3 box advice

I would like advice on which 3 box to move forward with on Phinny. I am primarily interested in experience for the main character (which will be the paladin or shadow knight), with the ability to complete tasks and missions, and the occasional group-able named. I was thinking that the two combos are fairly similar with respect to what they could do in the long run, but wanted to check to make sure I was not missing something before pouring a crapton of work into them.

Combo 1: SK/BRD/SHM: Bard pulling ability makes this combo very easy to play. Main problem I have seen with this group is slow DPS (does this ever improve?). Only other thing lacking is ports?

Combo 2: PAL/ENC/DRU: Without charming, this seems like it would be very similar to the above combo, with the benefits of ports and easy access to mind buffs. Would the DPS be similar without charm? I would assume that with charm this combo would pull way ahead in the short term, but what about in the long term?

Thanks for your thoughts!

I vote for option #3.
Combo 3: ENC/CLR(orDRU)/MAG: You're welcome.

Reasons? Would it be good outside of charm? I have done a bit of this and charming is enjoyable, but having to constantly be on guard and not able to take an afk is tiresome sometimes. Especially when I drink beer, the restroom calls far to often to constantly have a charmed pet

I would go with option 2. I was concidering pal/dru/enc myself but I played a druid main back in the old days and really wanted to raid tank so went with war/cle/enc.

I do miss the mobility. But in classic most leveling zones are undead so the cleric is better dps and healing than a druid would have been. Snare is also not a problem with undead.

You don't really need a tank until PoP for xp mobs so you can go 2 DPS 1 healer which was the enc+mag dru/cle suggestion

Pal/dru/mag works well, until mobs get too high for the pally to pacify when splitting a camp. Even then, it's not too bad, if there's room to break up pulls by rooting adds. Stuns generate enough hate that druid atk debuff doesn't cause aggro pong, if you're fighting stuff that hits harder.

Sk/shm/mag works well, but trying to split pulls with sk is a pain in early expansions (even with mage coth to speed things along).

boxing without an enc for classic - velious is dumb and inadvisable.

As I mentioned in the original post, I am interested in the long haul...as I am on Phinny we are about to start GoD. The problem I foresee is that for a smoothly run 3 box, pacify makes things tons easier. This makes an enchanter or bard an important part...but without charm, the dps suffers. A cleric can pacify, but doesn't its pacify lag behind current content a bit? ie: in PoP, they dont get a pacify up to level 65 until they are level 65...

Palie/Chanter/Wiz is one of my favorite 3 boxes, and may be the best in the game. Chanter/Dru/Mage is a close second, but not having a "real" tank makes things a bit more work.

With P/C/W you can charm if you're in the mood for it, but don't need to if you just want to grind some mobs and are going to AFK on and off. The wiz will give you the easiest DPS in the game, with the least amount of input (which is exactly what you want from a box class), and will provide ports, snares, and evacs, which are all great to have on a box team.

Pull with the chanter, park the mob at camp with a short mez, take over with the palie, and nuke with the wiz to finish up. It's very easy for the palie to get and keep agro with stuns and AOE healing or single target healing if someone in the group is getting beat on. Stun a mob and then heal the mobs target, is about 10000000000000 hate.

It's a fun group, and is more flexible than it looks on the surface. If you're going to charm with the chanter, you can actually just use the palie as a straight healer, and play the chanter 95% of the time.

Palie/Chanter/Druid will be a good alt to this as well, if you want backup healing instead of just straight nuke power.

Why do most of your posts sound like you're afraid of charming? What's the problem with charming? I've duo and 3-boxed always with an Enc, charm isn't that big of a deal.. you can even squish tank the mob long enough to re-charm. It doesn't randomly break very often...

If you want a PAL or SHD, would add either a Cleric or Druid (cleric you're looking long-term), and then if you're okay charming Enc. If not, then you're kind of gimping yourself because I think SHM is a better choice than Bard.

PAL/SK ; Cleric ; Enc
PAL/SK ; Cleric ; Shaman which is what I would do if I didn't want to charm.

Pally/Bard/Shaman is a great combo. The increase in dot damage from Shaman slows is nice and in a couple expansions Shamans start getting the Panther line which gives you a 400 dmg proc with 400 proc mod on it. Bard gives great utility and Paladin gives great aggro plus group heals.

Why would you have to powerlevel a tank at a later date? You're leveling a PAL/SK...

The Enc would be for utility but if you're not charming you're throwing away a bunch of DPS.

Paladin + Enchanter + Druid.

Will be very strong combo come luclin+.

Has eveything. Great hp buffs/hastes/tank/healer/dps/rez/evac/ports/sows/ druid can cast str/enchanter haste later on has dexerity....stamina is easy to find on gear.

When LoDN lands paladins get a 1.1k hp buff +330 brells +630 from pot9 + kei + manaregen from pot9.

Paladins are thr best group content tanks thru all content classic-ldon. Enchanters are well...amazing...druid healing picks up BIG time luclin + and with aas.

Druids and chanters get direcharm.....can go to zones like chardok 2.0 and DC 2x pete and not have to worry about them.breaking to farm aas.

Nothing beats this combo for over all utlity.

Paladins can pacify pull...if it up and 2-3 come...aoe mez them and lock thr movs down.

Casting stuns is ezy mode agro so you can focus on charming better pets on chanter.

Then huuuuuge mana regen you have makes up for the slight lack of healing druids suffer (can heal for 5k in pop). If hits the fan...start casting evac on druid while self healing on paladin....till evac goes off.

Ezy peeezy japanese

Pallies get a 1sec 900+ heal + loh etc for those times you need the druid to get thst evac off and not let anyone die.

Besides minis you can farm BOT named with this combo easy...i've done it.

When pet breaks it only chases the chanter since paladin has agro so its pretty cruize triobox when played right.

ENC/CLR/MAG hands down will smash anything that needs smashing by 3 characters. Mage is super easy and reliable DPS + malo. Enchanter obviously charm / clarity. Cleric, duh, it's a cleric.

Ports/snares are nice in theory but ports are also not very expensive. Snares are definitely important but worst case you can stun and or root, or time mage nukes to execute . The utility a druid would bring isn't even worth mentioning when compared to CH and rez.