Question on this series of combos and ideas.

[dragonmike1969]

Hello all! New to this forum but not others. Glad to see some familiar faces here. So here is my story. I am about to get back into playing EQ after being away for 8 months. I thought I was just going to wait for EQ2 to come out but then I saw their final ideas after two years of religiously following their progress and I think the one statement that sums it up is what was said at the summit. " The Devs were so sorry they called it EQ2!" It is true because it just will not be the improved EQ experience I was looking for. So I would in the end rather deal with the nagging EQ issues than fall into the EQ2 mode that will be unfulfilling to me.

So by nature I am a Beastlord fanatic and have been since day 1. After over 3 years of off and on playing and having numerous toons post 50 in level I am ready to make the next step.  I will be playing on the system I have listed below and I really need some advice. On not only the best way to pull off 3 accounts at once but also the combinations.

As most everyone else I want it all. So what I was thinking of doing was running a Beast/Mage/Necro combo for outdoor zones and a Beast/Druid/(Mage/Necro) combo for indoors. I was also planning on building up an enchanter for the obvious KEI needs as well as a cleric or two for the Rezz needs and buffs. My idea was to use the toons that were not coming along as buff bots to basically buff/park/camp as needed. As for crowd control I feel that with a 3 pet group in the outdoors the DPS with those 3 will be insane and any adds are easily handled by a pet or two. I also plan to groom a Wiz up for those times nothing but a good hard slap will do.

So I guess my question here is what are the thoughts and experiences of those that have 3 boxed and used other classes as buff bots and went for straight DPS groups? Also I do know that managing one pet is hard enough much less 3 on one computer, however those who have tried do you think my system can handle such an affair and would it be rewarding? Or am I better off just being happy that I have those 2 other toons I never had before and build a traditional Beast complimenting party like a Beast/Druid/Enchanter scenario? One last thing also. What is going to be the best program to use to allow for 3 boxing on one comp(EQwindows or just the built in one) I am looking for a scenario that will be updated regularly and not leave my accounts hanging?

My system:

P4 2.6ghz 800mhz FSB(HT ready not that it matters)
1GB Corsair high speed ram 400mhz
ATI Radeon 128 mb 9700 pro video (thinking of buying a second monitor)
19" CRT
80 GB HD
DSL connection with a wireless router 108 setup.
Win XP

Any useful info will be appreciated before I go spending the money on all the new expansions and accounts. thanks all.

I would also like to add that putting mage toys on a beasty and necro pet is astounding in the difference and I know I was severely hooked on this addiction before going soloing on my beasty or necro before. I found myself in the POK hollering for mage toys and willing to pay a lot more often than KEI or other stuff. About 3 sets of toys for soloing kept me and buddy in solo kills all day long. Hated paying for them though and then not use them to watch the no rent items go away and I would have to go all over again hunting. Mages are not real friendly about stopping to make toys even when you are paying. I must feed my addictions and now that I know it is possible I cannot imagine me playing without a second account again.

Also has anyone tried going a Beast/Beast/Mage combo?

[Incite]

To be honest if I were to do an all pet set up I'd go beastie/necro/mage, especially playing on one box.  To get the best from the beastlords you want to have them in melee as well and positioning so you can melee all the time is a pain with more than one toon.  Necros bring utility and great "hands off" DPS - send the pet in, cast yer dots and meditate.  You will have healing problems though.

For what it's worth I run a beastie, cleric and necro, which works very well.  I didn't expect to three box, only two box, otherwise I'd have looked at the beastie/druid/enchanter combo which has very high utility.  I have to say though having 96% rez on tap has made me pretty much fearless and I've done a lot of stuff for the hell of it and had it turn out well.

As always though, YMMV.  Good luck with it!

[Coprolith]

Currently running a BST/DRU/MAG combo on a system very similar to your own (2.8 GHz, GeForce 5900) with no probs. Its loads of fun; with 3 toons you can do LDoN missions whenever you want to, or get your epics just for the heck for it. I've also started trying out other combos, but im having a hard time motivating myself to go thru the pre-60 routines again; been there, done all that and playing my main combo is more fun then leveling up new chars.

Between the two pets (or 3, if and when you can Dire Charm an animal) and the druids root and snare i can handle multiple adds with ease.
I've still got my old lvl 60 pally for rezzes, KEI i just buy if needed (often tho Pot9 and SD are enough for my needs).

I still use EQW for my boxes, its very stable on my system. But its perfectly possible to also run 3 normal instances of EQ provided you run them in windowed mode and dont accidently switch back to full screen mode (if that happens, you'll have to restart all 3 instances). I had to do that for a few days after the DX9 and new login screen patches. But the guy that wrote EQW fixes new bugs introduced by interface patches a lot faster then Sony does. I also like EQWs feature to give custom names to each instance. When things get a little hectic, i sometimes forget which order the instances are in and alt-tab to the wrong instance. That can get painful when you need to get a heal of fast.

Agree on the mage toys btw

/hugs

[xaoshaen]

The fact that EQW allows you to assign hotkeys to jump directly to a specific instance of EQ is invaluable when three-boxing. This alone would lead me to use it over standard windowed EQ.

[Coprolith]

Strangely that is one feature of EQW i dont use. I prefer just alt-tabbing. I guess its because im so accustomed to it i can do blindly. I dont type well enough to be able to just hit any kb shortcut without taking my eyes off the screen. But it is a very nice feature for those that can.

/hugs

[bham]

Currently running a BST/DRU/MAG combo

I always thought that would be a nice combo. I run Beast/mage/cleric myself. With the druid as healer your heals are a little weakerand you loose rez, but the snare/ports/versatility/better DPS of the druid must be nice.

I have always wondered who would produce more DPS in a typical experience grind. A cleric would need to spend less mana keeping the beastlord tank healed, giving him more mana to nuke, but the druid can use whatever mana is left over after healing more efficiently with his DoTs and superior nukes.....

hmmmm

[bham]

Currently running a BST/DRU/MAG combo

I always thought that would be a nice combo. I run Beast/mage/cleric myself. With the druid as healer your heals are a little weaker and you loose rez, but the snare/ports/versatility/better DPS of the druid must be nice.

I have always wondered who would produce more DPS in a typical experience grind. A cleric would need to spend less mana keeping the beastlord tank healed, giving him more mana to nuke, but the druid can use whatever mana is left over after healing more efficiently with his DoTs and superior nukes.....

hmmmm

Bah! double post! How did I do that?

[Hereki]

When I 2 box with my cleric his dps from nukes and clicky pet are greater than my melee/spell dps.  With warder added in, I just top him.  He doesn't have to do much healing.

My druid is only 56 atm, so I can't compare, but I'm betting that the position would be similar.  At 56 his dps is pitiful, and it's lucky he doesn't need to heal me often.