Suggestions for a 2 Toon grp

I have two old accounts one with a 75 druid and the other with a 75 shammy. I want to two box and I have purchased a heroic upgrade for each account.

I don't really think a dru/shm combo is best. My options are to upgrade both existing accounts or to make new characters with different classes to make my two man team.

What combo will be playable/capable and reasonably easy to two box since I have been away a long time?

Most capable is going to be a plate tank paired with a CC class.
Use a healer and dps merc. Leaves room for a healer or dps as a 3rd box if you want to expand. SK ENCH being my personal suggestion.

Agreed.

Depends on how much work you want to do:

Mage/Bard is excellent. Limited CC required due to Bard pulling ability. Both have swarm pets if required and both swarms work with Many spell. Excellent tank (earth pet) that does not have to be geared as a plate tank does. Requires a lot of defensive AAs for pet. Monk also works as does Rogue, Ranger, Zerker, etc. Pair with a Priest Class and use dps mercs.

Ench/*: Yeah, they are that good when played well. Just a very hard class to play well. Pair with Ranger for DPS and tracking, another ench because you can. Pair with SK. May be the most versatile and powerful class in EQ. Only works if you enjoy playing them.

Tank (Warrior, Paladin, SK) paired with (other than enchanter) Priest (shaman/druid/cleric), Bard, DPS class (Wizard, etc).

Really, there are so many combinations and flavors available, in part due to the range of merc options. One thing to keep in mind is how committed you intend to be to gearing up your tunes as you progress. Plate tanks require gear and augments at higher levels (above 105 or for raiding). Mage pets come equipped for their level, bringing a tank and DPS. It will come down to what you enjoy playing, but perhaps not immediately.

Lots of good duo combos out there. shd/enc as mentioned above is top-tier.

You may also want to consider moving up to a 3box, which allows you to add pure DPS for your third character and another merc.

Otherwise, I'd recommend picking a class you want to play as your main in raids/groups/whatever and then picking a partner for him based upon that. Keep in mind that if your main isn't a tank class, the optimal partner will probably be a tank class.

SK/Druid is good too. SK can single pull, multitank. Druid has dps, heal, ports, track. Add 2 wiz mercs, or a healer and a wiz.
Bard mage I would not advice, I started with those, have added ench and wiz since that. Bard CC did not cut it for EoK progression for me.

I think it depends on what you want, and what your playstyle is.

I have one combo of monk/BL. It works amazingly well (for me). The BL pet can tank well enough, has slow, and decent buffs. The monk can split mobs and hammer out some decent DPS. However, it requires a lot of melee positioning and button clicking.

Let's say you went with Mage/Shaman or Mage/Wizzie. That's much easier to macro and doesn't require any melee positioning.

My other combo is SK/Shaman, which is still a little busy, but does not require melee positioning for the shaman usually. This also lacks the DPS of the monk/BL.


So, part of it is playstyle and part of it is what you want to enjoy in the game.

Thanks to everyone for the sage advice everyone.

I am thinking that I will upgrade the Druid to Heroic and make a Heroic SK on the second account. Never played a tank class before so that will be new. I chose the Druid over the Enchanter just because I can't stomach the thought of no ports. I hope I don't regret passing on the Enchanter but hopefully the SK will be able to single pull/multi tank most areas thus making CC less of an issue.

I have read several old forum posts and it seems that race is no longer much of an issue with the SK due to AA effects. Is that true?

Can the Druid/SK two box take the "into the temple B" quest in TBM? I think that getting access to that armor will be the easiest way to gear these two for upcoming levels. Plan on very causal play. I have no intention ever to raid again (wife might call a lawyer if I start that again).

Merc questions: Will do the J5 quest with both toons. Two wizzies or one wiz/healer? I honestly haven't looked around PoK much but the human merc vendor only shows me healer and tank mercs. Are the rogue/wiz unlocked in one of the last three expansions or am I just looking at the wrong vendor?
I have google/forum searched and found some SK guides. Any advice on how to learn that class or guides that are good would be appreciated. Found the Tearsin stuff and that was quite good.

SK/Dru will be a good combo, both are really strong right now.

Ports matter much less than you remember because of the generally fast runspeed, ease of travel between zones and especially the massive number of teleport abilities outside of dru/wiz
http://www.zlizeq.com/Game_Mechanics-Teleports_and_Travel
http://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/Teleportation_items

Race doesn't matter much and changing your race is fairly cheap.

