Wanting to branch out into 3-4-5 boxing, using Mac computer. Advice?

[TheBigBB]

I want a lot of advice, and I've been reading around, but it's so much to take in! Therefore, I am starting this thread so that any kind souls may help me out.

First of all, does Keyclone work with a Mac? What about an Intel Mac using Crossover? Any ideas? It should be able to run on Crossover for sure, but I wonder if anyone using a Mac has experience with it. Maybe there's another program out there for Macs?

My backstory: I have been dualboxing using a priest and a mage/warrior using 2 separate computers. The priest is my raiding main and is extremely well-geared, and can keep the warrior or mage up through some extreme circumstances. A combo of healing + DPS is very very easy to work out, just use 2 computers and some follow/targetting macros. I am free to push buttons on two keyboards without a ton of effort.

With the new linked accounts and 3x exp gain, I am jumping on this chance to start up tons of new characters and accounts. I have made another warrior and mage and got them to level 31 in just 12 hours of play!

Thinking about it, the 2x mage + priest team would make a lot of sense, but 2x warrior plus priest I can't even wrap my mind around how I'm going to make that successful. Any ideas on if this could work?

Should I just bit the bullet and make a host of shamans?

You'll be seeing me a lot around here, as I am at the very least going to remain a devoted dualboxer.

[ElectronDF]

I use PCs and Macs. I use HotKeyNet on the PC (can use any key broadcaster) and then RealVNC to talk to the Macs. It works pretty well. If you are just using Mac alone, you can use CloneKey (keyclone equivalent).

Not sure why you wouldn't use 2 warriors. Sure, mobs moving stinks for melee, but I have 5 shammies that melee and don't have much issues with it. If they move a little, I just shock them, but then again, that is ranged. But, I pull mobs with my alts, so the mobs stand just about on top of my main and then everyone is in melee range.

[TheBigBB]

I use PCs and Macs. I use HotKeyNet on the PC (can use any key broadcaster) and then RealVNC to talk to the Macs. It works pretty well. If you are just using Mac alone, you can use CloneKey (keyclone equivalent).

Not sure why you wouldn't use 2 warriors. Sure, mobs moving stinks for melee, but I have 5 shammies that melee and don't have much issues with it. If they move a little, I just shock them, but then again, that is ranged. But, I pull mobs with my alts, so the mobs stand just about on top of my main and then everyone is in melee range.I suppose my issue with the warriors that brought me to this forum was that I didn't know about keyclone. Playing 2 or more melee on separate computers using follow/assist macros is going to be fail, I think. The ones on follow will always be out of range.

On that topic, what setup DO you use to make sure all the melee you multibox with are on top of one another and maintaining range once one of them gets rooted or slowed or even killed. How are you running your single body/corpse back? Maybe using separate mice?

EDIT: Also, how can you run multiple WoW instances on one Mac?

[Caspian]

I multi on my dual G5, it croaks badly after 3 instances. You can run multiple copies by creating full wow folder copies or creating links, which is an option in the gui when you right click the wow executable icon.

[ElectronDF]

Sorry, I play on 5 computers, so not much help on same computer issues.
For geting everyone in range. I have my alts follow my main. So it looks like: (this is going to look ugly)
" X
#$%&"
All the alts are on top of each other and about 2-5 yards behind my main. I use LB(on shammies), throw (on my warrior for mixed group), or rank 1 arcane shot( on my hunters) to pull mobs with my alts only. So the mobs all walk up and stand pretty much on top of my main. So everyone is able to melee with no problems. If the mobs move, I just use the /follow key/macro to move my alts using my main to steer them (usually walk through mob about .5-1 yard on other side). Haven't had any problems so far. For my mixed group, I usually have my warrior charge so he is out in front alone since everyone else is ranged. I know that last part doesn't help, just mentioning it.

So my suggestion is to just range pull with your alt, and then the mob should be in range for all to melee. Good luck. Hope that helps.

[TheBigBB]

Thanks! I understand completely what you mean. I guess that doesn't work as well in PVP, although even dualboxing a melee + healer in PVP is tough...

[TheBigBB]

I think I've sort of made up my mind about what direction I want to take my multiboxing in after a few hours here. My only lingering doubt is how to coordinate it when one character dies. Do you have to alt tab out, pick that window, and run them back while the others stand there waiting?

EDIT: For anyone curious, I'm going to try out 4 mages + healer to start with, possibly adding a tank if I get good at it.

[Rel]

Hi there TBBB and welcome to the forums :)

Like you, I have only started looking at all this recently, but I have found that using Keyclone, you can set up binds so that at a press of a button, your main screen can switch with any other. I am afraid I do not know if Keyclone works on Macs (I fear not). I assume however that there are alternative products that will do a simelar thing.

I am currently running a shammy group, so they sort of tank themselves and if one dies, there are 4 other chars with a res, and if the whole party dies, you have 5 Ankhs! For starters, shammies seem to be the way to go, but I feel you on the mage vibe, there is a lot of ranged firepower! Maybe if you had 3 fire mages for ignite stacking and general ownage and then one frost mage for slows, you would have a really nice setup, the beaut of that being frostbolt and fireball being the same cast time :)

My personal choice is to level using all dps and then once I have got to 60 with all my chars, I will use the "free levels" to make tanks or healers.

Either way, GL bud and happy boxing :)

[TheBigBB]

Hi there TBBB and welcome to the forums :)

Like you, I have only started looking at all this recently, but I have found that using Keyclone, you can set up binds so that at a press of a button, your main screen can switch with any other. I am afraid I do not know if Keyclone works on Macs (I fear not). I assume however that there are alternative products that will do a simelar thing.

I am currently running a shammy group, so they sort of tank themselves and if one dies, there are 4 other chars with a res, and if the whole party dies, you have 5 Ankhs! For starters, shammies seem to be the way to go, but I feel you on the mage vibe, there is a lot of ranged firepower! Maybe if you had 3 fire mages for ignite stacking and general ownage and then one frost mage for slows, you would have a really nice setup, the beaut of that being frostbolt and fireball being the same cast time :)

My personal choice is to level using all dps and then once I have got to 60 with all my chars, I will use the "free levels" to make tanks or healers.

Either way, GL bud and happy boxing :)
Oh yeah, I didn't even think of that with the shaman teams that if the entire team died, running back is easy, and if the entire team didn't die, you could always res with just one guy left. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Maybe I should go with shaman afterall. My main reason for wanting to do mages is that I am very familiar with them, but I've never played a shaman. So I would know exactly how to set my mages up.

IF I went with mages, I suppose I could make them all engineers with cables...

[TheBigBB]

Will lag be a big issue with multiboxing? I get about 60ms lag with 2 at once. Will I see marked declines in latency?

Sometimes I get weird lag now where one of my characters can not see the other who's following and it won't resolve unless I relog. This is not common, but just wondering if anyone else gets that kind of stuff. Anyway, I pretty much have my mind set on doing this either way.

EDIT: I changed my mind, I am going to make 4 shaman and then use the priest as I usually do on my other account. It's going to be more work for me to learn a new class and level 4 new characters at once, but the fact that I could have nearly unlimited resurrection with the shaman seals the deal for me. Plus there's just something more terrifying as an opponent to see all those totems...

I got the CloneKeys program and it works fine, just need to get a new computer before I can really do 4 on one computer.