Hey all. I'm looking to set a friend of mine up with EQ. Do you all have any ideas on what race and class I should start him out with? (or what race/class combo to definitely not reccommend).
He is new to the gaming world but has expressed huge interest in EQ. I'll be there to give him a few pointers but I don't want to have to babysit.
Hopefully he'll pick what suits him later on when he gains more knowledge, but I just want something that...
-Doesn't die extremely quickly (i.e. wizard)
-Groups have need of
-Groups aren't completely dependant on (i.e. cleric, enchanter)
The reason I pick those and not others are that all can solo pretty much their entire EQ life without having high quality gear and all contribute well to a group. No real melees in there because again, of how big a role gear plays for them. I'd also add in a mage, but not as big a demand for them in groups. However they do have the benefit of summoned goodness so can be a solid choice. If you want melee in there as well I'd say SK or paladin, especially the SK for their FD.
I'm not sure I'd go with an evil race for travel reasons. It's less of an issue now to be sure but on a first char it's nice to be able to visit most of the cities.
When you say die easily, do you mean as in have few tools to avoid dying or have few hps? Because it's a lot easier for my warrior to die than for my druid, despite the warrior having more hps. Of all the classes I've tried to any extent I'd say the druid has been the easiest and has died the least.
Classes I'd avoid if you want easy: Bard, warrior, rogue, enchanter, cleric, wizard, and race: iksar.
beastlord or shaman...
survivable - versitle - solo - group
. beastlord probably a tad more "fun"
druid and necro are powerful classes... but if you don't want to spend alot of time tellin him "how" they are probably out Magelo for: Samita Alanna Amaryllis Merridok
Tradeskiller 1716/1750
J 250, Br 250, F 250, Ba 250, P 250, T 239, S 227
I'd say Beastlord as well. Its the only class that has both melee and casting abilities that doesn't have to rely solely on casting/nuking. You can get away with not even summoning your warder and still do enough damage to solo decently. Of course, with the warder and a well-placed Slow or DoT, your and your pet can take down a lot of things without having to depend on "uber" gear or whatnot. Standard leather armor and your warder will suffice in most situations.
Necros rock for soloing but they also have a pretty high learning curve. It takes a bit to get used to timing your DoTs, Lifetaps and all that jazz. To a brand new n00bie, it usually means they get their butts stomped by skeletons in the newb zone in a matter of minutes. Good gear helps, but if they're truly new at the game, odds are they won't have that much of a budget.
Druids are dull. They're boring at level 1; they're boring at level 65. The only difference is that by level 65 you can cast a lot more spells. If in your experience you find yourself used to doing things like quad-kiting, then druids may be right for you. Using a druid as a starter toon in a game you haven't played much, if at all, would lead to almost certain boredom with the game. Druids are weak melee (of course) and spells, until they hit their 20's. Plus a druid's mana pool seems kinda low in the early stages of the game, while their spells still cost a significant amount of mana; leading to an awful lot of downtime to meditate. If you have the budget to give your druid a nice healthy dose of WIS upon creation and starting (with gear, etc.) then they (and their mana pools) aren't that bad. Same could be said for any caster class though.
Shaman are great assets to groups. Soloing before you hit level 34 is a bit dry though. They have no snare, so your only tactic is to root it then cook it with DoT's. You can melee it a bit to keep your skills up but they're not much for melee damage ever in their career. Troll shaman however can quest a Snare Necklace from what I'm told so it kindof adds an element of actual "Kiting" to the class my shammy hasn't had the opportunity to do in his 53 levels so far. Your damage and debuffs are tremendous later on if you can get past the first 30 levels. You get your pet at level 34 and while it may not be the most viscious thing, it does help you to kill mobs faster than on your own. While they are decent at soloing, a shaman's true strength seems to be as a group member. Slowing, buffing, debuffing, dotting, nuking -- it's all there. Because of that wide range of spell possibilities, you'll never go LFG long before some group will want you.
I'm a melee fanatic myself. I find it much more rewarding to physically pummel the bejeezus out of things til they die. Just rooting them in place then whittling their life down with spells doesn't seem as "glorious" to me but hey, over the years, I've enjoyed playing mostly melee.
Quote:Druids are dull. They're boring at level 1; they're boring at level 65.
I disagree...
I categorize them like a necro though
- can solo if needed from 1 to 65
- can have a painful learning curve, but after lvl 14 they can be played (boringly) with their perma-get outta jail free card (SoW).
