Newbie - Interested in Dual-boxing WoW

[Mancolt]

So I'll admit, I haven't finished reading all of the stickies yet. But I've noticed a few things in reading other threads that have led to some questions:

Many people seem to multibox 3-5 characters. Is this for the added challenge, additional effectiveness, or is multiboxing just 2 characters not worthwhile? I initially became interested in multiboxing as a way to RaF myself and level 2 characters very quickly. At the time, I didn't realize there was a whole community devoted to playing the game this way. Initially, I had intended on multiboxing only to level them with the 300% xp gain, and then playing each character individually. But after reading this forum, I'm intrigued at the possibilities beyond just leveling them.

Are people paying for 5 subscriptions when doing this? I'm interested in learning more, and putting together my own complete 5-man team at some point down the road is very appealing. But I don't want to pay $75/month in subscriptions to do this. I've seen some threads on daisy chaining RaF's, I imagine to get the benefit of free game time with paid subscriptions on 4 of the 5 accounts, but what about once those end? I realize having 5 subscriptions might be worth it to some, and I completely understand that. I'm asking the question, hoping there's a way to do this that would bring the price down to a point that's financially reasonable for me. And along these lines, you have to buy 4 additional copies of the base game and 4 additional copies of WoD, right?

It seems that caster/ranged classes are the easiest to learn on. For that reason, I was thinking of going with 2 mages, 2 shamans, or 2 hunters. And from what I've read in stickies, it seems like playing 2 of the same class is the easiest way to learn. I have some experience with macros, and am comfortable enough making them that I'm not discouraged at the thought of binding 2 different actions for 2 different classes to 1 key. Eventually, I'd love to run something like a healer and tank, or tank and DPS, but I certainly understand starting with the basics. Is there a particular class that's frequently recommended as the easiest for a beginner to dual-box? One for which there are plenty of tutorials and basic set up guides so that you can get up and running as quickly and easily as possible?

Thanks in advance for any responses. I'm looking forward to learning a lot about multiboxing from you guys.

[luxlunae]

Dual-boxing is a great way to try out the idea for a month for only the $9.99 that wow currently costs. There is plenty of scope for exploring the hobby from 1-60, whether with questing pairs, dpsing in dungeons (please only do this once you are competent in the open world!), or even running a tank/heal combination in dungeons. I personally have only dual boxed this expansion, except right now I am doing a 5 box with 4 "free" old veteran accounts mostly as a proof of concept.

As of today you don't have to pay the $75 a month. But yes, plenty of people do. It depends on how you look at your hobbies. Many people think that $75 is a reasonable amount to pay monthly for a hobby. Most console gamers, for example, spend that to buy one or two games a month. Most drinkers could spend that in one night. All about priorities. You certainly do not have to buy 5x copies of Draenor (I personally haven't), but there are people that run 10 boxes and find that worth it.

I think that shaman are commonly the most popular class to start with. Ranged + with heals (that dont break form like shadowform for priests). Moonkins have an annoying eclipse mechanic that even experienced boxers find a PITA to deal with.

As for your first healer/tank pair, I'd go with prot paladin, disc priest. Welcome to the community, don't forget to check out the IRC chat rooms if you get stuck and can't find an answer to a problem after an honest attempt to do so.

[Mancolt]

Thanks for addressing all my questions! I'm looking forward to giving this a shot. I completely understand what you're saying as far as hobbies go, and you're right: $75/month really isn't a bad total at all if this is your primary hobby. I unfortunately am attracted to expensive hobbies, so I've gotta keep this one a little more reasonable, which is why I'm not planning on going beyond 2 subscriptions at this point.

I'm pretty sure the base game includes everything through MoP (so up to level 90). So I could try out dualboxing on just that for now. And as you've said, I plan to refine my dual-boxing skills extensively before I venture into a dungeon or group with anyone.

