So I am a lot happier with my Monk/Shaman combo with some gear and levels, and I'm pondering adding a third box. I don't think I have enough wrist power to do this in Velious, but once Cannibalization AA arrives in Luclin my Shaman should get a LOT easier to manage, so I could start leveling one now. The big problem is that Monk/Shaman is a complete duo, so literally anything works and I'm a bit spoiled for choice. A couple of things that I'm pondering: How bad do Shaman get hit by slow mitigation in Planes of Power? Is it 'everything 75% mitigates, we LOL at your insects', or 'there are like 10 raid bosses that mitigate, slow lands on everything, no big deal', or I guess somewhere in between? The problem is that even 25% slow mitigation cuts Turgur's effectiveness almost in half. If slow mitigation is rampant, then either a Druid or Cleric (or maaaybe a Paladin) will be necessary to keep my papertank Monk alive. What kind of macros do people have for their DPS casters? Do you have multiple /cast for the same nuke/dot, or just eat the fizzles periodically? Or rely on lower level spells and that no-fizzle AA? Has anyone ever tried to map a click and a macro to the same key, Monk style? The first macro line would be a pause, I guess. Are Mage and Necro pets still good in Planes of Power? Looking at the Allaclone, it seems like the Mage PoP air pet is basically identical to the epic pet, except that it's higher level and doesn't have a damage shield. That epic pet looks great wrecking The Hole, but it's hard to see how it will hold up in the Elemental Planes. I'm partial to a Necro to keep my Iksar theme going, but it seems like Planes of Power really screws them. Not only do they get basically zero useful AAs, but they don't get upgrades to practically any of their most important spell lines like Splurt, Heat Blood, Scent, Mind Wrack, Shadowbond, etc.
Slow mitigation: most PoP trash mobs in lower level planes don't mitigate. Groupable named in lower planes and trash in higher planes usually do. Raid bosses basically always mitigate, if they're slowable at all. A shaman can heal a raid-geared monk on most PoP trash, but probably not many nameds. Mage pet power wanes in Luclin and further still in PoP, as pet damage and hitpoints stay pretty flat while other classes' abilities improve. FT, focus effects and new spells make mages much better nukers, though. IMO, for someone like you who focuses on pulling, bard is the clear winner for monk/shm/x. Pac, selo, mez, snare, resists, ATK buffs, overhaste, etc. Mana song is extra great for shammies because it gives a bunch of regen along with the FT. And once bards get fading memories (AA that removes you from all hatelists), they're absurdly good pullers. You'd be ridiculously versatile with monk+bard.
You are right. There is no great 3rd box to add to a monk/shaman. I would probably do a Druid or Wizard box to add transportation, nukes and (for Druid) heals.
I would say Druid as it just adds a ton of convenience and even if you switch again later you then still have a Druid which is always a useful box. That being said I think Pithy has great points for Bard and I think for raids you'd you get more value out of a bard box.
Druid is good, enchanter is good, bard is great, mage is going to be your best friend when you epic (coth aggro clears mage pet stun etc) Mage pets keep wrecking as dps well into PoP. Krumples pet was always a welcome addition adding stuns and dps to the fun, and stuns (along with monks avoidance and slow) will be the best "mitigation" you get.
I guess Monk/Sham needing a Druid or Cleric to handle business on the rougher side of PoP is about what I expected. The biggest problem I have with Druid is the lack of rez (since I like to die deep in dungeons) and also that it makes my trio kind of defensively oriented, which is pretty common. But for sure Druids are great. If Bards had melody I would be all over that, but it just seems like a ton of APM. And adding a bard as a puller kind of feels like replacing rather than augmenting Raev. I do like the AFK manasong bard, but wouldn't just buffing with KEI in POK be nearly as effective? In fact I've considered going Enc/Clr/Mage just so I could buff with KEI and Aego and summon pet weapons and such and then just play Monk/Sham like usual. I had not considered the air pet's stun as mitigation. Hmm, it looks like it's 3 seconds every 12. If I am doing my math right, and we guesstimate a slowed target at a 6 second cooldown, then it looks like each stun would only delay the next attack round by 0.75s on average (50% chance the stun partially overlaps, and if so on average for half its duration). That's a 12% reduction in damage, but would only happen every other round, so about 6% assuming no resists. Not bad, but not great. Unfortunately it does not appear that mages can summon stun proc weapons to add to this effect. The Mage fire elemental AA also looks pretty interesting. Increasing effective casting level by 5 means that you are nuking a L80 boss as a L70 (+50 resist penalty) rather than a L65 (+112.5 penalty). Wizards get the same effect through their familiars, but due to the quadratic resists it isn't much better. Necros don't appear to get anything there, and I wonder how they would land their dots on high level raid bosses with that obscene level penalty. Neither do Druids, although everyone seems to claim they are great DPS in PoP.
