I just recently started a 6 box ok SK, Clr, Enc, Mag, Wiz, Wiz and its not really fun. Thinking about switching to a melee group but need advice since I have never boxed melees before. I thought about War, Sham, Bard, Berz x 3 but that seems like it would only be viable while leveling and at higher levels I would need a Cleric. What classes do people normally run with a melee group?
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Question - Typical Melee Group setup?
- Thread starter thomasmgp
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Much of it depends on your goals, and setup.
War / SK - Shm - Bard - Zerk - Zerk - Zerk is very viable --- TBL can be tougher progression wise without a cleric however. Raid gear'd toons help. In my personal experience I had a lot of growing pains getting into TBL, even with a cleric
I started with war, ench, bard, clr, bst, necro --- I replaced the chanter for a zerker, and then was like "holy shit" and then retired my ~19 year old necro-main for another zerker!
I personally run War, Clr, Bard, Zerk, Zerk, Bst and I really enjoy my group, my dps is great, utility is very good, synergy is fantastic, all around good group since I don't raid and currently only do stuff by myself. At the risk of sounding like I'm a shill, click my twitch link at the bottom and you can see some recent streams where I run this group through various content
If I had some more TBL accounts I would really like to try something like Sk, Shm, Bard, Zerk, Zerk, Zerk - the dps would be stupid and likely can just explode stuff very quickly, but I have heard and read some issues with trying to do progression with a shm as just a group content oriented team until you get geared. (and to be fair, I had some serious issues even with a cleric running through until i got some gear!)
There are some people around here who don't mind the dps hit of using a chanter over a bard for the super reliable enchanter CC/debuff stuff. Objectively enchanters are better at the CC/debuff stuff, but rarely do I run into something that my bard struggles with. (I actually had issue with that earlier tonight on stream inside the Relic Raider mission --- the little 3 wave of mephits are very resistant to mez, and I wiped a couple times --- I ended up just pre-burning heal stuff, and tank stuff before pull and put my zerkers to alwayburn and it went smooth afterwards.
Do melee groups still like Shaman or will bard be enough? Trying to decide if War/Sham/Bard or War/Clr/Bard will be better. I just have only really played on TLPs the last few years so kinda forgot what all a Shaman brings at high levels other than they have lots of buffs.
shammies add some nice adps, but I'm willing to sacrifice that dps for extra healing --- I'm sure both are very viable and each has their own merits
Tocidaz
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I run a SK/Clr/Bard/Zerk/Zerk/Zerk with MQ2berzerker https://www.redguides.com/community/resources/mq2berzerker.1018/
Dropping my chanter for a bard made all the difference in the world.
Dropping my chanter for a bard made all the difference in the world.
Tank (sk is best), Ber, Ber, Bst, brd, shm if you need better heals go cleric otherwise Shaman is a crazy sustained dps increase and burst.
Some go a 3rd zerker but thats only useful if you think you can get alliance off and have it proc but with 2 zerkers 90% of the mobs wont last long enough to do that let alone 3. A bst is a huge increase from ADPS and buffs + slow if you cant use a shaman.
Some go a 3rd zerker but thats only useful if you think you can get alliance off and have it proc but with 2 zerkers 90% of the mobs wont last long enough to do that let alone 3. A bst is a huge increase from ADPS and buffs + slow if you cant use a shaman.
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Just for anybody else finding this later, I'm always trying to sell people on KA bards.
Bard & Bst's big addition to melee group is weapon delay reduction (haste v4 aka 100 hands effect.) Bard's Quick Time (-14.5% delay) is 4 min buff/10 min recast so it covers all Named or has 40% uptime. Beast's Dicho/Dis Fury (-33.8% delay) is 20 second buff/1 min recast so it's up about 33% of all fights.
Bard provides a stacking +25% overhaste via aura/song (haste v3). You can get a weaker permanent version of haste v3, 8% to 16%, via those item clicky AA though.
