EZ Server

Hey everyone, I know the basics for the server and looking for some help with setting up my group of characters I plan on playimg. I know I can handle playing six guys and want to get some feedback on what would be the best setup.

Right now my plan is to have my group look something like this:
Paladin: Main character, tank/healer
2nd pally: offtank/more heals
cleric:seems pretty important later in the game
monk: dps toon
rng/rog/zerker: not sure which to go with, thinking zerker for ae dps when named pop adds
*wiz: hear they are pretty decent dps when they get t3 spell and would make me have atleast 1 char of each armor type

*debating putting a war here instead to handle adds with angry Vs

If you guys have opinions on what to do or would change lemme know, open to all suggestions except pet classes lol

cleric adds almost nothing early on.. bag it till you've already got a strong 6 box.. you simply won't *need* a cleric until MCP/T5/PossiblyT4...... You do *not* want to be farming up a 3rd set of plate needlessly.

2 Pallys is nice.. Warrior is cheap early augments (start dropping in PoD) for AE dmg and such.. Will make going *back* to qvic and ldon for charm farming/2.0 pages wooorlds easier. Highly reccomned.. Thats your 3 plate wearers.. End it there, you dont wanna have to find more than 3 sets of plate or you'll be in qvic for a decade.

So then you want one of each for the rest I imagine (chain cloth leather).

Monk is fine. With 2 paladins i would potentially reccomend beastlord, since double pally procs will help keep that damn pet alive (buy Pet Affinity for his AAs as soon as possible so pally group heal heals pet too.. this goes for all pet casters).

Chain : eff chain dps. It costs too much money for augments fora  newcomer.. make one later when you can afford it.. Go the cheater route:

Shaman. Shaman starting at 3.0 have crazy awesome group HP epic buffs on their pet (3.0 is 10k hps, 4.0 is 25k hps.. It's like adding full tiers of armor to your 6box).. Once shammy has t2 chest he is flagged for airplane... and can get.. Spirit of Kracken.. Which is an proc based 1500 DD spell that covers the ENTIRE group (and pets too!).. Awesome boost in dps for very, very cheap. Can usually buy auc'd ones for 20-50k and it's like adding low strike augs on your toon.. Also:

Kracken is castable on level ones.. so your next batch of toons (cleric, chain dps, whatever) can be PL'd to 70 in a hurry using shammy hp epic buff + kracken... And its great for RoA as well.. It's so win.

So thats your plate and chain.. with a monk/bst option for leather.. Once again,.. with 2 pallys healing you may really wanna consider beast because form 3.0 on.. that beast pet is screamin' dps. Monk will be lackluster till ice and ninja augs (retail for ninja 5x2 and ice 5x4 is umm.. i dunno like 20 mil...plat... yeah..).

Cloth? Wizards with bards are useless till t3 then they are fun uber nukes.. Wizards without bards are.. friggin useless even with full regen augs and spamming manastone. Now you can add a bard to your group.. but that's a 4th plate toon.. And you'll be out of Qvic by Xmas 2014. Don't do that.

Do this: Pet caster. Necro or mage.

Necro bonus: pet self heals, you can lifetap for added dps.. very self sufficient. good dps when pet is 3.0+. Necros can feign too.. So unlike wizards/mages who get trains of adds run thru them in places like qvic, a necro can always flop on a boss pull and laugh at the dying beastlords and mages and wizards and rangers. Necros can also corpse summon in qvic, the only class that has a version of COH that works in that zone, which is handy for selling qvic rots in serverwide /auc. People pay handsomely for QVIC junk far more than any other type of pre-T5 armor (cept maybe t2 bp, cuz it's the t3 flag... but anything else ya)

Mage: bonus : damage shields (helps early and with RoA / grinding new toons till you get Kracken on shammy)... Call of Hero makes moving toons around worlds easier. .And Selling items in public zones a breeze. A mage will make you major $$$. And 3.0+ their pets are awesome.. And they get a T4 bolt spell that with Sorc 41 nukes for almost 200k.. It's a mini wizard, COH bot, a pet that will laugh at your monk's dps till you're well into T4.... It's a solid win.

So your power squad would be War/Pal/Pal/Bst/Mage/Shammy

Your alternate choice might be Pal/Pal/Bst/Mage/Necro/Shammy

2nd group is interesting becauseit loses AE aggro, but splits up armor class drop types to 2 plate,2 cloth, 1 chain 1 leather... Which will allow you to get thru tacvi/qvic a lot faster. Power squad can easily be Necro instead of Shammy.

