3 box: wiz/sham/monk or zerker/sham/monk

[Gatts]

Hi.
Its been over a year since i have played eq last. My main was a well geared zerker which i would box with a decently geared shaman wielding 2.0. And if i needed more heals i would 3 box a badly geared cleric. I lost a bit of interest in my zerker when i last played due to various reasons. But i made a monk that is roughly in tacvi level gear which i was thinking of switching to.
Seeing as my main reason for sticking with my zerker so long was a proficiency for tanking, which can now be replaced by a merc. And my cleric can also be replaced by a merc. I was thinking of 3 boxing a wizard, monk, and shaman. I believe it would be a viable setup and easier to play than zerker, monk, and shaman. But i was hoping for some commentary about it. Pros and cons, and people's opinions about which setup they think would be better.
I hear wizards are insane dps and i know it will take some time to build one up to be so. But how comparable is it to a zerker in group situation?

Thanks for helping me with this.

[Gatts]

Oh and does anyone know a good website for wizards?

[shamy60]

u can try http://www.eqlinks.com there are several links for many class....

[Ughbash]

What do you want each person to do?

Shaman I assume is for boosting the melee and slowing mobs.
Wizard I assume is for dps and ports.
Monk I assume is for pulling and DPS.

With that said I would suggest dropping the monk and putting in a mage.
This will give you MUCH better DPS, and will help mitigate some of the damage that the tank will take. Now you will loose some pulling ability with this as pulling is the one thing monks can do well (not as well as bards but well). But you will gain DPS, Tankability, and Coth.

For pulling I would suggest either pullign with the wizard (tag, snare) get a coth from mage OR replacing the shaman with an enchanter. This gives you almost as good of a slow, Mez, Mana reiteration for the mage and wizard, XP aura and Mind candy.

Since your shaman already has 2.0 I can see why you may not want to replace him though but I would still suggest a mage over the monk.

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

I'd suggest reading th 900 other posts on this subject. Many as soon as a couple of days ago.

But then again, there isn't much going on here, so a repeat of the same is better than nothing at all.

[Kakimor]

Shrug its what ever floats yer boat really .... If i can make my Berserker Paladin Shaman 3 box work any one can make just about any combo work. Admittedly I end up doing a lot of CC with Paladin root and shaman VP :/ Due to mass aggro on pulls there is a lot of content I cant do but there is plenty out there I can do ... so I manage to plod along somehow ....

If the paladin was an SK that would make life a heck of a lot easier. I usually roll with 2 Cleric mercs and 1 tank merc to act as MT/OT when I got lots of mobs to manage. Im learning that the merc tank is an idiot when in aggressive mode, will bum rush a VPed mob just because its on the hate list and break root almost every damn time. Managing their behaviour is a whole new learning curve.

Melee group I would go with Monk Zerker Shaman ... Merc tank and Healer (x2)
Caster group I would go with Bard/Enc Wizard/Necro Mage ... Merc tank and Healer (x2)

Personally I prefer the melee group for the lesser degree of competition on gear drops. But keep in mind the silkies are less gear dependent in some ways that Chain/Plate classes are not. Any Tank you lvl and gear up is going to be heavily gear dependent. In my 3 box set up Berserker is my main and is 99% raid geared. Paladin is my former main that I raided on right up to TSS / Solteris. Shaman has always been a bot. Paladin has pretty much been totally neglected in the last year while my focus was on gearing leveling AAing the Berserker and Shaman.

[Kruzar]

I know personally, I am working on a 3 box that is Rogue, Mage, and Shammy. Throw in 3 mercs, and you are set. I am really amazed at the sheer power mages got in this expansion. I basically started this project this weekend, and solo on my mage I am now to level 40 in about 6 hours of play time. It will not be long till I am grouping with my shammy, who is sitting at lv 75 and then an upward push to get the whole team to 85. I can already tell from a simplicity standpoint, the new mage is going to require very little from a focus standpoint to add him into my box setup. Just playing him with pet and Tank merc...I am only hitting like 3 keys during the fight, and one of those sends in the pet. With hotkeys, and the ability to put in multiple lines into a social... he is going to add massive amounts of dmg with just a few keystrokes.

I know my trio is not the best, but with my rogue being raid geared and the others being group or less then I will have little from a gear standpoint in overlap. And really, my mage is wearing junk that has been picked up in the field or stuff that has been summoned. Even in pure junk, he is sitting at over 2k almost 3k in mana at level 40, and buffs out to 2.5k hp.

I guess the point is... with the new mercs that are out there.... just about any class grouping can be a solid 3 box. Some will be a little better than others, but the options are almost endless.