Best newbie friendly class/race?(casual player)

[luckynclover]

K so it looks like halfling druid it is...i did some reading up on it and it sounds like a good foot for me, can heal can dps can port do some buffs. Master of none but fairly good at all. Thank you all for the input i appreciate it.

[Seritaph]

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

Barbarian Shaman

If you don't want druid, this is an excellent option. Everfrost is a bit brutal your first 2 levels, but then it opens up. You have access to everything you need to get going. Many of the newbie mobs carry weapons, and the trade district of Halas has sharpening stones (vendor hidden behind the cider building I think) to upgrade to tarnished weapons and start building your smithing. Sell off what you don't need.

Polar bear cubs drop all variety of skins, and the actual white polar bear skins can be traded to Cindl for starting armor. The ruined can be combined in a loom (just north of Cindl) with a pattern to try and create your own, and a high quality skin can be sold to another player for about 10pp. People will pop in OOC with an offer to buy, so just bank them and be patient.

There's a guy right outside the door of the shaman guild who will give you a container to collect wooly snacks from spiderlings and spiders, and in return gives you a random level 5 shaman spell. You can repeat this quest many times over and sell off duplicate spells.

The arena has a female warrior who gives you a bag to collect goblin necklaces for experience and money, /say I will protect the pass. It's a nice free starting container as well. When you're ready to go to Blackburrow, around level 5, keep the no drop gnoll fangs (they stack too) and turn them into this same NPC for some great experience and a light source. Blackburrow is usually well populated and getting groups is not difficult. Great experience, and you can hang out there until level 10 or more.

If you get tired of BB, there are goblin camps scattered around that are great experience until level 7 or so. I'd alternate between the one just north of Bandl, and south of him near the south wall. It's a pretty safe run if you hug the wall. By the time you clear one, the other camp has respawned. Save the necklaces for the quest I mentioned earlier.

After that, you can stay in everfrost and start camping the south wall for snow leopards starting at level 9, and work your way up to orc troopers along the east wall. This can all be easily solo'ed by a shaman assuming you've bought your dots from Starn in the northeast ruins and keep your weapon skills up to par.

If that doesn't appeal to you, at level 9 you get SOW, and can make it through BB very easily. Norrath is your oyster.

[Tunarian]

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

If you don't want druid, this is an excellent option. Everfrost is a bit brutal your first 2 levels, but then it opens up. You have access to everything you need to get going. Many of the newbie mobs carry weapons, and the trade district of Halas has sharpening stones (vendor hidden behind the cider building I think) to upgrade to tarnished weapons and start building your smithing. Sell off what you don't need.

Polar bear cubs drop all variety of skins, and the actual white polar bear skins can be traded to Cindl for starting armor. The ruined can be combined in a loom (just north of Cindl) with a pattern to try and create your own, and a high quality skin can be sold to another player for about 10pp. People will pop in a OOC an offer to buy, so just bank them and be patient.

There's a guy right outside the door of the shaman guild who will give you a container to collect wooly snacks from spiderlings and spiders, and in return gives you a random level 5 shaman spell. You can repeat this quest many times over and sell off duplicate spells.

The arena has a female warrior who gives you a bag to collect goblin necklaces for experience and money, /say I will protect the pass. It's a nice free starting container as well. When you're ready to go to Blackburrow, around level 5, keep the no drop gnoll fangs (they stack too) and turn them into this same NPC for some great experience and a light source. Blackburrow is usually well populated and getting groups is not difficult. Great experience, and you can hang out there until level 10 or more.

If you get tired of BB, there are goblin camps scattered around that are great experience until level 7 or so. I'd alternate between the one just north of Bandl, and south of him near the south wall. It's a pretty safe run if you hug the wall. By the time you clear one, the other camp has respawned. Save the necklaces for the quest I mentioned earlier.

After that, you can stay in everfrost and start camping the south wall for snow leopards starting at level 9, and work your way up to orc troopers along the east wall. This can all be easily solo'ed by a shaman assuming you've bought your dots from Starn in the northeast ruins and keep your weapon skills up to par.

