4-box and lack of tank ?

[JiulsDread]

Hi

Just a quick question for you : I'm currently 4-boxing Bst/Mag/Clr/Enc.
Even if this combo rocks for the standard sessions and goals, I feel I'm lacking some tank options to jump to the next step.
I'm dreaming of being abble to go to the Sewers or handling by myself a LDON Hard.

But as you can see on the profiles I'm still running a bunch of young 65 lads with an average equipment (mainly Bazaar/LDON gear).
No way my beastlord could manage to tank some critters hitting for 600+ regularly.


I was thus wondering if I should not switch my dear chanty to a tank toon, probably an SK.
Should it be a good option or not ?

[Hereki]

Just compare the time to level SK to 65, and the lost opportunities to exp your crew while doing this, against the time required to get a few AAs for your beastlord.

With low AA chars, the mana regen from the enchanter plus crowd control is going to be in great demand, too.

A well AAed beastlord can tank hard LDoN with a cleric backing; not sure about sewers as I haven't done that myself.  Reading a few threads in various places, it seems that warrior tanks beat paladins beat SKs in trials.

[Xarilok]

AA Beast > plate tank with no AA.

Going to have to agree, get some AA, and you won't worry about 600 hitters.  A bazaar/ldon beast can break 4k unbuffed pretty easy, and with full defensive AA, a 4k (unbuffed) beast can not only tank 600 hitters, but solo them no less.

Then again, I would just make some friends, its far easier and 1 person to 1 toon makes a far better group than 1 person playing 4 or 5 toons.

If you want a plate tank, I'd really just make a friend.  Besides, doesn't the conversations get lame when you are just typing back and forth on your own toons??

[Hereki]

I dunno - who gets to group with people who get their jokes, and share a similar taste in music?  All the time, no less :P.

[danaconda]

If you plan on going ahead and making a plate tank, I wouldn't lose the enchanter, I'd lose the beast in that equation. 4-boxing is tough enough, and 2 melee's are gonna make it even harder. I don't think it's going to make a huge difference which tank you choose, but personal preference for me is shadowknight (troll or ogre).

Reason for not losing enchanter is their incredible crowd control. And with 4 boxing, if things get out of hand you are probably going to wipe, but with an enchanter you at least have a chance of surviving.

[Sempai]

Obviously, if you really want a tank for some hard stuff, a plate tank would be the way to go. Since you lack a FD class char, I happen to think an SK could add a lot to your group. It might be tough to get your beast the gear needed to handle your needs with just 4 boxing.

That being said, in the right gear, and with the right AA, your beastlord could be built around becoming the tank. LDoN Hard mobs hit for 900, Sewers stuff hits for 1300 so it would take some work, but your beast can handle this in the future.

[Bulge]

I have been thinking about the same issue, my 5-box group being a 64 BL (my Main, and by far the best geared), druid, cleric, necro and mage.

I would like to do GoD with this group, but I level slow, I gear up slow and I never grind AA's so my Beastlord will be a gimpy tank for some time to come. He could handle the Arachnae in PoV with the druid and cleric healing much, but the golems were too much for him for sure.

But leveling up an SK would take months and months too, and he would still be much worse geared then my BL nor have AA"s.

So I decided to bet on OoW (if I ever get it, I may go over to EQ2) and becoming level 70 with my BL, which could at least open up some GoD spots, though not the sewers (not the hardest one at least).  Getting a tank to the point where he actually *could* stand his own in GoD just takes too long, the way I play.

[Dhantes]

Drop the mage if your looking to lose a toon. 4boxing is tough though i mean if i had to reccomend anything for you group it would be a warrior or a paladin over an SK because warriors have defensive (much easier to tank named) and paladins have stuns and heals (much easier to tank stunnable mobs) the only plus side sk's have is really snare... though when boxing lifetaps can be more useful then heals since lifetaps dont need to be tab targetted...

Anyways my advise drop the mage drop and make a tank... i only say keep the chanter because of mez and kei...

[Dhantes]

Oh and bulge drop the druid and get an SK look at how gimpy my characters gear are and i could duo golems and spiders in pov with just the sk and cleric all day long... ZBITE does add alot to a group... with bazar gear you should be able to get an sk to 4k hp 1100ac or so this should buff to about 6k hp 1300 ac on the SK.

[Bulge]

Ah, I could never do without the druid, Dhantes. Apart from druid being my favourite class after Beastlord, he simply has way too much utility to get rid off. Not only has he saved my group numerous times with evac, he is also very handy for regular teleports. Add to that his great buffs and the extra healing he gives, and I would feel that I would have weakened my group way too much.  

He provides mana-regen too and this is sorely needed since I do not have a chanter(and never will, I am just too lazy/clumsy to do the mezz thing). I also use the cleric and druid with alternating  and that works wonders with aggromanagement and also when one of them gets beaten on. And his nukes arent too shabby either...

