Howdy,
I'm strongly considering dropping my druid like an old shoe w/ the cleric mercs out there. I'm raiding again so I'm mainly looking for easy pulling w/ potential for later in the game.
Options:
Sk - slow pulls, but will probably end up tanking better than I. Not sure if that would be needed post-merc. Low dps. Can flop into tricky places and summon my corpse, have merc rez.
Monk - reasonable pulls, can do reasonable dps without too much looking after(though will usually be out of group probably). Needs a decent number of AAs to pull well though (imitate death, run8, defensives, some other stuff, though I don't recall all of it).
Necro - slow pulls, same tricks as SK. Good dps w/o too much effort/AAs. Not too interested in playing one though.
Bard - harmony is good, as it the CC ability. Easy to PL. Can do some of the same tricks as SK as far as getting into goofy places. Few AAs needed. Low dps, not nearly the utility if out of group.
Rogue - I've heard some great stuff about new rogue pulling abilities (though seems like few rogues take advantage of this). Should I explore this further? I'd love to have a rogue just for getting places.
So - commentary please. Am I wrong about the bard? Should I not care, and just play the necro still? What would be the fastest to get to where he can be a competent puller? Which has the hottest looking female toons so I can imagine it's a real chick? :)
heh, watch, soon as you get another toon up there, they will have all classes available for mercs. :P
been think alot about this myself recently with all the changes, the mercs do really well at both tanking and healing.
opens all sorts of interesting duos, with a tank merc and healer merc, just about any duo can work, however some things seems to be more important now
1) Pulling and or cc - seems like pulling is one thing they cant make the AI work for, so having a puller / cc is premium as ever
2) HASTE / slows - haste on a tank merc is very important, slows still important but any buffs which help the tank help everyone
3) Shamm / beastie buffs - if your duo already has a tank + cleric, the one thing missing is the shammy / beastlord line of buffs.
Definitely say no to the monk, you already have a beast to gear in leather, and a druid, do you really want ANOTHER leather wearer? Of the options you listed, the Bard and the Necro will be the easiest to box. Necros because you can macro all the dots and FD once the pull is back in camp. Bard because you can also macro all his songs and use him as a tank where mobs hit harder, eliminating the need to spam slow to steal aggro or have the puller FD so the Beastlord can tank if the mobs are already split. The beastlord becomes a rogue with a pet in the bard scenario, the necro would be more like your standard duo now, just with better dps than the druid since you won't be healing. Bard will do more for raising your beast's dps than the necro will, but the necro prolly adds more total dps to the combo than the bard. The SK would be fine, if you don't mind your bst never tanking again. The rogue is going to cause you more problems than it's worth, you would be better off boxing him with the SK, as you will need to be sure the rogue won't steal aggro.
I think he riads so the monk could be group geared
been messing around with some merc combinations, lets me 2 box when I was needing to three box
1) Chanter + Tank merc with Druid + Tank/cleric merc - thought it would be better than it was, druid was short on heals with 2 tank mercs, druid became crappy wizard with a cleric merc... looking for better options
2) Druid + Tank merc with Shammy + Cleric merc - Druid+Shammy!!! who would have thought... actually was PLing my druid and this combination worked out really really nice in outdoor zones anyway... - druid as main can harmony pull, with animal pet which is malod and ensnared, can add DPS + heals, tracking, etc. Shammy in place of chanter makes big diff in DPS+buffs really help tanks - wierd combo but works well sometimes.
3) Chanter + Wizard - (add tank+cleric mercs) - think may be pretty good well see
4) Monk+Shammy (add tank+cleric mercs) - think will be very good, but lacking snare - can use 1 tank or no mercs or 2 tank mercs, depending on content.
5) Bard+Mage (add tank+cleric merc) - mage + cleric merc works very well, bard best puller, *should* work well but have a feeling may be better on paper than in reality
6) Cleric+Beastie (add tank + ??) - pacify pulls, slows, haste, decent DPS - prolly only need one tank but might add 2 for boss mobs, or even another cleric merc...
I've been having very good luck with my beast/beast duo plus cleric merc. Using CoH I can pull singles in most situations with enough running room. Even in crowded dungeons I can usually clear a room by attacking with a sacrificial pet followed by CoH. The cleric merc does well keeping me alive while tanking or the pets. I have not yet spent much time in SoD (none at all boxing by myself) so I don't know how well the cleric would fair with those heavier hitters yet.
