Necro/Mage Duo

[Vladesch]

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

The chanter charms a pet, gives it two weapons and hastes it and just tears through mobs, the cleric just needs to CH the pet occasionally, and most importantly help the chanter stay alive and recharm during charm breaks.

Druid enchanter can do this better. Druid has plenty of healing for the pet especially with mind buff, plus you have snare, sow and ports.

[Lexical]

Honestly, the only thing I can see the Druid/Enchanter combo bringing to the table that makes it something to consider is the fact you can port. Shaman and Enchanter will be better in any fight due to shamans' slow, MR debuffs, and stellar buffs. The only thing I can find comparable would be monk and shaman but that would be more gear dependent than enchanter/shaman and it is arguably worse.

And can someone please explain to me the purpose of the cleric/enchanter combo? You shouldn't need CH if the shaman is slowing and the enchanter is CCing properly.

[Splorf22]

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

Druid enchanter can do this better. Druid has plenty of healing for the pet especially with mind buff, plus you have snare, sow and ports.

CH on an 8k hp pet is 20 hp/mana. Druids can't do that. Personally I think Druids are a very underrated class; they are great at low levels and decent at high levels. But anything that Druid/Enc can duo, Enc/Enc, Enc/Clr, Enc/Shm/ and Enc/Mag can do better.

[mazukon]

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

And can someone please explain to me the purpose of the cleric/enchanter combo? You shouldn't need CH if the shaman is slowing and the enchanter is CCing properly.

Resists don't descriminate [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Lexical]

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

Resists don't descriminate [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Shaman and enchanter can stack MR debuffs so slow should land on most mobs and honestly just letting the charm pet die is a perfectly valid option since the shaman pet can tank for a bit while the enchanter brings back another.

[A1551]

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

Druid enchanter can do this better. Druid has plenty of healing for the pet especially with mind buff, plus you have snare, sow and ports.

Druid and Enchanter are plenty powerful but druid is probably the least desirable partner for a chanter of the three (shaman/cleric/druid). Complete heal is pretty ridiculous on charmed mobs -- you basically have an entire group of functionality in 2 people, the pet tanks and does massive dps with an incredibly deep HP pool, chanter can slow/cc/stun and pull very well, haste pet, clarity, etc. Cleric gives you the CH and massive HP buffs and quick heals needed to survive charm breaks (plus occasional rezzes). You do also have the core of a great group as chanter/cleric but said group is entirely unnecessary to level up if you guys just want to duo. Shaman chanter is also amazing but others have discussed why.

As to druid / chanter it has some advantages and is undoubtedly powerful. Druid snare on pet makes it much easier to avoid damage on breaks (a big positive). Ports on tap are certainly convenient (but I'd rather have rez). Sow is a non issue once you get jboots but very nice before that. Druids can also charm animals which can be a very powerful combination in certain zones, and druid roots are amazing which can really help when things go south. The downside is druid heals are entirely inadequate for healing pets (superior heal barely moves my pets health bar, a big minus) and they can't slow to make up for it, druid HP buffs are fairly limited, druid dps is almost irrelevant in comparison to a pet, etc. Bottom line besides ports and snare (and maybe animal charming) they may as well be a shaman without the shamans most powerful abilities.

As to the original poster -- the cleric/chanter or necro/mage really don't need gear to excel. The chanter just needs +cha gear for charming / lulling etc and for the most part it is fairly inexpensive, certainly something a new player to the server could gear themselves with while leveling up. At least personally I'd be reticent to re-level the character I played on live -- half the fun of EQ is mastering a new class. A mage and a necro are gonna be a fun duo -- probably more balanced in terms of the fun for each player. The cleric in a cleric / chanter duo might find things a little boring (the chanter will be doing much of the work), but for a shaman / chanter duo this wouldn't be the case as the shamans also going to have to be pretty active to excel.

Finally, keep in mind thanks to a chanters CC and pulling abilities a chanter/(any healer) duo will basically be able to go anywhere and do anything.

-Propo Fol

[Splorf22]

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

Resists don't descriminate [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Check the solo artist thread for Svenn and I showing what a 60 shm/60 enc can do. In comparison a 60 enc/60 clr are going to have a lot more trouble on say the protector because if charm breaks you are just utterly screwed.

[A1551]

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

And can someone please explain to me the purpose of the cleric/enchanter combo? You shouldn't need CH if the shaman is slowing and the enchanter is CCing properly.

As Splorf said its all about CH. I love either duo but probably prefer the cleric for leveling (ie playing long periods of time just killing stuff as fast as possible). Would take either happily for trying to kill hard stuff, although I certainly agree the shaman is the most ideal choice at that point. Once you find that perfect pet in the sweet spot for your level and toss him weapons / haste that's basically it for the night, no more finding the best pet, no worry about running outta weapons, and its also a lot harder to die when you've got symbol and hero on all the time. Pocket rezzes are nice, too. Realistically if youre grinding out XP for 8 hours or whatever you're probably going to have a few perfect shitstorms of bad luck where yur gonna be happy to have that +1100 hp from cleric buffs and a pet whos health level is essentially irrelevant all night long, or worst case the immediate rez.

Another obvious reason why the cleric/ench combo is attractive, referring to your original question, is that just because a shaman may be a more ideal duo partner for a chanter, doesn't mean that there is one around to duo 100% of the time! Bottom line there are a lot of clerics with CH around, I seem to recall from the recent population tracking thread that high level clerics are more than twice as common vs shamans.

-Propo Fol

[Lexical]

Originally Posted by A1551 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As Splorf said its all about CH. I love either duo but probably prefer the cleric for leveling (ie playing long periods of time just killing stuff as fast as possible). Would take either happily for trying to kill hard stuff, although I certainly agree the shaman is the most ideal choice at that point. Once you find that perfect pet in the sweet spot for your level and toss him weapons / haste that's basically it for the night, no more finding the best pet, no worry about running outta weapons, and its also a lot harder to die when you've got symbol and hero on all the time. Pocket rezzes are nice, too. Realistically if youre grinding out XP for 8 hours or whatever you're probably going to have a few perfect shitstorms of bad luck where yur gonna be happy to have that +1100 hp from cleric buffs and a pet whos health level is essentially irrelevant all night long, or worst case the immediate rez.

Another obvious reason why the cleric/ench combo is attractive, referring to your original question, is that just because a shaman may be a more ideal duo partner for a chanter, doesn't mean that there is one around to duo 100% of the time! Bottom line there are a lot of clerics with CH around, I seem to recall from the recent population tracking thread that high level clerics are more than twice as common vs shamans.

-Propo Fol

What you described seems like a much slower albeit safer XP stream then what I would do. I have little interest in keeping a charmed pet and prefer just eating it when it is low health. Unless of course you are rooting both mobs and then breaking charm before one of them dies to avoid the heavy pet XP penalty, but in that case the cleric is mostly useless.

The mala spell line is invaluable to charming mobs since it not only drastically increases the level of the mobs you can charm, it also provides a very strong safety net. Also, if you are charm farming properly, the server would have to take a very big shit(pardon my language) on you for the enchanter/shaman duo to be in any real danger.

Also, shamans can tank better than clerics(assuming you aren't playing an iksar shaman) and can snap agro away from the enchanter if needed. And if the Shaman is a troll shaman, then you can do a janky fear kite on the side while charm fighting.

[Lexical]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Check the solo artist thread for Svenn and I showing what a 60 shm/60 enc can do. In comparison a 60 enc/60 clr are going to have a lot more trouble on say the protector because if charm breaks you are just utterly screwed.

http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=80165

That is the thread Splorf mentioned.