Completing my group with a Tank: Shadowknight or Paladin?

Lraria · April 07, 2005, 08:46:58 PM

Choices, always choices... /grin

I'm thinking hard about what to add to my 4 box right now (tax refund coming soon!) and I keep wondering what makes the most sense for me, the way I play, what zones I'm going to be in the next year or more. My friend who boxes Pally / Chanter and I have had a blast knocking down everything we've tried not including OoW (we both are upgrading now). But that is 2 people boxing a full group.

For straight solo boxing, with my setup of Bst / Dru / Nec / Mag, I really only have a couple possibilities. If I move one of my 2 other higher level chars (Bard >> my main, or Cleric, low alt atm) I have a simple, quick addition that is ready to play immediately with my Pet Team. Both have pro's and con's.

Bulge, you have already gone one beyond that and are simply looking for a 6th member. What is it you are looking for most - Dps, CC, mana regen, tanking, another pet?? My guess is that whatever you add you should try to minimize the changes to your current setup, it works, don't fix it unless it's broken. So, what to add?? That is the question!!

I've said before that I'm Bard centric in my group makeups, comes from starting with a Bard and still playing one as my main when I raid. A Bard would bring alot to the table, and with the right gamepad macro's, hotkey macros, and some practice would add, IMO, the most benifit with the least attention (assuming you aren't mezzing or charming alot). My usual group twist at 65 adds 90+ DS to group, 19m/80hp regen, 60pct haste, 30pct overhaste, 25pct nuke/dot boost, max resists, ac, str, atk increases. It is alot of boost for just singing in the background. And that is with wpns equipped, it goes higher with instruments. I am well geared, but even assuming average gear a Bard would bring alot to the table for all your other characters without necessarily requiring 2 melees.

Plus you can use a Bard to pull (hehe, pretty well even...), crowd control as needed (never a Bard strong point, 2-3 mobs max), and even add some melee (with my gear I add about 90 dps melee, with Time/GoD wpns and AA's and stats). All your characters would have crazy DS, crazy regen (both mana and hp), nukers/dotters all boosted (plus focus and aa's), max resists and bst and or pets (depending on pet affinity) would have 30pct overhaste, which adds immediately to your overall dps from melee and pets.

With pet affinity (my pet classes all have) you simply gain an enormous amount of leverage for adding a single class to your group. Taking the new DoN proc song bards get, would add another 75pt dd to all your pets and bst. The twisting problem is an issue, but can be done gamepad style or with /melody with some attention to the song buffs. Having only played once with another Bard in my box Team group, it was wonderful, even better than I'd expected. And, I think it is doable, and probably what I'll be trying sometime in the next month or two with my characters. The way I see it, even just playing my group twist, not pulling, not CC'ing, not meleeing I gain alot of dps / advantages without much trouble. In fact, with gamepad repeat twisting, a Bard should/could be almost ignored on AF.

Anyhow, my thoughts, probably will be trying this with my 4 box and adding my Bard as 5th sometime soon. GL with whatever you try... /smile

Bulge · April 08, 2005, 08:01:41 AM

Thanks for the replies. :)

One thing I must make clear is the fact that I have only 11 AA and that I simply loathe AA grinding. For some reason AA grinding does not feel like progress. In fact I loathe every grinding, this is probably why I started to think about making yet another Alt after doing 10 DoN missions: I simply got fed up with grinding DoN missions. This is after only 10 missions. :D So anything that involves AA's like /pet Hold, Suspend minion, pet affinity, Paragon, or earning points in LDoN (omg, those points come in slow) for Calliav is out of the question. For now at least. Please don't feel I am stubborn for not making more work of my AA's: well, I guess I am. :-P

The main reason that I want a Tank is because I feel every good group needs one, and because I always wanted to play a Plate Tank some day, preferably an SK. :) The added benefit would be that he can single-pull more easily in difficult camps and better tankability. Dunno, maybe I am also sick of the same old Leatherlook on my Troll. I think there is exactly 1 graphic for Leather on Trolls and it saddens me.

When I read what the Bard could do, it sounds really good, but you have to have AA's like pet affinity to benefit from quit a few of his perks. Also, mana is not my problem with my group: ever since I started Mindwracking with my NEcro, I have a very hard time depleting Mana on any of my toons. They also have Dominion and the Druid buff on them. With the added Bard mana I think my toons would be FM all the time and that seems like overkill. Mobs go down very quickly already with all the pet-power and the nukes.