- Groups get sparse from 50 - 57
the shear options they have only makes them boring if you play them the same way over and over Magelo for: Samita Alanna Amaryllis Merridok
Tradeskiller 1716/1750
J 250, Br 250, F 250, Ba 250, P 250, T 239, S 227
Has to be a hafring Paladin imho. Reasons being, paladins can solo relatively well, are useful tanks in groups, and hafrings > all. Caaught RedhandedArazmus Bladerain
Monk! Yes, the one class that is almost completle useless in groups anymore, unless your SK is from ebay...
Mend - 25% insta-heal
FD - Insta save your rear
BW - low down time, 80% (or rather) healing
Flying Kick - Jackie Chan kicking cool looking
Easy to twink, and rather cheap to get a decent solo-meleer... Wu's or reinforced acrylia leathers...
No serious need for weapons, again cheap
Get iksar! (regen, night vision, bonus ac)
Then again, monks dont find groups very easie anymore ... and cant solo all very well 50+ (exp)
easy class.. i say Paladin.. but he better learn quick, because dungeoneering players live and die by their friendly neiborhood pacify puller nowdays =)
Go with a druid. EQ was my first ever on-line game and I had no help getting a hang on things. My first character was a half elf druid of Karana and I did pretty well with her.
Heh, there are actually more styles of playing a druid than just quading and I don't find the class boring in the least. But I try to always push the boundaries of what I should be able to do. I wouldn't say the class has a higher learning curve than other classes, although true, as a first ever class they may be a little unwieldy. The again as a first ever class any class that has spells is going to be take more getting used to than a melee.
I'd say the only rough levels for a druid are 8-13 for sow and then it's all good til around 50ish when (one would hope) the person playing is no longer a newbie.
Personally if I had to get someone into EQ right now I'd go with a Vah Shir beastlord or a short race paladin (or elf, just not human or eru with their night vision). The reason I wouldn't go with an SK is that they don't get invis till fairly late on, and there's more good aligned areas than evil. Similarly that's why I would recommend necro, they get nice survival spells fairly early on - and with corpse summoning at your bony fingertips, less concern about losing your corpse and a bolder newbie.
Druid as a caster for sure. Snare + SoW gives you a huge margin of error, they bring quite a lot to the group and there's quadding and charming for huge solo XP if you go that way.
I wouldn't recommend shaman, they take a long time to mature and their soloing is extremely unimpressive for much of it. Necro's are powerful, but so incredibly unpopular in groups / raids.
Beastlord for melee. Excellent DPS with minimal gear investment, huge soloability, lots of utility and bring lots to a group. A nod to paladin if they want to be the tank, but a sizeable hit on soloability and a lot more gear dependance than a BL.
I would have to agree with the monk, its a pretty simple character to start off with, upgrades can come pretty cheap and as a DPS class people wouldn't rely on you as they would tank/healer/CC.
Would get my pick, however I started a paladin first then after 14 levels made a wizard and never looked back.
Melee is probably a good way to start out the game IMO but definitly not neccessary.
My vote is a Druid in Faydark. You get a lot of fun spells at a fairly low level and Kelethin and Crushbone are fun places to start.
I disagree with Monk. I tried one in Freeport and gave up because I was bored of it.
Mages are not a good newbie class in my opinion. Good class just not as a first class.
Same for Rogue.
Barbarian Shamens are fun and can solo easily and get good spells early on but they tend to get a bit cramped in the early levels as they outgrow the Everfrost Mountains before they are really strong enough to venture onto the Everfrost Plains or hunt BlackBurrow safely.
Druid is the worst choice you will ever make if you do. Don't make me explain just trust me. Give up getting a group if anyone else is LFG, including a shammy.
Go with BST, They can haste, Slow (at 65 they slow 5% less than a chanter) and their slow seems to stick just as good, if not better. They can take the hits from an early slow. They have AMAZING DPS. On one of our recent guild raids, the BST smoked every one else on DPS. Rogues wern't Elemental but they did have SSra weapons, which are decent (bloodbath etc). Also, with all that DPS, you will level faster. I am in the process of soloing a shammy up and they can solo pretty well, but it TAKES FOREVER to kill something. With the EXP changes, it's faster exp to group than it is to solo, shammy has a fungi staff + tunic so it's NOT dying and gets to canni all it wants to, but its JUST SO SLOW. Anyway, thats my opinion, and I have played a lot.
They are making new character models? About damn time, the new ones are horrible. Everyone is slanted at a 60 degree angle with Luclin models, not to mention they ruined Ogres and Trolls.
