I am returning to EQ after a long hiatus and plan to 6 box. I used to 4 box, and I'd like to know what classes to box. The kicker is I feel I'm really good playing a tank, so I can position the mob for auto attack on melee with very, very little effort. Meaning, everyone recommends setting up more casters so you can just do macros. I don't feel I need to do that based on positioning. I'd also like to have one class per armor type if possible (I hate seeing gear rot). So, here is what I plan on having: Tank - SK / War. Probably SK since I've never played one Support - Bard - he will just be twisting songs. I've never played, no clue how, so whatever I can do for autopilot on him is what I will do. 2 DPS - monk, zerker, or bst for one, mag / wizard for other From here I have a couple slots left. I need a healer, and I need another DPS. What I don't have is a slower, so, a shaman could provide the functionality of both heals and slows. I've done this in the past and it worked ok, but I think I had a cleric merc back then, I don't remember. So, I sort of need to know if a monk, zerker, or bst can be easily played with very, very minimal "clicking". Positioning is easy, so basically looking for best auto attack DPS. That being said, if auto attack DPS is abysmal, then I can play one of the melee dps as my "main" probably and set up macros for the SK to keep agro. One other thing. Will a bard get haste to max potential without haste spells? If I use a cleric instead of a shaman, then I won't have haste. Edit - I think what I'll use is Bard, SK, Beastlord, zerker, wizard, and cleric. BST fills the shaman role good enough for what I plan on doing (basically, old school raid content along with normal leveling).
One thing to consider besides the cleric is a druid for ports. Sk can do a lot of self healing with taps. You could also get some cleric buffs via merc for your sk every day. Just something to consider NM did not see the wiz listed. Not hating on clerics but sham buffs are nice plus you will have option of cleric merc buffs
War - Bard - Cleric - Ber - Ber - Ber 3 dicto's per minute. 3 demolisher's alliance per minute. A whole heap of fury's synergy.
Mine is Cleric, Warrior, Shaman, Bard, Rogue, Zerker. Is it "max"? Nope.. but it's the chars I like to play. It works well.
Shm is better option then clr. Adps, healing, debuff. 1 hotkey: AA malo, counterbias, roar, 2 fast dots. This should do fine, cast shear on sk before Inc to keep heals continuous. With little impact on shm Mana.
That might work when you get single pull blue con mobs, but that macro is a recipe for disaster otherwise. You are right though, Shaman are better when things are going well.
It's an example of one of many I have. It works on blue, yellow and red cons. Depending on the pull I adjust with my sk then follow up with the corresponding macro on the shm.
SK , Cleric , Enchanter, Bard , Wiz , Zerk It's certainly not the most efficient way, but I like it that way.
there are a lot of combos, at the end of the day though it is your toons! It doesn't take too long to work a toon up to max level and get a feel for how it plays to decide if you want to invest more time in it. Actually with 6 accounts, you can easily work up at least 1 toon per class to see how well you like X combo. I have to agree that casters are easy to macro, and you don't have to worry about positioning for the melee. But with the push/pull AA and reduced NPC push, it aint hard to position for melee combo. Matter of fact I know a few folks that went with Tank-Healer-ZerkZerkZerkZerk and swear they do better then a full group of wizzies. As far as CLR Vs SHM, clerics are still hands down the heal kings for the most part. Direct heals, delayed heals, speed heals... cleric no doubt. Shaman shine in leap frogging HoT spells (clerics do better for a few levels, then shaman... then cleric... then shaman) But especially with their AE waves of heal. Clerics can splash the 1 heal... but shaman AE healing in 3 waves, while keeping HoT on, and DD healing/group heal... has really helped on a few fights. Combine that with slow+haste...(lessing damage intake while speeding up how fast the mob dies, thus lessening the healing needed) SHM can be more mana efficient over time. And depending on how the fight is going, can certainly add more DPS. Me personally I prefer TankX2, HealerX2, DPSX2, and after that more DPS. I prefer redundancy incase of hiccups (Holy crap the tank died in 0.1 seconds!!) but with today's toons it is possible to fullfill this many ways. For instance, mage/necro pets can fill in for back up tanks just fine, while of course they DPS. Or say second healer is druid/shaman, they can add to DPS when the main healer is handling things fine. Long as there is a back up for the "ACK!! soandso dropped for no apparent reason!" times. I find I die a lot less (and thus have a lot less frustration) when I stick to the idea of bring back up.