I think the biggest drawback of my group is the fact that I have to single pull, else my group is in immediate trouble because of no CC and the below-optimal tanking of my Beastlord. In that view I should probably add a Chanter: it could compeltely alter my rather cautious playstyle, wchi currently involves pulling singles all the time, and carfeully avoid any mobs that may bring adds.

Chanter or Tank: tough Call. A Bard for CC? I think I could get a Bard going ok with a Gamepad (I hear the Nostromo supports looping macro's) but how viable would it be to use him for CC? I am curious towards the duration of his mezzes: do they give you time to finish of one mob or do you have to re-applu the mezz all the time? Because if that is necessary, my other toons will suffer too much from this playstyle, since I usually hammering buttons *all* the time, with the nuking and Mindwracking and Snaring and Debuffing and such.

If I would have to start paying attention all the time to a Bard who has to re-mezz an Add every 30 seconds, I do not think it is worth it.
I also have this strange idea in my head of "Mezzing=lots of deaths for your Mezzer". :D Nothing slows my group down more then having to rez and rebuff a groupmember. So not sure if mezzing is an option which is a pity since it will always restrict me to the "single pull"play style.

This is why I am hoping a PLate Tank could at least hold up against two mobs if need be: my Beastlord just looses HP way too fast when that ever happens. I mean, I have enough healing power(Druid and Cleric): all I need is the HP of my Tank to go down a little more evenly, so that I can get a nice chain going. With my BEastlord, such a chain is hard to accomplish since he is most probably dead by then through some damage spike. :(

Maybe I am expecting too much of a Plate Tank: to me it seems that they ought to tank considerabley better then anything that wears leather but I guess this is a gripe of most Plate-wearers anyway.

So is it hard to keep an Add mezzed with a Bard? :)

jabby · April 08, 2005, 03:05:22 PM

1 add is not hard at all, and bards take hits better than chanters (of course) 2 adds is doable with a bard in a box, but starts to get complicated fast. 3 adds is not really doable for me with a bard boxed, as i spend 90% of my time locking down three adds and the rest of my group gets in trouble.

When playing my war / chanter / cleric, i can comfortably pull adds with the warrior and use defensive / HoT to help the chanter mezz. I can handle 3 adds np, 4 adds is mostly ok too, 5 adds is one too many. NOT talking about RSS / MPG type mobs though.

bard mezz lasts 3 ticks (18 sec), and takes 3 seconds (hard wired) to cast. Chanter mezz is generally 54 sec duration, 2.5 sec unfocused cast time, easier to lock stuff down with chanter.

Fin Beast · April 08, 2005, 03:13:35 PM

SK......FD pulling......HT. With a cleric in group the Pal just about wont ever heal....rez.....LoH. You will get a ton more from the dark side.

Bulge · April 15, 2005, 12:23:57 PM

Well, I decided to use my 6th account for an Enchanter after all. :) After considering this thread, and taking Bhams great success with his Beast and 4-some into account, I decided that I would benefit more from a Chanter. It would have taken a great amount of time indeed to get the SK up to the level and power of where my Beast currently is, which would mean he would be a useless appendix to my group from level 44-65 at least, and then I would still have to get him some ok gear before he could take over tanking from my Beast.

Also, I must say that both slowing and aggro-control with a pulling/tanking Beastlord sounds so much easier and efficient, then having to divide this proces over two toons. Also, I still love my Beastlord, it's such a versatile and powerfull class, at least for the way I perceive and play the game. :)

The Chanter will become usefull very quickly: I never take outside buffs, therefore her Clarity/KEI-line will be a completely new asset to my group and nuking will be rampant with so much Mana regen in the group. The moment the Chanter can start sharing xp with my group is the same moment she gets her 1st Group Clarity which is perfect. :D ALso, Tash is going to be great. It's cheap, fast cast and irresistable (I think?) and it will help my Slow greatly. I did Malo with my Mage but the irresistable Malo is rather mana-intensive and also pretty slowcast so a little bit cumbersome to cast it with every mob.

