It's good for trashy old content, but will be much less exciting when you're in the expansions where charm is less good.
This. Enchanter/Drui/Mag might be great on Agnarr right now, and might be ok in much later expansions on Phinigel, but not for the next 2-3 years.
Thanks again for insight. Dont think mages will be decent for another 2 - 3 years, Machentoo? Thats like current live content? Maybe Mage + Druid + Bard? Or Mage + Druid + Necro? Mage + Cleric + Bard?
I've run a Ench / Mage / Druid (and sometimes a 4th) on live for years. I think what he means is back in the day Mage pets do not really take off and get crazy good until the level 80+ ones that auto equip gear and when the mages get Enhanced Minion items that buff them like crazy. of course Mage pets have been changed, enhanced, nurfed, re-enhanced, re-nurfed so many times now its really hard to predict how they will perform on Phinny until we get there.
Right now, Mages are not as strong as they will be later. But also, this next stretch of expansions is when enchanters are at their weakest. So yeah, the combination is not one that I am thrilled about for the next year or two. Add to that sub-par druid healing that won't keep up with inadequate tanking, and you have a problem. If you want to just farm easy mobs from 2-3 expansions ago you will do fine, but I don't see the combination doing well in places like dreadspire keep or the hive, which will soon be go-to xp zones.
So question is now, do i make a real tank and suck till i get end-game geared and a ton of augs, or do i go with mage and try and make that work in a 3box? (Like MAG + DRU + BRD)
I would not worry about farming in the best exp zone possible, we are in a pretty dry stretch over the next few expansions on phinny and Auto Grant AA kicks in when DoDH drops which will let you catch up some. The next 3 expansions are all level 70, and two of them do not even have any AA's to earn. DoDH has AA's but maybe half of what OOW had and a good chunk of them are Tradeskill AA's You could sit in PAW or Plane of Fire and farm much easier content and still get 75-85% of the exp you would get in whatever the latest top exp zone is... maybe more because you will be killing faster.
You're right, if you don't want to do progression, or ability to farm current era loot, you'd be better off sitting in PoFire or Paw. Which is why I said the combo would work fine if you wanted to farm 2-3 expansion old content.
Pali/Chanter/Wiz Mag/Chanter/Dru SK/Cleric/Chanter Chanter is much better in a box team. Buffs you don't have to be in range for, and long lasting hard cast CC. Trying to CC on a bard in a box team, is a major pain in the rear, I did it for years. Chanter is much better in every way. Pali/Chanter/Wiz is probably the best box in the game, you have every base covered, and there's nothing you can't do that another 3 box could. It's also one of the easier 3 boxes to manage. You can macro everything on the wiz, and most things on the chanter. You also get ports and evacs, which are golden on a box team. Chanter means palie and wiz can chuck spells around without worrying much about mana.
Pretty sure we will be hitting content that a pally cannot tank with no heals, before we get to SoD and mercs. Although, maybe not in this new ezmode version of Everquest.
I run Cleric / Bard / Monk and love it. Monk can tank fine enough for most things with decent gear. Cleric is my main, and can keep him healed better than any other class, Vie also adds 10% mitigation that is insanely helpful. The OoW HoT is fantastic. Bard adds speed (faster pulls), haste, overhaste, slow, mez, and a bundle of other things if you need them (track, group DA, etc) which are very powerful and an easy "set it and forget it" box. I find those 3 classes to get the most out of a 3 box as possible. I don't mind not having ports because bard speed solves most of that, and bard has great origin spot along with thrones of heros makes getting around pretty much a non issue. I also like having 0 overlap.
This is one of the best 3 boxes. No,a bard would be a poor sub. It works like this: Druid: is support, heals, buffs, dmg shield, sow, succor,harmony line of spells for pulling outdoors and most importantly snare. Mage: is st8 up damage with a powerful pet. Mages are very easy to box, just set a main assist, add a couple of macros and the mage will rock in this box without even looking at his monitor. Enchanter: is Charm,Mind Crack, and Mez. Charms are hard to beat, early on they are the top dps with charm, but where Phinny is now not so much. However, Charms are still useful because its not just damage but it another way to control pulls and gives a overwhelming advantage to the box.
