If you are going to box on Yelinak, what is the best duo?

I was thinking of going Monk and Bard, since my friends are going Paladin and Enchanter. I don't want to box something that requires a lot of maintenance, I would rather park and turn on my songs, then leave it alone. With that in mind, will Melody be available at the start of the TLP server? Is there any reason to do anything else? Am I missing other possibilities? Looking for feedback.

If you want to main monk, box a shaman. End of story!

^

Necro + Bard

...anything + Bard ?

So again, I'm not interested in playing a class that will require a lot of maintenance while boxing. Essentially I want to park it and forget. Is shaman a park and forget class? Am I going to have to do something every fight on a shaman? I am looking for easy mode here. My focus is leveling my monk with the second class just kind of being there to support him and gather experience as a bonus.

The gist of it is that whether main or box, direct heals in some form are absolutely required.

Lowest APM (Actions per minute) boxes:
Bard sitting motionless on /melody
Cleric just casting heals and the occasional buff
Magician hitting one hot key to send pet, nuke and sit (maybe a DS every 10 minutes)
Druid for DS, emergency evacuation, and regen and heals
Shaman for buffs and heals

If just switching over every couple of fights for a heal is too much, then I'd agree to just have the bard box, and maybe it can help you travel. Otherwise, why box? You aren't getting much from the bard in that group, and it would be better to invite a bard, dps or healer being played by another person.

Nope, Shaman is a super busy class.

Bard would be really useful for your group since you could just leave it afk with a short melody going that also keeps casting bard mesmerize on your friends charm pet for him. I think bard mez limited to lvl 45 mobs in classic though.

More importantly, find a new friend playing a enchanter and cleric. Friends don't let friends play paladins.

In a group setting, bard for sure. If you're wanting to duo a lot, meaning you and your box, then shaman.
Setting up macro's for slows and heals is pretty easy to do.
And if you're not dead set on monk, an sk is always a strong choice as a main for a duo setup.

Thanks for your detailed explanation. I appreciate the feedback. I thought Bard could add attack buffs during combat, mana buffs as well, and also help with health regen and crowd control as needed. A master of none, but useful in most situations.

I feel like Monk is more versatile and beats Shadow Knight by a smidgen. Also, I've got a Shadow Knight on P99 already, so I really want to try something new. One of the reasons I'm not choosing Magician, Druid and Cleric as well.

Too be brutally honest, if I didn't care about the absolute boredom involved, I would be happy to play a Magician/Cleric combo. I think that would be among the top combos in the game for access to raids and sheer duo-ability.

On Yelinak, you best play a class that can solo or at least a duo that's self sufficent. Just sayin'...

Shaman with a monk. Bard will be the least amount of button presses but you can do so much more on a shaman. Macro for assist and slow, heal monk, heal self, canni spam and sit, and assist dot then you are good to go. Bard is a great box but the combat buffs will not be better than a shaman and the shaman csn heal.

Best duo would be Cleric/Enchanter.

Shaman is not so busy as a box with main monk and I would prefer it to a bard with a monk. Buff up Monk pull on monk throw a slow and just sit there being beaten on for a few while the monk destroys mob and with the shaman buffs and slows you will be able to do much bigger mobs than Monk/Bard.

Plus if you really want to go all out you can throw an occasional big dot from Shaman to boost dps when needed. Its only as busy as you want to make it.

Monk/Druid is along the same vein for them fun thorns but Id prefer the slow for a monk main long term.

I just read the ruleset. I have no plans on playing on Yelinak, but thanks for all the input folks.

Shaman + Bard is what I am doing probably. I want to main the shaman but I know if I pick a real melee class to go with it I will just end up maining the melee.

Shaman + Cleric actually seems kind of interesting but if you ever grouped with both it might be hard to hold down debuffs/buffs *and* heals.

Bold move picking a server without looking at the ruleset first, a tip of the hat to you Noobnoob.