Multiboxing - Arena Competition

[wougoose]

I have seen many successes with multiboxing in regards to PvE as well as pre-70 PvP. I have been playing WoW for quite some time now, am very familiar with all classes and the arena setting.

My question is: How many of you have had any success in arena competition? Xzin, I saw you do very well in the pre BC skirmishes. Have you had any time to look at what it will be like at 70?

I have played in the arena quite a bit as it is the only thing keeping me playing this game. A big problem with arena teams has been getting people online and playing at the same time, and not giving up on defeat. Any team has to learn from their mistakes. With this in mind, I have been thinking about trying a multiboxing setup to eliminate this hassle and really let true skill shine. It isn't easy micro managing, which entices me to face the challenge.

Any suggestions on group setup? 3v3 or 5v5? I am aiming at either a group of locks or mages alongside a priest. It's almost tempting to even try a shadow priest alongside either 2 or 4 locks, depending on 3v3 or 5v5. Do you think it is viable to compete?

The arena seems to really push the limits in knowing how to play your class and doing the right thing at the right time, although in 3v3 and 5v5 it really does come down to focus firing...which I believe the multiboxing will shine.

Any comments or suggestions, please respond :)

(Especially you Xzin, sexy beast)

[Ellay]

I did both the 3v3 and 5v5 Arena's, got all the gear I wanted and now I'm taking a break from the game.

I played 3 Fire Mages. The 3v3's were hit or miss, I think my rating was about 1650 with about a 70% win ratio. I didn't play too many games overall because there is a lot of weakness's going into a matchup with a stack of Fire.

Too many immunities, when your playing more than 1 character it really matters that the enemy dies as soon as possible. When they are able to become immune or negate your focus fire, it crumbles the multi-boxing setup.


The 5v5's I ended up with an 1877 rating. It wasn't too shabby, I played my 3 mages and had a paladin and warrior for the combo. Would invis off the start, let the warrior run in to take the heat, pop out and insta kill a target. Pick off another and the game is won. It came down to other classes being immune to what you can pull off.

The classes that shine for mutliple characters are those that just don't have the longevity in an arena fight.
Off the top of my head, Paladin - bubble, Rogue - cloak of shadows, Priest - mini shield wall, Warlock - Nether protection, Mage - Iceblock, Shaman - grounding totem.
With all these factors it really minimized which targets you can pick off at the start of the match.

With my combo we could easily beat the teams at the top of the charts but would get demolished by the odd ball groups. It's sort of like a paper / rock / scissors scenario.

Whew that was a long post, but if your planning on playing against top tier teams, it's overall just very frustrating.

[Xzin]

Well, in the beta arenas I won maybe 80+% of my games. But they were new people with no real organization and well - UI mods were kinda broken. Plus, people were just trying out new talents and builds and nobody was 70. I cobbled my UIs together and felt I did well enough to think that I would also do well at 70. It is all about the focus fire. If they managed to out heal/live/etc the focus fire at the beginning (lucky grounding totem, etc) then I usually ran OOM before I could recover. Almost without fail though, if I took 2 down then any 5 on 3 was in my favor.

Level 70, new abilities, damage mitigation and stam changes changes the game a bit. And that is putting it in simple terms. It is actually even more complex than that - the more wide spread availability of armor, the impact of group meta builds, etc but that is beyond this discussion right now.

The wrinkle for me is that I only played beta arenas. I stopped playing at level 60 and while I intend to get back into WoW at some point (I have already rebuilt my input setup and purchased a whole new computer setup) - I have other projects that are just as interesting as WoW that pay - so I have to balance things. And get level 70 and learn the new spells and the new metagame, etc. I look forward to it but I am yet to be convinced that 4x mages and 1x priest is the BEST solution. I love the instant fire ability but I worry about cloak of shadows, grounding totems, etc etc.

Part of me wonders if the 5x shammy or 4x warlock 1x priest strat would not be the most effective in the arenas..... 5x shammy = 5x grounding totems = magic immunity. Warlocks would just destroy with those dots but I don't like that they can return fire while you are dotting them up. Plus dots can be removed.

So - basically..... it is entirely possible from what I know about the game and discussions I have had with Ellay and what I have experienced that a 3v3 or 5v5 team can do very well being controlled by only one team.

If you have ever played MTG:O, I see the 4x Mage 1x Priest strat as a "Sligh" type deck. Hits hard as hell but if it does not get the job done right away (and they heal or mitigate) then you lose. That said, Sligh always seems to do pretty well in the MTG metagame.... but I doubt that I would ever be able to be the top ranked 5v5 on the battlegroup. Top .5% - MAYBE. But that might require a good amount of luck and more time investment than I care to give right now.

