If we are going to be attempting old world raid mobs or in era “raid” mobs that people have found a way to do with a single group with some good gear, then we need to build a group that will have all of the utility (heal, slow, tank, cc, and dps) that we can possibly cram into one group without sacrificing. something.

If we are going to be attempting just some fun blow up some group content maybe down some really old raids or old-world content that doesn’t require a single group raid quality force, then we have a lot more options on what we can sacrifice as far as that utility mentioned above.

Raid Configuration

• Tank: Warrior -> Shadowknight -> Paladin
• Bard
• Cleric
• Slower: Shaman -> Enchanter -> Beastlord
• DPS: Monk, Berserker, Rogue, Ranger
• Enchanter*, Mage, Wizard, Druid, Necro

There is an explanation in the video below but as far as raids (the current expansion you’re on in the TLP has some say) but the Warrior is going to be far superior for tanking the heavy hitting raid mobs because of its defensive abilities. The defensive capabilities will allow you to get the mob debuffed and slowed. Later in game when there are Glyphs this is somewhat not as big of a deal using an SK/Paladin, however, keep in mind that the Warrior can run through Defensive Disc and then still use a Glyph as well making reduced damage tanking time go even longer.

Slower should be shaman, there are not many circumstances when you’d use anything else simply because the Shaman not only has the best slow, but it is a good backup healer and also has melee buffs which is what you should be using for DPS.

For DPS you should always take Monks or Berserkers. Rangers are pretty decent during say Luclin – Planes of Power era shooting from afar with a Bow and Rogues are solid but require positioning for full backstabs.

Enchanter can be used as a DPS up till maybe Gates because it can charm DPS which is very significant and sometimes also very dangerous. I don’t recommend using a Mage, Wizard, Druid, or Necro for dps in any setup however I am fond of having ports so you will see me using a Druid and a Wizard from time to time. I have also had a mage in my setup simply for Call of the Hero, you may want these characters on a 7th account or on the same account as your other dps for options.

Group Configuration

• Tank: Warrior/Shadowknight/Paladin
• Bard (no substitute)
• Cleric/Druid/Shaman
• Slower: Shaman/Enchanter/Beastlord
• DPS: Monk/Berserker, Rogue, Ranger
• Enchanter*, Mage, Wizard, Druid, Necro

When we get to just fun 6 box groups you can do anything you want really. Keep in mind that if you use a Shadowknight or a Paladin to tank that if you’re just doing group content you might be able to get away with a Shaman healer/slow which would enable you to pick up a 3rd DPS class in your group so you could go for example, SK/Shaman/Bard/Monk x3 which is a really powerful and fast paced leveling / farming group.

If you’re looking for more details check out the video below:

The post Best 6 Box Combo on Everquest TLP Server appeared first on Everquest Progression Server Leveling.

If you really plan to stop at 4 boxing then there are some other options, but the main focus of this video and this guide will be on getting your core set so that you can do the greatest number of things in the game with the least number of characters.

The Core

The core is ready for you to build your one group raid team, it will be focusing on putting in place those non hybrid ready to rock classes for your foundation.

1. Warrior/Cleric/Bard/Shaman
2. Shadowknight/Cleric/Bard/Shaman
3. Paladin/Cleric/Bard/Shaman

This is the core build in this very specific order. On random loot servers like Mischief the tank isn’t as important, but a Warrior is still probably a necessity when we are talking about making a single group to do big some raid mobs and old world content to farm items for cash.

The Warrior defensive stops becoming such a huge factor when you have access to raid geared tanks and/or glyphs start to come out in AA later in the game.

When you’re taking 2000 damage per second as a tank, the 50% defensive is massive but when your tanks are all mega geared and that 2000 damage per second becomes 500 damage per second then cutting 500 damage per second in half only saves you 250 damage per second that your healers will have to heal, however, still choose Warrior for an easier time.

The Semi Core

Semi core will still allow you to expand to a solid 1 group raid ready team but instead of focusing on core components it starts to build in the DPS first. You probably won’t’ be able to sustain or keep up with very large fights but as far as Experience and Groupable content this is the way to go for fast clearing and high dps.

1. Shadowknight/Shaman/Monk/Monk
2. Shadowknight/Shaman/Zerker/Zerker

With only a Shaman to heal you most likely should use an SK or at least a Paladin, the SK is a bit better for sustain as it doesn’t rely on casting heals which could be interrupted by stuns. Some alternative 4-man setups if you’re not convering into a big daddy raid are Tank/Slower/Cleric/DPS. Choose a tank, pick a slower (beastlord,enchanter,shaman), probably heal with a cleric, and preferably pick a melee dps you like and have at it.

