I'm planning on maining a BST on Mangler but unsure which class would be the best box. I would appreciate any experience or insight. I have a 60 Wizard 60 Bard and 60 Necromancer to choose from. I am looking for proficient farming and exping as well as being able to take on some difficult group content or mobs outside of Raid quality. Again any help would be greatful. Which class you would use and why?
Bard or necro personally. They both bring a lot of the same things in mana regen, pulling, and misc utility. Bard is a little worse off until AA's that let songs hit pets show up (is that PoP?). Bard brings haste, lockping, and track and some dps with more management. Necro brings more fire and forget damage, rez, DA.
I'm not a fan of your options for a good duo in this era; Beast is a support class and your options listed are a dps class, a support class, and another dps class. If mercs were in, sure, but atm, I personally think Beasts in Luclin are a 3rd box option. Your best option of the 3 would probably be the necro as you would aquire another pet, can kite, is high dps, and can sustain itself.
I agree. He is looking to start his duo with one of the least powerful classes in Luclin era, and is looking to combine it with either weaker classes or classes that will not provide much synergy (bard, til GoD.) Personally I'd go with the wizard over necro. It will be stronger DPS, and that's what the BST probably needs most. OP, if you are open to leveling up another character, consider a ranger. Easy boxed DPS, will give you additional healing for harder content, and will provide more synergy with buffs between the two classes. It depends what your time horizon is too, though. If you are planning to play through OoW and onward, at some point you will need a real healer to do group content. CLR will give you the most survivability, shm or dru the most dps.
If you are serious about having an effective duo pretty much one of them is going to need to be a class with heals at a future point. You can probably get away with a ghetto duo through Luclin. Rogue is one of, if not the worst, duo classes.
You're better off gearing AC heavy and tanking as the beast in the early expansions, use slow + flash of light for agro, pet mitigation and avoidance is meh until TSS. In Luclin everything's cake, but your pet won't be able to tank harder PoP content (elementals) or any GoD content well at all, especially without a healer. As a beast-tank you can reasonably tank for any group in the pre-TSS era until pet tanking starts to become more efficient. Best box partner pre-mercs is a Druid IMHO, since they offer some utility aside from just heals (vs. cleric) and have very little spell overlap (vs. shaman), once you can have a cleric merc a bard is the premium box though. If you're set on one of those three you listed, I'd go bard or necro so you have the ability to split pulls and CC. Bard is the long-term better choice, but in the short-term the necro offers plenty of utility with mind wrack, group-heal-taps, and having an extra pet. BST/ROG is one of the least viable pairings you could pick pre-mercs.
I will say this anyone who says BST is not a good Dps class and just a utility class disregard them they are ignorant. Put a glowing utak and pitchaka on a beast that knows what they are doing they can parse top 10 consistently against equally geared monks wiz and rogues. The only battle you will suffer is fights where you cannot use your poison dot or fights where the pet cannot be kept alive. Which are very few. Being said BSt is the first truly Hybrid class Sony relased where they did it right. The others they fixed in later expansions. Yes they only get duel wield but the pet is the double and triple attack hits. They are as tough as monks all the buffs and heals minus torpor as shamans slows etc. The warder is one of the strongest if not the strongest tank dps tanks in the game with high output dps. The only time monks or rogues could top my bst in luclin was during burn phase. Being said Bst is pound for pound they most powerful solo class in the game in luclin. If you want to go faster ive always used a ranger for ark pew pew or a wizard for burst and sustained dps. Necro is also a very good choice it brings mana share which helps and a pet and high dps but most of all dont forget necro can actually pull very well same as enchanted both very under rated pullers. Monks are only top pullers because of raid content
I'll say Necro again advantages obvious also luclin they become a top pulling class. Why? Pet discipline prior to that aa not good to pull because pet would aggro. After aa they can pull fd wait for tag and much better assist with pet on the snagged mob without getting up also Death peace and FD spells do not share the same timer so if you fail DP then cast FD if that fails unlike a monk who has to wait for reset a necro can always go in invulnerable for 18 seconds wait for reset and try again. So please someone tell me a necro is not a good puller lol. But necro is your best choices. It is one of the top 3 dps classes on raids wizards and rangers being the other two brings utility of its own that stacks and synergies well with the all in one group bst class.
I mained a Beast back during end of Luclin and during Pop. The class has changed a bunch since then. Mitigation, AA, Pets, etc, so I am not sure what I am going to say applies anymore. I was partially Luclin/Time/Pop raid geared. IIRC I used the VT pants and another item from VT (I forget what now) due to the Attack and stats being better than Pop raid gear, for what I wanted in my build. I had the highest attack for any beast on the server at that time, and did very good dps. I could also take a beating. I had the Hammer of Crushing waves from Cornaiv in POW and the Shinai of the Ancients from Vallon Zek in Plane of Time, these both procced like crazy. I also had the Symbol of ancient summoning (Best Pet Focus at the time), which made pet do more dps and was tougher. I could Tank for the group in many PoP (current content at the time) zones. Use FOL, slow, etc, plus DPS to hold agro. I had some clerics tell me they preferred to heal me as apposed to the Warriors in group. Again much had changed since then. IIRC we were hit hard at the same time as Monks were on mitigation, but this was when RL got busy and I had to stop playing for a few years. I remember I used to solo in Sol Ro Temple a bunch, while waiting for a group. My pet did not tank, I did. I had no problem holding agro in Vegarlson, Sol Ro, Nightmare, etc. You had to use your combat abilities like Protective Spirit every time it came up, etc. There was also "Pet Pulling" at the time, which was an art. This allowed for much fun when I was soloing, and sometimes in a group when we did not have a puller (which was not often). If you are going to do Group content then I would agree that a Druid would be my choice for boxing. I did not box at that time, and things were different then. I would also suggest you make a Mage alt if you do not have the access to Mage gear.
Druid really is the best box for a Beastlord, even though it's not in the OPs given options, consider leveling them together as a duo, or start working on a Druid now to get it as high as possible before Luclin.
As others have said, you won’t be taking on anything other than the lowest grind content with a fresh Bst and any of the toons you listed as a 2 box. If you are dead set on Bst main and only 2 boxing, you will need a healer to accomplish anything worthwhile. Druid is the best, and probably the easiest to acquire.
