All, I'm really tempted to try a different 3 box that is pet centric (like triple mage for tons of pets). In the past I've run with a warrior/druid/wiz or some PC tank centric setup. That setup usually had the convenience/utility of both port and tracking. Most of my character levels are in the 70s to 80s as well. My question is, what does the community think of having a group without tracking for normal day to day play? I've found that tracking wasn't utilized much with my current play time (though I don't know if that changes at max level). If it really is that valuable, I'm also debating on a rng/shm/mag setup as an alternative. Thanks! Neb
My experience is that it’s not mandatory but I probably wouldn’t go without my tracker ever again. When I swap out my bard for my enchanter on the same account I definitely notice the loss of utility. You ask about end games so at 115 here are a few uses I find insanely useful 1) Restless assault mission can be done with sense undead but is way faster with a tracker 2) Griklor mission add tracking using the tracking window without actually tracking. You can monitor emotes and they will run to you anyhow so not critical just convenient. 3) Hunter achievements - kill 3 placeholders of Mob X, Kill 3 placeholders of mob Y. Watch tracking for respawns. Once again you could manually check 4) Quests where you kill something and something else pops - example TOFS keys or Esianti quest (don’t remember the specific name) So short answer to your question is no it’s not required, but yes it’s insanely useful. There are a ton of other examples I’m sure.
Agreed. It helps that bards are in a great state right now and are in most of the top 3box combinations. Even better: their in-combat boosts don't take that much attention, so they can help folks who have less third-party assisted / tryhard setups. You can just pull the mobs to a camp (with or without the bard doing the work), pop a few CDs on the bard and hit a melody and get most of the benefit from them. The same can't be said as clearly about enchanters, beastlords, shaman, druids or other substantial buff classes. Druids are also great box options for caster groups that may want an enchanter instead of a bard.
To answer your situation more specifically, I recently did a 4x mage + druid + enchanter group and found it fairly disappointing in terms of damage output, tanking and general survivability. You can read more about what I encountered here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-critique-welcome.240258/page-22#post-3843410 Lastly, unless you're really interested in playing a ranger I can't recommend them. Their sustained DPS is terrible right now because of mana deprivation issues. If you were putting a ranger in a group with an enchanter, bard and beastlord pumping them full of mana you'd still be able to blow through your mana very quickly and have to pump your brakes on DPS to regain it. In a group with a shm/mag, you'll have to meditate frequently while your mana efficient mage/shaman are ready to go.
I disagree. 1) Restless assault mission is not faster with a tracker. Tracking requires you to click the mob you want to track and then click track then wait for the text to say behind and to the right. you adjust to behind and wait for the next line that says a head and to the left. Vs Sense the dead / sense animal that you click the spell and it will auto target the mob / auto spin your toon around and all you have to do is run forward. 2) Griklor mission you can have a track window open to see adds spawn or you can have a chat box that you filter emotes to. the add spawn when he emotes. so like you said it not needed. 3) Hunter achievements: I am sorry but when I camp a name I know what the PH are and I kill the PH I know the re spawn timer and I kill them as they re spawn. You don't need a window to tell you X mob spawn if your doing the camp 4) Questing: Learning a quest like ToFS 4 floor where you kill X mob and X mob spawns The tracker can tell you hey X mob spawn but you can also do it other ways. For me I left one toon where the mob would spawn and then ran the other toons around killing. you can also watch for the emote. each mob in the chain emote when the next one spawns so if you watch for the emotes you can also know it up. I have play for years with out a track and So i can say they are not needed. Tracker are a convenient option but by no means required. The only time a track is useful imo is when you 1st enter a zone seeing what named are up. but most the time you can just run around and find that out as well. the time when ppl have play tracker in my group they will say X has spawn but I already new X was up before they did because I saw it spawn and they were watching the track window that takes a tick to update.
