Need boxing advice

[Mestapha]

Hi all,

I love mages so much I made two of them and currently box them along with a chanter. This combo worked great on HoT and works well with VoA trash, however gets owned by most VoA named T3 and up. I think the problem is due the merc clerics stop focusing on healing the pets when the named casts an AoE that damages the group. Pets die, then all hell breaks loose. Both mages have all their pet AA's and have EM10.

Any ideas? Ditch the chanter and make a real cleric?

Also it is hard to use the earth pet as a tank in confined areas because you cannot get far enough away from it. Any way to deal with this other than using a different pet?

Thanks,

Mestapha

[dorfillya]

I have not found any spots where I could not get far enough away from my earth pet to avoid me being in melee range of the mob. Earth tank is far superior tank than any of our other pets in VoA content. In confined areas, when mob stats it "death march", if earth pet then roots it, you might be in melee range and get hit. But to prevent that, turn off pet spell casting and mob will "death march" right through you. I generally always turn off earth pet spell casting because of this drawback if the earth pet is the main tank.

[bobipet]

i play a shm as main and mage alt (both lv 95 ).

as 3rd toon i got :
a chanter lv 95 (3k or so aa ) , or
a druid lv 95 (3k aa's ), or
another mage lv 92 (with 2700 aa's ).

well with a shaman you always got unity line of spell.
growth buff who add more hp than clr and skin buff combined , and stack.
lethargy line of spell to add some agro for the pet ( and some overtime heal ).
2 great group heals and fast casts 0.5 and 1 sec cast (got some refresh to be able to cast again ,but usually back when nameds recast their ae's. , can group heal easy 40k + ae's.
(i usually only have one memed ).

slow spell even mitigate got some dps reducer from mobs (+ add a great overtime heal on mob target ).

great dots .

at higher levels, you got some very usefull aa's :
aa root once maxed last about 3min and very hard to resist (if not immune to run change ).
aa spirit of cheetah run speed ,great for pulling (coh if needed ).

and the list goes on............

[dorfillya]

I already have 6 years invested in a cleric box, but, if I had it to do over again, I would start a shaman.

[Conjurous]

I have Mage L95 (near max AAs), raid gear
i box 95 chanter (near 6k AAs)
and 95 Necro (near 4k AAs)

Works well, can do alot of named, necro RB works well for extra heals on named, especially with caster merc nuking also. Of course there are some named i can't do, ones that pull u to them etc... but i can do most named, both alts near fully geared. Earth pet with spell casting off is essential for T4 named, b4 the heal improvements on merc Deathsqueek was tough to keep pet up on but after pet barely goes below 80% even when he DAs and hits for 28k.

[bobipet]

I have Mage L95 (near max AAs), raid gear
i box 95 chanter (near 6k AAs)
and 95 Necro (near 4k AAs)

Works well, can do alot of named, necro RB works well for extra heals on named, especially with caster merc nuking also. Of course there are some named i can't do, ones that pull u to them etc... but i can do most named, both alts near fully geared. Earth pet with spell casting off is essential for T4 named, b4 the heal improvements on merc Deathsqueek was tough to keep pet up on but after pet barely goes below 80% even when he DAs and hits for 28k.

well deathsqeek was not too bad for me and i liked that (before the merc improvement ),
he was up many times,and i was killing him each time i went to COB.

i usually go now with 2 caster mercs and one healer.
the nameds who pull us to them are tougher,so i use 1 tank merc and 2 merc healer,if it 's not enough i use shm and druid to chain heal also, (longer fight but it can keep the tank merc alive ).
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>>>> Earth pet with spell casting off is essential for T4 named<<<

well i am different i guess .....i always used air pet and never set pet ""spell off ""
air pet got less hp than the earth pet , but i always have growth buff on pet who add like 12% hp (with minion 11 ).
the tougher named i killed so far was the forlong drummer in windsong, i am 1/3 on him though ....................

i also got a necro lv 91,i didn't level him since voa came out (got him lv 91 with all the tasks i had saved (was lv 90 maxed reg xp ),the necro Rb (heal proc ) work well tho.......

[Conjurous]

the tougher named i killed so far was the forlong drummer in windsong, i am 1/3 on him though ....................

He is tough but once i found out what can block his buff its easy, main thing is slowing him on inc b4 he rapes pet, his buff can be blocked by warrior first spire or chanter deep sleep (which i use). Have fought harder named than him, Opholonas the Harvester was alot harder, wanted him for chanter only weapon. He has an ability which interupts every spell anyone in grp casts once they are on aggro, 95% of your spells won't work, can rarely channel spells through but not often, have to use promised heal to keep pet up cus its fast casting, luckily his melee dps is terrible cus all he does is interupt everyone in grps spells. Any swarm pet AA don't work on him for some reason but i just keep spam clicking it then he does no dmg at all but fight does take ages, 5-10 mins easy.

Even Paleodontis in sepulcher isn't hard if u stand well back from him. Still trying to find out what drops the int caster ring in T4, it looks like a peacekeeper in pillars but they look like a pain to camp, need statue facing that pillar and it changes direction every hour, no wonder they don't got loot on raspers yet.

[Mestapha]

Lot of good info.

I find it amazing you guys can box T3 / T4 named with merc clerics. Makes me think my strategy is flawed. I've tried it with two cleric mercs and one dps merc with no luck. The pig king guy in RT owns me every time. As does the Prismatic Selyrah there also. I definitely need to turn off spell casting on the earth pet. Will try switching from a rogue merc to a caster also to prevent beatdown due to earth pet. If that doesn't work then I guess it is time to make a shaman

[bobipet]

>>>>> Still trying to find out what drops the int caster ring in T4 <<<<<


http://voa.eqresource.com/anunusualcreature.php

an unusual creature in piller can drop one ,guessing it's the common drop ...

he is yellow con for a tier 4 zone ...near zone in from resplendent zone in.

not too hard for pet to tank him,but when he getting under 25%? he regen like mad.

[bobipet]

another int. ring ,in COB, just got it today . and type 3 as well


http://voa.eqresource.com/therecordmaster.php