How complicated are the macros that multiboxers tend to use? A lot of what I'm reading seems to cover the otherwise basic functions (jumping, targeting, assisting, etc) that I take for granted when only controlling 1 character. When planning out a non-same class/spec character set, do you plan out and map things like: key 1 = opener, key 2 = spam attack, key 3 = interrupt, key 4 = heal, key 5 = AoE, etc and just make sure to put an appropriate spell in that slot for each character? Or am I oversimplifying things, and you actually use much more complicated macros so that you can do more advanced things while playing multiple characters?

Do multiboxers tend to modify attack strategies to simplify them? Depending on the class, there are a huge number of spells/abilities, each that's optimal in certain situations. It can be challenging enough mastering this when playing 1 class at a time...I can't imagine knowing each spell to use for 3-5 different classes at the same time. But I do know when I need to interrupt, or heal, or AoE. As a rule of thumb for a new multiboxer, should I avoid "majoring in the minors" and just focus on the big things like binding an opener key, a point builder/spam attack, heal, AoE, interrupt, and finisher? I guess this is a moot point if I'm doing the same class/spec since I would just map the same actions on each one, but I'm curious in case I venture to something more advanced like Healer/Tank or DPS/Tank in the future.

I have a Logitech G600 mouse. I read in one of the newbie guides (http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/2...-minutes-Setup) that the Logitech software should be turned off, or is this just to get some special keyboard function and I don't have to worry about my mouse? I currently have my G9 - G20 keys bound to 1-= via the Logitech software, and have found this to be a huge help when playing only 1 character at a time.

What is Jamba? Khatover references it in his "Newb's Guide to Multiboxing".

Thanks again. I'm hoping to start the free ISBoxer trial this weekend and RaF an account to myself.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

One of the nifty things about WoW is you can do your macros in regular macros, or an addon like Gnome Sequencer, or via full-featured multiboxing tools like ISBoxer. The nifty thing about doing macros in ISBoxer is that you don't need to maintain all the macros across every toon every time you make a change. Just re-export, /console reloadui, and voila.

Jamba is an addon that provides a lot of "quality of life" improvements for multiboxers, such as automagically taking the same flight path, warning you when a follower breaks follow, selling the same piece of junk loot on all your toons at the same time, quest synchronization/monitoring, and a whole bunch more. It's not technically needed but it's a good way to get a lot of things done easier and without having to scrounge up mods and tweaks for all the various areas where multiboxing is tedious.

[Wubsie]

How complicated are the macros that multiboxers tend to use? A lot of what I'm reading seems to cover the otherwise basic functions (jumping, targeting, assisting, etc) that I take for granted when only controlling 1 character. When planning out a non-same class/spec character set, do you plan out and map things like: key 1 = opener, key 2 = spam attack, key 3 = interrupt, key 4 = heal, key 5 = AoE, etc and just make sure to put an appropriate spell in that slot for each character? Or am I oversimplifying things, and you actually use much more complicated macros so that you can do more advanced things while playing multiple characters?

Do multiboxers tend to modify attack strategies to simplify them? Depending on the class, there are a huge number of spells/abilities, each that's optimal in certain situations. It can be challenging enough mastering this when playing 1 class at a time...I can't imagine knowing each spell to use for 3-5 different classes at the same time. But I do know when I need to interrupt, or heal, or AoE. As a rule of thumb for a new multiboxer, should I avoid "majoring in the minors" and just focus on the big things like binding an opener key, a point builder/spam attack, heal, AoE, interrupt, and finisher? I guess this is a moot point if I'm doing the same class/spec since I would just map the same actions on each one, but I'm curious in case I venture to something more advanced like Healer/Tank or DPS/Tank in the future.