Don't be too quick to throw out PoP necro. I think it would make a great addition to your duo. We get a couple of very nice DoT additions in Luclin and PoP in addtion to snares, top mana regen, and a wimpy but hard hitting pet who backstabs and assassinates. There's fun to be had with undead charms, and it's always handy to have a second flopper. Plus you get a rezzer and corpse summoner for more desperate situations. Overall necros are one of the most versatile classes, but it does take quite a bit of attention to play well which should be a consideration for boxing. You're right that our AA's aren't particularly impressive (wtf is up with flesh to bone?), but wake the dead is one of the best AAs ever. Edit: On AK I did not have trouble in general stacking DoT's on raid bosses all the way through PoTime. There will always be certain bosses who resist certain DoTs more (no funeral pyre in PoFire), but there are usually alternatives. The resist checks are pretty good for our best DoTs: -50 PR for Blood of Thule, and -100 FR for funeral pyre/pyrocrur.
Monk/Shaman is such an excellent combo regardless of what you add. It's just preference, like others have said what do you want to do? Do you want run speed? Ports? Dps? Pithy is right that Bard would be a really nice third but that's too much multitasking for me. I went with Wiz and have never looked back. To me Bard has always been one of those classes that requires my full attention, and It's much easier to be a half ass wizard than a half ass bard. Enc/Pal/Beast/Cleric are also nice alternatives.
Paladin wasn't a horrible idea imo. Low APM tanking, decent HP/AC buffs, lulls for those extra tricky pulls, rez, heals pretty much as well as a druid in this era... But I'm really partial to Paladins. . Cleric hits a lot of the same boxes and would allow Raev to be the star still. Druid is worth considering as an early box because they're so good at PLing. If you're trying to get away from min/maxing a bit, tho, then I would say that Iksar Necromancer would probably be the coolest thing to add. . They don't get an upgrade to their heal in Luclin or PoP tho, and aren't the greatest burst damage dealers, so idk if it would solve any of the problems you're anticipating.
Well, I would love to make Necro work; it seems like a flexible class and would support my iksar fetish. I'm just not quite understanding how you made Necro dots work in PoP. For example, let's take Fennin Ro. His resists aren't actually that high (100 MR, 65 DR, 115 PR, which become -10 MR, -5 DR, 45 PR after tash and malo) but that brutal +112.5 from level means Blood of Thule has an effective resist rate of 107, which means that maybe 45% will land. Meanwhile a Magician with Fire Elemental AA gets +5 to level and a +50 penalty, which means an effective MR of 40 for Black Steel which should land at maybe 85%. Fennin Ro is maybe a bit unusual in that he is FR immune, which means that the Scent line will land (normally it seems like Hand of Ro will overwrite it and be generally more important for the -ATK). Another -33 PR would take Blood of Thule up to 60% efficiency, which would be better but still not great. So the only dots that would really land well would be Splurt and Dark Plague and of course lifetaps. So am I missing something here? Or do Necros just get so much mana regen that a 60% resist rate is OK? Also, is it just me or is Mass Group Buff completely wasted on Necros? Mass DMF isn't all that awesome, or could you use MGB and then Mind Wrack?
Yea, I think necros with lich, capped FT, mana pres focus, bard song, kitty crack, etc. have so much mana that casting a dot 2-3 times is no big deal.
Blood of Thule, Splurt, Dark plague, Saryrn's Kiss, and Cessation of Cor would all potentially work on mobs immune to fire. Supplemented with Lifetaps and pet damage and you've got some hearty DPS. And like Pithy said, necro mana regen can high enough to the point that a couple recasts doesn't make much of a difference. But if you are boxing DoT stacking requires a lot more attention than switching over to your mage/wizard box and hitting your nuke hotkey every 10 seconds or whatever. This is plus for me as it doesn't get as boring and it's fun to figure out the best DoT stacks for various encounters. It comes down to individual preference. MGB does not work on Mind Wrack, but MGB DMF has it's place. Babs in fire and Trakanon come to mind, in addition to gravity flux effects.
running necro would be more efficient than not running a third box at all, so there is that to keep in mind. its not the biggest improvement you could make to your setup, but its still an improvement. worth trying if your heart is that set on it? there are still ways to play this game that people haven't thought up yet. i used to duo paladin/necromancer and people told me it was impossible, but i made it work.
Necro is higher APM, but the addition of snare, pet DPS, dot DPS, a second feign death, ghetto mez, undead charm in situations, rez, summon corpse... it's a great amount of utility. Even if at minimum all you did was send pet, cast snare and twitch shaman once per fight, you'd be increasing safety, DPS and efficiency. That said, I'd go wizard, Druid or cleric for low maintenance. But if you want another iksar, necro is solid.
i think most people like one of their boxes to be EZ mode (hence the number of cleric and magician boxes). not having ports is *painful*. i prob will never see high end monk raid gear so its pointless of rme to even dream of using a monk as a tank. if you feel like have a complete duo for now... you can play whatever you want. personally i would probably do a rogue in this era. I feel like melee is so much more powerful right now then casters, plus luclin isn't due out till next year (here say/rumor) so you have plenty of time to level up and epic just about anything you want.