Quote:Go with BST, They can haste, Slow (at 65 they slow 5% less than a chanter) and their slow seems to stick just as good, if not better. They can take the hits from an early slow.
With my Enchanter alt (now 64) I can slow on inc and only get about a 10% resist rate imo. 5% does actually mean something when you have an average geared tank in zones like BoT or PoV where mobs hit for 500-750 (i.e. Razorfiend Subduers, Krigers, Militis) and more if you're trying a named (almost 1k). A tank with 6k HPs will need all the help he can get and that 5% actually means something.
I have yet to see a BST that can top a charming Enchanter's DPS. I have seen few melee/hybrids who can, regardless of gear. I can solo a camp in 1/2 the time it takes a group to kill all the spawns and end up with more exp doing it.
Pure melee classes = Boring... The combat abilities added a little more spice but that doesn't change anything since playing my 54 War is still Boring.
Hybrid classes have a higher learning curve and are a bit harder since you have to keep up with casting skills/spells as well as melee skills. Bard is out of the question, gah!
Priest classes are the easiest classes by far to play. You can play a cleric and do 65 levels + 600 AA just sitting and getting up to heal. Druids are extremely boring and Shaman are only tedious (sit stand cast, sit stand cast). Druids can be the funest of those tho since you are never the backbone of the group (unless being MH at high levels).
INT caster classes come with a higher learning curve than all the rest. Wizard isn't as easy to play as you think. If you just nuke, you just die nuff said. Mage is a hard class to start out with. Enchanter is harder if want to learn how to play the class *well*. Necro probably has the higherst learning curve of all the classes because of the many ways one can be played.
All in all, I say start with a melee and play it until 30ish at which time he/she will see the basics on how the other classes are played and can switch to another if he/she so chooses. Monk is best as it's the cheapest melee class out there. If you're gonna twink and want a versatile (yet harder to play class), I would say Bard or Magician. They are very fun classes.
If he's new to the gaming world I would recommand a throwaway character. Whatever it is, should be easy to pick up, a fairly easy city, not a lot of spells. Such as:
Dwarven Paladin or Warrior
High Elf Paladin
Half-Elf Ranger in Qeynos
Iksar Monk
At level 15 start another character, such as a relatively easy caster:
High Elf Magician
Human Magician in Freeport
Half-Elf Druid in Qeynos
Human Necro in Freeport
By level 12 they should have a good idea how much they like being a pure caster.
Once the person is comfortable with EQ as a game, can get a around an easy city, complete a few quests, outfit themselves a little then they can decide what they would like to do: Do damage? With or without pets? Lots of spells? Few spells? No spells? Maybe another class?
I first started EQ with a High-Elf magician and is still my main today. As a computer RPGer it wasn't that hard to pick up. But for someone new to the gaming world, first start out as a melee then try a caster. Once you are familiar with the feel of EQ and the issues casters and melee have, then you can decide what you want to do with yourself.
Rivervale is also a nice single zone city, lots of fun, with Misty Thicket next door. Don't let start him in Neriak or Erud, the newbie forests are far too dark and the cities have too may zones.
well, when I came to everquest, I was in the same shoes as your friend is; I was new to role player games, and had a passing interest in everquest because my friends played frequently.
Well, this was in the days of Kunark, and they had a little gear laying around; basically a little stuff for a rogue, and a little stuff for a pally. I chose the rogue, and Riktorg, the gnome rogue was born.
I stuck with it, and am quite happy with my choice. I had 0 spells to buy, so the gear I was given was sufficient until I earned some plat of my own. Being in Ak'anon gave me a great newbie zone in Steamfont, and a great newbie dungeon in Crushbone.
The rogue is pretty easy to pick up, because the new skills come at levels that are pretty spaced out. First you beat on stuff... then you learn to sneek and hide, then you beat on stuff from behind, then beat on stuff faster from behind... kinda simple; but yet engaging during fights.
I played a hobbit cleric for 4 years, she was my first character. She got fun to play, out of the priest classes she can take the most hits for most of her life... then comes shaman and then the druid. If lookin for a priest class to start out with, cleric would be it. By the time your friend gets to where they really need to focus on group dependence, they'll know how to handle themselves. Plus, clerics are almost always needed. Towards the end game however, depending on what you like to do, they can get boring, or they can still be a challenge to play.