I'm sure someone like Mercurio would be much more qualified to answer this, but I've recently started running a mixed group consisting of:

Brewmaster Monk (Tank)
Priest (Healer)
Destro Lock (DPS)
Arcane Mage (DPS)
BM-hunter (DPS)

And so far I've been using (quite succesfully) a very simplistic system of Round-Robins to rotate a bunch of macros and spells on all the characters. Basically, a Round-Robin can be used to send a keystroke to a single (or multiple) client at a time in sequence. The best example of where this is useful would be interrupts, where you would have Character1 use an interrupt when you first press it, second press makes Character2 use an interrupt, etcetc. These however can also be used to send a different keystroke to the clients each time you press it. So for example you could do something like:

1 (press #1) = 1
1 (press #2) = 2
1 (press #3) = 3
1 (press #4) = 4

This is sort of what I have for my group with a few additions. For example: my keystrokes send more than 1 key per press, so that they keys with higher priority macros/spells are sent more often, making them more likely to be used if they are available. To keep it organized, I've arranged them so the lower the number it's bound to, the higher the priority. Currently I have only set up a single target and AOE rotation, but it's gotten my team to lvl 72 without any real issues (other than ones caused by me breaking macros).

The macros I use are quite simplistic, as I'm not that good with them. Mainly I have a bunch of castsequences to rotate abilities according to cooldowns and to apply dots when changing targets, Lock and Hunter automatically ressing their pets if they die, hunter casting misdirect on tank macroed in to everything and so forth...

There are plenty of ways to improve upon what I've set up, and much much more advanced techniques to use, so take this with a grain of salt. However, hopefully it helps illustrate how a mixed group could work and what the basic idea is in a very simplified way.

[emitchell109]

Yea, multi-boxing is very fun. I love to tank and not only tank I love to pull fast/wild/big. So I went with a tank/healer combo to start it was a bit of a learning curve. But once I mastered the break follow/pick up follow and heal macros on my mouse I am not staying in almost constant combat.
No more of that having to wait on the healer, who if you DONT actually wait on will pitch a fit and possibly leave whilst you are in the middle of a mosh pit pull.. So spiteful at times, it is just a game. lol

My PREFERED tank of choice in dual boxing is druid tank.
Ran it with priest and shami heals both have their merit. But to me druid tanking is my cup of tea.

Also rocking a triple bm/marks hunter set
4x paladins with prot/ret/ret/holy <-- One was named FailBox JUST BECAUSE I thought it would be funny, and let me tell you who likes to run off and fall off cliffs..
Failbox.

Next pack I am thinking 3-4 Locks afflict/demon and a healer. Maybe rDruid. Not sure just yet

What server and faction will you be boxing on? Always down to grind some instances with fellow boxers!
Add me
Onoes#1714 [Gamer Tag]

[Mancolt]

I recently rolled a Rogue on Arthas. After creating a spreadsheet with most of the servers and their details, and applying a relative ranking to each category (horde population, guild progression, time zone, etc) I came up with an overall ranking, and Arthas was pretty high on my list. It was (at the time) medium population, Eastern Standard Time, good guild progression, PvP, non-RP, and some other factors that appealed to me. I can be a huge nerd when it comes to making decisions and I'm super comfortable with Microsoft Excel, so I use it to help me with a lot of random things.

At this point in time, I only plan on multiboxing through the RaF period, and maybe for a little bit beyond that. But that could definitely change if I find myself really enjoying it. I still think I'll be using it mainly for leveling and possibly some gold farming, but I primarily want to level up a bunch of toons so I can find my favorite and make that my main that I eventually raid with.

There's so much to read and understand that it can be a little daunting. As someone who has never multiboxed, is there a particular guide you'd recommend that I follow step by step? Or would it be better to follow a guide like this: http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/2...-minutes-Setup and then just start playing around once I'm in ISBoxer? I feel like I just need to take the plunge and start messing around with it, because I don't think I'm ever gonna feel completely comfortable.

[Wubsie]

There's so much to read and understand that it can be a little daunting. As someone who has never multiboxed, is there a particular guide you'd recommend that I follow step by step? Or would it be better to follow a guide like this: http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/2...-minutes-Setup and then just start playing around once I'm in ISBoxer? I feel like I just need to take the plunge and start messing around with it, because I don't think I'm ever gonna feel completely comfortable.

