Level 100 Heroic Trio, what do you suggest?

I am looking forward to the new heroics. I am thinking of playing again when they release them. I am thinking of doing three box team on either FV or Test. I am only wanting to do group content at my own leisure. I was thinking of any of these combinations. I think from what I have seen in the forums that the Shadow Knight is the best group tank, especially with group only gear. I would fill out the rest with a healer and two dps mercs (probably).

Shadow Knight/Shaman/Enchanter
Shadow Knight/Cleric/Enchanter
Shadow Knight/Shaman/Bard <This might be too hard, as never did bard for crowd control>
Shadow Knight/Monk/Enchanter

Let me know what you think.

I 6-box SK, Mage, Bard, Enchanter, Cleric, Shaman. Your first choice would be almost indestructible and not require a lot of alt-tabbing. Between shaman rooting and enchanter mezzing you'd rarely have to fight more than 1 mob at a time. Your dps would be a little slow since you'd be waiting for dots to ramp up but it would get the job done. And a timely AE mez or AE knockback/root would eliminate a lot of downtime.

I ran with an SK / Enchanter / Mage combo years ago and I loved it. Wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle

mage/mage/mage

my main ranger plays with a mage and there a great combo too but mage mage mage sounds good

Sk/ranger/bst/bard

Trio= three not four einstein

SK, Shaman, Bard

So I’m going to go a slightly different route in terms of advice. It’s only from my perspective and reflects how I play and enjoy the game, which may very well differ greatly from how you and many other do.

The main thing I’d ask is whether you want one of these characters to be a “main” character. Not to say it’s one you’ll end up playing by itself or in a raiding guild with (especially if you stick to your stated intentions) but whether you anticipate focusing on one character’s screen more than another.

If so, I think it changes how you build the group. For example, if you plan to focus on your tank’s screen, then Shadow Knight is a fine choice, but if you don’t, then I would highly recommend warrior. You’ve likely seen that there is plenty of debate over the “best group tank” but I don’t know if anyone would argue that the warrior’s effort to reward ratio is quite high. If you choose to focus on your tank, you’ll likely see great results with a shadow knight. If you would rather focus on another class (especially one that brings melee ADPS) then I’d highly recommend you consider a warrior with one other exception which is whether you’d consider using a pet as a tent.

If you would consider using a pet class rather than using a tank, I’m not the best source of advice. That said, I’d highly recommend considering a beastlord regardless of whether you want them to use their pet for tanking or just along for DPS and ADPS. I think beastlords can word well enough if you aren’t focused on them, and I’d guess that both beastlord/warrior and SK/beastlord can work well (depending on who you want to focus on.

Next, if you don’t go with a beastlord at all, you probably just want a shaman. There is probably even an argument to go with shaman if you have a beastlord. Shamans are just plain good and I’m not even sure there is an argument for not having a shaman in most situations.

Next, I’d certainly think about whether you want a bard or not. Whenever someone is playing with more than one character they should question whether the character should be a bard. Quite frankly, today if you are interested in playing another character and you already have a bard you might still question whether you want a second bard. All I can really say is that if you want to learn how to play one, the bard is nearly always an asset to a group even when they aren’t the main focus (which they rarely are).

Lastly, I’ll return to the original question: do you intent to focus on one character more than another. If so, just keep the above information in mind because some characters really benefit from having a player at the wheel 24/7. Warrior/Shaman gives you a ton of freedom in picking a 3rd character. More so, I think, than SK/X.

Ive never played a SK but why do ppl pick sk over warriors or pally? do sk's have some easy aoe taunt or something im just curious.

Sk +

Bard or enc +

Sha, mag, nec, bst, ber, pal, rng


In 2022 I'd do shd/brd/mag or shd/brd/sha

BST/MAG/BRD or BST/MAG/DRU or even BST/MAG/anything-except-shaman

Beastlord + Magician is a powerful combo and need only 1 gear item per toon to be at almost peak potential. And a bard makes that duo even more powerful.
There is only about a half dozen missions in EQ, which greatly benefit from (or even require) a plated tank presence. Everything else can be done with pets tanking.
Beastlords are shaman/monk hybrids and have almost full list of shamans' buffs. And mercenaries heal warders quite effortlessly, so shamans simply do not have a dps to justify presence in a beaslord-tanking group. Shamans are superb in a plated tank group, but inferior in a beastlord tanking group.

So, a bst/mag/brd group you can bring 2 serious tanks, 2 melee dps, a range dps and 2 hybrid dps and a lazy healer merc who basically cast some seldom heals. And those fully compliment each other with buffs, auras and abilities.

Caveat - you have to main a beastlord as it is a very busy class.

SK/Shmn/Brd will also work just fine, once you gear up your SK.

Yes.

https://www.raidloot.com/spells?name=&effect=&class=ShadowKnight&level=&view=Tiers

search for "Caster PB" to find the antipathy, despicable bargain and insidious renunciation lines. Also look at Confluent Disruption and the host of AE Aggro AA's that SKs get.

You can do the same search for paladins here:

https://www.raidloot.com/spells?name=&effect=&class=Paladin&level=&view=Tiers

to find the NULL_AE_AGGRO_NOT_FOUND lines.

Shadowknights are the golden class in EQ by design. They are currently able to solo all group content and have been the best group tank for almost all expansions. This is intentional game design to align to the game's lore.

What Lore is this? I’m curious because I just came back and chose SK as my main. Would be interested in reading up on this. Also do you have a link that covered the main lore and baddies for each expansion shown? My forum search skills fizzle a lot

Pulling well means you wont need to CC.

Also consider a mage, always a great box, but that will leave you needing to slow with the bard, which should be manageable. I have limited bard experience.

I box ENC, SHD/CLR and MAG

In the lore, SKs are intended to be a reviled class that forgoes decency for power over others. This is the lore-backed basis for why they have one of the best group healing abilities in the game, have a ton of AE Aggro spells (while paladins have none), having an incredible amount of self-healing, DPS, utility etc. I think it's healthy for the game to have a class that is head-and-shoulders above the rest, so I don't think it should change and if the last two decades are any evidence, won't change.

For lore, probably the best source is the original epic quest: https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=766

https://www.everquest.com/news/eq-level-100-heroic-characters

Pally,bard,mage so the mage pet can tank when the pally dies.