Bard depends on song selection but can provide +190 atk, +45% spell dmg, +40% triple atk, +22% flurry and +35% pet flurry. Plus a variety of melee procs (up to 9k) or AC buffs for the tank (up to +400AC actual armor gains.)
BST adds to group about +1200 atk with Tala'Tak, Shared Ferocity & their Focus.
Each has a melee group Focus AA too: Bard (+45K to next melee hit or DD) or BST (+7.2k to next 20 melee atks)
Great group burst/burn buffs too. Quick Time (haste v4, +1400 atk, +90% accuracy), Dicho/Dis Psalm (+1.8k-18k melee dmg scaled versus weap delay & +7.5K to fire/cold/magic nukes) & Group Bestial Alignment (+50% base/skill dmg)
BST & Bard also provide the best stacking endurance regen/boosts. Using Breather on your melee toons is often enough, but if you want more these two can add a lot.
BST's pet can backup tank for battle rez and Bst can be setup as a backup healer if needed.
Sham: Between PactWolf/Focus/Tala'Tak they provide roughly 15K hp, 600 atk and +11% to all skill dmg. Their Roar group buff line adds a 14K dd proc to melee hits.
Weaker on AC buffs than cleric, but provides 11% evasion bonus which I don't think you can get from any other class. I paired my Sham with a Pally tank to get watered down cleric buffs for the group, but you could also swap in a cleric merc to redo Assurance as needed.
Sham's epic is still useful DPS boost and their burn AA Ancestral Aid is a stat buff that raises group atk by another 240 + HoT.
Have a great selection of heals, their BP clicky is an emergency group heal and sham can keep 2+ HoTs on the group most of the time (Cloud/Roar) which reduces need to swap to heal non-tank group members.
Cleric: In addition to better straight heals and more insta-heals from epic 2/DivArb/AA/clickyBP, Cleric brings HP aura (+14%) and straight melee mitigation via aura (4% mit) or Shining (10% mit plus heal procs). You may have to read up on your tank's mitigation abilities/disc to check stacking, like it doesn't stack with Wurmslayer mit.
Bard & Bst's big addition to melee group is weapon delay reduction (haste v4 aka 100 hands effect.) Bard's Quick Time (-14.5% delay) is 4 min buff/10 min recast so it covers all Named or has 40% uptime. Beast's Dicho/Dis Fury (-33.8% delay) is 20 second buff/1 min recast so it's up about 33% of all fights.
Bard provides a stacking +25% overhaste via aura/song (haste v3). You can get a weaker permanent version of haste v3, 8% to 16%, via those item clicky AA though.
Bard depends on song selection but can provide +190 atk, +45% spell dmg, +40% triple atk, +22% flurry and +35% pet flurry. Plus a variety of melee procs (up to 9k) or AC buffs for the tank (up to +400AC actual armor gains.)
BST adds to group about +1200 atk with Tala'Tak, Shared Ferocity & their Focus.
Each has a melee group Focus AA too: Bard (+45K to next melee hit or DD) or BST (+7.2k to next 20 melee atks)
Great group burst/burn buffs too. Quick Time (haste v4, +1400 atk, +90% accuracy), Dicho/Dis Psalm (+1.8k-18k melee dmg scaled versus weap delay & +7.5K to fire/cold/magic nukes) & Group Bestial Alignment (+50% base/skill dmg)
BST & Bard also provide the best stacking endurance regen/boosts. Using Breather on your melee toons is often enough, but if you want more these two can add a lot.
BST's pet can backup tank for battle rez and Bst can be setup as a backup healer if needed.
Sham: Between PactWolf/Focus/Tala'Tak they provide roughly 15K hp, 600 atk and +11% to all skill dmg. Their Roar group buff line adds a 14K dd proc to melee hits.
