So I've been theory crafting a six box and I'd like some input to help me decide final classes. I've been three boxing since Combine back in 2006 or so and have some experience four boxing, but I've never six boxed before. My main is a cleric. I'd like secondary heals / cures so I can do older raid content. I'm also thinking long term OOW and beyond. So far I'm pretty settled on ranger, cleric, enchanter, mage. I'd like either shaman / wizard /necro + warrior / SK / paladin but which two would be most effective to do the most content, easiest to box, and provide back up heals and cures and some dps. It's OK if it's not the highest dps group, I'd rather be able to do the most content with my group. So far I'm thinking paladin + wizard / necro or shaman + warrior / SK although if I do shaman + warrior it makes me think I might prefer bard over enchanter and my current group make up is centred around enchanter charmed pet. I have played an SK to 71 and a paladin to 85 so I'm well experienced with playing knights.
If you are looking at your tank class long term warrior is the easiest to box and hold agro from my understanding but sk is a pretty decent puller, can provide self heals via taps and holds agro with disc (at 105 currently) just as good if not better than a warrior in group content. Warrior is still the king on raids if you ever decided you wanted to raid later (cleric and warriors are still the center of the raid force and the two easiest classes to get into a raid). I have not really had much experience with pally but I do know some that are able to run without another healer in group. Most of these are raid geared though and are at the top of their class but its possible which would open up another dps slot. Casters are typically the easiest to box since there is no movement involved and having a wiz for ports and mage for coth is a huge QOL improvement for moving toons from zone to zone and moving them in zones. Bards on the other hand can be the easiest class to box if you literally just want to use /melody and have them twist and use them as a puller when needed. Long term I would say having a balanced group is important for boxing just as it is for normal group play. Try to combine as many abilities as you can to improve your survivability potential.
I would go Paladin Shaman Bard. Shaman dots were changed and are really strong. Then you have a Paladin who can hold great aggro, does nice group heals, and can cure. Bard because its the swiss army knife of EQ, it can do a little bit of everything. The last three I would take your pick of whatever you want.
I'm sorry, I thought I gave pretty good context. I forgot to say I'm playing on Ragefire. Like I said I'm pretty settled on ranger, cleric, enchanter, mage, and my current set up is centred around enchanter charm. And I have to keep cleric in there because that is my main. If I went with paladin for back up healer and cures as well as tank that leaves the last slot pretty open. Wizard for ports, shaman for buffs, necro for pet and dual charm?
SK for tanking and split pulling Shaman for heals and slows Bard for split pull and group awesomness Necromancer for Rez(in kunark), mana pumping, and dps Monk for pure dps and FD Mage for COH(in kunark) and dps
You need an assortment of job classifications and if you are 6 boxing then there's no excuse to leave one out. You need tank, healer, mezzer, ports and DPS. Some classes can handle two of those slots but overlap isn't a bad thing at all. Druids can port, heal and DPS, Wizards can DPS bigtime and port as well. Bard's can mezz, slow, and add to both DPS and heals as well, Enchanters can mezz, slow, and ADPS and DPS as well and both can keep mana up. etc. You can do the math on other classes and see what you may like to do and if you have some particular "I think this class is wonderful and I must have it!" class then look at it honestly and try to recognize possible shortcomings and adjust the rest of the group accordingly. But whatever you do you should try to get as much DPS as well so things die fast and nothing gets stressed
5 of the classes in a 6 box crew depends on what you are wanting to do with it, ie. what playstyle, what you want to kill etc. 6 box crews don't always need a tank, they don't always need a healer, they don't always need a porter, it just depends on what you are wanting to do with it. The one constant that ALL 6 man box crews should have though, no matter what, no exception, is a bard. If you have a 6 box crew and you don't have a bard, you're doing it wrong.
