Chanter still strongest option these days? I like playing a super strong pet and supporting the pet. which class makes the pet most tanky/beast mode?
Chanter is the best option. A 2nd mage would be the next best option. Shaman would make the pet the most beasty.
The question is what do you want from the 2nd toon? Chanter offers C, Haste, Runes, CC What this means for your pet is that it would only have to fight one mob at a time. Names that spawn adds could be CC'd. Your pet would get chanter haste and your mage would get C. With aura you would see an improvement to DPS and with Runes you pet would be more "tanky". Also Charm pets are some of the best tanks out there. If you don't want to do the charm thing you could have a 2nd pet from the chanter with mage gear. Bard offers Solo pulls. The song from a bard are based on group make up you can put a bard in a tank group and they play songs to make it more tanky, or a melee and they up DPS or a caster and they up DPS. the hard part of the bard is they can't do all 3 at the same time. So with a mage it not the best option. Shammy This offer the best buffs and added heals. Bst Offers a 2nd pet / Buffs / slows. More DPS then a shammy but a lot of button pushing Mage Offer a clone of what you have. if one pet go down you have a back up. Nerco Adds another pet / Dots In the end it depends what you want. If your trying to get more DPS I would say 2nd mage. If you want buffs go Shammy. If you having a hard time with pulling / CC then go chanter. Think about what you are lacking and what hole you want to fill then pick your class on that.
Before I went “full box”, I started with mage + bard, then added enchanter. I did it because I at the time just wanted the optimal conditions for my mage wrt mana, so that I could nuke non-stop and avoid downtime. I play on live, so I used a healer merc, and I also used dps merc until I was good enough that they where detracting from my “xp pr hour” rate because of their poor dps. My experience was that I really liked the flexibility of the trio, as well as the ability to nuke almost nonstop. CC and pulling was good, and runes has become core in my play. Track is a huge benefit, and pets perform much better with songs, including jolding aggro. Because of mana, the choice I would propose should be between these two (or just add a f2p bard as a third toon, even if he is on autofollow and plays /melody only). If your ambition is to to latest expansions progression, I would suggest that you will need an enchanter and a real tank.
I really love my sk with mage boxes. Having a real tank who can also pull well and is also a great scout paired with FD and coth when exploring dangerous areas is nice. You do give up some utility that some of the other mentioned classes have and it is a significant time investment to gear a tank but being able to hold agro on multiple mobs while the mage and pet pick them off one at a time is a huge advantage especially in areas where cc abilities don't work.
Great information! Added information: if i wanted to keep both accounts silver and lose access to j5 mercs, would a shaman or something that can heal become a better option for the box pairing?
Ench /Mage works fine for all of tbl content. Dire charmed pet is plenty sturdy enough to tank everything in the expansion.
well then you should make a tank because the mage pet has trouble with some tbl namers. you're going to whipe sometimes even if you fortify, max rune and heal the pet with your 2 maxed cleric mercs. Dire charm fades after 6 minutes (never early), it refreshes every 30 minutes. it doesn't take any work. you cast it, and send the pet at the boss just like you would your normal pet. when the namer/boss dies you break charm and either mez/blur it or send the mage pet on it and finish it off. then you go back to mage pet tanking until you get another boss/namer.
Really awesome feedback. Yeah that’s not hard to manage. Would this mage/chanter team work if only the mage account was all access?
i think its pretty difficult to play end game without all access, but everything up to that is usually okay since the mage will be OP for it. also you'll be able to support the mage well enough on end game stuff that you'll be able to get some things done, but you may get a lot of added frustration also from the toon (and merc) not being up to par.
Only until you need AA. I did not catch if you where on Live, where Autogrant can provide large ammounts, nevertheless, in the end game, you will need to max out your AA. So you need a strategy for overcoming that barrier for your enchanter. I guess gearing the enchanter in non-prestige could work, if you are ok with not having the best. Casters are more forgiving in that aspect.