Weaker on AC buffs than cleric, but provides 11% evasion bonus which I don't think you can get from any other class. I paired my Sham with a Pally tank to get watered down cleric buffs for the group, but you could also swap in a cleric merc to redo Assurance as needed.
Sham's epic is still useful DPS boost and their burn AA Ancestral Aid is a stat buff that raises group atk by another 240 + HoT.
Have a great selection of heals, their BP clicky is an emergency group heal and sham can keep 2+ HoTs on the group most of the time (Cloud/Roar) which reduces need to swap to heal non-tank group members.
Cleric: In addition to better straight heals and more insta-heals from epic 2/DivArb/AA/clickyBP, Cleric brings HP aura (+14%) and straight melee mitigation via aura (4% mit) or Shining (10% mit plus heal procs). You may have to read up on your tank's mitigation abilities/disc to check stacking, like it doesn't stack with Wurmslayer mit.
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William12 why do you think sk is a better tank? is it because the ae spells? I run my tank and a warrior is better hands down on tanking. I make decisions ka cant make and do it faster. with a sk its a struggle to tank always have to hit a tap or spell or this or that. war to me is less buttons. not to mention the armor requirements over a warrior. I find I always take my warrior to gear up my sk during expac changes without fail.
Sum1
Warriors are inferior (read: crybaby) tanks
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I’m partial to sk tanks, too. I could never get my warrior’s .ini quite right to deal with adds and such, but I never had that issue with the sk. The sk just handles more mobs better than the warrior, in my experience. I’ve actually shifted to running the sk most of the time, and it’s even easier to keep control of the chaos that way (I was previously controlling my enchanter and pulling/ccing with him manually).
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Yeah I've played each tank-type with KA or KA manual/mqp style in 6-man setups. Just some thoughts.
SK - Easy class to setup a basic KA ini, large selection of well written ini's and the most popular KA tank so many people can help with questions. You can FD/snare split mobs if you're manually playing the tank. Lifetaps = extra DPS plus great survival. My SK will often keep pulling and tanking multiples, even if the cleric is dead. Harmtouch/Thought Leech is a great aggro/BurnDPS start for Named. Perfection on AE aggro control, nothing should ever be hitting another toon. 3 defensive discs + Reaver's Bargain, means you should usually have one available for big pulls/Named, but can run out for some events or tough camps.
SK issues - Slightly weaker AC cap, so you need to use taps to watch your own health. Occasionally out of discs to use. Reaver's disc is a full med break afterwards unless you time Thought Leech to refresh endurance.
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Warrior - Highest AC cap so they start off with a big melee mitigation bonus over the knight classes. Even more, Wars have so many defensive disc/AA that you can keep one running 100% of the time. Their strongest "Last Stand" line of discs is a faster refresh at 10.5 minutes, so you don't have to save it and their Flash 100% mitigation is a 1.5 min CD compared to knights 4 min. If my knight pulls 4+ mobs, I'm probably watching in case I need to manually jam some hotkeys/taps, but on the warrior I don't get worried. Duel wield is a nice middle ground of high DPS without major tanking penalty like 2h.
War issues - Was previously tough to write a good warrior ini in KA10. KA11 improved the use of discs/combat abilities and with "command" you can get one to really use all their aggro/tanking tools. Not a ton of AE aggro tools if you're needing them back to back, though AE taunt is the strongest one around. If your healer goes down, warrior is in trouble though they can often clear camp at least once.
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Paladin - If you run them in an undead camp, they do almost Zerker level DPS. Adds another healer/rezzer to your group. Short of a catastrophic pull, my Pally group rarely wipes. With their huge selection of self heals, they are very tough to kill. Pretty good AE aggro control, though their AE AA are on longer timers than SK. If you play by hand or use eqmule's KA mod, you can Lull split some camps.
