Party builds for 3, what do you think?

[Heroic]

Hi there,
me and my friends was thinking of building coop and supportive party, where everybody is more or less independent (not with healer in the back, which is vulnerable). The thing I was considering was:

3 players
1) dmg dealer (I'm convinced by Assassin),
2) support and dealer/caster (means archer and/or mage)
3) healer/buffer/caster (nature for sure + ??? - druid or ritualist seemed good to me)

Ok, the possible builds could be Assassin + Evoker + Druid?

What do you think? What could work for this idea? Thanks a bunch
Heroic

[Nightmare14]

for healer deffinately ritualist
for support caharacter you could go Ranger for the extra support of pets and extra healing, if you build it well the wolves can be amazing
damage dealer probably haruspex, or for a tanks with good damage and surviability conqueree

[Heroic]

That is interesting combination, making of it a triangle - nature + dream + hunting for 3 players... I was originally thinking to make all classes different to have most possible combinations and buffs.. is the doublling of buffs more useful, I have never crossed over this experience.. Thx

[sugar kane]

1- haruspex
2- driud
3- ritualist

[Irma2]

I thought you didn't want a healer?

I wouldn't go with a healer in a party as healing is the least efficient way of maintaining health. It takes one player out of the damage equation and delivers returns that are less than having Attack Damage Converted to Health on gear.

Instead, for a three person party, I'd look to have a combination of melee, ranged/magical and pet damage, as well as having all the masteries which give good buffs and debuffs to a party. Those are:
Hunting: Study Prey debuff, CotH, AotH and Herbal Remedy buffs
Warfare: Battle Standard buff and debuff, added pets for boss fights
Spirit: Vitality and ADCtH debuff, pet debuff, extra pet for boss fights (Outsider)
Dream: Trance buffs, pet boosts all other pets
Nature: huge Health and physical damage buffs, decent elemental resistance buff, +% total speed buffs, Plague debuff, good pets
Storm: percentage resists and Impaired Aim/reduced damage debuffs from Squall, elemental damage boost and Cold/Lightning resistances from Wisp

Defense, Rogue and Earth offer less to parties imo.

So, using the six masteries selected, I would go for these possible combos:

Combo 1:
Spellbreaker: the party tank, goes up front and grabs aggro, uses Deathchill to debuff enemies allowing the party to leech life off anything.
Druid: the caster at the back, using Squall and Plague to debuff.
Hybrid Haruspex: equally comfortable up close with a spear or hanging back and using a bow, this gives the party extra versatility as you can have two ranged and one melee or two melee and one ranged. For Typhon, it's probably better to have two ranged, for Hydra two melee.

Combo 2:
Champion: serves as the tank.
Hybrid Bone Charmer: can move in close to zap things with spear & Deathchill or hang back and use bow.
Prophet: the caster at the back.

Combo 3:
Harbinger: tank plus Dream crowd control on melee mobs.
Ranger: supreme archer although not great in melee range.
Oracle: not ideal as most mobs will be out of Deathchill range.

Combo 4:
Melee Diviner: tank with Deathchill and Dream crowd control.
Hybrid Slayer: can be spear up close or bow from range.
Druid: caster as per combo 1.

Alternative combo 4:
Melee Slayer: tank as either dual wielder or spear & shield.
Melee Diviner: support tank with Deathchill and Dream crowd control skills. Could also be played as a close-up caster Poinas-style.
Druid: caster as per combo 1.

Any of these combos would work fine imo, although I think combo 1 is the most effective.

Alternatively, for a physical-only party with no magic/elemental damage and all your AoE buffs up front:
Spellbreaker and melee Ritualist as tanks
Bow Sage (physical) hanging back.

This puts Deathchill, Heart of Oak, Strength of the Pack and your Trance in the front lines. The Sage mostly casts Squall and Study Prey which are unlimited range spells and are not tied to the player/party.

