3 BOX ENCH/?/?

[mpysys]

hello,

i was wondering if any vets could help me out choosing two other classes for a 3box knowing that the enchanter is my actual main.

Enchanter is lvl 70 with 1500+ aas. I thought of Enc/clr/war ; Enc/clr/sk ; Enc/Shm/Pal. I don't really have ideas and i cant make my mind on any of these choices.

Could anyone please give me advice or info?

thanks

[Unmei]

Enchanter/cleric/warrior makes the most sense to me. DPS will be lower than changing out for another priest, but you'll have rez and your survivability will be very good. Enchanter obviates the need to bring an SK to pull, and paladins don't offer much over warriors if you have a cleric. The one thing you'll lack is snare, which might be tricky.

[Yesak]

I dont know how well the chanter/shaman combo works. A few too many overlapping abilities to make a great combo I would think. Unmei is right that out of the combos you listed, the ench/clr/war would probably be best. However, you'd be hurting for DPS. Not an easy way around that either unless you want to go with a monk for tanking. If snare is an issue, you could swap out the cleric for a druid, and that might be a tad more DPS but you might have to work harder to heal as a druid than cleric. Or you could swap the warrior for SK, primarily for snare. How does warrior DPS stack up to SK? I would think warrior would be quite a bit better but i dont know for sure.

I guess you have quite a bit of options, but you're kind of locked in with needing some form of healer (shm/clr/druid) and some form of tank (here you can get a little creative if you want) War/sk/pal are the old standards, monks are pretty popular too. Rangers can make do in a pinch and even a mage pet if you want to up the DPS. Kind of limits your survivability with using only mage pet as tank, but I've seen people do it.

[HawklordXegony]

You're going to get a bunch of opinions here, no two alike, and all (or most) viable options.

Personally, I'd go with Shaman, Warrior, Monk. I played an enchanter as a main for many years, and as part of a box crew. I created a shaman on the chanter account a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. (Unmei will point out that an enchanter who charms can provide outstanding DPS but you won't be charming as a boxer.) Yes, it will suck to leave your chanter behind but if you haven't started your other chars you may as well start three new ones and get the setup you want.

FWIW, you can get a snare whip for the warrior if you're concerned about snare. If the snare whip doesn't proc, use Call of Challenge AA. Monks can snare, too, with an AA. Neither of these are guaranteed snare but it's better than nothing. But I digress...

[Scalia]

Unless things have changed in the last couple of years, Enchanter slows/debuffs generate a fair amount of agro, so it will be important for your tank to be able to generate agro on demand. Knight classes are generally quite good at snap agro and of the two I would pick SK due to snare. Also, FD is quite handy even with an enchanter since it will add pulling/exploring options to your team.

A Cleric or a Druid would be a decent healing choice (Shamans are not easy to multi-box due to cannibalization) with Clerics getting extra points for better buffs, rezes and better healing at the cost of fewer utility options.

Finally, try to keep your healer's defense/dodge skills up during the first 40 levels. You can raise them later on, but it's much easier to do early in life.

[mpysys]

Thanks for all your quick answers and opinions.

However i have to play the enchanter, i don't feel like starting over on 1k aas !
How good do monks tank ? I was more thinking of a pal / druid / enc combo or a sk / shm / enc . But i cant decide on the tank, and i still dont know if shamans are worthy if i already have an enchanter.
I believe having an SK as tank would provide much more stable agro while boxing and a slightly higher dps than if i took a warrior wouldnt it ?
I could also take the best boxing option, having a mage or necro, but i've been all over those classes and wanted to try out a tank, even though a necro could be very useful for farming.
I just feel like having a tripod that would allow me to farm anywhere and only need dps.

thanks again

[Unmei]

[Khauruk]

War, Monk, Zerker are your possibilities for the tank/dps role (in order of decreasing tankability and increasing dps). SK dps is much lower than a warrior, and slightly higher than a paladin (though paladin owns on undead).

Enc, cleric, War is best combo for a 'trinity' style setup. Nicely enough, clerics need relatively few AAs to be effective, so when the time comes, you could drop the cleric from the group and just have enc/war getting the nicer xp. Shaman are definitely useful, but w/o raid gear on the warrior, they'll just be a weaker healer (since the ghetto CC and slowing abilities won't be getting use) w/ occasionally used weak dps.

[HawklordXegony]

[Unmei]

[Mukshaak]

Haven't played in a year, so a bit out of touch with itemisation. But I still get tempted here and there to come back, and can't resist boxing posts Lol

War/Clr/Enc was called the holy trinity for a reason! As your main is a caster, you are probably keen to play a melee alt. I would say warrior is a solid choice. And like others said in here, forget snare and snap aggro. Snare procs, Call of Challenge and other abilities more than deal with it.

