Alternate Everquest

Introduction
This tier list is:

• Intended to describe the relative power level of classes at level 51 with about 100 AA points and top-quality gear.
• My opinion alone: I did not consult with others for my research. I have only studied information available to me and the behavior of others.
• Subject to changes as new information becomes available to me and as items, spells, and skills change.

It is not intended to be:

• A criticism of anyone's class selection. Please don't take it personally if I say your favorite class is not performing well compared to others.
• A tirade against the developers of AEQ. I believe most of the issues are inherent to stock EQEmu and I don't hold anyone accountable for issues of class balance that have taken me months to fully appreciate.

S Tier
These classes are so good that they overshadow the intended strengths of multiple other classes.

Mage
Mage pet DPS is comparable to most Melee DPS characters and the Mage itself can provide some utility with resist debuffs and some extra damage with nukes. This combination of magic and physical damage output makes it very resilient to circumstances that ordinarily limit DPS output of a character (high resists or melee mitigation). Mage is low on utility but the damage output and resilience to defense is so far ahead of everything else that it is my pick as the premier DPS class.

Shaman
Slow has always been hideously overpowered in all flavors of Everquest that I have experienced and AEQ is no exception. Slow single-handedly transforms large swathes of content from manageable-but-taxing to basically trivial. While Shaman is not the only class with access to slows, it is by far the best at it, slowing at an incredible rate of 75% and doing so at instant speed and no mana cost. On top of this, Shaman is a fine healer, can do some damage when the group calls for it, and can take hits nearly as well as tank classes.

A Tier
These classes are better than most but not by so much that they warp the game. You don't need to have one of these in your group but they tend to make things smoother.

Cleric
True to normal EQ, this class has the best healing potential and good buffs. Not much else to say really. Pacify is also a very good mechanic.

Necromancer
Necromancer pet DPS is comparable to Mage pet but I haven't seen it do enough damage to warrant an S-Rating by itself. Necromancer damage is also nothing to scoff at except that the damage inherently suffers from high damage output of other characters. Damage over time is not in a good place right now due to the time it takes to kill an exp mob. Necromancer can also supply some serious utility for a group in the form of significantly buffed twitch spells but this is generally not that much of a draw thanks to the amount of mana regeneration available to other classes.

Wizard
I have seen Wizards produce really good damage numbers and the factors that might hold them back from full potential aren't much of an issue in AEQ: mana regeneration is plentiful and pulling aggro with a large nuke doesn't punish the Wizard very much because of how damage mitigation seems to be working at the moment. Sadly, their damage is really dependent on the spell resistance of the target: against enemies that frequently resist their nukes they suffer a lot. If the Wizard could fight well against resistant enemies or they provided just a bit of utility to the group then they could earn a spot in S Tier along with Mages.

B Tier
These classes are fine but not spectacular. You usually aren't sad to see one in your group but usually you can make a case for improving the group by changing one out for an A- or S- tier class.

Berserker
Berserker does decent damage but more importantly, generates threat at a very high rate and has good physical damage mitigation. Also, a substantial fraction of their damage is not physical, so they don't suffer as much as one might think when slowed or attacking enemies with high damage mitigation (not that we have seen this very much).

Paladin
Paladin threat generation is almost as high as Berserker and their damage is a bit better than Shadowknights. A slight edge in physical damage mitigation over Shaman, Berserker, and Cleric is enough to earn a spot in B-Tier. In addition, the Paladin HP buff is always welcome. Also does pretty good damage against undead.

Rogue
I have been impressed recently by Rogue DPS but similar to the Wizard, their damage is fragile in that it only comes from Melee. Lack of diversity of damage options keeps them down and they provide only minimal utility to the group.

Warrior
I believe that Warrior has the best physical damage mitigation but that rarely matters. The real reason Warriors rise above C Tier is that they actually do a pretty good amount of damage while tanking. Unfortunately, they also are dependent on endurance and are totally unable to relieve this constraint at the moment due to a near-complete lack of endurance regeneration spells or items. If you are grouped with a Warrior, expect most of your "meditation" breaks to be necessitated by the Warrior's available Endurance.

C Tier
These classes are ok, but they rarely compete with the higher-tier classes.

Beastlord
Basically a bad Mage. If you don't have a Shaman for some reason the ability to slow might come in handy but just group with a Shaman and upgrade your Beastlords to Mages.

Enchanter
This is one I can be really wrong about because I have never actually observed someone put full effort behind making this class work but my impression of this class is that it really lacks enough charm targets to be close to good at DPS. Mesmerize is totally unnecessary when a Shaman is in the group and I doubt it works most of the time you would want it to. There are many Enchanter buff bots but no one actually playing it on the server, and I think that neglect is deserved. Even the improved haste spell available to Enchanters compared to Shamans barely matters due to the haste cap and easily available item haste.

