur or root, shamans need to either tank a bit or hold off on slow, etc. If you can get gear and train your groupmates adequately, Warriors provide the best dps (inb4 some moron talks about how tank DPS is pointless, a 6-man group with a well-geared warrior will do 10% more damage than one with a Paladin or SK) and also have discs for boss mobs.

I'll disagree with you here, albeit whilst noting that "best" is subjective so a differing opinion isn't invalid or wrong. If you care solely about raw efficiency, don't bother with a traditional tank type at all and instead use a Monk as tank--you get the same unreliable threat generation as a Warrior but even better damage output. Optionally, get rid of melee entirely and just use all casters. I feel the entire point of having a tank in a typical group is to make the grouping experience as stable and easy as possible for everyone else--and at that, Warriors fail due to their wholly inadequate threat generation and lack of control. As such I don't blame folks for being hesitant to move away from easymode: Why do more work with more personal risk for only small gains? I consider that a false economy.

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If you want to push to level 60 I'd recommend a Halfling Warrior for the combined experience bonus and damage output. That will get you to 60 more quickly than any other melee+Cleric duo I can think of--even Monks come with a minimum 20% experience penalty. However the original poster said that's not his main priority.

If you don't care about leveling rate, and don't particularly care about level 60, then there's nothing wrong with the hybrids. You give up quite a bit of leveling efficiency and power but will probably have more fun on a per-hour basis. Rangers (along with Warriors) are a good choice because they have access to weapons that proc slow; a Ranger with a cheapy Swarmcaller tanking something that's 50% slowed will need less healing than a Paladin or Shadow Knight tanking an unslowed monster. Monks also rate well but he already said he isn't too inclined to make a Monk.

Of course the other potential problem here is the Cleric itself: Most folks find the class a bit boring. If this friend of yours isn't already familiar with EQ, do be sure to explain what the Cleric does for most of its life.

Danth

[Fasttimes]

Do bard and cleric just have bard kite and cleric finish the mobs with pbae and ride the gravy train.

[webrunner5]

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

Do bard and cleric just have bard kite and cleric finish the mobs with pbae and ride the gravy train.

Good suggestion. That would be pretty quick leveling for sure. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Vexenu]

Originally Posted by Danth

I'll disagree with you here, albeit whilst noting that "best" is subjective so a differing opinion isn't invalid or wrong. If you care solely about raw efficiency, don't bother with a traditional tank type at all and instead use a Monk as tank--you get the same unreliable threat generation as a Warrior but even better damage output. Optionally, get rid of melee entirely and just use all casters. I feel the entire point of having a tank in a typical group is to make the grouping experience as stable and easy as possible for everyone else--and at that, Warriors fail due to their wholly inadequate threat generation and lack of control. As such I don't blame folks for being hesitant to move away from easymode: Why do more work with more personal risk for only small gains? I consider that a false economy.

I have to second this as well. I haven't played an uber geared Warrior, but have leveled a nicely geared twink Warrior into the 50s. I also leveled a much worse geared Paladin into the 50s. The Paladin was far and away the superior group tank, and it wasn't even close. Simply being able to root park adds as a tank is absurdly powerful and makes the group run much more smoothly, then add in instant/permanent threat with Blind, stuns to lock down casters, heals to reduce downtime (also DW Helm heals are no joke, especially with a Necro/Shaman in group to heal between pulls, something like 700 hp per minute mana free), and Lay On Hands to help prevent wipes/deaths (I was amazed how often this happened, usually at least once per group).

I can totally see how on paper a Warrior is the superior group tank, especially when uber geared and with bags full of clickies to help, and when grouping with other players who are skilled and understand how to play with a Warrior tank. But that's a helluva lot to ask for and get most of the time. The Paladin, in contrast, has a lot more latitude both in terms of gear requirements, class composition of group, as well as the knowledge/skill of group members.

I can't speak for the SK, never having leveled one past 20 or so, but the Paladin in my opinion is a massively underrated class on P1999. In terms of being able to leverage player skill and knowledge to aid a group, I think a good player tanking on a Paladin falls behind only the Bard and Enchanter in terms of what they can add to the group's effectiveness. It makes sense when you realize that of the four major elements of a group (heals, CC, tanking, DPS), the Paladin can make moderate to large contributions to all of them. While the Warrior basically just auto attacks, positions mobs and waits for procs, the Paladin is tanking with instant threat, rooting adds, stunning casters, healing when needed, emergency LoHing, etc... Just so many more opportunities for a skilled player to make use of his abilities.

Of course, this says nothing about a Paladin's raid role compared to the Warrior, but for pure leveling or dungeon crawling with a single group, the Paladin is really amazing.

[Danth]

"I can't speak for the SK"

I play one as my main nowdays; formerly I played Paladins extensively. As a group tank I'd rate the Shadow Knight as in-between the Warrior and Paladin, though generally nearer to the Paladin in terms of both ease of doing their job and in damage output. Some groups prefer the SK since it can snare and coincidentally most of the snare-capable classes aren't hugely popular for grouping. I find the Shadow Knight a nice compromise between wanting to remain a competent tank for standard groups whilst having a better quality of life in solo or duo situations than the other two tank types. In full groups I miss some of the tools a Paladin brings, especially the Paladin's arsenal of stuns when fighting monsters that heal themselves.

Danth

[kaev]

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

... (also DW Helm heals are no joke, especially with a Necro/Shaman in group to heal between pulls, something like 700 hp per minute mana free)...

