Few questions from a newbie

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[Xeoh30]

Hello,

Would like to ask a few questions before starting to play on this server. I have read many threads, wikis prior to asking but I couldn't find a satisfactory answer.

Question1: Toons needed to Progress

I know this is a boxing server and I am fine with that. Question being the amount of toons needed to progress from one tier to the other. Probably as many of you, I have played during the era of Kunark - PoP on live servers. The difficulty of each raid zones depended on how geared you were, or how many bodies you could bring. Now question being what is the minimum characters needed to progress through out the Tiers. For example, can you down say boss 1 and 2 of one tier having enough AAs and best gear to this point, farm enough for lets say 6-12 characters and with enough AA grinded can you slowly progress to boss 3-4 of that tier?

Question2: ISboxer Keypress broadcast

This is a tricky question I believe, but not sure if considers as automation. I am fond of using ISboxer as my multiboxing tool. I have read that MQ2melee is considered as automation (and yes I believe it is an automation to some extent), although not sure why it is included on the MQemulator's download package. (I downloaded the correct MQ package, selected EZGold and Rof2 client) None the less, is Isboxer's keyboard broadcast considered as an automation? Should I stick with the EQBC commands? (Which I think its the same thing)

Question3: Group Composition

I have read a few threads regarding about the healing and seems Paladins are a very viable class to heal, but Clerics surpasses their abilities once reaching a specific point. I did read a few group composition involving a warrior, paladin, 2 dps, 1 utility and cleric. However having only 2 pure dps seems a little low? I could be wrong.

Regarding DPS, I always thought the casters usually had disadvanteges over melee for their resists. Not sure if this is true in this server. I liked Wizards and Mages. Not sure if monks and rogues have an easier time boxing.

Thats about it for my questions. I am specifically interested in the first question. I have boxed in the past up to 12. But if it requires more than 12 to progress from a specific tier, I would like to know. And if you can do it with less with the AAs and Alternative way to get gear or farm the first few bosses / trash mobs of that specific tier in order to progress then I am fine with that since I am in no rush to clear the content in a few days. So long as there is a steady progression and not requiring a huge army to compensate the lack of heal/dps.

Thanks in advance.

And happy new year.

Edit: Deleted question 4 since I managed to find the answer on one of the stickied threads.

[Loyal]

Question1: Toons needed to Progress

I know this is a boxing server and I am fine with that. Question being the amount of toons needed to progress from one tier to the other. Probably as many of you, I have played during the era of Kunark - PoP on live servers. The difficulty of each raid zones depended on how geared you were, or how many bodies you could bring. Now question being what is the minimum characters needed to progress through out the Tiers. For example, can you down say boss 1 and 2 of one tier having enough AAs and best gear to this point, farm enough for lets say 6-12 characters and with enough AA grinded can you slowly progress to boss 3-4 of that tier?

This is not a simple question and changes depending on the tiers. However, a simple answer is that you can progress through at least T9 with just 6 characters. Its possible to do it with a few less but it will be slow going and you may need to stop progression to farm out some uber gear that you can otherwise avoid until later on in life (Shield of ages, ultimate weapon, etc..). Obviously the more characters you add from 6 the easier things become. Personally i rolled 18 characters and got through a lot of content without a ton of difficulty but then always felt like i had too many when i was at the end of each tier farming for my last few characters. But i was just being a baby, 18 is awesome....12 may be the sweet spot.

Even if you do only 6 through T9 and find you need more chars for T10....its easy enough to back farm another group to T9 in a fraction of the time it took to get your original group through that same content.

