I just started playing again recently and roped a few friends in with me from work for a few hours a week. One is a total noob and the other hadn't played since 2001, and he had never played a Necro and always wanted to try one. I had never played a Beastlord and always wanted to try that hybrid, and through sheer luck the "new guy" picked a Magician. So to make a long story short, we ended up with 3 pet classes, with no true tank, and no true healer. Mercs to the rescue. ;-) Of course, we pounded through the first 20 levels very quickly, even lightly twinked (some HP gear and money for store bought pots and bazaar skinspikes). Since I'm the "veteran" player I drove the sole Healer merc while everybody else got used to driving their pets. To tell the truth we really didn't need the Healer merc, but it did save on downtime and I'm sure sped things up. So there we are with 3 pet classes, and I doubt either of the other two will unlock secondary Merc slots, although I can on my account. I'm wondering what people think would be a good combination of tactics and mercs for those 3 classes for general all around hunting the rest of the way to 50. Provide justification to your reasoning please. ;-) Of course, our tactics will probably have to change past that, and again past 70. I was leaning towards Tank + Healer + Healer initially, but as of late I'm thinking more of Tank + Caster DPS + Healer or even possibly (2) Caster DPS + Healer. My reasoning is that since each of the pet classes get their own ability to heal their pets, we really only need the other healer to pick up the slack and keep us buffed. I'm thinking 2 healers might be overkill. And although we are obviously still at low level, I've been impressed by the DPS rate of the group with the water pet + proc buff on the warder + necro dots. But what we are light on is target AoE DPS. I'm thinking if we threw in a few caster mercs it would be crazy, and even though we wouldn't have a solid dedicated tank, things would drop so fast it really wouldn't matter. Plus, the 3 pets are tanking pretty damned well as it is. As I said we're only level 20 and only have about 4 play hours total, but since I don't have a lot of experience with any of these 3 classes (my primaries are wizzie/warrior/druid), I'm curious as to what people think. I'm also wishing I had rolled a Bard instead...I'm thinking MAG + NEC + BRD would really rock...
You only need one tank merc at your level up to 50. The merc tanks, they dps, your pets can dps, and your beastlord can dps. All is good, no healer required. Why? Because low level tank mercs can handle reds without healing, and extra mercs eat up experience, so don't use them unless you must have them. At higher levels you will want to mostly be fighting white to low red cons. You will need a healer merc by that point, probably as well as the tank merc, although you can do very well with no tank merc and just a good mage pet (we are talking 61+ air or earth), ducking in to take over with the beastlord when needed. At highest levels, you will probably find that two healers will be preferred for boss fights, using mage pet as tank and sitting back with the beastlord. You have lots of options with that combo - snare, high dps, kiting or tanking, slow, etc. The only obvious weaknesses are tanking and healing , but mage pet with good AAs and a good pet focus fix the former, and the option of two merc healers as well as pet healing and beastlord healing should balance the rest. But keep the mercs hidden until you need them.
Magician air/earth pets indeed become very capable tanks against slowed mobs. I agree with the two cleric mercs suggestion for later levels. Whether you want to have a warrior merc or a wizard merc for the last slot is up to you, and might change depending on the situation. Warrior merc gives your party the advantage of a tank that can keep mobs from turning to hit the beastlord if he comes in melee range; wizard merc provides heavy DPS but necessitates you playing your beastlord as more of a hit and run character, darting in to use your melee abilities and make an autoattack swing before ducking back out again - hopefully timing this to occur between the mob's swings so that you don't actually get hit often. (That is also the kind of situation where having a good two-handed weapon on your beastlord might actually come in handy, since you can get off more damage on a swing-by-swing basis.) If you decide to use the mage pet as your main tank later on, the magician player should definitely start investing in pet-improving AAs ASAP. If the magician is mostly going to be DPS with a war merc tanking, then focusing more broadly on DPS AA options that give a good return for their investment (first three ranks of Spellcasting Fury and early Fury of Magic ranks, pet flurry, etc.) is probably a good.idea. Also, make sure he gets Spell Casting Mastery (and probably Gift of Mana) ASAP - magicians get very mana hungry by the time you hit level 70-75. When the magician is ready to get some activated DPS AAs, try to get Servant of Ro up to rank 4, 5, or 6 in one big lump of investment if possible. Ranks 1 through 3 are pretty meh by comparison, but it starts to get decently useful at rank 4. For your beastlord, if you go the route where the mage pet is going to be the main tank later, you'll want to focus your offensive investments on things like DD spell crit and DoT crit, and on your pet's DPS, and you might pick up some healing AA along the way so that you can spot-heal better in a pinch. If your group leans more toward using a warrior merc as the main tank, I recommend focusing on your personal melee DPS more (at the expense of things like healing AA) so that you can be in the thick of fights and help get things dead. The necro should focus on DPS and on pulling utility, regardless of what tank option you choose.
Awesome, this was exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. I am thinking the Tank merc will be more our play style. We'll try that this weekend.
One merc tank with 3 pets, and a few mage nukes/necro dots, mage should keep best Damage shield on the tank (eventually group versions so everyone punishes mobs for hitting them). There is an intent for Beastlords to share melee with the pet, but with a merc tank and 3 pet classes, attention to buffs, debuffs and extra heals is fine. The merc tank should along with the pets, (air pet has stuns which if successful help cut the need for heals) be plenty until 75-80 though by 65 red mobs should be off the menu, also at 65 level 100 buffs will stick which is a big boost and the pet affinity AA should be a top priority.
