I made a Monk and I'm loving it so far. I have a duo partner with my friend who plays an SK. I was thinking about starting up another account to box. What are your guys suggestions? I'm not too good at boxing so I was thinking about making a Bard who follows and uses /melody. But I also was thinking of a Shaman. What are you guys running with your Monk?
Not exactly a monk here, but know a monk who enjoys boxing a shaman, can do some pretty insane crap with the shaman in tow from what I've seen. IE 2 boxing Breeding Grounds 2 mission, handling trains with ease in current zones, etc.
I 3 boxed a shaman and a bard with my monk for several years--extremely powerful combination. With just 2 boxes however, I would have to go with the shaman, since it brings more to the table that the monk didn't already have, most especially Fatigue and Unity lines, but the group HoT's are exceptional as well. A bard definitely does wonders for dps, and can supplement AC if needed (monk tanking), but you don't need most of the pulling capability, and the added CC capability is user intensive, which is going to hurt your whack-a-mole monk dps. Generally speaking the shaman just brings more to the table for a 2-box than a bard would.
With a 2 box set with a monk as a tank, you are not going to be able to bring down too many names, so just think of the second toon as a utility toon that allows you to add another merc to the group. As to which class that all depends if the class is going to be gold or silver. A silver account bard will have enough AA's to sit in the corner and sing melodies. A gold druid for buffs and ports and good heals and nukes is popular. A gold shaman for better buffs and slows and good boxing group heals and ok dps is nice as well. If you are the type of person that likes to explore and move around a lot then a druid is great for the ports, but just for leveling faster against light blues then the bard is the way to go.
Define effective? Monks are already one of the worst whack-a-mole minigames in EQ to make their sustained dps worth anything (not to mention burst), but trying to tank with a paladin (who is also keypress intensive for full tanking abilities) plus a second monk at the same time--you have 3 arms or something?
Haven't you ever seen an Akhevan? Some over eager berserker got one of my arms, but yes, I have three still. It's effective. It's easy to pull aggro off of a monk with a paladin. Paladin keeps agro, any time it wants it. The two monks are a bit of whack-a-mole, but nothing that effective keybinding and cycling through instances can't handle. A single keypress (1) fires synergy, flying kick, tiger claw, stunning kick, banestrike, vigorous shuriken, zalikor's fang and epic 2.0. (Neither zan-fi nor two finger wasp touch keybind well with stunning kick so they're on a different key - "2"). Paladin has two crushes and two stuns on the first key "1" (or alternatively, four stuns - modify all this for undead dps), and three "heal target's target" on "2". Also bound to "1" are bash, force of disruption and Reprove. I do switch windows. A lot. Keeping aggro from the monks with the paladin isn't difficult as I said, and with keybindings, it's fairly easy to keep up sustained dps on the monks. Without burning anything I sustain 25-30k on the monks, paladin dps is well, paladin dps. With two monks I always have single pulls. As with any boxing scheme you lose concentration on individual characters, but frankly it works. I usually run with a healer merc and two caster dps mercs. Stuff dies fast. If I'm feeling like concentrating on the paladin a little more, I can even run three caster dps mercs. If a mission mechanic forces me to offtank I have two pretty reliable offtanks. The combination is stout. No fragile casters. Most missions utilize one big hitter with softer adds, which monks have no trouble handling. Some missions I run with three healer mercs, and burn with the monks for my dps. Really I'm running two characters, just one of them twice, and that twinned one I've been playing for 14 years. Burning the monks makes things a little more complicated, especially when trying to run Heel discs, but what I do there is pop speed focus on one while running heel on the other, that way I can concentrate on getting my kicks in with the one, and do just the normal spam maintenance on the other. Then when the discs are done I can switch the two. The other discs are no different then running normally, it's heel that's super spammy. As for the "positioning more melee is such a pain" argument all I can do is /shrug. It's not nearly as difficult as people make it out to be. Boxing the three certainly wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea, but I enjoy the challenge of doing it well. I doubt anybody else is going to follow my path, a couple of rogues instead of monks and you have better dps, and there are certainly easier boxes too, but it is decidedly effective, and I'm a monk at heart. Apparently now I have two hearts. Oh, and a unicorn.
Oh, I did want to mention that I previously boxxed (with my monk) a shaman, then added a mage. I ran those three for a long time, but the way the game runs, I frankly find my new Frankenstein monster has better dps (I should clarify that: *I* get better dps out of it) and better survive-ability. I also find it easier, as I don't have to mentally shift gears as much. On two of the characters I'm doing exactly the same things. It's not for everybody, but I enjoy it.
Boxing a Shaman with my Monk main, so far it works pretty well. Tank merc & DPS merc. I usually use the DPS merc when AAing LB's to burn stuff down fast and pull out the tank for harder stuff.