Your IWantToLiveInQvicForMonths group is War/Pal/Pal/Bard/Wiz/Wiz.. which would be hilarious fun (and different from most typical box setups) but you'd lose shammy versatility and be looking for *4* sets of plate armor. But once your wizards got t3 spells going.. You could charge admission to your dps show.

Pet casters are king until T5.. and by the time you near that they will have given you the cash and power to roll the toons you want specifically for final stages of advancement..

Feel free to message me in game on bonzi or ponzi if you have any more questions.. I'm more partial to pet casters and shammys than most. .But for someone starting out from scratch and able to box many.. I just see 0 f*cking point in wasting group slots on monks and rangers and rogues and stuff when they are horrid dps, die constantly, and wont help you until you are able to blow 10mil plus per toon in augs, which you'll be able to do faster.. if you wait till you have immense power with pet casters and shammys and pallys and such... and even then you'll want to firestrike your paladins *since they will always, always, be logged in no matter the scenario*.

and no matter what anyone says.. it's like 200k for a 4.0 completed book.. and that gives a pet caster a redic dps advantage over any non-warrior dps class.. until that melee class has blown millions upon millions to craft dps augments. Which you'll never have the money for unless you got a mage COH available when you are selling looting rights in the first place. And those pet casters are going to allow you to curbstomp HOH avatars and T3/T4 airplane bosses etc... it's just win win.

I've rambled enough. holler if you have any questions.

For my setup, I went with a single pally, a cleric, a rogue, beastlord, necro, and a mage. When I first started here, I supremely undervalued pet classes, and Im a thousand percent glad I was "shown the light" as to how amazing they can be. Pet classes, *especially* necros, are cheap (no augs required) and fairly easy to play in a 6 boxing configuration. Yes, they become outdated as you move into t5 due to heavy rampages, but by that time, Ill be pretty well set on gear, augs, and whatnot, and burning a rogue, warrior, and monk up wont be an issue. (As a sidenote, my necro 4.0 pet actually solo'd shadow in about twelve minutes the night before last, netting me my first personal kill of the slippery thing).

The armoring in my setup helped in the respect that I wasnt having to double up on class gear (some of it is hard enough to get as it is.) If you absolutely want another hybrid as an offtank, Id reccomend using an SK as your MT, and pally as the off to help you gear out quicker.

As for wizards, the amount of damage theyre able to put out with the right gear and charm just makes baby jesus cry. Something of note though, they chew through mana like three emaciated hobo's goin after a half a ham sandwich. So be prepared to have to feed them mana constantly.

As for aoe damage and whatnot for adds, thats really not something I would worry about. Zerkers are kinda meh later on, and end up being shelved as an RoA leveling character, as theyre squishy as shit. From what Ive seen, nothing up to t5 really warrents a need for an ae specific dps, and youre better off just dropping a necro pet on adds and letting it chew through them.

Just saw the "all suggestiins except pet classes thing." Im suggesting it anyway. Without them, youre going to struggle gearing yourself early on unless you have a decently thick wallet, or friends in high places to hold your hand for a few weeks until you get set. Ride the pet class gravy train untik youre self sufficient and have a few sets of weapon augs under your belt, then start cranking out your melee classes (rogue, warrior, bard, monk).

This is by no means a "do this or fail" post, Im just attempting to pass down what Ive had to learn the hard way, and Ive still got a ton to learn Im sure. In the end, play what you enjoy, but I hope youll take the above information into consideration.

Bonzi types faster than me on my little android phone :(

Hes the one who has helped me learn a fair chunk of the post above, and pretty much dragged my ass to the char selecr screen to push in some pet classes, and bench the characters that were slowing me down till I could afford to actually set them up correctly.

Dude knows what hes talking about. Trust me.

I only ready up till I saw "the only class that has a version of coh that works in qvic"...

Wall of text is ok if it's good, valid information.

2 Pallies is great, but not with one as main tank.  If he gets stunned, half your healing goes.  I would make an SK or War for your tank, plus two pallies.  With those 3 toons you can kill almost anything on the server, it just takes time...

From there, add 3 DPS toons of your choosing.  Pet classes are great early on, because the pets add more dps than a plain old melee toon.  Melee dps is superior later on because of charms and augs.

