There is no perfect answer. What's fun to play > all. I 3-box pally/druid/chanter, which is solid but low on dps. Lately I am leveling a mage as alternate to pally for pet tank and more nuke dps. Can still swap out to pally to rez in a pinch. Similarly have a Necro alt to summon corpse. I agree trying to manage chanter charm pets in a 3 box takes so much attention it isn't fun for me. But I can't live without the mana, CC, nukes, and general utility a chanter adds to the group.
shamans get a ghetto CH. he also said he afks a lot. I was saying what he should do not what the best PoP trio was. everyone knows the best pop trio is cleric/ench/bard even if you think its cleric/ench/druid
I mained a sham healer back on live, and I don't recall having much problem solo healing any group content (or solo healing 1-2 groups in any raid content) in any expansion PoP onward really. I never considered the Quiessence/torpor line to be my main form of healing, it was just a nice boost in addition to the somewhat weak direct heals. They're just super OP for lvl 60- content. My sham was always top-end raid geared, so my memories might be slanted a bit from being overgeared. One thing though, is that to be solo healing difficult content, you had to be constantly canni-dancing between heals/slows. I wouldn't be surprised if a boxed sham doesn't allow even close to the throughput a solo sham does. Although clearly a great spell for lvl 58-61, I don't recall it being so great once you had the lvl 62 heal and lvl 65 focus effects. Unless it was different on AK, % heals were excluded from improved healing and mana preservation focus effects, and I seem to recall shamans not being able to crit with their ghetto CH. Thus, with proper AAs/focus, the lvl 62 heal (base 1300 for 450 mana, 3.75s) ended up being better than the lvl 58 ghetto CH (up to 1950/75% for 400 mana, 10s) aside from having an extra 6s to canni/med.
There are trios out there that do not fit the normal holy trinity. There is nothing saying you are required to do tank healer dps. Many things can be accomplished with pet classes that can heal their own pets and a utility class like Druid. For example, Mage/enchanter/Druid Mage,necro,Druid Mage,shaman,wizard are all very viable and do not require as much gear starting out, just platinum for spells.
Run Speed, Ports, Mana Regen, Resurrections. Important things to consider when choosing your third box. Lots of good info in this thread. Funny how this topic always seems to come up. I agree that there is no perfect answer, and that's why 3 is a good box limit. Play what's fun!
look, we all have opinions. Pick the Main you think you want for the long haul and then ask yourself what else you need to have in that group of three so you don't lose your mind on crawls and wipes. For me, I HATE being without snare or evac. I just get forgetful to root, and I mained a warrior not thinking about how limited my playtime is... So Druid works really well as my healer (I've also since leveled a cleric, so keep in mind these aren't the only three toons you are restricted to). But you know what I found I REALLY miss from AK? Corpse summons. God I loved those. So I think if I did it all over I may have done Sk CLR and Mage so I had a "backup tank" if the SK oops and dies, dps, snare, a toon that isn't straight up KOS at OT fort, FD pulling, and rezzes. But that'd be easy mode. So I didn't do it. Make it challenging. You can take down nearly any mobs with the right strategy and prep. You don't need a perfect box set for that. Challenge yourself.
Agreed, as I think everyone probably also feels this way. I main a war and box monk and sham. Two meelie is busy. But for me? Fun.
I have a question for you. Why do you only choose paladin as tank over the sk? Does paladin do more dps in the luclin/pop era. I like the paladin/sham/cleric (Druid) choices, but would an sk be more effective? Also, without mana regen does it start to become a pain?
I wrote some of this upthread, but basically I think most folks will agree that in groups and raids, paladins have more useful tools than SKs. Paladins get fast, long, cheap roots (great for CC), lulls (great for pulling in groups), fast/efficient/big heals (single target, HoT, and especially group heals), 90% rez, lay hands, and the best stuns in the game. They can hold aggro easily on one or many targets (group heals generate fantastic PBAE hate) and protect their group better than any other tank. In PoP raid gear, paladins are monsters. SKs, on the other hand, can FD. That's basically the trade-off: paladins get more utility, SKs can pull raid mobs. (FD is usually much slower than lull for pulling in groups.) Okay, SKs can also snare and track/summon corpses. That's handy. Regarding DPS, eh. Maybe SKs do 10% more DPS than paladins, due to nukes and lifetaps. But 110% of basically nothing is still basically nothing. If you're worried about DPS, I suggest adding a DPS class to your trio. Knights are basically terrible DPS forever. Exception: in some situations, paladins can chew through undead mobs fast.
Paladins hit their golden era during PoP. SKs hit it during OoW. We cap in PoP. There's a bunch of reasons why its like that (group heals for aggro, slays, rezzing, da hammer, loh etc) but that's why I chose paladin. A paladin and a shaman can kill almost any groupable named in that era - slowly but surely.
If a paladin/shaman combo can kill almost any named group content in that era, what would be the most ideal 3rd box, preferably the least amount of maintenance. I was gonna pick either cleric/Druid/bard as a 3rd. I'm leaning towards Bard for the mana regen and I guess he could snare runners in dungeons also.