The Casual

This is the gimmicky section where anything goes. Most people tend to focus on pet classes here so you’ll see things like Mage/Mage/Beastlord/Cleric or Mage/Beastlord/Necro/Cleric or 3x pet class and a healer, literally any 4 characters you want to play here will work as long as you have a way to tank, heal, cc/slow, and dps. This will limit how big of mobs you can take down to basically just some simple group stuff, but it can still be quite enjoyable.

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The best 3 box setup on TLPs (early on in game) but even still a really solid 3 box setup into late game is a Shaman, Shadowknight, and Monk. The monk is selected because it is one of the highest dps classes early on but you could substitute this for a Berserker or any other Melee dps class. The main reason you’d choose a dps class in this setup is that the Shaman provides a lot of melee buffs for haste and attack and would do very little to aid a caster dps.

The tank and healing setup between the Shadowknight and Shaman is very powerful. Although you don’t have complete heals, the shaman has the ability to slow mobs which will significantly reduce the damage your tank takes. The shaman can also provide patch healing and has a heal over time line (Torpor) that when combined with the shadowknights lifetap and leach procs, can make this a very formidable combo for not only leveling but fighting some smaller bosses.

The addition of a monk to this setup gives you an additional puller and a very significant amount of melee dps, not to mention some would argue that Monks are able to take damage like a champ due to their high mitigation, they can almost tank early on (minus the ability to taunt).

Hands down the most powerful in terms of tanking and healing is the Warrior / Cleric setup. With just those two alone you would still lack DPS and slow. Even though the Cleric can put out a lot of healing, the tank takes extra damage without the slow setup you find in the Shaman / SK setup.

However, adding an enchanter for haste, mana regen, slow, and crowd control is just simply a brilliant addition for a 3 box. Not to mention, early on in game the enchanter charmed pets is considered the highest form of DPS in the game (gets questionable after PoP and charm becomes less of a thing) but even enchanters on raids will find it mandatory for some of them to charm pets for fights.

If you dislike the idea of an enchanter you can substitute a Beastlord in the Luclin era and beyond. A beastlord will provide additional DPS, melee buffs, haste, and enemy slows. You’ll also get a pet that can be used as a backup or offtank if things go wrong. Your dps will be somewhat lacking but as far as survivability and what you can achieve in game with this setup, it’s a very powerful 3 box.

It makes it really easy to form your own group and add random players to it when all you need is DPS and utility.

This setup relies heavily on the enchanter charming pets for both tanking and DPS and isn’t really viable past the Planes of Power where other setups might be more beneficial, but early on in game this setup provides a high level of dps, healing, and survivability.

Even though an enchanter charmed pet is very dangerous and chaotic if not done right, the bard could have only a single function of playing a mezz song while targeting the enchanter’s pet. That way if it breaks, the enchanter’s pet would become mezzed and the enchanter would only have to deal with the enemies before re-charming their pet.

This means that you don’t have to skimp on any buffs, you can haste the crap out of your pet and buff it to the core with the safety of knowing if it breaks it won’t make it to you.

Additionally, the bard run speed makes it really easy to get around places. Some people try to substitute a druid in for ports and healing but rest assured, no other class besides a cleric, even after they get their class “complete heals” will have an easy time healing a charmed pet. They seem to take a massive quantity of damage, have a lot of hp, and put out a ton of damage.

Using a druid or shaman to heal a charmed pet that’s tanking will make things extremely tough.

If you’re comfortable with it you could use the bard to play a melody or even use it to add a little melee dps to the group but it’s prime function is to make sure nobody “gets dead”.

Other Mentions

This article is aimed at the best 3 boxing setups which tends to be aimed at ease of use and survivability. It should not be confused with the best 3 classes to play together. If you have someone playing each class you can get away with almost any type of 3 person setup. You could even do something gimmicky like 3x Mage which is neat and will work for a while.

Even boxing 3 mages you get 3 pets to tank, 3 casters to nuke, and if one pet dies you just summon another one. The goal would be to have at least one pet alive and tanking before they all die and the boss or whatever you’re fighting comes for you.

