PVE Class Combinations

From Dual-Boxing Wiki

Designing Your Team

"How many and which classes should I use?" This is probably the most common gameplay-related question among new mutliboxers. Due to the complexity of controlling multiple characters and the limited number of keybinds available, you must strike a balance between simplicity and flexibility. Following are some of the issues to consider in setting up your new team.
Also consider the gear types: it will take a lot longer to gear them up when they share gear.

Divying up Your Keybinds

Blizzard designs each class to have a rich set of abilities, and most solo players fill their action bars. If you roll a group of one class (like the popluar Shaman x 5), you will be able to take advantage of most of that class' abilities. Once you add a second class, you have to split your available keybinds between the two classes, forcing you to limit yourself to only their most commonly used or most powerful abilities. As you add classes to your team, you further limit the number of abilities you can use from each class. In some cases, you can stack different spells on a single keybind (for example, 2 may be your "nuke" key, bound to a Warlock's Shadow Bolt, a Shaman's Lightning Bolt, and a Mage's Fireball); however, you should consider the differences in cast times, and loss of flexibility to only cast one of these spells.

Ranged vs. Melee

The vast majority of multiboxers move their team by using macros based on "/follow". Since melee combat relies heavily on character position relative to the target, and following is imprecise, melee classes and specs are significantly more difficult to multibox than ranged classes/specs. The "lead" character (very often a prot pally in PvE teams) is the exception to this rule, since the lead's movement is typically controlled in the same way as a solo player's character.

Roles

If you're looking for PvE action, you probably want the holy trinity of Tank/DPS/Healer. If you hope to progress into endgame content, you will need to use classes that excel in those roles.

Tank - Paladins are the most popular tanks among multiboxers at present, as they excel in AoE tanking, allowing the player to devote more attention to other members of the team.
DPS - As mentioned above, ranged classes are preferred. Other than that, there is tremendous flexibility here.
Healing - Any healing class will work, but using a single class for healing and dps can simplify your keybind setup. Depending on the difficulty level of the content you're working on, you may be able to use 4 of the same class for damage and healing (i.e., four Shadow Priests, or four Elemental Shamans).

Utility

One of the great perks of running a multibox team is that you can reliably provide whatever buffs you choose to your entire team. Classes that typically provide one of a set of buffs, like Shaman Totems and Paladin Blessings, benefit greatly from being stacked in a team. One or more mages make transportation and food/drink a breeze, Shaman's offer fantastic wipe recovery, etc. Again, you have to weigh the advantages of adding this utility against the difficulties of controlling multiple classes.

Crowd Control

For general questing, CC is really a non-issue. Five of any class can breeze through non-elite areas without breaking a sweat. If you intend to run instances, particularly heroics, though, good crowd control can make things easier. One of the most challenging aspects of multiboxing is handling large pulls in instances, since you must divide your attention between many different characters. Therefore, crowd control abilities that can be used with focus-based macros (like Polymorph, Seduce and Banish, Hibernate, and hopefully Hex come WotLK) are strongly preferable to those that require character positioning (like Sap or Trap).

Names

Many of the better-known multiboxers use a naming convention for their toons (i.e., Xzin/Azin/Bzin/Czin/Dzin, or Vyndree/Vyndryy/Vyndrie/Vyndrei/Vyndre/Vyndrii). In the world of PvP, this can be advantageous since it makes it more difficult for your opponents to target a specific toon. If you have no interest in PvP, there's really no gameplay advantage, so feel free to use (or not) any naming convention that tickles your fancy. Some players feel that using unrelated names reduces the number of other players who recognize them as a multiboxer, which results in less griefing (you didn't assume everyone loves multiboxers, did you?). Whatever way you go, bearing two facts in mind while picking names may ease your multiboxing life:

You'll be typing your character's names many times while setting up macros, so use names you can easily spell and remember.
Multiboxers get reported frequently, simply because they draw a lot of attention. Regardless of what you were reported for, the investigating GM will see your names, and if one violates the naming policy, you may be forced to change it (or simply have it changed for you). Blizzard is generally pretty lenient on this front, but it wouldn't hurt to familiarize yourself with the official policy.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that any group that is composed of a Tank, Healer, and 3 DPS can tackle any content. Some group make ups will make certain fights easier and others harder, but all can be successful. What needs to be kept in mind is that the more classes that are included, the more complex your macros become, but the more versatile your group is as well. Any class can be reduced to a single button that is pushed 90% of the time.