So far, I consider the Mage and the Necro the ones that give me the least added value, even though my group relies heavily on Pet-Power. So I could never do without the two but I could sacrifice the one, also since a high level SK has a pet that at least can add some damage (though not tank).  I am thinking of loosing the necro because the SK could replace Mind Wrack with ZBite and could also replace the pet somewhat. I would loose some (in-efficient) nuking power and the ability to twitch, but I hardly use that anyway (thanks to the druids and BL's buffs I might say).

I hope the Mage will grow more into her own still, so far I think mages suck hardcore when it comes to Nukes before the 60's. My cleric has a better nuke!. The mage-pets are ok, but I hope the 60+ ones are better tanks then the 55+ ones because these are still very weak pets. The Mages nukes are pathetic below level 60, since I can not use the fire-balls, due to LoS issues. I dont want to be bothered with positioning my toons, so I use the Magic nukes. I can't wait for Black Steel and Sun Vortex though, and get her some aa's.

I am blabbering, but oh well.

Either the Mage or NEcro will go if I ever decide to level up an SK, but I probably will stick with this group and choose my targets accordingly.

Or add a 6th box.....

Btw, your SK is not gimpy at all, you are wearing Raid-titems almost exclusively! :) I would hope you can tank PoV stuff with a char like that, if not I won;t ever bother rolling an SK. ;) If you want to see gimp, check my magelo and shudder at the sight of my Coldain Skin Gloves. And 8 AA's. ;)

[Dhantes]

Clerics with proper aa's and gear provide so much healing power its amazing... with an SK+Cleric+Bst combo for instance i can chain ch all day without losing any mana but on like say BoT named i use SL which atm for me is 3345 in 3.4 secs... that can make me oom in like 10 casts or so on my cleric when you add in mana regen but those 10 casts can normally keep me up long enough to kill the named... anyways thats why i said ditch the druid. If you play druid as a wizard though and just have him nuke mobs (make hotkey assist tank cast nuke /pause cast nuke pause cast nuke) then he will probably be better then the mage though...

I never have any problems with dps 3boxing (though i mostly do bot/hoh lvl grinds and ldon normals) when i 3box ldons mobs die in roughly 1min from getting to me... add in my wife (65 wiz keeps me senial and so i dont just talk to myself though we fight cuz she likes people and i dont hehe anyways back to topic... ) and mobs die in about 30secs so dps has never been a problem for me one of the things i dont get about anyone who does more then 3boxing...

Oh though named do take abit of time to killed in ldons (1.5mins) and like BoT level nameds can take abit of time also (3-4mins) though when im killing and in combat i dont really measure time differnt everything seems to slow down and what seems like 30secs of work could actually be 3mins heh :). For me its actually more of a pain to pull more mobs if i add more people to group...

I'm also not a greedy person but at the same time when im putting in alot of effort to acquire money or items i dont like to really roll the dice that im gonna get the item i prefer for instance in raids DKP and when i do single group stuff to just 3box it and not worry about rolling... thats kinda why i 3box.

Oh and bah bulge your bst has 500 more hp then mine i believe and my sk has like every defensive/hp adding aa available hehe :) honestly most of my gear is bazaar or ldon level there is an SK on skboard who is completely 2-3 group geared (family guild) like 90% of him is LDON geared and he has way way better gear then me hehe :) will dig up his magelo... http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=170915 . He's my hero hehe :) want to be able to do hard ldons 3boxed and GOD named 3boxed one of these days hopefully after omens...

To me though dps is nice and everything but doesn't break a group what breaks a group is how well does the the MT tank? Can the healer handle this? And can the slower slow? Though i dont hold true to this because if i did i would be running a warrior...cleric...chanter combo but its close enough... beast do make decent tanks if you gear them properly. (i love to use mine already to off tank in ldons hehe i have the most fun healing 2 tanks especially when they are mine)

[bham]

I 4 box a Beast (as main), cleric, wizard and mage. Massive DPS with reasonable tanking/off-tanking ability.

Currently my beast has over 400AA, but with only bazaar/ ldon gear there is only so much you can tank. 700-hitters are my max.

If you want to tank hard ldon/sewers/tipt/vxed you either need your beastlord to have elemental/time gear, or get a plate tank.

Omens of War will change this. At level 70 with upgraded defensive AAs I bet I will be able to tank 900-1000 hitters. Of course the bar will be upped at the same time. To get really good omens drops you will probably have to tank 1500-hitters.

[danaconda]

Bulge, I know that was an old post, but after reading it again today, I have a suggestion.... if you want to lose either necro or mage and replace with a plate tank, lose the mage. Replace him with a warrior though. Ogre warrior also.

Warriors tank better than both knights, they get /defensive disc, and they require very little attention since there aren't any spells to cast. This way you keep the necro (who is a personal favorite of mine) with mind wrack and snare, and get a much better DPS tank. Hell I bet you have a CHoS on your beast somewhere that you can give to your warrior for aggro.

I would have said go pally but too many stacking problems with cleric, plus you will have more hp as a warrior so your cleric's heals will be more efficient. And with a druid PLing you, the warrior won't have much trouble leveling fast.

Of course, you can always stick with your current group, but at least thats another option :)