Hi there! Im on rizlona where POP is about to drop but im preparing for the expansions that follow pop. I was doing a 2 box but id like to upgrade to a 3 box. after MUCH debate ive narrowed it down to a tracker and either bard or ranger at that. On paper I wanna say ranger is the better choice... good offtank, great melee synergy with shaman buffs, good buffs itself, etc etc. but every thread i start in a forum gets greeted with a "go bard" my thoughts here are two: 1- bards dont seem all that impressive to me. There's not a ton of room to improve them outside of player skill. their songs are nice but worth a whole player slot?! 2- bard dps is so bad that if i go bard/sk/sham, im basically counting on my sham to do all the dps AND healing? what does the bard do other than pull and short duration buffs? seems to me like bard is a bit overrated for a group this small. 5-6 person group? that makes more sense. but to only have those buffs show up on 2 characters: a plate tank and a healing focused shammy? im just looking for a bard to help me undrstand because it seems to me like bards arent in a great place for small game and the environments they shine is when theres tons of targets for their aoe dots or tons of group members for their short duration buffs
You are right: SK, Sham, Bard would be low on DPS, so in this case I would go SK, Sham, Ranger. Once you get merc's, you could go SK, Bard, +melee DPS if you wanted, to keep track and add DPS. Bard would benefit both your tank and your melee DPS, and you could use healer merc and 2 melee DPS mercs. Edit: SK, Sham + Melee DPS wouldn't be optimal (mana issues without BRD/ENC/BST, otherwise fantastic), but it would be a good durable route to go if you wanted to keep the Shaman.
any other alternative you would recommend? I was also thinking about going 1. mage/beast/dru - pet tanking combo 2. sk/beast/dru - nice melee set up 3. sk/chant/dru - hate charming but can still dps with nukes/dots on chant.
Well, if you plan to stick around on the server until it catches up to live, you'll probably want a real tank if you plan to take on named and group content. But Mage pet is durable enough if you pair it with a Bard or Enchanter (Bard will help both the Mage with mana regen and aDPS, and the the songs will help the mage pet as well once you can get AA's). The problem with BST tanking and DPS'ing is that it requires full attention to get the most use out of it. Even if the Mage pet tanks, you won't get optimal performance out of the BST if you're not in melee mashing a ton of buttons. It's a busy class but I would only recommend it as a main or two box at most, personally. Boxing melee is busy work Merc's open up more options. Your idea of going SK, SHM, RNG is about as good as you're going to get for melee until merc's, at which time you could go SK, BRD, BER if you wanted to eek out as much power as you could. Otherwise you might consider SK and pairing Enchanter plus a caster DPS. Enchanter would add aDPS for your SK and another caster, mana regen for everyone, haste, CC, a little defense, charm pet if you want, etc. WIZ, MAG would be my choice. For now though without mercs, you'll need heals so you could go SK, DRU and then your choice for caster: MAG, WIZ or ENC, it depends on your preference and goals but I think WIZ is the best choice for boxing. DRU healing is the worst of the healers but you get so much with buffs, tracking, ports, utility, etc. SK, ENC, DRU is pretty cool. I'm actually playing that right now on FV but someone else is playing the Enchanter so that helps make it more effective as they can charm and do all the busy stuff while I focus on tanking, buffs, and a little additional DPS. Without charm though I am pretty much relying on Merc's and Druid for DPS, which is sub-optimal but I am okay with that as I prefer to play Priest classes Edit: Corrected the info about SK + DRU + caster info/recommendation.
Oh, I forgot! If you just want to have fun and be capable of grinding XP; MAG, DRU, ENC is fun and should be fine for most group content. MAG, BRD is also I good combo from what I hear. You could throw a pocket cleric in there if you want to a lazy 3 box.
No advice to give on your choice, but be sure you're getting advice from TLP vets on PoP, most discussion on this section of the forum is specific to live.
TLP vet here. Played on all of them, except just a dabble on Rizlona/Aradune. Most of my knowledge past TTS TSS comes from you live veterans Boxing without mercs definitely presents some limitations!
