First, EQ2 is not EQlive. Get this straight now, it will save you some grief later on. They are completely different games.
1) Will EQII offer strategic and creative playing? or will it require alot of rote effort?
Yes and yes.
You can coast through on a few simple routines. Some classes are easier than others in that they require less player skill for the simple solo grinds. Group tactics are still being debated and developed. In EQ, when you think of tactics some of the first things you think of are splitting mobs and CHeal chains. There are many stratigies for pulling all of which rely on some way of minimizing adds. Pacify, Feign death, non-damageing aggro, all of these and more go right out the window. There is no splitting mob groups. Just like players will be solo and in a group, so are the mobs. You aggro one then all his buddies in group come as well no matter where they are.
C-heal chains? Try Sup-heal spam instead. Priest are just as much second line melee as the are healers. Add to this the incredible aggro from heal spells and your priests will be tanking some. Fighters do get several taunt skills that work very well but you can not be sure they will always have one ready for snap use.
Next is the idea of Heroic Opertunities. As a solo player you will quickly learn how to fire off a few of these. In a pickup group you will break many more chains then you finish. If you are with a group of friends you will learn to use these oppertunities frequently for devistating effect.
2) [snip] When characters of various classes get to higher levels will they all still be valuable and powerful players in a group?
From my experience (and this is just MHO) most of the classes and sub-classes are well balanced. The exceptions are:
1- Crusaders are just under warriors and brawlers. They do make the best secondary tank. It's rather odd and hard to explain but any tank is a better tank with a crusader in the group.
2 - In the mid levels (and upper levels I have heard but I do not know first hand) having a second healer is advisible when going for riskier targets. Risky being anything with a better than average loot table. Priests are easy to solo -- or at the very least, no worse than any other class -- and are more than the med-heal-med buffbots of EQlive so you will usually not have a hard time finding a priest (any will do) and often a second as needed. In fact, the some of the best group makeups are 2 priests, 2 tanks and 2 DPS. This leads to exception ...
2a - There are 4 archetypes and 3 group slot types. Mages and scouts vie for the same DPS position with scouts getting the short end of the bargin. Crowd control is nice if you have it but dead mobs are prefered of mezzed mobs.
=======
If you want to know what is the best class to play for groups, pick any one you like. Just pick a class and learn how to opperate in a group. If the pay version is anything like the beta version there are a scarce few who can actually play EQ2 well but there are many, many, MANY players who are from ubar_guild_08 and have been in Plane of Time since two days after PoP was released and have logged more raid hours per week than on the job hours who just can not get it through their uber thick skulls that THIS IS NOT EQ!!!!
Sorry for the rant :\
|