Thanks for all the excellent advice. That's one of the things I love about this site. I am really excited to start playing again. I'm still waiting for the patcher to finish downloading files - it's taking an awfully long time, but is making progress. I suspect by the time I get home from work tonight, I'll be able to log in and play. Based on the comments here, I've thought about some tweak to my proposed group.

Tank - thinking about a berzerker or a guardian. If I do run 2 healers, then perhaps the greater DPS output of a berzerker will be necessary, and the lesser defensive capabilities would be compensated by having 2 dedicated healers. Also, if berzerkers are stil better at AOE agro, then that might make large pulls simpler than having to continually switch targets with a guardian. I won't likely be using a ton of AOE damage, however, so maybe this won't matter a huge amount. Still, healing is in effect AOE damage - so having AOE agro control is going to be critical.

Healers - a mystic and either a warden or a templar. I'm leaning toward a templar now, since it's always felt to me that the regen healing of druids is inherently inefficient. You regen whether you're at full health or not - whereas a mystic's wards and a templar's reactive heals only activate when necessary. Ironically, both of the duos I ran before featured a druid - a warden teamed with a berzerker and a fury teamed with a conjurer.

If I go with a fury, it will likely be because I went with a guardian tank - as at that point I'll have sacrificed a lot of DPS for survivability. If I go berzerker, it seems like a mystic and a templar would be a good healing combo - but I'm certainly still open to suggestions.

DPS / Utility - 3 spots to go. One will be a conjurer - I just like the DPS potential of a conjurer, and have played one up to level 42 as part of one of my duos. Another will be an illusionist - I think the comments regarding crowd control are well-said. I have never played a mezzer-type class before, but the utility they offer seems to be pretty significant. The last spot will likely be a troubadour, to keep the mana (oops - I mean power) flowing. But I'm still kicking around the idea of a dirge - since it sounds like physical DPS is a lot easier to manage that in WoW, where positioning is absolutely critical.

The choice between troubadour and dirge almost seems to come down to whether I go with a guardian or a berzerker, and whether my conjurer uses a physical DPS pet (water?) or caster DPS pet (fire). I'll have one dedicated caster DPS - the conjurer - but could have the remaining majority of my damage coming from my tank, the conjurer's pet, and a largely auto-attacking bard. My original plan - for 3 mage DPS classes - doesn't sound like the best idea. GIven that, a dirge might be a better option than a troubadour.

One thing I can't recall is whether caster types stop mana (oops - I mean power) regen if they're auto-attacking. In other words, is there a 5-second rule in EQ2? If not, then it makes all sorts of sense to do what little extra damage I can with my support characters by turning on auto-attack and whacking away. But if I cripple my power regen by doing so, then obviously it's not worth it.

I think I've forgotten how Heroic Opportunities work. My hazy memory seemed to recall that when it was a particular "turn" on the wheel for, say, a healing spell, any other spell or ability by any other character would disrupt the chain. But it doesn't sound like that's the case. As long as a qualifying heal is cast within the time allowed, it doesn't matter if another class casts a spell at that same time. If that is in fact the case, then HOs seem more doable.

Here are a couple teams I'm thinking of. The first has more caster-based DPS, while the second would seem to feature more physical DPS.

  • Guardian
  • Mystic
  • Fury
  • Conjurer - fire pet
  • Illusionist
  • Troubadour



  • Berzerker
  • Mystic
  • Templar
  • Conjurer - water pet
  • Illusionist
  • Dirge

As far as machines go, I think I'll try to run my main - the tank - and the three DPS/Utility classes on my main machine. I'll try to run the 2 healers on my secondary machine. On my main machine, I'll go with my tank on one screen and try to split the three others on the second screen. On the secondary machine, I'll just split the two healers on that single monitor. Hopefully Innerspace is as easy to set up as it sounds.

I haven't given much thought yet to races. I really cringe at the idea of having different home cities for some of my team - so I'll probably base everyone out of Qeynos. I know the newer starting areas offer some nicer initial quests - but I'm feeling nostalgic and want to experience the caves, the sewers, Varoon's Lair, Stormhold, and all those areas that came with the original game. One place I'm not real anxious to see again is Thundering Steppes - I got really tired of that place before. I think I just need to make better choices about when to "walk away" from some unfinished quests, and turn on combat experience enough to progress to the next area. I got so bogged down in wanting to finish "everything" in a zone before moving on that I got pretty sick of a particular area.

One other thing I recall was that some heritage quests - Dwarven Workboots come to mind - required gathering skills to complete. I remember getting REALLY sick of gathering on 2 separate characters enough to max my skills to advance to the next area. Doing it on 6 characters just seems like complete masochism. I'll probably stick to gathering on my tank only, and just craft or buy items to replace the quest rewards that require gathering skills. I have a decent stable of crafter alts from my prior playing time, so I can whip up some decent items without too much trouble.

Getting real excited to play. Any other advice or suggestions anyone can offer would be very much appreciated !