Question2: ISboxer Keypress broadcast

This is a tricky question I believe, but not sure if considers as automation. I am fond of using ISboxer as my multiboxing tool. I have read that MQ2melee is considered as automation (and yes I believe it is an automation to some extent), although not sure why it is included on the MQemulator's download package. (I downloaded the correct MQ package, selected EZGold and Rof2 client) None the less, is Isboxer's keyboard broadcast considered as an automation? Should I stick with the EQBC commands? (Which I think its the same thing)

I dont know much about ISBoxer but from what i have gathered i believe all it does is mimic your one keypress to all your boxes? If that is the case it is just the same as EQBC so i wouldnt expect it to be bannable. The line of thought used in the past has always been that you must be a puppet master controlling each chars commands with a keypress. Im oversimplifying but im trying to avoid getting into a debate of what is and isnt automation because thats not really the question. I believe you are allowed to use ISBoxer as i know there are a few current players who do. If ISBoxer has other capabilities that go beyond simply broadcasting a keypress, then those capabilities would need to be considered before using them, i just dont know about them.

Question3: Group Composition

I have read a few threads regarding about the healing and seems Paladins are a very viable class to heal, but Clerics surpasses their abilities once reaching a specific point. I did read a few group composition involving a warrior, paladin, 2 dps, 1 utility and cleric. However having only 2 pure dps seems a little low? I could be wrong.

Regarding DPS, I always thought the casters usually had disadvanteges over melee for their resists. Not sure if this is true in this server. I liked Wizards and Mages. Not sure if monks and rogues have an easier time boxing.

As long as you are keeping up on your strike augments on your melee dps, you should have some good DPS. if you are only running six, i would think you ditch a utility for another DPS to keep things up to speed. Almost all of the content is tank and spank with the hardest thing being you need to switch over to some adds to burn them down. You dont need to mez anything or slow anything. if you are running 12 then you get a little more freedom to add in some of the good buffing classes (DRU/Shaman have good HP buffs).

Wizards and Necro are great DPS on this server, but that doesnt kick in until the later tiers. So if you are boxing only 6 i would avoid them. If you are boxing 12 you can sneak one in. i dont think that resisting is really an issue on this server.

[Xeoh30]

Thank you for the response. Its very informative and gives me hope that you can get to even Tier 9 with just 6 toons. I will probably start off with 6, and since CCing seems not so important in here cut the utility and go with the holy trinity build focused on melee at first. Perhaps when I progress further I may add little by little a few more toons until it reaches 12.

As for ISboxer, the answer is what I was looking for. Since EQBC does mostly the exact same thing. I like ISBoxer for the sole reason of the resource management is good (CPU, RAM etc), the fact that it creates an ini file for each toon and most importantly to give a shortcut key to switch over each toon.

Edit: Not sure if its me but is the Donation working at the moment? I have followed the instructions but it returns me with an error on Paypal stating the recepient is not accepting.

[Chunka]

Well, I have been gone a while but from what I have seen and heard not much of the core has changed....so here goes.

First on ISBoxer: shouldnt be a problem, but you will find that in the long run it will be too limited to allow you maximum use of your boxes without changing to their clients. You can do some rather amazing and allowed things using simple /bca commands with MQ2. You can do everything mq2melee accomplishes short of full automation using key presses(and as to why mqemulator includes the plugin, we are not the only emulated server in the group, and we arent the only one to allow MQ2). All in all, I think you will find things work best with MQ2 alone, or if you absolutely feel the need a combination of MQ2 and wineq (though I am admittedly not a fan of wineq).

As far as how big a group you need....I've seen people reach T9 with 3 boxes, though they had considerable help through T5. Have to use the tools the server provides to maximize your characters effectiveness, allowing them to fill multiple roles in the group. Six boxes works better.....12 IMO is optimal....though I, like many here, run 18. Over that seems to start diminishing returns (Hobben's Law, shrunk some, still holds true).

As for classes....SO many to chose from. You can do a lot with almost any class here. Even chanters on EZ can be VERY solid dps....just gotta know how to build and work em. If you wanna min/max, well, plenty of opinions there, too. I will say this:

With a UW and tanking warriors are the best DPS in your group. Period, full stop. Granted, a huge portion of that dps is riposte damage with a UW. Without a UW warriors cannot by any stretch of imagination be seriosu DPS.

