My guildmates and I are going to make new characters and start the game fresh, I your opinion what is the best group makeup for running dungeons together.
I am not sure what you mean with top dungeon, I only know of some “common” ones (Sanctum of the burning souls, black castle, Monastery / Palace runs, Kara Korum runs, Chaos and so on)
If you are playing with a few friends in a group it’s worth visiting all the dungeon if you haven’t seen thrm yet (especially the low level dungeons if you are in their level range, you can get the Purist achievement fot doing them like that)
Sorry, I mean what class makeup is consider good for running dungeons.
For what exactly? You can easily do any dungeon in game, with any skill level (as in pugs can) with 2 soldiers, 1 rogue, 1 mage and 2 healers.
If you’re doing purists the only class that’s kind of must have is a guardian - they are lightyears ahead of the other soldiers pre level 80.
Ideally A good class makeup is 2 tanks (guard, conq, dt), 2 healers( pom, tos, bs) and two dps classes ( ranger, sin, barb, demo, necro, hox) Obviously it’s interchangeable and there are many combinations that work fine. but ideally that’s a good makeup for any dungeon. Most important at minimum is 1 of each type. tank, healer and dps.
What Spreadicus and Evito said is the general “META” for most dungeons.
Obviously, if you know the dungeons, know each others playstyle and especially got good knowledge with the class you can switch a group setup around alot, solo healing and tanking is often possible to make more room for DPS classes. But generally said, 2 tanks, 2 healers and 2 DPS is the most safe way to do all dungeons.
It also doesn’t really matter what classes you chose in each archetype, stacking guards, conqs assassins or barbs is totally viable, the only thing that might cause some “problems” are the healers since the burst healing does not stack.
Also, dungeons dont require 6 people, they can easily be done with only 5 or 4.
Dt or guard mt (dt is best imo) conq ot for buffs. Assassin dps (barb works too due to debuffing)
Necro mage dps with minions. Then tos aa 1st healer (for buffing necro pets and melee) then second healer either bs or pom depending on the armor / immunity of the dungeon (i prefer bs due to close to melees and debuffing/manifistations)
This is how i ran most of my HMs back in the day, with a real optimized group.
So:
DT + CONQ TANKS
ASSA OR BARB.
NECRO
TOS + BS
i would say this is the most generally optimal group setup.
If you are new or newish to the game, the is no reason to start min/maxing with group synergies. All I care for is that you play classes u enjoy so you stay in the game 
Just go with the structure of
2tanks (doesnt matter which ones)
2healers (not same class on both)
1rogue (for AA usage when you start khitai)
1mage (for AA and mageshield).
And PS: Dont listen to people that say conqs are offtanks, they are not to be trusted
I’d add to Moriala’s post that you are best of with 2 different soldiers too to spread out buffs for your group and debuffs on bosses but it’s not a requirement so if the only soldier your friends enjoy are conqs you will be fine with 2 conqs.
For rogue I would stay away from ranger because their dps is frankly a bit underwhelming in pve. You do need 1 ranged dps for some fights though so probably a demo/necro. You can have a pom/tos do those ranged jobs but that is just making things harder for yourself than they have to be which is unwise if you are starting fresh.
That’s probably the best advice, almost all group setups can work, especially weird ones (1 Tank, 5 ToS in Mona, we got 5 idols to heal and DPS through Burn Skin xD) can make even more fun if you manage to kill bosses in ways that you are not “supposed to”.
Min maxing is fun.
Although there technically is no such thing as an offtank in aoc, conqs are def offtanks.
How can it be an offtank when they tank things just as well as the other 2?
Well, imo conqs are better aoe tanks. And tanks that hold aggro on adds are generally considered ots. Mt is generally the best single target threat dude, which is would argue dt and guards are better at.
Not saying conqs cant be mt tho, but most conqs ive played with have generally been better players, thus do the harder job of snatching up aggro from spawns, and taking aggro from mt when needed.
I would go ahead and argue that the conqs you’ve played with havent been better players, if you have the overall view that their singletarget threatgeneration is worse then guard and dt. Conqs singletarget aggro like a mix of guardians strong initial aggro and dts strong aggro over time, once you get T4 gear and rf rings you reach around 1500-1800 dps tanking singletarget bosses, requires another playstyle then Hail of furious strikespam tho, thats where most people do it wrong.
I dont think AOE aggro is something measurable without giving a clear context of the situation. A tali dt would eat a conq alive if he would be able to hit x amount of targets at once, since the proccs splash and you would get seperate proccs from all mobs you are hitting.
Guardian is way better to handle adds since they have much shorter cds on their AOE aggrotool, and has better aoe ccs that keeps mobs in place unlike the conq 360 kb that spread stuff around the place, what I just listed along with stall the advance makes it much better aoe tank then conq. When we did mastertimers back in the day a Guardian were the obvious choice for dungeons like atzels fortress, irontower and AI district, cos of strong aoe aggro and lots and lots of ccs.
DTs as you say doesnt have the reach to be a top tier aoe tank, conq does. Conq has better group buffs than guard. DT buffs are also nice. Thus i would argue to optimize you need a DT and Conq tank, and the conq is better suited to deal with aoe adds. Thus conq is the greatest offtank, in my optimal group.
I disagree with basically everything you wrote.
Fine, but op asked for what was optimal. Not whatever can work.
- Every tank in the game can do every job in the game just fine. Therefor, there is no offtank.
- If you fail to tank many adds on DT cause of limited reach, its because you need to practice, once u learn to pick up adds efficiently with irritate + hex + charge + whitehits then position yourself and the mobs well so u can hit multiple and splash, you will have amazing aoe aggro.
- Guardians dps buffs are stronger then conqs in a melleheavy groupsetup
- Guardian has way better tools of dealing with multiple adds, both in ccs and aggro. 2 knockbacks, 2 stuns where one of them is massive aoe stun.
- Conq is not weaker in singletarget aggro then guard.
- 2 Guardians were the first tanks to achieve the master of the trials achievment (dungeon timetrials), i dont know what would be better examples in the game for activities that requires optimal groupsetups.
- Guardian was tanking the fastest slithering chaos run documented (without ranger oneshots or exploits) 6m35s
Jeez, you would argue with a rock if you could. Plopp down your optimal group setup for general use then, and be done with it.
Dont tell me that OP asked for whats optimal, then you hate on me for correcting you 