Box question regarding bard, shaman, zerker, and wizard

I currently 5 box the following
105 war
104 monk
103 mag
102 zerker
101 bard
gold cleric merc

I can handle everything so far up to T3 TDS (where I'm currently progressing).

But, two concerns I have:

1) My bard is a melody bot and I have no desire to play him as a crowd control. Because of that, I wipe, OFTEN, but NOT due to no CC, due to monk flop and 5 mobs come to camp because bard is singing and hits the monk.
2) I know my zerker is just nowhere near his potential DPS. I can really only manage two DPS decently. Positioning is fine, but actually activating buttons and what not, I fail short on the Zerker. I don't use any of the axe disc's (the ones where you summon stuff to use). On burns, he's great, but on all other mobs, he is generally just an auto attack guy with frenzy.

So, here is what I'm thinking of doing. Keep in mind I know that what I'm proposing may actually be a loss in DPS, but I'll explain my reasoning.

I am thinking of replacing the bard with a shaman. I need slow, and the constant haste is something I miss. bard haste is great, but when I have to stop my melody so the monk can pull (or else pull agro and instant wipe), then it takes about 30% of mobs heal to get all the "buffs" back on each toon. With shaman, it would be instant, but less. So, i'm thinking it would even out. Backup healer would be nice also, and I hear shaman's do decent DPS at end game.

I'm also thinking of replacing the zerker with a wizard. One reason is since I wipe often, it would be nice to have an "oh " evac. And, wizards still do some awesome damage as far as I know. And, when it comes to the bot game, pretty damn easy to play.

What ya'll think? i'm pretty confident that replacing a bard/zerker with a wiz/shaman will lose me DPS (normally), but I'm thinking in my situation, in the long run, it will be better. Maybe a little less dps now, but gives me ability to handle harder content, AND less wipes.

For example. I'll do a progression mission that should take about 30 minutes. It may take me an hour just because of wipes, mainly caused by bard melody, or, inability to say "oh crap, get out".

And, ports are always awesome.

trade bard for ench and keep crowd control and gain haste/slow

trade zerker for BL and get mini shaman, let cleric merc handle major heals

In a perfect world, that would be great. But, the BL requires more playing than a bard does. And, from what I hear, they require a lot to actually make them to their full potential. I think they would be less than optimal than my zerker.

Enchanter brings nothing to the table for me. I don't pull multiples except for the following situations:
1) I know I can handle 2-3 mobs
2) Bard aggros monk's pull

I'm planning on getting rid of the bard, so I will have singles constantly. So, all he would bring me is slow and haste, which I can get with a shaman, along with heals, ADPS, and decent DPS.

I plan on playing a BL, but they will be my main character I play in the box group. I feel like adding anything more, especially a hybrid class that can do all sorts or stuff, will just be a waste.

Enchanter:

1) Haste
2) Slow
3) Regan
4) CC - no need for an "oh sh*t" evac and reset when you can lock mobs down and keep on going.
5) DPS - I've only got 14k AAs, damage AAs nowhere near maxed and my DoTs can/do crit upwards of 400k.
6) Runes

Properly played Enchanter will do a lot for you

Properly played Enchanter will do a lot for you

This....this is exactly why I DON'T want one in my box group. I know for a fact I will not properly play one.

Haste - I haven't looked at the chanter haste, but all reach cap anyways.
Slow - shaman does this better with the healing of target, this will help me a lot on my tank I think
Regen - don't need. Mag is never below 90% mana, generally fight outdoors on horse. But, even then, I'm not hardcore, so he has enough mana. Cleric merc is never below 99% mana it seems
CC - If I don't do it on my bard, I probably won't do it on the chanter. Although they have I think easy mode AE mez, that is about all I would really get out of a chanter.
DPS - I think I could get maybe 80% of the damage by boxing as a normal chanter would. And, that 80% of damage is equal to a group geared chanter that is not that good at their job.
Runes - sure, that would be nice

I'm picturing a bell curve of damage done across all EQ classes, with each class having 3 points on the curve - Poorly played, average played, Great played. I will also lump gear into that category (although I know that is completely false, i'm doing it anyway). Poorly played / poorly geared. Average played / average geared. Great played / great geared.