Rogues with a UW are a very close second to warrior DPS. Rogues backstabbing with epic aug and a UW dagger do some insane damage. Without a UW they are still near top of the DPS food chain (of classes without UW).

Berserkers are the kings of mindless AoE damage. Just attacking will make them AoE (a function of their epic). They are set and forget dps....no need to micromanage, so a lot of people prefer them. They also do respectable single target dps if they run strike augs with their epic aug, and with a UW they get close to rogue single target UW DPS. However, if you learn to use them properly a necro will do greater AoE dps than any class through T9 (some of the T10 spells change things a ton for many classes). But that comes with a caveat: if you dont tailor your pulls and learn how to use MQ2 properly a necro wont do squat....so it's not a class that works for some players.

As I said above, enchanter can do some pretty decent dps (ST). But then any skirt class here does well, though they do have some drawbacks (very squishy comparatively, most of the heavier DPS spells have cast times which reduces their effectiveness, reliance on pets to add to DPS to name a few). Later giving your pet classes the summon bag helps a lot, and even allows you to let your pet equip your earned UW. A mage pet with a high end UW can do some very impressive damage.

As for healers, throughout paladins do best group healing. They also can do moderate DPS with strike augs, and respectable DPS with a UW. Pallies are by far the most durable heal class. Clerics do very strong heals with cast spells, and some little extra with their epics. With old T10 (which was very heavy rampage damage) clerics did best keeping the tank standing, since they could heal outside of immediate range. Not sure how much this has changed. Druids have a VERY heavy regen line, and I use it often on my tank when mass pulling. They also get a short term reactive healing buff, healing the recipient for a bit with each hit they take, that helps a ton both breaking into new content and allowing pulling tanks to more easily tank dozens of mobs at a time. Since druids can use mana necklaces, they dont do too bad with cast DPS, and their pets can add some damage too, if they can stay alive. Druid T10 spells allow them to do some surprising AoE dps. Shaman at lower levels help newer players a lot, with their combat proc buff line and heavy hp/stat buffs. Shaman also help ultra heavy white damage characters (usually those with a UW) do substantially more damage using a short term buff. They also can help heal, doing enough to keep non tank groups alive even without another healer.

Anyway, bottom line is that EZ lets you play your way. You can make up groups with a wide variety of classes and do very well. Enjoy!

[Chunka]

cut the utility and go with the holy trinity

Heh....originally the "Holy Trinity" was tank, heal and CC. Warcrap kids changed it to suit their game later.

[walk2k]

start with war, pal, zerker & a dps like rogue, monk or ranger.

eventually you will want buffing class(es), in order (IMO) 1. chanter 2. cleric 3. shammy 4. druid.
chanter particularly has some essential buffs, Vampiric thunder makes spells/strike augs hit harder, and aggro increasing (for your warrior) / reducing buffs (for everyone else) are nearly required in later tiers to keep aggro on your war.

[balidet]

If I was to start over from day 1 here is what I would run;


1. warrior   
2. paladin   
3. Zerk       
   

This is my holy trinity of EZing Ez...

beyond that, I would run.

4. Monk
5. rogue
6. shaman

This group will get you pretty far with a good balance of dps, buffs and debuffs.

for a second group you can basically do whatever you want because this first group is so solid it will be 90% of what you need for any tier.


I run a mage, necro, wizzard, chanter, in my second group and to be honest they do jack shit for DPS even maxed out with uc3's and mana neck12's ...I dont have them UW yet and my melee are... but just watching them fight the bosses in T7 I was amazed that my zerk would kill them in 1 round and my mage with pet fully buffed had to chain nuke for 30 seconds with pet to beat one down..maybe even longer...then I repeated with my chanter and found the same thing... pathetic DPS.... the only exception to this was my necro who did ok... even the mighty t10 wizard with max nukes was sad in comparison to my melee DPS.


