Returning Player with some Class Specific Boxing Questions

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by ranjaboy, Jul 3, 2019.

  1. ranjaboy New Member

    SO I decided to dust off my Level 100 Ranger who has been parked in Plane of Growth for 5 years. He was my main. I also fired up 2 other accounts I fooled around with, one with a 100 Chanter and the other with a 100 Druid. I used to know the Ranger class reasonably well, but it's difficult getting back into the details of playing the class. The Druid and Chanter I used as buff bots, so I'm even more clueless about them.

    I've decided to play for free for a while to make sure I am enjoying the game. I have been boxing the 3 toons, but quickly realized that I need some advice on the best way to make these 3 work together. The druid has a warrior merc and the chanter has a healer merc. I plan to do the daily quests for XP and some plat and to get used to the game again, level a bit and learn about the classes.

    So my questions then:
    • Which merc should I add to this group?
    • Given being a novice, is there a better way to gain some levels?
    • Should the Ranger melee or bow if the merc tanks?
    • Should the druid be a healer, use direct damage or DoTs?
    • Should the chanter worry about crowd control or just damage?
    Thanks, any advice appreciated.
  2. Brohg Augur

    • whatever
    • better than what? Dead Hills "Gribble" HAs are infamously straightforward if you just want an arena for learning that will produce some exp
    • archery takes over from melee with level 105 (EoK) AAs, but over half your dps will come from casting arrow & nuke spells, so please understand that the "bow v swords" only covers the other part.
    • yes. also debuffs.
    • yes.
    code-zero likes this.
  3. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    1. Which merc should I add to this group? -- Healer, surviving is more important than DPS
    2. Given being a novice, is there a better way to gain some levels? -- Many. Pick one that works for you
    3. Should the Ranger melee or bow if the merc tanks? -- Bow. You have a ranged group. Leverage that.
    4. Should the druid be a healer, use direct damage or DoTs? Yes to all. + Debuffs
    5. Should the chanter worry about crowd control or just damage? Yes to all. + Debuffs
    To be an effective boxer, you don't have the luxury of "phoning it in". You will be operating at 100% capacity and your toons will be functioning at 50% or less simply because your attention is spread across three toons. As you work out your boxing process, your effective functional % will climb. Tucoh is at the top of the boxing heap (or at least is the only one willing to put his skill on display) because he does a deep dive on every class he uses and leverages inter-class synergies on top of the class's individual strengths. Knowing what to click and when is more important than which class you've chosen.
    A knowledgeable player can plug any class into any group and get great results. Successful boxers intrinsically understand this because they must in order to progress. In fact, I would argue that boxers generally understand class interplay and synergy better than non-boxers. They have the resources and have taken the time to learn what actions yield the best returns.
    Skewert likes this.
  4. Brohg Augur

    I'm curious in what way you see shooting a bow as leveraging anything
  5. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer




    The only thing standing between his Ranger melee and the mob is a crap merc tank. Unless he just like seeing his Ranger die over and over, ranged is best here.
  6. Brohg Augur

    Yeah that's not an answer. Watch : "The only thing standing between his Ranger archery and the mob is a crap merc tank. Unless he just like seeing his Ranger die over and over, baking is best here."
  7. Tucoh Augur

    rng/enc/dru is a pretty awkward box team that no level of mercs would be able to make into a coherent 3box.

    I would consider replacing one with a plate tank (sk/war/pal), or if you don't want to do that, a mag/bst. There's a number of good combinations you could run but:
    mag/enc/dru
    sk/enc/dru
    rng/enc/sk
    rng/enc/mag

    are probably the best.
  8. ranjaboy New Member

    Thank you all for your replies. Yes, I realize that a chanter/ranger/druid is an odd combo. I started there because all three of those toons were the same level. Do you think that it would be difficult or time consuming to level a warrior or sk to 100 to join them?
  9. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer


    Successful tanks take a considerable amount of work to get to the point where they are considered "good". However, if you take the time to learn a tank, you will always be glad you have a tank with you.
  10. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer


    Thanks for agreeing with me!
  11. Tarvas Redwall of Coirnav, now Drinal


    Would you recommend a druid, shaman, or cleric to go with a ranger, warrior, enchanter, and mage? The warrior is in conflagrant right now with some GMM fillers and near max AA.
  12. Tucoh Augur

    It wouldn't be too bad if you got a heroic warrior and then just brought it along as you leveled the other characters. You don't need all that much AA on a warrior to make them into a proper tank, so once you get them some conflagrant gear and work out their abilities you're already going to far exceed your tank merc in capability
    You'd be fine with any of the priest classes, but I would go with cleric just for the raw healing / defensive potential. Second choice would be druid for the ADPS it'd give your mag/rng/enc.
    Tarvas likes this.
  13. Fintank Augur


    Actually the agro potential is less with melee than it is with ranging through the addition of the Jolting Shock proc buff. Especially considering most of ranger agro comes from spells which if he's 3 boxing manually is already going to be low since he's boxing 2 other casters. Presuming he has auto grant AA's and isn't geared like a foam noodle there's a very real possibility he's a better tank on ranger than a Warrior merc would be at his level too.

    1 healer merc is plenty, more DPS translates to more surviving and an overall better efficiency. Especially when boxing a backup healer and the best CC class. More healing just means you can wipe slower when it comes to mercs. If he were boxing a tank it'd be a different argument so he could pull piles, but this setup is more of a single mob at a time group with mez being an option and mainly single target DPS.
    Skewert, Brohg and Elyssanda like this.
  14. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    You're forgetting one, crucial detail....he's NOT an experienced boxer yet.

    So, rather than giving him advice that ignores his current skill set, I provided a suggestion that he actually survive encounters while he learns rather than wiping time after time.

    Your advice is sound, if the advisee is already experienced with running multiple characters. They are not.