Edit: I noticed this has unintentionally become quite the wall of text. TLDR at the bottom

Hi Uthgard,
Me and a few friends of mine (3, to be precise) are going to give DAoC another shot when Uthgard 2.0 finally goes live. Two of these are complete newbies while the third one is a releaseday-vet like me.

I showed the newbs the various different classes and what they can do, they settled on playing a RM and a BD. Now I am pondering what classes would compliment these choices in both RvR and PvE. We're primarily looking for something to do generic RvR with (Small man roaming, Keep fights, zerging, occassional 8vsX), but the setup is also required to be somewhat decent at grinding our way to 50 together. My times of looking for competetive 8vs8 are over (for now).

My thoughts so far are:

Slot 3 (Veteran friend, somewhat experienced at playing CC and healing classes like healers and bards)
Either Pac Healer (Mezz/Stun, heals, basebuffs) or Spiritmaster (Mezz, Nuke, cross debuffing with RC RM)

Slot 4 (Me, somewhat experienced at playing peel tanks)
Either Thane (Peel/Guard botting, rupt, assist nuke, pet clear) or Shaman (Buffs, Rupt, Root, Disease)

I have also contemplated going warrior instead of thane (easier to template, most likely better in 8vsX) for more consistent peels (aka not being CC'd half the fight), but I guess it wouldn't be very fun in sieges or zerging, which will (lets be honest) be the bread and butter for more casually oriented players like us (And frankly, I personally prefer objective-centered RvR over open field 8v8 PvP). We could also ditch the tank altogether and just go shammy instead, but I fear it wouldn't work out very well in the PvE part of the game while also making us more vulnerable to stealther teams, especially archers. We could probably also run a skald in the last slot (another one of my favourite classes to play), but we already have a RM for (caster) speed and considering how little a skald seems to bring to a group besides that, it might not be the best option either. As you can probably tell, I'm somewhat biased towards the Thane/Healer setup (with healer/shaman as a close second), but I'm still looking for advice from you slightly more experienced players out there.

I'd appreciate any feedback!
/bow

Oh, and if any of you know of a good spec for any of the classes mentioned (or one you are suggesting), I'd appreciate that, too. Right now, I'd go 50 Shield, 48 SC, 32 Hammer on a Thane, 50 Shield, 50 Hammer, 27 Parry on a Warrior and 38 Aug, 37 Sub, 9 Mend on a Shaman.

Side note - there is also the option to go hib, but I'd have to build a group around an animist and a valewalker, which seems, you know, kind of hard. If you have any idea how to make this work (without adding more animists), let me know. The best I can do is VW, Animist, Bard, Eld.

TLDR: What 4 man setup including a RM and a BD is best for mainly small man RvR plus a bit of everything else (leveling, 8vsX, siege, zerging)? Spec suggestions welcome, too.

I hope both the BD and the RM are darkness else it doesnt make a lot of sense as a mage duo.
Dark SM + dark (or runecarving) RM would be better, dark SM can AOE mezz.
You shouldnt have big problems against archers with nearsight (even if only green).

Personally i would fill with shamman and skald, because speed 6 means you can chose when to fight and when to flee, and because spec buffs.

RM, SM, shamman and skald would work well. You get speed 6, buffs, nearsight, disease, mezzes&roots and good damage.
RM, SM, shamman and BD could also work, runie speed + permasprint isnt too bad to roam but you will always get caught by FGs.

The BD in my opinion is out of place even in a smallmen. No utility and no CC.

32 hammer 50 shield? Thane's weaponskill is already low enough. I would go 48 SC 42 shield 42 weapon.

This is not quite what you had in mind, but imho you should roll smth like:

Healer (pac or trispec)
Shaman
Warrior
RM

You have all the basics covered for building groups for pve and rvr. Roaming smallman without healer/proper cc will make you easy rps. Utilitywise you have instaheals, instamez, ae mez, root, disease, slam and castable stun, ns. Add to that nice peakdamage and you can take down amg filled with steatlhers easily :p

If you really think you spend most of ur time at keeps I guess u could roll a thane instead of a warrior, but I wouldn't

The BD in my opinion is out of place even in a smallmen. No utility and no CC.

I agree. Sadly, the player is kind of hellbent on playing "whatever she likes best, no matter the balancing", which, as impractical as it is, is an attitude I can somewhat sympathize with. She would play an animist in hib or a necromancer in alb, so here I am pushing for her to play a BD...

I hope both the BD and the RM are darkness else it doesnt make a lot of sense as a mage duo.

Wouldn't a split spec RM go well with a dark BD too? The cold debuff seems kind of nasty, although on the other hand, albs will run without casted cold resist anyways.

RM, SM, shamman and BD could also work

I like this idea. I can see it work decently in PvE, too, we could use a focus shielded, fullbuffed pet until 40 or even longer, depending on how much single respecs are when we hit the 40-50 area. I'm however concerned about stealther groups - when running without a healer, I feel like we could have a hard time reacting to an alpha strike. I have little experience running a small group without a healer, so please share your thoughts.

