I believe Druid's high DPS comes at the expense of very high Agro, great group class, but I think you will have to actively play your tank if you are going to achieve the High Druid DPS.
I box a druid and shaman. I play them around 20-25% of their potential in normal group content and they dps around the same. When i get a named and start the burn I feel my shaman out dps’s my druid, that can simply be, because he is on his on computer and my druid i alt tab to. Also druids are more cold/fire based dots/nukes. Where as a shaman uses diesease, posion, magic, and cold nukes. So in some zones the mobs are more fire resistant, that stops alot of my druid dps. A well played druid or shaman can heal a good tank in all zones on all named. Personally I would love to box my pally with shaman, cleric, monk, ranger and rogue. Then again all classes mesh well these days that as long as you have the basics covered you can add in whatever class.
yea I hear ya...I want to box 6 but I don't think I can play that many and get anything out of 2 or 3 of them...then again, who knows...I haven't played in a long time and don't know the potential of the classes anymore...
If playing an sk as a main tank ,agro should be no problem at all. When running my crew i have dps mercs on burn and burn with my wizard and have no trouble holding agro with my sk. Yes i might have to use an agro spell or AA when one of them get agro, but its not a lot of work to snap agro away from them and hold it.
Some generic things to consider: 1) Melee will have to all be individually placed up at the mob, in place, for each mob. Can be an annoyance, when boxing multiple toons. 2) Porting and coth are both very nice to have, as is tracking. 3) Chanters help caster more (and bring solid DPS in their own right, atm.) Bards help melee far more than casters, and have considerably less personal dps, but are easier to just toss into the group, and /melody in the background. 4) Druids help caster dps more, shamans help melee. 4) Healer mercs are not horrible, and can manage most, though not all, missions. 5) Mage pet tank can tank almost any group content with a pair of healers, as long as you have CC to handle more than about one add. 6) Of the 3 actual tanks, pally takes the most attention to hold aggro. All that said, lot of options work. mage, chanter, wizzie, druid, and healer merc x2 is one of the easier to box options. War, bard, shammy, zerker, healer merc x2 also works. But takes far more effort, and can be an annoyance, with getting all the toons in place, etc. Or some combination - War, wizzie, chanter, druid, healer mercs x2 Lots of options, just remember to consider how all the pieces fit together.
I think Druid High DPS generates significantly more hate than a merc on burn, while I am sure a competently played SK can hold agro with a Druid on full burn. But it will require actively playing your SK.
re boxing melee: I 6box a melee focused group. With a warrior at least I position the boxes via /follow, and position the mob via the push/pull abilities warriors get. I also have a gina trigger on my zerker set up to whine when he's out of range or can't see the mob. It's not as easy as when I box my casters, but it's better than individually controlling characters. However, the whole thing falls apart if my characters break follow, get stuck on something or get knocked back. re healing: having 2 healers working together (I use a cleric and a shaman) allow you to do content you're not leveled/geared for, and allow you to survive situations you normally wouldn't. It also allows you to cut through content more quickly because you can pull larger groups of mobs, keep your tank in DPS-mode and utilize AE damage more effectively.
Shaman is a much easier hotkey-healer than a cleric. A hotkey can be set up to cast HoT, Lion, Counterbias, Recourse, and splash. That gives around 20-30k HoT and a decent spike of healing at the start of a fight while the tank gets situated. As far as battle rezzes go shaman get call or can get their 90% rez stick which can be used in combat. And then after things settle down, can rez with their 96% AA. Reckless heals doing damage to yourself is not a concern at all as the amount of passive group healing done between HoT/Lion/Recourse easily covers it. While a cleric may be better at pure healing one target for an insane amount of damage, a shaman is more utility overall and easier to box using hotkeys/alt-tab. What benefit does a cleric give besides healing ability/DI? Shaman can heal just as well for 95% of the content and also give the opportunity to debuff, ADPS, DPS, CC, Buff.
My husband is a mage and I'm a cleric. Granted I'm not boxing me, but we do have a 3rd (usually chanter, sometimes ranger based on what we need). The pet tank has been able to tank everything so far except we are leary on this brand new expansion right now. We've done partisan/merc in the first zone but nothing since. So at least answering that on all prior content (other than a zone or two designed against it) the mage pet has been able to tank, and when not, we pull out the warrior merc as one of our extra free slots. We often roll with me as the cleric, mage and the chanter/ranger - then our mercs are two wizards (sometimes 1 switched for tank if needed) and a healer merc (since I actually do the pulling and have my whole 17 years playing).