P.S.  SK have summon corpse as well :)

What he said.  ;D

I run a mainly plate crew: SK / PAL / WAR / CLR / BST / PAL (SHM buffer trailing).  I didn't have to spend forever in qvic to plate up because I developed the crew one at a time.  I originally started playing Moggok in the misunderstood belief that FM needed a shaman and I like the class.  Realizing the buffbot status of Shaman here and seeing how the dice roll, I moved to a functional tank.  I went SK over pally as main because I could see sk's work better early but could not see how good pallys are in the top game.  Having played EQ since release I understand the power of a druid for a leveling toon so I ran one up to 70 for a support toon.

Using the shaman/druid combo I grew Skeezy to T4 and mostly done with his UC before rolling a pally, then rolling a cleric, then rolling a warrior, then the beastlord, and now the second paladin.  I am considering rolling a 2nd warrior to replace the beast if his darn pet doesn't stay alive with 2 pallys and a cleric blessing it!!!  As I finish gearing up the team through RoA / AQ / T5 and getting the proper HP on everyone I will migrate the main tank role to the warrior leaving the SK as puller and first OT.

I would suggest, whatever team composition you decide upon, that you consider building the team by building your main to T4 / UC level first, then adding crew.  The process is much faster imo.

Skeezy Ratty Troll

Totally what Brokyn said - I'm also a fan of not having to do things all over again (now) and not worrying about leveling up two different groups.

My setup:

Starter toon - the PAL - with RoA 50 and Kaldars - I can 1 group (solo heal) Shadow.

Add on toons - beast, monk, rogue, zerker, wiz

Melee dps with a nuker - yeah they are expensive to aug but they do easy set and forget dps.

I've now dropped with wiz and added a real main tank - SK.

That is effectively two healers for the tank as the SK's taps and procs work nicely as does the PAL's. The SK is much better DPS than the PAL. its only 2 plate wearing classes to gear - which is sweet. Once I start dropping T3 bosses (or I buy it) - the T3 spells for the SK will make charm farming and PL a breeze (AoE taps/nukes - whatever that darn thing is).

So basically, 2x plate, 2x chain, 2x leather.

IF I were to make a change, I may drop the zerker for a mage but I love BIG AXES :)

Lol you talk about grinding out a UC like it's nothin.  It's the most mentally taxing thing in a game ever.  Sooooo monotonous, especially for my first.  I cringe at the thought of logging in anymore.  Sucks because you literally need a UC'd pally/cleric to advance beyond T4.  Maybe i'm just lazy?

Ain't got UC's, ain't got RoA... but...

WAR+Pal+Pal is IMHO the best starter group. Yes, 3 plates a paint to equip in Qvic, Tacvi or PoD... BUT War does get free AE augs and with these 3 you can go very far in game.

My current box is War+Pal+Pal+Monk+Rogue+Zerk

Rogue, Zerk and Monk get awesome DPS later on. War gets big HP and free AE damage and hate augs and pallies are low DPS+ heals.

If you want to spend more time in Qvic and PoD.. fit an SK into the box for summons....

I agree with your assessment of UC Barrett, but it is standard and required equipment now days.

SK as MT is making more sense to me by the day.  I use PAL as MT currently along with SK, 2nd Pal, Mnk, Cleric and 3rd Pal for T5.  Only the cleric doesn't have a UC and the monk gets by with NS-Vx2.  I also drag long Shm and Enc for buffs on deaths, and Kraken.

Ponzi's post seems to cover it very well.  Xiggie had a great one not long ago as well.  

The only thing I will add is.... Starting with Pal and SK (hand his pet a Pal 1.0 epic, and keep a few in the bag) is wise as well.  One thing that I recommend to my guild mates as well is to create and level (to T1/2) as many toons as you think you "might" want before you enter T2.  I stopped there with my two and created my army just to avoid all the rot I was seeing in T2.

lol f*ck anyone who wants to discount my *wall of text* because i forgot SKs could summon corpse in qvic.

I never even once bothered to COH anybody in qvic on my necros, and hell neither even went and got the coffins from PoK --- they *still* can't. Was just adding in random pluses the necro class could do. /shrug. SKs can only summon corpse in the first place because they are half necro, so nyah!

As for everyone worried about a paladin being stunned while tanking and losing 1/2 your group healing... Last i heard SKs get stunned to, and aren't even healing the group to begin with. Unless you are going to say you only roll Ogre and Frontal-Stun works.. Which i won't buy from Skeezy if thats what is being sold =P. Or you are advocating the SK/PAL/CLR trifecta.. Which is absolutely terrible DPS to grind your way to T3+ with. Especially if you are refusing to use pet casters. If you want SK/Pal/Pal, thats just an amazing amount of Firestrike Augs later on and very little dps out of the gate as well. If anything, telling him to go SK/PAL/PAL almost forces him *into* using pet casters so things actually die ;). The real bonus with SK/PAL/PAL would be you'd keep all 3 in your group forever, which definitely has merit.

