I'm debating a few choices on a trio and hopefully the experts here can help me out. I am not necessarily looking for the trio that can kill the fastest as I tend to go afk a lot. I'd like a trio that can do some hard group content and farm some nice drops. Raiding is of little importance to me and I doubt I will ever have time to partake in it. Here is what I'm debating, keep in mind it doesn't need to be the strongest this era, I'd like to make sure it's strong as the eras progress. I know I want SK/Shaman or Paladin/Shaman as two of my choices. My 3rd choice I narrowed down to Ranger, Bard, Druid, or Cleric. Most time will be spent on the tank, switching to shaman for slow/heals. The 3rd box I plan on spending the least time on other than maybe tossing out a dot or positioning. Can you guys help me out with some pros and cons?
Cleric. Not having Rez in your box crew is extremely painful for someone whose play style is mostly solo. If you aren't in a guild or with a group of friends playing finding Rezzes is tedious and eating exp deaths sets back gameplay a large amount. You already have the best slower, and best group tanks for boxing. Such a combo is going to win battles through attrition. Cleric CH is the perfect complement to this combo among the classes you list. Ranger and Bard are extremely difficult to box effectively when they aren't your primary focus (typically your tank takes the most attention). Rangers don't have autofire for bow DPS in PoP and Bards don't have melody here. So anyone boxing those classes are getting a small fraction of their potential. Druid, I love them, played one for 17 years between many servers. But it just absolutely sucks to play a trio with no Rez. You can get by without ports, but no Rez is sad. Paladin's can sort of fill that void but eating 700 mana every cast for a 90% sucks and most of the time you're losing your tank first. Doesn't allow you to recover like having a cleric would.
Bard is the worst class to box right now. To play a bard to their full potential, you have to manually change songs every few seconds. That is why on this server you'll see 99% of bards just sitting in a corner giving one of resists, haste, or regen and otherwise being ignored. Ranger is fine for now, it isn't until they get the AA's that makes bows usable for dps that they overtake Bard in the worst class to box with. Once you swap to bow dmg with them, you have to manually fire every single arrow, unless you have a separate mac to play just the ranger on (macs can essentially autofire a single box, but PC's cannot). Clerics and Druids both work great as a 3rd box healer. Both of them you can just heal occasionally when needed and /sit until next heal is needed, and they're working at pretty much 100% efficiency. If you are going to play a 3rd box specifically as a healer, you may as well do a Cleric since they're the best at it, plus rezzes are always a plus as Darchon pointed out. If you do choose cleric, this would of course move your sham from heals/slows to dps/slows, and I would suggest SK instead of Pal. It just seems a waste to me to box a pal with a cleric, as it makes half of the pal's spells redundant and unneccesary. With both a sham and a cleric in a group, theres virtually no chance you'll die with controlled pulls, but with no CC other than root, it can still go badly if you have a huge overpull. A SK with FD gives you the necessary control to keep that from happening. SK/sham/cleric would be a very versatile and durable trio, although pretty low dps (which you said you were fine with). One drawback in choosing a cleric, however, is that a lot of people play a cleric as their 3rd box. If you happen to group up with another trio that has a cleric, the 2nd cleric is pretty much useless, whereas a druid or sham healer can be easily repurposed as a dps.
Thank you for all of your responses, they are definitely helpful. One more question I have, as of right now the Sk/Shaman/Cleric sounds perfect for me. Do you think a SK/Bst/Clr would be better for the added dps? Or does a beast not compare to a shaman?
I played SK and my wife played Shaman on Live for quite a time, and we were a very independent duo. I understand that you're soloing, and that having my wife actually playing her character to the max was and to the best of her abilities makes big difference. This is our combo here too, by the way. However, on Live I also boxed her character when she didn't feel like playing or whatever, and the one thing I always wanted was more damage. A lot more. With gear and spells we could kill a lot of stuff, but it was often slow because of how long it took given SK dps. Shaman DoTs certainly help, but its still a slow burn. The safest option you listed would be a cleric, especially as has been mentioned for a rez. A druid would add extra mana for back up heals, a ton of utility, and even some dps with damage shields, nukes, etc. That being said, most camps my wife and I ever did we were able to handle with just her heals, slows, and buffs on my SK. I'm really not into boxing much anymore, but I do regret now not boxing a mage. Switching to another screen and sending in the fire pet or water pet would greatly increase the mobs we could take down as a duo. Add in mage DS and nukes when needed/desired, and that's a lot more gravy. Plus mages are relatively low end on gear requirements, as long as they have mana to cast/buff/heal the pet. If not a mage, I'd have gone maybe with a monk or rogue for more dps, or the cleric box option. A guy I've come to know in game here boxes a SK/Sham/Ench trio, and says it rocks on. I've never played an enchanter, so I can't comment on adding that class into the mix, but he loves it.
