Shaman or Bard viability/desirability.

[Striiker]

First off, I would not worry about the XP penalty. If you really want to play a paladin, go play him! Why the huge rush to level up? There is so much cool content out there for you to enjoy on the path to 60. Yes, it's always nice to hit that next sweet level spot where you get new spell or abilities etc. but it feels so good because the the journey to get to that level. (going through a hell level sucks but it feels so great after you've done it.. and we all have to do the hell levels..)
I made the mistake on live of trying to burn through levels as quickly as I could and I missed out on a lot. I'm trying to do dungeons and avoid the mindless grind-fest of outdoor zones such as LOIO, Overthere and DL when possible.
SO, back onto the subject. I'd suggest going with the class and race you want to play most and focus on that. Make another character of class which you can play for soloing times (because sometimes you only have an hour to play or have a hard time finding / starting a group).
Don't worry so much about the numbers of any given class out there. Make what you want and learn to play it well. You'll be loved by groups! I have played with people who don't play their class well at all and have played with people who really know how to play their class. The differences are stunning. A well played bard, shaman, paladin, etc. is simply amazing to have in a group. I hope you choose well and have fun in the game!

[Obsidus]

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

Assuming leveling swiftly is his concern over digesting content, if he levels a shaman faster than a bard, he is playing his bard the wrong way. Bards are not gear dependent for anything, vendor instruments can carry you to 60 and you shouldn't be tanking so armor is secondary and no party is inviting you for your personal DPS, so weapons are also secondary. As Guineapig mentioned, everyone loves bards in raid groups, but they also love shaman.

Both will be busy during fights, shamans have slows to dish out to mobs and multitudes of buffs to hand out to the raid while bards can do just about anything, in 18sec bursts.

But paladins can be just as busy on raids and they are staple tanks for all group content. Groups will love your instant aggro (knights > warriors for groups imo), although the min-maxers will whine about the 40% exp penalty they have to share b/c you're in their group (I personally hate the min-max mentality being brought back to EQ). In raids, you can pick up adds easily with stuns (without breaking mezzes too!), they are the best healing hybrid, they are the only other class to receive 90% rez, and you can interrupt the casters before they get gates off.

As far as desirability, all the classes you are deciding between are welcome in groups.

You did mention that you wanted to try some solo dungeon crawling. I do not know how well shamans do in dungeons solo, but I will say that I enjoyed crawling into LGuk and soloing my Mask of Deception. I have also drunkenly logged out in Chardok, died trying to run out, CRing myself (no rez though), and then remembering to put my OT hammer to use all while solo at L50/51 (unding sucks). Bards are jacks of ALL trades, masters of very few, and the greats can pull off some remarkable stunts.

Whatever you decide, you cannot go wrong with any of these 3 classes.

I'm not really concerned with leveling quickly, but I also don't want to take 4 1/2 hours of auto attacking blues just to get level 5 sort of slow that the EXP penalty on a Pally or SK seems to foster. I'm much more concerned with content digestion as you put it.

I've seen every nook and cranny of every outdoor zone in EQ, but sadly back in the day as a Wizard that had few friends, and no guild for a while (and leveled from 32-58 solely from quad kiting), I've hardly seen alot of the dungeons this game has to offer. Then PoP and LDON came out an no one even did most of the content anymore at all ever (even HHK basement was empty at all times on my server once LDON came out, which says alot because I was on Bristlebane).

I know that it can be a pain/impossible to get people to want to go to certain places just for the sake of going there (aka there isn't some specific loot they want, it's out of the way, the exp is bad etc) so that is why I have a concern with the ability to solo into an instance, so that I can see some of these places finally even if it is alone! I know the answer to that is roll Necro/Mage, but I'm not much for the pure dps type classes anymore and care more about utility to a group.

[Dr4z3r]

Just echoing others' statements: Play the class you want to; Bards have the same XP penalty as Paladins; any of the three can be excellent in a group (or even the same group); Paladins are awesome for planar clears (blind, then stun, then break mez); everyone wants shaman in a raid; everyone with a mana bar wants a bard in their group on a raid.

[guineapig]

Yes, I meant AoE kiting.

What others call swarm kiting I have always referred to as charm kiting. Sorry for the confusion.

[falkun]

It was commonly referred to as swarm kiting because you would pull 5+ mobs, charm one, and then watch as the other 4+ mobs turned to "swarm" your new pet. I was never very good at it (competent, but not stellar), but it was something I enjoyed doing for the fun of watching the swarm of mobs turn and rape their friend.

Sadly it doesn't work here because only the mob you tell your pet to attack will aggro your pet. The rest of the "swarm" will stay aggroed on you, the bard.

[Obsidus]

Hahaha to be quite honest I used to absolutely loathe Bards. I'd be working my butt off to pull and kite 4 mobs without getting killed and here would be this guy running 3x faster than me, killing 10 times the mobs, and he also had 10x the group usefulness. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ontop of that one time on my level 51 Pally that I had I lost a roll on a Cloak of Flames to a Bard, a class that as far as I knew could get near haste cap from their own songs alone, and the guy already had a RBG or RBB can't recall which, and I had no haste item at the time ;.;. If I recall the raid leader let him and then I lost the roll by 3 points or something stupid, and then the guy basically mocked me and the other melee there (was a Naggy raid).

But that was a long time ago and my hated has since subsided. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]