EQ2 optimal class setup

[Ellay]

Finding data on teams is kind of difficult as everything is so dated.

As a caster group running Shadowknight / Warden / Illusionist/ Wizard / Troubadour / Necromancer
Apparently the Illy buffs the Wizard very well and the Troub buffs the Necro very well, on top of all the caster friendly buffs inbetween.
If you are good on heals Swapping the Warden to a Fury is suppose to have even further group buffs.

For a Melee team this is what I am considering.

Shadowknight / Mystic / Dirge / Coercer/ Beastlord / Beastlord.
This team seems extremely fun, I just don't want to blow anymore cash until I know it's the game for me (Beastlord class requires a $40 expansion to play)

What team makeup do you think would be superb?

[Chivalrous]

Just do all bards! You will tear up the inns and taverns and be a hit with the peasents and nobility alike.

[Ellay]

haha, very well played Chiv, touche

[moosejaw]

It has been three years since I played eq2. I downloaded the client last night and haven't checked all my accounts to see what my team comp was. I am going to play one account with a station pass to see if I want to do eq1 or eq2. Then I will subscribe my accounts again.

I logged in before work today and checked my 24 necro on freeplay and it was a mess. I could only use 1/3 of my bags and I had a bunch of tradeskill mats banked that I couldn't easily access. /bah

[moosejaw]

I wanted to add some gameplay info. I remember all my toons could melee mobs even the healers and when meleeing they had their own leash so you didn't have to micro manage them. Some of the casters had procs that worked off the weapon swings. This is going to take some getting used to again. lol

[crowdx]

Correct me if I am wrong but graphically Eve is still very poor compared to games like WoW, GW2 and Rift?

[Ellay]

Hey moosejaw I had the same "sticker shock" as well when coming back for free to play. I actually found the free to play method may be more beneficial on most characters than the paid version. With silver you've unlocked 4 of the 6 bag slots and are able to function in the game, the only thing missing is equipping fabled or legendary gear and while this gear seems like it is half of what drops it's not a big deal. You can buy stuff in the broker (auction house) that is not of quality and if/when you do hit max level to wear a piece it costs essentially 25 cents. Unless you jump on one of those station cash deals where you get 2x-3x bonus points when you purchase them, at that point it would get even cheaper.
So in essence if you equip a new piece of gear on every slot of your character when you hit max level. It'll cost you roughly $4. By then you won't be upgrading each piece a crazy amount or just hold off unless the piece is really good. Free to Play model should equate to costing $4 or less per month compared to $15, AND the crappy thing is if you stop the sub you can't wear the gear, if you stop the free to play model - it's still equippable. They've been smart about their microtransactions and it is annoying, but it's actually cheaper in my opinion not to sub.

Crowdx, if you meant EQ2 for graphics. They were updated years ago and are more refined/realistic looking than WoW, it is still an older game though. It's a different style and while I'm not going crazy over them at the current date. I enjoy I can run 6 on my pc and not break a sweat.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I played 6 paladins. Once you got enough AA to get the damage reduction talents it was faceroll easy, they literally became invincible by taking 0 damage when hit. I didn't do any pvp so I can't help there. When EQ2 first came out the Heroic Opportunity system was very important and cool. As far as I can tell now, they are not even used at all other than luck spam that triggers one. It's all about timing a spell that doesn't conflict with your auto attack to maximize dps. I wasn't able to get to the end game, the sticky combat and slow combat was just too different to get into compared to wow, and unlike wow, they have not reduced the xp required to catch up to the current end game. So unless your going to spend money on xp potions, it's a long ass grind.

However it's a fun game don't get me wrong. I've put in thousands of hours off and on since it's release. If you're going to play with one account, it's far cheaper to buy the gear tokens and bag upgrades than it is to sub. SOE is constantly doing double/triple SC weekend specials, followed by 50% off anything in the SC store. I think my primary account has like $120 in unspent SC cash on it from the last triple event.

The way to stack the SC is to use the game cards. Most cost $15 and come with a bonus 500sc. That's $20 worth of SC. Apply the card on a triple weekend and for $15 you get $60 worth of credit. Wait to spend it on a 50% off weekend and you can see where this is going. You can buy a LOT of upgrades and unlock tokens for single months worth of a gold sub.

[Ellay]

What level did you get the paladins up to? why were they so amazing stacked? EQ2 now seems like you need 1 of each class to maximize buffs.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I got them into the 60's and my main to 80's. Like I said, I did not get them to the end game so I'm sure there is some synergy I missed out on. But Paladins had so many passive heal, damage reduction, group heal and buffs that stacked well with each other. One paladin goes down the wisdom line and picks up a ton of group buffs, fear reduction, damage and spell buffs and a passive always on regenerating shield. Other AA talents gave you so much haste, multi strikes and aoe strikes, it was silly because there are not any real cast times on the paladin attacks.

Crusader's faith turned group damage into heals. They all had heals, rezes, plate, healing attacks for themselves and healing aoe attacks. The battle hardening was the best with it's flat damage reduction. The tooltip isn't right on it. When I picked it up, it reduced like 250 points of damage and it scaled up with level/gear. Nothing did that much damage in a single hit where I was playing.

A lot of buffs that were cool from other players are just meh now. You get a horse at level 10 so no need for any movement buffs. Food/drink give mega buffs now and the regen out of combat is huge. I'll repeat I did not get to any endgame content. I believe there are some things that you will want other classes for to over come. There wasn't any real crowd control with paladins. Curing some of the debuffs were not possible. In the end, Paladins were just simply over powered and easy to play.