A Couple of Questions from a new Multi-Boxer about Group/RAF setup.

[Ravish]

Hi,

I have been dual boxing for a while, but it’s only recently that someone put me in touch with this site, it’s got great information and I didn’t know there was so much more than could be done!

Well it’s almost Christmas, so having some time off and with Blizzards current sale on new accounts I thought I would try experimenting with getting a whole team together. My goal is to be able to do pve content, I'm thinking of 5 man heroics and some of the older raid contents (eg WoTLK).

I have a couple of questions before I bite the bullet.

I currently have a Priest, Paladin and Druid on one account and a DK on the other. All are level 85-90 at the moment. What do you guys think would be a good set of classes to fit with these? Reading a lot of the posts here I thought of starting with 3 more druids as this gives me flexibility with roles at higher levels. I also see that lots of people like teams of shaman, but this would be a completely new class to me. I think it would be best to start with something that’s not too complicated.

Secondly I wanted some reassurance that I was doing the right thing with RAF to make the most of the levelling bonuses. My thinking is to link the first new RAF account to my main (the one with the Dru/Pally/Priest), then link the second new RAF to the first, then the third new RAF to the second, in a chain. I could then boost from one of the main account characters.
I’m sure there must also be a way of using the grant levels to my advantage, but can’t quite get my head around it. Any advice? I read a post Ualaa made about linking them into two chains, but if I’m only looking to level 3 new chars to start with, isn’t it best to keep them all in one chain?

Also, how do you guys find playing 5 instances of the game on one computer? I plan to trial using ISBoxer and have an Alienware M17xR3 with external 24”dell monitor (Intel i7 2670QM, 4Gb memory and SSD). Do you think this would work?

Thanks for the help,

Ravish.

[Ualaa]

Personally, if you have two accounts now.
And the only toon you have on the second account is a DK.
I'd either ditch the account entirely, or character transfer the DK to your primary account if there were a lot of achievements/gold/BoP items you wanted to save.

The reason for that is Recruit a Friend.

If you go with two existing accounts: A & B.
You need two RAF chains:
A > D > E
B > C

In which case 'A' gets to boost BC & DE.
But A is not going to receive a lot of granted levels.
Which means, not a lot of characters on A.

If you were to transfer the DK to A (or just ditch the account, if there wasn't a lot of investment into the character).
That would leave you with just A.
And you could do a stronger RAF chain:
A > B > C
A > D > E
(That is two chains actually).

With two chains going, when you boost toons on BC & DE (level all four together), A can create a character of the same class (after BCDE reach 80th).
A then levels the character to 2nd (and almost 3rd), then B grants levels to A (bringing the toon to 41st) and then D grants levels to A (bringing the toon to 80th)... and the same percentage into 80th as they were into 2nd.

Two RAF chains get a lot of granted characters on the single parent account.

Also, with two jumps in the chain (two referrals), granted levels cascade very well.
If you level/boost four toons on BCDE, then B/D each create two toons and get them to second level...
C/E grant level to those two toons, who can then grant levels to A based solely on levels that were granted to their level 2s.

That gets you (per four toons boosted on BCDE, with A):
A: 6 granted toons
B/D: 4 boosted toons & 2 granted toons.
C/E: 4 boosted toons.

The more options you have the better.
You never know what is going to be nerfed, in a way that will make you not like to play it for an expansion.
Also you never know what is going to be buffed, in such a way that it's very strong mechanically and you'll enjoy having.
Plus more toons is more options, including tradeskills (transmutes from Tailoring/Alchemy can be profitable, as can 1/Day card combines from Inscription etc).

I personally like: Druids, Shaman, Warlocks, Paladins, Death Knights, Monks.
I'm RAF leveling (and moving to 10-boxing; but you could halve each team I'm doing) to have:
a) 1x Holy Paladin, 4x Frost DK, 5x Ret Paladin
b) 10x Feral Druid (or a mix of Feral/Resto)
c) 7x Warlocks (Demo/Destro, undecided), 3x Resto Druids
d) 10x Resto Shaman (or a mix of Enhance/Resto)
e) 10x Priests
f) 10x Monks
g) 10x Hunters or Mages (undecided)





Another consideration is server.
If you have a lot of friends, or guild ties to the existing server, you'll probably stay wherever you are.

If you don't, or are willing to experiment, then playing with other boxers absolutely rocks.
The procedure would be a server transfer on 'a Booster', to the new server.
That character would have heirlooms/gold/valuables/bags etc in their inventory or bank (but not guild bank).
If you ever didn't like it, you could transfer back.

The boxing guilds are level 25, so you get all the perks.

