Hey all....getting the itch to come back and box on live. I want to make a caster based group. So far I have the lock on these: Tank / Healer / Enchanter / Bard / Wizard / Mage I was probably going to go SK/Cleric for the tank healer combo unless someone suggests otherwise? Also, yes I know most people would say don't need the enchanter with the bard. I've done groups like that and really missed the chanters CC and runes. Plus they are good adps for those casters.
sk/shaman - shaman gives more versatility .. has a pet, great healing(for group content), dps. the ideal group would be Pally, shaman, Bard, druid, mage, wizard or zerker pally can self/group heal most situations leaving the shaman/druid to engage in dps and only spot heal if necessary. mage and wizard and or zerker also awesome dps .. mage CoH druid ports/snares.. evac .. tracking .. dble invis with bard also CC with bard if need be ..
Tank / healer can be impacted by your content, your gear and your play style. Warrior is the strongest of the tanks and the most passive as I understand it. Knights tank well but do cast a lot. If you are going to box and not be able to cast much on your knight, and you are not going to be very well geared, you may want to go with a warrior. My understanding is the knight tanking is similar, PAL and SHD both tank similar, but PAL can heal the group very well. So if you are boxing your healer mostly using single target on the tank, a PAL can cover the group while the healer covers the PAL. For healers, Healing is CLR, SHM, DRU. For DPS it's SHM, DRU, CLR. This is a play issue as well. SHM is probably the best for a boxed group, but I am using a DRU with my SHD because I don't have a WIZ and the CLR isn't needed. SHM would probably be the best for me if I was using a BRD/WIZ for track and ports, but I'm not going to 6-box like you are. If you can handle it, I would also suggest SHD / SHM. I have not played SHM, but those who are playing SHD / SHM are very happy with it. I am ENC main with SHD, DRU, MAG. I did not intend to 4-box when I switched from ENC, CLR, MAG to ENC, SHD, MAG, but the healer mercs were not keeping my SHD up on hard content. They cast too slow.
Sk, shaman, bard, magx3 or 2+wizard. Get over the enchanter/bard combo idea Sk cleric is better healing but usually not necessary, and shaman aura is big adps to mag swarm pets.
Mage mage mage bard enc druid and let the wall of pets tank. Keep the bard out of melee range in missions or raid zones. Or drop druid for shaman for the aura on the swarm pets
Mage, mage, mage, bard, beastlord, druid would be even higher dps both sustained and burn. And only one character to actually play - the beastlord. Other 5 have easy-box mode.
SK / Cleric = over kill on healing. Shaman = healing when needed, great adps, and extra dps when healing isn't needed full time. And the redundancy of Enchanter / Bard...eh...I'd go the Enchanter since you said you enjoy the runes and CC (i'm a fan of Chanter > Bard too personally), I'd drop the Bard in favor of another Mage/Druid SK / Shaman / Enchanter / Mage / Wizard / Druid(Mage)
What I've been doing lately is pairing the paladin with either the war or sk. Pal being in a support position and using a 2hander. There really isn't anything you'll fight that requires more than 1 dps character when you have a full group anyway. Depending on your playstyle, what you'll run into with a lot of these groups that focus solely on DPS is boredom. No real reason in the group game to not just build whatever group you feel like building and play it. Lately I've been toying more and more with the idea of bard/SK and 4 paladins, because...why not?
I have boxed at least 3 if not 4 and have always used my sk as the tank. I love the single pulls and aggro. I pack the dotts on when I pull and then switch to my other screens. I rarely go back to the sk screen and whenever I look his name is still on target of target. The sk self healing specially 2.0 makes him so easy to run.
I'm having a lot of fun with my new SK and shaman. Between Cruor's Bite, Vicious Bite of Chaos and Soul Flay I'm surprised at how much mana regen the shadowknight gives to the group. Once my sk is fully set up I want to parse how much mana regen it provides and compare it to what my bard, bst, mag, enc typically give. The shadowknight has a few group heals that I believe (not 100%) trigger the shaman's synergy, which enable the group to get quite a bit of consistent healing through AE damage. I ran the warrior for years and they are easy to play (once you understand buff layering...) and have massive mitigation with a shaman. Paladins are great too. Really, any of the three tanks are really strong with a shaman.
