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Request - Four Vanilla Toons (1 Viewer)

Eggolas_23

Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2020
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30¢
I am a very recent convert to Very Vanilla (last week) and not using any plugins currently.

Requesting advice on a reasonably good boxing arrangement with Very Vanilla that will permit most progression (not all, understood) and "fun" while playing a couple of hours a night, most nights and some on weekends in the winter. Almost all characters are 110s and the combinations I have previously used are below and the characters are listed in account order (1-4):

Monk/Shaman/Warrior/Chanter
Bard/Shaman/Warrior/Chanter
Paladin/Ranger or Shaman/Mage (111)/Chanter
Bard/Rogue/Mage or Warrior/Chanter
Monk/Shaman/Warrior and Bard/Shaman/Warrior with some mercs. A Cleric (109) is on first account and there is a new gold account number 5, somewhat empty.

I like using the Enchanter for CC, leaving the Bard for ADPS. I can fully play him, but prefer to CC with the chanter. That raises the question of whether the chanter's DPS contribution in these arrangements is less than what a mercenary would bring.
 
I am a very recent convert to Very Vanilla (last week) and not using any plugins currently.

Requesting advice on a reasonably good boxing arrangement with Very Vanilla that will permit most progression (not all, understood) and "fun" while playing a couple of hours a night, most nights and some on weekends in the winter. Almost all characters are 110s and the combinations I have previously used are below and the characters are listed in account order (1-4):

Monk/Shaman/Warrior/Chanter
Bard/Shaman/Warrior/Chanter
Paladin/Ranger or Shaman/Mage (111)/Chanter
Bard/Rogue/Mage or Warrior/Chanter
Monk/Shaman/Warrior and Bard/Shaman/Warrior with some mercs. A Cleric (109) is on first account and there is a new gold account number 5, somewhat empty.

I like using the Enchanter for CC, leaving the Bard for ADPS. I can fully play him, but prefer to CC with the chanter. That raises the question of whether the chanter's DPS contribution in these arrangements is less than what a mercenary would bring.
howdy @Eggolas_23 Welcome to RedGuides!
This is how i think of a group - I start with a tank (war, sk, pal), then a primary healer (clr or shm), then I think if i want a caster type group or melee --- if melee i do bard, if caster i do enchanter.

I try and keep 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 CC 3 dps --- if i ever need extra healing i could drop a dps for a merc (haven't had to do that in a long time)
not sure if i understood the groups you listed- if those were the 4 setups you tried before


with those toons I would do warrior, shm, bard, rogue/monk if that is possible - some decent dps, pulling and recovery options, solid tanking, adps for melee from bard and shm, good heals/buffs from shm

Berzerkers are incredibly strong these days, and very popular - I would do the warrior, shm, bard, rog, and then make 2 zerkers =p
 
Personally, if you are only going to run 4 characters (you will end up running 6 trust me once the mq bug has bitten you) I would personally do warrior cleric enchanter mage (I am partial to CotH) then two wizard mercs! Thats going to be a good dps group!
 
Short answer yes.
Both are viable, and some prefer the extra mez stability that enchanters bring over the extra adps that bards bring. For me 100% bard for melee group
 
Short answer yes.
Both are viable, and some prefer the extra mez stability that enchanters bring over the extra adps that bards bring. For me 100% bard for melee group
My question was
Personally, if you are only going to run 4 characters (you will end up running 6 trust me once the mq bug has bitten you) I would personally do warrior cleric enchanter mage (I am partial to CotH) then two wizard mercs! Thats going to be a good dps group!
I may get to six. I already added the 5th gold account after using Very Vanilla. But, I tend to dip toes into water very slowly.

Warrior, Enchanter and Cleric are doable, but Mage (111) is on the same account as the Warrior. This is where it gets into how MQ2 operates. Account one has Paladin, Cleric, Bard and Monk. Account 2 has Rogue, Ranger and Shaman (who isn't healing, but . . . ), Account 3 has Mage and Warrior. Account 4 has the Enchanter. Account 5 has a level 40 Zerker . . . just learning at this time. Don't raid, just group together to have some fun or split off a toon to join someone's group.

There are so many programs out there to semi-automate game play with these characters that I'm a little lost on which ones will be the most enjoyable and which combination of the 5 accounts will handle the situation best. My preference, even though I realize it does not max DPS, is to have a Bard and an Enchanter. Is that a major mistake?
 
Whatever group toon setup you'd enjoy, that is the right one.

Running two cc classes does cost you overall for DPS output, though you could get some trade-offs like you mentioned setting one for ADPS and one for mez/slow duty.

