My friends and I are looking to make a group that can complete group content by ourselves. Last time we did this we were a bard/ranger/sham with mercs. Ranger could tank and do enough DPS to carry pretty much any mission or named mob with shaman and bard back up. I guess what i'm asking is what's common now for people to group up with or box to handle current content without needing raid gear etc. Last expansions we played were underfoot/HoT/VoA It would ideally be 3 mains + 3 possible boxes. My current friend told me to do sham/war + 4 zerkers because it makes it super easy and cheeses all the content I guess.
Tank (doesn't matter which of the 3) Cleric (just will make your life easier) Ench/Bard - Mez Then the dps/3 boxes can almost anything , 3 wiz mercs,, 3 berzerkers, 3 mages, 3 wizzies - mix and match to your hearts desire.
Wizard/enchanter is a powerful combination for most content. Missions will probably need a real tank though, but then again some missions are overtuned atm.
Enchanter just makes a group easier and a real cleric does as well. With both, our group calls it "easy mode". Mercs can DPS if you need them. Ultimately though, do what you all will have the most fun with. Many classes can heal and others can help with crowd control. My group found that using a real cleric helped handle larger content much easier. Good luck and have fun with it! I love playing with a live group. It reminds you of the days before mercs.
Welcome back. There is some awesome content in UF/HoT/VoA, so I'd suggest picking up where you left off in progression to get back on track. Once you recover your muscle memory, you should be ready to tackle RoF, CotF, and so on.
Having main switched from a ranger who I used as my tank to an sk I will say trying to tank as a ranger does get rather difficult the further into the game you go. I boxed a real cleric at the time and had a bard in group to ensure single pulls but some named mobs would one round my ranger. Now with pets being able to tank with a melee class in agro range this does change things although I doubt a pet would be able to hold agro with me playing my ranger as I liked to push him to the limit. If I was not contesting the tank for agro I felt like I was not on my A game. Playing a real tank will allow you to do more challenging content but they also require a lot more time and effort to gear. Your tank will be the centerpiece of the group and any upgrade would be wise for them to take over your other toons in most cases. This can create a bit of a balance issue over time if you neglect your other toons but it should also make it easier to go obtain upgrades for your box toons once your tank gains enough power. At the end of the day play what you enjoy playing but realize that if you are playing a less than ideal class or combo you might struggle in some content. Is it worth being able to do most missions a fraction of the time or playing classes you enjoy playing all of the time.
DPS mercs do at max about 30k dps. That's terrible at 110. If at all possible, I'd recommend doing 3 real dps players that will do that with just auto attack/5 cast hotkey, and significally more when using burns. Should probably have each of you do the tank/clr/ench with 3 boxed dps. If you're using ench, you'd be better off going caster dps. If you're using melee dps, then you'd be better suited with a bard.
So far we tried war/enc/cleric - monk/sham/bard - ranger/sham/bard - wiz/wiz/enc None of these classes really FEEL like what they used to be. Every class has 4 full hotbars and 15 discs to use. Not really sure what I'd enjoy at this point, but mashing 35 buttons once every 10 seconds is going to give me carpal tunnel.
At higher levels, classes are more fun to play by yourself, than in a box. But the nature of the game is such that people often box, because groups can be hard to find and the quest design doesn't encourage pick up groups. I disagree, however, that warrior + enchanter + cleric is easy mode. This is because of the increasing use of DPS checks in missions. Mercenary DPS is bad, and you will not be able to reach the DPS checks of missions like the cactus mission with just mercenary DPS. This would argue for building groups with player DPS, and in fact I think it's easier to get through content without an enchanter, these days, than it is to get through content without a player DPS.
We have been trying sk/shm/bard + 3 zerkers and are absolutely smashing content now, it's literally twice as fast per DH HA.
IF he was only going to 3 box, yes, but it was 3 box primary plus alt boxes. DPS is much easier to alt box, particularly mage/wiz. Frankly I can't think of any combination of 3 box that can box cactucs except for 3 mage. War/Ench/CLeric basically gives them a huge box group backbone to build off of but your right it's not going to allow them to past all content. TO do that you basically need a 4-5 box these days and I'd lean heavier towards 5 box if you wan to box EE and FF.