Paladin issues - Slightly weaker AC cap, so you need to use self-heals to watch your own health. Very poor non-undead DPS as stuns/self-heals don't help clear camp. Very limited discs, same as SK but no matching AA to Reavers Bargain, so only 3 combat discs. Class is kind of a mana-hog, so you can wind up with more tank med-breaks unless you craft your ini to watch mana. By far the least played KA tank so not many ini's or experts for questions.
SK - Easy class to setup a basic KA ini, large selection of well written ini's and the most popular KA tank so many people can help with questions. You can FD/snare split mobs if you're manually playing the tank. Lifetaps = extra DPS plus great survival. My SK will often keep pulling and tanking multiples, even if the cleric is dead. Harmtouch/Thought Leech is a great aggro/BurnDPS start for Named. Perfection on AE aggro control, nothing should ever be hitting another toon. 3 defensive discs + Reaver's Bargain, means you should usually have one available for big pulls/Named, but can run out for some events or tough camps.
SK issues - Slightly weaker AC cap, so you need to use taps to watch your own health. Occasionally out of discs to use. Reaver's disc is a full med break afterwards unless you time Thought Leech to refresh endurance.
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Warrior - Highest AC cap so they start off with a big melee mitigation bonus over the knight classes. Even more, Wars have so many defensive disc/AA that you can keep one running 100% of the time. Their strongest "Last Stand" line of discs is a faster refresh at 10.5 minutes, so you don't have to save it and their Flash 100% mitigation is a 1.5 min CD compared to knights 4 min. If my knight pulls 4+ mobs, I'm probably watching in case I need to manually jam some hotkeys/taps, but on the warrior I don't get worried. Duel wield is a nice middle ground of high DPS without major tanking penalty like 2h.
War issues - Was previously tough to write a good warrior ini in KA10. KA11 improved the use of discs/combat abilities and with "command" you can get one to really use all their aggro/tanking tools. Not a ton of AE aggro tools if you're needing them back to back, though AE taunt is the strongest one around. If your healer goes down, warrior is in trouble though they can often clear camp at least once.
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Paladin - If you run them in an undead camp, they do almost Zerker level DPS. Adds another healer/rezzer to your group. Short of a catastrophic pull, my Pally group rarely wipes. With their huge selection of self heals, they are very tough to kill. Pretty good AE aggro control, though their AE AA are on longer timers than SK. If you play by hand or use eqmule's KA mod, you can Lull split some camps.
Paladin issues - Slightly weaker AC cap, so you need to use self-heals to watch your own health. Very poor non-undead DPS as stuns/self-heals don't help clear camp. Very limited discs, same as SK but no matching AA to Reavers Bargain, so only 3 combat discs. Class is kind of a mana-hog, so you can wind up with more tank med-breaks unless you craft your ini to watch mana. By far the least played KA tank so not many ini's or experts for questions.
May I ask why caster group are not funny ?
I play caster group because when I hunt (forgot zone name), one name jump to my BST(yes, i am using BST tank).
My BST going down in few mins, 1-2 mins 200k hp gone, even J5 healer can't catch up to heal.
When I check log, the name have DS about 5k. my BST be killed by self. WTF.
How the melee group prevent DS issue ? I had using shm Thorn Wilting to negate damage shield, but it is nor working.
I play caster group because when I hunt (forgot zone name), one name jump to my BST(yes, i am using BST tank).
My BST going down in few mins, 1-2 mins 200k hp gone, even J5 healer can't catch up to heal.
When I check log, the name have DS about 5k. my BST be killed by self. WTF.
How the melee group prevent DS issue ? I had using shm Thorn Wilting to negate damage shield, but it is nor working.
IMO - Real Tank (War or SK), Real Heal (Cleric maybe shm), Real CC (Bard for melee group, chanter for caster) --- for me this holy trinity is still very important - its going to be a rough go using mercs and non-tanks to tank, particularly in current content situations.
since I don't have my cleric doing any dps at all - I use Curate's Retort line to deal with DS on mobs (Like the mob in Brass Palace mission)