Moving Beyond Dualboxing. Feasable 5 Boxing Classes

[Phsyclone]

I've new to the forums but somewhat experienced with dualboxing. I've dualboxed several characters to 70. I've dualboxed a warlock with a balance druid, warrior w/ elemental shaman and working on a Hunter w/ Paladin. I currently using synergy broadcasting keys F1-F12 for my 2nd toon.

I'm looking into moving to 5 boxing. I'm looking for a group composition that is easy to manage (1-2 classes at most) that can do heroics and still kick ass in arena. I've read through the other posts and it seems 5 shamans are very popular but limited in the heroics due to lack of CC and viable tank (other than elementals). Right now I'm just brainstorming classes while working out the mechanics. I have 2 powerful PCs and might just run 2 on one system, 3 on the other with AHK or keyclone. Not as efficent but the wife would never let me have a real 5 box rig ;)

Here are the teams I'm looking into.

-- 5 Shamans
Think we've seen how badass 5 shamans are and also the limitations they face. With 2.3 reducing cast time on lighting and chain lighting, the overall burst damage will be diminished due to reduced spell damage modifyer. Plus the lack of damage and relying purely on kiting might make things difficult.

--Paladin + four elemental shamans (warrior also viable for DPS/tanking)
Still lack CC and will rely on kiting in heroics, but for boss fights u have a viable tank when your elementals die. In arena the paladin could heal while four shamans nuke anything that moves. Paladin buffs and concentration aura and blessing of protection and shaman grounding and tremor totems would would make this team a dangerous combo. Plus I love the eye candy that shamans bring to the game.

--Preist + 4 warlocks
Could easily do most non heroic dungeons, but would get killed in heroics. Maybe with seduce and fear kiting it would be possible to get to the boss, but without a viable tank, wouldn't get far in PVE. PvP arena would be great, holy/disp priest, 3 SL/Affl locks + 1 UA spec lock (to prevent dispell) could pretty much own. Plus I shudder at the taught of 4 seed of corruptions in AV.

--5 Boomkin.
Lets face it Cyclone is so Imba atm. In arena a 5 moonkin (in caster form) can easily cyclone 4 players and nuke others to hell. Although Diminishing returns might means that they will have a limited window where everyone is CCed. Plus for PvE I can cyclone any adds while one druid tanks, while the other moonkins fire and heal away.

Any suggestions or comments? I can't seem to make up my mind. So many combonations so little time.

Thanks,
Psyclone

[Xzin]

4 huntars + 1 priest might be viable with the removal of the deadzones.

I will reserve judgment on that for the time being though. 4x Multishot or 4x aimed shot.... would hurt.

A lot.

[Shade]

I was thinking the same thing--hunters are suddenly a whole new ballgame with improved instants and deadzone removal. 4-5x pets would be useful as well.

I wonder if four BM-specced hunters could tank a heroic instance?

[Xzin]

No.

[Zseth]

Straight simple to the point

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I find that hybrids really have too much downtime for mana, so while I like the concept/eye candy of shaman/druid teams, I won't bother with them yet. Priest + mages/locks seems to be the easiest to be successful with quickly. Priest + hunters is a good mix but the limitations in enclosed spaces makes it dicey and very frustrating at times. Balanced groups are good for static encounters but fall apart when the shit hits the fan. Melee groups would be awesome but keeping everyone facing the right direction and in melee range on multi-mob pulls and especially PVP is a nightmare. 5 shadow priests is awesome but breaks down in the same spots as the other groups when a real tank is needed.

So, in short, it kinda depends on what you want to do with your group. Probably the most versatile group I've found is the priest+warlocks so far. Fear kiting for hard stuff, pets for ghetto tanking in some cases, DoTs that can be applied en masse while both moving and not facing the target, unlimited mana (more or less), good AoE, good PVP survivability and damage, good pets for annoying/debuffing/CC, etc. It's a good all-around group.

[Phsyclone]

Before I continue, I'd just like to say Horde For Life! With that said, you will probably never see me roll a Draenei, regardless of the nice racials.

I was thinking of doing a 3 class setup, 3 locks, pally/preist and a warrior. But it just makes things that much more complex. Especially for a first time 5 boxer. This would make heroics a bit easier but arena teams will be that much more difficult.

Right now 4 shamans + other or 5 shamans, seems to be the most versatile setup. With practice I can probably take down 1 or 2 heroics, probably Slave Pens at the very least.

If I do roll a shaman, it will most likely be orc. I love look of orcs and the stun resist helps against those imba mace warriors with deep thunder. BloodFury is also great extra damage when nuking heroic trash.

As much as I hate being a broken record (shamans and multiboxing as been done before), I can't deny the power of xbox's shaman movies.

I probably won't start for another month or so, still getting the basics down.

[Phsyclone]

Oh, regarding the hunters. Although deadzone may be going away, that doesn't mean minimum range will be gone. You won't be able to shoot at point blank.

The min range on ranged attacks will be reduced to eliminate the "dead zone". It doesn't mean that you'll be able to shot at 0 yards, but you will always be able to hit the enemy even if he's standing between 5 and 8 yards. See blue post: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2366566665&sid=1&pageNo=15#281

Edit: Basically, it means that whenever you can't shoot, you'll be able to swing with your axe or whatever. Deadzone refers to when your target is out of meele range but too close to shoot.