For a great played, great geared enchanter, they are on the right downward slope of the curve (top peak is average everything). Above average, not top tiered (that would be the zerkers, monks, rogues, wizards played great, with great gear).

For me, all of my characters will be in the middle played, middle geared. This, for example, would put the chanter in the slope down on the left side of the curve, below average. My goal is to have all characters in the average played, average geared category.

So, with below average dps in MY group, and not bringing anything else to the table FOR MY playstyle, I'm nixing the chanter.

This same thought process is what is making me nix a ranger and a beastlord - I would play them poorly. It is also the reasoning I am wanting to nix the Bard / Zerker - I play them poorly.

If dropping bard, I would recommend to get druid rather than wiz. High damage, straight up attack debuffs, snare, ports including instant evac, tracking, forage, instant group invis, and backup healing.

The druid has crossed my mind, and I'm thinking about them. I've read that a druids debuff is about equal to a shaman's slow.

I lose haste though, and I'd rather not buy thousands of haste pots if able, if I don't include a shaman.

But, yes, Druids provide the backup role of healing like the shaman. They provide the evac I want. They provide some DPS.

I may be wrong, but I feel a boxed shaman / wizard will be better than a boxed shaman / druid or druid / wiz combo.

My next box combo does have a druid (along with beastlord) in it though. I've played a druid before and they are fun.

Ya know, i'm liking the idea of shaman / druid more and more.

the direct damage of a wiz will beat the druid. But, the ADPS the druid brings aloing with their damage may be enough to make up for it. And if it doesn't, they at least bring more versatility like you are saying.

On named mobs I can attk debuff / then burn. Shaman plays backup healer.

So, right now my thoughts are this:

Bard - I lose a LOT of ADPS. Will adding a shaman with their ADPS and druids ADPS line be sort of close to one bard?
Zerker - I lose DPS, but not what a normal Zerker brings to the table because of boxing. I feel a boxed wiz will bring more to my group than a boxed zerker.

Problem with wiz over druid - lose ADPS, track, run speed buffs.
Problem with druid over wiz - lose more dps

guess I need to research druid vs wizard more.

Really liking Druid / Shaman combo right now and I think that is what I will go with.

next question - are there any market sales expected soon?

Sorry mate I have to lol at this...I've been following your plight. Getting rid of your bard so you can have singles constantly is quite funny since bard is really set up for just this. You need a 101 on bard pulling and it may change your whole thought process on your boxxing situation.

Way I see boxing is pulling tanking healing dps. Pulling requires hands on...no way around that. Beyond that you only have so many moves per your person in a given engagement to be max effective throughout your toons. So which can you automate or have running and be most effective with little or no maintenqnce while you put your energies elsewhere to get the most out of that character.

For me it goes like this. Mage and bard box. The pet is automated...once all the em needs and was AAs are up to snuff its gtg...run 1 or 2 healer mercs to keep up the pet tank depending on mob dps and or health....mercs are automated. That leaves dps. So I main the mage to max out dps with adps coming from bard which some is automated. Sometimes 1 dps merc...again automated. If I were to add ANYTHING to this it would be the best afk dps class there is...which I have no clue what that is now.

Do you wwnt or need to main your tank? Better get some automated dps and healing.

Do you want or need to main your healer? Better get some automated tankage and dps.

Do you want tor need to main your dps? Better get some automated tankage and healing.

Not sure if or how [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] changes any of this...I true box.

Technically, I have no issues getting singles as long as I stay outside of Bard range. The bard is what actually causes the duplicates and I wipe, or, bard dies and I have downtime rezzing and what not. And, no, it's not the bard, it's my lazy ars not turning off his melody, I am fully aware of this.

Yes, bard pulling is best in game (so I hear) and yes, I do need some Bard 101. But, two problems:
1) Bard is lvl 101 - everything will get resisted for a while when attempting to pull for my higher levels
2) When Bard is pulling, no ADPS is on any toons. It takes about 30% of mobs health to get them all going (Bard is slower also so that is an additional decrease in time). When bard is not pulling, everyone is at full dps capability at all times.