In the US, the top/largest boxing guilds are: (Horde) <The Zerg> on Magtheridon & (Alliance) <Legion of Boom> on Kil'jaeden.
In the EU, the top/largest boxing guilds are: (Horde) <GIMP> on Grim'Batol & (Alliance) <Autobots Roll Out> on Outland.

I'm in the process of RAF, after transferring a 5-box team from my original server to play with the guys in <The Zerg>.
Having a lot of toons is really nice, and I like playing with other boxers a lot.





You can give your computer a stress test.

Trial accounts are free.
You can essentially have as many as you'd like.
Sure, they're trial accounts, so limited in a lot of ways.

But for interests sake, get five or maybe ten.
Create your toons and take them to Stormwind or Orgrimmar, outside the more used Auction House.
There are a ton of characters there, and that's going to be a great stress test for your system.

Log your toons in, five together since you want to five box.
See how it goes.
Ultra graphics are hard on the system.
In particular: Viewing Distance, Shadows, Weather Effects, Water Quality, Light Shafts, Reflections...
I'm happy with low-medium settings on the slaves and medium settings on the master, but close to max View Distance on everyone.

You can also Shift + Control + Escape, go to the Performance Tab.
Click Resource Monitor.
Anything that is consistently close to 100% is a bottleneck.
Which means upgrading that, will improve your play.
If you're smooth (or smooth enough... realizing that 40-man PvP and 25-man Raids might be a similar tax on your system, but almost everything else will be a lot smoother) add a few more trial accounts to increase the system strain.
Whichever resources are the closest to 100% of the things you'll eventually want to upgrade first.
As in, if your CPU is higher use than anything else, that will be the best thing to upgrade whenever you decide you're upgrading your system.
You can download a program called GPU-Z, which will measure the utilization of your graphics card.

[Ravish]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply Ualaa, thats given me a lot to think about.

I had not thought about abandoning my current second account, but the more I think about it the more it seems to make sense. The account is not yet upgraded to MoP (im currently using a 10day free upgrade trial), so it wouldnt be too much of a financial loss. The DK is only level 85 and I could pay to transfer it to my main account as I quite like the idea of leading with a frost DK to boost the others through dungeons.

Running with 10 chars at once seems like some serious advanced class multi-boxing you got going on there. Keeping four of the same class to start with seems to make sense to me, perhaps the druids or even mages - something I can setup fairly simple cast sequence macros for.

The downside to having a load more characters is that I will need to make a lot more gold, if for nothing else than to buy the flight skills. I'm sure there must be some good guides about on how to using a 5 man team to farm some gold. Or like you say use tradeskills.

Going to setup some trial accounts and see how I get on.

[Ualaa]

I'm currently using an 85 Frost DK, in close to full Conquest gear (from the 4.3 season).
So, lots of stamina... but not necessarily optimal PvE stats.
Still, absolutely no issues killing mobs through level 80 instances with four toons either parked near the zone in or on /follow to me.

I've been transferring 4k, from my banker to my DK.
And then giving 1k to each of the four toons I am boosting.
With the exception of the Paladin/DKs and the Druids (who bought epic flight and faster flight), the characters are fairly close to 1k gold at 80th.
It is close to a break even, for Slow Mount > Fast Mount > Slow Flyer > Azeroth & Cold Flying.

The Epic Flight & 310% Flight will set you back, more than your income from 1st to 80th.
That's also assuming instance boosting, selling BoPs and mailing all BoEs to an auction mule.
Who does not include the BoEs against the cost of Slow/Fast/Slow_Flying/Azeroth/Cold.

[Ravish]

Thanks again Ualaa, sounds like using my DK shouldn't be a problem as its pve geared. Had a look on here at a few posts about gold making, tradeskills/playing the auction house always seems to backfire on me and people seem to be having mixed results, so I think tiller farming and daily quests on 5 toons should be fine for making some gold back when they get to 90.

The computer worked fine for 5 toons, memory was almost maxed out, but cpu/graphics was working at around 75% in Org. Seemed to be perfectly playable though. Quite an experience have your own little army of 4 toons following you around.

Do you have a list of which instances you find best at each level? I'm assuming the dungeon finder doesn't work for boosting if you have a level 85 in the group?

I'm going to give ISBoxer a trail next weekend so will use the referral link in your guide.

Thanks again.

[Ravish]

Just found this thread which has some suggestions about which instances to boost in, but seems to be pre MoP. I guess most of it will be the same.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/4...ting-Questions

[MiRai]

Just found this thread which has some suggestions about which instances to boost in, but seems to be pre MoP. I guess most of it will be the same.

This is the most recent thread on instance boosting.

[Ualaa]

There was a recent thread, probably the one linked by MiRai...
It had a number of people giving suggestions on where to go, and when.