SK/Dru will be able to do into the temple B and it's a good source fo gear.

I'd recommend getting a healer and caster DPS merc on both toons, then setting which one you use based upon how tough the content is. In tough situations having 2 healers will be best, in others 2 caster DPS is better.

Mage/Ench is a match made in heaven

Thanks for the earlier advice all.

I have been playing a 85 SK and 85 Druid (both Heroic/gold) and have done most of HoT augs with them. Currently have two healer mercs one on balanced and one reactive. Has worked quite well for the most part but got swarmed with adds in the basement area and wiped once or twice.

Now that I am more comfortable boxing, I would like to add a third box. From reading the boards the consensus seems to be either a Wizard or Enchanter. Wizard would be for pure DPS and fast take downs and the Chanter for CC and buffs/debuffs.

I realize the Chanter is harder to play but am willing to learn and stay on it as primary and pay less attention to the other toons.

Thoughts? TIA

Note that druids(and shamans)'s DPS may have gotten nerfed pretty good in the latest patch, so my recommendation of an sk/dru may have been a bad one =\

I think SK/Dru will still be a good duo, but at this point I think I'd recommend SK/Wiz or SK/Enc.

For a third, pretty much any of these will be very, very good:
sk/wiz/enc
sk/dru/wiz
sk/dru/enc

Your SK affords you some pulling tools that should in many cases limit the need for CC and trying to CC and pull and heal all at the same time can go wrong easily.

As such I would also consider a Magician as a 3rd:

* good dps
* a pet that can fill in for a time if the SK eats it.
* the combination of ports & CoTH can make traveling to a location and getting set up easier

Any class would benefit from being your primary focus, and there are some things that you can only do so well when it's just a boxed character. Now that that is out of the way, enchanters are pretty easy to box. Mine is my second character (after my druid). She's there to DPS most of the time but I can quickly switch over to lend support in pulling or crowd control when the situation calls for it.

Thanks everyone. All good points. I suspect that whatever I choose, I will wish I had picked something else. While the massive DPS of the wizzie is enticing, I think it will be the enchanter or the mage. I can see how CoTH to camp can be really nice and avoid a dungeon crawl to your desired camp. Can double invis the mage and let him walk to wherever you want in most zones. The enchanter may limit the wipes from wandering adds and would let me run with just one healer merc and add two dps mercs.

I use the mage for this to great effect, but I've found it doesn't work well in 2 of the three end-game zones in RoS.

I think you'll have a strong team with the enc, wiz or mag. Additionally, once you get a trio leveled up and geared, you can level additional or replacement characters fairly easy via fellowship XP, and can use the crafted gear in RoS to get them well-dressed.

I made the enchanter last night. Wow! there a lot of different spells and many seem to do basically the same thing. Any enchanters that still remember level 85 out there that can help me understand the uses of some of these spells. Trying to map out my spell line up for my 3 box group of SK/Druid/Enc (all gold 85 atm).

Mezzes:
AoE: Hypnotic stare (85) vs Ensorceling Wave (84) ? Which is better?
Single Target: Befuddle vs Chaotic Befuddle (think CB since I get a 100% twincast)

Nukes: Polychaotic Assault
DoTs: Mind Twist and Smother
Charm: Should I keep the lv 84 up to charm a blue as CC/extra DPS?
Debuffs: Tash/Fragmented Consciousness/Slow

That is 9 slots at most. Any others that will need to be up during combat for group content. Currently still in HoT (at least until I get the Chanter all his augs)

Thanks again for all the great advice you guys have given.

I can't give you any good advice for enchanters, but I can say that you'll want to get really good at reading descriptions on raidloot.com

ex:
http://www.raidloot.com/Spells.aspx?name=Ensorcelling Wave&class=Enchanter&level=84
http://www.raidloot.com/Spells.aspx?name=Hypnotic stare

The big difference between these is that Hypnotic State is a targeted ring AE and Ensorcelling Wave is a targeted AE.

The targeted ring AE means you'll have to manually place it in a location, vs targeting some mob and casting it. Targeted rings AE abilities are much harder for boxed characters to use.

Thanks for the explanation. I was not aware of th raidloot site.