ultimate 4 box

[Bulge]

Did you discard the Beastlord as Tank completely? Because I think a Beast can tank better then a ranger and is very good melee DPS to boot. Also very easy to pull and obtain aggro with slow and you can always slow with the Enc afterwards for better slow. 

I guess you are missing a Snare then...

Personally I think you can do a LOT with a Beastlord, Cleric, Mage and a Druid for Snare/Utility/Extra Healing/Nuking.  You loose the Enc but you get nice Mana-regen through the Druid and Beastlord combined( +9 SD and +8 PotN=17 mana/tick) and the cleric can Pacify.  Do not underestimate the nuking power of a Druid and also the great extra healing that you get.  If you have two healers, a BeastLord can go a long way and the Druid gives so much more then the extra healing. If you dont need much healing, let him nuke. Succor is also invaluable, I use it a LOT. Makes dungeon crawling so much better. You will also learn to appreciate spells like Flight of the Eagles.

With the above combo you have 3 melee beating on the mob, 2 healers, CC through Paci, pet-offtanking and Root-parking and pretty much all the utility you need spread over the classes. And lots of DPS. I even let the Cleric nuke a bit if I do not need much healing. You'll be surprised at the burst DPS you can put out with a Mage, Druid and Cleric nuking together: very nice for tricky situations.

The above combo is great for doing Adventures and missions, because of the nice, steady  DPS you have. You can also do pretty hard hard fights with it, depending on how hard you work to upgrade the Beastlord through AA's and gear. You are somewhat limited to mobs that will not eat up your beastlord, but this still means that a lot of zones are available to you: and the good thing is that will be able to really churn through them. And it's not that you will always  be fighting low-blues or some: the Beastie can do a lot.

If you want every zone and 1-groupable Named available to you, then you will have to go with a real tank. I would go SK (Snare and FD pulling), add a Shaman for Slow and Buffs/Heals (and maybe dots), Mage for DPS and maybe another DPS or Utility. A Wizard would be nice then for good DPS and ports/Evac. A bit low on the mana-regen with this combo, so migth wanna add a Druid instead for nuking/healing/porting/snaring/Mana-regenbuffs.

Enc just bring too little to the table when boxed imo...... but maybe not.

[Hereki]

Rangers mitigate better than beastlords, and they don't have a problem keeping aggro with both taunt and tangling weeds and flame lick.  Mail beats leather, although at high end our "defensive" disc is better than theirs, faster reuse.

Their base dps when tanking is also better than a beastlord, thanks to double attack.  Our AAs don't make up the difference.  At various levels, our warder makes up for that, but not always (meaning not at gap levels or at high end).  Managing a warder if pulling as well as tanking can be a pain.

[Bulge]

Ah, ok, I'll admit right away that my knowledge about Rangers is about zero.  When it comes to damage mitigation, can I simply assume that Chain-wearing classes (Shaman, Rogue, Ranger) tank better then BL's, not taking any other abilities into account?

[Hereki]

Roughly speaking, yes :).

For full details, search on the SteelWarrior for a set of parses by Brodda Thep.  They were done in early GoD era, using a set of end game classes approximately equally geared (Time and beyond).

They show quite clearly that plate > chain > leather > cloth, but also that melee > caster.  You can see the different effects of mitgation and avoidance in the results.  It also shows a druid tanking (mitigating, in this case) better than a beastlord - the result of very slightly better gear (+avoidance, I think), just to put the various rankings into context.  The beastlord avoided considerably better than the same druid, btw, which I assume is the result of different skill caps and AAs.

The difference in soloability between low geared/AAed beastlord and rangers is strickly down to slow and warder.  Rangers solo better where they can fear, bow kite (with EQ/AM3/elemental bow), or head shot.  We can use our warder to back off and heal, which actually makes quite a big difference.

Ranger complaints, IMHO, come down to the utter lack of any coherence in their class definition - bow vs melee, for instance, mob run speeds vs snare, and the spell damage issue (the problem being that any damage casting reduces their overall dps).  The considerably confused message that this gives, not surprisingly, makes rangers somewhat pissed.

[jabby]

well, with todays' "class reinvisioning", enchanters are officially screwed - charm nerfs to all zones, no help with other issues.

So im once again seriously reconsidering my set up. I love my ranger though

bst, clr, mge, druid sounds pretty dang powerful...how limited is it at taking out high end mobs though? can a beastie tank in riftseekers?

they should just delete the enchanter class and set everyones manna regen to +15. problem solved.

[Hereki]

Not entirely true - reduced tash aggro has been an enchanter issue for ages.  Improved WoM has also been on the top ten for a while.

