Question - Group Composition Discussion [Rehash]

[Crypl]

I know there has been plenty of discussion over the years. I am returning yet again after about 8 months away this time. I own up to NoS currently, but am curious about damage, tanking, healing, utility group compositions. Wondering if its time to change up this long standing [7 years] group and looking for any and all thoughts. I will probably never raid unless I take my SHD on a pick up raid some week, but I do the Merc/Part/Missions in all the expansions. Of the expansions I have only not done ToL and Nos Missions. Otherwise thanks to this wonderful community I have been able to travel [BRD Invis/Selos] and do pretty much all the group content which has been really fun. When wife and I played back in DoN expansion we struggled to box even some group content fully.

SHD - Tank/Puller [Love ToV for use of Rest the Dead for spawn breaking]
CLR - Healer/Buffer and not much else
ROG - DPS/Ground Spawns/Lock Pick/Corpse Retrieval
BRD - Health & Mana Regen/Buffs/Mez/DPS
BST - DPS/Slows
BER - DPS

I also have level 120 MAG, ENC, SHM for buffs and pet weapons.

My first character ever back in March of 1999 was a Monk. I got advice that the DPS dropped off at some point and was over taken by other classes I added to my group namely the BER and ROG.

 

[Sylanos]

Monk dps is back. They probably fall somewhere between rogue and zerk. The group you have is fine, it has everything you need to be successful. I’ve run the same group. Lots of people say swap out the cleric for a shaman. However, I have found when pushing content and not being over geared, having that cleric can mean the difference between winning and wiping.

 

[jhw668]

I prefer a shammy healer. Good heals, slows, buffs, and some dps.

 

[darbes]

Monks are top dps by far the past two expansions.
A shaman would do allot of good for your group makeup.
At the end of the day its what you have fun with

 

[darbes]

Also having a shaman and bard epic is still one of the, if not the most powerful adps in the game. Especially with your melee group

 

[Crypl]

Monk dps is back. They probably fall somewhere between rogue and zerk. The group you have is fine, it has everything you need to be successful. I’ve run the same group. Lots of people say swap out the cleric for a shaman. However, I have found when pushing content and not being over geared, having that cleric can mean the difference between winning and wiping.

Thanks so much for the input. I am glad to hear the monk is back up there. I miss playing him as my puller. It was probably my gear at the time, but I did die more with a Shaman as my healer over a Cleric. I do want to try the Shaman again now that I have a full set of Gallant Armor for him and the Memoryforged 2hander.

 

[Crypl]

Also having a shaman and bard epic is still one of the, if not the most powerful adps in the game. Especially with your melee group

This is something I didn't think about. I have the Bard 2.0. I would have to work on my Shaman 1, 1.5, and 2.0 to get him up to speed.

 

[Crypl]

Monks are top dps by far the past two expansions.
A shaman would do allot of good for your group makeup.
At the end of the day its what you have fun with

I love the Monk. He was my first class choice by far when I started this 26 years ago. It grew when I met my wife and she played as well so we could multibox a full group back in 2002 running 3 characters each. I always pulled and tanked while she healed and debuffed. At the end of the day I think wizard and necro are the only classes that don't rise to the level of having a desire to play them. My necro is still 57 and my wizard is just a heroic 85 for the teleports at the time.

 

[Crypl]

I prefer a shammy healer. Good heals, slows, buffs, and some dps.

I enjoy the super slows and buffs as well. I only leaned away from the Shaman when I was an under geared Shadow Knight with minimal AAs. At 115 I couldn't even complete the Orctooth quest in ToV EW because the mob it spawned kicked my teeth in every time. I should at least play around with swapping the healers around for a change of pace.

 

[darkfur]

Love the Shm healer. Get your 2.0 for the synergy with the bard 2.0. It's a nice dps addition for burns.

 

[jhw668]

I enjoy the super slows and buffs as well. I only leaned away from the Shaman when I was an under geared Shadow Knight with minimal AAs. At 115 I couldn't even complete the Orctooth quest in ToV EW because the mob it spawned kicked my teeth in every time. I should at least play around with swapping the healers around for a change of pace.

Yeah the aa and gear make a huge difference.

 

[RobRenfro]

It really comes down to your play style. And where and how you like to play. For instance I'm a defensive oriented player who lives to play in what I call the "Wild" or less established camps where it's less safe.

So my ideal group is

Pally - Tank/ Puller / Rez
Shaman - Heal / Slow / Buff / DPS / CC / Rez
Mage - DPS / Pet / Pet Toys
Necro - DPS / Rez / Pet
Bard - DPS / ADPS / CC
Beastlord - DPS / ADPS / Pet

This is my best group by far with CTWN Plugins and rank 3 spells plus top of the line armor and weapons.