[Heroic]

Wow, thanks for all the combos, we agreed on alternative combo 4.. looks most suitable for our purposes.. Thanks a lot for all comments! If you have any tips and tricks for this combo, please let us know :happy:

[jiaco]

Also looking at 3 player soon. My kids both want Earth (mainly due to Munder's massive top tier devastation drop). I think we will have a melee Evoker (Dream+Earth) and a staff using Conjurer (Spirit + Earth). That leaves me to choose something. Since I have never been able to keep interest in a bow toon, we are going to have to let Hunting go. I am tempted to try a Champion (Warfare + Nature).

If anybody wants to tell me why / why not, please do. We have not started this adventure yet.

[Irma2]

For this trio, I think it would work well to have the Diviner as the decoy and aggro-puller. You want monsters clustered around the Spirit toon because that puts them within Deathchill radius and means that everybody can leech life off them. Dream gets a lot of crowd control skills so the Diviner should be able to handle himself even when mobbed.

What will help the Diviner is if the Slayer serves as as flanker who takes out the most damaging foes first. So if you encounter a mob with a Hero, the Diviner would draw the mob and control them, the Slayer would make a beeline for the Hero and neutralise it asap.

The Druid also needs to be situationally aware. If the Diviner and Slayer are taking on a melee mob and simultaneously getting pelted with projectiles by an archer/caster mob, it doesn't help if the Druid casts Squall on the melee mob. Instead, he should cast Plague on the melee mob and Squall on the archer mob. Although the Druid has the luxury of unlimited range spells like Squall and Lightning Bolt, he should stay close enough to the fray that everybody benefits from Heart of Oak all the time, and that the Wisp (on Aggressive mode) is in there mixing it up and stunning enemies and casting Eye of the Storm as well.

The Druid also needs to be careful on the timing of his spells. If you approach a mob and the Druid casts Squall or Plague on them while the Diviner and Slayer are engaging, the mob will ignore the melee tanks and will rush the Druid instead. That's not what you want, running after monsters who in turn are pursuing the weakest member of the party defense-wise is not efficient. So the Druid needs to wait until the mob engages the melee tanks and then cast the spells. Usually, the monsters won't break off and pursue because Squall/Plague won't be hurting them as much as the Diviner and Slayer's melee attacks are. So they'll stay focused on what is hurting them the most. That leaves the Druid relatively free to use his devastating spells with impunity.

The Druid should also be an expert spell-breaker. The Storm skill tree Spell Breaker/Spell Shock not only nukes certain bosses, it's also very helpful for turning off monster skills and negating monster spells on the party. Centaurs will cast Study Prey on you, some monsters get Onslaught, some mages get Deathchill. If the Druid can recognise and anticipate these spells - and then negate them with SB/SS - it will save you a lot of pain.

Dragonian mages for example can ruin your day with their devastating reflect damage aura. An astute Druid can deal with them (they get one-shotted by Squall & SB/SS) before they even get a chance to fire up their aura. If they do get the aura up, nobody can touch them until it wears off. Not if you fancy staying alive, that is. But, again, a Druid can nip that one in the bud.

It's a challenging combo because each one has a very different and quite demanding role. But if each member knows what they're doing, you'll wipe out mobs and bosses in record time.

[Nightmare14]

That is interesting combination, making of it a triangle - nature + dream + hunting for 3 players... I was originally thinking to make all classes different to have most possible combinations and buffs.. is the doublling of buffs more useful, I have never crossed over this experience.. Thx

you cant double up on buffs but you can double up on plague as well as the wolfs and the nymph, which when used right can do massive amounts of damage (having 6 wolves {maxed wolves with +2 to skills} along with SOtP would mean that you'd have it up pretty much all the time, the nymph also gives a pretty nice aura skill that although may not stay up long in higher difficulties it still save your life and the nymph seems to cast it not too long after its effects have ended)

these classes workj wounders together with the ritualist having ToC and HoO and the Haruspex having ToE and the Ranger having AoTH with the buffs from the pets of the Ritualist and Ranger the team will be invincibe pretty much, this is what me and a couple friends have done,