I understand that UWing the pet classes is a game changer for them but I was very disappointed in what my casters actually had for damage output.

[Xeoh30]

Thanks everyone for the reply. I ended up going with these composition but I may change a little.

Warrior (Tank)
Paladin (Healer, offtank?)
Cleric (Healer, I might change this since well paladin does all the work and she is just standing there doing virtually nothing)
Monk (DPS1)
Rogue (DPS2)
Enchanter (I was thinking some sort of support, and maybe debuff but right now, like the cleric she just stands there doing nothing. Things just die too fast)

Probably swap Enchanter for Zerker or Cleric with Zerker. Not sure to keep enchanter for future buffing, or swap to shaman as balidet mentioned. Or a bard, something that enhances the melee members. Since I am still on the 30s, I can just repeat what I was doing till now. Only issue I am finding so far is that the skills just doesn't catch up with the leveling. Probably need some long sessions vs the target dummies.

[Rakharth]

Lose chanter and add zerker. When you get addicted later like us and add more toons add chanter back in 

[walk2k]

chanter pets proc Cazic touch (250 million damage) very randomly, this can come in very very handy breaking into some tiers (like T7 and Gluttony boss is basically unkillable without this). in addition to their buffs/debuffs (tash = 15% more proc damage for your ENTIRE raid).

mage is useful for CoH, if you don't have reward items... their nukes + pet does OK dps.

[Felony]

chanter pets proc Cazic touch (250 million damage) very randomly, this can come in very very handy breaking into some tiers (like T7 and Gluttony boss is basically unkillable without this). in addition to their buffs/debuffs (tash = 15% more proc damage for your ENTIRE raid).

mage is useful for CoH, if you don't have reward items... their nukes + pet does OK dps.

Cool, depend on a proc that probably won't go off. Or just add in a mean, fast hitting, ninja-strike using melee and beat the fucker to death. My 2cp

[Chunka]

Chanter has the biggest impact on a group with very heavy AoE dps classes.....so they do very very well paired with zerkers or necros.

[Peign]

chanter so leet.


I would not put a chanter in a group of 6.    Yes, value added in a group of 12-18, it doesnt make the starting squad in a group of 6.


Balidet's (Hurty's) recommendation is the best one.   

[Xeoh30]

Currently farming BoT for gear, and some AA as well as some money. I am feeling 4 melees (swapped chanter with a zerker) is becoming a little too excessive. Also not having a proper support like buffs apart from what I get in the glades does worry me. Mobs do start to hit harder so I do want to keep my cleric. Paladin not sure... at first she was nice, but I am not getting when she gets those heal proc weapons many people states. Probably epic 1.5? I am using 2 hand weapon dropped from BoT since the original epic procs damage.

Yes I do have the Focus heal spell active and I also do have the range item purchased and equipped. Just that her heals compared to cleric's complete heal when I get like 4k damage (flurry and all other nasties on the tower bosses) not sure if paladin alone can keep up. Guess I have to see...

[walk2k]

Paladin gets the healing proc in later epics, 2.0 or 3.0 I think. If you need help getting your paladin 3.0 just ask Trust me it's worth it, almost everyone here runs at least 1 paladin. Cleric is fine too, but you can do without one, at least early on. I have 8 toons flagged for T10, no cleric. no shammy either. (will be in my next group I level up.. along with necro, rogue probably)

re: chanter, I originally made one and got him to 3.0 or so just for VT. would buff my group in nexus then leave him behind (snif) but he's really too good for that. maybe not a 1st group toon, or first 4-5 toons anyway, but definitely a good class. as for the pet proc, it procs enough.. if you are beating on a boss that regens to full every 5 seconds, it WILL proc after a minute or two... believe me it's the only way I could beat that boss.. (other than dragging him to the guards at the entrance..lol)  yes you can add more toons, ninjastrikes etc.. and you can cure his DOT with a cleric (paladin AA cure also works but it's a long cooldown).

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