Boxin Junky

[gumlaak]

Hey guys, I started boxing back in the day when I assume not many people were doing it... post kunark pre velious.  Anyway, I am a hardcore gamer but a yo-yo everquester.  I go gung ho for awhile then get burned out when I start thinking about what I am REALLY doing and spending my ever shrinking free time on.  

Anyway, I am back in again.  I thought about going EQ2 or WOW, when I got the itch, but I love EQ and boxing(and I don't think my tertiary box could handle the load :)), so I came on back.  I don't know that this board existed before I took my last break, but I found it recently and really appreciate what you guys made here... anyway.

Back before I quit last time I had a cleric/wizzy/beast combo going.  They are only mid 30s but I was enjoying the heck out of it... anyway, This time I am thinking of taking out the wiz and going another DPS... either a mage or necro.

Since I have played both of those classes to 65 alread teh choice really comes down to effectiveness for me, and ease of use, since I like to concentrate on my beast.

I noticed many of you guys play one of these three combos... either the current wizzy or the mage necro, so I thought I'd ask you fellas a few questions:

1)  Will the wiz ever be the DPS of either of the other 2? right now he definitely isn't... resists and mana regen just make the pet class blow him away.  I know that if I ever raid him (which I must say right now is unlikely.  I hate raiding as a rule.. have been playing EQ off and on since before kunark released and have been on 2 raids :)) I will be able to pick up some mana regen.  At some point will he eclipse the other 2 classes?  or if I gave the other 2 the same FT would they still edge out the wizzy?

2)  Will my beast be able to tank stuff at the high end?  This is more of a where are you high enders at now.  I quit pre GoD last time, and beasts I played with could tank tier 1 trash, and tier 2 trash, but got scared at anything bigger.  This is important to me, cause my original dynamic duo that turned trio had a monk tank... frustration city later on....  Anyway, just an idea of what I'll be able to tank and when would be sweet... or even an "I can go non stop here, but here I need to much healing, or die often" would be awesome.

3)  Should I buy GoD and OOW?  GoD seems like a waste, and these purchases are quite an investment when you have to buy three of everything... are all of you guys maxed out or did some of you decide to skip certain expansions?

4) for you nec boxers out there... does lich become a problem? I find myself looking at my beast screen almost exclusively, so sometimes my wizzie gets greased because I wasn't watching.. I am worried this will be a normal occurence if I go with the necro... also do you find DoTs effective and efficient for LDON and the like?

Any general advice or antecdotes anyone has would be great to, I have read several threads here, but have not read the whole forum so if I missed any of these answers already I apologize for the repost.  Thanks for any replies given.

-Gumlaak

[danaconda]

Necro is the easiest caster to keep alive. No need to heal, no need to run them away. Just sit there and accept the beating via tap-tanking. When hp is up to an acceptable level, feign off the mob, and let beast take over from there.

Also, liching should never kill any necro that has gotten himself to 65 like you say you have done. It's not even a conscious thought to tap with the necro. I just use it...... on every fight.

Granted, I have not yet experienced LDoN yet with this trio. The necro is 54, beast is 51, and cleric is 46 (freshly planes enabled yay!). In another level on the cleric I will be going LDoN's hardcore style. Until then I have fought at many places. Nurga was fun. Dulaks was too. Found the castle near Nadox zone in Gunthak was a fair challenge. Most of these places were too easy though.  :twisted:

I just recently tried PoN ravens and treants. THAT was lots of fun! Drained half my cleric's mana straight up tanking, but remeber, the mobs were all yellow to my beast, and he has no defensive AA's yet and still only a 30% slow  :cry: . Each character was pulling in maybe 1.5% exp (for necro it's AA's) per kill. The kills weren't ridiculously long, but had to keep up the healing. (on a side note, the ravens near the hobgoblin river area can be fear kited nicely to save on healing.....) I get bored of grinding experience very quickly, so hopefully LDoN's will save me considering I will have specific goals in mind during each of them.

With both mage and necro, pulling singles in LDoN's will either be slow, or too risky, so you would have to go with pet pulling using the beast warder. At least that's what I plan on doing soon.

Anyways, welcome back to EQ, welcome to the boards here, and good luck!  :D

[gumlaak]

Thanks for the reply that is the type of info I was lookin for.  I am not considering a mage and nec, I am considering a beast/cleric and a third, the third right now is a wizzy, but i am thinking of changing him to mage or nec :).  BTW My first characters to 65 were a mage and nec I duod... good times, but I mostly grouped them after 54...