My next character was a dorf warrior, pure tanking, get in there and beat the snot outta stiff. Was a blast and a change from being a cleric. Got him pretty far, and was still havin fun. But to keep up towards the end game, you need to get better and better gear to be of any real use. If you are still in bronze armor with a ghetto weapon, you aren't really going to be useful to your group much, as you won't be able to hold the agro you should, and even if you can hold the agro, you'll be a mana sponge. Plus, I missed the casting parts that my cleric had.
I tried a mage for a bit, I loved the casting and the pet, was always a blast, but then I got to missing the melee aspect of my warrior.
All that being said, when luclin came out, I, among many others, started a beastlord. Changed races a few times before I found the one I wanted stuck with. First was Vah Shir, got it to 24ish, then said to hell with it, too many kitty beastlords out there. So I scrapped it. Made an Ogre Beastlord, got it to 33ish, stuck with it for that bit of time, but the size issue got to be a hassle sometimes, even with shrink at 30. Kept him around however for roleplayin purposes and the fun of it. Made an Iksar Beastlord and have stuck with him for quite a while. Got Melee, Pet, Casting... it's all in there, can do a lot of stuff, and even now, I bring a lot to groups, or can solo on a whim.
So all in all, I'd say Beastlord. You can melee, you can cast, you have a pet. In the end, you are a major factor to groups now that people know what we can do. So far only gotten mine to 53, but right now I still get tells quite often for a group. I'm DPS, I have slows, dots, nukes. I can outtaunt some classes with my debuffs. I can be crowd control if I need to (ie solo an add, or maybe two depending on group makeup) And all that is still a challenge and fun to play.
I haven't quite gotten to the end game yet, as my characters are only 56 (cleric), 52 (warrior), and 53 (beastlord) in level, but I have each of them in case I need a change from the usual.
A good suggestion is have him start 3 different types of characters, level them up equally as he sees fit, that way if one gets too boring at one time, or too tedious or whatever, he's got the others to fall back on, and can go back to the one whenever he needs a change again. Experiment, find out what he likes, only way he'll truly find what's easy for him. Vhashei Angelknight, Scaly Knight of the beasts.
Savil Onda'Ashke, Bristlebane's Personal maid and healer.
Hawks Weaponsmaster, 52nd punching bag of all Norrath's critters.
Give him the book that comes with the game. Have him look through the classes and races. Something will catch his fancy. He'll be interested in it, and study it, and pay attention to what he can do.
He won't be bored, and feel confined as easily. He'll be try to find ways to be better, because he likes that character.
If he wants a halfling druid, he'll be good at it. If he wants an iksar warrior, he'll learn what it takes.
But if he is led to a race/class combo that doesn't speak to him, he'll suck anyway and give up.
My two mains are rogue and druid, and I'm good at them (I think anyway) cause I was very interested in them and studied what I could, how I could push the class. I wouldn't be as good if someone had told me "be this class/race, it's easy".
I have to agree with Autius there. If he's really interested in playing, set him down at castersrealm or someplace and have him read through the character creation guides. That will at least give him an idea of what each class can do and maybe he'll say, now that sounds cool! Learn about it, figure it out, ask questions, etc. He'll have more fun that way I'd think.
Ya Autius is right having them pick the race and class will get them farther on the road ahead. I started EQ because i was pressured into it because all my friends were playing(to me it just seemed like a lame game), but one of my friends sat me down at his computer and said make something so I started I believe an erudite wizard played him for about 15-30 died half a bijillion times and my friend was like gah you can't play a caster so he rolled me up a warrior...god was i bored slash slash kick slash slash kick...needless to say another 15-30min go by and I tell him he can have his computer back. That night I went out and got EQ for myself(luclin had just come out but i was broke so just got the original with no expansions ;p) and I started an erudite enchanter...he is now 52 but butt nekkid because a friend jacked all his gear...but thats alright because i hadn't been playing him anyway with my 63 Erudite paladin of Prexus on Rallos Zek.
Rogue I think would be good starter...just let them know to get behind mob pop the BS button every now and then do a Pick Pocket and if he gets attacked to do the evade thing...only thing i don't know is about working pick locks(i never played a rogue long enough to start that skill).
BST though fun would think it would get complicated quickly for a new player.
RNG seems to be a popular newbie class though i've never tried one.
everyone has personal tastes. I prefer melee over caster but that's just me. I made a druid and haven't exped much, still lvl 51. I made a bst and went to 65 and still exp periodically, 70-80 AAs. I made a necro to see if I liked a pure caster for soloing but I still prefer the bst since I can melee with my pet.
