Considering adding a 3rd box

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by took2summit11, Nov 19, 2018.

  1. took2summit11 Augur

    I currently play a Pal and Nec. I am happy with this team and haven’t found much I can’t do so far. I am considering adding a 3rd and wanted opinions. Here are my current thoughts:

    Wiz - pretty easy straightforward dps and added benefit of ports
    Mage - pretty straightforward dps and COTH
    Beast - ADPS/Mana benefit
    Bard/enc - ADPS/mana benefit/CC (is CC needed in the group game with a real tank?)
    Ranger - never played one but from what I hear is very easy boxable Dps
    Anything I haven’t thought of?

    My goal is for group game only.
  2. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

  3. Outlander Engine Elder

    You have a tank and a dedicated dps.
    You have pulling, with some minor crowd control (necromancer).
    I'd go for a support and healing class.

    Druid. Tracking, teleports and run speed buffs for ease of getting around. They can switch between dps and dedicated healer, depending on what content you're attempting. ATK debuffs and damage shields will help your tank. Druid skin buffs stack well with paladin buffs and also has mana regen.

    Shaman would be a good fit as well, but I personally like the convenient travel the druid offers.

    If not a dedicated healer, then Bard. Again adds Tracking and travel speed. Adds haste and damage buffs for both the necro pet and the paladin. They also have buffs for your necro DoT damage. They can slow and they do better crowd control and pulling than the necro. They can buff your paladin self healing and your merc healing abilities for when you want to do hard content.

    Thats my two cents.
  4. took2summit11 Augur

    Bump in hopes of getting some more opinions. I really don’t see myself adding a healer class as that’s kind of the main benefit of a paladin. And Paladin + 1 healer merc should be able to heal through most/all group content.
  5. Bobokatt07 Journeyman

    Well you've got the basic class(es) down. If you know how to play your Paladin, as your MT then you are golden there. There is really no need for a mage pet at this point unless you really really want COTH. Your Necro is an amazing puller on his/her own so you've got that covered, great for corpse recovery etc. Check. Your merc healer is your healer. Not the best but you can have two of them or 3 if you get a 3rd box so even though they are not as good as a dedicated healer... at this point who cares.

    Thus I would consider a bard or shaman. Period. Both provide the haste you will need... buffs either from songs or actual spell buffs, extra HOT from shaman, Bards can lull and your necro can punt and park. The benefit here is the bard's tracking. If you can swing it... why not both? Or if on the same account then the shaman as a buff bot and the bard as your main 3rd. Trust me... it's just so noticeable when a bard is playing the correct melody setup...

    pal, necro, bard. Done.
    code-zero likes this.
  6. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Why throw a bard in a 3-player group? If you have less than 4 real toons in a group don't bother adding a bard. Tracking? Roll a Ranger instead of Bard. The Bard's #1 strength is aDPS. If you are going to spread that across only two other real toons (dps mercs are worthless at end game and don't count) the DPS difference by rolling the Bard instead of a real DPS class is a net DPS loss. Yes, you gain some neat functions like Selo's and Tracking and the almighty Bard mez (lol). But why sacrifice 100k dps for these?

    I get what you're saying. But Bard, in this scenario, is bad advice.
  7. Outlander Engine Elder

    Don't discount a druid in full dps mode. The nukes will beat a necro in a short fight, and I'm willing to bet they can rival a mage or come close as a box.

    Their attack debuffs work really well with their damage shields to up your apparent paladin dps, and they bring proc heal buffs and a nice nuke+heal that will take a load off your merc if you pull a hard named and they get a lucky round in. I ran a PAL/DRU team for years and there is a lot of strong synergy between them. I'm WAR/DRU/ENC right now and I frequently hit my "Oh $#!&" button which fires off my nuke+heal and my quick heal to pull my health back up after a hard hit.

    Pure dps? Mage and Necro are a real strong dps set. Mage CotH plus necro FD can pull singles and break camps like you wouldn't believe. CotH in a box group is a huge asset. Plus pet weapons for your necro.

    Wizards are about the same dps as a mage when boxed, but offer evac's and teleports instead of pet weapons and CotH. I'd call it a push. Choose which makes you happy.

    You'll have to decide if you want to try and run a 2nd melee character. I found it too much button pushing that can't be macro'd. Lots of folks use a 3rd party software and make it happen with careful positioning, but I've avoided it.