Don't get me wrong, knights are great. And in TSW, there used to be a long thread by a bunch of warriors affirming that knights were the best group tanks, and warriors the best raid tanks. Their versatility, spells, buffs etc bring a lot to the table. But consider these two things. Versatility and buffs comes at a cost to dps (which Warriors are superior at), and also requires more attention in a 3 boxed set up. The beauty of the warrior is that for most occasions, a couple of button presses at the beginning of the fight, then he can just sit there with just normal attack on, building aggro AND dpsing. In other words... it's better dps AND low maintenance.

As for Chain and Leather tanks, I think it only becomes worthwhile if the character is your main. Tanking well with those classes usually involve a serious amount of AA's and raid gear! Itemisation nowdays probably helps, but it will still be a struggle I reckon.

Finally, although I know you are tempted on a melee, just a word on mages. I think Mag/Clr/Enc is an extremelly powerful combo (And just think of all the gear and toys for your own pet... ) Mages, with very little gear and aa's are able to churn out serious amounts of dps!! If you head over to the mages forum, you will see great soloing achievements by high level and raid geared mages. Now imagine taking away the aa's and the gear. Gimped?!? Soloing yea, but with a pocket cleric and a main Chanter, I reckon not And don't get me started on the Raging Servant spell line... This little spell is just too good!! I think the level 70 one, is clocked at something ridiculous like 450dps unfocused. Add another 65 dps from pet, and say 350dps from nukes, and you are pushing close to 900 dps with little effort. Not sure what indivitual dps is at 80 nowdays with group gear but at lvl 70, hitting 900-1000 mark non raid geared used to be quite special...

Enjoy the box.

Muk

[HawklordXegony]

[Vasei]

Fun question. I agree that having a chanter already is going to make half the shaman toys redundant. Ruled out for that reason. Ability overlap with boxing usually just equals less effectiveness.

Rezzes and ports seem mostly redundant anymore. If druid healing (especially with chanter stuns to help) is going to be sufficient, it would seem like the extra dps + evac would make that a good choice. I always enjoyed playing knights a lot more with ample mana regen, and it seems like a waste to ignore both mana buffs.

Seems like you'd be able to take down slightly bigger bosses with the clr/warr, but I can't believe you wouldn't get better dps from sk than warr? Or at least with pally on undead (eventually).

[Unmei]

Well, dependant on how much button pushing you're prepared to do, Mana Resurgence on an SK will probably beat warrior DPS, but you're still sacrificing survivability. Pluswise, it's a LOT of button pushing.

[Cromagnon]

Equivalently geared, no way the SK is going to out dps the warrior, hands down, sorry just ain't gonna happen or we'd be seeing emergency patch inc...

Warriors take the hits better, and do more dps, but struggle more with retaining agro.

knights keep agro better, but struggle more to take the hits, and do less dps since they have spell functionality.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it, Warrior DPS is well above and beyond knight dps in relative gear.

[Vasei]

I wasn't sure where they'd put knight balance while I was gone. Thanks for the clarification, Cro.

[Unmei]

He's incorrect though. An SK spamming fast spells with mana resurgence -will- beat a warrior unless they are both really well geared. The trick is that A) It depends on the presence of the enchanter and B) It's a radical departure from how SKs are used to playing. If the SK can cast, oh, 6 damage spells in 20 seconds or so, he adds 360 DPS before crits, -just- from mana resurgence. And using a two handed weapon, it results in a negligible loss of swings. The trick is that since so many SK spells have long recasts, the SK really needs to dig into their spellbook for obscure stuff.

With an enchanter, a wonkily played knight can beat out a warrior unless the warrior has gear enough to make up the difference (since the mana resurgence DPS doesn't scale with gear at all.)

[Cromagnon]

[Mojarda]

Not to derail the thread, but a couple of quick questions for Unmei...

I'm not overly familiar with chanters as we don't have a "main" enchanter in my guild that is very active. Looking at your post, I saw you mention Mana Resurgence... did a quick check of lucy...

1. I take it that Mana Resurgence only works on cast damage spells, not procs albeit from weapons, buffs, or innate, is that correct?
2. Are DoTs effected? There doesn't appear to be a "instant" cast requirement.
3. Is the additional damage from the recursion strike based on a % of the initial damage, a set amount, random, or what?

Thanks in advance.

[Unmei]

[Cromagnon]

[Unmei]

[Cromagnon]

All i have to say is this Unmei, you state your arguments like a 13 yeard old who doesn't know how to argue, you don't address the questions raised, you change your stances to suit your argument, and try to muddy the waters with other drivel (which funny enough, you had the gall to accuse me of lol ). Not even going to tear your arguments apart again because you aren't worth the effort, you hardly concede points and don't stick to your side of the argument lol.