On the hybrid forum I have a similar post and they mentioned a BP with clicky haste - that could solve some problems. The haste song would still be active, it would just be lower on the list.

This is pretty much the reason why I'm contemplating changing my box setup. My Auto DPS is lackluster from the zerker and I feel adding a wizard or druid, with a hotkey setup, would be better sustained dps (with a loss in burst I'm guessing).

I "play" the warrior and I "play" the monk. The bard is auto attack / melody, the mag is hotkey'd (one button sends in pet and casts 3 nukes, mob is generally dead by third nuke, if not, then I may toss in another nuke, pending which toon i'm playing). The zerker is auto attack with a couple spammable keys, but swapping 3 toons is not efficient for me I'm finding. I feel if I did a hotkey setup for a wizard, the dps would be better than an auto attack zerker with an occasional AA spam / disc here and there. But, I could be wrong, and hence why I'm asking.

Also, wizard will never get the message "you can't hit your target from here" blah blah.

Druid is really catching my eye though.

I replied to the pulling conundrum post you had. For me its clear you aren't super familiar with everything a bard can offer...to be fair there is a lot to remember. You can do the workarounds I suggested in the other thread or if you're worried about adps being lost with bard out pulling then drop the echo aura for bard and click epic and fierce eye quick time before leaving. Those are adps abilities that stay with the group. If you're really killing in the time of 3 mage nukes then a few seconds of not having a few songs up that actually matter is not going to kill ya.

I still think YOUR best solution is the hotkey creation for your monk that I mentioned in other thread.

Good luck.

I would ditch the monk. Bard can get singles every pull with very little danger. At level 101 the bard can get Silence of Silisia which pacifies mobs up to level 105. Say there is a group of 4 mobs, you pacify 3 of them quickly, then pull the 4th one. It will probably come solo. Ez pz. If something goes wrong and multiple mobs come, you just run away and hit Fading Memories and all the mobs instantly forget you and you turn invis. It is like monk FD but even better because the mobs don't need to reset to completely forget you. So pulling with a bard is very easy and can get singles every time.

I would just use the bard for pulling, then set your haste higher in his melody and he runs so fast, he can be back at the group and starting the melody before the mob even reaches the group. Then you taunt with tank, and all out dps to blast it down. Zerker if you can get better with him, his dps is huge. And maybe replace the monk with an easy pew pew caster.

All good info - I replied to you Parker.

it is clear I don't know how to bard pull, I admit that. I am also very confident if I didn't have a a bard in my group I would have no issues as I'm a very good monk puller, just not with a bard hitting me on songs.

Honestly, it's pretty rare the monk gets more than one mob with his echo lines, basicallyu same as bard, AE mez, tag one, it comes.

one thing about monk / zerker - monk is an old account, zerker is new. I like the monk, I don't care for the zerker. Something about summongin items to do damage with the axes just doesn' jive with me, so I just auto attack and macro some AA's and disciplines. But, I forget to do the zerker's hot key, so I'd just swap it out with a shaman. I really like the backup healer aspect and the better slow, and constant haste.

But, for right now, i'm gonna "learn to bard", specically how to bard pull. Dummy me didn't realize I can start my melody while bringing the mob back to camp...ya, I know, i'm that lvl 101 bard you don't want o group with.

Bard does have clicky 60% haste, plane of time, innoruuk songblade of the eternal. And tacvi rapier of somber notes.

Bard also has echo of maet which you can leave in camp. For all the time overhaste.

Bard can pull mobs quicker and cleaner than any other class in game, with little to no effort.
Even the most crappy played zerker will do more sustained than a monk.

You can just summon 300 axes and they will last around 4 hours plus of play. Each 1 reagent summons 100 axes, so that is non-issue.

Leave tds, waste of time and effort at this point, gear sucks and does nothing for you overall.

Shaman is good I admit, but I would replace the mage with shaman. But that's just me.
The group layout you have is fine, but a real healer since you already say you can't effectively play them all might not work for you.

If I choose to not bring a shaman in the group, then I will definitely be looking into the clicky haste items.

I never thought about taking the mag out for the shaman, I figured the mag is on easy mode and I get about everything out of him boxing. Plus, CoH for a boxer is a godsend. I will probably just leave the mag for that reason alone. It's his easy mode boxing that caused me to lean towards another caster opposed to a melee.

