I'm wondering if anyone can offer me some advice again on six boxing. I'm always theory crafting but it takes a long time to see the effectiveness of my choices (IE months), when someone may already have tried things and knows more about the game and different class choices etc. I'm pretty set on six boxing unless I five box + merc cleric for harder content. I also don't like class stacking personally, although I do hear that is very effective right now. So basically right now I have two questions: 1 - Starting with a base of monk, paladin, bard, what would you suggest as the other three? In this, I am having a hard time getting casters to work effectively, so am going with a melee based group. I find it difficult to get casters to outperform mercs. I've even played a wizard on a raid, without boxing, and am just not good / efficient with it. 2 - Can someone please provide me with their experiences with fellowships. If I have three toons that can get through zones easily to make a fellowship, can I get away with not having a wizard or a druid in the group? I am somewhat addicted to being able to port on demand and I'm very quick with the evac when things are going south .. because I've had a wizard or a druid in my box groups since ~ 2006/2007. So I'm wondering if I can get away with not having a porting class in my six box group and replace the need for ports with fellowship campfires. I haven't used a campfire .. ever. I'm asking this largely because when "theory crafting" it seems to make more sense to have a shaman for a melee focused group (rather than a druid), but it's hard to give up those sweet sweet ports and evacs. Unless I make the sixth a wizard, but then I'm stuck again with my inability (this is just me) with getting mages / wizards to outperform mercs for DPS. PS: I do use that IS thing .. for boxers.
I run monk, warrior, bard, cleric, berserker and mage, no boxing software. I replaced shaman with bard and replaced wizard for zerker. The uptick on the dps from those two swaps more than doubled my dps - grinding and burning. If your casters aren't doing double (at minimum) what mercs do, you're doing something wrong. Campfires rock. Between campfires and mage group coh and bard double invis, setting up or recovering groups is super easy. Make a hotkey (or two) to rebuff each toon, and turn a wipe into 5 minute recovery and reengage. Conq
What have you found the most efficient method for positioning melee without software? The best I can come up with is to leave them in a pile and use a tank to position the mob in their melee range. Otherwise I haven't figured out an efficient way to get them on the mobs. I find melee too hard to use so right now I am just boxing my enchanter and my cleric. I set up my clerics extended target window to match the order my enchanters group window and then I just use /xtar # /cast 1 /cast 2 /cast 3 /cast 4 This way I can focus on just one screen. My group 2 is her xtar 2 so her #2 heals my group 2. I recently added a mage into the mix for DPS and charm breaks, but it's super simple as well. /assist main /pet attack /cast 1 /cast 2 /cast 3 I made a bard but he literally just stands there playing songs. I don't know how to position him efficiently. The cleric takes no keypresses until charm breaks, once every 5-10 seconds if I'm using my animation. The mage is also very very low input. I can press more buttons positioning my bard than I do for the entire fight on the other 2 characters.
If it's not a camp where I can corner the tank and just position with Grappling, then I can sometimes position mobs from simply autofollowing. Piles of mobs create more of a problem with this, but roving (like GMM mission) 1 or 2 mobs, I can just autofollow tank, tank runs through, turns 360 and everyone is hitting everything. Conq
Okay thanks. I think since I main a caster I am mostly going to have to stay with casters unless I start boxing a tank.
Thank you for the replies. I guess I am just nervous about bringing up a crew without a porting class (druid / wizard). Also, I don't have very much experience with fellowships as I haven't played on Live since they were introduced.
Oh and yes, I'm sure I am doing something wrong with wizards / mages. I have just started using GamParse and was surprised to see my mage doing so little damage. I thought for sure she should be doing more damage than a paladin tank! Or a bard! Also - what I do is have the tank position the mobs and the other toons on /follow. It works and IS .. lets you /assist with attack on with one key press.
I used to box sk/enc/wiz/wiz and changed to war/brd/shm/zerk/rog/pal this year. Going from 2 porters to 0 does kinda suck and adds a lot of extra travel time, but I didn't find it unbearable. One thing that helps a lot is the lamp from TBL progression that lets you port to Stratos right next to the PoTranq zone line. From there, you can get to the guild lobby without too much issue, and the guild hall ports can take you to any expansion pretty easily. There is a PoK port item you can get from anniversary events as well, but I missed it. Losing teleport bind was probably the most painful thing. Having 2 of those in the group saved a ton of time in EoK progression with all the running out to Chardok and back. The campfire is really nice, but the port token has a 15 minute cooldown, the fire only lasts a few hours after you drop it, and you can only have one fire active at a time. There are also some zones where you can drop the fire, but it won't let you port to it. So it's not really a good replacement for porting in general, but it is really useful (and actually a nice supplement even if you do have a porter). No evac does mean you'll probably suffer total group wipes. It can be a bit time consuming to recover, but generally isn't too bad these days. It's also possible to run one or two characters out and use their fade ability. Usually I can get my shaman out in time to survive, then just rez everyone back up.
