I do, though I haven't done a lot of boxing yet since everyone is still grouping stuff. But the combo still does fine, especially with the boosts to Bard DoTs
I am interested in trying a warrior/bard/... I am super casual and awful so I currently use a mage, bard, and beastlord with mainly auto attacking. The bard pulls, the mage sends in the pet to tank, then I move in the bard to auto attack and switch to the beastlord to autoattack and slow. Would a warrior/bard/shaman or a warrior/bard/beastlord do more auto attacking dps than my current setup? I usually only use more skills when I fight a named mob. I am currently 85/84/82 on the mage/bard/beastlord and I would probably make a heroic warrior. Thank you.
While the Tank (war) bard and XXX 3rd is solid build i will address few different pov. First OP, are we tanking with agro and forgetting? if that the case then a busy 3rd is fine. Zerk, Rogue, Monk are fine choices. Ranger BSTor mage are fine adds as well. Now if wish to powerplay the Tank class and wish adjust that 3rd to a flex class, then clr shaman druid make alot of sense. You stack a healing merc with pc hotkey healer to get thru spots. Or trailor the healing towards your tank level. What am trying am is warr bard bard. With tov dots, and invested AA, i get some easy dps. I can alliance if wish, i proc insults about every 1.5s, i have 2 AA mez, 2 single longer duration mez songs, 2 AE mez, can overlap AE in timed hotkey configs, nearly 100% uptime on epic, FE, spire a bit longer but huge uptime. Powerplaying the spoiled warrior with double bards and living with merc healers or whom ever invite to 2 bard party. War bard sham is classic set. if i was not doing double bards its be shaman, for me. war bard bard war bard sham war bard clr war bard mage war bard zerk Hard to go wrong with just about anything here is third spot, explore the option that fits your needs. Its ok try something and switch it up and try other things, i suggest before evol gear is on plan grind. Adventure well and number 1 goal is have fun.
Both war/brd/sha and war/brd/bst will do fine. Shaman brings more survivability and utility with their powerful CC options. Beastlord provides more direct DPS and while the shaman has a lot of ADPS, the beastlord has more. The beastlord also provides significant ADPS for the bard with their synergy ability that gives a flat bonus vs the shaman's +crit buffs from their epic. In terms of pure DPS comparison the war/brd/bst wins out handily whether they are just auto-attacking or being playing at 100% capacity. However, the beastlord is a fairly busy class to play properly and their pet's tanking ability will be of secondary value once you learn how to play your warrior properly. I would recommend going with war/brd/sha which will be generally easier to get a lot out of. Also note that you could instead go with war/brd/mag and do pretty well. Mages are very easy to play and their CotH is an invaluable tool for boxers. You'll get more ADPS out of the beastlord, but more DPS out of the mage, and in the end a modestly utilized war/brd/mag will probably out-dps a war/brd/bst.
A would you rather question! My partner and I will have 2 boxes each and are having trouble deciding on the best composition for our group. We're looking for the easiest composition that will last from Classic to Current Era. Also, we're trying to stay away from hybrids as they require quite a bit more work. Would you rather go, Me - Warrior*, Bard (Tank, CC, and helper pulls) Partner - Monk*, Shaman (Damage, Slow, Buffs) - This our current #1 choice, but I'm not so sure because of the lure of group #2. or Me - Warrior*, Cleric (Tank and Heal) Partner - Bard*, Wizard (CC, Damage, and Ports) - I can't help but think that this group is superior to our #1 choice, but need some opinions. Thoughts or suggestions? I ran the SHD, BRD, SHM team and its extremely powerful, but I think the WAR, BRD, SHM team takes the edge because of the Warrior's defensive abilities. The Warrior also doesn't have to worry about spells. Also, the damage spikes will be a bit smoother, less sporadic, and your Shaman will be able to heal quite a bit better. If I were to 3-box again I would definitely switch to a WAR over a SHD.
Depends... In what way are you using DPS? As in the calculation: damage per second or are you talking damage done at the end of a fight? I don't have the math, but if the SHD were to use all tools, I think he'd beat the WAR in damage done and DPS every fight.
A key consideration for doing a 2-person box team is whether you both want to be independently able to play. In other words, is your buddy going to want to log on when you're out of town or whatever, and if so, can he make meaningful gains on his character even if it's just to grind out AAs or camp something 5 levels beneath him or will he feel totally incapacitated. For you, war/brd or war/cle are both more than able to 2box content all the way to current content. Your buddy will have a hard time with bard/wiz. Monk/shaman is a good duo, not great, but still good. He'll find as you progress in levels the monk's ability to tank, even with a shaman healing, starts to diminish. My recommendation would be to both select a 2box that works independently and are melee focused, and then select a pairing that doesn't have any class overlap. Good melee two boxes include: Any tank or beastlord or mage + bard, shaman, berserker, beastlord, monk, rogue, mage so an example could be: You: war/brd Partner: bst/ber Or You: pal/brd Partner: mag/sha Or You: shd/ber Partner: pal/brd I would ensure that every 4-character combo has a bard and a plate tank. Probably all the good combos have a shaman too. The mage might seem like a weird addition but their melee damage from swarm pets is substantial and their Call of the Hero ability is invaluable for box groups.
