How would a all pet 3 box group compare with a bst/healer/dps or bst/healer/tank

[woof]

Hello, Im a 66 bst with 280 aas/ 65 brd 80aa and have decided to to try my hand at 3 boxing. Im a casual bst with about 3700 unbuffed and was wondering which would be best combo to allow me to do a varied content. Im on dialup but havent noticed too much lag atm, I have started a necro and mage and was planning to have eiether the mage or bst pet tank but i was wondering if that would be viable tanking set up. I would like to do normal lodns and oldworld/ some oow (higher than say bot hardness beacuse my bst can solo there). How would such a combo compare to say a mage/bst/clr or would a tank/bst/clr be a much better option for doing harder content.

[bham]

You have suggested 3 options.

1. 3 pet classes

2. Beast, healer and DPS

3. Beast, Tank and healer.

I will discuss the strengths and weakness of each.

I currently 4-box a Beast (70/500+), mage, wizard and cleric.

I am also a non-raider (I dont like the word casual....  :-D  )

1. 3 pet classes. This would be any extremely fun and interesting combo. However the ability to take down high-end 1-groupable content is limited. You can debuff and slow and do a lot of damage, but with no real tank or healer you cannot take down the big names in PoP, GoD or Omens. While you could do normal ldons at 65, normal ldons at 70 involve mobs that hit for up to 1k, which would mince 3 pets in short order.

2. Beast, Healer and DPS. This is a very useful combo and the one I recommend if you want to continue with your beast as your main. I run this combo (albeit it with 2 DPS rather than 1) and I find it very effective. While not the best tank, beastlords can be useful tanks, even in non-raid gear. I have about 8.4k hp with self buffs plus conviction and can comfortably tank Ruined City of Dranik and Wall of Slaughter mobs and named. Every piece of loot I wear comes from 1-groupable content and all except 2 of those drops were tanked by me. (I have an earring from MPG and a H2H from RS). I recommend a cleric as the healer and either a necro (snare, FD pull and versatility), mage (mala! , Call of hero and extra pet) or wizard (easy boxing, snare and ports) as the DPS.

3. Beast, healer, tank. This combo will give you the best chance of taking down big 1-groupable targets. It will have slightly less DPS than either of the above combos, altho currently warriors and SKs are doing good DPS considering their defensive abilites. I still recommend a cleric as a healer, probably with an SK as the tank, altho a warrior would not be a bad choice either. If you want ports then possibly a druid as the healer with a paladin as the tank (to keep rez) would be a possibility. The biggest drag here is keeping 2 toons in melee. At one stage I dropped my mage for an SK and levelled him to 62, but I found that having to keep 2 toons positioned for melee, while the warder was pushing the mob around, was a royal PITA. If you dont bother to melee with the BL, why play one? get a shammy instead.

Conclusion - The 3-pet combo is fun and great against lower level stuff, but doesnt have the staying power to take down big mobs. The beast, healer, DPS combo is fantastic up to 800-900 hitters, after that I think it is impossible to progress without raid gear. That puts level 70 Ldons on the borderline and MPG and RS beyond reach. The beast, healer, tank combo could take bigger stuff but you probably lose some DPS for fast grinding and 2 melee toons is a hassle, especially if you run them both on one machine.

Last option - You havent mentioned it in your post, but another possibility is to drop the Beast and make a 3-box from scratch. With a cleric or druid as healer, a shaman or enchanter as slower and a paladin, warrior or SK as tank you have a powerful and effective group that can take down a lot of good stuff. However, I assume you want to fit your beast in somewhere, so it may not be an option. I just mentioned it for the sake of completeness.

[woof]

Thanks for the long reply :) Gave me alot of useful info on what I should aim for. Ive gave up 3 boxing due to repet strain got from bard was just too much but gave me and friend some useful ideas on what to play together, thanks 

[Theron_Thunderblade]

I'd think that Bards, with the addition of the "melody" command, wouldn't be that bad to three-box anymore.  Not up to full efficiency, certainly, but with a computer-aided three song twist, that's fairly nice :)