Quote Originally Posted by 'jdpatt',index.php?page=Thread&postID=145942#post1 45942
I'm also a 6-boxer, and have been trying to figure out the best way to use the new mercs. I really don't want to retire any of my toons (although I also hate healing, haha), since I've got a lot of time, gear, and quests into them.

My biggest problem has always been crowd control, since I don't box an enchanter, and my bard is still quite a few levels below my main.

I plan to try building mini raids (3/3 and 3/3) and trying some of the harder mobs that aren't in raid zones (where mercs apparently don't work). First on my list is the Cragbeast queen, to see how it works. Some of the ring events also require CC, and I plan to try knocking a couple of those out as well.

My group is L82 (at the moment) Warrior/Cleric/Rogue/Beastlord/Magician, with a 71 Bard and 67 Cleric in reserve. I figured if I set up my groups as:

Warrior/Cleric/Rogue/Cleric Merc/Tank Merc/Tank Merc and Mage/Beastlord/Druid/Cleric Merc/Cleric Merc/Tank Merc I could probably handle quite a few adds...it's bound to get hectic, but it would be quite a rush keeping on top of it, haha.

Dave
I know what you mean. My box "army" has been many years in the making. My cleric took alot of time and effort to bring up. Lots of questing to get some of his items and now SoE has given everyone a bot cleric at least on par to my boxed cleric...probably better and it has it's own AI. Kinda hard to just cancel the account, even though I would never do anything with my cleric account other then boxing and healing was more a chore then anything else.

Also, the merc warrior is not very good. EQ encounters has always been tank limited as in the quality of the tank in your group is what limits you to what you can take on. You can use a lvl44 cleric with complete heal to keep up a level 80 warrior in many lvl80 group encounters, but a lvl44 warrior even with two lvl80 clerics healing will probably go splat fighting level 80 encounters lol. Although the merc healer can keep my tank up in the same fights as I was already doing with my box cleric, neither my box cleric nor the merc cleric can keep a merc tank up very well. And my warrior is only 3200AC and 27,000 hitpoints (buffed) with under 200aa's, so I'd guess the merc tank is around 2500ac and just over 20,000HP.

I am thinking I will keep 6 accounts active. Primary group make up will be Rogue, Warrior, Shaman with the 4th group slot rotating between my druid, mage, enchanter and bard (enchanter being moved to bard account and maybe I will move cleric to an active account as well). I will rotate the 4th slot so each is in the "exp" group when their Lessons of the Devote is up (extra exp bonus). Accounts not in "exp" group will just do outside group DPS. When I get all accounts rotated through using up lessons of devote, focus will be on leveling up 3 primary accounts (rog, war and sham) and my bard. Also, quiet a few spots where 1 merc healer should be enough for me to exp grind in without worrying about healing, so I will use 5 boxxed accounts with 1 merc healer. But..yah, I think I am done playing my cleric and my shaman and druid is going to have to get refocused for being more efficient at casting DPS spells instead of back-up healing spells probably.