The Hidden Forest

Hello,

Relatively new around here, stumbled upon the server and well as many I stayed for and tested some stuff

I was wondering if I could get some pointers on what a good group setup could be and how far one could get playing "casualy". I can manage boxing up to a full group (2 of those beeing buff/debuff bots really) as i recall it from back in the days "of old" ^^.

Right now I leveled a SK and Cleric to 57/58 and looking for add some utility/dps and looking for the best fit to be able to kill some stuff, progress some after hiting 70. Suggestions are welcome.
Asside from ranger and Wiz, i got the others classes through Crushbone if that help to make a pick.

Playing mostly on evening (8pm- 1am GMT+1 ) and weekends for not so long sessions for now, I mostly solo. Thus the boxed group.
If anyone not so far from GMT is up for grouping, let me know ^^

Hiya,

I can suggest some group builds from my experience, varying to your preference of play style. This is assuming you keep the SK+Cleric that you already have leveled up:

(1) Magical DPS-heavy
[SK]
[Cleric]
[Bard]
[Enchanter]
[Mage/Wiz]
[Necro/Wiz]

(2) Phys DPS-heavy
[SK]
[Cleric]
[Bard]
[Rogue]
[Rogue]
[Bst]

(3) Conservative Magical DPS
[SK]
[Cleric]
[Bard]
[Shaman]
[Mage/Wiz]
[Necro/Wiz]

(4) Conservative Phys DPS
[SK]
[Cleric]
[Bard]
[Shaman]
[Rogue]
[Rogue]

(5) Jack-of-All-Trades Group
[SK]
[Cleric]
[Bard]
[Shaman]
[Mage/Necro/Wiz]
[Rogue]

You've got your foundation (tank/cleric) already. Where you go from there is basically wherever you want. Class balance here is pretty good. However, there are a few classes which are not as strong as other without donor gear.

Rangers, for instance, aren't very DPS heavy without a few items under their belt (and even after...). Rogues are decent DPS until end tiers, at which point you pretty much *need* donor augs for backstab damage. Wizards are plagued with a few issues. They do nice damage, but that damage is dependent on debuffs from enchanters+druids, plus buffs from bard. Also, your mana regen is going to be a huge issue until T8, and there's always the "BOOM aggro" issue that almost all wizards face. Necromancer/Mage used to be the KING of dps until T8 due to the tradeable t8 pets, but after they got retuned I'm not sure how well they do. They are, however, still decent DPS. Beastlord pet was immune to the changes they recently made to pets, so you can still buy the T8 pet in the bazaar and have it wreck things in lower tiers.

Since you're going to be boxing a full group, bard is a great idea. Their songs are GREAT for boosting group's DPS, and they are great pullers (required in some cases...). Also, a shaman may be welcome as well. They have pretty darn good group buffs, and they are pretty good at patch heals as well. Your tank is going to have trouble staying alive with just 1 healer (cleric) against tough bosses in each tier. Adding the shaman will increase his survivability with heals/debuffs (there ARE a few bosses that are fully slowable) while also adding something to dps (buffs).

Personally, I like the idea of:

SK
Cleric
Bard
Beast
Shaman
Rogue


Edit: Forgot to answer how far you can get Boxing a full group, you can get pretty high into the raid tiers, especially if you get a donor item or two. For instance: in PoFear (T6) there are several bosses that do periodic death touches. Unless you have multiple tanks, you're going to NEED a decent Divine Intervention buff (donor Ares shield has a 90% chance DI) to mitigate the DT. You can probably get by on chance with the lower end DI (25ish % by that point?) but you're playing Russian roulette, and you're going to need a lot of DPS to prevent that trigger getting pulled against your head too many times.

For progression you're going to face many difficult battles throughout each tier. Some of them:

T1: Emp Srra. Not only is keying *EVERY* toon up to his room a hassle, but the fight itself requires either some very nifty timing/strategy, multiple tanks, or a toon that is geared beyond the zone. Luckily, T1 is an open zone meaning it's not restricted to your guild only, which means getting someone to help you with Emp fight is as easy as an /ooc "I need help with something..."

T2: Vulak. By the time you get to this end-zone dragon you've already learned how to deal with massive AE dots, debuffs, and major damage on the tank. This fight will pretty much boil down to managing these things on a larger scale against a boss with much more HP than the previous dragons you've faced.

T3: Kerafyrm. Similar to Vulak, you're not facing any tactics you haven't already faced, except for the AE debuffs which will easily strip everyone in LoS. You're just doing it on a much larger scale. The main difficulty with the sleeper is his HP. The fight will take you forever to do, and as with all extended fights it REALLY becomes a gear check and your ability to sustain.

T4: Open zone. Most people simply skip it, but if you're going at it alone you're going to want to clear it at least once. The new thing about this zone is the requirement to tradeskill for the armor. This armor will really help you in t5, but there are other armors that I won't get into that you can obtain elsewhere which will help you in t5.

T5: Avatars, then Xegony. You must kill the avatars to reach Xegony which is the end of t5, and let me tell you something about the avatars. They. Hurt. They hit much harder than Xeg does. These are the ultimate gear check for your tank. If he doesn't have enough AC, you lose. You will need to fully focus your attention on your tanks gear in order to survive to Xegony, which is more of a sustained fight (wont go into details.)

