melee VS caster box group

Hello all, I started a caster 6 box during EoK too ToV and completed all expansion. I took a break but these latests x-pacs look too good and i want to come back. I have never NEVER played a melle DPS group but, I am gonna make one now and am excited to learn the classes and how they all synergies. I have a main warrior who will tank and the rest i would like bard, shaman, rouge, berserker, monk/beastlord ( not sure witch one for last spot. I have read that casters r in a good spot rn but o well. I wanna try something new and fun. My question are 1. will that be a good synergistic melee group. 2. can a shaman alone heal theough all current group content ( my caster box completed all but a couple conqueror achievements from there x-pacs ). 3. Any general tips for a experienced player switching from caster to melee.
Not gonna lie im mad excited to learn a new team! Mainly using these forums and freelance fourms to learn basics of the individual melee classes.

1. war + brd/sha/rog/ber/bst will be a very good group.
2. I'd recommend building around war + sha + pal + brd. Adding a rogue+bst for DPS would be my recommendation. I did something like this in ToL (swap rog and ber) and it was extremely strong. Having a paladin as healing backup allows you to survive a lot more and the decrease in group DPS, especially during burns, is fairly minor.
3. Get good at using /follow. Increasing box background FPS (I shoot for 80FPS), getting used to not moving forward/backward when tanking (to avoid your boxes projecting your position and running off) and getting used to moving around tight corners is key.

FTFY

Would war + brd/sha/MNK/ber/bst better ? A monk has actual aura and useful (to a melee group) group aDps synergy proc, meanwhile a rogue is only good to a rogue.

Rogue poison synergy works for any character that procs a poison proc IIRC

I don't know. I never played a rogue/monk. Berserker provides some decent melee ADPS, but I don't know how it compares to a rogue these days.

I think someone would do just fine with either a monk, rogue or berserker in that slot. The difference in DPS in either case would be modest.

[*]I'd recommend building around war + sha + pal + brd. Adding a rogue+bst for DPS would be my recommendation. I did something like this in ToL (swap rog and ber) and it was extremely strong. Having a paladin as healing backup allows you to survive a lot more and the decrease in group DPS, especially during burns, is fairly minor.
[*]Get good at using /follow. Increasing box background FPS (I shoot for 80FPS), getting used to not moving forward/backward when tanking (to avoid your boxes projecting your position and running off) and getting used to moving around tight corners is key.
[/LIST][/quote]

I did not think of a pally back up healer that could be interesting. mainly spam splashes and group heals while he attacks. Im gonna give that a go.
80 background FPS!!!! holy frick i been running 30. Ok i will have to increase that thanks for the heads up.
Yah im def gonna miss a porting and CoHing evrey where.
thanks for the response man

Paladin as a healer benefits from two things:

• Their heal spells (along with the other hybrid healers, bst/rng) will automatically hit your target of target if they are targetting a mob. So you can just assist the tank and spam your heal spells on the mob and it'll hit whomever the mob is aggro'd on. I pretty much just set my paladin to spam their heal spells and got enough utility on him that I never even considered doing anything else.
• Their spire and group armor of the inquisitor have decent uptime and dramatically improve healing. This buff + the bard playing their reckless renewal line mean that any healing from the pal/sha or random heal procs are amplified to dump healing into the warrior

Note that their splash spell needs to target the ground and can't be simply put into a social macro, so it's not as useful on a boxed paladin. It's not as useful in the group game as raid (do to only having one group) so I don't think it's a huge loss.

Also note: don't take paladin advice from me. I used him for one expansion, loved him and then ditched him when I changed from warrior to shadowknight for tank.

Ok when will you talk about your experience with the SK. I have grown so accustomed to you and a Warrior. I didn't know you switched. Tell us what you think.

tucoh you switched to an sk main tank for the team.... I know you've talked about that in the past but cant believe you did it. I wonder how it will compare once you get it down. Ive thought about switching to an sk main but i have so much time invested in my warrior. Youll have to make a post describing some of the differences and what nots.

Jury is still out.

It's generally really strong but it comes down to whether I can interrupt mob damage with a lifetap and/or weapon swing (with one of the many weapon damage leech abilities running). In many cases I can't either because I get one-rounded by a bad pull or don't have enough defensive abilities running or because I can't attack the mob for whatever reason. If I can squeeze a single round or lifetap in, the shadowknight is amazing. If I can't it's a pure comparison of effective HP (taking into account all the mitigation abilities running) of the warrior vs the shadowknight where the SK loses.

Most of the increased utility is not useful in my group because it almost always operates as a meat grinder. The mana regeneration a shadowknight contributes is a good exception to this and feeds what are very hungry magicians.

The irony is that in NoS the only difficult group encounter is the Cut off the Head achievement in the Mean Streets mission where I spend a lot of time being unable to damage mobs, so the SK is by far the worst tank of the three.

Rogue stuff:

Thief's Sight
Improves your companions' balance and vision, increasing melee accuracy by 5%, adding an additional 255 to melee accuracy, and increasing melee damage dealt from behind the target by 504 for 1 min. (it's really 10min)


Blackguard's Synergy:

2: Limit Skill to Archery

3: Limit Skill to Backstab

4: Limit Skill to Bash

5: Limit Skill to Dragon Punch

6: Limit Skill to Eagle Strike

7: Limit Skill to Flying Kick

8: Limit Skill to Kick

9: Limit Skill to Round Kick

10: Limit Skill to Throwing

11: Limit Skill to Innate

12: Limit Skill to Frenzy

Which triggers 3 procs of:

Blackguard's Synergy Strike IV:

1: Decrease Hitpoints by 57600. Max: None. Calculates to current max level.

Rogue alliance/coalition/conjunction. Anyone melee'ing using one of the two non-rogue usable poisons can help this trigger.

Rogue vs humanoids: If it can be headshot, it can be assassinated.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some monk goodness. But don't toss rogues out because you think their sneaky ways makes them completely selfish.

Well that certainly adds on to the complexity of tanking. Probably gives more control IF everything works out correctly. Warrior just holds up and hopes he gets a Heal in time. i haven't experienced any NoS yet so i cannot comment there but give it time....

Warrior has more/better defensives to get him through. A lot of the SK's defensives/mitigation comes from self heals in their many forms. SK's rely on swinging their weapon to get those heals coming in, Warriors rely on their AAs/discs (and yes, outside heals, but discs are meant to hold up better until said heals come in)