Enchanters add a huge amount of utility, can bring a ton of dps with charms, and in POP will be one of the stronger classes around.
BL doesnt get a 50% slow until lvl 60 so you're stuck with 35% which isnt too good. darchon is right about not having a rez sucks but you're in the same boat when your cleric dies. and having a cleric + a shaman seems like a waste. imo i'd go sk/ench/cleric but seems like you like shaman
I'll shoot you straight these are your 3 best options if you're trying to be effective: Paladin/Cleric/Enc - If you're a bad ass (Enc difficult to play as 3rd box and will prob end up getting most of your attention while soloing) Paladin/Shaman/Wiz (MUCH easier 3 box, most DPS, Ports, great balance) Similar to my personal set up. Will still present certain challenges when it comes to maximizing your efforts. Paladin/Shaman/Cleric (Strong trio, little boring for my personal taste, but an effective trio nonetheless. Not as much dps as other choices but probably the safest choice if you suck at 3 boxing) It really comes down to how much work you wanna do at 3 boxing and if you want ports/dps or a Resser/Heals. Wiz/Cleric/Druid/Mage/Bard are probably the easiest 3rd box's. Enc's can be trickier if you want to get the most out of them, same could be said of bards. So really it comes down to extra DPS/Ports or Heals/Res's/Buffs/IVU's. for your 3rd. Your call Other good options in no particular order: Paladin / Shaman / Mage - Mages are super easy to play, send pet in cast DS nuke if you want. Paladin / Shaman / Enc - If you're one of those kind of guys Paladin / Shaman / Druid - Anpther option If you're lazy/suck at 3 boxing Paladin / Shaman / Bard - If you want a bard to stand around and play things p.s. Feel free to just play 2 characters if you want since most people suck at playing 3 anyways. My advice is always choose what would be funnest for you, it is after all a game. So you really cant go wrong theres no bad option. I will say though it's annoying when someone is dragging around three toons to raids and such and they can barely play one or two.
If your computer can handle it, IMO, even if you want to 2 box, add a third class that you will get use out of that you can almost ignore. Wiz is a good example. You could effectively AFK on that character, switching over to nuke, sit, until you feel the need to do it again. The utility you'll gain, and haste at which you will lv will probably outweigh the burden of boxing a character you are for all intents ignoring. As an example, this is what a lot of people used to do on live. Play whatever char you wanted in group that lacked DPS, then box a character outside group that did some DPS that still afforded you the ability to play your grouped character with full attention. I was always surprised I didn't see more of this, actually. Having a pocket DPS means you can take a DPS spot in a group when you aren't a DPS class because you'll still provide DPS outside group. It's win win.
Thanks for all of the suggestions so far. Seems like doing tank/Shaman/Cleric I'd be pretty low on DPS. What about Monk/Shaman/Cleric. I see they can do good dps and tank a bit, how do they hold up during the luclin/PoP era? Are they capable of tanking group content and farming named mobs, or do you basically need a tank to do that stuff?
I would do sk/clr/shm + mage or wiz. Swap the mag/wiz in and out for clr/shm as needed. Then when grouping you have an alt char you can drop in to prevent being too redundant. It does mean leveling up 4 characters. So thats more work. I picked sk/clr/shm + mag/enc for buffs/utilities/tradeskills support. But I primarily play sk/clr/shm most of time.
2002-era monks have extremely low mitigation; they're dodgy, but when they get hit, they get hit hard. This means that monks don't hold up particularly well as tanks in PoP, even with raid gear. I wouldn't call monk/shaman/cleric a future-proof trio, if killing hard single-group content is your goal.