That's a great list of what each class can do. Why use the druid damage shield over the mage's? Have you actually played this combo?
sk, sk, sk you have 100% uptime on your 2.0 meaning 0 downtime and higher dps then any other combo of toons.
The problem with all these discussions, is that the answer is very era dependent. Relative powers of some classes swing wildly from expansion to expansion. There are very few 3 box combos that are "always good". Sk/Cleric/DPS is always good, and a safe bet regardless of what you are trying to do. I personally hate not having hard CC, so there is almost always a chanter on my 3 box teams. Even in expansions where chanters are pretty crappy, they are still very handy to have around. Sk/Cleric/Chanter will be slow in some expansions, and blazing in others, but will always be safe and effective. I also hate not having ports and evacs, so I very often default to Druid/Chanter/XXX. This is another 3 box that ebbs and flows in terms of power, but is never terrible, and tends to get better as expansions unlock. Sk/Druid/Chanter is amazing, 95% of the time. If you're trying to min/max super hard content, you're better of with a cleric, but you give up a lot of quality of life for a small percentage of your actual game time. Most of EQ is grinding mobs for hours at a time, setting up a box team that can handle that with a minimum of fuss, is much better in the long run than min/maxing for a fraction of the content you could do. One of the reasons that mage/chanter/druid is so good, is because you can spend 95% of your time on the chanter, as everything the druid and mage need to do can be macroed. The more classes you add into a box team that need to micromanaged as far as positioning and abilities go, the faster you are going to burn out on playing it. There is also this running misconception that bards are somehow the best AFK or easy character to chuck on a box team, it just isn't true. If all you're ever going to do is run melody and have them on follow, it's a huge waste of a slot. Trying to CC with a bard on a box team is a tremendous pain in the . Bards are very very micromanage-y if you are actually going to do anything with them. Having hard cast, long CC of a chanter is just so much easier to deal with on a box team. I've run bards on box teams for years, and have mained a bard both on live and TLPs. I love bards, but they are not the easy mode free box that people think they are, unless you aren't really getting what you could be out of them. The other thing people tend to miss, is what synergies are active in what era. I don't remember anymore when skin to plant line comes into play on druids, but it's huge in a group with a mage for example. One of the reasons mage/druid/chanter is so good, is because the synergy is insane, but that doesn't really come into play until later expansions. When you get to the point where you have fire based dots, fire debuffs, and skin to plant, a druid and a mage are just ridiculous DPS, but before that they can be pretty lackluster together. If you want something bulletproof, and safe in any era, go SK/Cleric/Whatever. It's one of the only combos that will never be "bad". If you have a bard fixation, it's much better off on a team with an SK than it is a mage. Sk/Cleric/Bard will take you a long way.
if youre playing 3 , have a slow and some form of cc, or at least a very good single puller... id play what you enjoy. Bards are good but with 3 characters you'll have to multitask the bard too much imo. Necs are very powerful, though I wouldn't rely on their pets to tank (until later), they're good all around util and dps. Mages have strong pets. If you want to handle any camp chose an ench (their charms are very strong to), shamans are very good (slow, heals, can take hits) Caster groups would probably be easier to manage boxing, though I did see a bard on agnarr with 5 monks running around. lol. The comment above, mage dru ench would be very strong I think. I attempted boxing but hate it and didnt get far.. so my thoughts might be meaningless. BTW necro is like a group itself if you jut want to "xp augs and farm named". At 105 on Live I could take virtually any named during TBS, and almost any during Alaran I think that was the expac where they buffed up named. Though this took a lot of buttons (Aa's) and planning before fights heh. I dont know much about expansions in between pop and the later ones, though.