After this, the fights start getting pretty intuitive and I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, so I won't describe bottlenecks But rest assured, if you're going at it with one group, you CAN experience all of the above and much more. But you're going to be spending a LOT of time gearing each toon to the MAXIMUM possibility of each tier in order to progress to the next.

My suggestion is find a new, low-tiered guild (there aren't many, you may have to make one and invite like-minded people) and progress thusly. You'll have a ton of fun

There is some sound advice above so I'll only add that I think a good approach would be to avoid doubling up on classes (ie two rogues) because this server is extremely well-tended and updates happen frequently. This means class balancing can and will occur. So flavour of the month dps can change.

One rogue is, in my opinion, essential. Chaotic sneak let's you access a lot of areas without needing to clear tons of trash. I'd recommend getting your rogue a coh click ASAP. The quickest way of doing this is via the donation item, Arion, the skull of the ancients. After that, there's the Orb of the Crimson Bull from tier 2 raid.

Berserker dps is excellent if you donate (I'd recommend you get the donator weapon for your tank and 2 dps as a minimum. It'll make life a lot easier and more fun). If you can't donate, that's fine. It's not essential. I'd opt for a mage, in that case.

Once your core group is at T3 plus, I'd spend some time leveling up alternative toons, including utility (druid 2.0 click is such a boost, for example, on boss fights) as well as dps. ThIs will enable you to be adaptive to multiple scenarios, as well as allow you to adapt to class balancing.

There's an excellent guide here that gives you a road map from level 1 to t6 (it's tailored to you, actually) and finally, above all else, ask for help when you need. There are lots of players here who love to help!

You have lots of fun ahead of you welcome to the server.

Thanks all for the replies, much appreciated.

So based on this informations I'm thinking maybe start with Sk/ cleric / mage /shaman / bard / (rogue) .
I have a 5xish necro around that will play catch up later on I'm guessing. I'll focus on getting the main group to 70 first, and AA's.

Had a question about monks as I see very few mentions of them: how well can one fit in? Always liked them more than rogues :p.

Ydiss wrote:

There's an excellent guide here that gives you a road map from level 1 to t6 (it's tailored to you, actually) and finally, above all else, ask for help when you need. There are lots of players here who love to help!

You have lots of fun ahead of you welcome to the server.

Found it ~ and it's indeed a nice road map to follow, thanks!

Monks are decent. No where near rogues without donors, but they hold their own and they tank a little better. Monks are a really fun class if you are truly soloing, as they can tank small things pretty well (due to avoidance) and still dish out DPS. They're also decent pullers, but since you're going with a bard in your group...

I envy new players There's SO SO much content to absorb and wade through.

Monks are great DPS. But not as good as rogues. You'd also miss out on chaotic sneak (honestly, if your rogue has a COH item, you will cut down dozens of hours when doing things like the SSRA key quest - it removes the requirement to slaughter tons of trash just to get to the next named spawn point)

That said, if you don't wish to main a rogue, you can always simply have one for that purpose alone and main a monk in its place for any other scenario.

My first character was a monk and I still play him. But my main is my rogue; they're just that useful to have around, so my monk only plays in addition to the rogue. Chaotic sneak works all the way up to T6 (where it works in Tactics, partially in VP and not at all in Fear). It makes boss runs much faster. I couldn't even count the number of hours it's saved us since we began playing.

And with a mage, you can relocate your full group extremely quickly.

It's all up to you, of course. Monks can also be decent go-to characters, with the COH item and FD. But it takes more time and also is prohibited if other players are in your path.

I think your plan is a strong one, even if you don't play the rogue.

Ydiss wrote:.

It's all up to you, of course. Monks can also be decent go-to characters, with the COH item and FD. But it takes more time and also is prohibited if other players are in your path.

I think your plan is a strong one, even if you don't play the rogue.

That can indeed create a mess. Wiser to have a rogue around indeed, can always switch out the caster dps when possible for the monk.

Rude wrote:. They're also decent pullers, but since you're going with a bard in your group...

I envy new players There's SO SO much content to absorb and wade through.

Have more experience pulling with monk than bard really.
Yup, there a LOT to go through


Since the playing a full group thing can and will be hard for a while, making the moving around and killing faster should be the good choice ^_^
Might shrink that group when possible to ease the management.

Stealth is definitely useful When I was going through the tiers, it definitely would have saved me some time. But my SK had the coth orb from ToV as well, and he could FD through zones without much difficulty to coth to my intended targets. Though that 25 mob limit has sent him back to the forest more times than God can count (insert plea to start the mob limit warning at 15 instead of 20 here) I later got my rogue an orb, but it was generally too late to be useful. Also, the issue with a rogue doing it is if you slip up and accidentally aggro a mob that does see through Shroud of Stealth, your only option to fade (outside of a few clickies, the best being donor FD click) is the long cooldown evade AA which is like an hour? I can't recall

I box

Shadow Knight
Cleric
Shaman
Bard
Rogue
Wizard

If you have any questions regarding this set up, shoot me a /tell in game.