Your 'Dream' Group Composition

i've experimented alot with setups and there's two i really enjoy. Probably not the strongest esp in the 2nd groups case, but alot of fun to me. I currently have war, clr, ench, druid, mage, wiz and love it, but if i changed anything it would be the druid for a bard (mostly for mana, but stacking DS and haste for the tank is nice). Any tank will do, each brings its own to the table.

so 1st is war/sk/pal, Cleric, Enchanter, Bard, Mage, Wizard. Its a nice group, only the tank and bard need super gear to be effective (bard only needs if tanking rampage) rarely if ever has mana issues.

The second is the polar opposite, very reliant on gear for all the toons to be at its best.

Paladin, Shaman, Bard, Ranger, Rogue, Monk.

This is one i play mostly for fun i really enjoy it especially as it gets good gear and AA's the damage is fantastic later on (even better with the mellee damage buff). No porter sucks, but ports are cheap and it does have the bard travel.

Nice deflection. Please enlighten us how he needs to learn to charm when he's talking about being concerned over mezzing level 55 mobs. Do you even know what level bards can charm? Do you know when they get their spells.

You can deflect all you want, but with that one sentence you proved you don't know anything about bards.

Nice try though.

myself and 5 friends.

Caster: enc, clr, dru, mag, mag, brd
Melee: shm, clr, war, rog, mnk, brd
Versatile: enc, clr, war, nec, mnk, dru

Well, that's BS. Melody works well enough but using it limits you to 4 songs when you could be twisting 5. "Great" bards are twisting 5.

Why is there so much misinformation on bards, if you are twisting 5 songs, 1 song is getting dropped a majority of the time - but "sometimes" it will have all 5 up briefly. Honestly it's not worth the tradeoff as beyond 4 songs depending on the group the 5th one isn't as helpful.
So I'm glad you get some extra resists running, but 30% group haste just went off for 2 rounds of melee...

Monk ( tank)
shaman
bard (puller/manasong)
enchanter ( cc,slow,charm)
monk (dps)
rogue or mage (dps)

Good luck tanking anything bigger than a single group named with that comp!

Im trying not to laugh. I am curious; "Do you even play a bard" ? lol

Whether or not 4-5 songs stick, has nothing to do with melody command or manual twisting. If anything could be said, it is that melody will twist faster than manual twisting. (Simply because there is no delay between song-complete and new song-cast )

Currently, bards can stick 4.5 songs. This means that either by /melody or by manual twist, you can only cast 4 songs permanently. Or 5 songs with a half-drop-off.....

Does it really matter though? LOL not really. Just play however you want to play. Most of the time I only twist 4 songs because I would rather have songs on permanent. But, on my 93 Live server bard, I consistently twist 6 with one dropping off. If you do the calculations it probably makes more sense to twist 5 songs than it does to twist 4 permanently.

Each song last 3 ticks...... 1 tick = 6 seconds
But each song really only lasts 16 seconds ( not 18 )

Using the melody command without any missed-notes results in a /melody chain of 5 songs.... with 1 song dropping off for only 2 seconds ( less than a half a tick ).

Statistical analysis over a 5 minute battle:

Twisting 4 songs = all songs are on 100% of the time
Twisting 5 songs = Over the course of 5 minutes, means that each song plays for 88% of the time. This does not mean that only haste is dropped. This means that all of your songs will take turns dropping off.

So over 300 seconds ( 5 minutes )...
This means that for 264 seconds.. ALL 5 songs are being sung.....

And if your worried about haste..... divide those 36 seconds of loss by the 5 songs.....
This means out of a 5 minute battle, you lost haste for a total of 7.2 seconds....

---------- not a bad deal in my opinion -------------

50 Bard - StonedTone
50 Shaman - Anabear

please see my analysis/math above.

You wouldn't lose haste for 2 rounds, you would lose it for 2 seconds. How many rounds of attacks you would lose out on depends on your characters current haste level and the delay of the weapon which you use.

Whether or not the trade-off is good. That's a subjective statement as it depends on the situation.....Sometimes it is better to have all the songs playing............... Other times you may decide that permanent-snare without drop off is better in "difficult" camps

Sorry if my post sounded BS. But can you tell me how /melody limits me to 4 songs? And how great bards twist 5 songs without fading 1? I am seriously looking to learn from you.

