Possible box addition question

I currently run a 4 man team of 125 mage, sham, chanter and a 120 bard. I use a close to max aa 125 journeyman healer and melee dps merc. I am considering adding a 5th box to replace the dps merc. I click tabs in the task bar to switch screens and use no 3rd party add ons to box, only social macros. I do not want to replace any of the 4 current characters, so thoughts on a perfect team is not needed, just thoughts/advice about replacing the dps merc. I have an EM 30 pet on the mage so tanking most group content through LS is not an issue. I would be using a lvl 100 heroic toon to start the new guy if I go this route. Thanks for any suggestions.

Go Ranger!

Wizzy. Great DPS and ports are nice with a 5 box team. Teleport bind AA is so $$

Consider adding a warrior. 2H weapon stance, +HDex augged. With just an /autoattack it can put out equal or more dps than competing classes in /autoattack mode.
I play my long-neglected warrior as a plated zerker. And he dishes out some impressive dps in /autoattack. Not nearly as much dps in a burn mode, but steady dps is quite good.
A warrior is readily postioned with the battleleap in attack social and he just starts swinging.
With shaman, bard and chanter aDps he'll be top notch. And Champions' aura will make your EM30 mage's pet even tougher and shaman's and chanter's pets will become viable tanks as well.
Once leveled and AA'd up you'll even have a real tank option for missions.

I like my warrior in dps role, and he can easily offtank adds when situation get hairy.

Assuming you are driving from the Mage, and clicking nukes every few seconds, i would look at a class with decent auto-attack DPS, or a DoT class, so you don't need to click so much on your support toons.

Ranger can auto-fire from range, so you don't have to worry about positioning around mob. If you are able to position around the mob, then Warrior or Rog do decent DPS without many clicks.

Druid can DoT, and Ports are super handy. Hard to live without ports once you get used to them. Druids also have aDPS that will compliment your Mage, like Season's Wrath and Aura. Necro has better DoTs, but you have crowd control and pulling covered, so I'm not sure you would get any other benefit from a Necro

second mage or wizard. Your doing a caster team and the 2nd mage as a backup would be very useful. Otherwise wizard for the dps. You have way more than enough utility/adps there, go for something that will benefit from all of it.

OP said no 3rd party software, so he can't broadcast single keystrokes to multiple toons. How do people manage high click box toons without help? I play BST main with 2 boxes and I find that BST alone eats up 90% of my time.

BST is a high APM class. But something like a Mage (and most other casters) can be done with a single social or two. Switch over, hit macro, switch to another toon for the next 10 seconds. Not really that complicated.

It's not the number of socials, it's the number of clicks. BST have nukes with 1/2 sec cast, which means clicking every 2 or 3 seconds. Wiz have some longer cast timers, but they also have instants, so they might have to press buttons more frequently. Or would they set up multiple casts in a single macro using /pause?

This. You've got 6 lines, you can do 6 actions.

/pause 20, /cast 1
/pause 35, /cast 2
/pause 35, /cast 3
/pause 55, /cast 4
/pause 5, /alt act 7709
/cast 5

they dont, or do so incredibly poorly. If you are running 4+ boxes, you are either using something like [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] (legal key broadcaster) or you are using cheating software instead.
Otherwise you would do more dps concentrating on a smaller amount of boxes over adding another

Or, you drive the high PPM class and box the others via macro's like demonstrated above.

I main a BST and there's no way I'd be able to efficiently box him. So he's the main, the bard is the box (I do more than just /melody). And if I were to add another, it'd be something simple a mage or a Druid

How did you get 6 lines because I only have 5? Is that a new perk?

;oP

...although I certainly wouldn't put it past them to add something like that with a perk.

Back to the OP ... I definitely wouldn't run a second player healer class.

Melee vs caster ... kinda depends how difficult a time you are having getting toons involved in melee (mostly the bard). I primarily play a caster group and switching to a melee heavy group is hell for me (no 3rd party software). But if you've got a good groove going, definitely would consider melee (including tank) over caster.

I agree with this. Mage first (it will make ur pet tank game much better with two pets both tossing aggro between prism skin procs, plus it will boost the other mage dps, and mages gain a ton of essentially passive dps from shaman aura and bard haste on the pets, and it's an easy box that is mentally easy to pilot since it's the same as a class u already have). Wizard second, mainly for the ports and burst dps.

Those suggesting a war are spot on. Once they are able to tank (will take a bit of work) just autoattack holds aggro and generates pretty solid dps. Bard + shammy will ramp that up. And your pet is always there to back them up.
Warrior is very easy to box. Grab mob, lock aggro, look at the other toons the rest of the fight (provided you have 2 proper warrior 1h weapons dual wield).

Thanks for all the tips guys