Also, since I consistently cast Hand of Ro with my Druid on every mob for it's attack debuff and fire-debuff, the Fire-debuff is already taken care off. This way the Chanter can take over the debuffing at the start of the fight with her quick "fire-and-forget" Tash.

Also, I hope to become proficient enough with the Chanter to at least be able to handle 1 add: I am guessing with 2 adds I will probably just Succor. However 1 Add seems to be quit easy to keep Mezzed as soon as the Chanter is on her. I never tried ROot parking a lot, I think I am just not proficient and quick enough for that sort of CC. I tried a little, but some way it always gets messed up because one of my pets is beating on the rooted mob or I am not quick enough and I have a rooted mob in my camp, which sucks. Moving my camp is easy, but not *that* easy. :D Not sure if I can find a use for her AE stun, probably not. Mezzing, Kei, Tash, an extra Nuker (ok, worst nuke of all casters but still with so much mana to spare) and in the far future, another pet that I can send in (like in 3 years from now) so not too bad.

Here's hoping that they do not nerf a Beastlords Tankability!

Btw, I got my SK to level 37 and she has ok gear (waiting for her) so she is not entirely retired yet. I may play her once ina while. Chanter is 26 now.

Hereki · April 16, 2005, 07:29:00 AM

Tash is unresistable, that's correct. It also used to be massive aggro, far, far more aggro than malo. The last patch changed that, but no one really know what the intended aggro level is now; probably still more than malo, but because of a bug with howl of tashan, it isn't working right atm.

Your enchanter won't be able to mez for you until she has reached the group level or higher - that depends what you are fighting, but all mez spells are level capped, and the cap is 57 from 54 until 61, when the cap becomes 62 - and so on. Stuns cap at 55 until the specialised not quite stuns in the 60s anyhow, so you are unlikely to get a chance to use them. Fun when they work, though.

Bulge · April 16, 2005, 09:35:59 AM

Yes, I realize a lot of my Chanters potential will not develop untill she reaches higher level, but I was hoping that Rapture(up to 61 mobs) could start being usefull as mezz-spell atlevel 59 already since I will be doing the level 65 DoN missions for a long time to come still. I think most mobs in those missions are not higher then 61, though some may be 62, not sure. I won't be locking down more then 1 add anyway (I will succor else) and Rapture seems perfect for that.

The first stun up to 65 seems to be at 63, so that will take longer. Even then, I do not expect to be using her mezz-skills much at first, since I hardly get adds in DoN missions anyway. Well, at least not the ones that I am choosing. :)

But for instance I will be able to free up my Beastlords Celerity spellslot rather quickly and let the Chanter Haste me. Also the Clarity is going to be good. And the Tash! But yes, the CC will have to wait a little. Not sure if I will be using her SLow line. I will pre-slow and aggro with the Beast first off course, but I wonder how much that extra 5% makes. Will be a long time before she tops the 65 % slow anyway. And the last thing I want is more aggro issues and a dead Chanter. One thing her Kei is going to accomplish, is that I will be taking Virtue from now on, instead of PotN, Ward of Gallantry and Kazad. I preffered the latter combo because I needed the manaregen, but with the added Clarity I can now let go of PoTN and get those extra HP. My group will take PoTN though, they never get hit anyway and I want mana for nukage and such. Getting Virtue means another 2 buffslots opening up.

About Tash aggro: I heard about the Howl of Tashan bug, but I can assure you that at least the lowest level Tash seems to have hardly any aggro component at all. I was powerleveling my Chanter in UNrest, and sometime my Druid gets aggro because of a heal. Now I guess that is the sort of aggro that is really hard to peel off, because I could spam tash on the mob and it would not change targets. I have literally cast Tash 15 times on the mob and it would still be beating my Druid. Spamming the level 1 Choke spell was more effective..... not sure if this is any indication of the lowered aggro on Tash, but it looks promising. Or is the aggro like a one-time deal with Tash? I am a bit of an aggro-noob so please correct me if I am wrong.

I will try it tonight with the level 20 Tash.

Hereki · April 17, 2005, 05:24:42 AM

P9/Kazad/WoG should be more HP/AC than Virtue. Means you can have the hp and the mana regen, but still lose the buff slots.

Level 57 chanter slow is 70%; the difference between 70 and 65% slows is that mobs do 17% more damage. Worth having, if you can land it early without aggro.

