So I generally box a 110 magician, full raid gear, 32k AA and a 110 bard, 1/3 raid gear, 17k AA. I have a 105 monk, 13k AA, raid 2hb, eventually ROS TS armor. So my question is, which would be the better class to box with monk and do EOK/ROS progression- the bard, or start a heroic shaman and level it up and do monk/shaman?
If you already have a bard, then just use the bard.. this is coming from someone who has a shaman box. Shaman monk combo is wonderful don't get me wrong but I wouldn't invest a bunch of time in leveling/gearing a shm box if you already have a bard available. Both combos have great adps options. I personally rolled a shm for buffs but wound up enjoying the 2box combo.
Given a choice between two equal toons, a shaman or a bard, I'd pick the bard. As it stands, you have a decently geared bard already, max level, with a decent amount of AAs. The time it would take to get the shaman up to that wouldn't be insignificant. ADPS - Bard ADPS is fantastic for melee. Shaman's is good too, but anecdotally I think bards are better. Buffs - They last an hour or two. If this is the deciding factor for you, make a buff bot. Or bribe someone in the GL. Heals - Shamans make for fantastic healers. However, that is going to require a bit more attention, which means you're doing less DPS on the monk. Two healer mercs is going to be more than enough to keep your monk up and running. Slow - Shaman slow is great. Bards... get slow? I can't recall. I think they do. Again, year-old content, semi-raid-geared monk, probably not critical. DPS - Shaman DPS is great (was great?), but needs attention to maximize. More attention on one means less attention on another. A bard's DPS is going to be lower, but their ADPS and set-it-and-forget-it is going to amp up your monk's game. CC - Shamans are good, bards are better. Overall, I'd pick a bard. The set-it-and-forget-it aspect is a huge appeal to me, which is why I chose a bard for my box. Although he's been rotting on a silver account for about a year now. In your particular case, a bard paired with your mage (when playing the mage) is probably a better fit than a mage and a shaman. So again, a nice choice.
It's too bad you don't have the monk opposite the mage. Monk can pull and dps while mage pet tanks. You can hotkey almost everything on the monk and "drive" thr monk as your main. A friend of mine does this, and it works really well. While a lot of people box a bard, i hate having 2 melee chars as it's hard to position 2 melee chars. From what you offered, I would go monk/shaman, but then you are relying on a tank merc, which is less than desirable.
I ran monk+druid+bard for a little bit. Here's a few observations. The bard draws aggro like a beacon. Make a /stopsong hotkey and use it whenever you think something might get too close to your camp, or when you are pulling. Remember, monks don't deal with adds very well, and have to target each one individually to get aggro. Bard buffs stack nicely with merc healers. +crit heal and +% heal buffs. Bard buffs stack nicely with merc dps, both casters and melee. IMHO Bard buffs for monks are as good as, or slightly better than shaman. This has to do with triple attack buffs and overhaste. I have not parsed this, and this knowledge may be out of date. Bards do get a weak slow, which stacks nicely with druid atk debuffs, but you need to be high level to make it stick. It will strip haste buffs, which can be nice. Bard's do have crowd control abilities, but you will have to be a keyboard virtuoso to do that while doing anything with your monk. I never tried. My group juggled the bard out for an enchanter, then swapped the monk out for a warrior, and now I'm contemplating a beastlord or a magician. I have severe alt-it-is, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
The timing on this thread is uncanny. I just made this decision in the last week, and those were the only two classes I considered. I think both are great options. Originally I planned to use a bard, but I already have one and didn't want to re-level it on another account (account to account transfers are down indefinitely). So I went with the Shaman, which I'll be leveling for a while before I can use him with my 108 Monk anyway. For me the deciding factor was the always-on buffs from the Shaman. I'm sick of carrying around haste potions and I'd like the other melee buffs too. Plus I'm not much for boxing in the first place, so switching over to cast slow is great return for little effort. Not that the Bard couldn't do the same, and more on the CC side, but it just feels a little more active to play one when you go past the level of a couple melody hotkeys. The Shaman will be doing mostly a slow and maybe a dot, or an occasional root, the monk can pull singles pretty well so CC should be minimal. I don't think you can go wrong with either option.
Thanks all for the replies. After reading the replies and thinking about the situation I have, I will be running the monk and bard combo. The amount of time and work I have put into the bard, and what I still have to put into it, makes me realize I just do not want to go through that again...
I rolled a bard a few years ago and no regrets. No more portions for haste . Love the extra dps. Auto follows me everywhere using Melody and I rarely have to switch to do anything.