SK has it's major perks. AE dmg is essential for charm farming, their self taps dwarf pally heals for tanking, and they can hold aggro amazingly (i'll admit i actually have to pay attention since my monk got fully aug VI'd to keep aggro off the monk from sheer dps when pally is tanking).

But the dude simply wants to know the path of least resistance. If the box he was looking at was going to get the job done. The simple response is, of course, no it won't. And we all know that. If he wants max defense up front (which pretty much all of us are advocating.. With max defense (SK/PAL/PAL/SHM) or (WAR/PAL/PAL/SHM) that leaves 2 slots that need to bring a serious dps wallop.. and that's only going to come from necros and mages and beastlords..

For a first timer, passing up the *free* warrior anger augs for dps is just silly.  The only reason to pass this up would be to go pet caster heavy (the other for of *free* heavy dps), which from his original post doesn't seem to be his M.O.

For a first timer, a cleric just isnt going to add much. Even toward end game, you're always going to UC your SKs and PALs and MNKs and RNGRs first anyways and the cleric oracles (since they farm charms like old people fornicate - slowly and sloppily without a helping hand) are always going to be put off till last.. there just isnt much reason to waste a slot on a 0 dps class like cleric early on in game.. They don't even add group HPs as well as a shammy does. And their healing requires attention and doesnt bring much more than having a SK tank tap, or a second pally constantly proc'n heals.

You simply don't need a cleric till MCP/T5, and you'll be better off in your early, middle, late stages + PLing additions to the roster with a shammy already pre-made and spell'd up. And the shammy requires 0 charms, another bnnus. And since you'll be charming up a cleric later on (lower priority) starting the cleric late doesnt hurt anything. And he can go thru qvic + such along with that monk or rogue or ranger or wizard you are bringing late to the party, which speeds the process along (yet again) by splitting needed armor drops.

For a first timer, you simply can't pass up the closest thing to cheating out there - shaman. The HP epic buffs basically add an extra tier's worth of armor to your box.... once they get Kracken they basically give your crew their first taste of what dps is.. Yeah that's not until T3, but they are still more helpful until T3 than a cleric (and wear chain, did i mention they wear chain? that it's the only possible use someone who isn't sniffing glue has for a chain class until they have 10mil in the bank? the chain armor that rots so much in qvic and tacvi i was done (on both shammys) with full qvic armor by the time my public qvic token run was complete with the final dash to the caves only killing maybe 5 bosses on my own each time?)

Claiming gearing up a full plate team isn't bad if you do it one at a time is like saying mopping a warehouse floor 6x over isn't so bad if you mix in a smoke break between each full pass. Your mopping a floor 3-6x as much as you need to and are delusional if you think otherwise. You'll definitely need a good 4+ plate classes before it's all said and done, but you sure as $#!t (as Skeezy pointed out) ain't UCing and DPS aug'n all four of them at the same time. You go that route you'll end up that guy in qvic who can't kill anything /shouting 'Any Plate Rotting? Lulz' till you give up on life in general.

You need 2 things on this server: a strong frontcourt of tanks to survive encounters... and heavy artillery in the backcourt to 'make things die quickl' (tm) ...

the only way to 'make things die quick' (tm) is pet casters, warriors PoD+ (yay anger aug candyland!) or Firestrike/Ninjastrike/Icestrike Augments. The former costs 200k for an eventual 4.0 book, the middle is free99, and the latter requires an obscene amount of plat, also known as : something you won't have cuz you stubbornly chose life on EZ Server without COTH.

/wall of text off.

So what you're trying to say is that he should go with 3 druids and 3 chanters? ULTIMATE PWNGE

SWEET IM SET!!!

Ok heres my go at it. (Wall of text, Wall of text, Wall of text) SK,Pal, Pal,Wiz,Wiz and a un named unpicked class as of this writing but im leaning real hard on the bard thing. Thanks for your tolerance on my ineptitude.

The really short answer is pick what you think you would have fun playing.  If you pick wrong you can always make a new toon later, it's not that big a deal.

That's the whole point...  Yes, your tank will get stunned...  But if you are relying on that tank to heal your group, when they get stunned the healing stops and your pets die...  If you have an SK or War tanking the Pallies keep healing even when the tank gets stunned...

You need to read more, and type less :P

Dont discount zerkers, my zerker is last to get FSV's but that weapon proc is pretty nice even without augs.