However, one small point doesn't address the issues.  Taking a reasonable look at it from an enchanter viewpoint:

- massive charm nerf extended;
- ToT nerfed (to be fair, it was sort of a bug that it worked at all, but then the base spell has been bugged on 55+ mobs since released);
- necros now close to same mez ability;
- survivability issue, and related mob power scaling issue, utterly ignored;
- and, my favorite, beastlord slows boosted, and will now be much closer to enchanter slow overall.

Also, most pet classes had it said that SOE wanted pets to be used on raids.  Silence for enchanters on this score, which is a pretty clear message.

[jabby]

i dont know, im thinking hard about replacing my chanter with a beastlord lol

beastlord can slow almost as well as chanter can haste well enough, can share manna regen with group, and has nice pet and buffs.

so then i would be

mage, beastlord, ranger, cleric

almost like bhams group without the ports, and less dps yay (but ill have track ya slacker)

[bham]

Bhams number 1 rule for multi-boxing. Do not play 2 melee classes, especially if it also involves pet pushing the mobs around.

Trying to keep a beastlord and a ranger in position, while a warder and an elemental push the mob around, while handling 2 casters as well will drive you insane. Having a beastlord without using his melee DPS is pointless, use a shaman instead, if you dont want an enchanter.

I am telling you, DPS is easily found from the /lfg list, healers and tanks are not. Take a cleric and a plate tank, take any slower (not a beastlord in this case) and add 1 more to round out your abilites. Then get your DPS from the /lfg tool.

Can a Beastlord tank RSS? I am a non-raid equipped BL with about 9khp buffed. I can tank RSS trash but I die every now and then. I am yet to attempt a RSS named from 100% health, but I tanked one from 50% when our pally got charmed. (note: a RSS named doesnt last that long with 2 mages and a wizard going full burn on it)

A non-raid equipped BL can tank MPG, including named, with enough AA, quality gear and a competent cleric on heals.

[Hereki]

i dont know, im thinking hard about replacing my chanter with a beastlord lol

beastlord can slow almost as well as chanter can haste well enough, can share manna regen with group, and has nice pet and buffs.

Enchanter mana regen is still significantly higher (about double, but I haven't looked up the figures).  You also need to look at the cast and recast timers on slow, and compare it between the three real slowing classes; don't forget to allow the mandatory 2.25 sec minimum recast between all spells (but not clickies) - this comes into play if you are so lucky as to get a slow stick.

I'm not making the decision for you, just pointing out the areas where it gets interesting :).

[Hereki]

Bhams number 1 rule for multi-boxing. Do not play 2 melee classes, especially if it also involves pet pushing the mobs around.

I found it quite interesting playing a beastlord with a rogue, and comparing the difference between bst/druid and bst/rogue.  In popular beastlord spots, the added dps compensates for the healing very well, and positioning with auto-follow isn't a big deal - but I take your point about multiple pets.

The part that worries me is gear requirements to perform effectively.  The correspondent section has concentrated on fully raid geared, top level performance.  I agree that that part at least has to be right.  But a <70, non-raid geared player (of any class) is pushed more and more out of the picture.  This means that people who choose not to be raiders are being sidelined more than ever before - and don't bring up Omens/DoN gear, it still only brings close to the raid gear of several expansions ago.  It also means that the alts of raiders, should they be allowed any such thing (cynicism, I know), will also suffer from this gap.

Which makes EQ look less and less attractive as time goes by.

[bham]

Bhams number 1 rule for multi-boxing. Do not play 2 melee classes, especially if it also involves pet pushing the mobs around.

I found it quite interesting playing a beastlord with a rogue, and comparing the difference between bst/druid and bst/rogue.  In popular beastlord spots, the added dps compensates for the healing very well, and positioning with auto-follow isn't a big deal - but I take your point about multiple pets.

The part that worries me is gear requirements to perform effectively.  The correspondent section has concentrated on fully raid geared, top level performance.  I agree that that part at least has to be right.  But a <70, non-raid geared player (of any class) is pushed more and more out of the picture.  This means that people who choose not to be raiders are being sidelined more than ever before - and don't bring up Omens/DoN gear, it still only brings close to the raid gear of several expansions ago.  It also means that the alts of raiders, should they be allowed any such thing (cynicism, I know), will also suffer from this gap.

Which makes EQ look less and less attractive as time goes by.

In popular beastlord spots a rogue may beat a druid as a box. But a druid box will allow you to do content that you cannot do with a beastlord and rogue.

For my opinion on beastlord gear, see my new post in this section