The things that warriors have over sk/pal in box teams is relatively passive tanking once they pop their defensives and start autoattacking (thanks to Concordant Expanse) and high amounts of damage + survivability in dual wield. SK/Pal have to largely choose whether to be defensive with a shield or offensive with a 2h. In many situations they aren't taking much damage and can use a 2H and deal a lot of damage.
An update on my choice: I used the free heroic on my Beastlord and noticed the warder was just as good at tanking in HoT as the 81 Mage Water pet so I decided to try making the heroic Warrior on the Mage account. The warrior dual wielding in the heroic gear plus a dagger from the first area in HoT does way more damage than my other characters auto attacking. 85 war, 85 bard, 85 beastlord my dps has doubled and the warrior does 67% of the damage. I expect it go to about 50% war, 40% bst, 10% bard after I start weaving in some nukes on the bst, but it is a huge improvement over the mage pet damage.
Nice job! Once your bst gets dichotomic fury your warrior will kick into overdrive. Bards have increased DPS at high levels which is something to look forward to. Your warrior will get harmonious expanse at 102, which will make holding aggro on multiple mobs trivial.
Another thing to look out for, Xodd, when you get to 106 considering picking up a pair of https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=129385 for both your bard and beastlord. These, combined with your bard's Rytan's Reckless Renewal spell will contribute quite a bit of healing toward your warrior. Enough that in many situations you'll be able to drop a healer merc for a melee DPS merc that can take advantage of your group's immense ADPS.
I am up to level 89 now with the warrior/bard/beastlord. The warrior is a blender and will often pull aggro from the warder tank which tanks much better currently with an EM 7 earring. The warrior does about 12k dps and the warder does about 500 dps. The new 89 bard song proc added a fair amount of proc damage to the dual wield warrior. I finished the quests in the Grounds, and have been doing a few gribbles HAs as well as venturing into Argath for the bonus exp.
YOU need to meet my good friend, Mr. Imprint of the Enhanced Minion. Check /baz, or just ask in #general. level 99+ magicians' bags are frequently choked with them. The click makes a 4 hour buff on you that's the same as wearing a level 100 pet earring. As long as you don't die out from under it, the warder summoned under its influence will stay "the good version" indefinitely. also, if the taking-agro is too frequent an issue? you can toggle the warrior's Bold Attacks AA to Disabled. Until he gears up at higher level, anyhow.
Just to add to what Szilent said, At level 90 I got EM8 these with 320 Mark of Valor https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=94737
I got a couple of those Imprint of Enhanced Minions from the bazaar. Those were pretty great and my warder is a yellow level 90 now. Thanks for the recommendation Szilent. The warrior aggro issue also seemed to go away. I have a question about using a knight instead of the warrior in my bard/bst group. Do you think it would be a better idea to use one of the knights in my trio if I am not planning on having a real healer and only using 1 or 2 heal mercs? Will the lack of focussing on the knight in my box negate the healing component of the sk or pal? I made a heroic sk to try out with the bard and bst and he did much less damage with a 2 hander than my warrior blender was doing. To be fair the warrior was 89 and had better weapons, but he still did more at 85 with the heroic weapons. I really like how much damage the warrior is putting out dual wielding, but I was worried about more current content with the warrior tanking and healer mercs healing.
Thanks for the input! Sorry, I'm responding so late, I actually forgot I replied in this thread. To be honest with you, these characters are for the new Aradune server... So BST/BER are off the table for us. We're also not really looking to reconfigure the group ever or we're trying to avoid it lol. Another good note is tat we actually live together and the vast majority of our play time will be together. We're just looking for the best possible group from server start until live.
Your SK/Pal will outperform a warrior with healer mercs if you play them well, but the warrior will probably come out ahead with lower attention. Either will work though, plate tanks are really strong right now.
OK, that changes things because 0 to 65 will take a year or so on Aradune, or a weekend of solid playing on live I posted a thread recently talking about balance in classic EQ that might be informative: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/aradune-2-box-original-eq-ranking.265698/ This thread may also be useful: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...s-the-best-overall-class-throughout-eq.258911 I think it's hard to answer on what the optimal group is. I'm not an expert on EQ through it's lifecycle, but if I were choosing between your two options I'd probably go with: war/brd + monk/sha You'd also do well with war/brd + mnk/cle. Clerics are really strong healers throughout EQ compared to shamans, and brd/sha have a bit of overlap in that they can both haste and slow. Either way it sounds fun, I'll be doing my first TLP on Aradune.
