best 6 man groups for classic tlp to don ?

Again, as soon as Kunark opens and you can get race changed ditch the ogre for iksar. The AC boost is very real and a game changer. Get on Test and /testbuff an Iksar warrior and any other race warrior and set them against the dummies outside the arena. I did this myself some years back and I was shocked at the difference. Frontal melee stun immunity doesn't hold a candle to the Iksar bonus. It's not until stun resist itemization and AA's come into play that the Iksar innates don't seem to matter and by then neither does the ogres.

The only class where they matter in the long run is beastlord and really the pet should be tanking most of the time anyway

Long term, non-boxed normal group setup.
War(assuming this is what you wanted to main)+Shaman+Bard+monk+cleric + Maybe a chanter to start then swap out to a zerker in GoD. With that setup you can destroy any group content extremely quickly.

Solid group. Only thing I would add is where does the poster want to level? I love Druids but a lot of their early utility is outdoors only.

Path of outdoors for this group would be something like Oasis of Marr crocs, maybe head to OOT to level up all the way to Seafury Cyclops ~40s. Eliminates some phat loot dungeons if you go that route. At least it is a change from Unrest and more Unrest followed by Guk.

Set up an in game audio alert (or GINA) for charm breaking.
Set your charm pet as xtar 5
Park your non-tank chars next to the enc and keep them close to where you fight. (for example, if a heal lands right after charm breaks, pet may go after healer and thus be out of color range. If enc is too far away, color may go off before mob is in range).
Make a recharm button like:
/xtar 5
/pause 35, /cast color
/pause 25, /cast tash
/pause 10, /cast charm
/cast charm

When you hear the audio alert, press the button.

I don't have my enc logged in, so button macros may be slightly off, but you get the idea.

I hate boxing melee, so:
War (best tank)
Bard (op utility, ramp tank)
Sham (best slows, some mobs only slowable by sham, additional heals)
Cleric (heals and rez)
Mage (constant dps and coth)
Wiz (burn dps and ports)

Oddly, the only thing this has in common with my box group is the cleric. :/

War
Clr
Brd
Rng
Rng
Rng

They can all be halflings (race change when available, Chardok mask for bard). Not sure if racial xp bonus is a thing still? Rangers are great / OP in Luclin and PoP - just need a bow, haste and stack atk.

After Zerkers come out, you could consider swapping out two rangers for them as they just are nasty and rangers need so much gear to min / max (dual weapons x6, bows x3, literally every melee and caster focus). Zerkers just need the best 2her and the best available melee focus ya can get.

Rangers have an extremely small powerful era on TLPs. Before Luclin and after PoP they're just not competitive at all.

Having seen the responses thus far, it is impossible to list the "best" six box from classic to DoN. Having played classic up through OOW multiple times, here is my take from first-hand experience:

Classic/Kunark/Velious: Enchanter, Cleric, Bard, Mage, Mage, Wiz

Anyone that suggests you need a tank for the Trilogy era is misinformed. The only reason to play one in a six box during this stage is if you are raiding on that character. Enchanter pet gives you everything and more.

Cleric is an obvious and no healer compares. Plus, having rez is nice for when you do something stupid

Bard is a must for any 6 box (and I was not a believer until my last crew). The selos speed for pulling, invis song, aoe slow, dmg shield song if you want to PL, etc.

Mages are very easy to manage as a boxer, and do very good dmg (especially in Classic/Kunark).

Wizards are a poor mans mage in an exp group early on but far surpass them later and on raids. Really the only reason I play a wizard is because I insist on having ports pre-PoP. On Coirnav I had a druid initially which was fine, but the wizard rains just bring so much more dmg. And the utility that a druid brings just was not worth the dmg loss. Heals were basically not being used, snare was unnecessary due to how fast mobs died, and for PL I can use the mage/cleric combo to get damage shield and heals.

Luclin: Things remain mostly the same although rangers become a very viable (and low maintenance) option with AM3/EQ. As Foaming mentioned above, they aren't relevant for long.

Planes of Power: Landscape starts to shift but you can still make due with the chanter pet in almost all zones. I ran the above mentioned six-box with no issues and was competitive on dmg with melee classes (time-geared melee were far superior).