Since 2001 I've been at least 6 boxing and most of my groups don't have a bard. I like mixed groups so I don't normally repeat classes so a 6 mage group isn't me. My best group, the one that can take down bosses in PoP doesn't have a bard, so I'm guessing you are just pushing bards because you like them. So with Ranger, Cleric, Mage, & Enchanter, I would add a porter as traveling with 6 is a lot easier and escaping troubles is also easier. I don't charm fight with 6 as it seems I have at least 3 more boxes than I need, but I guess you plan to continue to charm as your main fighting technique, so why do you plan to use a tank? Once you add a Tank that actually tanks instead of the charmed mob, the makeup of your fights change a lot and therefore the group makeup needs to change, so I'll avoid discussing that group. Since I'm going to assume you will continue to tank with charmed pet, I think you'll need a split puller at this point so if a tank is what you are looking for as your last member of your group, the SK is your best choice to accomplish that goal of the tanking classes. (I have to admit at this point if you don't have to have a tank, a bard isn't the worst choice you could make )
Chanter/Mage/Druid + doesn't matter. Warrior is best box tank, they have the best "afk" agro. Both palie and SK require a lot of attention, the last thing you want on a 6 box. You need to look at who needs to do what/when. If you start stacking up classes that all have to act at the same time, you're going to hate life. It's one reason combos that are very caster heavy are easier to box. No positioning requirements, and easy to macro. Cleric/Chanter/Mage/Druid/Ranger/Wiz for example. Drive with the chanter, everything else can be macro'd and you spend about 95% of your time on one character. Having a real tank is a big asset. Cleric/Chanter/Mage/Druid/Ranger/War is pretty much bulletproof. There are also some really great synergies between Chanter/Mage/Druid, and it's a combo that only gets better as expansions unlock.
On live I just started messing around with this box and its A LOT of fun. Enchanter Druid 2x Mage 2x Wizard
With your set 4 of Ranger,Cleric,Enchanter,Mage I think I would go Druid and SK.My reasoning is this: Ranger=DPS,track,buffs,weak heals,can pull. Cleric =main healer,buffs,rez,good against undead Mage =good pets,DPS,CoTH,DS Enchanter=Buffs,Mez,Charm,dps,can also pull. Of course you know all this already just showing my reasoning Druid=ports,buffs,heals, dps. SK=great grp tank,heals with taps,agro with disks/spell, pulling/fd if hard pull can work with ranger. I currently run a 4 box Enchanter,Ranger,Druid,SK on live. Eventually I also want to add to my grp.(I have available in my stable Mage,Necro,Bard,Cleric). Back to the point though,sorry.With my 4 grp I haven't encountered anything yet that I can't beat. Granted sometimes I pop a merc cleric for nameds or if I'm feeling lazy .Love my SK and Druid. At 1st I wasn't sure but they both proved themselves. Now I can't imagine not having them.I think SK and Druid will fill out your grp out nicely and you will be happy with them also.
Peoples excuse for saying you don't need a bard better be that they are playing on live. He's playing on a TLP server that is still in PoP. Again, don't listen to them, they are bad boxers and need to be shown the light. Have a bard in your crew no matter what you make. I don't care if you're making all mages or all necros, the 6th better be a bard or you're bad or just don't care about being the best.
Stating absolutes is never a good thing. Yes he's playing on a TLP. That doesn't mean he has to have a bard. To call everybody bad boxxers and they don't know what their talking about just shows you don't. Bards are a good class but since he has a chant he can do without a bard for a tank and extra dps/ports. Being on a TLP I would get a real tank in that group for sure and ports. With a porting class and that mage travel problems solved. Can use charmed pets or mage pet till you get your tank geared up. Sounds like your in for the long hall so definately get a tank.
I guess I just have a different mindset. I make my box crews taking all variables in to consideration. While in PoP, if you want to be able to easily go back and 1 group raid content in say kunark, velious, and even some things in luclin, you'll need a bard in your group so everyone has max 500 resists vs the ae's. It just makes things easier. If you are racing on foot to a target in the zone vs another group, you will win with selo's. Similarly if you are dps racing trash mobs that are scattered throughout the zone vs another group, the group with the bard will win. If someone is coming to train you and you don't have all fd classes? You can group invis in 3 seconds. Bards also amplify the damage and tankiness and sustainability of your entire group. Another thing is that bards are actually really good afk DPS running a full dot chain with BIS drum when you are trying to small crew a raid target down and the fight lasts 20-30 minutes. The greatest thing about a bard, is they are the easiest box in the game to play because of melody, easier than even a mage box. A little off topic but since I get asked why I run a bard in my full DPS box crew on agnarr, a weirdly unkown secret of bards that primarily pertains to classic, and I assume unknown because of how often i get asked this question, is that bards are king of DPS in a ton of different dps race situations. Any named mob with between 810 and 1250 hp, and 1800-2400hp, only an SK with harmtouch can win against a bard. In a super high dps group vs group race over things like Efreeti, Magus, Tranix, again only SK with harmtouch will out dps the bard. With 2 or more high dps groups racing on these mobs, they only live on average 7-9 seconds. No class other than an SK with harmtouch and a bard is capable of doing more than 1400 dmg in that time. Because of the 1.5 second spell bar lock out on casters, a wizard/mage will only get 1 cast off and a necro will only get 2.
