I am SHD/ENC/MAG/DRU and am very pleased with both my DPS and my utility. Don't underestimate the advantages to CoH and Ports on your play efficiency.
100% this. I save so much time with mag/dru in my box team. For anyone intending to do quests/progression a lot, it's worth considering!
If you weren't already aware, you can ignore anything fransisco says. Warriors are incredibly broken, being best tanks and best sustained / autoattack dps. Early game, there are aggro issues but after that, there are no drawbacks; easiest box tank, hands down. Paladins are basically incredible tanks that also compete for top healer on the heal parse and compete on dps boards on undead mobs. Only bad Paladins say they are behind SKs and the ones claiming some insurmountable gap are just spewing nonsense, most likely (still) trying to spread false ideas in hopes to get another class nerfed or make their class preference even more powerful than they already are. It's rather sad, really.
Totally True. Thats why every box team is SK/Shm/Brd/other things. Abosolute coincidence that every "which tank should I play thread" ALWAYS says SK. Funny thing right? I could make up lies and distractions like you, but why bother? The truth is pretty obvious.
I like warrior, bard, shaman. Warrior is the easiest tank box by far (and 30,000 less AAs to max out than an SK). Bard is a two button box (melody and mashables). The shaman provides slow and AE knockback/root, great AE heals and synergizes nicely with the bard to boost melee DPS (can go cleric and two melee DPS or three melee dps if you focus on the shaman). A lot of good advice. Mages are awesome. Play the classes that appeal to you. But I'd throw in a bard since that truly is the easiest box. If you're going to main the tank, then the SK makes a lot of sense.
My ex wife used to be my cleric and she swore by having an sk as tank. She really liked to try to be a dps cleric so liked not having to watch me so close. Then again she got tired of EQ and went to WoW so what the heck does she know!
I'd say play whatever interests you. it's really hard for someone to squeeze every ounce of optimal play even with the "best" 3 box team. I personally run a pal/nec/bard. my pal is 123, nec 124, bard I just recently added and is 116. I EASILY camp and farm any t2 named camp in LS. my pal is severely undergeared/AAed. he has 420k hp fully buffed with what my 3 box can do (no outside buffs). from what I've heard most group geared tanks in LS are around 640k or so I believe? my pal tanks t2 named in ls with 2hander and only 1 healer merc while having ~200k less hp than he should. I imagine with him 125 and decent t2/t3 gear and AAs I can probably drop the healer merc all together. my nec is also severely undergeared/AAed. both pal and nec are using ToV gear ( i just came back a couple weeks ago from a long break when ToV was latest expansion) with some sprinkled t1 items from LS. bard is still in their heroic level 100 free gear. I can easily hit 2.5-3m group dps on t2 named in LS. I expect this number to grow at least 50% once I'm 125 on all 3 and with good AAs. I also have a lot of optimization stuff to get better at. my burns are very basic and I still need to learn a lot about the bard. currently bard is just a melody bot that occasionally hits their AAs like fierce eye, quick time, funeral dirge. point I'm making is my 3 box is far from what would be considered meta but I run through all content with ease while not being max level and ~200k less hp on my tank. the nec turning undead is fun. it added like 200k dps on the pal. the nec can also slow with turn undead on. I only bother doing this on named. my suggestions is pick a tank, pick a support (really hard to beat bard for apm/benefit to group ratio), pick a dps and go have fun. I use 2 dps mercs and 1 healer merc.