You also have a fair point on how speed 6 would always leave us with the choice of fleeing vs engaging. This will however depend whether I can convince the BD player to roll something actually useful. On a side note - are albs really going to run with a minstrel regularily? I'll have to do some spying on the alb forums.

32 hammer 50 shield? Thane's weaponskill is already low enough. I would go 48 SC 42 shield 42 weapon.

I was initially going to disagree with this since I have peeled on a warden with 25 (IIRC) blades with some success (savages were rough, but we won't face any of these obviously). However, that was after NF came out, so the light tanks I faced didn't have dodger. Is dodger the game changer I think it is? If so, I'd definitely follow your advice and run 42 shield in favour of more WS (be it through 48 SC 42 hammer or 50 SC 39 hammer). My initial case for 50 shield was, as a peeler/nuker, my melee damage wouldn't matter as much as my ability to guard, while WS is mostly inconsequential while attacking from behind, which more often than not should be the case when peeling for a running support.

Healer (pac or trispec)
Shaman
Warrior
RM

I absolutely get you, I agree this would be the superior setup. However, I don't see myself having this option, sadly, since two of my players are pretty much fixated on playing casters, one of these a BD specifically. I can see how having 2 casters in a group of 4 is less than optimal, but I have to work with what I get. In case I can get my newbie friends to play something else, I will revise this setup, it seems close to ideal for a group our size.

Roaming smallman without healer/proper cc will make you easy rps.

As much as I like the idea of running a SM instead, I feel this is true. However, as I said, I never really tried it, so I have to take an educated guess (and more experienced players' advices) on that one.

Thanks for your responses, they've been very helpful already!

Garlak wrote:Wouldn't a split spec RM go well with a dark BD too? The cold debuff seems kind of nasty, although on the other hand, albs will run without casted cold resist anyways.

As you said Albs run with no cold res and on top of that Dark RM can debuff cold with a DD, even if only by 10%.
Runecarving isnt bad anyway, the 50% debuff is really strong, bolts are nice to have, but you will miss the strong dmg add (mid tanks really love it).

Garlak wrote: I'm however concerned about stealther groups - when running without a healer, I feel like we could have a hard time reacting to an alpha strike.

Well this is situational you should never stop in a position that leaves you vulnerable to a stealth group (dont camp the wall), anyway if your Dark SM knows how to play, he is going to eat stealthers for breakfast (quickcast pbaoe mezz and gg).
Use either Dark SM or shamman as a bait and hunt them rather than being hunted. If the bait dies just rez (both sham and dark sm can rez).

Garlak wrote:My initial case for 50 shield was, as a peeler/nuker, my melee damage wouldn't matter as much as my ability to guard, while WS is mostly inconsequential while attacking from behind, which more often than not should be the case when peeling for a running support.

I would agree if you played the peeler role in a 8men 100% of your playtime (you wouldnt anyway, because warrior does it better).
If you're the only meleer in the (small) group you will find yourself peeling, casting or pushing on enemy casters depending on the situation... every inc is different while running a smallman (its what makes it fun) so i wouldnt gimp my damage to be a better peeler.
Often you will not need to peel simply because almost nobody is rolling tanks on Alb.
Most Alb pugs are running a minstrel. Not sure about 8men.

Garlak wrote:I agree. Sadly, the player is kind of hellbent on playing "whatever she likes best, no matter the balancing", which, as impractical as it is, is an attitude I can somewhat sympathize with. She would play an animist in hib or a necromancer in alb, so here I am pushing for her to play a BD...

Then convince him he likes Darkness because the DD/snare is a pain in the ass if you are on the receiving end, and because the debuffer pet is really good (debuffs 15% cold).

I would agree if you played the peeler role in a 8men 100% of your playtime (you wouldnt anyway, because warrior does it better).
If you're the only meleer in the (small) group you will find yourself peeling, casting or pushing on enemy casters depending on the situation... every inc is different while running a smallman (its what makes it fun) so i wouldnt gimp my damage to be a better peeler.
Often you will not need to peel simply because almost nobody is rolling tanks on Alb.

I'm getting the feeling I had underestimated the importance of being able to pressure vs pure caster groups when I'm interrupted or nearsighted, so yeah, you have a good point there. When not interrupted/NS'd, I'd still rather nuke so I can rupt and assist without having to leave my support open and vulnerable (vs theurg pets, tanks etc), which is the only real advantage a thane has over a warrior, but still, In case I go thane, spec will be either 50 SC, 42 shield, 39 hammer or 48/42/42.

It might be that I can convince the bonedancer player to play a shaman instead. If that was the case, Sham, Pac Healer, RM plus either SM, Thane, Warrior or Skald sound all pretty workable to me. Warrior would probably the best of these, but also my least favourite to play in everything but (arguably) small scale open field RvR. I'm still not too keen on running without a healer, but it might be an option if, as you said, we had a SM (which I am probably halfway decent with and would personally love playing). I will look at that depending on whether the BD player could see herself playing a shaman or not.

Dark SM is superfun to play (my fav char by far), just keep in mind that your mezz is going to last 5 seconds on a det tank its still a good tool to make someone waste purge and become vulnerable to roots.