Thanks for all of your comments everyone. I'm not planning on racing any content. I agree I think a porter is priority and a tank. Druid/Wizard + SK/Warrior There are pros and cons to each. I've created all four and am playing around with them, hopefully something will stick. I had no idea when I had the idea to go to six box from four box that I'd spend so much time considering the possibilities! I can handle having both wizard and druid on the same account, however I can't gear / AA up multiple tanks. I've got an SK to 35 so far.
I run the following now: Cleric Warrior Bard Ranger x3 I've run this step since the end of Kunark, early Velious; all of which were epic until they upgraded. I like this setup for the following reasons: A raid geared cleric does not have any mana issues, especially with a mount and bard song. Once you get Divine Arb in PoP, you'll never want a shaman or Druid to do your healing. Liberal use of this AA is highly suggested. Clearly rezz is a game changer. A dead tank can get battle rezzed with a ranger running weaponshield and you can avoid wipes of the worst kind. Doubly so with divine rezz followed by AE taunt, furious and defensive while you get things under control again. Bards are admittedly tough to play well as boxes, but instead of running a monk or SK to handle splits you can pacify most things to split, CC adds, AE slow, mezz or in PoP you can fade. The extreme versatility of a bard, even as a primarily melody box is going to give you plenty of options if you get creative. As a melody box, you can even achieve max haste without a chanter come Luclin (okay 99% haste but close enough). I find chanters lacking when it comes to splitting and CC as they end up standing around waiting to be useful. I'm intentionally ignoring the OP charm ability of enchanters as that's a different setup than this. Rangers just get stronger and stronger with AA. Headshot is OP and overrated in PoP; EQ/AM3 with a good bow basically gives you three machine guns mowing mobs down. At 65 in basically Luclin gear (except I have EP bows) and I'm one grouping BoT tower bosses. Warrior is a work of love if it's not a main raid equipped warrior. Fortunately your DPS generates low aggro, so snap aggro isn't essential. I cannot emphasize enough the strength of furious and defensive. Warrior is the hardest to gear well, but worth the investment in time and resources to do so. In this setup I wouldn't want the other hybrid tanks simply because I don't even have to bother slowing with the bard and the warrior can handle two unslowed krigers in BoT under defensive. There's plenty of ways to skin a cat, but my setup covers just about everything and I have zero dowtime grinding XP or farming named.
So if I add a warrior and a bard the focus of my group changes. I do like ports my current four boxes on live are monk/paladin/enchanter/druid and shadowknight/cleric/wizard/bard. So some options .. The one that's coming into my mind with the warrior and the bard would be warrior/cleric/bard/ranger/shaman/wizard. I've played a bard and I know how bad their slow is, although I suppose if I finish the ranger epic the ranger could slow. I also know how user intensive their CC is, where an enchanter can CC much easier and also adds charm. If I lose the enchanter I don't "need" the mage as much since I love the synergy of enchanter/mage. Or I keep my current set ranger/cleric/enchanter/mage/wizard/shadowknight or ranger/cleric/bard/mage/druid/warrior and the druid charms animals wherever I can find them. The druid would also be my debuffer in this group and later on druid debuffs rival shaman debuffs for effectiveness and some argue druid debuffs are better than the shaman debuffs due to slow mitigation. I have played a druid to 84 on Fippy, but I didn't do much charming with the druid since I had an enchanter and the druid was my primary healer. How good is druid charm? How many zones have animals that can be charmed?