You understood it wrong : you are living with an outdated view of the warrior class if you think that the class just stands there afk at the mob and not casting actively. There is an aggro spell with 7 sec refresh and a DPS AA with 12 sec refresh, both of them add small SPA 162 mitigation. Though bad warriors will not refresh it in a multibind, because they probably click one aggro disc every 30 sec lol. Also the strongest of the tanks ? Not really, there is a 1% SPA 168 mitigation difference between Warriors and Knights atm when both are under their shield stance.
you've missed Ancient Bite of Muram SK mana return doesn't take parsing, per se, just counting. 1/minute: VBite 1500 + Ragged Bite 2000 Cruor's Bite 1878 + Ragged Bite 2000 Ancient Bite 135 + Ragged Bite 2000 then #lifetaps (which is 1 or 2 doz per minute, depending on lag & laziness) * 35% * 1025 no. 61412 Ancient Coalition 113 7582 4.5s 0s 2m+ n/a Single Stacking: Healing Alliance Spells 4 Max Hits: 120 Matching Spells 1: Cast: Blessing of the Ancients II Azia if Hit By Spell 2: Limit Target: Single 3: Limit Effect: Current HP 4: Limit Type: Beneficial 5: Limit Min Level: 106 6: Limit Max Level: 125 (lose 100% per level) 7: Limit Max Duration: 0s 8: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10 9: Limit Effect: Current HP greater than 6000 10: Limit Caster Class: CLR, DRU, SHM 11: Limit Caster: Exclude Self 12: Limit Min Delay Between Trigger: 1.5s 13: Cast: Blessed Resolution II Azia if Max Hits Used 14: Cast: Blessing of the Ancients II Azia (v374)
Thanks, I didn't know about Ancient Bite of Muram. re: healing, I'm talking about the synergy, not the alliance. Luminary's Synergy (13) 120 ToL 200 / 1600 - 1: Cast: Luminary's Synergy IV on Spell Use (100% Chance) 2: Limit Spells: Spirit of Renewal This passive ability grants your Spirit of Renewal spells a 100% chance to trigger Luminary's Synergy IV on all group members within a 0 foot radius, which increases the healing provided by the next 3 level 105 and higher instant duration healing spells that land on them by 32400 points for 12 seconds. Luminary's Synergy IV - - 0s Target: Caster Group Duration: 12s (2 ticks) Max Hits: 3 Matching Spells 1: Increase Healing Taken by 32400 (v394, Before Crit) 2: Limit Min Level: 105 Increases the healing provided by the next 3 level 105 and higher instant duration healing spells that land on you by 32400 points.
I'd run a caster group headed with pet tanks (pets tank better when there are multiple due to aggro swaps, prism skin or equivalent procs, and rune procs, heal procs, etc.). Just include a 2H dps paladin that can dps while spamming aoe heals. In the 1% scenarios where you need a real tank, he can step in. Multi pet tanking is low stress and box friendly.
Interesting a lot of people recommend paladins for caster groups. Petalonyx - How would a multi pet tanking group work? Would you "drive" with the paladin or a mage? Also, what would be a good group comp to fill out 6?
ah yeah, sure. Any incoming heal. Can get absolutely nutty 1M+ lifetaps that way, too. Shm synergy is a shady beast, though, since recasting group HoT frequently to get it would be very silly. It's one tool that's legit better for dru (and cle, obv), since theirs is tied to a spell they can productively cast frequently.
I'd do SK/SHM! SK has lifetaps and their epic is crazy awesome. Shaman is enough healing for a ranger tank, so more than enough for a real tank. Plus you get 20% melee dps increase for 1 minute every 3 minutes from the shaman epic. And I see bard, so with their epic 55% melee dps increase for that minute and 25% for the 2nd minute of bard epic. That's what I'd chose if I actually planned my 4 box group.
I drive with a mage. I haven't used auto follow in 3 years. I use group coth even ridiculously short distances that make others laugh. The mages absolutely carried and helped outfit my paladin. He was eversoderpy for the first year. He can aoe heal well, battle rez, and do most of his dps with auto attack and a single burn macro. I normally run with mag-mag-dru-pal and two mercs. If I could add two more, it would be ench and sham. If I didn't have the druid, I'd want both a wizard and bard. I also run a mage-wiz-wiz-wiz group on the side. It's a lot of fun. I like duplicate classes because 4 boxing with no assistance gets way more difficult if you add different classes and rely on highly active tanks. Both my 4 box comps are not much more difficult or complex than most 2 box comps imo.
Good to know. I play SHD. Never played WAR or PAL. I had been lead to believe that the WAR discs were a lot stronger than the knight discs making the easier to tank against harder mobs / lesser gear.
