Hey guys. I just came back to the game after a 3 year break and decided to give silver membership a shot before deciding to resub. Turns out the game is as fun as ever and i fully intend to go gold. Anyway, on to the point.. I rolled a twink froglok monk on live (not progression) and am loving it. Now i want to box SOMETHING with him on my other silver account, but i am torn and need some pros and cons of each of these classes so i can analyze and narrow it down. In order of what i feel im leaning towards most: Bard Enchanter Ranger Druid Notice i am really looking at trackers and i have no interest in shammy. Dont ask why i just would rather not. Thanks in advance. Any info on bards track distance would be greatly appreciated.
I would highly recommend none of the above as a duo with a monk. Although at lower levels, the J1 tank mercenary set to "MT" can handle mobs, that ability deteriorates over time. A J5 mercenary tank will take your group to the mid-90s with a good supporting character, but after that, the merc becomes more problematic and somewhat limited (although I have seen them used in Gribble missions). If your goal is to play a character to 100+ and have an all-access account, it may be better to have a tank as the second toon. The monk provides excellent pulling and an ability to FD over-pulls as well as an excellent Echo line AoE Mez, and excellent DPS. It does, however, require massive button mashing to be at the high range of DPS. Therefore, pairing it with a "set and leave" tank would be most appropriate. That would be a Mage with pet, followed by a Warrior and then one of the Knights. If you are set on one of the four above choices, then it will depend upon your ability to handle the two characters. An enchanter would be excellent, but the monk *may* suffer some. Ranger can be set to auto fire and provides tracking and buffs. Bard might be your best solution as it can slow when needed, provide crowd control, over haste and aDPS. Paired with a healer and tank, the combination could work. Bard tracking is OK and there is an AA to increase the skill level and distance, but it will never have the distance of a Ranger or Druid. With my Bard, I could track most of the top or bottom zone of Valley looking for named mobs, but not the entire two halves as I could with my Ranger. If you want the tracking and porting, perhaps having a F2P third account for leveling a druid makes sense?
Hey thanks for the quick reply. To be honest im not looking to run another tank. I have a 100 pally on same account and it really burnt me out. I had completely forgot that pets can tank now. Would beastlord be as viable as the mage considering the slow and pet healing etc or is there a reason you suggest mage in particular? Am very interested in all info and feedback so feel free to post something lengthy.
Also, like i said i am taking the leveling very slow and enjoying certain sweet spots that i enjoy such as level 51, 65, epic quests and clicky toys, proc weapons that would otherwise be useless if not for using them at certain low levels, etc. You get the gist probably. Thanks again. Mage is starting to intrigue me a bit, and i believe i have a third silver account for a tracker. Is druids track equal to ranger?
Forgot to mention i dont plan to use the tank merc if i can help it. I prefer tanking with the monk and using the healer. I have a few aggro weap im using at 55 in addition to other toys. Which is why i initially wanted bard.. For slow and track with low maintenance. As far as i know anyway
1. Monk Tank - Not particularly viable in the 100+ level range and possibly even before that. I recall my monk being killed in two or three shots in Valley, and that was just pulling. 2. Mage Pet - Recommended because the Mage Pets (especially beginning with air pet at 91 or so) make excellent tanks with taunt and focus switched on. You really only need to set up one macro hotbutton to attack and buff the pet, giving it a decent DS along with the mage DS. 3. I have seen BL warders do a good job of tanking. I have also seen Lidia in Brother's Island pulverize them, while an earth pet with sufficient buffing and defensive AAs can, with a skilled player, handle the job. Warders do fine in CotF HAs. No info on TDS or TBM, but those are later levels. Obviously, these are late game issues. At level 55, few of these concerns come into play. By the way, your Paladin at 100 is just starting to see things come together. Beginning at 101, the game tilts in its favor for a skilled player. By 10K AAs and 105, he can handle a great deal. Sorry to see you give up on him when you've pretty much put up with the difficult levels and will not enjoy the power he becomes.
chanter will control adds/haste/slow/clarity merc and easy to boxx, dru trac is close enough plus ports
Definitely recommend a mage for the pet tanking as well. A warrior or maybe beastlord (but played like a shaman) would come in a distant second and far away third. That being said, technically you can do like 80 to 90% of the games content with a merc tank. So if you don't plan on making it past Tier 1 of RoF or the occasional CotF HA, then you can pretty much pick whatever class you want.
i box a Berserker and an Enchanter, it works really well, use the Enchanter to pull and CC and if i have to ill just Rune Tank on the enchanter, with Spell Subtelty off theres almost no way possible my Berserker pulls agro of my enchanter. mind you my Berserker is my main so im always maxing his dps and Chanters runes + Mind Storm dmg pretty much always holds agro off the Berserker. with a Cleric Merc and a Wizzy Merc cant really go wrong, for Namers i tank on the Berserker and will swap out the Wizzy for a 2nd Cleric depending on the Named and its Mechanic, but other than that its an extremely easy combo to box, especially if you set up a 5 spell macro. just key bind that macro to the same key as your Monks mash key, that way if your Tab Boxxing like i do, when you tab to the Enchanter you can just press the same button to fire the hotkey rather than having to manually click spells or switch buttons.