Multiple casts of tash can give amazing aggro, so yes, the aggro component stacks. At higher levels, enchanters would use their 61 rune plus the AA rune to handle it. Works well enough in PoP, but mob dps in Omens makes that pointless.

Don't forget with Color Cloud that it's an LDoN spell, although luckily you'll be able to do them to get it. Most enchanters prefer to use Word of Morell in similar circumstances.

One thought: if you can do the entry quest for Tower of Sol Ro, you can try for ornate drops - silk levels let you cast Tranquility from 55 up. Although I heard that the drop rate has been reduced yet again since the entry quest was put in. With the very slwo spawn time, I expect a single group can keep everything outside the portals clear.

Bulge · April 17, 2005, 06:48:39 AM

Thanks for answering, Hereki. :)

Quote from: Hereki on April 17, 2005, 05:24:42 AM
P9/Kazad/WoG should be more HP/AC than Virtue. Means you can have the hp and the mana regen, but still lose the buff slots.

Ah yes, I remember the combo being more hitpoints. I am really short of buffslots though and don't see me getting anymore soon through AA's or the DoN quest so I may have to change to virtue anyway. I'll make a calculation to see how many HP I loose.

QuoteLevel 57 chanter slow is 70%; the difference between 70 and 65% slows is that mobs do 17% more damage. Worth having, if you can land it early without aggro.

17% sounds a lot. I am wondering on mobs that can be only partially slowed: do I get the whole extra 5% procent with the Chanter or does the calculation also take a part of that 5%? Even then, I will see if I can squeeze another button push in. I will probably not be using her slow in a DoN mission, but if I ever dare take on OoW and the Nameds there I will be certain to use it. Better start practicing in DoN though.

QuoteMultiple casts of tash can give amazing aggro, so yes, the aggro component stacks. At higher levels, enchanters would use their 61 rune plus the AA rune to handle it. Works well enough in PoP, but mob dps in Omens makes that pointless.

I think then that they lowered the aggro on Tash substantially. Whenever I lost aggro to my healing Druid, it took at least 4 casts of the level 20 Tashanian to get aggro back. I could get it back faster by 2 or 3 nukes or DoTs. When I play with my group, I always pull with Slow so aggro is usually locked very well to my Beastlord. When I run back to camp I also manage to often get an Incapacitate in: so far I have hardly ever gotten aggro on any of my toons. I start snaring, Hand of Ro and also aFuneral Pyre and a Mage nuke almost pretty soon after the mob is in camp, so I am thinking the aggro lock with Slow and Incap is a really tight one. Now Tash will be very likely the second spell to land on the mob, after my inital slow. This is necessary, since I *do* get resists on my slow (rather often in fact) and the whole idea of Tash is to get the slow to land more reliably. So here's hoping that one resisted slow will be enough to keep aggro from the Chanter. :) I might be able to get an incapacitate in before the Tash, not sure. I'll jst have to epxeriment here, but the aggro changes with Tash seem promising.

QuoteDon't forget with Color Cloud that it's an LDoN spell, although luckily you'll be able to do them to get it. Most enchanters prefer to use Word of Morell in similar circumstances.

Ah, no Colour CLoud for me then. I am just finding the DoN missions much more worthwhile. If they ever decide to up the points earned in a LdoN I may go back there, but right now it's not worth it. Maybe if they make the points tradable.

QuoteOne thought: if you can do the entry quest for Tower of Sol Ro, you can try for ornate drops - silk levels let you cast Tranquility from 55 up. Although I heard that the drop rate has been reduced yet again since the entry quest was put in. With the very slwo spawn time, I expect a single group can keep everything outside the portals clear.

I have indeed done this quest for all of my characters (exept the Chanter) so that sounds interesting(the Efreeti is surprisingly gimp even for my standards ;)). However I will have to wait untill my Cleric gets Pacification, or my Chanter gets high enough to mezz the add, which will be a long time to come since they are level 65 I believe. Ornate would still be a great upgrade to many of the slots of my alts for sure.

Thanks for all the insights Hereki, honing my team is one of the fun things for me to do at the moment, even though I do not seem to be progressing towards that high end game much. :D

Hereki · April 18, 2005, 06:43:55 AM

Slow mitigation is a flat percentage, so your enchanter slow will still be 17% (approx) more effective than the bestlord slow.