1. I primary box a melee team, you can read about it here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/tucos-setup-critique-welcome.240258/ Combined: Talendor in 288s, 308.2m @1070274 | Tucos + pets@(326.8k in 285s) | Tucoh@(320.3k in 288s) {D} | Lelentos + pets@(177.1k in 286s) | Tucob + pets@(112.8k in 286s) | Tucolord + pets@(97596 in 285s) | Tucocat@(28204 in 284s) | Tucosha + pets@(8713 in 279s) 2. Best 4th char for your three box is definitely a shaman which will provide healing, melee ADPS and some CC. Your fifth and sixth characters can round out your group and are a little difficult to choose. A. A berserker for maximum DPS and some melee ADPS B. A mage for good DPS, CotH and a backup mage pet for offtanking (useful for some missions). Having spell-damage is useful in fights against mobs with goofy damage shields. C. A cleric for increased healing and survivability. D. A beastlord for moderate DPS, melee ADPS, and a beastlord pet for offtanking. E. I don't know what kind of synergies besides alliance you get with additional monk, but I do know monks have been complaining lately about lowish DPS. Personally the group I'm rolling into ToV with is war / brd / sha / ber / mag / cle. It provides a lot of survivability that will help me survive nasty pulls, going into fights blind and being undergeared and underleveled for the content. Once I beat an expansion I like to go back and redo it with replacing the cleric with a DPS character which is much harder and more fun. My high-DPS team is war / brd / sha / 3x ber. With a paladin you won't need as much healing as a warrior, though a cleric would make it easier to get geared in harder content. If I were you I'd go with sha/ber/mag.
Those running monk and zerker, if you could only keep one who would it be? How comparable are they dps wise? I am thinking of adding either one of those to my crew. I have never blade a zerker, but I have a monk sitting at 100 now that I could insert pretty easily. Thanks!
It's so hard to give up ports. Sounds like this might be my best bet: Monk / paladin / shaman / bard / zerker / mage. I do have a druid (and a wizard) on the shaman account so I can port around for easy quests and use the shaman for grinding / harder quests. I can also drop one for harder missions which is what I've been doing, for a cleric merc. For wipes it's easy to FD the monk and use a cleric merc to rez. Having pocket rez on the monk is amazing! Thanks for helping me think this through!
I've found ports to be pretty tertiary in modern content. It's just too easy to anchor back to the guild hall or use drunken wandering to port to PoK and be able to get pretty much anywhere worth going to. The only time wiz/dru ports save some time is when doing older content, and even then I'm only saving a few minutes per zone.
Hmm guild hall anchors? How do those work? I have four of the six in my own private guild. I do have a house on the monk with an anchor package, but I've never thought of using it for ports.
Oh and my monk has this: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=17786 Although with Throne of Heroes I never really use it. Not all of my accounts have Throne of Heroes though.
Turns out that I don't like Zerker. But I guess the only way to know is to try it right? I guess at this point in the game I'm looking to play classes that I'm more familiar with. I've created a cleric now to go with my team although that's a heck of a lot of healing - paladin, cleric, shaman in the same group. I have played a cleric since 2001 and mained one twice, so there's that. I was having a hard time getting the Zerker to outperform a rogue merc (same level). I guess it's just me and being unfamiliar with the classes. Right now I'm going to try out monk, paladin, bard, shaman, cleric, ranger. Way more healing than is required for 99% of the game, but maybe I can do content that is harder than I otherwise would be able to handle with all the heals flying around. It's also hard for me to leave enchanter out, because that is another class that I am super familiar with. My first ever toon was an enchanter, second was an SK, third was a monk that I boxed with a cleric. Learned to play and fall in love with EQ on an enchanter, but if I included an enchanter it would replace the cleric. Also considering trying out a rogue and seeing if I like that more than the Zerker. Mage would be great for off tanking and even tanking some harder content that I couldn't do without a mage. I received a Minion Enhancement 18 for my mage from a rotting drop, for when she's level 105. Ranger/mage are on the same account. I just feel like I would get much higher dps from a ranger because that's what I'm familiar with (and good at).
As you know, the big problems with your group will be DPS, but if you get good at keeping your shaman/ranger DoTs on a mob, keep your monk/ranger DPSing effectively and can switch to 2H on your paladin it won't be terrible. The #1 problem with the ranger class is mana efficiency and recovery. The bard will help some, but if you get a lot of out your ranger you'll have to make decisions about mana usage on your ranger and spend quite a bit of time either waiting for him to regain mana or just having him be OOM.
You're right. I might try the enchanter instead. When I boxed a ranger before I had both an enchanter and a bard in the group. Ranger did most of the DPS in my previous group.
I find it a magnitude easier to manage if I simply go either Melee-based or Caster-based. Mixing the two requires more planning, more doing, more switching, etc. Not saying your team can't be effective. Just saying for my addled mind, one or the other works best for me.
I had a similar experience leveling my zerker. I found the DPS to be quite lacking, to the extent that I swapped in a second warrior and actually saw better results. I swapped back at 110 when I became dissatisfied with my group's burn potential. Now at 110 with full AAs, gear, and a good setup utilizing multibinds, the zerker puts in serious work. I would recommend sticking with the zerker until you can at least try Dichotomic/Dissident Rage. That's one of the most satisfying buttons to press and probably the most "fun" part about the zerker, at least to me. It takes some work to start getting good numbers, but I think it's worth it.