DW Helm is nice, but it is NOT a mana free heal unless you are (a) able to stand around for 10 seconds per cast doing exactly nothing else and (b) unable to sit to med and (c) willing to forgo level-appropriate buffs that conflict (the entire rest of the Cleric Heroism line and the Druid Natureskin line.) I have not yet encountered situations on p99 where all of those were true except for very brief periods of time. A 10 second cast means that even if you have no lag or server latency so you can time perfectly and only lose one med tick per cast you still lose that med tick (and you can click only 5x per minute rather than chain-clicking 6x per minute if you sit between casts and catch the med ticks you can.)

It's a nice clicky. But it's not truly mana-free and it sees limited use in a solid group at an active camp with heavy fighting (i.e. xp grinding.) Using the click prevents you from doing anything else 10 seconds at a time, for a whopping 110 to 125hp per cast (at L45 to L60), is that really what you want your tank doing?

[Vexenu]

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

DW Helm is nice, but it is NOT a mana free heal unless you are (a) able to stand around for 10 seconds per cast doing exactly nothing else and (b) unable to sit to med and (c) willing to forgo level-appropriate buffs that conflict (the entire rest of the Cleric Heroism line and the Druid Natureskin line.) I have not yet encountered situations on p99 where all of those were true except for very brief periods of time. A 10 second cast means that even if you have no lag or server latency so you can time perfectly and only lose one med tick per cast you still lose that med tick (and you can click only 5x per minute rather than chain-clicking 6x per minute if you sit between casts and catch the med ticks you can.)

It's a nice clicky. But it's not truly mana-free and it sees limited use in a solid group at an active camp with heavy fighting (i.e. xp grinding.) Using the click prevents you from doing anything else 10 seconds at a time, for a whopping 110 to 125hp per cast (at L45 to L60), is that really what you want your tank doing?

This is all true, but needlessly pedantic. Of course a good player isn't just going to sit there and spam DW helm heals when he should be doing something else. The DW helm is just a nice little utility item to have in the toolbox. It won't see much use in a chain pulling group with a Cleric and an Enchanter, true, but it's very nice when soloing, or in a small group/duo situation (which can happen often to hybrids on P1999). Also very useful for post-rez healing. At the end of the day it's just a clicky heal. Not exactly a Donal's BP, but something that most other classes would kill for due to the situational value.

[webrunner5]

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

This is all true, but needlessly pedantic. Of course a good player isn't just going to sit there and spam DW helm heals when he should be doing something else. The DW helm is just a nice little utility item to have in the toolbox. It won't see much use in a chain pulling group with a Cleric and an Enchanter, true, but it's very nice when soloing, or in a small group/duo situation (which can happen often to hybrids on P1999). Also very useful for post-rez healing. At the end of the day it's just a clicky heal. Not exactly a Donal's BP, but something that most other classes would kill for due to the situational value.

I agree. Most groups don't pull mob after mob for 3 hours straight. Even the Healer has to go pee lol once and a while. So between breaks, with the puller, Tank, healer, etc. the Helm does add up for less mana loss on the main healer. It is a nice item to have in the game no doubt. Solo it helps even more for a Pally.

[kaev]

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

This is all true, but needlessly pedantic. Of course a good player isn't just going to sit there and spam DW helm heals when he should be doing something else. The DW helm is just a nice little utility item to have in the toolbox. It won't see much use in a chain pulling group with a Cleric and an Enchanter, true, but it's very nice when soloing, or in a small group/duo situation (which can happen often to hybrids on P1999). Also very useful for post-rez healing. At the end of the day it's just a clicky heal. Not exactly a Donal's BP, but something that most other classes would kill for due to the situational value.

I disagree. I would say that when people keep bringing up a marginally useful item as some sort of bigtime class perk they need to have their noses rubbed in reality. Its greatest utility occurs when recovering from a wipe (rare in a competent group, even when attempting challenging content) or solo (and soloing a Paladin is at best silly and at worst evidence of crippling masochistic tendencies and/or severe brain injury.) The DW Helm is not important. It was important for a week or two on live when it had a fairly short cast time and people were using it to heal groups, whereupon it was quickly and effectively nerfed into the dirt.

[Vexenu]

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

I disagree. I would say that when people keep bringing up a marginally useful item as some sort of bigtime class perk they need to have their noses rubbed in reality. Its greatest utility occurs when recovering from a wipe (rare in a competent group, even when attempting challenging content) or solo (and soloing a Paladin is at best silly and at worst evidence of crippling masochistic tendencies and/or severe brain injury.) The DW Helm is not important. It was important for a week or two on live when it had a fairly short cast time and people were using it to heal groups, whereupon it was quickly and effectively nerfed into the dirt.

Not sure why you are taking such issue with my contention that the DW helm is "no joke" (my exact words, note the lack of calling it a "big time class perk").

There are a lot of classes in the game that would pay millions of plat for an item that would allow them to heal 700 hp per minute for zero mana (consider the value of a pre-nerf Fungus staff). Paladins get it for 400 plat instead. It's not a class defining item or anything, but it's something that every Paladin should have and know when to use. I'd say it's similar in this regard to Rangers with Swarmcaller - not something to be used all the time, but very useful in certain situations.

On another note, we've definitely derailed the shit out of this thread. From Cleric duoing to now debating the merits of the DW helm.