4-box advice.

[bham]

Ive been thinking about that out myself.

I dont parse so its hard to say.

Wizard way out nukes mage, but once you add pet, DS, pet toys on the warder and the fact that mala improves everyones DPS slightly due to less resists its hard to say. Mala was essential to get slow to land on some MPG mobs, but now the new slow makes it useful but not required.

Ports and evacs are great, but so is CoH for bad pulls.

I honestly cant say which I prefer, Ill keep both please :)

[Goran]

Greetings,

I wanted to update you all on the progress of my little team.  After much self-debate and re-reading this thread many times, I went with the SK, SHM, CLR, and MAG group composition (I almost went with a WIZ rather than MAG but felt that at higher levels the MAG would give me more efficient and safer DPS).  At times I regret not having a porter, but other than that deficiency the team is  working extremely well.  All characters are level 32.  I'm 17 - 3 in Deepest Guk (DG) LDoN adventures (lost the very first attempt and had two in which the required drops were just not, well, dropping :-)).  The last 3 or 4 adventures were completed with 40ish minutes remaining on the timer.  I really hate the DG dungeon, but I wanted to get Spirit of the Shrew for the shaman as soon as possible.  I now have it which really helps with the pet-pulling after Spirit of Wolf runs out.  And now that I'm used to DG, I'm going to stay there until I either max out the Adventurer's stone for DG or get totally sick of Frogs and move on to Takish-Hiz or Mistmoore Catacombs..

The combination of Eye of Zomm from MAG and pet-pulling with SK makes adventures almost too easy.  Occasionally, Screaming Terror from a NEC mob or Mesmerisation from an ENC mob will make things interesting if I space-off  and forget to feign death before I send the pet to fetch these casters.  But that doesn't happen too often.  Once the pull is in camp, MAG sends pet, SHM nukes once (for now, later will malaise, slow, DoT), CLR undead nukes once (if mob is undead, otherwise meds), at 60ish percent MAG nukes once, and mob dies after a couple more stabs from the SK's Shard of Night.  That usually take 15 - 20 seconds depending on whether mob is undead or not.  Occasionally I'll give the pet a break and use Numb the Dead to break up the water/bridge areas.

A handful of times I've had to gate the casters out and FD with the SK.  The pet dies unless crowd disperses fairly quickly leaving only the pet and the mob it's flailing away at.  The SK has died a couple of times, the MAG once, the others not at all.  I don't think any char has been below 50 percent mana upon completion of an adventure.  I'm sure adventures will get more difficult as I level, I just hope my skill and the character's skills/spells/equipment will scale to match the increased difficulty.

I'll continue posting periodic updates.  Especially if I encounter significant roadblocks to progress or discover useful information that may be of interest to others.

Sincerely,
Goran

[jabby]

cool thanks Goran - im still deciding on my 4 box =p (been studying for an exam not much playtime)

anyway one of the ones i was really considering was that exact box, SK, Shm, Clr, Mge. I think it should be very powerful and versatile, lack of ports/manna regen being the only disadvantage i can see. Thanks for posting your update, looking forward to hearing more.

[jabby]

ok let me throw these out there - 2 great three boxes, adding a 4th druid box to them.

1) SK, Shammy, Mage + druid - you guys know what these classes can do. weakness is lack of cleric and /stonewall but nice DPS from a tank group.

2) Bard, War, Cleric + druid -  gains warrior tank and cleric heals but only with a 55% slow vs 75% above. less DPS high end, but mid range DPS good due to huge DS on warrior tank. also gain max resists from bardsong, manna regen etc.

my question is, which one of these could take the harder mobs in the game? or do i really need #1 with a cleric instead of druid?

[jaskorak]

When I started boxing my main being a bst I rolled a druid then added a cleric and Enchanter. Brham is right the dps is annoying. At the time I wanted to be self sufficient above all else and with this combo the only thing I am missing is pet toys and a feign death toon(which would make life easier). So now I have started a necro giving me added dps and a fd class the next thing is getting a new computer because I can only run 4 toons with my present set up at one time. I stopped eq for awhile but I think I am getting the bug again and would love to maybe even down the road add a mage to finish out my grp......one thing at a time I guess but it is good to be back.