Mage pets come with armor already worn if you summon with Enhanced Minion I-XX focuses and Heroic characters come with EM V. All other pet classes benefit nicely from summoned armor from mages. Some hardcore players even buy real armor in bazaar for their pets. Pets will equip new armor if the AC of new armor>AC of old armor or empty. All pets still benefit from summoned(or real I suppose) weapons. Pets ignore recommended but abide by required levels on armor and weapons. This is what I have gathered in last few weeks researching pets.
Good to know! on my previous post would there be any advantages to me using each of the pet classes or just stick with mages for a box setup? Heard about the necros getting a group heal using i think it was lifetap, enchanters would be able to give good mana regen as well as AE CC if needed, Shaman for pet buffs and slows on names. Would those benefits out way just having 3 stun pets and what not?
well thinking of dropping the shaman and using a Healer merc. That way i don't have to actually pay THAT close of attention to heals.
Sk,Shammy, merc healer, wiz. wiz,wiz i would not have more than 1 melee character wizzys are good even without buffs and are easy to macro.
Why on gods green earth would you use a shaman with a SK tanking and 3 wizards Druid all the way. Maybe you didn't know this but Druid atk debuffs > Slow Maybe you also didnt know Wildspark aura on 3 wizards/SK > panther on SK/Pet/Shampet And to top it off 3 minutes of Group black wolf out of every 10 > Sham Epic on the SK Using a shaman with that many wizards would just be silly lol
honestly I only didnt think of druid because ports and snares were covered by wiz and there is no merc that can cast shaman buffs both shammy and druid fill in fine with minimal differences, you really only need a tank to hold aggro the wizards will be doing the heavy lifting
Wildspark Aura/GBW Are not minimal differences. GBW is a HUGE increase to your sustained DPS on 3 wizards Skin to Seedlings (10% increase to fire damage) With 3 wizards casting Ethereal Fire and Claw of the Flamewing... yeh And What you gain from shaman buffs on the SK is less then the gain of ATK debuffs... A druid would make the amount of "heavy lifting" far less substantial.
I concede sir or Madam /bow I am used to saying shaman cause that is what I am used to boxing with and it comes easy off the lips or fingers so to speak
So after messing around with with a pet focused group I want to have a tank and a healer besides merc. That way if someone wants to join my little group they are able to and I don't loose my healer for suspending the MERC. I also was trying to find a way so that I have one of each armor type in the group. With the pet setup I was using there was several times where gear was sold to a vendor because I did not have any CHAIN wearers in the group. The BST is my main character so that is why he is in the group. Which makes the SK tank and the BST as the only 2 meleers. Was thinking if I should switch to ENC for a bard as the bard can pull a lot easier as well as take a few hits more than an enchanter, but then I would have a 3rd melee character. I do like using a bard puller though. Selos is bad for pulling in an outdoors zone. Comments??? Trying to also make a good makeup where the buffs and such mesh together. I know Shaman and Beastlord have a lot of the same buffs, does that change as the characters get higher level or will the 2 always have about the same buffs just at different level ranges. If they have the same time of buffs I'll use a druid and ranger. I guess a lot of it does boil down to do Shaman and Beastlords share a lot of the same buff lines. If so I don't want to use a shaman then. Do you think it's silly to try and use each armor type in my multibox? (trying to maximize item drops) Please comment, I like to at least carry on discussions such as these SK Plate ENC Cloth BST Leather RNG Chain DRU Leather SK Plate BRD Plate BST Leather Wiz Cloth SHM Chain
Okay. I have SK, mage, enchanter, druid, cleric and second mage, as I play with 4 comps so can be having diff characters doing diff stuff there is some room to adjust on the fly. One advantage of the 2 mages, is that I can split to 2 groups and use mercs to enhance DPS and survivability (one mage is just - send pet). However, it started with one went to 2, went to 2 sets of two, that got split from 2 accounts to 4 accounts and then added the last two eventually. It takes time and even with assisting programs some talent to handle multiple characters, as well as be happy with what you are doing, the big problem is that at lower levels as in under 65-70, most of the effort is kill mobs get XP, the higher you level the more nuances are discovered and you either love the character or you don't. Part of Ever Quest is that search for the character(s) that you really like, so to build a set of 6 is likely to take quite some effort and the discussion here is only going to offer possibilities, not what makes you happy. I have retired my shaman except for potions, and my paladin, and my ranger really only does mid level PL, Necro is mostly abandoned at 72, so to each their own. Good luck on your effort.
Do you know about the Shaman and Beastlord buff questions? Do they get separate buff lines or are they almost the same. That will determine which healer I use, Shaman or Druid.
Shaman and druid get the same Regen, druids have an AC/HP mana regen buff that stacks with the secondary cleric buff, Shaman unity line stacks with cleric and druid hp buffs. The big Beastlord buff is a mana/HP regen, but character buffs should not determine group makeup, the goal should be to have a group package of- tankage (char/merc/pet), healing, crowd control, and DPS, a druid/wizard for port/telebind is handy but not essential. If your concern is buffs, then an account with your choice of shaman, ranger, beastlord, enchanter- whichever classes aren't your prime choices to play, so that they once leveled can sit in PoK as buffers, Just log in each in turn cast buff, and log to next buffer. Once fully buffed you have some 2 hours approx. of play time, with fellowship campfire and bind in PoK or druid/wiz port to PoK or if all characters started in CR, the use of Origin, rebuffs are quick. Also as the difference in RKi and RKii is minor the buffing account can be silver or bronze if only have 2 buffers.
At higher levels, beastlords have the same focus that shaman get, but with lower duration (~50%). They do not get the Mammoth line or the dodge line of buffs. They do not get the proc buffs that shaman do, but those are pathetic at higher levels. They get a HP line of buffs with some added attack - more HP than the ranger line, less than Brell's. Less attack than the ranger line, more than the zero that Brell's has. They get a useful Ferocity line back around level 89, with group Fero at 95 iirc. Fero is quite awesome for melee groups, and worth casting for the beastlord/pet alone. If you're going caster-heavy, go with druid. If you're going melee-heavy go w/ shaman. If you're using the bst and SK, I'd call it a toss-up and you won't go wrong with either. As for the gear archetypes, I wouldn't bother with that. At higher levels (81+) the drops for armor are all all/all and not sorted by chain/cloth/etc. The other drops are frequent enough imo to not worry about spreading classes out. Play what you want to play, gear will naturally happen.
The absolute best box combo in my opinion is: SK Bard Shaman Cleric Wiz Mage OR: SK Druid Chanter Wiz Mage Cleric The first group is if you prefer to pull singles all day with the bard, and the second group is if you want to pull a few at a time with the SK and mez the add. I am a big fan of utility and these groups have all utility covered (track, snare, slows, pulling, crowd control, DPS, ADPS, Call of the Hero, ports, buffs). Call of the Hero is so money for big box groups. Invis/Invis v Undead the Mage and he can get your group anywhere quickly. Also, the Mage pet is great for finishing up a named mob if your SK takes a bad round and goes splat. I can not even imagine running a box crew without a Mage or a porter. Would be painful to run all those toons everywhere...
The group I ended up with is: SK Enchanter Beastlord Mage Shaman Druid Druid is for ports and backup heal, Shaman was going to be main healer. Would you recommend to switch the Shaman for a cleric? Since BST has similar buffs as the Shaman? The BST will be my main toon that is why hes in this group.
I'd just dump the shaman for another caster. Keep one levelled up and sort of reasonably geared for the rare times you need it, and use the dps 95% of the time. SK epic for the melees/pets and chanter runes can cover most of the extra group healing needs.