If that doesn't appeal to you, at level 9 you get SOW, and can make it through BB very easily. Norrath is your oyster.

Someone loves to play Barbarians...

[Sinder]

halfling druids are great... cuz everyone needs a healer and sow and ports and all that. I love the gnome necro too, fun to play not the hardest. just learn or relearn to kite and you will get it

[Seritaph]

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

Someone loves to play Barbarians...

Yeah, I do. But mostly it's just one casual player trying to help out another.

[Wenai]

Before you choose druid I really think you should re-think. I feel like all the people who point newbies towards druids are really just not doing them a favor, especially when it is important to someone to be able to solo.

Can druids solo? Yes. Can druids solo well? Yes. Do they excel at it? In my opinion, no.

Druids get DoTs, DD, Snare, Root which all assist in soloing for a druid. The main problem lies in the fact that they have NO mana free damage. They have no pet, they can't deal good melee damage.

They have NO increased mana-regen. If you are limited on time (in your case only 3 hours per night) then I really think you need to focus on one of two classes:

Shaman or Necromancer.

Shaman is a decent soloer (post-34) but not excellent (in terms of speed). Shamans can handle pretty much any situation and make it out alive but they sure as hell won't do it quickly. Their nukes are worthless and their pets are a little bit weak (but sufficient with slow+haste).

Shamans also have excellent options for soloing techniques. You can root-rot with Root and DoTs. You can aggro kite by building your aggro and turning off pet taunt. You can solo similar to a mage by letting your pet tank (using slow so your pet doesn't get owned). You can tank yourself.. Whatever. You are extremely versatile as a shaman.


The king soloing class in EQ is 100% for sure Necromancer. You get root, snare, feign death, invulnerability, invis, invis vs undead, fear, mez, charms (undead), lifetaps (heal yourself), leaches (heal yourself)... Playing a necromancer it is almost impossible to die.

Necromancer pets are excellent. Damage just as well as mage pets (minus DS) and tank slightly worse. The tanking thing doesn't really matter since you will be aggro kiting (via Disease Cloud) or fear kiting (still my favorite option due to it allowing you to med while the kill happens)

Here are the two MOST important things to consider when choosing a soloing class:

1. Mana-free damage (ie. pets)
2. Mana recovery (ie. Lich and Cannibalize)

Life is hell when you are constantly begging for clarity or whatever and I would seriously consider a shaman or a necromancer if you are looking to solo or are short on time to play. Druid will work, just imo, not the best option.

[Seritaph]

^ Nice post.

Also consider when choosing class whether faction matters and how difficult or easy it'll be getting in and out of places... that is places you wish to go.

[Bubbles]

Wenai nailed it. I also like the Barb shaman idea as well.

Best case scenario, get like 4 friend to play with you and everyone chooses between mage and necro!

[Keebz]

I guess there is a merit to the barb shaman, because it is a non evil race and has less of an exp penalty and all. However, troll (hp regen) and ogres (no frontal stun) have better stats/racial abilities for shamans, imho.

That being said, necro for sure. They are cool, fun, and powerful. Also, root rotting as a shaman (ie how you solo until 34) is boorriiinng and time consuming.

[Drakul]

If you go shaman I recommend troll. I had a heck of a time soloing during level 8 until I realized we gets dots at 5 and 9 that stack. Once I got the dots things got a lot better.

Get a weapon that does decent damage, get whatever cheap armor you can find, get your dots, get the slow spell. Cast slow on a yellow, cast disease dot, case poison dot, melee until dead, sit for 2 minutes to regen health and mana super fast, then pull another yellow. Sometimes you need to cast a heal on yourself in close fights, but usually with the regen you won't have a problem.

I guess by level 14 mobs might be hitting hard enough that you have to root but so far my leveling speed solo hasn't been much slower than it was with my mage. Even with root I'm sure you can step in to melee a little bit if you want, and you will have SoW at level 9 in case you need to run away.

Go troll, it makes the downtime in the earlier levels almost nill.