[wougoose]

Thanks for the detailed responses. I have thought about it a little more and realized that my two options of choice would either be:

4 affliction locks + holy/disc priest - Not having to face targets and dropping that many dots per target in a short amount of time looks like it could be killer. The AOE fears are nice, but many classes can counter it as well as diminishing returns. However, locks can stack stam pretty heavy and from what i've noticed in 5v5's on my lock...the locks are the tanks. An issue I also see are grounding totems as dots will not fire off on a target until the grounding is killed by direct damage.

5 shamans - Elemental shamans seem to dish out insane burst damage in the arena. 5 NS / Elem mastery chain lightnings would devastate a team of 5...especially if they are clumped together. 5 grounding totems also grants you immunity to any casters. I've seen some shamans hit upwards of 35-40% crit. Tied with 1.5 sec chain lightnings and an array of shocks...the combination seems deadly. I'd probably designate the main shaman resto for the extra mana tide totem/survivability. 4 elemental shamans should plow through 12k hp instantly.

So, I'll probably end up flipping a coin and seeing where it goes. Both groups seem pretty insane. Only issue I see with the shaman group is having to be facing the targets.

Right now I only have the hardware to support a group of 3. Not sure yet if I want to drop the money on another two machines/displays for a 5v5 setup.

[Otlecs]

I'll be really interested to see how you get on with the shammies, especially for levelling.

[Buruan]

Has anyone ever tried a 5 Priest group.
One Holy, 4 Shadow Priests.

4x Vampiric Embrace + 4x Vampiric Touch + 2 Shadow Word Pain + 4 times Mind Blast + 4 times Shadow word death.

I think this could be a very viable option for PvP and PvE.

[Ellay]

I did 3 shadow priests, it just didn't have the oomph Mages did. Go with Mage or Warlock.

[Buruan]

Probably for leveling its slower, but at 70 with similar gear the Shadow Priests utility spells should far outweigh a Mage or a Warlock, while doing comparable damage.

4 Mind Controls for complicated 5 -7 pulls in instances could be nice too.

I am playing a SP in a raiding guild and so Ill defend my class to the teeth :)

[Bunny]

Has anyone ever tried 4 hunters together with 1 healing class (not sure which is best in this setup)? You can dish out some good single target damage + you can continue to do damage if your mana is gone. Then you have 4 pets along with 4 traps - awesome control in pve fights. The only thing you lose is Aoe damage. Did I miss something?
Bunny

[Gallo]

The only real disadvantage with hunters is their "dead zone" which I believe is between 5 yards and 10 yards? This is where the mob is too close to shoot, but too far away to melee. I thought about doing hunters until someone mentioned this to me. Doesn't seem worth the trouble. Plus, a major pitfal is that alot of a hunter's damage comes from the DPS of the bow/gun that they have... while casters is mostly their overall +dmg. It's harder to find quality ranged weapons than it is to find +dmg cloth gear.

[Ellay]

Kyosakana ( hope I spelled that right ) did 5 hunters to 60 pre tbc and said it was alright.
I had the lucky experience of actually getting into the same BG as him so we got to duke it out :)

Dead zone is killer, as well - no way to break out of fear except going full Beast Mastery spec. The disadvantages are too large.

[Ceromus]

Im going to take a guess here and say grounding totems probably don't stack. I've never actually tried it myself but my guess would be..

The grounding totems only gives the party 1 effect once they are hit with a direct damage spell the totem giving the effect will go down and then youll have to wait for the next grounding totems tick to come in. Maybe lay down at different times? I dunno purely a guess as to how it would work.

I do 4 shadow priest myself. I havent tried 5v5 arena but I have done 3v3 arena. If the team hasnt just been formed and their rating is a good determination of their skill then I would say anything under 1700 I got a chance against. 1750-1850 I may kill 1 maybe 2 before I go down. 1900+ im so screwed its not even funny. I typically win about 80% of the games against teams under 1700.

I think Ellays 5v5 with him doing 3 mages and a warrior and paladin is probably a much safer route to take.

[Xzin]

Hunters is so great in theory - multishot x5! but lol @ dead zone.

I would rather have 1 shammy 4 warriors than 5 hunters.

As for Ellays 5v5.... His idea is sound but I still think that 1 priest 4 warlock would just destroy in 5v5s. 1 priest 4 mages wouldn't be too bad either.

[Beastiebabe]

im actually 4 boxing hunters right now, large learning curb because of distance issues but im improving my setup each day to compensate. beast master is the way since you can rely on your pet for damage for those moments when your hunter cant. Cant with for chain stun lock with intimidation....