Are light tanks viable for dou/boxing with shaman?

[Bearskin]

I just spent a lot of effort to max out the defense skills on my Berserker. There was a marginal improvement but my shaman is still going down to about 30% mana per fight on average. That means a long delay before I can pull the next mob and that means a slow path to xp's or AA's. I had started to work on a monk but that is another light tank that, imho, would not tank any better then the berserker.

Any toon I dou/box with is probably not going to have raid level armor. So with just group farmed armor, should I go with a true tank class from the holy trio ( Warrior, Shadowknight, Paladin )? I want to develop a decent couple characters that would be capable of doing TBS Katta faction/coin farming. I have serious doubts that my current group idea ( Shaman, Berserker (MT), monk (puller) ) is going to be acceptable.

74 Shaman
73 Berserker

Ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Kneesmasher]

Shaman/Paladin is one of the best duos in the game. I would recommend it.

[Ughbash]

[Finori]

[Predicus]

Honestly, I find that the best tank would be.... a tank, but you really haven't pushed your berserker to the next level either. If you want him to tank- you have to gear him like one. That means get some ac augs on him- they make a MAJOR difference in how well you can handle your content.

Choosing a berseker does have one noticable disadvantage that I notice- maybe it is made up by the overall dps, but berserkers lack the ability to carry a shield (ac that does not count against your softcap....). Monks are in the same boat, but they have other mitigation abilities that I believe berserkers lack (could be wrong....)

Before you try rebuilding a new partner- try at least to fill your berserker out with some ac augs. My SK runs with about 2.5k ac, and he is pretty average in gear. If you check out the Armory section on the SK boards- there is a nice post of available ac augs along with a "beginner set" to get you started.

[myrmidonlord666]

Umm of course your going to go LOM with low AC!

Your shamans gear isnt that hot either.

ATM your going to have a rough time because your shammy is under aa'd/geared by alot, get healing boon6 ASAP Vp3 (didnt check for that)

Berz, MAX out the defensives to 18, pile on the AC, toss out most of those HP augs and get Flameshields in chest/legs/wristx2 thats 100ac raw right there that will make a big difference, Id aim for 2.1k unbuffed AC at he bare minimum and all defensives maxed out

Start working Katta faction If you can (soloable tasks if your opposed to grouping)

Also if you are blowing apart your shammies mana pool you are probably in the wrong spot, Example my Berz and Shammy get 2% per kill in WOS (AA) but i can 1 to 1.5aa's an hour because I can kill so ungodly fast its not even funny. If your working aa's (IE maxing Defensives) Keep the Berz outside of group, max out the AA's needed then regroup with the shammy (4% per kill AA in WOS murks, a good bet 25 there with that berz had better be a joke for an hour of work lol) Max out the berz's Defensive and offensive, then group with the shammy again and you'll then find you can go to harder places.

What are your goals? when you decide on a toon to box you have to understand what you wanna do, if you just want mad XP id go berz or pally if you can get a decent weap, or if you wanna get the big kills and 2box your own upgrades go Sk/Shm or Mnk/Shm (of course youll be in same boat, but if you level AA's early when they are alittle easier with the shammy PLing, youll be safe)

[Bearskin]

[Ughbash]

[shdo]

Bearskin,

You've got 2 issues and frankly changing your tank isn't the first thing you need to do. Your gear may not be "great" but it's not bad gear and you can get AA and improve yourself as long as your not planning on starting in Vlad/Direwind/Katta to do so. Let's look at your complaints and possible fixes for that.

A) Slow kills because you are at 30% mana after one has died:
a) Taking too much damage on tank - improvements are going to be from
1) Mitigation
The one way to improve this after/durring CS line of AA is to get more AC. Does not matter if your a BER or WAR you need AC if your going to tank. Additionally you need to invest in +shielding mod2's to reduce the damage taken. If you get the non-ripost line of AA get that. Get cleric buffs or use AC buff and Health POT.

2) Avoidence
First max the CA line (as you have done) next look at Improved Dodge/Perry mods/items. Don't forget the +avoidance mod2's as well. If you didn't get hit your don't need to worry about healing it at all.

