Your Group Setup and why

Guard : pure tank type , didnt try hybrids

inqui : well i got this one for some time ...maybe not the best healer,i just keep her for now

warden : port /evac /good healing

troub : cause one bard is a must to have, buffing casters,support and utility evac, track, mez, charm

illy : UTILITY and support ( TC, IA, haste, mana regen, tandem, group invis, mez some stuns,.... ) decent dps

lock : my only "true dps ", having a lot of support from troub/illy

i got a necro before, but finaly switched to enchanter for more support and atm the class need some help...

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Khat do you find that your illy spends a lot of time in your main window? CC seems to be pretty micro intensive.

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I actually run healer as my main window. Husband tanks, everything else as secondary windows. The way I use my Illy is by targetting through my healer.

9 and = are my mez buttons, 5 is my all hell breaks loose button
All 3 buttons call off all pets, turn off auto attack and clear queued spells on all toons.
9 my Illy targets what I have targetted on my main, casts her group stun and then group mez. {Stun buys time for lag on clearing attacks on the other toons}.
= my illy and troub both attempt single target CC via mez and charm, so if one gets resisted, the other may still land.
5 has all my toons casting thier deaggro spells, which is an emergency AOE on my Illy.

I really don't find myself chain mezzing much with an SK and 'lock. Things melt down pretty fast to AOE damage, so it's usually either to control adds or to make the initial pull a little easier on my husband. After the first time, things {so far} tend to be dead enough that we can continue to kill the whole pack without needing to CC anymore. It tends to be more along the lines of damage control than crowd control...using my entire group to keep up stuns, stifles and dazes so they can't spit out too much damage through CAs, spells and autoattacks.

I have yet to decide on a team, course due to the fact I've only ever played 2 classes (warden necro) and didn't get them very high, low 30's. Course with other games that i've boxed a full group amount of toons, i usually pick a healer type, something with good AoE healing, and the rest dps pet classes. In this case i would prolly like to have a warden/fury combo, and 2necro 2 conjur, or 4 necros/4conjurs. But how well can their pets hold there own in maybe instances?

How well do the dps pet class's fare when they resort to using there pets as tank subsitutes? As an example, I've boxed 1 priest 4 locks in WoW and used 3 of the locks pets as tanks with 1 support caster pet. This method worked very well for me while instancing. How well would the above group compare to the same relation in classes over in EQ2?

Do warden/fury hots stack or overwrite each other? Would necro dots/debuffs stack on a single mob? Are their tank class pets buff enough to stand against instance mobs/bosses? Maybe not single handedly, but in numbers? ie: 3 tank pets and 1 support caster type?

I last played long ago, maybe a year after release, found getting instance groups during this time was the greatest pain I had with the game which led me to stop playing. Boxing will enable me to get past this obsticle with ease.

I agree with Tweed. Pet tanks aren't going to hold up as tanks against more difficult mobs. Outside they should be fine and lower dungeons they could be doable but tanks in EQ2 have a lot of tools to mitigate damage that pets don't get. Even real tanks can take huge damage spikes ...pets get turned into confetti.

And you will be trading off a lot trying to keep a pet up. Healers don't just heal in EQ2, the game is tuned with the expectation that healers will also cure and debuff at all times and DPS when possible. Trying to keep up a pet will kill any debuff cycles that your healers should be performing. Using the parent class of the pet to control the pet via thier pet heals/mits will interfere with the DPS they should be putting out. You may be able to juggle agro with agro transferrance spells, but again, that's more stuff to do that detracts your attention from actually DPSing. And unlike WoW, agro on tanks is as much about the DPS the tank puts out as it is about taunts, so you will be losing the DPS that a proper tank brings. You will probably find that after a certain point, you can't transfer enough agro to keep a mob off your toons and can't kill fast enough to keep your toons from running out of power.

All healers have AOE heals. The way healing works is not about direct healing for the most part. The main line of defense is mitigating damage, via wards, reactive heals or HoTs, depending on class, and curing. Basically a healer prevents damage first, restores chunks of health second.

