picking up a 3rd box, advice please

By the same standard, GINA should not be allowed to be mentioned on the forums. It doesn't allow you to cheat either but it makes things easier for a lot of people and it's from a 3rd party. Before someone jumps down my throat, the whole "Unmentioned" thing is really stupid, and no, I don't think mention of GINA needs to be banned.

Thanks.

I've had amazing results in the new expansion with Ranger / Chanter / Mage combo.
They make camping gear quite painless because of the massive redundancy helping avoid wipes.
To wit:
Ranger and Chanter classes can both pull very well. Chanters Tash and slow easily, Mage for Malo.
Mage Earth Pet can tank, Ranger can tank "quite" well at max AA the new gear, Chanter can rune-tank, and in a real pinch the Chanter pet can even tank named for a bit with mage gear on and popping all the discs at once.
All 3 classes are decent to good DPS, and all 3 burn "bright as the sun" on named critters.
Two healers and a wizzie merc up for normal work. 3 healers for named.
So for named you have a group with.
3 Tanks
3 DPS (With ranger great at Range or Melee)
3 Healers.
Charming Reese was the classic example where losing 2 healers and any 2 of the 3 PC's didn't cause a wipe.
(I still think he's bugged - but beatable with good strats.)

-Rat
And COTH is a nice Bonus...

Alt tabbing is way to slow. Izuboxah (spelling?) allows you to switch instantly with for example f1, f2, f3, or anything you like. Also, you can screencast small bits of toons screens to the other screens. This is very helpful, for example to know which toons target which mob, or to see that the bard is still /melody.

The combat dummy in the guild hall is really your friend, in order to develop and refine your output. You will also need Gina and Gamparse.

Adding a tank to that crew would be sick! You'll be able to do a lot of content efficiently with that set up! Good luck out there!

Humm , I box shaman, mage , chanter and druid ( track $$$ and ports ) and for me chanter is easy to box .
I usually /autofollow my mage on all toons ( same comp and screen ) , but in hard places like droga and chardok where you can face see invis and adds, I /fol my chanter instead.

* I always be sure to have at least 2 buffs on him lv 105 enticer's unity and lv 105 ward of the unity.* ( and those aa runes buffs ) **.
one ae stun mobs if the rune fade ( giving you time to ae mez ** lv 105 anodyne stare ** and other buff mez mobs when they attack him )., and if I need to be fast I cast AA ae mez and AA ae tash followed with ae anodyne stare mez ..

and what a huge dps combo ( chanter aa dps boost combined with druid black woulf form ) combined with both dd auras and twincast aura ..

so for goranothos my choice would be enchanter all the way..

CC is so easy with him, if several ( many ) mobs close each others, I cast ae mez on them and cc what coming to the group , and can one aa click wipe agro on all and kill only the one I want .

** lately I started to melee with them while casting hotkey dps ** wow on shaman lion proc from casters, with all the free crits from that in between casts **

Guessing it's a bit late since the OP said it already picked chanter but while I agree a tank helps make a lot of content trivial, the biggest problem with just "adding a tank" is a lot of AA's and good gear are required to make the tank viable in current content.

Tank is probably the most gear driven role in the game so you will be spending a majority of your initial time gearing up your tank and grinding AA's till you get him to a point where he can tank the content you want to play. That said, it's a very rewarding experience when you can tank just about any group content in the game with only a merc healer.

Plus you don't really have a true "puller" in your box group (if you decide to abandon the chanter) so an SK would be a good pick if do decide to go the tank route as they are excellent pullers and no need to transfer agro because you are also the tank.

To answer Mattnaik, in today's EQ tanks are not as gear dependent as they once were 5-6 years ago. Tanks really more on their abilities to mitigate/avoid incoming damage. AA come super fast as you'll have all of the ones from before CoTF or TDS auto granted. So by 100 the tank is already a beast.

And there is no need to have a puller in a group anymore if you have a tank. A tank is your puller!

A lot of people post on the vet lounge all the time about what to add to their box crew and they list their toons and they do not have a tank. Its like come on people.

There are 4 and 5 boxers out there that are much, MUCH slower then just war/ench boxed combo. The reason? No tank.

