Khat's Newbie Guide for Multiboxing Vol. 2

[Khatovar]

A Multiboxing Guide for Newbies - Vol. 2

This is meant to be the 2nd guide. The first one you should read is the Newb's Guide to Multiboxing.

This guide will go over various tips and tricks that you can use to move your boxing experience out of Newbdom and into the upper echelons of...Lesser Newbdom. Perhaps they'll even start you on the road to Facemelting.

I can't claim that this even covers a fraction of the more "advanced" techniques we use as boxers. If I tried to cover everything, I'd be writing for months. These are just some of the things you'll want to look at once you've gotten the basics down and are looking to get more refined.

While I'll mostly talk about WoW-specific information, it can also apply to other games. Especially things related to the actual multiboxing programs. There's been more than a few things I've figured out in one game that I later incorporated into my setup for another.

Characters

One of the most common questions we get is "What should my team be?" or "Will this team work?" There's dozens of different answers, and those answers can change at any given time. It boils down to the same thing. Your first team is going to be all about learning.

There's a good chance that the team you start with isn't going to be the team you stick with. I've been through about 2 dozen different team variations since I started. So don't get caught up in the idea that you have to pick the ideal team to start with. It's better to level up as many different classes as you can while you have your RAF bonus XP, so you can easily change things later. After playing with the RAF XP bonuses, it's very tedious to have to go back up and level at the normal rate.

Between that and the learning curve you'll face, the best thing to do is usually to stick to all the same class where possible. While leveling, especially if you don't spend too much time in dungeons, there's no need for a dedicated tank and healer. If you do want to be able to use the Dungeon Finder, you can always pick a class that can do multiple roles, such as druids, and use dual-spec to have a healer and tank.

Once you have the basics down and are comfortable with controlling your toons, you can start mixing it up. At this point, you can look at things like the synergy of the classes and specs. For example, Shamans and Paladins bring a lot of buffs to the table. Mages provide ports while leveling and food and water. Having a hunter for a pet offtank, misdirect etc can be very useful. Think about what you need or want and go from there.

You'll also want to look at how much actual work you want to do with your team. My team is Prot Pally, Ret Pally, Enhance Shaman, Resto Shaman and Unholy DK. I would never suggest this team to a new player. I probably wouldn't even suggest it to a seasoned player. This sort of team requires a lot of micromanagement in watching for procs, dealing with movement and tweaking the setup, never mind learning all the ins-and-outs of how each different spec and class needs to be played. If you're not a masochist who revels in that kind of tedious research and trial and error, a team like that could make you throw your computer through a wall. I'm not saying I'm brilliant and anyone who plays an easier setup is a drooling idiot. If I was brilliant, I'd be playing a team that does far better DPS and requires far less work.

But to tie in to that, always play something you like playing. I'm quite content not having the biggest numbers because I love my team. I've played all sorts of different groups and some classes I simply didn't like playing, no matter what they had to offer. They just didn't fit my playstyle. If you don't enjoy a class, nothing says you have to play it. If you want to try an unconventional setup, go for it. We all have opinions that we can offer, but at the end of the day, it's your group and you should play how you want to play.

Your UI

Your UI is a vital part of multiboxing. When you're playing solo, you might have no problem having a dozen different addons flashing all sorts of information at you, but that can become problematic with more toons throwing more information at you. As a multiboxer, you need to be able to find as much real information as easily and quickly as possible. You're going to have enough to try and keep track of without having useless information fighting for your attention.

Now, what some people call useless, other's call vital. Personally, I don't really care about seeing DPS and threat meters. All I care about is "Who's dying, me or the mob?" So, Omen and the like are useless to me. Other people are always watching their performance to make adjustments. That's how they roll. Doesn't make either one right or wrong.

Here's some links to screenshots of my UI setup.

In Combat
Out of Combat

It's going to be up to you to decide what you need and don't need when and only experience is going to let you know what you're missing and what has to go. But here's a few things that you'll want to consider.


Jamba

First and foremost is Jamba. It is the ultimate addon designed specifically for multiboxers. It does so much that it's almost obscene. Even if you don't use everything, there's still going to be several parts of it that you are going to find invaluable. I simply can't sing high enough praises for what Jafula has done for the multiboxing community with Jamba. I even have a handy guide that will walk you through everything.


Quest Tracking

You will want a quick way to see how your team is progressing through quests. Most use Jamba, since it does so many other things that multiboxers need anyway. But you can also use things like Carbonite or another questtracker. I use tomQuest2.



Unit Frames

You can stick with the default frames or you can go with custom frames, but either way, they are the place where you can keep track of things like health, mana, buffs, debuffs, casting and so on. No matter which route you go, you will want to make sure the information is easy to see and interpret at a glance. A dark health bar on a dark background may look sweet, but it's not going to be very practical if you can't immediately tell how much health your toons have. Being able to see all your buffs in one place might seem like a good idea, but you'd probably get more mileage out of filtering your buffs down so only vital ones are tracked.



Macro Extender

Blizzard's default macro interface is not exactly the most effective system. Since we require so many macros doing so many things, we need as much macro space and as many characters per macro as we can get. Being able to sort and order them is also useful. Many multiboxers make use of macro addons like BindPad, SuperDuperMacro or Jamba-Macro.


Buffing

A buffing addon makes life so much easier for multiboxers. An addon like SmartBuff will not only save you work, but it'll also save you macros. Once you configure SmartBuff, you can simply add /click [nomounted] SmartBuff_KeyButton to your follow macro and every time you press follow, you'll also reapply any buffs that are dead or dying.


Bar Mods

The default bars work just fine but, I'm a fan of bar mods because they are so configurable. I enjoy being able to scale them and change the shape or number of slots. For example, I set up a Dominos bar to look just like my Naga's number pad. I also have certain bars hidden in certain situations, such as a bar that only shows with a modifier for my crafting skills. They're also easier to set up keybindings for.


Cooldown Timers

With so many things to keep track of, you'll want an easy way to see timers. I have two things I put under this category. The first is Cooldown timers. This would be something that can keep track of who cast what when and how long until they can use it again, like Bloodlust. For this I use Deadly Boss Mods with the Spell Timers addon. This gives me a nice visual set of bars that count down whatever I decide to track.

The other is a way to enhance the cooldown spiral on icons. I use OmniCC for this since it will work on just about any frame, so I can add a cooldown spiral on my party frames to let me know when various party member buffs are going to expire, like water or lightning shield.


Scrolling Combat Text

Getting a good, configurable combat text mod can really help you keep track of things you might forget about. I've used MikScrollingBattleText for ages and in so many different ways. I've used it to look for procs, cooldowns, expiring buffs, anything that I might miss in the heat of battle can pop up right there in my face.


Of course, there's many more addons that people use, but I'm focusing only on the things that will effect your multiboxing. Auction mods and things like that are great to have, but they aren't going to give you any vital information in combat or information that helps you keep track of what is going on with your slave toons.