Best 5 Boxes - Oakwynd

Hello,

I wanted to reach out and get some community insight. I am about to start playing on Oakwynd and will be able to 5-box. I wanted some advice as to which classes to go.

I played pretty heavily on Mangler with my brother. We tried a lot of different combinations of 4-boxes on the fly until we settled (or lost the will to keep trying) on Warrior/Druid/Shaman/Monk — so we could each 2-box at least when the other wasn’t on. It went alright, but by the time Velious came out, Luclin to an even worse extent, and especially Planes of Power, we were struggling. I think the major reasons why were as follows:

- No Cleric, so the Druid did most of the healing. This doomed us in Velious as the Druid didn’t have the 75% heal until Luclin.
- No mesmerization. Even with the monk there were a lot of 2 and 3-pulls (he did the Monk/Shaman and I did the War/Dru).
- No Bard. We ran into a lot of issues when trying to kill some exotic targets due to our resists just not cutting it.

Going from the above example, and knowing how much I’ll have to work like a dog to box 5 characters, I thought of the following comp:

SK / Cleric / Shaman / Bard / Magician

How does this look? Here are some questions I have:

- I ran a Paladin with the 4-box before switching to the Druid. It was okay, but not having defensive disciplines really hurt in a lot of cases. Is SK better due to sustain with life taps? Would having a dedicated Cleric make it better than having a Warrior? Should I go Warrior here anyways just for the defensive, even with a Cleric?
- Is this enough DPS? I thought of Magician for the fifth because it’s easy to box, has damage shield and CoTH, and can also eventually summon stuff to increase the DPS of the shaman and SK pets for more passive damage
- With this comp, I’d be heavily using the Bard. Is the Bard capable of mesmerizing and doing crowd control effectively in such a comp? Would this need to be my “main”? If I went Warrior instead of SK, could the Bard also do the snaring in addition to crowd control?

I also thought about running Enchanter / Druid / 3x Magician, but I’m not really sure that I’d be able to do harder content with this. I’d like to be able to kill a lot of the Western Waste dragons and others in era (Lodizal maybe?) and I think I need the trinity for that for sure.

Thanks for taking a look. I appreciate any feedback!

- Enchanter i'd feel is a hard requirement for clarity/haste/slows/crowd control..
- any class with taunt
- cleric since CH would be the least attention-requiring mechanic
- 2 classes with pets for least attention-requiring dps

I'm certainly being cognizant of how mentally demanding 5-boxing could potentially be, but i'd say the ideal lazy setup would be :
-Enchanter
-Paladin (stun/taunt/LoH)
-Cleric
-2 mages(coth to reduce travel pains)

You're trying too hard to cover every contingency and spreading yourself too thin. The DPS is too low, and CC is very subpar.

Bard CC is best w/ lull pulling. The mez is short-duration, causes pushback, and requires constant target switching. Meaning it requires all of your focus. You can (maybe) mez 3 mobs but you won't be doing much else on the other chars.

Level limitations are also a problem.. For the effort, an enchanter w/ charm DPS is a way better option.

If you're dead-set on having a bard (based on your first post), replace the Mag with an Enc.

Almost everyone who boxes in higher numbers does tank/shm/bard + melee dps (monk, rogue or zerk)

There is a really good reason why. It is easy and powerful. sham and bard are the best melee dps support and give you all the healing and tools needed to zoom around and murderball things.

There is no reason to have two priests in your group and you will find that the mage will require too much work and perform much worse compared to a melee dps.

I run a 5 box very similar to this on mischief except I do druid instead of cleric, the DPS thing was deff a problem problem in earlier expansions esp during the level 70 slog but the utility was sky high, reptile pairs very well with a SK and Bard and Mage DPS shoot up big time in TSS/TBS(bard) and SoF(Mage). And soon i'll have an option in SoD to run DPS merc or cleric depending what I want to do. So you will stuggle with dps on the short term but if you play the long game like I did it works out in end.

If you have a gaming keyboard on that computer you can easily set up a mash key on a toggle for the mage.

It really comes down to what you want to do:

I prefer War / Cleric / Shaman / Necro / Monk.
This allows much more flex-ability to do most if not all group-able content and with a monk you can split pull and pacify pull with ease, that eliminates the need for mez.

Lodizal's regeneration would be a challenge with the setup you listed and you would take long time to kill him, if you did get the tag to begin with.

WW Dragons:
If you intend on going the circle rotation as many people do in Velious for spells, DMF from the necro will help with any Gravity flux dragons in hopes you can either A) kill it or B) let the tank die and run.
The DPS from Necro/Monk you should be able to do most of the dragon circle rotation and some of the death row dragons but just and FYI the dps you have 5 will make this slow regardless.
Notable: Most of, if not all of the WW dragon circle rotation AE so cleric is a must for group heals and the shm can focus on slow/tank heals.
Warrior Disc is handy in a pinch.
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If you are more focused on group content and not so much WW/Lodizal kills, I would stick to what you put forth and you shouldn't have any issues.
If anything, swap the bard for enchanter for haste/mez/charm/etc.

This is true to a point. Before around Dodh the dunking bird strategy worked well it's a bit more nuanced with fickle and rampaging servant and gift of mana unless you want to throw effeciency out the window and be oom a lot.

Enchanter is just about mandatory of course. Tash always lands. Druid spells like Stinging Swarm line have ~-100 magic resist built in *BUT* unless you are taking on MOBs 7-9 levels above your characters it isn't necessary. Nothing quite like a Druid tagging a MOB that has been Tashed.

SK yes. Assuming you do go Enchanter, you have all the tools except [snare, SoW, slow] SK can handle the snare part but it puts other classes like Ranger, Bard, Necro, and Druid back in the mix. Once again, if you have a SK you have snare and good tanking so I would start with that.

Cleric yes. Plate wearing, rezzes, buffs.

Really from there it is just filling out what you want to run IMO. More DPS is nice. Travel is good with a Druid or Wizard. DPS [Monk, Rogue] with some pulling and lockpick. Necro may be good for pet and DOTs, but with the other characters MOBs will be dropping to fast to use them for anything short term like leveling. I personally like Magician but I spend a huge amount of time equipping my pets such that they can tank. Bard is the Swiss Army knife of characters; they can do everything from lockpick to invisible flying fast travel in time. Heck, a Bard can even track! Shaman is a good character but there is a lot of overlap with the Enchanter\Cleric combo.

Build your boxes around your Main (Preferably a tank) and then what you plan to do in-game in terms of content [Group only?] [Group + Raid?]. I would also consider overlap in terms of spells and then gear.

* - Denotes Main class
Warrior*
- Cleric|Shaman, Bard|Enchanter, Mage, Wizard|Druid|Necro|Mage

Shadow Knight*
- Shaman|Cleric, Bard|Enchanter, Mage, Wizard|Druid|Necro|Mage

Paladin*
- Druid|Shaman|Cleric, Enchanter|Bard, Mage, Wizard|Necro|Mage

Ranger*
- Shaman|Cleric|Druid, Bard, Mage, Wizard