    Ranger is good dps, tracking and nice buffs. I think Beastlord would be better. Manna regen, another pet, slow, and atk/haste buffs for your paladin.

    Rogue, monk and berzerker are good dps, but lots of button mashing work, plus there's few synergies. You are going to want a box that brings more to your group than that.
  8. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Many good points. I think the key point is deciding between melee and caster. In a box scenario, melee always needs to be in range. It requires constant attention to mob/melee positioning, as well as the button-mashing. However....pure melee are superior DPS, regardless of lost synergies. In many raid guilds, top parsers are generally pure melee. They do require more attention, but if you are willing to take on that challenge, you are rewarded for it.

    That said if lower-maintenance boxes are your bag, Wiz or Mage both offer some utility to the entire group as well as bring very good DPS and unique function. Beastlord or Ranger are more buff/debuff group benefit oriented with capable DPS and unique function. If you die a lot, no class gets you back in the fight faster than a Beastlord.

    There are a myriad of options and different combinations have different strengths. Some classes offer greater synergies than others. In my opinion, your best bet is to go with a class that interests you - and forget all the hyperbole surrounding your group.

    Many times I have gotten unsolicited feedback about my box team: how this class or that class would be better. My A-Team is MNK/BER/BRD/SHM/WAR + Guildie/PUG. Shaman/Warrior got so strong I didn't need a cleric merc except for buffs or rezzes.

    In the end I just want to enjoy my time in the game. If that means running a Mage army, then that's what I should do. Find out what you like the most and run with it.
  9. Dreadmore Augur

    Oh man, that sounds really fun. I have a melee-oriented box group planned, but many characters are on the same accounts and I'm too lazy to put in the work to build them all up again, so I'll just wait until account transfers are back (even if they never come back). It's WAR-MNK-ROG-RNG-BRD and either a CLR or SHM. Reading that you're fine with just a SHM for any healing gets me excited at all the ADPS potential... the procs, the buffs, the epic clickies, the synergy AAs.... /drool
  10. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Trust me, there were MANY times I doubted this setup. Lol. In the end, once the group got into the RoS AAs, things started to gel big time. When I bring others into my group they're shocked I heal with *just* a Shaman. If I do bring in a healer, the Shaman Alliance procs and I am pulling 2-4 at a time in RoS. This setup took months to get to this point, and I still have work to go. Tweaking various hotkeys and mash bars. It's definitely a work in progress.

    I am really happy with how my little team has grown up. Your squad sounds pretty interesting. Ranger/Rogue/Monk holding down the DPS. Yeesh. You'll be dominating group content!
  11. Bobokatt07 Journeyman

    I_Love_My_Bandwidth I totally get what you are saying. Good point. I actually use a full group usually, Necro, Mage, Sham, Bard, Ranger and used to use a healer merc but when Sham's got so good and the mage pet can usually tank really well i replaced the healer merc with the BST. You are absolutely right, with the fact that I have essentially a pet for every one of my toons other than the Bard, the total aDPS it brought to the table for all the pets, and nukes, and DOTs and melee was worth it. If you are ONLY going to get 3 (my bad for not considering that), a ranger or monk or ber or rouge would be best. DPS wins all. Thanks for pointing that out.
    I_Love_My_Bandwidth likes this.
  12. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Right on. It's worth mentioning that the Bard will, in any group, increase the DPS and capacity of the members already in that group. DPS wins all, with a caveat ….. the DPS has to survive in order to DPS. Luckily, his SK should have no problems keeping the mob pointed his way.
  13. code-zero Augur

    Bards can also mezz, well enchanters can as well. Recently in a group where the SK said, "don't worry about single pulls I've got this" we found ourselves in a furball of mobs and suddenly the healer and the SK are hollering for my bard to mezz.

    I was already on it starting the AE mezz cycle.

    Went from a furball with potential for a wipe or downtime with corpse recovery and rezzing to some calm and methodical killing.