Last night I started using sword and board on war, made a huge difference, I didn't realize it was such a big deal in current EQ. I killed a named in Degmar with little to no effort at all.

Then, he popped again, and I went through what I thought was the same strat and I went splat at 80%.

Also, he was in a group of 3 that the monk single pulled with 0 effort fyi

so, next go I split up my group to two teams, mag / war with gold healer mercs, and the rest with junk healer mercs in one team...the dps group. He went down with easy, slower, but with ease.

That is just one experience, but if I had a shaman, I'm very confident I wouldn't have had to do that splitting.

But, then again, if I have to do that for named, is it that big of a deal? I wasn't for me that big of a deal to split them up for one mob.

So, maybe I need to learn to bard AND learn to zerker.

The monk is on an account that is very, very old, so I don't want to lose those vet aa's if I dump him and leave the zerker. That account is also gold, where the zerker acct isn't.

as far as leaving TDS - I agree, but only one account has EoK (the war). So, TDS has the best gear available to me at this time on 4 toons. And, I have a large list of augs to get from there on my war. Once the new expansion is available for pre-order, I fully intend on buying on all accounts and farming EoK until December. This gearing up process in TDS will also help me once I'm in EoK.

I 6box a somewhat similar team. (war/bard/shaman/cleric/beastlord/berserker, with a ranger and mage sometimes subbed in). You may be able to get a few ideas from the thread I created about my setup here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/tucos-setup-critique-welcome.240258/

As to your questions, here's my opinions:
1. Ditch the monk, they're in a fairly bad state right now in terms of DPS and utility. Take a look at: https://web.archive.org/web/20140228032903/http://samanna.net/wiki/index.php/Pulling_Guide
for an amazing guide on how to properly pull with a bard.

2. In my opinion, replacing the monk with a druid is probably your best bet. Druids are in a really good state right now for both healing and damage.

3. As you know, your berserker's primary damage comes from activatable abilities that you must be in melee range for. The same is true of the bard and monk. The way I play is with everyone shrunk and everyone on autofollow, then I do all my positioning with my warrior. This takes care of all the melee range issues (with some difficulty). Then it's a matter of spamming those abilities. There's really no good way to do this without a key broadcasting system like I S Boxer that allows you to send a keypress made while playing your warrior to your berserker (or other classes). For anyone boxing more than three characters this is probably the #1 thing they can do to increase their DPS. I describe the method I use in the above link.

4. Dual wield is pretty hot right now if you haven't tried it.

1 and 2) I love my monk, but open to alternatives, especially once I learn to pull with my bard. When that happens, I'll re-evaluate losing my monk for shaman, druid, or wizard. Wizard being best DPS, Druid 2nd, but i'm not sure how the Shaman ADPS coupled with their regular dps would do against he Druid ADPS vs regular dps. I do like Shaman slow more than druid cripple.

3) Removing the monk from the picture will allow me to play the zerker to near 90-95% potential, which is generally my goal. I'd be able to play a wizard to probably 90-95% potential, mag to 90-95% potential, war to 95% potential, and one additional melee class to 95% potential. Bard is probably at 60% right now, but that 60% is the bulk of what barding is. I break camp with monk, then pull with warrior always. What I do is make a 1/2 circle with my toons, like a U almost. Then, I pull my warrior to the middle person always. I run past that person just a tad, wait for mob to arrive, then I position the back of the mob to the U. 9/10 times, everyone is in position still and don't need adjusting. I had issues with I S Boxer, but I think it was user error honestly. What I use now, and I really enjoy, is a macro'd keyboard. I press one button and it goes to all my toons, hits the 7 key (which is just an assist / auto attack / activate crap macro). So, it hits f1 to go to toon a, I see him assist and start attack, then it goes to next toon, and repeats. I can see each toon 's target change to the mob and I know I'm good generally. I didn't like that program before because I couldn't figure out the tabbing, which concendally has nothing to do with that program. I'm better now, so I will probably revisit it.

4) What do you mean by this? I've always dual wielded but just started sword and boarding, probably due to the recent weapon stance change.