5box best comp for Miragul

Never played past pop but I will make some chars on the new server just for content... Want to try to go through old content, do 2.0 epics. I'll probably stay lvl 85 forever.

Right now my thinking is SK, Cleric, Bard. Not sure what else to add for my other 2.

What's the highest level of content that I can do? Can I 5 man Potime at lvl 85?

PoTime would be a pain, but doable. With 85's you can do allot pretty much until maybe TSS raid wise. Even that if it wasn't a box crew you could likely do without to much trouble. Time would be annoying because of the way P1/2 work for a boxer, but again, doable.

You should start by being aware that boxing five toons in HoT is very different than boxing five toons in pop. Every class has far more abilities and is much more reactive to play well by the time you get to House of Thule. It is extremely difficult to box five characters at even a moderate level without assistance. If you really have to have five, for whatever reason, go for it, but a lot of players find that three + three mercs is far more doable.

If you really want to do five, I'd recommend swapping the cleric for a shaman with your sk/bard. Then add two melee dps. Monk/Zerker or monk/rogue.

Alternately, SK/CLR/Ench/Mag/Wiz would work well.

Your SK alone will be able to solo PoTime. Your five box group will probably be able to handle most raid content up to TSS or so, and maybe some of the easiest SoF raids, aside from stuff that is too mechanics intense.

Boxing that many is not bad as long as you only use one active character (in your case the SK) and have the rest on follow or sitting in camp set up so you just have to hit a macro or two for each when a mob is in engaged. I would suggest using a merc. healer and using a Druid of Shaman for backup heals and buffs though.

I find bards and caster classes are best for these roles as they do not have to worry about facing the mob or being in melee range to be effective, they are much less fiddly to box.

In my experience, anything more than a 3-box is tough to really make worth it over just using mercs.

I tried my hand at a 4-box on FV (SK / MAG / MAG / BRD) and for the most part couldn't get my mages to perform all that much better than a J5 caster merc. I found that my most effective DPS group was SK / MAG / BRD w/ healer merc and 2x caster DPS. I main the SK, focus on the MAG for DPS and largely ignore the bard - except to bellow once in a while.

I know there are better boxers out there than me, but the button mashing is real in the 85+ game.

Guess I'll have to learn about 85 game, but I don't intend on doing too much in era content.

OH , while we're here... I'm looking at Alla spell list, and it seems like after lvl 75 or whatever, there are multiple ranks of spells? "Rotroot Spear 1-3" , what is this and how do you level your spell up?

You only want 3. SK, Bard, Shaman. Then use a healer mec and 2 dps. You'll be able to knock out current content.

You don't "level them up" you simply acquire the different ranks.

Generally speaking:

Rk. 1 - Buy at merchant
Rk. 2 - Acquire thru Group Content
Rk. 3 - Acquire thru Raid Content

Oh... what is a merc?

Oh boy - Miragul is going to be like a whole different game for you my good sir. Basically, a merc is EQ's way of automating an easy class, there are (4) types: Healer, Tank, Melee DPS, Caster DPS.

In a nutshell, you can hire group members (for very cheap) to fight alongside you, fully automated. Each real character you have can hire (1) mercenary. Typically people hire Healer mercs (because healer truly is a full-time job 85+) and some Caster DPS (because melee DPS stink comparatively). That's why you'll typically see peopl (3) box - 3 real classes, 1 healer merc, 2 DPS mercs.

The main differences in the L85+ game that are really relevant are as follows:

1. Mobs will straight up melt you down in seconds - even tanks. You basically need to be spam-healed the entire fight unless you're tapping / self healing like mad. Caster classes will typically get 1 or 2-rounded by most mobs around their level. Where you can sit and get beat on by a white-con at lvl 50, at lvl 85, a white con will vaporize you without a cleric merc.
2. In order to DPS well with casters, you need to spam nukes very efficiently. There's out-of-combat mana regen, so you get mana back fast after the fight. Lobbing a few nukes here and there won't cut it...you need to be nuking constantly. Similar with melee DPS, you need to be spamming abilities (you get tons).
3. Most mobs are immune / resistant / will mitigate most of the EZ mode things in early EQ - stuns / mezz / charm / slows / roots / snares. 70% slowing a named mob just isn't a thing anymore...you better be able to tank and spank it. Kiting / root rotting also only works on select (usually vanilla) mobs.

I would definitely check out some videos of min/maxing at 110 or so to see what I mean...managing more than 2-3 characters 85+ is a serious chore.

Mercenaries

Not everything on that page will be available on a TLP, perhaps.

I figured it would be best to 3 box with 3 mercs, with one of the mercs being the cleric. I figured it would be Tank/Bard/Support, and Shaman being that Support class is certainly not surprising.

However, in current TLPs, I've found myself held back from 6 boxing the highest content due to the inferior SK tanking abilities. Does that go away in the 85+ game, or are Warriors still going to be the MT in end game content? Will the lack of snare in a Warrior/Bard/Shaman 3 box be an issue?

Warriors are still going to be primary MT in raid content in most situations. SK's do just fine in group content, in many cases better than a warrior for group stuff.

Bard can snare, so no it won't be an issue unless you are too lazy to be bothered snaring with the bard.

SK, SHM and 4 Mages.

SK has inferior tanking ability? Is that a thing? I can tank literally anything easily on Agnarr. I'm unsure of anything post-PoP, but even in era during each expansion when Agnarr was progressing, I'd be able to tank just about any raid mob by the end of the expansion. The only thing I probably couldn't tank in era would be AOW and POTIME Rallos Zek/Tallon Zek. Otherwise, I feel like SK is about 90-95% as good as a warrior.

4 Mages with a Chanter or Bard

It's not a thing. You can knight tank on the majority of raid mobs.

Well if you're set on SK/Cleric/Bard just add a mage and a wizard for 1 key dps that doesnt have to move into melee range. This gives you ports (including porting your entire group to your wizard's bind spot) and mage pet for off tanking or tanking if sk dies.

Alternatively you could replace the cleric with a druid for heals and ports and that'd give you 2 slot for mages which are top dps and the best pet tanks. This config would be hecka tanky and the druid can call to corpse or 90% res plus cleric merc can 96% res.

Nothing completes with Warrior defensive/stonewall, especially when 6 boxing content in era. For example, it verged on impossible to tank Nijacka in Inktu'ta at 65 with my SK even in full PoTime gear while 6 boxing. I didn't have the mitigation to survive attacks between CHs landing, and the Cleric would run out of mana too quickly healing any other way.

So no, being able to tank a raid mob at the end of an expansion with 10 clerics spamming the SK isn't what I'm talking about.