I should clarify, I have played a necro to 65, but he was my main.  I did box, but I always watched the nec screen.  I was more just wanting to find out if you ever were in deep, and went "oh crap my nec is down to 20 percent."  I know I have left him liching afk not thinkin about it, so I was just wondering if it was a concern, or made it tough at all to manage for people who wanted to play the beast and just box the nec...  Which I have never done.  Also I never tapped every fight as a nec it is not his most effecient spell unless you need the healing, but it is cool as a bot i could see how you would just do that as second nature.

As for pulling, paci pullin is by far the best way to pull if you don't have a dedicated pullin class... cleric is my choice over druid for that reason... I am not sure about pet pulling being faster... I also don't know about having to either keep a low level pet up or recast all the time.. i would think that since DPS and speed are both of the essence paci would be the way to go even if you could pet pull, but some others here could help, because the only LDONs I have boxed by myself are with my low level pet group no suspend or anything, so I have only paci pulled myself

[danaconda]

LOL I retyped my reply like 5 times. I'm at work. Sorry I didn't clarify correctly. I understand you are looking for a third option. I currently box a beast/cleric/necro so my opinion would be add a necro bot.  :twisted:

And yes, my necro was my main for a looong time before I started boxing at all. So I realize that tapping isn't efficient, but when you aren't exactly maxxing out a character, efficiency isn't that big a concern.

Paci pulling will be sufficient I hope, but I will try both and see how it goes. I want the cleric medding most of the time, not pacifying much, so in a week or so I will know which technique is better (I figure I can get cleric to 47 in a week).

Besides, having a skeleton pet is better than a floating half-man thing that they ruined the elementals with.  :twisted:

[negrismorte]

My current box team is 66beast/66cleric/56wiz (or 62 sham).

I use the wiz only in places I need snare or evac.  The shaman actually does more for me right now due to malo, pet, JBB, and back-up heals for tight spots.  At higher levels, the wizzie will do more obviously.  But with his current spells, a couple draughts or ICs just doesn't help that much.

I have a necro (same acct as beast though) and think that would be a better option than the wiz, mag or sham.

Even in a lower group (54war, 51druid, 56wiz), I am still not happy with the wizzie - maybe it is just me.

[gumlaak]

Yeah Negris, I was actually leaning toward the mage, because of malo.  Since he can malo on incoming it might allow the beasty to get a slow in, after an initial resist.  Plus the wizzy on high resist mobs sucks right now,  and I love pets.  I actually had a mage in her 20s so I got her up to 31 last night and did an LDON.  I mowed through it way better than with the wizzy, partly because I'm convinced the mage is a lot better character at the low levels, but also because she took the group's mean down to the next lower level dungeon as well.

Anyway, I guess necs are cool, I just think their strengths are better suited to not being botted... I don't know I guess I am biased because of all my "Nec's are versatile uber grouping gods in the right hands" campaigning when he was my main, so now I think he couldn't be botted effectively... at least by me :)

Snare is nice, but my cleric has the necklace.... I just can't decide...

[Bulge]

I love my Necro in my 5-box group. At first I thought I would hardly be using any of her mana-tricks, and just her pet and maybe a dot, but now I take great joy in taking on dungeons that have loads of casters because of Mindwrack. With my necro mindwracking, I can pretty much nuke my way through a dungeon, with the pets as added DPS. :)  I have a Dark Elf necro, and with Demi-Lich on, and the appropriate buffs, she plays even on the hp-regen (1+ even , I think).

Her buffs are: Chloro (from my druid, but BL can provide this too), Spiritual Dominion and she has Regen 3 in AA's. With that she never looses a single HP and I do not have to worry about tapping.   With an Iksar Necro you can do even better. Arch Lich prolly. With even more regen AA's, the hp-regen groupleader ability and maybe a few nice hp-regen items (heart of Zlandicar etcetera) you could go beyond that and nenver worry about tapping.

Necro is a great addition to my group, even more then my mage, though the mage should come into her own more at the highest levels with some serious Nuke-AA's.

[avsfanboi]

good topic.


Bulge,  I am curious. Are you still playing? You are talking about your necro as if you are still playing, but your sig says your retired.


Also, what is you 5-box? Toons I mean.

[Bulge]

good topic.


Bulge,  I am curious. Are you still playing? You are talking about your necro as if you are still playing, but your sig says your retired.


Also, what is you 5-box? Toons I mean.

Ha, good point. I sometimes forget to speak in the past tense, but I stopped playing a few weeks ago. It's hard to get EQ completely out of  your system. :D

My group consist off:
65 BL Main
62 Druid
62 Mage
62 Necro
60 Cleric.

Druid came first, then the Necro and Mage for added DPS and pet-power, then the Cleric because of Rezzes, Pacify and overheal capacity. :)