3 box- best combo

[Valdemar]

Galelor's first post was excellent and pretty well covered the most important foundational questions you need to ask yourself about what abilities you need in order to meet your goals. In any 3 box team, there will be limitations. There will be skill sets uncovered. And because you are one player controling 3 sets of skills and abilities, some of those skills and abilities will not be fully utilized out of necessity.

I hope I can add to the wealth of insight here and I commend anyone who makes a Shaman-centered duo or trio as I truly believe the Shaman is the best class to build a box team around because we bring so much to the table already, being strong soloers.

Since Galelor already covered the importance of knowing what content you want to conquer and evaluating realistically your access to high-end gear, then we can move directly from those strategic considerations to the tactical ones, namely: skill sets that compliment those of the Shaman's and will make for as balanced and powerful a trio as possible. The Shaman, in this one character, covers the critical functions of slowing and healing, but also brings important buffing and utility. While the concensus is that we are low DPS, which is true in relative terms, it is not true in absolute terms. With a combination of pet damage, which compares well with ALL pets except Mage pets (Don't believe me? Good! Look it up on the variouos class boards and compare pet levels, hps, damage, and specials), powerful DoTs and the advent of DD procs in the panther/lingering lines, we can deal death. We can also tank. Not well, but surprisingly well for a Priest class. We are also heavy in what I term sustainability. Sustainability is the ability to remain offensive and minimize down time. What we lack is the ability to single pull and tanking. We also need a snare. Root is great for CC and DoTing, but too unreliable to be used to stop runners. Snare has other uses which I don't need to mention.

Now even though we're building a trio, we should try to fill as many of the missing components with one other class as possible so that the third class can be more specialized. So what classes bring pulling, tanking, snaring? Just two - SKs and Bards. You can add Rangers (snare + light tank), Monks (pull + tank), Zerks (snare + light tank), Rogues (snare + light tank), but you will notice they each only bring 2 of the three missing components and all sacrifice some tanking ability. Thus, you will have to fill that third component with the third class and depending on the third class, you will be limited by the tanking ability. Of the 2 top finishers, SK wins. They don't have as much utility or versatility as the Bard, and pacify/fade/highsun/AoE mezz are mas mejor que (much better than) FD pulling, but their heavy tanking ability wins out.

Now you might be asking, why do I need to limit this second character to a melee/hybrid? You don't, but the question was about the - BEST - Shaman-centered trio. And as amply discussed, and despite Keltsete's attempt to turn this thread into a Necro uber alles post, you need a tank.

So we're at Shaman/SK as the foundation that covers the 4 basics of pulling/tanking/slowing/healing. We also have snare, and Dot camp utility from both characters. So what now are we missing? Primarily DPS. Both Shaman and SK are low DPS classes. There are other skills and abilities we could use - better HP buffing, ports, rez, sustainability - but mainly DPS. The other consideration is the ease of 'boting the third character. You will already have your hands full with playing the Shaman and SK and need a class that you can use hot-keys to get the use out of them. Tops on that list are Mage and Wiz. Very little attention needs to payed to them and having several hot-key macros to assist and cast spells is sufficient to get the lion's share of their usefulness from them. Enchanters and Rangers are also easy 'bots that add nice buffs and util but lack the DPS of the Mage and Wiz. Necros and Druids are both very powerful thirds, with the Necro being much better DPS, but both are not that easily 'botted. You need to pay them more attention to get their usefulness from them. And a trio is better played as a 2 box + bot than a true 3 box. BLs are also easy bots, but only if you asceed to letting the BL just sit there and sic pet and cast Spiritual Radiance/Spiritual Brawn lines. Otherwise, he becomes a true boxed character and you have to contend with postioning 2 melees while dealing with 3 pet pushes. Thus, my pick is for the Mage. CotH is a great spell from improving FD pulling and Mages are massive DPS. A Wiz is a close second and brings porting, which is an important consideration in a 3 box.

Shaman/SK/Mage, for the win, please.

[Ughbash]

[Valdemar]

[Ughbash]

[joks]

[Kneesmasher]

[Kianor]

[Valdemar]

[Valdemar]

[Kneesmasher]

[Styles]