Basically you always need damage + healing . The utilities are a bonus .
For healing there is no choice - it must be a class that heals : cleric, shaman, druid . I don't know if the hybrid classes ranger, crusader, dire lord can heal but if they can it is probably only symbolical so they are out .
For damage there are many options :
a) it is a player who does damage
b) it is an NPC who does damage
For instance in EQ the by far most efficient (e.g fast and safe) option was b) with an enchanter .
A combo enchanter + druid was very fast at killing and basically immortal . The druid would snare/root and heal . The enchanter would charm and slow/speed . The charmed mob does the damage and is expendable so that one has not to worry if it dies . A pet class with a healer is another b) option but it generally kills slower than a druid-enchanter combo .
Enchanter + Shaman is equivalent but in EQ it was killing slower than with a druid .
In the a) option there is the tank option (for example the classical warrior + cleric) which is safe but kills very slowly and is vulnerable to adds .
The DPS option in a) (rogue, monk, wizard, ranger) is fast but quite risky . If the kill is not very fast or if there is an add, the healer cannot keep his partner alive in general .
Lastly there are exotic combos without healer . At least one of the 2 must then have a very reliable crowd control because if a mob starts beating one or both, the combo dies . As this forbids CC, one or both must be a charming or a pet class .
This style imposes a high stress on the players and doesn't pardon mistakes so it is not something that I like . But somebody might like living under death treat all the time - I don't know .
I did the warrior-cleric combo in EQ2 with a friend for a good while, but it is sloooooow.
I never got to try it, but always wanted to do a Bard-Bloodmage combo in Vanguardsoh.
Bards can usually capitalize on awesome parry skills, avoiding damage, while doing really good dps. The Bloodmage was simply an awesome tool of healing combined with carnage. A little squishy at times, so they would have had to come on slow and steady so as not to draw too much aggro away from the Bard.
But as I said, I never did get to try this one out.
A caster with a pet for aggro control and a druid would probably make a good strong combo.
I will be playing a Cleric most likely, so if you need a healer to aid you in the thick of things give Klumpedge a call.
Based on EQ style duo grouping and if an enchanter has a charm spell then an awesome combo is a Enchanter & Druid. You get the heals, snare, runspeed, damage shield & dps from a druid and the tank & DPS from the pet and CC, haste, mana regen from enchanter. Makes for the equivilent fire/buff power of a 3 man group with a little extra excitement from the charmed pet breaking randomness danger (if it works like that in pantheon). But a seriously good combo for duoing!
Hokanu said:Based on EQ style duo grouping and if an enchanter has a charm spell then an awesome combo is a Enchanter & Druid. You get the heals, snare, runspeed, damage shield & dps from a druid and the tank & DPS from the pet and CC, haste, mana regen from enchanter. Makes for the equivilent fire/buff power of a 3 man group with a little extra excitement from the charmed pet breaking randomness danger (if it works like that in pantheon). But a seriously good combo for duoing!
It's a good thing I reloaded the page, I was about to post this exact thing.
coach said:Hokanu said:Based on EQ style duo grouping and if an enchanter has a charm spell then an awesome combo is a Enchanter & Druid. You get the heals, snare, runspeed, damage shield & dps from a druid and the tank & DPS from the pet and CC, haste, mana regen from enchanter. Makes for the equivilent fire/buff power of a 3 man group with a little extra excitement from the charmed pet breaking randomness danger (if it works like that in pantheon). But a seriously good combo for duoing!
It's a good thing I reloaded the page, I was about to post this exact thing.
Its a ripper of a combination!! A good enchanter can duo well with anything really as long as the duo partner respects mez and lets the pet hold agro
Hokanu said:Its a ripper of a combination!! A good enchanter can duo well with anything really as long as the duo partner respects mez and lets the pet hold agro
Absolutely it is. The biggest threat in charming is letting your would-be pet get into melee range, SoW and snare almost make this a non-issue. Need plat? Port - track - invis/pacify past trash - kill named with charm pet - loot - evac and move on to next named in your list. It's a very exciting combination. Plus you could set up your noobie buffing station anywhere and have a relaxing good time.
