Perfect 3 Box Challenge .. Jess 4 U

Here are the parameters.

-Live Server
-3 L 115 Characters
-3 Mercenaries
-Current Expansion
-Have a guild hall
-Group gear only
-No Trade skill gear

Please build your perfect 3 box team with merc's. Then, in one paragraph, describe why you chose your team.

Thanks and have fun with it.

that is with or without the use of 3rd party software ? some box well with the use of 3rd party software and not as good without.

Shd
Sha
one of: Brd/ber/mag/nec

Good mix of dps, survival and utility. Generally not resource starved. Should be able to do all group content unless the next expansion has a couple of tough missions. All the class options have been consistently powerful for years and will probably remain so.

Best option for third class depends on what you're doing and how proficient your boxing skills are. I would personally choose bard because of track and to help buff the sk/sha

I would say warrior, enchanter, cleric and it should be able to tackle 99% of content even under geared and without AAs but you would have some difficulty pulling since in many cases mobs are immune to pacify. You can use the raw power of this team to tank multiple mobs in many but not all cases with the enchanter casting runes and slowing. Your damage will be really low but if you are tenacious you will not need outside help.

Battle of the boxes!
Arena Tournament!

Pal/brd/bst, 1 cleric merc, 2 rog mercs

Bard handles cc/pulling needs, paladin offers group healing redundancy for silence/mez fights, bst pet is tank redundancy for fights or achievements needing more than one. Paladin can survive without relying on cleric merc in most situations - you could probably even drop the cleric for another rog merc in general grinding. The team also has non-negligible DPS with brd/bst adps for the mercs and tbh the paladin with blessing of the faithful running isn't bad DPS either. I think this would be the most well rounded "handle everything" team.

Don't understand why you specified these two. I can't think of any reason these make any difference at all.

Especially the first one, since everyone can use that basic guild hall (I forget the details, but the guild hall tutorial quests talk about it).

Could you please expand on why Shaman was your 2nd hands down choice? Thanks

Primarily healing and also adps, dps, cc, utility, not mana starved.

Any top-shelf 3box will include a healer for situations where cleric merc isn't available or isn't functional. Shamans provide excellent healing and the above benefits.

I agree with Tuco. If I can only pick 3 they would be Shaman, SK, Mage (bard a close 4th). The mage pet can tank if the SK goes down, plus good utility. Shaman helps heal in that case.

No way any trio I picked wouldn't have a wizzy or druid. I'm not one for real long play sessions, or camping in one spot for hours. I'm always moving around a lot. Gotta have that tele-portability!

Based on the current state of wizzies, it would have to be druid.

Ports are handy but in the last few years of content the time savings is minimal. Druids are also great because they have track but are so mana starved you need a bard, enchanter or bst to support them. You can do fine with a bard/enc, druid and pal/shd, but it won't keep up with a top shelf group.

I bow to your opinion on this, but still wouldn't want to play without one

You're not wrong about the mana-starved part. You have to use DoTs to get good DPS, and they eat up the mana good and quick. And the one class-specific mana regen tool is very weak.

Currently running with SHD/DRU/MAG. But I have ENC/SHM/BST on other accounts, so I have those buffs most of the time, and that certainly helps a lot.

I'd say SK, Bard, Shaman, 2 dps mercs and 1 cleric merc.

3 awesome epics and really the bard/shm epic combo and that 55% melee dps increase for 1 minute every 3 minutes is very nice. And yes there is 42 seconds of 25% increase after the shaman epic fades. Plus all the other ADPS/buffs from brd/shm. Probably not going to be the best burn group, but consistent fairly high dps with little to no down time.

Because tradeskill gear gives you best in slot gear.

So what?

hm, i think i go SK Sham Nec. But be questioning myself hardcore Nec vs Bard. Druid maybe beyond that. Bst. Outside looking in monk or zerker. Mentally I like see SK chanter mix, but cant find slot open.

Yea, SK Sham Nec with nec vs bard battle.

BST (SK) , BRD (ENC) , BER (MAG) - with classes in parethesis as alts. With healer + 2 melee dps mercs you can deliver very high dps sustained and burn. Focused and armored warder can tank with ease anything up to Tier 2 current era. BST buffs are on-par with SHM with shaman epic replaced with BST-special mana regen and almost +1K ATK buffs. BER will benefit greatly from adps of both BST and BRD, so shall melee mercs. Only BST needs to be actively played, BRD and BER just require intermittent mash button press.
With group gear your team will be able to leisurely pull 1mil dps sustained and north of 3.5 mil dps burn.
In case when mercs are not functioning BST can heal the warder very effectively with small reduction of group dps. MAG would provide logistics aid and summon gear for the pets and cast DS. ENC will add mana regen and extra ATK with haste buff. SK - solution to all problems with unique mob splitting ability and tanking for special cases.
SK would be the hardest to master - BST warder outtanks many plated tanks who are not the highest quality, though the warder has aggro problems and only good at holding aggro on 1-2 mobs at most.

It's SK, Shm, Brd and I don't think it's close. 115, all three epic'd up, you'd be a monster with 3 melee dps mercs, and if you run into something that's a struggle you can swap to one or more healer mercs.

Pally , shaman, wizy .. 3 dps mercs . all 3 wizzy mercs .. and pc wizzy cast alliance ..
pally can help main heal with shaman and also shaman is great dps ..
that would be my main 3 ..