I can not think of a better duo with my beast than a mage. A mage brings tanking power, nukes, CoH, damage shields, pets weapons/armor and most actions are easily adaptable to hotkeys so that I can keep my main attention on my melee toon, the beast.
I tried the mage/beast duo with a cleric and a tank merc. The tank merc did not do as well generally than beast or pets tanking. The cleric would let him get lower on health which makes him vulnerable to damage spikes. That combined with his tendancy to try to get aggro on everything in camp rather than let pets offtank made his survivability rather low. Unless I'm taking on something really tough I have been using just the one merc (healer) lately.
well i have been doing alot of 2 boxing my Monk + Shammy, using a tank+cleric merc for nameds etc and its worked really very well. The monk gets a snare AA which works very well, and he tanks alot better than i thought he would, taking less damage than the tank merc (but not as good at holding aggro of course)
I had been also doing good with Chanter+ Druid duo (add tank + cleric mercs for named). Once the druid got his level 72 charm, with 2 charmed, dual-wielding pets, using the tank+cleric mercs the 4 of them rip through yellow con mobs like paper. charm breaks are easier with ensnare, tank merc usually regaining aggro and cleric merc auto-healing. Also, can just use the druid for one charmed pet, the chanter for control. Also, this team has max debuffs with 70% slow+tash+cripple+weakness+attack debuffs for the boss mobs.
The druid is really good in this situation cause he can charm for mega DPS, or be a healer with just using a tank merc+chanter, or be a nuker/dotter with the cleric+tank if no charm mobs are avail. So his versatility really shines.
The Shammy+Monk is really nice but doesnt do as well in certain situations, like if a quest has aggro-linked mobs that need mezzing, or something where tracking is important. But it is much easier to play and less chaotic.
All of them are between 73-75 atm, will update once they get higher. Might try also the Beastie/mage, or maybe Bard/Wizard.
I Run a beast/Druid combo and bust out Cleric/Tank mercs. Not really sure about the rank 2 tanks but i can outtank any rank 1 so i use my tank as added dps. Druid is on debuffs/dps and on names i have him patch heal. This combo rocks in outdoor zones. Only problem i have is indoor dungens. But even when i pull 2 i can tank 1 with merc and pet on the other. Just have my druid throwing heals in with clr merc till 1 dies. Wouldnt trade that combo for anything. But thats just me.
Nobody mentioned Wizard?
If you dropped the druid you would lose ports, might not sound like much but if you were used to them and suddenly lost them you would sure notice.
Wizard allows you to keep snare and port/evac and gets you an increase in dps.
So maybe Bst, Wiz and 2 Cleric mercs, can keep 1 merc suspended until extra healing is needed.
I honestly don't see why you would drop a druid bot just because cleric mercs are available, now you can have your cake and eat it too. The main justification people used for taking a cleric box over a druid were stronger healing, stronger Ac/Hp buffs and rez, now you can keep your druid and have all of that added via a cleric merc.
I've been running a cleric merc, boxing a wiz with a cleric merc, and have my cleric bot out (when groups are slim). Nothing beats a wizard for ease of use and it's nice to see 10-20% of the mob's health drop at a time :mrgreen:
Thanks for the replies, but I really haven't even been boxing anything since the expansion came out. First raiding 5x/week, and work. Now, only doing some Kith faction junk for another week or so until I have playtime again.
Might keep the druid...really just need to load her up and see how her dps stack up now. It won't be great either way since she doesn't have the AAs for it, but she has a few and is at least lvl79 now.
I have fun playing Bst+Bard with 2 cleric mercs. I'm able to take down most nameds up to Korascian Warrens in difficulty with solteris level gear. I haven't really tried the combo for xp because its faster for me to get a full group or just solo.
