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Hello,
I just managed to get my minimac up and running, and am downloading everquest as we speak. I am wondering if anyone would have any input into my choice of a dual boxing team. I played a (decently to well played) paladin from 1999 to 2003. I always was a little envious of warriors on guild raids, because knights never had the opportunity to tank, other than in 'oh bleep' moments. This changed for me (a little) in Luclin, and (a lot) in pop as I became the first paladin in the guild to be chosen as a tank for 'lesser' encounters such as valon / talon zek, off tanking in podecay (can't remember the name of the ring event), etc, and I became really happy in my role as a knight. I quit at the end of 2003, and restarted again as a warrior on the progression server this spring. I was happy with my choice of a warrior there.

Sorry for the long background there- I am considering 3 different dual box combinations, my tank will be my main- hoping that you may have a little input given your knowledge of the state of the server. The boxed character is there to avoid down time lfg/ make leveling and AA's more efficient and fun.

Warrior/Shaman, fairly obvious reasons, warrior would eventually be considered for tanking role on raids.

Shadowknight/Shaman- Sk has excellent aggro generation, snare, FD.

Paladin/enchanter- This combo intrigues me. Paladin has good ae aggro, non damaging aggro for mez breaks. Eventually I would have slay undead, but that is a few years out for me. Enchanter has clarity / kei for paladin (and self), haste, slow, everything that the shaman had except heals (but paladin can heal) and dots (but has DD's- no clue how mana efficient enchanter DD's are. Charm would become useful for AA'ing after 65. Downsides- need to rely on paladin for heals, which could be challenging until I get greater healing, lower dps than other combos? not sure about that, and I have already played a paladin in the past (Good and bad).

Any input is appreciated, I hope to pick a pair by the weekend.

Thank you,
Dammur

sk/shm hands down most utility

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I have a shaman/monk combo, and was a relative breeze leveling up. It's a complete two person box for those times when you can't find a group. Holding aggro gets a bit dicey when you get to PoV levels, but judicious usage of rooting wins the day. I like the combo because of the awesome dps of monks, which combines well with shaman buffs and mob slows.

I recently started an sk on a third account. The shaman/sk duo would rock, but my concern would be the lower dps from a sk, especially at lower levels. Be prepared for some long fights.

I have a monk thats geared in the best stuff out there up to ssra, and access to a sk that has the best gear offered up to vt. Both have all the relevant tanking AAs, and offensive AAs. Pound for pound its a toss up really. I have duoed dozekar the cursed with my monk, and i doubt I could do that with the SK. Cant really go wrong though both are a lot of fun.


Oops forgot to mention I have a decently geared shaman as a main.

Err further edit as I think you want to tank on raids as well.
Warriors will be the MT on the majority of your raids, but it takes a long time/gear to reach that point.

Paladins are great tanks for some encounters, but generally will be spotting/ stepping in at the odd point on the majority of big name raids.

SKs have the utility of being some great pullers, and excellent stand in tanks/RTs like paladins

Long story short you cant go wrong, but should be mindful of what you want your main to be doing for the majority of your play time.

Don't ignore the pally/shaman combo. A troll shaman that worships the right god can get a snare clicky necklace with unlimited charges. Knight/Druid can be a fun combo as well. No slow, but you have evac; if it gets ugly. Plus, with a pally, you have stackable hp buffs, DS, solid dps from Druid, and good healing.

SK/Cleric if you want to go with a tank and a healer. SK will provide you all the pulling and tanking utility you need, and cleric provides the big heals and rez for when things go wrong. You'll be able to do a lot more with this box past exp grinding, since you will have less reliance on landing a slow, and a more fluid attention split between the characters.

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I like the idea of SK/Cleric, (or war/cleric and quest the innoruuk regent necklace for snare). Easy to box, did a war/cleric on an emulated server- but that doesn't count because the encounters and gear were completely different. My only concern was lack of haste. On live it took me a long $%^ time to solo stuff with my paladin. Granted, even swift like the wind is only 60 % haste. I thought about 3 boxing war/sk, cleric, enchanter, but I don't think my computer can handle that.

Also, as I get higher level and need the haste more I would have access to other players to group with that would have haste.


Do you think lack of haste would hold me back with the cleric as a box? I am heavily leaning towards team inkie.

Thank you,
Dammur

There's always worn haste items and clicky haste like eyepatch of plunder to help you out. I doubt a lack of spell haste would hinder your progress much.

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2k for CoCW was posted lately in alliance, thats 36% and cheap! I wish that was available when I was leveling! It was 10k for FBSS then . Plunder eyepatch (or Pally self haste which is 30%) will be regularly used



Personally I did a Warrior/Cleric duo box (added wizard much later on after I hit 65 on both W/C, yes, I still don't box a slower!). I actually only really remember using my cleric's snare neck when I was leveling on HG's or when I did "sticky" named in dungeons. The Cleric "shines" more in that duo than most other duos (pacify vs FD pull, etc)

I've always considered doing a Paladin though, if I ever leveled up a duo again. They can pacify a surprising percentage of things pre PoP at lvl 51 (ex: I'm guessing they can pacify 80-90% of ssra, for example)

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Paladin self haste is 25%, not 30%: http://lucy.alkabor.com/spell_2585.html.

That said, I think using a Paladin as your tank, perhaps paired with druid or shaman is an intereting combo. You get the most bang for your buck from those duos, in my opinion.

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Bard Druid is good agro only item I worry about lots of utility maybe not goodness huge targets but can pump out a huge DS and slow

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BL/CLR presents some unique components for a duo: Slow, SoW, casual tank capability, RT for most mobs, dps buffs (Ferocity!), mana/hp buffs, virtue, powerful healing. Of course my BL is way above the AC soft(?)cap now at 1.4k AC and runs just shy of 7k HP raid buffed with 150ish AA. My biggest shortcoming is the lack of a malo/tash for slowing tougher content in BoT although generally my slow sticks on just about all the trash in PoV and VT on the first cast. That and/or a snare might open up some doors to pet kite content I have no business tanking.

Not trying to sell the duo as a top end duo (Dru/Ench being likely the most powerful endgame duo). However for all intensive purposes I can play the role of tank, dps, OT x2 ( Pet with Virtue is pretty legit with a cleric watching it), and/or heal rotation cleric.

In reality, my favorite is a trio. For example, the raw strength Fanglore brings to the table with a War/Clr/Wiz. toughest meatshield, strongest healer, biggest boomstick. Can't go wrong there.

Note on this server pacifying a mob twice makes it non-aggro unless you touch it. That alone puts a cleric as almost a must have for most situations.

Ignoring for the moment having a chanter charm a mob for dps and quick kills, is there any other more compact and easy two box than Shaman/SK? Done right - SK has on a mana-tap shield buff and then chains life-tap spells. If the Shaman lands a slow, no heals should be needed. Thus, less downtime for medding. Add the Shaman debuff (cripple), pet and DoT's, it should be fairly slam-dunk. I guess a Chanter/SK would be nearly the same, but might not be quite as fast in the kills. It would be nice to have access to crack though.

Just a thought...

It's a safer way to go. The dps is pretty low with a SK/Shaman combo. Shaman DoTs are pretty mana heavy. I don't even load them anymore. But, you are right with slow a SK can pretty much keep themselves healed.

Wizard/Shaman is a great combo. However, it's weak/not useable in PoP Tier 3 and also very weak/unuseable on unslowable, fast hitting mobs.

Charm killing PoP era though is the way to go for Tier 3 and beyond.

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