And as important as all that if you are playing a toon you really have to have your interface laid out. That is life and death if you are manually doing it. You have to know where everything is and why. You should have a solid setup for every toon.

 

[zarroth]

I settled down to this:

war -- dual wield tank
brd
serk
monk
paladin -- combat res/heals/2hander
sham -- AE slower is handy in missions

I was trying to do this with the pally for heals and a bst for slows, but there are situations where the healing was just a bit too slow to keep up and bard mezzing isn't exactly fast :P In any case, can burn around 12 mil in LS gear with this setup, which is more than enough for anything you're going to do...and I don't have any of the hdex augs on them yet. Average non-burn DPS is around 4 mil. I like it as it's a relaxing group to play. All t2 LS gear, since I hate doing tradeskills, except the bard which is a raider.

 

[pasthiml]

I looks like you like the melee path(me too). I went warrior, shaman, bard, rouge, rouge, rouge. I found the shaman can easily keep up on heals, and adds DPS and buffs over the cleric. Play what you enjoy.

 

[darbes]

I looks like you like the melee path(me too). I went warrior, shaman, bard, rouge, rouge, rouge. I found the shaman can easily keep up on heals, and adds DPS and buffs over the cleric. Play what you enjoy.

Ive played around with this group combo in the past, it was amazing how fast the mobs drop. At the time two of the rogues were raid geared and the dps was insane with this group makeup.
I found getting rid of crap warrior for an sk and dropping a rogue for a bst made it even better

 

[Chibz]

My opinion: Prior to LS caster dps was superior. LS and TOB melee dps has passed caster dps. If you are going to play in the last 2 expansions, you will be happy with melee and can bring back your monk. Swap out the cleric for your shaman. With a well equipped SHD tank, you will be surprised. So SHD, SHM, BRD as the core leaves you with room for 3 melee which means you need to drop one of your current to bring in a MNK. If only EQ would provide a paid "perk" for a 7 slot group...

 

[Crypl]

It really comes down to your play style. And where and how you like to play. For instance I'm a defensive oriented player who lives to play in what I call the "Wild" or less established camps where it's less safe.

So my ideal group is

Pally - Tank/ Puller / Rez
Shaman - Heal / Slow / Buff / DPS / CC / Rez
Mage - DPS / Pet / Pet Toys
Necro - DPS / Rez / Pet
Bard - DPS / ADPS / CC
Beastlord - DPS / ADPS / Pet

This is my best group by far with CTWN Plugins and rank 3 spells plus top of the line armor and weapons.

And as important as all that if you are playing a toon you really have to have your interface laid out. That is life and death if you are manually doing it. You have to know where everything is and why. You should have a solid setup for every toon.

I have definitely thought about branching out into the full Trifecta of the Pet classes. I love the ToV expansion as a tank main shadow knight. Rest the Dead is king there for safer pulling. I currently only run the Beast lord as a proper pet class with the Memoryforged Summoner's earing.

My opinion: Prior to LS caster dps was superior. LS and TOB melee dps has passed caster dps. If you are going to play in the last 2 expansions, you will be happy with melee and can bring back your monk. Swap out the cleric for your shaman. With a well equipped SHD tank, you will be surprised. So SHD, SHM, BRD as the core leaves you with room for 3 melee which means you need to drop one of your current to bring in a MNK. If only EQ would provide a paid "perk" for a 7 slot group...

Thanks a bunch for your input. Can never beat getting the collective knowledge of this game.

I looks like you like the melee path(me too). I went warrior, shaman, bard, rouge, rouge, rouge. I found the shaman can easily keep up on heals, and adds DPS and buffs over the cleric. Play what you enjoy.

I am definitely a fan of melee. I don't do too much parsing of my DPS or studying how they compare to caster dps, but psychologically I get a bigger sense of "damage" just because we surround the mob and I can hear (almost feel) the damage from the combat music.

With my previous reply about the ToV undead content, I have been working on getting all my achievements starting with ToV. I want to get back in the rhythm of pace and control as I have only been back about 10 days since my latest break. Rest the Dead has been one of my favorite utility AAs.

 

[Gekko]

I know I am late to the party and I skimmed the responses, so if I missed something, I apologize.

If memory serves me the generic template used to be:

1) Tank
2) Healer
3) Crowd Control
4) DPS
5) DPS
6) Utility

Several debates would arise. One debate was Enchanter vs Bard. Folks would argue that if your DPS slots were melee classes, you should consider the Bard, whereas if the DPS slots were casters you should consider enchanter. The healer slot debate of cleric vs shaman would sometimes center around the durability of the tank and the tanks ability to take a pop and/or provide some self healing.

