The Magician's Tower

I am going to be starting a newbie mage with a friend who is new to EQ and was wondering which was best:

1) Tank merc with fire pet, let the merc take the hits with a DS and just have pet dps and myself nuke while hunting red cons, or

2) Fire pet with cleric merc and just mow through white/blue cons with the pet tanking to take advantage of the pet DS so I don't forget to refresh it.

I know it's possible to start on Mayong, but I'd rather start at level 1 and have some fun in some of the old zones. Not sure on the server, which server is probably best to start a true level one on? I don't have any money on any server, gave it all away years ago when I quit playing.

Thanks,
Wippel

The tank merc is an utter beast until like lvl 55, so from a straight DPS point of view, I'd probably go Tank merc with Air pet maybe? Air pet is the same DPS but with stun (and the fire pet wouldn't be tanking in that situation). After about 55, probably need to bring in a cleric merc so they tank merc doesn't get killed.

Thanks. I didn't think about the air pet stun, guess that would work better to help mitigate any damage.

I'm leveling a chanter atm and at 64 the tank merc is still very good, course i'm slowing the mobs but trade slow for air pets stuns and quicker kills and tank merc would still be my choice.