Outside of endgame raids, could I play all the content in the game with 2 or 3 box and mercs?

I was supposed to play with my friend but he went back to WoW so I am playing EQ alone. I could box a whole group but I don't want to do that because you end up only playing the tank and I want to play as a caster.

So if I just play say a Nec and Mage, maybe add a SHM or something, could I do most of the stuff in the game? I want to do a lot of the raid content through velious, pop, god, etc. because I've not seen most of it. And then I'd like to do SoD progression at 75 ish and then Feerrot progression at 85 ish, and then get up to high levels.

Would I be able to do all that with 2 or 3 characters and mercs? Or do I really need to box a full group? Thanks guys!

For group progression stuff a 3 box with mercs will do just fine. Any instance raid (basically all raids from Plane of Time on) you won't be able to use the mercs for, the zone will not allow mercs to be summoned.

Without the use of banned "boxing assistance" software, No, you cannot complete all group content boxing 3 toons/mercs

That being said you can do pretty well for yourself : You CAN gain access to all the latest zones, complete all mercenary, partisain and hunter tasks/achievements thereby gearing yourself up in the latest T2 armor and weapons, but you simply cannot complete a handful of the "Group Missions" due to mechanics in some of them.

These missions are cleverly designed for "Groups" in that they require independent and separate actions of all the members of group.

That sounds promising. I read that the raids that block mercs can still be done by just out levelling them. Is that true? Like I could do plane of time with my 3 box, I just gotta wait until they are level 80 something?

Also do you think I could do Epic 2.5 with a 3 box? (And 3 mercs).

Technically you need a full group of characters(not mercs) to request most raids(think 1 char is enough for plane of time though), but you might be able to just ask random people to play "dummy-group-member" without actually participating.

I have no clue how far a 3box could go in terms of raids, but the older once should be doable: My guess is, you could go as far as HoT or VoA-raids, with a really good level 105 3box.
You will not be able to rely on mercs on raids though.

Some endgame group achievements will be very tricky with a 3-box though...

Thank you guys. I will have to hope for the best. I am going with a healer and 2 pet casters, so I will probably lack a real tank for some raids but so be it, I really don't want to play a tank anymore (I've played one for so many years). Hopefully my 3 casters can still do plenty of fun stuff I really hope to do epic 2.5 with them, may need to get help with some things but I'll cross that bridge later.

I think you will have a problem with (group) anashti sul, damsel of decay and anashti sul, enslaver of souls, but not much else.

Tower of Rot mission too, probably.

Like espiritun mentioned there are a handful of group missions that, due to mechanics, cannot be boxed in a practical manner no matter how fast or skilled or leveled you are.

Raids exacerbate this issue exponentially. Many of the older era raids can be outleveled and overpowered certainly. Once the "modern era" of raid events began (i think this started at the end of Planes of Power/Beginning of Gates of Discord) it was no longer a matter of "tank and spank and sometimes deal with an area effect spell" and it moved toward each event having a number of different mechanics requiring individual members of a raid to respond to emotes, gather items, stand in certain spots, interact with certain objects..etc. on TOP of the tank and spank and deal with AEs.

These kinds of events can be very difficult if not impossible for one person to accomplish, no matter how many toons you control or how overpowered your characters are vs. the content. Plenty for you to do and try though- consider it a challenge to accept

Epic 2.0 you can easily get once you out lvl Anguish as most of those you can just tank and spank. Epic 2.5 on the other hand you will need at least 2 other people to help you with, one of the early events before you get to the 2.5 drop requires 3 people at least to be successful even after you out lvl it.

Thanks guys all this info helps a lot!

Since you ask for "most stuff" in the game, the answer is clearly a "yes".
It might be somewhat slower sometimes, and you might need different mercs for some situations.
(e.g. tank merc and 2healers in addition to to your pets for one, pet tank and healer and DPS for another)
A FEW group mobs, such as Rhinopocalypse and similar, you might find very difficult to impossible to do due to lack of a means to "properly" place the mercs.
Hero missions will be tough to impossible, at least the recent ones.

Outside of that, yes:
3box can do it all.