While you said you're not worried about optimizing for max DPS, each CC class does have an advantage when buffing melee/casters.

Enchanters give mainly caster nuke crit & nuke damage buffs and some minor melee stuff like Night's Dark Terror that gives melee a vampiric touch melee dd. Enchanters do get overall better mez selection and resists, and do get rave reviews from all macros on their mez speed/handling. If you're leveling, then enchanter +exp aura is something that pays for itself pretty fast though it does not buff AA exp later.

Bards give overhaste (haste v3), weapon delay reduc (haste v4), melee procs, & AC buffs. Bards do get +45% nuke song which is nice and some nuke buff songs, but they're considered minor as they just give small 3-4k extra hits that are added after nuke crit is calculated. Bard also has a limit on how many songs they can twist, so if you're mixing melee/caster DPS, you really can't get both types buffed during your combat song loop.

I used to run 3 healers, it was slow but we never wiped. After building about 3 groups worth of toons using KissAssist, I've decided a lot of the "utility" stuff that mattered in the older days (ports/CoH/evac/backup-rezzer) just aren't as important. With travel plugins, campfires & loyalty rez tokens for all classes it's pretty easy to recover or return to a zone. Kills/hour turns out to be what I focus on when building a new group. Or just wanting to try a new class, new macro or new plugin.

KissAssist or IHC are probably the best macros to start with. IHC is ready to go out of the box and KissAssist requires you to setup a toon's ini or download a premade one from the library (resources link in menu.) KissAssist is including in vanilla, IHC is available in the macros forum if you don't already have it. You can mix and match, each toon could run whatever you'd like. I tend to run some KA toons & some of chat's plugins, but I've also run IHC and really liked it.
 
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Whatever group toon setup you'd enjoy, that is the right one.

Running two cc classes does cost you overall for DPS output, though you could get some trade-offs like you mentioned setting one for ADPS and one for mez/slow duty.

While you said you're not worried about optimizing for max DPS, each CC class does have an advantage when buffing melee/casters.

Enchanters give mainly caster nuke crit & nuke damage buffs and some minor melee stuff like Night's Dark Terror that gives melee a vampiric touch melee dd. Enchanters do get overall better mez selection and resists, and do get rave reviews from all macros on their mez speed/handling. If you're leveling, then enchanter +exp aura is something that pays for itself pretty fast though it does not buff AA exp later.

Bards give overhaste (haste v3), weapon delay reduc (haste v4), melee procs, & AC buffs. Bards do get +45% nuke song which is nice and some nuke buff songs, but they're considered minor as they just give small 3-4k extra hits that are added after nuke crit is calculated. Bard also has a limit on how many songs they can twist, so if you're mixing melee/caster DPS, you really can't get both types buffed during your combat song loop.

I used to run 3 healers, it was slow but we never wiped. After building about 3 groups worth of toons using KissAssist, I've decided a lot of the "utility" stuff that mattered in the older days (ports/CoH/evac/backup-rezzer) just aren't as important. With travel plugins, campfires & loyalty rez tokens for all classes it's pretty easy to recover or return to a zone. Kills/hour turns out to be what I focus on when building a new group. Or just wanting to try a new class, new macro or new plugin.

KissAssist or IHC are probably the best macros to start with. IHC is ready to go out of the box and KissAssist requires you to setup a toon's ini or download a premade one from the library (resources link in menu.) KissAssist is including in vanilla, IHC is available in the macros forum if you don't already have it. You can mix and match, each toon could run whatever you'd like. I tend to run some KA toons & some of chat's plugins, but I've also run IHC and really liked it.
Thank you for the response! I am curious about IHC. I would like to use it on a few avatars. But, I am somewhat tech challenged. Is there a simple guide as to how to install and use them?
 
Thank you for the response! I am curious about IHC. I would like to use it on a few avatars. But, I am somewhat tech challenged. Is there a simple guide as to how to install and use them?
 
Thank you for the reply. Does the following mean that these programs need to be installed for IHC to work? Are they already in VV version of MQ2?

MQ2Cast
MQ2Exchange
MQ2Rez
MQ2AdvPath
MQ2DanNet

Thanks.
 
I'm not sure if they're included in Vanilla. If you try "/ihcstart" in game and it can't find that macro/command, you'd need to DL from the link above and unzip them into your /macros folder.

This is the install instructions page for IHC. Check their list on that page's overview tab for what classes they support and their current development status. Some are still in alpha/beta and a few classes like pal/dru/nec haven't been started yet.
 
Request - Four Vanilla Toons

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