Monk
Monk does ok damage but not as much as the Rogue and suffers from many of the same problems. In rare instances it is useful to split pull with Feign Death and because of this Monk escapes F Tier but these situations are not frequent enough to pull Monk out of C Tier. I for one am glad that Feign Death is usually not needed to pull because the mechanic is available to so few classes that it would create a very different but perhaps worse class diversity problem than the ones we already experience.

Ranger
Ranger does enough damage to keep up with, but rarely surpass other melee DPS but at range. This presents an interesting option but the raw numbers are not high enough for me to really elevate the Ranger to the same level as a Wizard or even a Rogue. Ranger tanking could be as good as Berserker tanking but I don't see how the Ranger could maintain the damage output when the bow is not an option.

Shadowknight
Shadowknight seems to fall short of the Paladin in both threat generation and overall damage while being equal in damage mitigation. While Shadowknight is perhaps more useful than the other classes in C Tier, being a worse version of another class makes it easy for me to put it in a lower tier.

F Tier
These classes are in a truly sad state. There is almost never a situation that calls for their specific combination of abilities over those of another class.

Bard
Considering the value of crowd control and the availability of haste spells and items in general, the Bard doesn't have much to offer other than its direct damage output (which has always been awful) and the mana regeneration song. The combination of these things is not enough to make the Bard more effective than just putting another real DPS character in the group. Bard is also in a tough spot mechanically due to the current server policy of 2-box limit and no automation. It is really hard for me to imagine a player really getting the most out of a Bard while 2-boxing.

Druid
Druid is mostly a bad Shaman. A couple of good buff spells and teleportation doesn't help their cause much: like the Enchanter they mostly just appear for a short time before the action begins and then go back to gfay to assist the next round of adventurers.

Hey, I'm a bit late to the party, but I wanted to say thank you, as well.
Seeing people enjoying the work that each of us put into the server is really what makes what we do worthwhile!
It's really great and insightful to see how spread your analysis of the custom content was in particular.
The things that you've mentioned covered work that all of us have done pretty equally, and that says a great deal to me about how closely we've been able to adhere to Eldarian's vision for the server, to keep things cohesive, while having the freedom to bring our own creativity to it. I take the positive bits of your post as a complement to the teamwork that we've done thus far, and hope that we can continue to move in the right direction in the future.

I completely agree with what you've said about the vendors. Aside from spell vendors being spread out a bit too much, there's also the issue of the spells being alphabetized, rather than being ordered by their respective level requirements. We've talked about moving the spells across multiple vendors so as only to have one level set of spells each, as we have time. I don't know that I can give any estimation on how soon that will be completed, since there will be quite a great deal of ground to cover, but it will definitely happen. With that said, I really do appreciate your feedback regarding rare drops and spell acquisition. Any time that we see something being done wrong, it gives us a chance to improve the server for everyone that comes next.

With regard to what you've said about the rare spawns with rare drops, that's exactly what I had in mind when I started my work on Delvea (which still isn't entirely finished, by the way). I liked the idea that time spent could directly translate into a reward (and a reward of one's choosing, rather than a random drop that may not be useful). Of course, I think it's good to have a balance between luck and guarantee, but hopefully in such a way so as to make the randomness more about fun "surprises" than unfair grinding for some and undeserved windfalls for others.

At the risk of bloviating too much, I'll say that your post came at a great time for me. I've only recently been able to start developing for the server again, after about a month-long sabbatical owing to some hardware failure and subsequent rebuilding(and RMAing some defective parts for this new computer that I'm now using).
I've been working on some applications that will help with the developmental process outside of the game itself in the last couple of weeks, but there are things in game to which I'll be returning and new things that I'll be starting as I have time. Anyway, I guess I just mean to say that this was a nice thing to read shortly after my ability to return. It's motivating to see the success of what has been accomplished so far, along with some new things upon which to improve for everyone's enjoyment. I'm optimistic for the future of the server.

Thank you, again!

Hello Dolmir!

So sorry, I thought we already made this change! But it is done now

You will see Rec 51 after the next server restart.

Honestly I had considered finally learning my way around Kedge after getting a shaman Totemic piece from here, but figured I didn't want to risk the chance that the items hadn't received love yet. If I knew there was something along the lines of Hero Bracers or HBC here, I'd double down and finally try to spend some time here.

Thanks for the kudos guys, I'm glad my feedback is helping. I went ahead and posted this (edited a bit) on the EQEmu forums as requested