As was said, raids require 6CHARACTERs (not mercs!) to request.
If you can manage that (many simply ask in general for ppl to take the instance) AND outlevel the content then you can do it.
Unless the stuff has too many emotes or different things to do at once.
The older a raid is though, the easier it is to simply power through in almost complete disregard to the emotes - except for those where one group has to perform function X and another function Y to enage endboss or so.
Certainly, raiding is getting progressively tougher the closer you come to newer/recent content.
To a point where you might find yourself unable to do HoT raids or so without assistance (and that is hard to find).

I would advise against this actually.
Doing progression at or near the intended level (let alone lower than that, as SoD was iirc lvl80 already) will turn the task into hard-mode, despite some gear choices you might not have had at the time.
Better option would be again to outlevel the content by at least 5levels (or next armor quality) and then do that progression before mobs turn all grey again.

If you have access to 6accounts, then i would level all 6 of them.
This would allow you to mix+match characters if need dictates a change.
And of course you would be mostly independent from "outside help" to REQUEST instances.
For most stuff though, the above-mentioned 3box will work just fine.

Thanks I did 6 for a while so I could use them to request instances. But I don't wanna play them because I spend all the time on the tank and don't get to play my casters who I enjoy. So I'm gonna go to 3 instead and just have to skip anything that is too hard. I'm hoping I will be able to group with people eventually, maybe join a guild.

2nd time i read this and since i am a tank, 2nd time i shake my head at this.

When i box, i spend actually far more time on my boxes than the tank.
Ok, this might have do to with gear+AAs too of course.
But once agro is established and defensives are running when required, there is no need to remain on the tank.
Switch back as SHM or casters get into the yellow on the agro-meter, ok.
But doesn't take too much time.

It just has to do with HOW you play, not as much with which chars/classes.

I could would never box anything, it takes away from immersion and seems like a gross puppet show, and had rather spend money on marketplace stuff.

I did buy a heroic but for a strategic reason that had very little to do with the charcter itself, i did it because I had to.

That said I understand why people do this. Because of peoples changing play-styles that is why mercs..
Doing boxing would be ok to kill one difficult thing, or get a item.

There is always twink gear for lower levels and that means krono, to tell the truth in eq I have always stuck to lower levels, 80 is the highest I have got a character on my own fairly, a ranger.... but I buy the expansions anyway.

That said, I have hardly ever used anything but the extras and features in one of them lately.

I bought the new one, but mostly just to support eq. Make 10 more I will probably buy 10 more but never play the content at 150 or whatever it is by then.

All I ask is some features that apply early on. The thing with the bazaar was a good one and the bane strike for example, I finally broke down and bought hero's forge but for a odd reason that only had to do with one low level character, just a fancy.

I guess I will just keep making characters la. People are not like they once were but I still don't want the game to change to much...go figure

This is your answer.

I've done those missions, but with a 6 box team. They're still possible with a 3 box team but not really worth the effort since you can easily grab a few people and breeze through them.

You can fairly easily box most group progression, assuming you are relatively competent at the classes involved and good at multitasking. If you use the allowed (on standard Live servers) attended gameplay methods to assist with multiboxing then you'll have less problems. Eventually the issue comes down to having to do too many contrary things at the same time. Some raid events, once you outlevel them might just be easier to do solo; while others you might want to get a person or two to help.

The only things that actually prevent Mercs from being involved are raid instances; and a few static zones which are marked as raid only. Also, last I knew you don't have to have all 6 of the characters logged in to grab most of the raids. If this has been changed more recently, then I might have forgot. The raids which include a task as well as a dz might be different though.

You could 3-box demiplane with only 3 characters used. Someone who can heal and cast eradicate curse or remove greater curse is mandatory to beat Tris as well as survive Zi`Thuuli/trash mobs that cast spreading stone. Also you'll need at least 1 of the following to bane Roley: (Grp A: Monk, Beastlord), (Grp B: Paladin, Shadowknight, Berserker), (Grp C: Warrior, Ranger, Bard, Rogue). It speeds things up a lot if you have 1 char from each group present.

You only need 1 person to beat Zi`Thuuli, Redfang, Hatchet, Performer, Devlin, and Mayong, you only need 2 for Roley (provided at least one of them can use banes), the only events you need 3 people for are Tris (need 3 people on hatelist so everyone doesn't get charmed) and Sisters (by far the toughest event to box).

It will take you a very long time, it will be very tedious, you will probably fail several times before succeeding, but it can be done.

My suggestion? Make more friends while you play and you'll have more help as you go.

I'll just take my smart a$$ back over here....... *grin*