EQ1 a very strong combo was SK+Shaman. Shaman buffs on SK, SK pet and SHM pet meant melee DPS was brutal. Proper positioning with pets always attacking from rear paid required. With SK ability to hold aggro, SHM could debuffs in before mob even entered camp and then quickly followed up by DoTs. On pulls, SK would run off with a HoT going to counter any hits coming in with the pull. Combo was incredibly efficient and was my favorite pairing. A very close 2nd was SHM and Beastlord.
coach said:Hokanu said:Based on EQ style duo grouping and if an enchanter has a charm spell then an awesome combo is a Enchanter & Druid. You get the heals, snare, runspeed, damage shield & dps from a druid and the tank & DPS from the pet and CC, haste, mana regen from enchanter. Makes for the equivilent fire/buff power of a 3 man group with a little extra excitement from the charmed pet breaking randomness danger (if it works like that in pantheon). But a seriously good combo for duoing!
It's a good thing I reloaded the page, I was about to post this exact thing.
Hehe unfortunately Hokanu didn't because I said the same thing just 2 posts above him :)
I would stress another often underestimated element of a duo containing an enchanter which is clarity .
A duo shaman-enchanter or druid enchanter is non stop killing because of clarity . Other duos are necessarily slower because they'll regenerate mana much slower .
Deadshade said:coach said:Hokanu said:Based on EQ style duo grouping and if an enchanter has a charm spell then an awesome combo is a Enchanter & Druid. You get the heals, snare, runspeed, damage shield & dps from a druid and the tank & DPS from the pet and CC, haste, mana regen from enchanter. Makes for the equivilent fire/buff power of a 3 man group with a little extra excitement from the charmed pet breaking randomness danger (if it works like that in pantheon). But a seriously good combo for duoing!
It's a good thing I reloaded the page, I was about to post this exact thing.
Hehe unfortunately Hokanu didn't because I said the same thing just 2 posts above him :)
I would stress another often underestimated element of a duo containing an enchanter which is clarity .
A duo shaman-enchanter or druid enchanter is non stop killing because of clarity . Other duos are necessarily slower because they'll regenerate mana much slower .
yeah sorry about that Dead, i noticed that well after the fact bud, I should have looked a bit closer!
Another fun point re Druid duo is in some circumstances / zones where there are animals lurking and if Druids get animal charming in Pantheon then you have an slightly more dangerous but very high vs effcient 2 man DPS with added CC, Mana Regen, Heals, Thorns, SoW, +Charisma buff, Tash & Snare... its the complete package! You just gotta be ready for 2 charmed mobs breaking at once... (you know its gong to happen eventually) to anyone trying charm for first time in EQ, If you always remember to lock down the mob currently your fighting with Root then things will be less of a panic and you will loose a LOT less health when all hell breaks charm(loose).
And just a side note, regarding the panic that can come from broken charm, I know in another thread some people have been arguing that AoE mez should not hit the caster if in range... I strongly disagree, if AoE mez doesnt hit the caster (while in range) then it just becomes way to easy to recoup yourself after a nasty charm break, as much as i would sometimes like to be able to charm solo with almost no danger at all i think it s important that you can't just lock down multiple mobs that are standing in front of you waling on you in one spell, this is too easy and with the power of charm there needs to be high level of danger to it to balance it out. The danger can be subdued close to nil by being always 1 step ahead of the encounter but that takes a decent chunk of concentration and regular update to strategy as the situation unfolds and changes, so effort & planning = reward
Well, since class abilities haven't been finalized and wont be for a while, I'm going to use EQ standards. Two manning should have a healer with utility and a tank with DPS. That said, the Ranger/Shaman combo is hard to beat, especially as they are in EQ Live now. Shaman can slow the mobs while debuffing and healing and the ranger now is probably the best chain wearing tank with outstanding DPS that can capitalize on the debuffs that the shaman put on the mob. Sure any plate tank will mitigate a ton less damage, but their DPS will negate the gains from armor and AC. Killing mobs faster means more XP for you and your wife. Oh yeah, now rangers can single pull almost anything and lose aggro to adds almost at the drop of the hat. If VR somewhat follows those designs, then keep the shaman/ranger duo in mind.
