I am about to make a three box set, and really want my main to be a monk. I absolutely love playing the monk class. With that being said, are the tank mercs decent enough tanks 75+ for HA's and progression missions? i have an 85 monk that I was running through HA's with 2 other people and their mercs, and at no time were we able to kill the named mob in Gribble missions. And that was with me (the monk) tanking. I understand that incorporating a real tank in my box set would help tremendously, but running two mellee does not sound very appealing. I have a 70 sk and never really seemed to "bond" with it. So I was thinking monk, druid, mage, with healer and tank merces. Would that setup be able to kill the named and do progression missions without to much headache? Or is there a better setup for my monk main? Or am I just playing my monk wrong not being able to tank those named? Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks.
I have no trouble at all using my Merc to Tank Gribbles or really any other instance that doesn't require AOE taunt. However I play a cleric so the issue may be that you are using a Merc Tank Plus a Merc healer?
There was a change in the pet-aggro rules, so that it is now possible to have your mage's pet tank and your monk can melee. I would not bother with a tank merc, unless a specific situation requires it. Monk, mage, druid, 1 cleric merc and 2 wizzie mercs should be fine for most situations, and can always switch 1 wizzie out for another cleric.
Since you will be using a Mage the pet it will tank better then Merc ...And since they got wise and have allowed pets to tank for groups again , I think you will see not as many Merc tanks but more people boxing in a pet class The Druid class is very good also she will heal and DPS for you , now combine this her porting and also Mage COTH you will get around EQ very fast ,and don't forget about Camp fires and Druids can bind themselves to more then one spot etc etc So I hope you enjoy your 3 box set what ever you make , but yes that combo Mage Monk Dru will have no issue doing HA in DH , or most group progression , but some missions you will need a real tank ... Yi Min Sorry for my poor English skills
Well, we were not using any tank merc, just my monk for tanking. After seeing how the named facerolled me, even though monk is in pretty damn decent gear, showed me I need a tank of some sort, just did not know how well the tank merces were, since I have never been in the "end" game. And rolling with 2 mellee just is a big turn off for me.
So for this setup instead of pulling a mob to a tank merc that will grab upon entering the camp, I pull to camp, tank it till pet is sent in, then I should be able to fd and give the aggro to the pet, then jump up to dps before running off to pull another? Rinse repeat sound about right?
I might suggest considering a shaman instead of druid. I don't think (could be wrong) that the druid DS and Mage DS stuff stack on each other. You would lose porting and snare though...
Slows are not as important as they use to be, but they still help. I would probably swap the druid for a shaman if you plan to keep the monk as your main, they have more to offer a melee then the druid does.
You would have to try very hard to out agro a magician pet at higher levels, if the pet is sent in as soon as mob gets to camp... you won't even need to FD, but sure, FD and pop back up would work fine. With an actively used healer of any class, plus a cleric merc, a tank merc can tank named. But, it takes the boxed healer being very active in healing. With a box crew, a tank merc is nice, just because it will grab agro without assistance from you. Without a tank merc, it will take some faster work on your part, siccing the pet quickly, in order for it to get agro as quickly as possible.
Note that there are a bunch of pet aggro changes going Live with the patch next week... I'd take current advice about it with a grain of salt until then. Everything said is mostly true but I have a feeling it's going to change very soon.
How decent was your gear? If it was heroic gear or HOT t1 gear that's probably not good enough...I'd think you would probably need some rustic gear in there. Did you use any discs when trying to tank or just melee?
Full rustic on monk, jewelry was equivalent. AC Augs in almost every piece. Yes I was using my discs, but was still only able to last a short time. It wasn't like he two shot me, but I lasted under a minute on the named, and even then we only got it down halfway before wiping, repeatedly. Group setup was 85 monk, 83 berserker, 85 ranger with two healer merces....one j5 and the other I think was from a ftp account plus a caster dps.
Pulling to a tank merc that will grab aggro by himself as I pull into camp is big sexiness in my eyes, but I just wanted to know if the tank merces can take the beating that gribble strength nameds give? Or when I begin the hunter missions, will the tank merc do fine with those named?
I should specify, a J5 tank merc, with an active real healer toon plus a cleric merc healing, will do ok. A non-J5 tank merc, or only 2 cleric mercs and no real healer, will probably NOT do ok vs named at higher levels.
This is my current box, Mnk/Mge/Ench. My mage is only level 100, Monk is 105 well geared, Ench is 105 2 expansions old gear, and mage is castaway gear. My mage pet with the current set up out taunts my 105 tank merc with his taunt off, it's ridiculous. They are fixing that in a patch so you can turn it off and on. My recommendation since you haven't already leveled them all is Mage/Monk/Sham. Slows are important, they make a big difference when things hit for 25+k. I can tank most things on my monk, but he also has over 130khp and almost 10kac. However I like the auto aggroe the tank merc provides when I box, because well, I suck at boxing. Merc wise I am running 105 tank, 105 cleric, and 100 cleric (105 on reactive, 100 on balanced). Once mage is 105, I'll be running 2 clerics and a wizzie merc with 105 mage pet tanking. To give you an idea of the monks ability though, I was 2 boxing in TBM for a while with not a ton of problems (with the exception of named) and that was ench/monk. I do wish I had unity on demand, though. You will get buffs, dots and dps bonus for monk with a shaman. Druid will work, but I think shaman is a better call personally. If you can afford it irl, I'd just do heroic purchase for your Shaman/Mage. It is so much easier. I don't agree if you're new to the game, but if you are use to the mechanics of the game, I say screw it and skip all that grind, spell buying, etc.
So a j5 tank merc, with a j5 healer merc and dedicated Druid heals during named fights and the j5tank merc should be just fine?
I 3 box (DRU, MAG, ENC) and use 3 mercs (healer, tank, wizzy, all J5). I find the tank to be fine for everything I've tried so far (done about half of the CotF HA's so far, at levels from 96-99). Now level 100 and working through some RoF progression, so far so good. I have slow available with the chanter, but almost never bother. I should with names, but since I never slow with trash, I always forget with names. I also almost never heal with the druid, just when things get out of hand (bad pulls, mobs won't mez, etc). Someone mentioned the DS issue with druids and mages. The regular DS does not stack. However, when you look at how many HPs mobs have these days, the regular DS is fairly worthless. But the big-hit DSs (Mage and Druid both have a "Surge" line, and druids have another line) do all stack. Those will get you some good DPS (which you can actually parse for with GamParse, they added log messages for those this past fall). The Mage surge line last for 48 hits, the druid lines for 12 and 8 hits. Mages have another line that only lasts for 4 hits. I never use that one, it's pretty worthless. Tat PS - just noticed that you were asking specifically about named mobs in the HAs. Yes, I have killed numerous names in DH and ETWK HAs (Gribble, Marla, Brother Estle), and a couple in Bixie Warfront HAs. All with no problem. And since HAs scale to your level, there was no "outlevelling" the content going on. PPS - hehe, keep thinking of more I want to add!!! My mercs have NO gear on them yet, and I just got CotF/TDS/TBM in November, so just started getting merc AAs at the same time I started doing some HAs. So at the start, I had no merc AAs, and now I have almost all of the ones specific to the type of merc (i.e. tank merc has 8/8 for tanking AA, and is now 5/8 for taunt AA).
Lots of excellent feedback, very much appreciated. Think I'll just have to play around a bit with the combo's to see what feels the best, but at the moment I'm leaning towards monk Druid chanty. Which merc should I use to fill that last spot, caster or mellee?
