Another "haven't played in years, what to (3?)-box"

[Uggok]

spam ahoy!

I played EQ from Kunark-LDoN, but haven’t played since then save for a brief visit to the progression servers. For whatever reason, I am jonesing to play a little EQ and see what has changed in Norrath. Who knows how long the urge will last. I’m a pretty casual player anymore, and I’m really looking to just play a few nights a week and be able to progress through the newer stuff mostly “solo.”

I seem to remember that LDoN dungeons required 3-person groups. Is that true of the newer instanced content? If so, it looks like I will want to get a 3-box group together. I have a 65 shaman (mostly pre-time PoP gear) and a 60 necro (complete junk gear). I’m not married to the idea of using both (or either) again, but I’d prefer to, all else being equal. Anyway, I have 3 questions for the Crucible, which I hope is still the best place to get quality EQ advice:

1. Assuming I start with shaman and necro, what third class should I add that would let me progress the furthest on my own? My instinct was a mage. They are easy to box, add a lot of dps for xping, and are easy to equip (iirc). But the real question is this: can their pets tank things that need to be tanked (assuming shaman slows & heals)? I.e., will I be able to kill things with SHM + NEC + MAG that I would not be able to kill with just the shaman and the necro?

If a mage doesn’t cut it, I presume my SHM+NEC duo needs a tank class (WAR/PAD/SHD, presumably PAL for utility, since SHD utility overlaps with necro). Can a non-raid-geared tank meaningfully increase my targets beyond a mage pet? I’m not really interested in rolling a tank if I am going to have to grind obsessively for gear to make it useful.

I checked out this thread http://crucible.samanna.net/viewtopic.php?t=1503 which had a lot of useful info but didn’t really give an answer on how much content a non-ubertank opens up for me.

2. Assuming I am willing to dump the necro and/or the shaman and build a around just one of them (preferably the shaman, who I am much more attached to) team from scratch, what do people recommend? If the 3-character group doesn't open much content, I'd just stick with 2. If 4 would open a ton more, I'd consider that even though for some reason 4 strikes me as over-the-top while 3 sounds normal (I still haven't gotten the evercrack addict worldview out of me yet I guess).

3. Does anyone know a good source of “catch-up” information beyond looking up particular things in allas? Things like maps, how to get places, where to go for “missions” or instanced dungeons at particular level ranges, etc?

Thanks in advance.

[Lathdrinor]

[Ughbash]

[Kianor]

[St_HotPants]

[Uggok]

[GombaahSH]

[Kakimor]

[Veril]

Kakimor, adding another melees adds a lot of hassle to positioning etc, often 1 of the 2 will end up out of position and doing no DPS. An int caster who can be operated by a multiple nuke/pet attack hotkeys is a lot easier to add into a 2 box setup as you have. The gearing up of an int caster is also a heck of a lot easier.

[Galelor]

[Kianor]

[Spyco]

[Veril]

[Ughbash]

[Galelor]

[Veril]

[Ughbash]

[Lathdrinor]