3) Lowering fight duration
Up your DPS - use dogdog, get a better weapon for your BER, get DPS AA's. The less you get hit the less you have to heal.

b) Lack of healing
1) using the wrong spells
Are you using your most efficient HOT's? Get you have your HOT AA's Healing Boon not to mention SCM and SCRM to make your spells more efficient and to make your HOT's last longer

2) spells not healing enough
Get your Healing AA's and a healing focus - when you need a direct heal you want it to heal as much as possible.

c) Mana pool
1) mana pool too small
I know people will yell at me here but if your casting all the time and don't have time for Canni then the more mana you have the longer your going to last.

2) mana regen too small
OTOH if your not using all of your mana keeping your BER alive you probably have enough for your current content. So now you need to get it back faster. Get the next Canni AA - it's huge. You have plenty of FT - more than you can use - get the Expanded Mind AA so you can use more of it. Fight where you can use a mount - that will double your passive mana regen right there. Use Clarity Pot's or get a KEI or better before you go out.

3) inefficient use of mana
Do you have focuses? Are you debuffing? If your Soltieris/DP geared you probably don't need the cripple line when xping/duoing. If your not then it probably will help. I know it makes a difference for me. Think about what spells and how you are using them. Slow/Debuf combinations have time/mana/cast time/magnitude of buff tradeoff's you need to think about for where your at. One size probably does not fit all.


B) Lack of CC
a) Tools for Ber
Do you have snareing AA's/ Axes?

b) Tools for Shaman
Snare items? VP3? Root Pants or Root's loaded? Does Dogdog have snare items?


What does this all mean? It means you can roll a WAR/SK/PAL and deal with the issues that come up there. You can look above and see what if any you want to do in conjunction with what you already have. You can blow off this post.

Your choice.

I can duo Vlad pit now. It's not easy but it's fun to push myself sometimes. I'm not uber and I'm never going to be. So be it. What you do in and with this game entirely depends on what you want to do and what your willing to do to get there.



Farrdaar
Shining Alliance of Prexus

(and yes I know my magelo's are not up to date.)

[Kruzar]

[Bearskin]

[Kruzar]

[Finori]

[myrmidonlord666]

[Ughbash]

[Bearskin]

[Kilgaroz]

I'd stick with the zerker. Get some more AC and dps AAs and your xp is going to go up alot. You'll notice quite a difference in your dps (and therefor your xp rate) as you get up around 300 AA on the zerker. Friend of mine had a zerker in Anguish gear and claimed he could offtank anything that hit up to 2k with it (admittedly, he had a cleric healing). Give the zerk some more time to get gear and AA, he'll do you right.

[myrmidonlord666]

[Orthanos]

I would recommend the AC upgrades. You need to check out some of the posts in the pally forums about AC so you are better informed before saying that x amount of AC will or wont help your current situation. Not to sound like an ass but it kinda turned me off that you brushed off most of the advice people tried to give you...or maybe (hopefully) I am just reading you wrong.

Also a RL friend of mine has a berserker and he has group gear from TSS and a weapon from Viralgad mines (sp) and he can tank shissar mobs in Katta for herbs (boxing his shammy as well) I noticed you said you had minimal offensive AA's....this will also help your situation because killing the mob faster=using less mana on your healer.

[Boleslav]

[Jerus]

[Hhrolf]

[Samanna]

[Ughbash]

[Eirgorn]

[Ughbash]

[Eirgorn]

[Galelor]

[Kilgaroz]

Regarding the quest mentioned earlier, Where There's a Will, the person inside doesn't actually have to be flagged. If you have 3 flagged toons, they can set a campfire and port anyone else into the zone that's in thier Fellowship. Back before the major nerf on the quest, that's how I did it, zoned three toons in, c'fired a monk (not flagged) in and ran my bard back to Zhio to do it all over. Another note on that mission, druids can probably do it faster than almost any other class. AE root the snakes as they're about to slither into the portal and they'll keep trying over and over to get in. Friend of mine had 6 snakes rooted there and was impressed how fast it went.

[Ughbash]

[Kilgaroz]