So, I have been working on my pally and sometimes I need a tracker (Kael Drakel, I am looking at you!). What is the best tracker to 2 box with a pally? Unluckily, both my current trackers (rng and bard) are on the same account as the pally, so I will need to make a new one. I know that none of them are the best duo for a pally but hey, sometimes you NEED track (ok, you don't need it but things are way more annoying without it!). The way I see it: * Bard. Great buffs. Great pulling. CC. Pretty much hands-off. Dual invis. DPS increase doesn't do much for the pally, unless killing undead (0.00001 DPS increased by 100% is still nothing!). * Ranger. OK buffs for burns. Off heals. Good DPS. Headshot. Good pulling. Decent hands-off dps. Some CC. * Druid. OK buffs. Transport. I assume that the alliance buff will greatly help with healing. Good DPS (when you have mana). Good heals. Some CC. I see it as bard: not much contribution to the pally (for 2 boxing, in a full group a bard is insanely good!), ranger: mostly dps, druid: buffs, heals and transport. So, it feels like it would be ranger/druid first and bard last. Am I wrong?
Imma say bard. Unless you're doing a ton of headshotting, bard self dps is fairly good In low dps groups at lvl 115+ due to dot revamp. And then you have the 100 other benefits that come with a bard over druid and ranger. This includes the reckless renewal song line which increases heal spell chance to crit substantially for your pal and mercs. Ports are cool but druid box is fairly lackluster otherwise. Mana issues for sustained play and merc heals can do most the healing you need along with pally self healing. Ranger non hs dps for a box is pretty lackluster unless you put in a ton of effort. Probably less than that of an easy-to-box bard with melody and clicking bigger adps stuff when it's up.
Bard and it's not even close. In terms of general "getting around to the mobs" bard's speed, double invis and lockpicking far exceed the druid's port spells on live EQ. On early TLP this is not true. Even on non-undead mobs the aDPS provided by the bard to the paladin will be substantial. Also note that alliance only triggers on priest classes. [61250/5872] Arbor Tender's Coalition Classes: DRU/115 Skill: Alteration Mana: 7101 Target: Single Range: 200' Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Stacking: Healing Alliance Spells 4 Focusable: Yes Casting: 3s, Recast: 0s, Timer: 18, Rest: 1.5s Duration: 2m+ (20 ticks), Dispelable: Yes Max Hits: 120 Matching Spells 1: Cast: Forest Showers 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: Arbor Tender's Resolution if Max Hits Used 14: Cast: Forest Showers II Azia (v374)
Bard is the best, especially camping a locale of zones. However, I have boxed a druid for years and for the main purpose of hunting rares (now hunter achievements). Here the druid wins because your duo can port all over the world, track and kill any rares, and port onward. The bard cannot cover as many zones as the druid can so easily and quickly. The druid can also quickly bring alts to the loots sans campfire. Dungeon crawl - bard Norrath crawl - druid
I'm kinda curious what hunting paradigm you've got where you need to port around EQ more than you need to move quickly through a zone. Whenever I do old hunter or new hunter I'm not moving across a lot of zones, I'm mostly trying to move quickly from one PH spawn in an area to another.
I don't kill PH. I port to, often empty, zones and track for any rares that are up. I kill them and port to another zone. I don't have a name for it. Maybe Foraging? Shopping? Cherry-picking? Wack-a-mole? A bard isn't much faster than a mounted knight either. The bard win over the druid is (A)DPS and CC (vs root parking).
That's how I do it as well, for old content where I'd get no other benefit from hunting there. Cherry picking whatever happens to be up. Then perhaps use a bonus named event to actually clear PHs for the last one or two left in a zone.
Yes, you are exactly wrong, but it looks like a whole bunch of people already got you sorted out. Bard is the class I box and it is absurdly powerful and minimal attention needs to be paid to the bard to still get fantastic results.