Saw this thread and figured i'd ask my questions here. Pretty much I am looking to a run a caster heavy box group, anywhere from 4-6 toons. Anyone have set ups and combination that they found successful, other than a ton of wizards and mages? Also am I just better off using a Merc tank then going through the process of AAing and Aug gearing a tank?
Tanks mercs are wet noodles at high levels, especially if you just have the cleric merc healing it. If you are going to box more than 3 characters then there really isn't any reason not to make one of your group a mage, at the very least.
Warrior (Tank), Bard(ADPS), Druid(Black Wolf increase caster dps and can heal tank), Enchanter(IoG and AA's increase caster dps ALOT,CC,Haste,pulling, Rune-Tank), Wizard (DPS), Necromancer (Also Dps, comes in handy for moderate duration fights, FD) this SHOULD work for a Heavy Caster Group biggest issue with current content may be healing the tank constantly so you could prolly drop the Necro and just use a Cleric Merc
Yea I planned on a mage, just not using 4 of them. So a mage pet would be acceptable then? As long as the AA's are placed properly and with a pet focus I imagine?
Thanks for the feedback. In response to my paladin.. Im honestly a very good player when it comes to tanking. Hes well geared for what he is, tons of great augs, 100k hp self buffed, 7k + ac, etc. By the time i was burnt out on eq it wasnt really the class that did it. I thoroughly enjoyed playing back then and probably still would. Very powerful and never used a merc if i was soloing. Carried tons of people on my back. I just tend to try new classes after quitting and coming back. Always have. Im sure the auto grant feature would put him well ahead of the curve once i resub since he already sits at around 5k aa without it. But back to the mage. No one mentioned the lack of slow with that combo so im guessing theres no issue.. Does the pet really handle unslowed mobs that well at the higher end ? Thanks again guys. Lots of great feedback and stuff i hadnt thought about at all.
Mages Earth Pet has a pretty solid amount of Damage Mitigation, you will definitely see your Cleric Merc work a little bit harder with unslowed mobs but by no means will your Earth Pet die from 1 or even 2 mobs, especially if you use Relentless Servant to tank the 2nd mob than you shouldnt have any issue.
I should have stated that I would be using a Wizard and a Mage, just only one of each. So maybe something like: Warrior Enchanter Wizard Druid Cleric Magician ? Could the Mage replace the need for a Warrior, in which case I could squeeze maybe a Necromancer in? Is a Shaman worth it at all?
Very cool. Thank you for the feedback once again. I know i initially said im only 55 and here i am asking about the high end. I know i can breeze to 85 or 90 in a few days if i decided i was tired of taking the scenic grind. Just making sure theres not something about the lack of slow that im missing with the monk mage combo.
One more thing while the servers are down.. Any more bard duo feedback? Got some good mage and enchanter stuff and some bard. Wondering if anyone has done monk bard before. I used to see a few zerker bard combos running around and thought it was pretty solid.
Viably you COULD replace the Warrior with the Mage, but i definitely wouldnt put a cleric in that lineup since we have mercs. the benefit that casters can get from Bard Songs is huge. so id say Enchanter,Wizard,Druid,Mage,Bard, ? ... something like that.
im actually currently leveling up a Bard who is at 104 right now with SoB (Symphony of Battle) Clicky, 2.0, maxed Fierce Eye and maxed Quick Time AA's. As i said previous my main box is Berserker and Enchanter, and some people criticize me for adding a Bard to my lineup since i already have the Enchanter, but my plan isnt to use the Bard for CC, i have the Enchanter for that, My Zerker is a high end Raid Geared Zerker so DPS on him rlly isnt an issue, but i like to have the Bard around to boost his DPS even more which makes stuff die even faster. not to mention not having to run like a Sloth is nice to =P plus can also get some little mediocre dps from the Bard as well. its not great dps but its better than nothing at all. so mainly long story short i added my bard to my team to boost my Zerker and make me run fast without needing to mount (since i run the Old Character Models i constantly have to Illusion to get on a mount) its just more of a convenience to me. but realistically a Melee + Bard isnt a bad combo as long as the Melee can atleast somewhat tank since Tank Mercs are garbage.
