so ive been toying around with different box combos. last question I put before the forums was: mage/chant vs sk/sham after reading all the awesome information there I decided I wanted to pet tank because im lazy ahaha. player tanks are better than pet tanks but do require more investment and I have noticed that my heroic Beastlords pet already tanks better than an heroic sk. sk would be better if I invested the time but I won't. anyways, thats not the point of this post. I went beast/bard for a bit and after some playing around I ran into the same problem I had with beast/mage, that is getting adds mid fight. sort of chaos and usually ended up in a wipe or a zone. im thinking now that it would make sense to mainbox a chanter for control and roll mage for pocket tank(pet) and dips (nuke macro) because that would allow me to pull singles and when hits the fan, get control quickly from the character I am already focused on. however, going back to the sk/sham... one AOE macro on the Sk and now the situation is contained but without collecting augs and best in slot gear, getting agro from all the mobs just means dead SK where as with the chanter its: AOE stun and CC, no damage being taken in. can anyone speak to this?
Chanter's top tier for CC. Can be a good class to learn the flow of camps and zone movement through. In harder content it'll still require anticipation to save your mage if that's what's targeted by a pather or something, as the mage itself is a very squishy weakpoint for your pet tank. Bard can CC, but is more loaded into the pulling half of the equation, so you need to avoid positioning your duo where it'll get many adds naturally, and take advantage of the fact that the Bard can control what you bring in the first place. SK's gonna be faster at containing the adds than the Enc due to cast times, and with shield flash or deflection can keep them for a bit. But at the end it's taking damage, so best to combo it with the Shaman's AoE root AA at the appropriate level. Enc/Mag is a pretty classic box combo for what it's worth. Mage Pet is a ball of stats, which makes it inferior to the more variable player tanks, but easily overturns anything it's stronger than. Enc has probably the best single-character debuffing package for survivability, and scales the effective value of your ball of stats to a somewhat better ball of stats. Throw in some synergy in terms of aDPS and nuking, and good CC to cover what the mage lacks, and it's a nice combo. Specific to your situation and desires, Pet+Debuff+Healer merc is a framework that'll keep a basic mob off you while you slack fairly well.
The issue I’m having is when mobs add to my fight i don’t have very reliable methods of control when main boxing a pet class and having the cc be my auxiliary box. Therefor it would be wiser to main screen a cc class and secondary box my tank?
Except for named mobs thst spawn adds or scripted instances, if you're getting unwanted adds that are giving you trouble it's a tactics problem thst is best overcome by better tactics. Time and mana spent ccing adds is better spent dealing damage.
All of these combos work fine, & it’s good you have the main idea of mainboxing the chanter because that’s what you’re going to end up doing. There is just a lot more to do on ench than mage (which is much more easily macro’d) Your issue with the SK isn’t lack of augs or best in slot gear.. it’s your ability to play it. You haven’t learned yet.. a heroic properly played SK will outperform I’m tanking a bst or mage pet on both single mobs and multiples. SKs are also solid pullers.
It might help to know a bit more about what zones you're doing this in and where to understand what problem you're having with the adds. But in general, where you position, where mobs move, and when mobs respawn are all things you can know enough ahead of time to avoid a lot of the problems they bring. Where your focus should be will vary a bit depending on what you can operate better. A good pet class can often catch things with the pet or some swarms with enough time to then CC it or just keep it offtanked. But the Enc may be easier for you to get up to speed with on that, it also has a pet. Personally for the combos you listed, I'd give primary attention to the Enc in Enc/Mag, the SK in SK/Shm, and the Bst in Bst/Brd. Though you may need to swap over and give better attention to the bard when pulling if trying to single or pull long distances, at least briefly.
Have you tried Mage / bard? Both Bst and Ench require active involvement to max their output. Especially Beastlords. Mage and Bard are far more boxer friendly.
I think this is a very nice explanation of the pet tanking dilemma. I believe you will have a lot of fun with a chanter/mage duo, but as you want to do more and more content, you will hit the same barriers again. The vulnerability of the mage behind the pet tank will be an issue in enclosed spaces, and you will end in a lot of situations where there is content that becomes too hard with a pet tank. If you are OK with this, then mage/enchanter is fine. Tank/beast/bard will probably last longer (bards can function well in F22P, as a /melody bard). Any machine should be able to run 3 instances of EQ, especially if you throttle down gfx... The game favours melee classes.. Good luck!
My first question is why you're using multiple boxes/screens? Why not put them on the same one and tab between, with practice, it's a lot faster for reacting to adds and any halfway modern computer should handle it with ease.