G'luck to you, but at least I got you to admit that an enchanter's buff whatever the hell its called, is more useful on an SK than a warrior, which is what you should have said in the beginning lol.

Sometimes you say things that aren't well thought out or phrased right, and as a person you should have the balls to say you were wrong and rephrase it or concede the point.

[Mukshaak]

[Khauruk]

[Mojarda]

[Cromagnon]

[HawklordXegony]

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Vasei]

Aside from both parties getting a little unnecessarily rude - it just looks to me like both got caught up and overstated their case.

You can't ignore the fact that the OP specified an enchanter in the mix. You also can't expect this 6 spells in 20 seconds thing to wash. Do SKs get that many insta-cast spells? This isn't exactly as bad as Thott-charts, but is anyone else having a hard time with the idea of 3 boxing while pulling off a spell every 3 seconds with the SK?

Admittedly I may be becoming a bit less likely to take Unmei's comments at face value because s/he posts as a definitive authority about every single class in the game, frequently in opposition to people who presumably play that class AS their main, and may know more about the realistic expectations of that class, as opposed to the number-crunched idea of what they SHOULD be able to do. (not referring to myself here, I'm a freakin n00b nowadays, with all I've missed)

Ya might even be right sometimes, but you get really hostile & insulting toward people when they disagree with you. You catch more flies with honey.

[Unmei]

SKs get a lot of spells in the 1.5 second cast time range.

You could easily do 3 lifetaps (1.5 second cast, 12 second recast, so you'll pretty much always be able to do 3 in 20 seconds). That's 7.5 seconds of cast/recast. You get one Spear every 45, which admittedly kinda sucks, but it's only a half second cast. Blackwater Bite is 1.5 seconds, but 60 second recast. You can use a Blood of DoT at 2 seconds (No recast to speak of)....

That's 3 taps, one Blood, 15.5 seconds of casting, 4 spells. How good is SK innate spell haste on 3+ second spells? Good enough to get them to 1.5 with worn haste? Okay, it actually requires 22.5 seconds for six spells. That drops the DPS boost to around 315. Though that doesn't factor in the SKs crit AAs of which they get 12 ranks (Though oddly, no Destructive Fury.). Does a group geared Warrior beat a group geared SK by 300dps in a sustained situation?

Anyway, as for whether you can do that with a box. Two macros will cast the spells for you, no sweat. Probably get some interrupts, but I think my esteemed opponent, who insists of calling me a thirteen year old in the best spirit of reasoned discussion, has a healthily overinflated estimation of how much DPS a warrior does with enchanter haste as his only DPS buff.

[Drazeena]

I may just jump in here and clarify a few things.

Cromagnon - The HT ability when all AA's are bought refreshed every 21 minutes, not 24 hours that you mentioned earlier.

My main is an SK and when necessary, can pump out very good amounts of dps... how you may ask? Well, the big trick to maximizing your dps is to use a method called "spell-threading".
Unmei touched on it, but basically, when I am tanking, I lock down the adds with a few well timed ae agro spells. Now that I have gained the attention of the adds onto me, I use my shammy to cast sloth on SK and I find that this is fantastic to keep agro on sk as the slows proc on the mobs as they hit generate a good amount of agro.

Now, spell threading is very important in that you need to time your casting with your melee swings. As Unmei stated, Lifetaps are perfect in that they are 1.5 sec cast. With my weapon that has a 36 delay, there is a 1.8 sec interval between swings (can you see where this is going? ), now when I spell thread, I need to time my cast to fall at the end of my previous swing and finish casting prior to the commencement of the next swing, in this fashion, if I can time my cast by carefully watching my swings, it works out like this:

at timer 0 -hit for 1200;
at timer 1.8 sec - cast lifetap 1 and tap for 2000 (1.5 sec cast time); finish tapping at 3.3 sec (provided I commenced casting immediately on hit)
at timer 3.6 sec - hit for 300
cast lifetap 2 and tap for 3000
at timer 5.4 - hit for 800
cast lifetap 3 and tap for 1500

Can you see how this is going? I agree that this method takes a lot of practise, but to suggest that SK's are always poor in the dps deparment is just plain false. During a fight, with a mana pool of around 19k, thats a LOT of tapping I can do to:
a. stay alive;
b. keep agro locked on me; and
c. to burn a mob down, even if i dont use my 75k HT (21k DD and the remainder as a DoT).