How can you find casters weak? Right now we are on the Planes of Power resist system, where most spells land most of the time and the strong ones are level capped . . . . except we are in Velious, where everything is low level and the classic/Kunark spells still work. Enchanters don't get PBAE stuns or AE mez or AE pacify in Planes of Power, for example. You should try playing on P99, where L55+ NPCs will resist your spells 50% or more by default, without focus items, without Spiritual Purity, and so on. Speaking of focus items, are there any focus items that increase the duration of Necromancer dots? I looked through the spell focus list on the wiki, but Verant's terminology there is a bit confusing (Limit: Detrimental Only actually appears to limit the Tavee's line to beneficial spells).
There's only 4 items that increase DoT duration for pure casters. Crown of Ambivalence from VT Blob2. (15%) Kelp-Lines Mantle from PoWater Coirnav (20%) Pauldrons of Purity from PoTime Phase 3 Rockmen (20%) Wand of Temporal Power from PoTime Phase 4 VZ (20%) For an alt, no there really isn't anything. For most raiding mains... there's the Blob2 Crown. The Coirnav shoulders are rare because he isn't frequently killed, the P3 shoulders drop from two mobs who drop 1 item each from a big loot list, so it can be RNGy. Vallon Zek only died 4-5 times on AK and dropped only 2 items each. We only ever saw 1 wand.
So it looks like Timeburn plus the Focus of Mediocrity, and I guess wisdom casters get one more option in the Hammer of Hours. 15-20% extra damage from dots would be huge and would mostly compensate for the lack of dot damage AAs, but those do look tough to get.
The Crown was generally the go to for all debuffers on AK. But that focus works on beneficial and detrimentals. Also doesn't limit to DoTs. So it extends chanter mez/slow and Shaman malo/slow/DoTs etc. I expect it to be a very sought after item for Shaman/Enchanter/Necromancer. Plus the lazy non-Shawl doers want that crown for buff extension (15% vs Shawl 20%). For Alts, Burning Affliction 3 is a lot more feasible for damage output increase. (Though you can stack BA and Extension if you're fortunate enough to get both) The Golem belt (BCG) has BA3, so does the KoiDoken bracelet. Also in VT there is the Accursed Staff which is BA4 under a different name. All of which are much more feasible for a Necro alt to obtain. Come PoP there's the BA4 Focus Ceramic (which is admitedly a pain in the ass to make, I think I sold a few for like 100k after Hobart fixed BA). The only other BA4 option is an earring off Saryrn which isn't really a "loot" mob, just a flagger. Unfortunately the 25% and 30% DoT DMG focuses are much more unlikely for a Necromancer to obtain. The 25% wand comes from Dresolik, the hardest and one of the longest crawls in ToSR. Can't CotH or Necrovac there either from my recollection. The 30% Symbol also happens to be the best tank clicky in PoTime, so good luck on that...
You can kill saryrn without doing the whole event though. This is something that wasn't fully realized for a while.
I'll explain some other time - but she spawns independent of the event and does not require you to run through it to kill her.
Why not a 2nd monk? can ping pong aggro in the case of low healer mana, extra dps is always good, etc. Otherwise, if you're okay with non-ikky, I think pally or wiz: Pally: high tier tank, supplemental heals, complimentary buffs to shm, paci for when necessary or FD split is impractical, stuns for casters, blind from tank instead of just from healer, and REZ Wiz: extra lazy dps, snare, evac, and ports.
Basically Saryrn spawns adds in the center of the room. If you corner her in a specific corner and you put your casters in another specific corner to avoid the silence the adds don't assist iirc. This is feasible placement for a box crew of only 2 or 3 people. But when you've got 20-30 people moving around you're gonna aggro those spawns, which is pretty irrelevant anyways because 20-30 should be able to crush the adds. Also you can park a Cleric in Saryrn's room in the safe corner. This Cleric can just live in the corner and a Rogue can corpse drag your crew up from the locked door to the top (Saryrn's room) skipping the 3-4 floors of trash with boss mobs on each. The downside to this strategy is it doesn't allow you to do Keeper of Sorrows meaning for flagging purposes, it's meaningless.
However because saryrn actually drops good gear - its not meaningless and she's weak as fuck - she doesn't require a large heal chain and gives out tremendous value for the small effort it takes to kill her. The fact that AK guilds didn't farm her was because they only valued the flag - and yes on EP and time flagged mains maybe that gear isnt great - but its awesome for alts. Including but not limited to all/all ft3 cloak (bards!) the singing resonance stick (bards again!) an attack cloak, the burnout5 clicky and ofc the ba4 ear. Meaningless sheesh - lady drops loot better than VT (including the very hard to achieve BA4) and it takes like a half hour.
Just requires leaving a Cleric or Necro in the tower and having a Rogue with Tower Key and SoS, or leaving the Rogue inside as well after someone else with tower Key let's you inside. Pre-Free To Play, people didn't exactly have throw away level 63+ Rogues / Saryrn Keyed rogues and throw away 55+ Clerics or 46+ Torment Flagged Clerics... Hell I think there were less than 10 Saryrn keys on AK. I think Rysia, Ravenwing and myself were the only active ones with the key. Cromis probably had one. I'm sure there were 1-2 in Destiny, Gnostica probably? Maybe Manlee?