For a new class, the bst or nec can do fairly well w/o any gear. The bst pet can tank while you play pet cleric, same with the necro (or fear kite). The Discord server was a good example of what a class could do without twinkage; necros, druids, and mages did well on that server if you don't factor in all the hackers. Derrict Thealcoholic
Just for some math refreshing between slows for BST (65%) and ENC (70%). Hell adding the shaman with 75% in the pack.
The difference is not 5% or even 10% between BST and Shaman.
Enchanter slow is 16.7% more effective than BST (translates for mob hitting for 14.3% less).
Shaman slow is 20% more effective than ENC (translates for mob hitting for 16.7% less).
Shaman slow is 40% more effective than BST (translates for mob hitting for 18.6% less).
For clear why all those weird numbers I take an example of 90% and 95% slows.
95% slow is 100% more effective than 90% slow (translates for mob hitting for 50% less). With 90% slow, mob is still hitting with 10% of its normal hit rate, as with 95% slow it is hitting with 5% of its normal hit rate.
Personally never understood why some people regard Necromancers as a "hard" class to learn how to play. I found it dead easy. Just point out the snare-effect on the darkness line, the fact that mobs run when they are afraid, and the fact that mobs chase you when pissed off, to him, and he should be able to grasp it fairly quick.
/Z
Zohran Shadowbladez
Deceiver and grandmaster poisoner
Venril Sathir
First off ignore any this class sucks because of XXX or YYY. No class is perfect and some days are gonna rock and some days just gonna flat out blow just like RL.
I see many think a mage is a hard class to learn, might be but I grabbed on and got it down pretty good and have had alot of fun with despite what any message board may say of the proffesion. Look into the rogue though it's like the melee equal of a mage when it comes to whoop butt potential and alot cheaper as your will be flat broke your first run through the game most likely.
Spells are a one shot deal but armor can be bought up till you start raiding if you do to, will help if your lacking connections to some plat.
But as said above post look at the classes and see what tickles your fancy and give it a try. Just don't play a druid there are plenty of them.
The versatile classes are the classes that are hardest to play *well* and you dont exploit their strengths unless you play them well. Necromancers are incredibly powerful true, but you wont see that unless you micromanage health / mana, slow, mez, pacify, tank for your pet, fear etc. Juggling all those eggs isnt easy.
The opposite extreme is the single focussed classes, such as warrior, rogue, wizard and perhaps cleric - but they can be boring and/or are incredibly gear dependent.
I would suggest, your friend picks a race with a graphic he/she likes first and foremost, then choose a class with group and solo options that isn't a make or break class.
Beastlord, Shaman, Druid, Mage, Ranger and maybe SK / Paladin would be good choices. Probably in that order too.
Well, speaking from my personal experience, i started with a dwarf warrior and took him to lvl 27 before i got tired of bein a tank, and made my Dark elf wizard, who is now 65 and elemental flagged. Wizards arent that hard a class to play as people may think. I picked up on it really quick. The only problem is, we dont get a snare till lvl 29 so soloing till then is a pain in the ass. I now have a lvl 20 iksar monk as an alt. That is a fun class/race combo as well, if ya dont mind being evil. I would suggest making a few chars early on, just to get a feel for what each different type of class (melee/hybrid/caster/priest) can do. I knew i didnt wanna sit around healin people all day, so i opted for dps classes so i can focus more on killing things than healing.
Kittens = poptarts
Kittens go in
Poptarts come out
Where do the kittens go?
Damned if i know
I don't think monks are cheap to gear, sure a set of wu's & 2 PSUs is cheap, but move much beyond that & you start paying big time - specially for decent monk weapons. Been looking at twinking one just recently.
For a starting toon, the ability to farm solo is important. If I was starting over, I'd go Wood Elf druid, the quested Tunare root necklace is super useful, saved my ass many times, & easily farmed with help at an early level.
I don't beleve what someone said about druids being hard at low levels, a lot of the time I would melee solo with dots & DS porcupine them to death, then be able to heal myself. Did that through to lvl 40 or so to a certain extent, to max my defense every level. AC makes a big difference if 4 mobs catch up to you when quadding.
Another point in favor of druids is SOW. I got pretty much burned out on my human warrior about the 4th or 5th time I had to run from Freeport Back to Oasis for my corpse. Then this level 9 shaman cast this cool winged feet spell on me.....
I rolled a shaman first, but from playing both to 50+, druid is easier for sure. There's a lot of downtime solo until you can get KEI, but if you can surf the net while you med, it isn't that boring.
That said, I think the advice on letting the person choose the toon they want is good, if you can point out where there might be problems, like if they choose a gnome paladin.