Ranger for autofire if you have a second spare mac (and snare and track, yum!). Cleric for more heals. Druid for potent versatility. Wizard for easy one-button oomph. Bard to add to the never-say-die-never-kill-anything mantra.
If you are ruling out charming and want a traditional trio that can crawl and explore I would go with SK-CLR-DRU SK - great tank, snare, more DPS than paladin, wimpy pet, summon corpse, and of course FD CLR - enough healing power to heal through unslowed DPS, minimal attention required, rez DRU - Ports, SoW, additional healing resource and/or great DPS, evac, and even animal charm With this group you can travel anywhere quickly, crawl dungeons, take on big encounters and easily CR when they go wrong. It is completely self reliant, and is only missing a large slow. You could make up for this with a weapon that procs slow, but really the cleric healing power will be strong enough to heal through anything an SK could tank with slow. SK > Pal for CR capabilities, pulling capabilities and overall badassness
I played SK shaman and bst. Bst real easy to box decently imo. Pull on SK, Slow on shm, send in pet and hit auto on bst. With proper pulling and a blind on mob it will turn on pet when you want it to. Was super fun trio. Hope to be back in soon
Isn't beastlord a bit pointless if you have a shaman? Seems like that trio would be objectively superior with either a cleric instead of the shaman, or a necromancer/magician instead of the beastlord.
While a lot of buffs between shaman and beastlord are redundant, I still think the two work well in a trio. Beastlord hp buff stacks with focus. Beast crack is amazing for the shaman as well. Beastlord can also serve as the slower if the shaman needs to conserve mana for heals. While other classes might have more synergy, the two still are solid contributors together.
If you're looking to make a bard trio with easy to box classes, I would consider the following: Bard + Wiz/Cleric Mage/Cleric Mage/Druid Beast/Cleric Depending how comfortable you are charming with your bard, a pet to add DPS and tank when the charm wears off every 18 seconds is ideal. Mages simply send pet, ds pets, nuke. Cleric is as simple as throwing heals, buffing, rezzing and spell haste. Obviously they can also be your root CC and stun the bard pet, depending on how active you want to be. I'd personally avoid having another melee in your group, as you may relegate the bard to macros and won't actually play the class you want to play full time.
If you're looking at maximizing your power potential, having an enchanter in your trio is a must. Just my opinion.
Rather than create a new thread I wanted to bump this one. I am working on a Monk/Sham duo (for nostalgia reasons) and think a third dps is needed. Now I went lizard (again for nostalgia reasons) and I am hurting for gear because they don't get the newbie quests. I did have an Iksar Necro in a three but found it a little too much work to maximise. Goal is to be largely self sufficient and farm own gear as much as possible. I won't be raiding as I am on Euro time + family commitments. Drawbacks of Monk/Shaman (to me) - Monk mitigation - not been too much of an issue in Kurns .. I need some +HP gear tho No Snare - This one is a killer No Rez - meh .. don't die No evac - FD + Gate on shammy = ghetto evac No ports - shrug - PoK is in Options - Wizard Pros - Nukes, snare, ports, low 3rd box maintenance, no overlap in gear, evac Cons - No relevant buffs, short duration snare you don't get until 29 Enchanter Pros - Nice buffs, no overlap in gear, decent pet dps (charmed) Cons - high maintenance, no snare Ranger I would do this one in a second with autofire available (again for nostlagia as my raiding main was a Ranger), without .. nope Druid Pros - Nukes, Heals, ports, evac, snare Cons - overlap in gear Mage Pros - Pet, nukes, summon items Cons - no snare, no ports I am not seeing a consensus in this thread (which ofc makes this a nice topic to go over). Opinions gratefully received. Or should I just re-roll the monk to an SK and go SK/CLR/Enc and be old school?
I think the necro is fine but you need to get away from the mindset of trying to maximise your play on all three. Alts are never going to be utilised to their full ability but that's okay. They are only there to make your life easier.
I box a shaman / mage. And I think I'd benefit greatly from adding a pulling class (like your monk). Just my 2 coppers. It's also pretty easy to "maximize" the mage / shaman duo. I don't see maxing a monk to be that difficult outside of maybe special attacks.
I feel like druid is going to tick the box for you, really good set and forget if thats what you want to do. Extra heals, nukes, snares, evac, ports, powerleveling future alts and track (really nice to have).
If you felt like necro is too much work, I would honestly say Druid or Wizard are your best bet here. Druid won't add as much DPS as you're looking for, but will help you feel more secure knowing you have two healers. Wizard won't be great DPS without a clarity, but if you AFK a lot, you can time that with unloading wizard mana for some quick kills. If you want more farming possibilities, I would recommend cleric as your third. Shaman becomes your DPS with pet + dots, and cleric is there for rez, lull (highly valuable, even for a monk trio), spell haste and the best heals. Completely agree. That third box (and second box) are never going to be 100% efficient. Even with a cleric/wizard as your boxes running purely on macros, you won't be able to do what in your mind what you imagine that three man group doing.