The other way EQ2 is different from WoW is stacking is futile. Buffs from the same class won't stack. The game is designed for other classes to compliment each other, it's expected that you go into instances with certain types of buffs. You want to cover the widest spectrum of buffs and that you can in a group. With multiboxing, you get the benefit of focusing your buffs. For example, my current group is SK, Temp, Defiler, Warlock, Illy and Troub. Defiler gives me noxious debuffs, which helps my husband's SK and my warlock since they do noxioous damage. It's a caster heavy group, so my troub and lock both provide lots of power replenishment. My illy provides buffs to melee attack for my troub and SK. And so on. You want to pick the classes that will give the most bang for the buck for your playstyle.

It's kind of overwhelming at first, but you just have to break it down into steps. For me it was starting from the top down. My husband is playing A tank. Therefore the kind of damage I can expect will require B healer{s}. I want {caster or melee} DPS which makes my group {caster or melee/AOE heavy or single target focused}, so I should have C for utility. From there you can refine it down to specific classes and chose them based on what they bring to the table for general de/buffs and specialty de/buffs.

There's a ton of nice info in the Wiki that will be very helpful.

I'm starting to really like my current group. I haven't had the urge to make alts at all. :P

I'm finding that my Inquisitor reactive heals and Defiler wards are usually enough to not heal at all for a group of 3 blue con Heroics.
I think I just got some other buff/heal type spell on the Warden last night, but I was too tired to re-write macros again last night. :whistling:

I did run into a couple of heroic mobs that seemed to take a little longer to kill, but I've been happy with the current kill rate for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Crayonbox

Guardian : I played a pure tank class for tanking since EQ1 and I much prefer to pure tanking classes over the hybrids.
when it comes down to boxing, its not really about tps, its more about mitigation. and pure tanks have the best mitigation.

Ranger: I needed a scout class and I figured with a 2nd evac for moving through dungeons and track, it makes things very easy for me.
BTW anyone running a group without track, once you try track, youll never go back. 1 scout per group is almost a must unless you like running around blind mousing over every mob.

Templar: Same reason as pure tank. I prefer pure healing classes as well. I am a bit thrown off as the AA choices for the templar are a bit centered around soloers. So I am a bit at a loss at where to put some spar AAs, but thats something I'll get around to eventually.

Wizard: Evac, port and dps without worrying about positioning or facing direction and a lot of AOE.

Illusionist: Group synergy and crack. Hate redirection, CC and dps.


I am eventually planning on picking up a 2nd healer for synergy. I am debatign between shaman and druid. will most likely lean towards a shaman.

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Just thought I would point out that most of the elven races are gaining Tracking as a racial ability with the next GU. Changes are currently on the test server and I was happily surprised when I found my wood elf and half elf toons both have tracking now. :)

SK/Defiler/Swash/Dirge combo.

Mainly because my SK was already 42 and have access to a 52 Dirge. So the Defiler and Swashie are 18 with the others mentored down and cleaning up missing quests, etc. I can swap in a 47 Fury if I want to forego the swashie (not likely) and have access to numerous other 20-30something toons.

I started the SK a long time ago and had a lot of fun with it but, much to my current dismay, stuck with my necro until 80. I've had a lot of fun with this group so far and am looking forward to getting into the higher levels. Also looking forward to adding a 5th account which will probably be a 2nd healer.

Unfortunately, I'm suffering from horrendous alt-itus (inq and lock) right now and thinking about new toons takes up most of my free time. :)

I run 3 teams, depending.

MT Raid Group:
Guard - great tanking ability, horrible aggro control against more than 1 target.
Defiler - part of the dynamic perfect healing duo for raid mt groups
Templar - the other part of that dynamic healing duo
Dirge - hate control and melee proc to help the guard keep aggro
Coercer - hate control, dps and pet-offtank
Warlock - AOE Dps
This team is designed to tank in a Raid and effectively cannot die (unless you forget to pre-ward/heal, or just plain mess up). One issue is Low DPS... w/ Epics & T1 Armor, you'll only be pulling ~ 7k dps (depending). You can walk into a Deep Forge or the first two Scion TSO Instance (unmentored) w/ Kunark gear and should be able to complete the daily mission. The rest of TSO is hit or miss. another issue is Aggro Control... Unless you're geared up and AA'd up, the Guard just cannot keep aggro on more than 1 mob effectively. YYMV, but if you want an AOE Tank, go Bezerker.