GoD: My caster army was absolute trash compared to decently geared melee. Charm is very very limited outside of a few zones. I dropped a mage from my six-box and went with an SK and it made a world of difference once I got muramite gear and could actually take more hits than a wet paper towel.

TLDR: In my opinion, best six-box from Classic through PoP is Enchanter, Cleric, Bard, Mage, Mage, Wizard. Come GoD, I would go with 1) SK (or warrior if doing small man raids), 2) Cleric, 3) Bard, 4) Zerker, 5) Monk. For the last slot, I would consider either a wizard (evac/ports/low maintenance dmg/someone to loot INT caster items, etc.), another zerker/monk, or a shaman to buff the DPS and provide better debuffs/slows.

Hope this helps in the theory crafting as we await the new TLP!

so in the past without using 3rd party software on ragefire/lj i used warrior,cleric,druid,mage,wizard and enchanter all the way to lvl 72 then i quit, in classic i used to park my warrior if there was a vendor in the zone and use the mage pet as a tank,in an earlier tlp instead of the druid i used a second mage and a sk.these classic tlp coming up warrior,cleric,bard or druid i need a tracker how good his bard tracking compared to druid?i know ranger has the best tracking,mage,wizard and enchanter,

Just having an enchanter will carry your group well into GoD no matter the makeup. If you want a dps class that will remain powerful after classic up to live, it's monk.

HFL BRD? Thinking

You have that backwards lol

Depends on if he is talking raids or group situation, while my ranger rarely hits the top 10 on raids anymore unless I blow a couple glyphs .. being able to Head Shot my way through a HA in 5 to 10 minutes is pretty impressive DPS I would think.

:thinking:

Did you even read his post?
" (race change when available, Chardok mask for bard)"

Suddenly, all your posting makes sense. You just glance over something and cant help yourself from spewing idocies....

From a group or raid perspective?

I’ve watched rangers and second mained a ranger through TSS and they’re completely relevant and powerful post Velious in raids and equally so in group content with absolutely no downtime for grinds. Monks are the only mainstay from classic, with some clear advantages. Namely OP fists and not needing spell focuses. They too, however suffer from dual requirements on weapons and having three of them means obtaining 6x raid level weapons to continue to be OP in the expansion. I do expect you can still be powerful with older weapons, but that depends if they are BIS raid drops. Good luck with that given the power of monks though.

Rangers rise above the rest for two expansions, and just need a bow. Absolutely min/max in Time weapons shifts that paradigm to melee from archery in groups and raids which continues at least through TSS. They suffer even more from gear requirements needing so many focuses its near impossible to keep them all geared with in-era weapons. Again, just not worth the long term investment despite competing for chain type drops with rogues until zerkers become a thing and non-visible gear becomes all/melee. Rangers are arguably worse off because on the weapon side, 3 rangers need 6x melee weapons and 3x bows.

Zerkers become the boss melee option because they’re literally the only class that wants 2h weapons for a while as they’re toys for anyone else who can equip them. That makes Zerkers the clear advantage and running AA short terms on 2x zerks with 1x ranger plus a bard really turns them into melt mob mode in a hurry.

Which is why I suggest running rangers early, you pick one to keep fully geared and switch out two for Zerkers. In theory ya can keep warcry up 24/7 with 3 Zerkers but I found ranger auspice to be an amazing compliment over constant warcries and both are welcome additions for MGB alone for raid burns.

But if ya want to stick to that rangers lose power idea because they aren’t OP after PoP... have at it.

Any class can be made "viable" with work. The OP asked best group makeup from classic to don. That is a huge range and during such many classes rise and fall in power. But I'm sorry if I insulted your pet class.

My ideal 6 man group for that time period would be SK, CLR, ENC, MAG, MAG, WIZ. You're going to maintain a solid or above level of power throughtout the period, have very easy gear requirements on TLPs, and have a lot of utility. I've ran 6 man groups and melee groups are a pain to keep current, but they are strong if you can.

Cleric
Druid
Bard
Enchanter
Enchanter
Enchanter

so warrior,bard,cleric,mage,wiz and enchanter,might run a 7th as a second mage and rotate in out all the group exept for warrior.