Bards are also pretty fun, and for boxing the /melody hotkey makes it pretty easy
Yeah, I've been boxing my 85 Bst (27khp/3kac buffed) with tier II cleric merc and my 81 wizard with tier I cleric merc. Been able to kill pretty constant in SHIP with that. The occassional 32k crits do make killing pretty fast :)
My duo is beast and mage. Works great for pulling and splitting with CoH as long as you have enough room to run around. I can split anything that isn't aggro linked, sometimes resorting to flash of light along with CoH to break up especially stubborn groups of mobs. Most of the time, my raid geared beastlord tanks (up to FoS theme anyway) and the cleric merc does a pretty good job keeping me healed, but mana drops fast if I pull more than one. The mage pet can tank some named that would otherwise eat the beastlord through the use of melee block spells. For some encounters I add a tank merc, but they can be mana sumps.
I've been boxing a mage+tank merc +bst/clr merc, things have been pretty good going but occasional death.
Its a fairly solid make up, but I wanted to see how things would be with mag having a cleric merc, and tbh its a big improvement. Obviously 2 healers can keep 2 pets and 2 pc's alive muche easier than 1 healer vs 2 pets, 2 pc and a tank.
Keeping the mage alive keeps the pet alive and the 81 air is pretty hot - especially at offtanking adds.
I'm still getting the hang of CotH splitting in tight places, Kurns is a good challenge lol .. but overall, its a good combination.
I dropped my cleric recently and have been running beast/sk. Beast tanking atm. However the sk will be tank soon and when he tanks my dps on beast is noticeably better.
In addition they aren't to hard to gear up with some new essences, rots and bazu/LB's that are 1 groupable. I think he'll hit 4k ac in about the next month depending on my luck at spawning names.
Beast/tank and two mercs can do just about any content now and with our new beastly aa's rarely have to med and have some pretty high sustained dps which makes up for sk's lower dps.
I returned to game recently and started boxing a drood with my beasty and what a difference it makes. I run a tank merc for extra dps on drood and cleric on bst. I know SOD stuff hits hard and havent done too much of it, but the things I am doing in SOF and before to catch up on spells, drops etc is easily handled by dru/bst. I bust out the cleric merc on names and have only rarely used the tank merc. I love the versatility of the drood to be healer or dps, and the evac/transport spells are like little pieces of heaven wrapped up in mana. Not to mention, snare, ds, mammoth, tracking, etc...
bst is almost 81 with 700 aa's and druid is almost 79 with only 100 aa's
I been dropped my Cleric for a chanter. the biggest problem we have as Bst is the pulling. most mobs if I get them single I can tank them well in and out on named to give mercs time to heal.
The chanter has been behind on AA. got to 82 before I started working on them and only have about 200. The things I got are not your normal aa but more so ones to help with my soloing for now. I picked up the Chanter summon AA. both of them. they are nice and tend to taunt the mobs reducing the hits on the bst. as well as extended my Mez to help with CC. I also got the punt aa and Love it. with all the chanter tricks I able to ether solo or lock down most things.
So t5 merc help a lot and both are clerics. most the time only have 1 out and pop the 2nd on named fights. I been working on Fos as returning after 3 year I was not very well geared so been trying to get 2 full sets of T3 and it coming along well.
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I tried a tank / cleric merc combo but the problem is on named the timing and everything is hard for the single cleric to keep up. at least with 2 cleric I can back off and pet pet tank untill the heals land. but with a tank merc how do you get him to back off. just somthing AI can't do.
Update:
I'm running my sk tanking and beast dpsing now. Between pulls on sk and slows on beast and some judicial merc clericaling I have been rolling over anything I want >.<
I just boxed FoS + Earth (all except murdunks) progression theme whiile a mage firend and my brother were mostly afk. Also been farming some tosk instances for medials and 600 hp/mana gear easily.
I can duo the trash in kuua theme easy and now that my sk is void e I will be looking into korafax.
-wild
Wildwaters,
I like your idea with the SK + Beast box. I am thinking of returning to EQ after hearing of the mercs and my GF is wanting to play with me. She being an animal lover and i love slows, so i naturally encouraged her to look into the beastlord class. I have always wanted to play an SK, and it seems to me that with 2 cleric mercs healing, her slows, dps, dots/dd, buffs, and backup heals, added to my SK's Tanking, dots, FD pulling, and snaring we should be golden.
We will more than likely take our time in leveling until she becomes comfortable with the game, but I do look forward to seeing some later content without having to worry about finding a group.