For those that are really interested in what I have just spoken about, here is the link to a thread in the SK forums that describe it better than I ever can:

http://www.evilgamer.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3852

But, however one looks at it, an SK is there for one purpose and one purpose only.... to TANK. I am the significant speedhump between whatever mobs are incoming and my silk/leather/chain buddies that I am with at that time. Once I lock down agro, a wizard can actually BURN like mad and not draw agro off me (once I know they are about to do this that is!! )

I do not consider myself a DPS class, and neither do most SK's. However, when we are with a shammy, this is pure heaven for me! And take into account that my 3 box is SK/Shammy/monk.. there is not much that I cant do! I also box my Chanter in there occasionally as well, its much different and still lots of fun

That being said, I only pump out around 1000 - 1500 DPS, unless I am in burn mode and then, using the spellthreading as above, can achieve upwards of 3k+ dps for short times. I cant forget the innate procs of soul abrasion and touch of the cursed AA's when I fight, as they tap for a large amount as well.

I have found SK and warriors at similar levels/gear are very close to achieving a similar end state in DPS, but the warrior far outstrips me in highend raid stuff.

lol - and my buffed pet actually adds about 250 dps as well... and sometimes he out-DPS's me!!!!

[Naluken]

LOL I had a pet up trying to farm an item in Temple of Droga for an alt, and I couldn't believe how much damage my silly lil Skeleton did! I don't use him often as I do not have the Pet AA's yet, and he dies often when I am trying to FD pull in tough areas.. But I am going to have to try and use him more in more level appropriate content and see what kind damage he can add, all I had on him last night was our pet Haste and a summoned muzzle of mardu

[Cromagnon]

Drazeena, don't get it twisted, and go back and reread, I was agreeing that working with an enchanter with that technique, that the enchanter brings alot more to the table being able to use this technique in conjunction with an SK vs a warrior.

Now as to relative gear wise, without the enchanter in the equation, the warrior will out dps the SK when they are equipped relative to each other's progression.

Thank you for correcting me on the Harm Touch line, had a feeling something like those AAs were out there, but wasn't sure so went with what i knew, and that is 24 in game hours for refresh before the AAs.

SK's are a great class, and I never was EVER saying they suck, or anything else. Playing a warrior, I envy the ease of retaining agro that SK's and even pallys get, they serve a great role (and sloth FTW, gotta love defensive slow procs). Just was saying, and still will, that Innate Warrior dps > innate SK dps in relative gear and progression. Not talking how they work with other classes (as in cleric gets more use out of Promised Renewal with a SK/Pally/Ranger/Beast, and Enchanters get more use out of their mana recursion with a class with fast cast DDs). What Unmei and you are talking about is an awesome tactic no doubt, but brings back the point that in relative gear, the warrior's own innate dps > the sk's own innate dps.

*EDIT* Just wanted to add in, I didn't say that SK's had dismal DPS, only that warriors have a higher innate dps than a similarly equipped SK.

[Unmei]

[Cromagnon]

Unmei, respect your opinion even if mine differs from yours, g'luck.

I'm not an SK basher (hell I have one for an alt) I just felt that the way yours and several others arguments were stated, was misleading by a fair amount. What you say regarding the buffs is a different interpretation of the same evidence, and can be seen from many viewpoints, just wanted to make sure people aren't thinking "OMG leetz SK's DPS > Warriors" when this truly isn't the case based solely off the class. SK DPS > than a warriors when grouping with an enchanter and using the strategy listed makes complete sense to me, but not SK DPS > Warrior DPS, which is misleading as to what the truth really is.

Anyhow, been a fun argument, hope you all have a good one.

[Contessa]

My enchanter was my main after switching from a pally, then druid, and cleric. Each was levelled individually but I have boxed the three and it works out fine for the most part - pally, ench, druid (using the cleric when needed). It works good when the pally keeps aggro even through the druid rain spellls which provide some dps. Snare helps and evac too. It doesn't work when a lot of healing is needed or there are adds to be mezzed at the same time.

[Scalia]

[Alandros]

I would say possibly a Mage and a Paladin... What you'll be hurting on is healing though, with only the paly's heals. The mage is great box DPS and the Paly would give you some healing, tank, and res (and some undead DPS).

You could do a Ench / Sham / Pal, with the Ench and Sham overlapping, though in a box situation the overlap doesn't hurt as much. The Sham DPS will still be just fine and you can focus on that more without having to slow or debuff.

Ench / Druid / Pal seems to be the best options with Heal and DPS and no Sham overlapping... (since Cleric is low DPS and Sham is overlapping)... Though I've tried this trio and the DPS can be pretty low, quite honestly Druids are hurting right now in power in general.

Mercs may change your options in the future though.