To extend a bit on tanks, they are extremely gear dependent, but you can get to a base set of gear where you can tank T1 EoK nameds within a reasonable amount of time. These two threads follow that a bit:

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/teach-me-how-to-warrior.237655/
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/finally-moving-on-from-cotf.237553/unread

Tanks are not extremely gear dependent anymore tho. Sure if you have tds/tbm group gear you are probably not going to be doing EoK with your 2hander, but sword and board no problem. If you are having problems, its not the gear, its your tanking skills.

I agree that tanks are great. I was just going from my experience of leveling one from 85. By level 88 with my default heroic gear, I could barely tank more than 1 mob in DH HA's. So it was slow going till 92 when I could get RoF gear and again, outgrew that quickly. Of course I was new to the class and didn't know about the Weapon Stance AA (not auto-granted I don't think) which probably would have made my life a lot easier. Once I found that it was a game changer. Gear still made a huge difference and by grinding out TBM HA's to get augs (and buying remnants as well) I jumped 2.5k AC once in all TBM (lvl 105) group gear over my T2 CoTF group gear. Now I can tank EOK named without breaking a sweat but without the TBM gear there's no way I would be able to. Just to give you an idea, full T2 CoTF gear with decent augs (all 30+ AC) brought me in at about 9.5k AC self-buffed. That would make EoK nameds a bit difficult I would think. So there will definitely be a gear grind but it's a progressive thing and can be done while leveling from 85 to 105.

Oh man then something is not going right. I made a lvl85 heroic warrior and was able to tank level 105 HA's when I got no time to bleed at 96 wearing the same heroic gear. Tanks are NOT gear dependent, they are ability dependent.

its fun to be in a /gen pick up exp group, pulling and de-railing trains, and then take off a bunch of the visible gear and go at it naked. You won't die if you are using the correct abilities.

For over a decade everyone repeated "Tanks are gear dependent" so I understand its really hard for people to break that thinking, but really tanks have never been in a better place in EQ.

Thanks for the additional input. I have always pet tanked (since 2001) when soloing/moloing/boxing. With the latest pet AC nerf (did that go live today?), I may be forced to abandon that, drop the chanter, and pick up a tank (or just unsubscribe until things improve for pets). A warrior is the only other class that I have ever played as my main to max level (level 60 back when Luclin was current), so if I do wind up getting a heroic tank, warrior is probably my best bet.

It has been 14? years since max level was 60. If you still believe your heroic war will play similarily to your pre2003 level 60 warrior, then I do not know what to tell you. Have you seen tanks in current EQ? What roles they can fill?

Is this how a majority of the EQ players population thinks? He is making decisions in 2017 based on how it played in classic? Do people not know what other classes abilities actually are?

Any chance having a level 105 healer helped? As the tank I was the highest level character in my box group with no merc AA's or merc gear. I'm certainly no pro at playing a tank but I find it very hard to believe that you can tank a 105 HA with an 85 tank in heroic gear. Especially as an SK, which a large portion of damage mitigation comes in the form of his own melee DPS and healing AA's. Not saying you are making that up but it seems very difficult to believe.

Ah yeah sorry I should have been clearer. I was at level 96 when I was doing 105 HA's. Had to have No Time To Bleed first.

Was still wearing my heroic gear tho!

To be honest, no. The last time I played EQ as a grouping/raiding game was during PoP. I've been soloing/moloing and boxing since then (with lots of breaks, lasting from months to years). So no, I don't have a clue what a modern tank can do against current content compared to what a level 60 tank could do against what was then current content back in Luclin and PoP. Back then, tanks just tanked. A good tank kept agro, a bad one didn't. What's different now?

That's rather condescending. Here's a clue for you. Not everyone who plays EQ knows everything about every aspect of the game. Some of us play other games, and have other things to do besides play computer games. I know.....filthy casual, am I right?

You tanked lvl 105 HA with a lvl 96 warrior in group gear?

So you are saying that your tank is also DPS, and removes the need for CC?

I don't think pets will be buffed anytime soon. Devs only response to pet armies and pet walls.