My advice would be to go with a tank and healer, but take the most offensive-minded options for those roles. This allows you minimize the effect of slow killing you'd normally expect from a healer+tank combo, while at the same time have the core of any group composition already available to you whenever you do decide to team up with others.
Warrior/Shaman was a great duo combo in EQOA. There wasn't really anything exotic about it but it was really safe and effective. The warrior/shaman could switch their gear to be more effective with their damage, and if an add popped up, they had plenty of good cooldowns to help manage. If they got multiple adds they could hurry up and burn the first mob down, then switch to a more defensive approach and out-last the rest of the mobs before finally taking a break to regen up.
It will depend a lot on how spell stacking gets implemented, but let's not disregard the possiblity of a same-class duo, especially pet classes.
Two skilled EQ mages working in tandem was a very powerful combo as an example. If necro spells stack, that's potentially another.
But until we see what the classes are like in an up close and personal way, the most we can do is discuss what have been good combos in other games. I feel like that's been done to death.
As we know, the necro is not available at launch, but I personally found the Enc/Nec combo to be god-mode in EQ1. The necro's weakness (in EQ1) was the lack of root until later but their dmg to mana ratios were incredible and the enchanter's clarity line of spells replenished more than the necro's self mana regen. Reduce the MR of the target (tash) and root from the enchanter and one set of DoTs from the necro would kill most everything without anyone taking dmg, or fearkiting with two pets was super ez-mode in some areas. Both could invis/IVU, bind/gate, charm, CC... The necro could actually heal the enchanter and obviously lifetap as well... also rez and summon corpse ater. Of course this was EQ1.
Like many have said, you can't go wrong with a healer and anything else too, but we don't know what the abilities are yet so we can only speculate on the synergy between classes. My maine was SHD in EQ1 and I really enjoyed duo with my SHM buddy... I could split pull most anything and once the NPC was slowed I could lifetap the dmg back more than easily without budging my mana as a DE, allowing the SHM to actually deal more dmg than me and canibalize to maintain his mana... come to think of it, I was like his pet! :p
Someone to tank, and someone to heal. If you have that you have a group, and filling out with DPSers is always easy.
You will want to be the same race so you start together.
My completely ignorant opinion is Human/Ogre/Skar Dire Lord and Shaman.
I used to box a raid geared Paladin/Beastlord combo in EQ1 to grind exp.
If they want this to be a group-oriented game then they'd better nerf charm hard before it even hits pre-alpha, because that shizz is OP to the max on EQ1. Even on a druid it's nuts. I saw a druid with a dire wolf charm in Kael finish off Derakor the Vindicator after Vindi wiped the entire raid. Also, have duoed Vessel Drozlin on a druid with an enchanter (along with a few other things). It's ridiculous what charm can accomplish in combination with hastes, various pet weapons, and slows.
I reserve my judgment on best combo 'til I actually play, which I won't be doing 'til the official launch. :)
Taking a lesson from the EQ Progression servers can help allow charming (assuming it is even a thing at all) while not letting pets do all the heavy lifting. They can set it up so that pet hate is transferred to the pet owner. So if there is noone else to maintain agro the monster will try to kill the weaker player rather than the OP pet.
Glorfendill said:Taking a lesson from the EQ Progression servers can help allow charming (assuming it is even a thing at all) while not letting pets do all the heavy lifting. They can set it up so that pet hate is transferred to the pet owner. So if there is noone else to maintain agro the monster will try to kill the weaker player rather than the OP pet.
great idea