Best three man group? With some Criteria.

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Originally Posted by Hueborn [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm going to be playing with my dad and cousin in a three man group. I have played EQ on and off for sometime. My dad isn't a twitch player.

-I want a group that can get the most done with only three people.

-Also, the group must be sensitive to the fact that one of the players is my dad.

-So some crazy charm kiting, bard bellowing, quad kiting group probably wouldn't be ideal.

Originally Posted by Tayy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Monk, shaman, enchanter

Enchanter for extra buffs, CC and charm pet will bring the dps you need. Chanter and shaman can also do pretty much any camp in the game.

I see Shaman/Monk/Shadowknight/Cle/Enc/War/Rog in those choices, so I'll start from there.

As far as clericing goes, for a 3man team, you don't really -need- a cleric. Especially if you're not doing those crazy charm strats. Really, even if you are doing crazy charm strats, you might appreciate the malosini debuff+heal more than extra HP from a cleric+Healing.

A shaman would be a great support for a +2melee trio, or +enc+melee trio (even without charm).

As far as melee choices go, In a trio, you probably don't -need- a warrior tank unless you already have someone who wants to play warrior.

Assuming one person is a healer, you're left 2 options for your melee.

A Monk/Rogue combo would be a super strong choice, not as tankly as War/Knights, but you need someone who is capable of pulling without bringing the whole room every time. You could substitute an enchanter for one of your melee, and use a non-monk melee puller, as an alternative, and just mez adds.

This all depends on your groups twitch skill.

It's much easier for a monk(/+rogue) combo to slowly work through rooms with FD and sneak throws, than it is to be ready to bomb mez on time on pull every big pull.

The sham/monk/sk combo is pretty good, two FDs and snare make pulling a snap, They're gonna be a little light on the dps, and the SK has to med to use spells, without an ENC that presents problems in the long term. You could adjust that composition to SK/Enc/Sham, but then lack of DPS is a real problem unless the enc charm DPS's consistently.

Imho, combine your first two ideas of rog/war/sham and mnk/shd/sham and go for monk/rog/sham.
Easy enough pulls, dps for days, all the buffs you need. Monk+Rogue can stop dangerous casters in their tracks with their insane push.

Shaman has to be willing to press that canni button before hitting 100% HP and able to buff the group.
Rogue needs to keep backstab on cooldown.
Monk needs to be able to pull without wrecking himself.

If you think your team is skilled enough for that then you got yourself a real winner of a combo there.

As far as aggro concerns / root parking for aggro, once the rogue has evade, the monk should have no problem keeping aggro. Really a monk with any proc weapon should have little to no problems out-aggroing a similar gear level rogue.

As far as race choices, Definitely would recommend the monk goes iksar, shaman should go troll/iksar for regen as well. That may make it harder to meet up, but it's going to be a large impact in the long run having the tank+canni-hp-to-mana-healer permanent bonus regenning.

I'd also almost be willing to bet real money, that if you needed help getting your group gathered up so you can grind together, there would be no shortage of people willing to help get your crew ported to the same spot.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Hueborn [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Okay. Pretty sure I'm going with MNK/SHM. It's just that third spot.

I'm not too worried about snap agro. With good MNK pulls, SHM root parking, and AE slows in higher more hectic places.

I'm thinking another MNK or a WAR might be good?

With a MNK two Mends popping can help heals, FD to share agro/dmg well between them.

With a WAR's higher AC the DMG taken would be less, but DPS would drop.

Not sure what's better.

You'll be tanking slowed 1group-or-less difficulty mobs, The ac benefit of the warrior would probably be outweighed by any good DPS option in such a small group situation.

Mob dies faster, less damage to heal.

A second monk isn't bad, but a little redundant. With a rogue you get access to some of the harder-to-adventure-in areas with lockpicking, as well as being a superior DPS outputter next to monks. They can also corpse recovery out of the shittiest of places, nude, while half asleep, with sneak/hide.

If you're trying to squeeze extra heals out of the combo, Rogues aren't bad backup brigade healers with monks. Both are pure melee classes, and as such, can skill bind wound past 200 and are able to BW to 70%hp when they do. Two pure melees bind wounding a canni shaman will quickly push up the manabar.

Having a Monk/Rogue instead of Monk/Monk also lets you bring in some different proc weapons for situations where they're needed. Fighting lots of green trash? Rogue can put on a slow proc dagger and let the sham focus on something else. Runners a problem? Rogue tosses on a snare dagger. Monks get some awesome useful procs too like Tstaff, but that's pretty top-end and possibly not relevant to you guys for a long time.