And sometimes I only twist 3 songs because I don't even want my tank loses my resist songs for even 1 single second. Sorry, I am a bard.

Any 5 other of my guildmates.

My GoD era box group (and I love the comp) is:

Tank: Warrior
DPS: Berserker & Wizard
Utility/DPS: Bard & Shaman
Heals: Cleric

I suppose this comp is just as viable for Kunark, but since no Zerkers yet I suppose we will replace Zerker with Monk. I don't like the idea of having all caster or all melee dps. Sometimes we have monsters that are resistant to magic, fire, or melee damage (see: Cragbeast Queen, etc). Six mages might work in Classic because it is so gimmicky, but it won't fly a few expansions down the line.

Sorry I'll go off on a tangent..

I try to see what the hardest encounters I can do with just my one group alone. Pretty much anything prior to PoP is a joke (with the exception of some mobs that DT, but even then it's usually OK as I have my zerker tank in between DTs). Although soloing in VT can be slow because some of those mobs just have way too much HP. For most of PoP bosses I need another person (PoP raids are trivialized by GoD raids but I can't just fly through them).

So last night Blackstone Buckler finally dropped for me in Ikk3 Raid. I've been using the Fabled Shield of the Water Dragon. Switching to Buckler would be (about) +10 AC / -45 HP / +4 Shielding / -5 Avoidance / Gain: Furious Bash VII (Worthless? I keep agro with Echo of Anger well enough) ... either way, Blackstone Buckler is clearly the better tank shield. HOWEVER, have you seen how small it looks on an ogre? I almost can't bear to wear it... I'll need to get the human illusion clicky from VT or something. Ahh, which shield to use?!

I'm with most others - Im an enc, but myself and 5 other REAL people sounds great!

I'm not so sure how effective this makeup is in early EQ, but in later expansions it is pretty incredible.

SK | Shaman | Bard | Ranger | Mage | Wizard

Don't underestimate SK tanking later in EQ. Touch of the Cursed procs along with epic 2.0 and life taps makes self healing (not to mention added dps) more effective than a dedicated healer. AE and snap aggro is huge for group purposes.

Shaman slows are huge and the heals are enough to supplement the SK life taps. Add in Epic 2.0 and Puma, which also procs for SK/Mage/Shm pet, plus buffs and the shaman is the perfect priest choice.

Bard: Their contribution is obvious. Better than ENC due to selo's, over haste, and the direct dps contributed from meleeing, particularly with the new melee changes. Add in songs that give procs (which apply to pets too) and you get lots of synergy.

Ranger: good backup tank with Weaponshield if things go wrong. Supplemental buffs are great. Can spot heal in a pinch. No problem if the fight is a ranged one -- dps is not lost.

Mage: gear for the pets, great dps, mod rods, CoTH, dmg shield for the tank. Pet is also nice for periodic stuns.

Wizard: Big DPS, evac, and ports. Don't underestimate the value of ports. I would hate my EQ life without these.

This make up can really take on everything. It's an all out dps fest when the content is easy. If things are tough, start mezzing, focus shaman just on heals, etc. Very little dps is lost in ranged fights (just pets and bard melee).

Warrior / Cleric / Bard / Enchanter / Monk / Rogue

You would be surprised at how versatile this setup is.

I try to go for maximum efficiency, and if you've got a bard and a chanter the DPS should be casters no? That's so much mana regen potential that's not being used in that group. At least swap the tank with a caster, can spam spells.

If you're talking classic only, yes.
If you're talking long term, I can tell you first hand that the above setup is remarkable, especially when bards start getting proc songs and enchanters start getting their auras. The monk can take rampage damage if you're trying to hit exotic targets. And you won't lack for dps. You can put together a higher dps group that's not capable of taking out the same kinds of exotic targets though.

ER. i've done naggy lair's entire giant rot including all king, skarlon magus with just my monk sham and mage.

Which is basically group content. Try tanking something like brother Z. Or a kunark Dragon with a monk and you get annihilated, that's all I was saying.