What should I level? 35 sham or 39 druid? (broke casual player)

[Snaggles]

Hi All,

So I'm a bit of an alt-o-holic. I have a couple mid/low 50's (Ranger and Pally) but want to level up to 60 with a Druid or Shaman. The Druid is 39; the Troll Sham is 35.

The old min-maxer angle is the Shaman is the best duo melee or solo toon. Problem is I'm not loaded...by 50 I'll probably have a JBB and a Iksar BP. Fungi, torpor, epic...forget it. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

For a filthy casual it seems the druid has a pretty cheap road for gear and not having that 40% exp penalty is attractive. My brother plays a bard so that seems like a good combo.

What would you do?

[wagorf]

druid at 60 still may rely on ports to make plat

shaman without fungi/torpor can still duo certain cash camps

[bigjeff100]

Druid I'd suggest only choosing as a cash business later.. Ports and Potg, that's what you have goin for ya.. I don't suggest a druid as your main.. However it's a great choice to keep the money movin around those alts, and they are cheap to gear up. But I'd just level your druid to 44 and stop after you get those velious ports.. I'd choose Shaman as your main.

[Snaggles]

Thanks everyone.

I might bump the druid to 49 for skin like nature and the upgraded DS. Nice for sitting in a newbie area and feeling philanthropic.

Will keep the Sham geared up and keep fighting the grind.

[ScottBerta]

Shaman is far better but an expensive class. Druid is the far inferior class but can make money porting and pling. I’d probably go with the Druid then once that char is 60 and you have a good amount of pp return to the Shaman. You also have many alt... you may want to consider consolidating some of your items onto one or two chars. For instance, melees are far more expensive to properly gear then wisdom or int casters so you may want to sell the gear off your Paladin and put it towards the Druid. But my main advice is focus on one char until he/she is well geared and 60.

[loramin]

My two highest characters are a 60 Shaman and a 51 Druid, and you basically hit the nail on the head with:

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

the Shaman is the best duo melee or solo toon ... the druid has a pretty cheap road for gear and not having that 40% exp penalty is attractive.

Shaman don't need the JBB, Ikky BP, or even the Fungi; all those things just help them level faster. However, to reach their true potential they do need their epic and Torpor, which means 200k+ plat. Druids can use the Goblin Ghazugi Ring and the Lumi Staff, but again both just help you level faster, they're not necessary, and while Druids want their epic it doesn't really (as far as I know) enable you to do things you couldn't without it, like the Shaman epic does.

But here's the million dollar question: what is your goal? If it's to hit 60 the fastest so you can get into raiding Druid is the correct choice. On the other hand, while a 60 Shaman with Torpor and an epic will take you a lot longer than a 60 Druid without an epic, the former is a much more powerful soloer/duoer. So it's like being in New York and saying "well Texas is closer than California": that's true, but if you drive to Texas and that's not where you want to be then it doesn't matter if it's closer.

What you have to decide first is where you want to be, and only then ask "as a filthy casual, do I have enough gas in me to reach that goal?" If you play EQ like I do, as an "it's the journey, not the destination" kind of game, then it doesn't matter how long it takes, you'll reach your goal eventually even if that goal is a badass Shaman. But if you only have 6 months left of EQ in you and want to "beat the game" before then, of course Druid is the better option.

[Snaggles]

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] !

I'm a slow grind kinda player...keep plugging away and I'll eventually get there. Did the raid scene too much on Live. Even group time is hard to find these days; mainly as I don't like flaking out on people and would rather throw in at least a few hours each session. Ideally I'll have:

1.) A class to solo when I don't have the time to group (prob a sham)

2.) And a class to group for the slow grind from 54+ (prob the Pally). Ideally one that can plunk on zone trash until a group needs me.

Since it's more of a time sink than a plan to ever be "P0wa", I'm thinking I'll solo the druid up to 49. Ports, regen, good thorns, skin like nature, etc. Mostly for helping PL and port people for fun. He's 41 now, if 45 is as annoying as I remember I'll probably get him ES arms and call it good enough.

Then I'll either bounce to the sham for the slow grind to 60 solo/duo. I know a Pally/Sham combo isn't the best but at least if my brothers ever want to play we have a combo that can kill spiders in velks or something. One brother has a bard so for grind groups and nostalgia that isn't bad.

[clevergirl]

I think druid can level quicker without gear. Sham is great at high lvls with gear. But druid is all around good and u can start groups with her. Or if you want to do a harder camp, just pick up a melee class or even a sham and u can duo places like Lguk ez pz.

[kjs86z]

Both can solo...shaman is going to be way more powerful in almost every aspect of the game with the exception of ports and noobie PL.

The shaman will keep you busy for far longer, but with casual play and alt-o-holism, "completing" the druid will probably be plenty for you to do.

[loramin]

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

I know a Pally/Sham combo isn't the best

Really Shaman plus any melee or hybrid works well. For instance, take a Shaman/Rogue duo, which is sort of the opposite end of the spectrum: since the Rogue can't tank or heal, the Shaman has to do both, but since the Rogue has plenty of DPS the Shaman will hardly be DoTing, if at all.

With Paladins it's just the reverse: the Shaman doesn't tank at all and heals a lot less often, but they need to cast more DoTs to make up for the Paladin's lower DPS. It's still a totally a viable duo though, unlike say Wizard and Shaman, and although I haven't tried it myself I'd bet the two could do really well in somewhere like Howling Stones.