Track isn't useful for hunter when you're deliberately camping a named, but it's invaluable when you're NOT deliberately camping a named. By the time I finish with a zone's missions/quests/mob camps I'll have a substantial amount of hunter done purely from killing random named mobs I see on track, after checking that nobody claims them, of course. This is also a huge boost in getting gear, especially when some named pop so frequently I can semi-passively farm them by just hitting them everytime I cross a zone.
I can agree that track when just running in a zone can have it perks. That is why I said it useful when you 1st enter a zone to see what is up. The OP asked what we think about a "group with out track for day to day game play." and I stand by what I said that it is convenient but in no way required. There is ways to do everything with out track. Even running through a zone with out track I passed names that had been left up and stopped to kill them. Maybe not has many as some one with track but i do get them.
Wow, thanks for all the replies everyone. I'm a bit on the fence still whether I roll with a tracking character or not, but I like the diversity of opinions here. Also, on the side, I appreciate the info about ranger and mage boxes too! Cheers, Neb
I have always mained an ENC. Before the launch of mercs, I added a cleric and MH'ed my pally friend. Recently I added a mage. Cleric mercs are the most powerful of the mercs. If I was rerolling my cleric (I'm not because I have been playing her 10+ years), I would roll her as a druid. Granted, this is a very the grass is greener situation and I can't say for sure I would be happier. It's just with the state of the cleric merc compared to the other 3 merc types, plus the better DPS of druids (TOV undead excluded), ports, snare (not a ton of mobs run anymore) and track I feel a bit longing. However, remember the game is free to play at your level. I run ENC / CLR / MAG on sub but I also have a FTP bard and druid. Having these 2 available to me in RoS and before is wonderful. I sure do miss them in TBL and TOV, but it's not that big of a deal. I actually also have a FTP SHM and BST I use for campfires and buffs. ------ More on my combo of ENC + MAG. ENC can paci, root, punt, mez, slow and charm. ENC also has beguilers synnergy which boosts the mage, and the mage has conjurers synnergy which boosts my ENC. Also my ENC also provides haste and C, but also twincast aura, Proc aura and some very powerful burns. If you went druid over cleric you get COP4 to also boost caster DPS. ------ I pretty much completely work off my ENC. For healing I can set my Xtar to match my ENC group layout. So my ENC is always 6 (not on the group window). Then the #1 person in the ENC window is #1 on the cleric Xtar window and healing that person is 1 for my cleric. I can completely run my cleric without a screen since she's setup to work off the layout of my ENC screen (after setting up Xtar). The mage works somewhat similar in that I don't need a screen. /assist /pet attack. I use my ENC animation to offtank until mez lands, which is always stronger now with mage armor. Nuke nuke nuke, no screen needed. They could be optimized more, but I play for fun, not to maximize my DPS. I am doing pretty well overall. ------ Remember, I am an ENC. Everything I do is setup to support my ENC. If you want to play some other class, then my advice needs to be tempered by the knowledge that ENC is my priority.
I wish I would have kept my Bard in my 3box for the locked doors (other thread I made), but I'm much happier currently with replacing my bard with my Enchanter. (So now War/Enc/Sham). I'm 99% sure it was my rust, lack of skill, or knowledge or anything else that means "my fault" but my Bard was actually high maintenance because I didn't want to have to start/stop melody between every pull, and that mean they all rushed to my bard who would die or drain my cleric merc (and then my clear merc had all the agro). This time I only stuck with a Bard for about 20 levels before restarting with an Enchanter, but the last time I boxed (was 2 box Druid/Bard, Tank Merc and Rogue Merc) -- I took it up to 70, and found that my druid was spending all day healing the Bard.
When I came back a few years ago to EoK, I found that the mobs charged my Bard even when he did not pull, as long as he was playing. To some extent, the problem went away with a couple of changes. First, I used his aura and did not play until the Warrior took aggro with Hate built. Second, I stayed back and did not play any offensive tunes unless and until aggro was heavily built. That appears to have been enough.
Tracking is like having GPS navigation. Yeah you can just learn the street layout and have a paper map in the glove box and people were getting places just fine before GPS. But does it ever make things easier!