I've been pretty lucky with my Beast/Bard/Cleric combo. A bit non-traditional, but it allows me to dump a slow on a mob for agro with my BL while controlling the bard for maximum effect. DPS is pretty decent, really. With controlling the bard you can handle mez and charm as well to really chew stuff up.
I would favor an enchanter over a shaman personally though because of how powerful Charm is in PoP and Luclin (atleast when PoP spells are out).
On the original topic, lessee. Sounds like you want to play a paladin or shadowknight as your main, but you don't particularly care which. You want to rock hard single-group content in PoP. The knight choice is mostly a matter of taste. Paladins are, in my opinion, the stronger class in groups and raids. Stuns, heals, roots, lay hands and rez are just more useful on the whole than snares, harm touch and FD. But in certain situations, FD is amazing. An SK-based trio can kill some mobs that would be unpullable with a paladin. Okay, moving on to the alts. One's gotta be a healer: cleric, druid or shaman. They're all good choices. Clerics heal the best in all situations, by a large margin, forever. Druids are respectable healers in Luclin and PoP, and bring a ton of convenience. Fast travel, tracking and powerleveling are awesome. A shaman's main advantages are slow and buffing the crap out of melee DPS. The third alt kinda depends on the first two choices. I'd probably figure out the first two then worry about the third. But I gotta say, if you're into charming then enchanter is the future-proof choice. In PoP, mob DPS goes through the roof while mob hitpoints actually decrease from Luclin content. That means charmed pets become relatively much more powerful. Enchanters also bring lots of other tools to the table: mana regen, CC, pulling, etc. You mentioned AFKing, though. Charming is about the least conducive thing imaginable to frequent AFKs.
You want to do hardest PoP content? Cleric/Enchanter can't be beat. So keeping those two, with whatever else you want for normal day to day stuff. Thats really best choice, for doing hardest stuff. 3 boxing is very limited in PoP for some named camps with SK tanking. You will run into DPS issues. As in, mob doesn't die fast enough before respawns. So holding many named camps becomes tougher in PoP.
I can rule out enchanter instantly. I understand how powerful they can be, but the maintenance keeping track of the charmed pet is to much for my playtime and play style. After reading all of these posts, I will go Shaman/Cleric 100%, no changing my thoughts on that. As to what kind of PoP content I want to do, just group content with no intentions at all of ever raiding. I understand I'm not going to be able to take on the biggest and baddest named mobs, but I'd like to be able to push my limits as what I can do with what I have. Since I'm going Shaman/Cleric, I think that will rule out a paladin due to redundancy of spells, so that leaves me with Monk or Shadowknight. I understand that Shadowknight is slower on DPS, so would a Monk be able to fulfill that position while being able to dish out DPS? From my understanding the Monk mitigation nerf doesn't happen until after the time frame that this server is frozen in.
This server has the worst monk mitigation in the history of the game. Ranger is a solid choice to consider, too - snares, track, DPS, and better-than-monk-less-than-knight tanking.
I'd say SK. Without a puller or CC class, you would struggle. SKs are a solid tank and 3rd best puller behind bard and monk. Monks don't tank well enough Rangers don't provide enough pull ability in some camps, though in fairness lots of PoP is very easy to single pull.
Harmony of Nature means Rangers can pull anything outdoors. Indoor zones are rare. Fair compromise for a 3-box, I say.
Ranger/Shaman/Cleric. How would that fair? Cleric to pacify so the ranger could single pull. Ranger dps is good, how are they tank wise? Could snare mobs and the shaman could slow/debuff. Can rangers tank pretty decently in Luclin-PoP?
Hold down range attack key with something like a stack of coins, battery, guitar pick, etc. cept he is talking about longevity and POP endgame not just the next year Harmony is level capped at like 45. Harmony of Nature is single target but allows higher level targets.
paladin/sham/wizard is what you should roll Diotic if your cleric dies you gotta run back and CR anyways. so the paladin will suffice if your wiz goes splat every now and then
Shaman as an only healer is really rough in upper planes. Slow is OP but Quiessence/Torpor really lose their strength in this expansion as a main form of healing... Paladin mana regen is basically nil with that combination so the amount they could cover the heal gap is extremely limited.
