Boxing the holy trinity

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by lucienne, Sep 2, 2014.

  1. lucienne New Member

    Warrior, enchanter, and cleric used to be the pillars of a strong group back in the original classic everquest. What are people's experience with this team in modern game? Would it be an effective team with three wizard mercenaries? Would it be difficult to box? Seems like it should work. I read enchanter add a ton to wizard mercenaries and you really need their cc for progression.
  2. Wuddane Elder

    It is an extremely efficient box setup. There will be little group progression you wouldn't be able to do, such as missions that really require active players for at least five of the six group slots (such as The Fall of Lord Bayle from Tower of Rot). That is what making friends is for, however ;)

    Enchanters really are a powerhouse, as you learn the abilities and become more proficient boxing you will surprise yourself with the mob capacity you can handle.

    I really don't know if they add a 'ton' to the mercs, but there will be synergy there with the casters. Sadly, the 'need' for CC really is a thing of the past (unless you pull 20-30 mobs that you don't intend to burn down, which enchanters make possible).
  3. Khauruk Augur

    Quite excellent group, and the chanter adds a good bit of adps to the wiz mercs. As of the new expansion it'll add more yet.

    Just PL a shammy buffbot on one account for the warrior to use, and a BST on another account to buff the casters.
  4. Porterz73 Augur

    I would suggest switching a Shammy or Druid in instead of the Cleric... (My preference is Shammy)

    Reasons
    1.). Shammy heals are pretty good these days
    2.). Shammy brings sweet buffs and very nice slow to the table
    3.). Cleric Mercs are miles beyond the War merc in terms of usefulness so you will have a decent cleric available for augmented heals + cleric buffs
    4.). Shammy and Druid DPS is much better than a Cleric

    Clerics are good but in a boxing setup they are easily replaced by a merc. There are many opinions on this but this is just my thoughts.
  5. Orbital101 Augur

    You can not go heavy duty with a clerc merc but no one ever said you had to. This is just my thoughts :p
  6. Khauruk Augur


    Everybody's heals are pretty good today. Don't overestimate the value of slow, or underestimate the value of having Shining Bastion, stuns, divarb, DI, and the other things that a real cleric brings to the table. They also are more effective at dps than people give them credit for (though not great, but none of the three are great).
    Ravengloome likes this.
  7. IDotPeople Augur

    My favorite box team is SHD/CLR/ENC, is extremely little I can't do by myself. For trash burning 3 wiz mercs is fine, for a rougher named I might swap a wiz for a cleric. Rarely I might use rog/war mercs too for weird named mechanics. The ENC burn is actually quite good, can definitely put a dent in named when necessary. Coupled with SHD burn is typically enough to down most things.

    Primary weakness of this group, you will be relying a LOT on your mercs as your primary dps, which can be just fine, as the tank can keep strong enough agro to allow them to burn. However, this can be a serious problem as the merc AI is not as clever as you might like it to be. This becomes super apparent when you pull a train of 8 mobs, mezz them perfectly, only to have your 3 wizards nuke 3 different targets, 1 with an AE nuke for some reason, suddenly freeing 5 mobs anyways... Is a real issue on named as well, as their AI is still too dumb to know to burn on named at HP above 2 mill or so, you have to remember to set them to balanced for this. Lastly the wiz merc AI has an auto back away from monsters to keep them out of rampage range or something, which is fine out in an open zone. But in a more closed in zone like MM, you best not ever lose agro, because your merc could be hiding in the next room, it could be hiding under a piano, there is no telling where it is, but it isn't going to end well if it gets agro :)
  8. Rattenmann Journeyman

    The basic trinity is always great.
    Id suggest trying it out for yourself tho. I myself started with Shadow Knight / Bard / Shaman and did not like it at all. Switched over to SK / Enc / Druid and having a blast.

    Every healer can do the job pretty much. It is just a matter of how easy you want the healing to be and if you want to sacrifice snare (don't forget snare!), ports, nukes ect. Shaman has better buffs without a doubt, but really it did not feel like he pulled his own weight for my team. Keep in mind you will be using 2-3 wiz mercs, so everything that buffs caster is good.

    That being said: I will test Paladin and Warrior as well and see how every setup plays out and i strongly recomment to do the same. TRINITY WILL ALWAYS ROCK. It is just a matter of finetuning the possible trinity classes for your playstyle. It is no longer needed to stay pure warrior and pure cleric. Also bard is an option, depending on the rest of your setup.
  9. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    The time commitment to gear up an effective tank is unbelievably huge. It can be fun if you enjoy drawn-out camps/quests for the best augs.

    Personally, in today's EQ, run three mages with two wiz mercs and a healer. Far less complicated and far less reliant on gear than the trinity. Less interesting? Perhaps, but the content you'll be able to take on without spending months camping gear could be more satisfying.

    I just think the return on invested time for a warrior or paladin is not worth it. SK can do some interesting things though, it might be worth pursuing.
  10. Arlien New Member

    Rattenmann...what do you think of SK/Bard/Druid? You get stacking damage shields, and druid can still use their aura as they wont have to compete with chanter? You strong cc and decent dps though..
  11. Arlien New Member

    Lose rather, on the last sentence lol.
  12. Ravengloome Augur


    I do paladin/enc/cler on occasion. I prefer Tank/Chant (or bard)/DPS class though, since for most group content 3 wizard mercs will not reach the threshold of DPS to do things at a rate I find satisfactory, but Cleric mercs perform well enough in Comparison.

