I’ve been continuing down a particular path to madness, and yesterday instead of pushing the cleric I opted to get some other characters started. The idea being that maybe at some point soon I can link them all up and run around together. I’ve never played a Berzerker in Everquest 1 in spite of it seeming like a class right down my alley. I did for a bit play one in EQ2 and it was a fairly enjoyable heavily AOE focused melee class. I opted to go with a Vahshir, though in truth I probably should have gone for Dwarf with the idea of making it smallish for when I am running around with a pack of characters following behind me. I knew I absolutely had no interest in having my line of sight blocked by a Troll, Barbarian or Ogre.
Once again I did the same general treatment for leveling. I focused on killing Giant Skeletons from 1-10 while attempting to complete most of a set of the “noobie” armor. After that I transitioned to fungoids in Paladul caverns where I completed a full set of the “Wrath” armor which is the Kunark armor set for the class. When I transitioned to Castle Mistmoore however it also appears to be dropping Wrath, so maybe there was not a Berzerker set for the Velious factions that ever went into the game? From what I can tell the drops are something like this on average:
- Field of Bone Giant Skeletons – Noobie Armor Set
- Paladul Caverns Fungoids/Oasis of Marr Orcs and Crocs – Kunark Armor Set
- Castle Mistmoore – Kael Drakkal Faction Armor Set
- Dulak’s Harbor – Planes of Power Armor Set
I am hoping that once I push up into Dulak’s harbor that a new armor set appears for Berzerkers since there seems to not be one for the Velious chunk of the push. I have no clue why I obsess over collecting a full set before moving on, because the second I get the new set I am tossing out most of the pieces of the old set. I am keeping a handful of the items that have interesting clicky spells on them, even though I probably won’t even need them on a server that isn’t balanced around traditional play of the game.
For the next member of my team I went ahead and stubbed out a Gnome Rogue, thinking that is probably the most innocuous character to be following me around. Rogues do a lot of damage and I think the roombas can be controlled to always stay in the back arc of the target doing that sweet sweet backstab damage. I am mostly focusing on melee damage and at some point I might swap the cleric out for a Paladin, because I hear that for the most part high level Paladins do enough AOE healing to the group to more or less ignore the need of traditional healer role. The funny thing about this is that it feels like I am building a Final Fantasy V party.
Right now I am thinking the group comp is going to look a little something like this:
- Iksar Shadowknight – Main Tank (active character)
- Dwarf Cleric or Paladin – Main Healer/Splash Healer
- Vahshir Berzerker – Melee Dps
- Gnome Rogue – Melee Dps
- Halfling Ranger – Melee Dps and buffs
- High Elf Enchanter – Buffs and High End Pet Damage
The ranged dps classes feel like they would be just too fiddly when controlling them through scripts. Melee on the other hand tends to be “hug the butt” of the monster and spam melee attacks, which seems like a much more viable option. The enchanter supposedly does massive amounts of damage from their pets at high end and there is also haste buffs that are worth having. I probably want to run that up with some other character though because I imagine enchanter is going to be even more annoying to level than the cleric has been so far. The traditional call for tank would have been a Warrior, but quite frankly I enjoy playing a Shadowknight more than a Warrior in Everquest.
Interesting.
I’ve departed P99 for now – and plan to write on that if I can muster the energy – and have started on The Al’Kabor Project, a remake of EQMac/Al’Kabor server. This is a server locked to Planes of Power (though at Shadows of Luclin), maintains an authentic level of difficulty for that server, and enforces 3-boxing limit and no “unfocussed” macroing. That means you can’t do anything on a ‘box’ unless you’re looking or focussed on that box.
It’s fun – I think EZ might be a little too far from the EQ I remember. I recognise the ease at which things can be done given everyone’s time constraints with adulting. But TAKP is enough for me to jump in and out of.
I don’t know super-easy they’ve made the combat but I would have thought you might need either a Shaman or a Beastlord in that line-up for Slow. Although the chanter can slow, too, come to think of it. Shaman or BL buffs would be a lot more useful than Ranger ones, too, I would have thought, although it does depend a lot on what era you’re playing in.
Very interesting series of posts to read, by the way, particularly in contrast with isey’s series on the ultra-authentic P99.
I have to admit, ranger is in there mostly because I love rangers