Need Advice - 6 box team

[jetta44]

Yes, it's another one of those. I love these threads, I love your opinions and I love how they make me rethink my setup. So here goes.

I'm playing on a live server using fully custom built macros for everything from buffing and following to healing. I use the traditional built-in ones such as MQ2Melee etc, but everything in between is just me. I enjoy figuring out the programming and logic as much as playing the game so the macro end is familiar territory for me.

That said, let's get to it.

I'm currently boxing: SK/MNK/BRD/MAG/SHM/CLR. The Monk is a non-negotiable for me.

To make it easier, I'm really trying to decide between the following pair of swap outs...

Scenario 1) Keep the Bard and Shaman.
Scenario 2) Replace with Beastlord and Enchanter.

Ideally I maintain some sort of shaman buffs either via Shaman, or Beastlord. Again, open to suggestions if there's some good alternatives but I really would miss having those.

My hangups every time I consider it, are the following:

Hangup 1) Am I losing a tremendous amount of buffage by moving to Beastlord instead? I love my buffs and would prefer not to have to rely on others for buffing as much as possible.
Hangup 2) Am I losing a great backup healer or could the Beastlord suffice in a pinch/named mob?
Hangup 3) Is the mana regen and enchanter style going to be missed in higher levels?

The team is currently level 50-60. My goal is to be able to tackle as much content as humanly possible without needing help, including epics, named, etc. I love doing dungeon crawls and diving in to find drops I want. I also love fast pulling while grinding and will setup the group and chain pull with monk.

I do NOT have any interest in max/min groups such as mag/mag/mag/X/X/X etc. I love melee and how they scale, but enjoy a bit of casting as well so had (up until now) hung on to the mage, but am open to suggestions.

Thanks guys, really looking forward to some good thought.

 

[cadman]

I am by no means an expert (anymore), but... I would swap the mage for a beastlord. For dungeon crawling, the beastlord pet has an aa snare (hobble of spirits), the pet and bst itself are pretty good dps, you keep the big adps advantage with bard, you keep the good backup healer and buff with shaman.

In higher levels, the beastlord gets more advantageous for the whole group as well. I'd have thought the mages main benefit was the pet tank / pet dps and spell dps, with a little coth on the side, whereas the beastlord brings group mana regen, hp buff (the sv line of spells) and pet/melee dps.

Also I love beastlords.

This is just an opinion though, just offering my thoughts on the matter. Honestly, you have an awesome tank, melee damage and pulling with the monk, adps and pulling with the bard, and 2 healers/buffers. Hard to improve on it, but imo beast for mage would be that improvement.

2c.

 

[Chatwiththisname]

I am by no means an expert (anymore), but... I would swap the mage for a beastlord. For dungeon crawling, the beastlord pet has an aa snare (hobble of spirits), the pet and bst itself are pretty good dps, you keep the big adps advantage with bard, you keep the good backup healer and buff with shaman.

In higher levels, the beastlord gets more advantageous for the whole group as well. I'd have thought the mages main benefit was the pet tank / pet dps and spell dps, with a little coth on the side, whereas the beastlord brings group mana regen, hp buff (the sv line of spells) and pet/melee dps.

Also I love beastlords.

This is just an opinion though, just offering my thoughts on the matter. Honestly, you have an awesome tank, melee damage and pulling with the monk, adps and pulling with the bard, and 2 healers/buffers. Hard to improve on it, but imo beast for mage would be that improvement.

2c.

I advocate for the beast as well, but replacing the shaman. But I never cared for shamans to be honest. I used bard to slow, which was sufficient, but you have a bst a well this way. Bst mana, regen, slow, haste etc. While not with the same effectiveness as the shaman everything has a cap, with bard overhaste, mana regen, hp regen, regular haste, etc etc on down the line this should be a non issue. But honestly there isn't anything inherantly wrong with the original setup aside from probably mana regen if it has ever been an issue.

I certainly don't like to see people so eager to drop a bard. While in the 50-60 range you may not really enjoy the benefit of having a bard, in the later levels they can be invaluable. Espectially with their hastev3 (over cap of other hastes) woven in songs of mana/health regen, incredible speed, ability to send creatures back to their spawn point, ability to ditch all aggro with the push of a button, lull targets (level dependent) add thorns to the entire grp, and everything is more or less mana free with the exception of a few songs. They wear plate, but still maintain a squishy mentality due to the lack of some defensive skills, but overall I feel like a bard should remain part of a group the same as a cleric should always be part of a group.

I too enjoyed creating my own macro's when I played. Programming is a hungry beast to feed, luckily it's rewarding to know it, and once you get the hang of one language, the rest are pretty easy to follow once you learn syntax.

 

[jetta44]

Thanks for the thoughts guys, really appreciate all of them. I've actually began considering swapping the mage out for the beast, ironically. Will continue giving this thought.

 

[mb4xy3]

I'm in the same boat as you, and here is what I eventually came up with:

Bard
SK
Bst
Zerker
Wizard
Cleric

My main thing was I didn't want to be losing any gear. I didn't want cloth to rot, chain, h2h, etc.

I was also like you - I didn't want to lose my monk, at all. Then, I got to thinking about my big holdup - who is my healer? Can I heal with a shaman and no cleric? Then I decided, let's ditch the monk for a bst. Then, I get the feel of a monk, some buffs of a shaman, slows, haste, etc (not as good, but good enough for my goals), and the heals of a cleric. There isn't any gear that will be lost.

Fyi, my main goals for this team is to just level, and eventually, raid old school stuff for fun. I currently use my heroic 85 war to gear them up killing old school raid mobs.