What too add Mage or Ranger

[davebrose]

Hello,

I am a Beastlord main with a cleric box. I can add either a 67 mage with average gear or a average Geared Ranger. I can not four box but i can handle 3 well. Which should I go with and why?


Chab Chab
Wildblood

[Taiglin]

I would take the mage; should say I haven't played a ranger.

Couple of other pieces of info would help: Will you group with others a decent bit? What sort of targets will you three box tackle? Are you going to be using 1 computer or more? etc

From a damage standpoint my guess is the mage will do more then the ranger but not sure by what margin. The mage will also do more damage out of the box so to speak (0 AAs). A big thing for me is what sort of utility they might bring to the table. For example with mages you have CoH (<3), clicky fixed invis for your Bst/Cleric, crazy good pet, aura that will affect both your and his pet, etc. Rangers you can get snare, outside harmo splitting, track, instant group invis, etc. While I guess you could argue that if your bst went down you have a backup tank I think that arguement holds less water if you are running three accounts on one machine.

It also depends on what you are going to use the 3 for and what you think you would have fun with which is the main thing.

[darury]

To be effective, you'd have to consider the ranger as utlity\range DPS only. I've done the multiple melee types with a main BL and it's painful to say the least.

Pros for each (assuming a fair amount of AA's and equal gear)

Ranger:
Snare
Track
Innate Shared Camo (love this on my druid)
Decent ranged DPS with EQ\AM3
Harmony (limited utility these days)

Mage:
CoH
Mod Rods
Pet DPS
Pet Stuns (Air)
Pet Pulling with COH
Pet Pulling wihout COH
Nukes
Malo (for easier slowing)
Burst DPS via swarm pets
Less reliant on gear

OK, so I might be somewhat prejudicial. 

But realistically the mage is going to be an easier option considering the lack of reliance on gear.  You can get a good pet focus either in RSS or DoN once the mage hits 70 to increase his DPS further and there's lots of cheap fire-based focus items for his nukes.

[Sharrien]

I play a beast/mage duo and I love it.  Relatively high sustained dps plus very high burst dps.  The occasional 10k crits (I do not have Heart of Flame yet) are fun to see.  Recently I pulled 4 ragepaws (by mistake) in Undershore near the zone out tunnel.  Pets offtanked while I unleased the beast rage pet, mage rage pet, mage swarm pets and hit my beast dmg disc.  Fun fight.  Murdered the first one quickly, then I cast paragon and protective spirit before wading in to killing the other 3.

The other big advantage I enjoy boxing a mage are damage shields.  Besides your basic DS, there are also Pyrilean Skin and Burning Aura.  PS is a 420 hp DS that lasts for 4 hits...great to cast on inc and is nearly aggro free, guaranteed damage.  Burning Aura is a defensive proc that hits for 300 and can crit to 600.

CoH is also a fantastic utility, not just a convenience.  Helped me tremendously pulling in places like KT, 69.1, Devastation and the Arena Charm instance.