DPS Hunting Group
Shadowknight - Decent->Good Tank and Awesome Aggro Control
Warden - With this group, you need heals, not a dps healer (fury). Warden Mythical = Easy Mode Healing
Troubadour - You will need power regen and Aria (spell proc) absolutely rocks
Enchanter - Power Regen, Healing Buffs and single target DPS all in one package. Time Compression (drool)
Conjuror - Awesome AOE Dps (epic + t2 shard armor + aoe mobs = 4k+ dps), especially with a caster pet in a group with a troub and enchanter.
Wizard - pure unadulterated single target dps
I just got this team into Full T2 Shard armor w/ Epic Weapons yesterday. All of them have 187+ AA (3 guys @ 200 already). I love this group. If I'm slacking, I pull ~ 10k dps (using treasured/legendary kunark jewelry). If I focus on a fight i can pull 12k+. If I pull a couple AOE Groups, I can easily suprass 20k DPS (30s burst).

DPS Raid Group
Warlock , Warden, Troub, Enchanter, Conjuror, Wizard : Nuff Said

I love my DPS Hunting Group. It was a PITA growing them up. With one healer, I had no chance in any TSO Instance, even trash mobs wiped my group... I got them all into T2 Armor w/ Epics (150 grey 'daily missions' ugh) yesterday and cleared the first two Scion TSO Instances, Deep Forge & Najena's Hollow Tower (with 1 healer!!). I got to the end boss of Crucible, but I still have to work out some kinks in the book clicking thing every 20% (/sigh).

It really doesn't matter which class you pick, as long as you pick classes that compliment each other. Don't group a Dirge with a bunch of Casters... Don't run a Troub in a MT Group... Check out eq2wikia and read what spells do what for each class, then do your thing.

And yeah, in my MT group, I should have gone Swashbuckler or Assassin instead of teh Warlock... but I didn't wanna have to worry about mob positioning on every pull. Sometimes, Laziness Wins :cool: !

my team has not been around long (only been 6 boxing about 6-7 weeks).

1. guardian
2. troubadour
3. coercer
4. defiler
5. necromancer
6. inquisitor

all but the necromancer are around lvl 65. the necromancer is lvl 80. So far i have run every regular heroic instance no problem and mobs die pretty fast and the necro works well but i am wondering if thats because he has been mentoring. might be a different story after lvl 75. necro has 145aa's and the rest all have around 75aa's. hopefully i won't have to replace him as he was my original character. if i do then it will be for a warlock i am thinking.

i am surprised to hear from above posts about the difficulties with shard instance. i am disappointed to hear this as i was hoping to do these instances myself although from my reading of those zones some boss mobs seem impossible for one person to handle (such as the book burning one listed above). at least i'd like to be able to do half of them with my team and do an instance a night.

what do more experienced boxers think of my line up? if it sucks just say so as i'm asking for experienced advice.

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...necro works well but i am wondering if thats because he has been mentoring

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- good chance
- anything mentored is basically going 'god-mode'

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...hopefully i won't have to replace him as he was my original character

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- no harm in having a necro if that's what you enjoy
- stick with it and see for yourself as it probably won't be your only group of 6 you create so you can swap n change at a later date for comparision

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...i am surprised to hear from above posts about the difficulties with shard instance...

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- once your team is equipped, TOS isn't hard

Think of it this way, all TSO instances are naturally graded. You would be in for a hard time if you think you can waltz into Guk with quested RoK gear. Walking around the higher end obviously takes some tasty items gathered after months of camping and running lower level dungeons.

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..i was hoping to do these instances myself...

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- no worries - just start with the 'easy' ones and work your way up the list

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...some boss mobs seem impossible for one person to handle (such as the book burning one listed above)...

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- yes, scipted encounters are always a pain
- you will find that some scripts you can do - others just aren't posible unless your an octopus
- BUT - I have found that you can knock off most scripted events IF you drop one of your toons and replace with a good friend who does the running around

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...i'd like to be able to do half of them with my team...

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- give it a few months to gather gear
- being able to do half easily will require T2 and class fables with the odd bit of tasty jewelry

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...and do an instance a night...

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- easy peasy once your geared
- good chance you'll be doing more