For the initial set up, I find this to be a good video tutorial on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvsGXzfi3xU

There's alot of information on that, but just to get everything set up, it's the first 5 or so minutes that should run you through the process of setting up your team with the quick setup wizard. Or alternatively you can see Mirai fly through the set up here starting at the 19:40 mark. The video was meant to demonstrate the advantages of the quick setup wizard over doing things manually, so anything previous to that is the "old" way of doing things

Personally I found Mirai's other tutorials incredibly helpful as well. He's also made a series called Multiboxing Gameplay Basics, covering quite a few topics.

Similarly to what you're saying I just started fiddling with ISBoxer once I was up and running. I did (and sometimes still do) break things accidentally, but I see it as a learning experience. I've discovered many things I probably would not have otherwise found out about while pulling my hair out and trying to figure out why things are not working. I'd say go for it and play around with things. Just make sure to keep safe copies of your profile. :P

[Mancolt]

Things got busy, and I set this aside for a couple weeks. Haven't yet set up my other accounts, but am hoping to do so in the next week or two.

At this point, I really just want to get some toons to level 100 so I can decide which one(s) I want to experience end-game PvE and PvP content with. Eventually, I may look into truly multiboxing my own team of 5. But for now, my goal is to play my level 100, and power level 4 additional accounts via RaF. I've also got two friends that might come back to WoW if I set them up with a level 90. I'll probably set them up with a few level 90s, in case they don't like a particular class. I want to play all 5 so that I don't compromise anyone else's dungeon experience with me trying (keyword: trying) to play multiple characters. And 4 additional copies of the base game was so cheap, why not have the extra accounts. Don't know yet whether I'll get WoD for them, that's definitely TBD once I get a couple level 90's on each.

I still haven't ruled out ISBoxer, but I'm hoping there's a free alternative if all I want to do is play my 100, while the additional 4 follow along. Don't really care that they do much at all, aside from pick up quests and follow and stay alive. Is ISBoxer still the best option for this, or would HKN work just fine, and be relatively easy to setup since I'm not trying to do anything advanced with the followers? I think Jamba will still be a really useful addon, even with such minimal requirements of the followers.

Some additional questions I'm wondering about (some of them WoW/RaF specific, not multiboxing):

1. Does HKN or any other free alternative offer the ability to customize video settings? Since I'll really only be playing my main, I want that on my primary monitor. I'd like to have the other 4 games showing in quadrants on my 2nd monitor. ISBoxer is probably the easiest way to set this up, but if there's a free solution that's just a little more work, I'd like to look into it.

2. What system specs would you recommend for multiboxing 5 accounts. I've been thinking about a new PC for awhile, and this might just be the impetus. What are the minimum settings I can run the 4 "non-primary" WoW instances on?

3. If I RaF all accounts from my main, do they still get the +300% XP bonus even though the main would be a level 100? Do I just need to make sure they stay within 100 yards of the main? The reason for referring in this manner is so I can grant all levels back to my main account. I may not need 4 accounts worth of level granting though, so I may do a hybrid main referral to 2 accounts, and daisy chain 2 secondary accounts off of those other 2 secondary accounts. Plus that gives my main account the most free game time, should I choose not to continue on with all of the additional accounts.

4. Is the X-53 Rocket the only multi-person flying mount? I'm assuming this would be a big benefit to have, which I can get by buying the extra game time. But if meeting stones work for summoning all party members (unclear on the specifics, as I've never used them) this might not be necessary at all.

5. From my understanding, I can't do LFD with 4 level 15s and a level 100 in a party. So will I need to physically travel to the entrance of the instances, and with how many of the characters [my thought is 2 (#s 1&2): 1 summons 3 who summons 5, and 2 summons 4]? How close in level must all party members be in order to do LFD? Can I use the meeting stone if I get there as a level 100 to summon the rest of the group? Does the meeting stone provide any benefits, or will the RaF summons work better?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Regarding the window resize thing: http://www.bing.com/search?q=hotkeynet+window+resize