I kind of used a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

I'm on a pvp server, and the lower toons are pretty much insta-dead if anyone wants to kill them.
The 85 booster loses, but can usually take a 90th to around 1/3rd life if they engage.
I'm assuming anyone with a decent amount of pvp gearing at 90th would smear the floor with me though...

Anyway, I'm using:
01-11 Quest, following Zygor's Guide for whatever race I am.
11-22 Shadowfang Keep (can do Scarlet Monastery at 20th, but SFK is still decent speed at 20-22 and there are A LOT of SM runs regardless).
-- Can park your toons at the gate, immediately beyond the quest givers...
-- Only need to have them on follow, once they can do the quests... and then park them at the gate once those are done.
22-36 Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral/Graveyard side till 26th, quests on both sides at that point, then Cathedral/Graveyard till 36th; Armory/Archery even is annoying, I only do that once for the quests which are available at 26th (on both sides))... slaves on follow throughout.
36-44 Scholomance
-- Run the slaves down the steps from zone in, stop immediately at the edge of the stairs (on the floor level, but almost touching the stairs still); they get experience for the whole dungeon from there.
-- Only have them on follow for the quest line; beware the first boss aggros from a huge range with lowbies on follow.
44-48 Stratholme (Dead Side... through the service gate)... slaves on follow throughout.
48-58/60 BRD (Can head to Outland at 58th, but I prefer 60th so I don't have to be slaughtered 5-6x corpse hopping to the Burning Crusade gate more than once)
58/60-62 Ramparts.
-- Can park the slaves at the near end of the first bridge, and they'll get experience for the whole dungeon; only need them on follow for the quests once.
62-64 Blood Furnace
64-65 Auchindoun - Mana Tombs [North] (Slaves on follow throughout; break a short distance from bosses, kill them, re-follow through)
65-66 Auchindoun - Crypts [West] (Slaves on follow again)
66-68 Auchindoun - Sethekk Halls [East] (Slaves on follow; can head to Northrend at 68th)
68-69 Auchindoun - Shadow Labs [South] For the achievement; cannot take the quests until 68th.
69-71 Utgarde Keep... Slaves on follow.
71-73 Nexus... Slaves on follow mostly, re-gather whenever you drop them off; beware the wandering guys who go up and down the connecting halls, if you park them anywhere.
73-74.5 Drak'Tharon Keep... Slaves on follow.
74-76 Gundrak... Slaves on follow.
76-78 Halls of Stone... Slaves on follow.
78-80 Halls of Lightning... Slaves on follow.

I hearth out of whatever instance they're in, at 22 (for slow ground mount), 44 (fast ground mount), 60 (flying mount and azeroth flying), and after ending BC (cold flying).

[mickeymouse]

hey guys i have a quick question for you.

If i have A -> B , A -> C and an D not linked to anything is it possible to dual box a group of 5 (all getting raf experience) ? was thinking if A -> B, A->C and D->E works or do i have to be in different groups ? ABC separately with D and E?

[Ualaa]

It doesn't matter if the links are separate from each other or in one long chain.

In order to get RAF experience, you need:
a) Two accounts, directly RAF linked
b) Characters from those accounts, grouped together
c) Within +/- four levels of each other
d) Both characters at 79th level, or lower
e) Killing content, or turning in quests, that has not greyed out to either of them
f) Within a certain physical range of each other

If you have:
A > B
A > C
D > E

To fulfill these requirements, you cannot boost.
B & C, need A to be low level like themselves.
D & E, need to be of similar level.
That is five characters, so you can level together just fine, via Quests/Dungeons/PvP.
But you don't have space in the group for an extra person to run you through dungeons.

If D is not linked at all, it won't get RAF experience.





Basically if you have one account [A] existing (this is the strongest RAF method):
A > B > C
A > D > E
In this case A boosts; if brand new, level a x5 group with a Pally/Druid on 'A' to 85+ then use that to boost.

If you have to have two accounts [A & B], and cannot consolidate toons onto a single account or otherwise only use one of the two for the RAF:
A > B > C
D > E
You can boost with A, as there is a BC and DE link for RAF, but A will end up with half as many toons as you boost.

If you have three accounts [A, B, & C] or more...
A > D
B > E
C ??
You basically need to RAF in phases, where you create two RAF links A>D and B>E, then use C to boost; later RAF C>F and boost those, keeping or ditching 'F'...




I'm doing the third option, as I already have five accounts [A, B, C, D, & E].
And want to end up with ten.
Phase 1: E Boosts A>F & C>G.
Phase 2: E Boosts D>H & E>I.
Phase 3: A Boosts E>J.