When the day is done, most folks would agree that the ideal group was the one you enjoyed staring at for a few thousand hours.

Back in 1999, I mained an enchanter so I can be a bit biased, but with automation I might be warming up to the Bard class.

Just my 2.4346 red cents worth.

 

[Zeusdracco]

i think as long as u cover tank/heals/cc u can do it pretty much anyway u enjoy. find what u like playing for those 3 slots. there are cookie cutter groups like shaman/sk/bard+3.. etc. war/cleric/bard/ench +3 etc. really just depends what u ejnoy the most. keep in mind you are most likely to use the tank to drive the group. meaning he will pull etc, rest work around him.
best of luck

ZD

 

[an_image]

Monk dps is back. They probably fall somewhere between rogue and zerk. The group you have is fine, it has everything you need to be successful. I’ve run the same group. Lots of people say swap out the cleric for a shaman. However, I have found when pushing content and not being over geared, having that cleric can mean the difference between winning and wiping.

@Sylanos = right. Cleric, this is the way…

 

[Ssoulle]

tbh, with a decently geared SK, you dont even need a healer. When I was PLing a new character, I dropped my shaman out of group to xtar heal... then hours later I noticed I forgot to enable xtar healing, so my shaman was basically afk.
The group was sk/brd/mag/wiz/rog (and afk leech).
The healer is mostly there to rez the dps when they get gibbed lol.

Having said that, my advice is always to think about your goals. Is it just to clear progression that have a box group that can xp? If that's the case, Sk/brd + priest + any 3 dps that you like. Is your goal to bring a group to raids thats strong? Then you probably want a bst/ber/mnk for ideal adps.

Nothing in EQ requires extreme min maxing, so justt hink about what you want to do, then think about what seems fun within that scope

 

[Mugly]

My current setup is SK/CL/RG/Chant/BRD/MAG I have zero problems with DPS and can run the ToB missions and any named in the xpac

all have CWTN plugin

 

[Valdemar]

Sorry for the late reply. I didn't see this mentioned in other comments so I'll offer an option.
This group:

SK
PAL
BRD
SHM
RNG
BST

This a variation on SK, BRD, SHM, ROG, BZK, BST that most folks agree is the default optimum for conquering group content. I'm substituting the ROG and BZK with a PAL and RNG. Obviously, this is a big drop in dps, but offers more utility and more survivability. The rationale is 1) two tanks for very challenging encounters, 2) more healing, 3) synergy of buffs and abilities.

 

[Crypl]

So I have had a chance to play my Rogue, Bard, Berserker, Monk, and Beast lord in a group together and used the AdvDPS plugin to see how they worked out.

Each toon is 120 max AA for ToL, Memory Forged Desolation weapons specific to class where applicable (MNK/BST/ROG/BER), and Gallant Class armor. Tried to make them as comparably geared as possible.

Monk, Rogue, and Berserker consistently at the top each pulling between 22-30% of the dmg on each group based mob in ToL Maiden's Eye. Bounced around probably based on which abilities were up during each mob.
Tank was usually 16-20% of the DPS
Beast lord was 14-18% (was casting slow)
Bard was a bit disappointing at like 8%, but I suppose he is doing utility based stuff.

So overall definitely glad when parsed my Monk was competing with my Rogue and Berserker.

Now I find myself wondering if I drop the berserker or beast lord to put the monk in. I suppose I could always cast beast buffs from outside of the group when they fall. Its just nice to have the in group buffs and pet tank in a real pinch.

 

[aspire]

On Teek, where we are currently in Gates of Discord, the most common 6-box you will see is WAR, CLR, SHM, BRD, MNK, MNK. I think most of these people are playing by hand using six PCs with the help of some software like Multiplicity, Boxcar, or something else.

How does this combo look in future expacs I have no idea because this is my first TLP.

I'm here because I want to expand my 4-box to six eventually and I am excited at some of the combos that can be enabled with software.

 

[pascualito]

I use normally some dif combos depends on situation and lev into progresion: (equipment and spell related)
Base team : SK SHM BST MAG MAG ENC
Adding ONE earth pet at begin till SK can handle nameds and go deep in expansion
swap BRD instead BST (Bard sing fire songs)
swap ROG instead MAG
swap NEC instead ENC

One at time, or 3 at time, all situations are different, play as you enjoy the most, i do progression tasks with basic team, and then i redo the tasks with alts saving collectibles and swaping if nameds pop. Trying to fill up basic team 1st.
Have fun!!!