If you could...

[Khael]

My bard has sucky gear and still outdpses my raidgeared pally. On her own, she would probably struggle to outdps a shadowknight in the same group, but considering the aura and songs she adds to the group as "her" dps, it's no question about it. Bard wins, hands down.

And why would I want two tanks in a box crew that has a bard for pulling? The only thing I ever tank with my bard is rampage... rest is easy singlepulling.

[Kilgaroz]

I'd stick with my bard/shm/war. I can go to the GL and rez whenever I need to, or box a cleric to the camp and park him til rezes are needed. The warrior maintains agro more easily in a box environment (don't have to cast spells, agro abilities are typically instant) than a knight would and takes considerably less damage. Add in the warrior discs for Oh shit! moments and I just can't see dropping the class.

The shaman can heal pretty well in most content, I've 3 boxed in Crystallos a few times with a fair amount of success. He also does pretty decent dps and stacks well with other priests if I'm not working on my own.

The bard is a phenomenal bag of tricks, single pulls, mez, mana, RT/OT, group DA, increases group damage considerably, etc. Someone commented earlier about bard vs. SK dps, you can't just look at the damage the bard himself is putting out, you also have to look at the multiplicative effect he brings to the rest of the group. Just the aura increases group dps by 12-16% per toon, not counting damage shields, proc songs and attack buffs. In a raid dps group, if you attribute aura bonus to the bard (and since it's an aura/group song, he can claim it unlike Cougar with can be TGBd), the bard gets 12+ % of each dps toon in the group, pets included. Figure 1500 dps on 4 dps classes (conservatively) without the bard, that's 720 dps more that the bard brings in addition to his own 500 - 750, over 1000 on a burn.

[Brohg]

[Khael]

He said each of the 4 dps classes were doing 1500 dps each, without bard aura. That would place their total dps at 6000, of which 12% (which should actually be 12.5%, if you wanna be petty) is 720, like he also stated. OTOH, if you only 3box, then the aura will only boost the bard and the tank's dps, and won't amount to all that much. Which is why (and I think I've stated this already, in this thread or a similar one) a 3box is never going to cover all your bases. I 4box a ranger to add more dps to my PAL/BRD/SHM crew.