Thinking about enchanters, I'm not entirely sure what I'd cast if I has a lower level enchanter and needed to hold aggro. Probably one of the lower level debuffs like Weaken (which has otherwise never been used), or it might be a new use for Whirl til you Hurl. Anyway, a fast cast debuff is the way to go, so a debuff DoT might do the job.

As for Sol Ro - aggro range is basically the same as casting range, so without extended range (tribute, is probably easiest), you won't be able to pacify. I really needed defensive AAs to handle a double pull with my cleric duo. The good news is that only the two exits from the zone in point need a double pull.

Bulge · May 04, 2005, 07:44:50 AM

Wanted to add that my Chanter is level 47 now and already a valuable member of my group. Boon of the Clear Mind, Celerity-duty on my BL and Tash is already making a difference. I thought I could nuke before with my Necro Mindwracking, but now I am having serious difficulty depleting the mana of any of my toons. I could free up a spellsot on my Beast (Celerity) which I used for another Ice nuke. Made a little macro so that one button push fires off two ice-nukes. Chanter is not high enough to try any Mesmerizing, though I practice a little bit in Torgiran's Mines. Unfortunately she gets resisted too often still to really practice it. She also nukes along with the rest of my toons with her crappy 387 Discordant Mind nuke. :-P I must say that the DPS of my group is becoming pretty sick these days, even without any AA's on my Alts.

I hope to get a little better CC one of these days so that I can actually start to take on more daring stuff, like expeditions or trials. Though I am thinking that will always be somewhat of a stretch for me.

I still love the aggro that my BL can generate, this is definately a big plus in having a BL as a Tank.

Lraria · May 04, 2005, 07:52:24 PM

Glad your Chanter is coming along nicely!! My Cleric alt will hit 60 in the next day or two and will try adding him soon (when new computer setup) to the box team I run - Bst / Dru / Nec / Mag. Plus will be experimenting with adding a bard to the mix as well. Not sure which will prove most useful, probably situational....

Everything I've read and even tried last few weeks with Cleric has shown that 1) Cleric heals are better than Druid (not overwhelmingly so, at least at my bst's hps and mobs tried) 2) he's a dirt simple char to bot - 4-5 hotkeys macro'd and I'm good to go. Usual routine is pet hammer on bst target, nuke it, then target bst for further heals. This has worked extremely well last few levels as cleric has worked up xp.

But, the overall dps of 3 pets plus nukes/dots and bst melee means mobs simply don't last that long. I barely get off 2 fast necro dots (BoT/Horror) and 1 nuke, sometimes 2 from mage/druid, before mob dies (20-40 secs seems like usually in BoT on giants). Many mobs I don't even need to heal, having taken so little damage due to stuns and slow.

Adding a 5th and or 6th box to my team seems to have some utility but the returns are diminishing. More dps, sure, always nice. More healing power, sure, never a bad thing when fighting tough mobs. Bard seems to be leading in what it brings to the characters I already have working hard to kill mobs quickly and easily. I'm sure that really tough mobs will need a cleric, everything I've experienced says it will make it easier. But outside those few nameds the cleric is gonna be not nearly as affective as adding dps.

Hehe, just not sure what direction this will ultimately go, but I'm sure I will have fun trying some more combinations and getting past 65 with them all later this year. Keep us informed how it goes with your full group boxed and how well the chanter does for you Bulge.

/wave

jabby · May 05, 2005, 03:20:24 PM

just wanted to add, having played a chanter for 2-3 years as a main, maxing the CHA on your chanter will help with resists on mezzes. (not to mention pacify and charm)

Its a subject of much debate, but i promise you from personal experience, having 255 cha from lvl 1 makes a huge difference. Of course, lvl and MR make a much larger difference, but cha helps lower initial mezz resists as well.

Its not really noticeable until you start doing alot of mezzing though.

Bulge · May 05, 2005, 04:11:18 PM

Jabby, I am working on my Cha on my Chanter and will try to get it as high as I can. :) It's around 200 now, I must say that that Wooden Memorative anniversary Coin helps a lot(+50 Cha). :D I haven't really spent any money on her yet, so I guess it will not be too hard to get her to 255 once she gets a little higher.