Hi just looking for some feedback from anyone on the third party for my trio. I'm starting from scratch with a druid and enchanter and planning to add a beastlord or mage as the third. I like the mage because they are lazy dps with the pet and throwing nukes out; I have never played a beastlord but understand they are good dps? Anyone know who would do more dps, a mage with pet and nukes or the beastlord meleeing with the pet? Also my strategy in the past for xp was to fear kite which is pretty efficient, safe and easy = snare and dot with the druid, fear/dot with the enchanter and send pet in/nuke with the mage. Works pretty slick. Going with the beastlord would be a little more active if I was counting their melee as part of the dps.
BSTs provide better buffs and a puller/tank if you want to do dungeons. MAG will provide better pets for kiting and malo if you charm. Im sure either option will work out. I prefer to have a melee in a trio that can take a couple hits, but they definitely require more attention than a MAG. GL!
A BL will be able to take a lot more heat than your casters can, especially XPing in a trio. A mage pet isn't going to tank very far into the 50's, and certainly not in PoP. As for DPS, probably a wash against a mage. But the added benefits more than make up for it, imo.
I’d go beast also, synergy with druid is so good. Can keep mobs attention on breaks when resnaring and charming pet.
BST is the better choice for maximizing content. But if you fully intend on only kiting, mage is superior. Also, don't fear kite. Just aggro kite, a lot more controllable. Chanter kites, and deals with a charm - spam the cheapest tash. Druid keeps snare on everything, mage sits pretty.
The high end option, magician is superior simply due to Malosinia helping make charming more reliable on your chanter and access the summoned stuff easily. Beastlord is a more well rounded option and allows for a more typical game trio experience where you have one class tank, one class heal and one class DPS/support.
Thanks for all the helpful feedback. Sounds like there's pros and cons to both but beastlord seems a little a head for overall utility. I am no closer to making my decision =/
Having been a magician fan since my very first EQ character, and not being a huge beastlord fan, because they were the new fad back then, and now on this server finally levelling one for the first time, side-by-side with a mage - I am certainly surprised at how "easy" beastlords have it. Cheaper spells all through the lower levels, that hardly ever fizzle compared to the same level magician. With low casting skills on both classes, I'd fizzle entire bars of mana regularly (spent an entire play session one day just trying to summon a pet, which finally made me spend a day just working on skills) on the mage, while the beastlord gets up and running no problem with his pet. A mage will take some more time investment to raise casting skills, especially if it's your 3rd toon. Comparable pet, with a hefty proc that is superpowered at lower levels (watch the mob's health bar drop by a nice chunk every time it goes off until you get to the 40's or so). And the beastlord's pet healing spells are vastly superior to the mage, healing more hit points - and built-in disease cure after a certain point. If you're shooting for end-game, and considering how quickly you can level here, this may all be trivial. But, if you're going to be levelling for a while, it might be relevant.
They're both good choices, honestly. X/DRU/ENC will be strong regardless. IMO, just pick whichever seems most fun to you right now and start killin' stuff. If you change your mind later, the DRU/ENC can easily powerlevel another toon.
IMO don't do BL. I'm cler/enc/BL, so close to what you have - and I was in same situation years ago. Ultimately picked BL for SoW, but you have a druid. Since you have ench, we all know that's for charming. So what does a BL do for charming, nothing - he'll be your tank (or the pet is until you're geared). But thats the problem, until gear + aa's the BL is a terrible tank. My BL spent most of his time 1-50 standing on the side as I sent pet in. Because the pet was a better tank (for when charm break happen, the mob i was fighting would turn to BL pet). Additionally, dealing with a melee character AND a charm pet just sucks the fun out of the game. What darchon said is right, go mage for malo and a way more chill experience. But on the opposite end if you don't want to charm then with druid/ench/mage you're pretty limited to snare kiting (but honestly in our era, snare kiting is amazing). Furthermore BL takes like 15 fuken buffs all on 30min timer - horribly unfun lol.