If you’re into gimmicky stuff that requires a bit more attention and skill you could try to 3 box just about anything. I did a druid / enchanter /warrior combo in a classic release and found areas where the druid could charm an animal to go along with the enchanter’s charmed pet and had two pets going. What a fun time that is when both the pets break.

Let me know what your favorite 3 box combo is in the comments below!

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Where you can run as many characters and accounts off a single PC as your PC can run while on a live servers, the True Box Servers are setup to restrict and deny running more than one instance of Everquest on a PC.

Even trying to bypass these restrictions with a VMWare is not typically successful without some magic to convince the server you’re not on a Virtual Machine. The servers are setup to just explicitly deny all login attempts from a virtual machine. It will let you install and run Everquest but the second you try to connect to a True Box server you’ll get denied.

I’m not saying you can’t get around this, but why bother? Every time they patch or change something they might break your work around anyways.

That leaves us with having 1 PC per account.

Luckily for you, the most efficient ways to make this happen have already been discovered.

2-3 Boxing Setup

For a 2 boxing setup I typically like to have 3 monitors because I use one of the monitors for web browser, youtube videos, or just generally looking stuff up. However, the third monitor can be used for a 3 box or you can just use 2 monitors.

So to add extra computers to your setup, I always go with these HP Mini PCs, they have 8GB of ram and an i5 processor so they have way more than enough power to run EQ. They are also a very cheap way to add to your setup.

Then you’ll want a 2 monitor stand if you’re just going to go with 2 monitors and these are the monitors I continue to add to my setup for individual computers I add. You can also get a 3 monitor stand as well which gives you 2 monitors for EQ and 1 for browsing or an extra monitor.

3-4 Boxing Setup

For a 3-4 boxing setup you can use the tipple monitor stand above or get a quad screen monitor stand. I prefer to have mine squared off in a 2×2 setup but you can also get a 4×1 or put two of the 2×1’s next to each other to make this happen. You’ll also want to continue to pickup more mini PCs and monitors.

If you’re really serious into gaming then I do recommend at this point you go ahead and add my all time favorite quad input HDMI monitor. This monitor has 4 HDMI inputs and can split itself into a 2×2 picture in picture mode so you basically have 4 monitors in one. You can also adjust the settings to turn it back into 1 monitor or a bunch of other various settings. This is how I add more characters to my setup now, I no longer buy individual monitors because they take up too much space, I just get the 43″ monitor and set those side by side so each one can run 4 PCs.

6 Boxing Setup

There are two primary ways to get a good six box setup in place and from this point on to go from 6 to 12 to 18 or any number in between you can combine or continue to add this setup each time you need more PCs and characters.

Finally for the 12-18 box setup, I typically will run 2-3 of the big quad screen monitors which gives me 8-12 characters and then for the final six I actually have a really big 6 multi monitor stand that holds 6 27″ monitors in a 2×3 configuration.

Don’t forget to get all the mini PCs you need. If you think about how cheap these mini PCs are you can literally add 12 additional computers for the cost of one good gaming PC, so you can see why it saves so much money. Additionally, they use very little power, if you were to try to put a bunch of regular PCs in place instead, you would likely blow a circuit or have to plug them into different circuits from the power draw, not too mention they would take up a massive amount of space.

Accessories

I’m also really stingy when it comes to accessories, if you’re not going to be cheating or using a program like Synergy or Multiplicity to run all of these off one keyboard and mouse, then you will need a keyboard and mouse for each PC. I typically just buy these cheap combo kits from Amazon.

If space is an issue, which it usually is when you’re trying to setup this massive operation in a small space, you can go with these mini keyboard / mouse combos.

I put these gigantic mouse/keyboard pads on top of my desk and just start layering keyboards and mice across them.

Check out the video of one of my setups below.

The post How to MultiBox on Everquest True Box Server appeared first on Everquest Progression Server Leveling.

That journey starts with multi-boxing or boxing a second character. When you’re only playing two characters, the combination you pick is very important. This video covers my top 3 picks for duo boxing and gives you some alternative ideas.

If you’re not into the video watching stuff, I’ll just lay it out for you.

1. Shaman / Shadowknight
2. Shaman / Monk
3. Cleric / Enchanter

That’s my top 3 combos for up till Planes of Power and some of them go beyond that. As the game progresses through expansions on the TLP, some other combos become viable but you can’t really go wrong with the number one pick and it makes for a perfect setup to add more characters to your boxing journey when the time comes.

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