Your Group Setup and why

[Sazed]

I am new to the forum and am glad to have discovered it. I have found some very helpful posts from just reading over a few threads for a few minutes. Going to go with the title of the thread and explain my 6 person boxed group and why.

Pally- Tank that needs little attention. I went with the Pally over a SK for two reasons. The main reason is Amends, I can put it on my dirge and not have to worry about any toon generating too much hate. The other reason is I run with one healer, the pally group heals help get the casters back to full health after AoE attacks.

Templar- My healer of choice. I ran with a warden in this position when I was leveling up my toons but found that he requires way too much attention to keep the tank alive in TSO encounters. Pre pull I cast repent and the group reactive, I usually dont have to do anything else unless I get adds or it its a nasty/named mob. I wish this toon had better AA choices but the buffs he gives are very nice.

Illy- Love this toon, with myth the group does not run out of power. IA for the dirge, TC for the coercer + spell proc on pally, Illy and Coercer.

Coercer- Good caster dps, hate buff for the tank, dps buff for the Pally, dirge and troub. Coercive Healing for the templar and manaward on the MT if things get too bad. I have thought about switching this toon to a warlock or wizzy but he just does great dps with very little effort.

Dirge- My main, and best geared toon. There are better classes to fill this spot but this toon is max AA and geared very well. The debuffs that he gives, attack speed, resists, mitigation, STR/AGI make things much easier. The defensive buffs he has parry (with mitigation AA) and stoneskin also help alot. I have a mid 50s defiler on this account, I may get him to 80 one day to replace the dirge on really tough zones.

Troub-My new toon to the mix when I went from 5 to 6 toons. He is not 80 yet and is ~100AA so his usefulness is not all that great yet. Once he is able to upgrade his defensive song with the mitigation AA and get upbeat temp to put on the Illy I think he will be a good addition. The group wide spell proc buff and the deagro song is nice for the casters add the +defence song for the tank and a few other toons and he works out ok.

I have thought about switching the pally to a SK once the templar is geared well enough to keep the low HP toons up by himself. I also may end up switching the Coercer out with a Lock/Wizzy, but I just dont have the desire to lvl another toon right now. Let me know what you guys think, I see some excellent posts and would welcome any comments.

[Captive2]

Really interesting group, with two bards and two enchanters. I have never seen that setup before, but it does make some sense. By having a paladin tank, you can get by a bit easier with a single healer. It sounds like your characters are very well-geared, with raid drops, mythics, etc. Those things will likely always be beyond my reach, as I'm in a guild by myself. Does most of your dps come from your bards or from your enchanters? I suppose with the overlapping buffs it would be a bit like having 4 dps classes, whereas most groups end up with one dps or two dps classes.

The fact that you mention TSO encounters tells me you're able to survive those with a single healer. That's very interesting. I've had it in my head that double healers at that level are an absolute necessity for 6-boxing, just because the margin for error with a single healer is so thin. With the right AAs, I suppose you can help offset some of that. I may try a single healer group sometime, just to see how it works. I'd probably go with either a warden or a templar, as my very limited perspective suggests those are the two most powerful pure healing classes.

You certainly don't have to worry about mana with that group. I run a troubadour/illusionist in my group, and that pairing with expert or master regen spells means I basically can't run out of power. I suspect that later encounters may involve strong power drains, and at that point dual mana regen may be a luxury I can't do without. Today, with the content I'm doing, it's overkill. My power never dips below maximum even on epic fights.

Good stuff. I enjoy reading about other people's groups and what works for them.

[Sazed]

The only buffs that I have overlaping are the enchanter group buffs and the bards allegro AA ability, both of which add togther. DKTM from the bard AA will not stack, but the troub can get theirs to 12.5% with AA so its superior anyway. As far as gear, my Illy, Dirge and Pally are mythed the others have fabled epic. The Pally and temp are in T2, the chanters are in a mix of T2/T3, troub is only 78 so no shard armor yet. My dirge is raid geared, T3/T4 mix.

The only power buff I keep up is from the Illy, but before I got the Illy myth I kept the dirge power song on as well. TSO content is doable with one healer, just gotta start with the easy ones first and get a feel and some upgrades them.

As far as the damage it comes in order of dps Dirge (only due to gear), Coercer, Illy, Pally.

[Lokked]

3-box group related:

I created another 3-man group based on utilizing my guildies who play regularily and play high level tanks.

They are all lvl 63 with ~70 AA.

Brigand - uses a shield and specced STA, STR then down Honour Among Thieves in Brig tree.
Dirge - Specced STA, WIZ then down to Luck of the Dirge.
Warden - Specced completely Melee. STR, WIZ then down to Force of Nature.

The Warden's AE melee heals are extremely helpful. With a 1.2 speed weap, FBSS, Fortissimo and STR tree, I attack every 1.0 sec, 54% DA and 32% chance to heal off melee proc, which includes the 6 Combat Art skills for heal procs.

I couldn't live without stuns and mass interrupts after playing with this group. I time Brig Cheap Shot, Dirge Cheat Shot, Brig Stunning Blow, Brig Blackjack and Dirge Luda's and a ^^^ same con mob won't even get more then 2 autoattacks in before it's dead. The Warden's AE heals take care of this. Add Cacophony of Blades and Sandstorm? Pure CCing destruction. Keeping AE agro? A Double Up'd Barroom Negotiations + Swear has never caused attention to be drawn to my Warden (the only thing that would draw AE agro).

When playing with a tank, I simply visit my AA mirror on the brig to respec to AGI / STR and head down to Tenure.

Another thing to note: Brigand spells are dirt cheap, including masters (for the most part). Warden are pretty cheap as well. Dirge are the most expensive of the 3, but still cheaper then any of my other 3-man - SK, Lock, Defiler.

My Warden and Defiler are the same level, but I would have to say that Warden is becoming easier to manage and can fit in more DPSing while healing then the Defiler. You really need to get at least ~40 AA on the Warden in order to get the melee healing + the faster HoT ticks before the Warden becomes easily managed, though.

All in all, I love my no-Tank Class team. Melee Synergy rocks!