    As far as the whiners about gearing up a tank:

    Its really not that bad. If your boxing you can split group numerous of the camps, and alot of good augs can be had from the WK vendors.

    It takes just as long to get max augs/clickies for any other toon as it does a tank...

    If your not the type who has to have the best, you can use substandard augs on a tank at 100 NP.

    On an alt of mine i was recently doing Argin/Tower of Rot with a few friends and our Tank had like half their gear augged, (and some of it wasn't even T1 COTF!). Sure alittle better gear would have allowed us to pull larger piles of mobs, and do far riskier things, but they seldom died when we were playing it safe pulling 2 or 3 at a time.

    Back to the original point tho:

    Tank/Cler/Enc is a solid team, but your going to want to make friends with a good DPS class if thats the route you wanna go. Or resign yourself to the fact your going to take a much longer time to do the things you want to accomplish.

    Also if your lazy like I often am and don't feel like boxing your cleric

    One of the knight classes + enchanter alone is a pretty solid force to be reckoned with.

    How successful you will be with the Cleric depends on how good you are at proactive healing tho (it can be a bit unwieldy if your not accustomed to switching windows often to spam heals)
  13. Khauruk Augur


    Damage shields aren't worth making a toon choice over. They're a minimal source of dps for the last few years (exception: mage short term DS spells are good damage per mana).

    As for auras, druids can use their aura w/ chanters. Chanter switches to amplifying and twincast, instead of MR and twincast. Now there's 3 auras effecting the casters, though only a slight boost over MR/TC.
  14. Ravengloome Augur


    I think you haven't seen what paladins can do in Modern EQ then...
  15. lucienne New Member

    Ravengloome : Can a paladin bring significantly more healing to a group so that I can feel comfortable leaving a real box healer behind? That would leave room for a real damage class like wizard. Then I could use enchanter. Do you find a paladin and enchanter keep you awfully busy? Seems like those are both busy classes to play well.
  16. Khauruk Augur

    Not to mention how easy is is to get a base set of augs. 4 from mage summons, 8ish from Marks of Valor, various others bazaarable or easily gotten, hotzone augs, etcetera. You don't need a set of 40+AC/8hagi/dex augs to start out. Not to mention how competitive bazaar gear is with group gear now also...it's surprisingly close for a tank (and 3k/slot for the lvl100 crafted stuff on Luclin).
  17. Ravengloome Augur


    Unbelievably busy If i am trying to maximize both toons. (IE rotating DPS cooldowns on both, Charming, mezzing, etc) < Which is why I don't often bring my cleric because i am way to lazy to tab every 3 to 4 seconds to cast a heal on top of all the tabbing to cast and maintain rotations on the Pal/Chant.

    AS far as paladin healing, it can cover quite a bit of territory, especially given the chanter cripple/slow/deep sleep and if needed runes on the tank.

    Also Pal/Chant/Wiz is probably one of the strongest 3 box teams you could have that is tank based.... In my opinion.

    Although SK/Bard/Mag(or Wiz for that matter) was a team I liked quite a bit as well. < Its awesome for PLing/Mass killing HA's in a very timely fashion. Its a bit weaker at some of the more challenging group missions (which is where the earlier mentioned team really shines).

    *** Although like someone said earlier: You can't push as hard with a group with healer mercs.

    You might have to back off pulls to 2 or 3, or actually mez, as where with a well boxed cleric you can usually get away with pulling handfuls at a time.
  18. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    You would be correct. However I also believe you would have a difficult time telling me with a straight face that Paladins are as effective with minimal AAs as Magicians are. It's not a knock against Paladins, either. It's just the truth. Real tanks take real effort to gear, level, and AA up to the point where they can be considered even just 'effective'. If that's your thing, great! But my post was directed to the OP, not tanks-at-large.
  19. Battleaxe Augur

    Yes, boxing a Warrior, enchanter, and cleric with 3 DPS mercs would be effective.

    But I think there are some things you should consider:
    Gearing/leveling up -
    IMO if you are starting from scratch you should use Heroic Characters. Afaik no one has made a list of the things you should do to take level 85 Heroic Characters to levels 92, 95, and then 100. You'll need to figure out why I list these as plateaus, what tasks need to be done, what gear to get, critical AA's, and where to hunt.

    Gearing up a tank is easy? Um no it's not. It's easier than it was a year ago, but it's FAR easier to gear up a tank merc or Mage pet.

    Running the team -
    There are those that claim boxing a Warrior is easier than boxing a Paladin or SK. They have a point, but that's largely because Warriors can't do much of anything other than aggro, get hit, and do some of the worst damage of any melee class when tanking and geared properly to tank.

    SK's and Paladins need all those extras as substitute methods of survival so they can tank what Warriors can tank? You might need to heal yourself to offset greater Warrior mitigation but you don't need heal or cure others to do that. The others part is a free bonus beyond what a Warrior can do. (Shucks, I can't heal myself much better than 4K every several minutes. That's even beyond just insulting. That's intentional class imbalance.).

    If you go for easy to control, you have to accept a lot less flexibility. Maybe having a tank merc and a cleric merc on the bench, and some friends to call in at need can make up for the fact that the "Holy Trinity" is not the best group in all and perhaps even most group content.