I think it boils down to: - magician, if you are going to charm - beastlord otherwise BL at some point is going to be a decent tank, after you invest some around 150 AA's and some decent gear. Although, plate tanks are of course better. Charmed pet is stronger, deadlier tank at highest levels. In a long run, you will end up having both and many, many more p.s. and stop dwelling over it and start playing hi-hi
All good feedback again, think I'm going to hold off on making a melee until I get a couple characters at least to higher levels for power leveling and to help them out with gear. I think the indecisiveness mainly comes from the reality that I don't have the time to level up one of every class so want to have a good plan from the start, kinda like preparing for college =)
There is one trio, that can easy carry you all the way into 65 and you can get few 100 AA's too and with no investments into armor. And in the end you will even end up with a decent tank. Ignoring the most powerful trio, charming with enchanter. You didn't specify if you will charm. BST-DRU-MAG - for aggro/snare kitting. You have two strong pets, that hammers mob, which snared is chasing fast druid. You need 0 armor investment all the way into 65. For first 40-50 levels it doesn't matter how, where you will play with this trio, since with two strong pets, druid healing, magician nukes and utilities, you can go after everything. After 50 it is, where it starts getting harder. Luclin mobs hits hard. PoP mobs even harder. Actually, they are murderers! That is where aggro-kitting comes in. I aggro kitted from 50 to 61? (I think) in PoNightmare. It is super easy, mobs hold aggro at very long distances, so druid can run ahead and wait for them. And while waiting, you have time to heal yourself if it was bad pull and you got hit. You kite near graveyard/zone line. Just stay on the wall and pull one at a time and run them up and down the wall. If you pull two by mistake, just zone out and mob wil not go after the ones on a wall. Since aggro holding distance is so good, later I started to kite two and sometimes even three at a times. Not deliberately three, but often didn't need to zone out, after a bad pull, since it is so easy to kite there. Sometime around 61 maybe 62? can't recall, I paid 9k to get my trio into Storms/Valor. There you can same way agrro-kite frogs Loroks in the forest area of PoStorms or Fiends in PoValor. Storms has better xp but you are limited to 7 frogs. Valor some less xp but more mobs. You can this way easy get to 65 and get your first 150AA's. Well or more AA's, up to you. Once your BST gest first 150 AA's can start tank. With some gear of course. But while you aggro-kite you don't need any gear. If it doesn't get too boring to you, you could get this way all your AA's without the need for any gear. The only thing is, those murderous Loroks did caught me many times, (but I'm bad clumsy player) so I leveled up cleric and get him access to the zone, to be able to rez. But this is best XP zone in the game, you will soon recover XP anyway. Also playing this way, there is no need for constant spell switching which is so very important for this lazy player. Druid needs buffs, sow, snare, occasional heal and flame lick. After snare, all you do is casting on mob few times flame lick which generates aggro and enough damage to get XP. For a while I was casting DOT, but pets do so much more damage, I soon stopped to cast it. (well I got tip from experienced player, I didn't figure it out on my own ) Especially after magicians lvl 62 pet, Servant of Marr, https://lucy.alkabor.com/spell_3320.html https://www.takproject.net/allaclone/npc.php?id=612 that is rogue and backstabs. You always want to use that one for aggro-snare-kitting. You can also play this same way in Tactic (kitting in a safe room) and in HoHa near the zone line. So plenty of places for kitting. I think BST-DRU-MAG is the best starting trio, that can carry you all the way into 65 and AA's if you don't plan to charm. Then you can harvest plat for some other characters if you wish, like plate tank, etc... Unless you plan to charm, then charmed pet will be the best tank you can get.
Since I have a wizard (well, a low level wizard) I will be using the Beastlord as a pet class at some point in the future. Vah Shir or Iksar are the two races I am wrestling with mainly due to the Iksar penalty. I don't have an Iksar yet so it could possibly be an Iksar but I won't be using a Beastlord until I get my main trio (Rogue / Shaman / Wizard) into their 50's. My next trio will be a Cleric / Ranger / Beastlord ... Most likely a Beastlord or I may create a Shadow Knight. I thought of a Paladin but since I'll be using my Cleric, they are too similar in my opinion aside from the tanking part.