    Exodus from a druid or wizard can be pretty good for saving you from a wipe as well but some good mezzing at the right time is invaluable.
  14. Tucoh Augur

    In case you haven't tried it already, make a couple conflagrant rods for your bard and for your monk. With the bard's fierce eye ability they can produce some serious healing and the lost DPS from not having damage procs is fairly minor. Plus if you activate flurry of notes on your bard, the shaman can take a break from healing to DoT something up.
    I_Love_My_Bandwidth likes this.
  15. Tucoh Augur

    bard/enc/mage are your best options. I think their contribution would be about equal, you'd get something out of all three without much effort and all would improve your team in different ways.

    If I had to chose one over the other two I'd say bard, but I'm biased toward bards.
  16. Thoxsel Djess' Pet Warrior

    I’ve done a lot of testing of different team variations. I have a warrior being my main however and don’t have a pal or sk to see how they would do in those situations. But it comes down to several factors. How easy do you want the experience to be? Or would you rather be very busy clicking things all the time and worrying about positioning?

    XP/hr wise (because you are able to keep your endurance and mana up so you are never needing to rest) My war, shm, bard with 1 clr merc and 2 caster mercs be the best with an average dps of 400k over about an hours time of killing (shm only doing some fast dots now and then and otherwise mainly just helping to heal). Why this takes the spot is because it is easy to play (I could even do more on the shm if I wanted but I’m lazy) and the adps scales with the warrior extremely well (shm epic and bard epic and other abilities). If that wasn’t the fact then this would be painfully slow. I’m not sure how well the pally or sk do with this support vs war. The bard gets to autoattack whatever’s I’ve pulled (not doing insults etc that would increase the dps overall more again). In other wards this trio is not being optimally utilized for max dps but it is being utilized for long term without stop (insults drain mana like crazy on the bard).

    If you go with for example war, bard, mage you will have higher average dps because the mage offsets the shm adps well but without some backup heals mercs can be dodgy at times. Having a sk or pally I’d assume tho makes that comment void. Instead you could opt for your highest dpsing characters but also consider how long you can keep going vs having to stop to med. Med time can be holding you back from getting the highest xp or kills per hour if that is your aim. Otherwise if dps is your aim and not sustainability of course going with classes who burst well without much adps is your best bet.

    Pal-nec-?
    I’d say try a bard if you don’t mind positioning him. Otherwise any dps will do as I’d think your pally could hold his own with a healer merc and self heals no problem so a pocket healer would be unnecessary.
  17. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    I just don't know how you all can play the game without a ranger!;) If I am playing any of my boxes without him I cannot find any mobs in the zones! Have to have that ranger track! My current line up is Ranger - Baby sk who is replacing the pally that just isn't working well with the group and enchanter. Ranger has healer merc, SK/Pally has froggy damage caster merc and chanter has tank merc.
  18. Took2summmit Elder

    Thank you all for the replies. Is paladin really that bad that you are rolling a completely new character to replace him? My paladin is 103 now and I'm overall pretty happy with him. Maybe I just dont know the power of an sk?
  19. Dreadmore Augur


    SHDs are pretty powerful and more versatile than PALs. When it comes to tanking, both can handle themselves fine, but SHDs have a more diverse set of abilities, and some abilities that make them easier to play, and especially abilities that make them great for boxing.

    The knights take from their parent classes, so even though they are both meant to tank and can tank well, there's no doubt that there's a strong influence of a cleric's group-oriented role in a paladin, and a necromancer's soloing-oriented role in a shadow knight. All clerics practically do is heal. Necromancers are an independent soloing class, and it carries through in the SHD's skills. They deal a lot of damage and they heal themselves through it all through their class-defining life taps skills. They are also traditionally an AE tank, so especially if you're boxing multiple classes, it's much easier to wrangle all the mobs together with a few instant-cast AE spells and AAs than cycling through them all to cast non-instant agro spells with a paladin.

    But if you feel you're doing well with a paladin, then it means you're playing in a way that works well with a paladin for you anyway. Whether the paladin's abilities steered you in that direction, or you just coincidentally happen to prefer playing that way, or you haven't really pushed and explored what you can and can't do (including also starting a SHD and seeing how that goes), who knows, it could be anything, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Some people do like to explore every class, like me. Some people do like to be the most powerful class that can fulfill some role, but that changes a lot as the game is patched and as expansions are released. It's your choice of course, but I say that if you enjoy what you're doing right now, then keep at it!
  20. alexander97 Lorekeeper

    mage unless you play convier in which case at this point wait tell pok or get druid