[Slats]

The main problem with Shams is your 'main' is usually the one getting fucked up in PvP. Either that or your have your main getting FF and a rogue and warrior screwing with your clones.

In a 5 man team, you tend to be doing one thing or the other. You are either healing OR dpsing. And whatever your doing, you are *not* moving.

While this was acceptable on the PTR, its not so acceptable on Live, what with more hps, people that know how to use LoS and play their class well.

I have switched to Dranei Priest as main (now getting a holy dmg spell/2 sec stun!) and 4x Human Warlocks, mainly because my main is human and the armour looks fantastic on them and it is the class I am most comfortable with, both instances, raiding and PvP.

The good thing is I also have access to an epicced out Protection Pally, so when I want to do an instance I can simple tank on the pally, heal on the priest and DPS/CC on 3 locks, rotating in my main if he needs something from the instance etc.

I think the best class makeup for PvP is Priest Healer, 4x Mage or Lock. Level up a tank solo for use later on in heroics. (Just do it on rested XP.)

While my guys are really low atm, I am much happier with how they operate even at these lower levels than I was with Shamans. Once you've used Fire Nova Totem and your Shocks are on cooldown, if you have melee in your face your pretty stuffed on Shamans - and once your OOM its game over.

The insta-gib potential is MASSIVE though and they look far more awesome in PvP videos.

[Stealthy]

The main problem with Shams is your 'main' is usually the one getting fucked up in PvP. Either that or your have your main getting FF and a rogue and warrior screwing with your clones.

In a 5 man team, you tend to be doing one thing or the other. You are either healing OR dpsing. And whatever your doing, you are *not* moving.

While this was acceptable on the PTR, its not so acceptable on Live, what with more hps, people that know how to use LoS and play their class well.

I have switched to Dranei Priest as main (now getting a holy dmg spell/2 sec stun!) and 4x Human Warlocks, mainly because my main is human and the armour looks fantastic on them and it is the class I am most comfortable with, both instances, raiding and PvP.

The good thing is I also have access to an epicced out Protection Pally, so when I want to do an instance I can simple tank on the pally, heal on the priest and DPS/CC on 3 locks, rotating in my main if he needs something from the instance etc.

I think the best class makeup for PvP is Priest Healer, 4x Mage or Lock. Level up a tank solo for use later on in heroics. (Just do it on rested XP.)

While my guys are really low atm, I am much happier with how they operate even at these lower levels than I was with Shamans. Once you've used Fire Nova Totem and your Shocks are on cooldown, if you have melee in your face your pretty stuffed on Shamans - and once your OOM its game over.

The insta-gib potential is MASSIVE though and they look far more awesome in PvP videos.

Totally agree about shams going OOM too fast, although with two handers becoming trainable, having a nice fat two handed mace with Windfury on it seems like a good backup. Dranei racials do suck though. At least with horde you can either get extra HP and an AOE stun (chain warstomps = win), or extra stun resist and an AP/Spell Dam buff.

However, for versatility, the Priest and Locks combo are hard to beat. An off tank thats good for everthing but heroics, omni directional spells, no dead zone, AOE heals, rezzes, wipe prevention, and the list goes on...

I think in Arena PVP though, any decent 5 man team will stomp you. While multiboxers have unparallelled FF, we only have limited ability to handle multiple targets simultaneously.

[beyond-tec]

I'm looking for a group composition that is easy to manage (1-2 classes at most) that can do heroics and still kick ass in arena.

2 different classes:

2 x Paladin, 3x Mages or 3x Warlocks
1 Pala to tank, 1 Pala to heal, Mages or Warlocks for Damage / CC

2 x Druid, 3x Mages or 3x Warlocks
1 Druid to tank, 1 Druid to heal, Mages or Warlocks for Damage / CC


Problem is that the tank and the healer are the same class but don't use the same actions. So it is the same as if you play two different classes.


only 1 class setup:
5x druid (1 tank, 1 healer, 3 moonkins)

[Tonuss]

-- 5 Shamans
Think we've seen how badass 5 shamans are and also the limitations they face. With 2.3 reducing cast time on lighting and chain lighting, the overall burst damage will be diminished due to reduced spell damage modifyer. Plus the lack of damage and relying purely on kiting might make things difficult.
Keep in mind a couple of other changes being made to the class:

- 1/3 of spell healing will be added to spell damage
- Mana Spring Totem is getting a buff

I am not entirely sure how big a difference the first change will make, if you gear up for +spell damage you usually have at least that much in +heal. So it may not be better to go from 700/700 +heal/dmg to 1300/500, (guessing at the numbers there). But I'm wondering if it would make sense (with a 5 shaman team) to have one of them gear up in +heal, since she'd still be able to do good spell DPS after this change.

The second change could be huge. Mana Spring Totem is being changed to 20 mp5 untalented, up from 12 mp5. The talented version is 15 mp5 and there was a blue post claiming it may be buffed to 75 mp5 when fully talented. Now that may be a typo or someone heard the info wrong, because going from 15 mp5 to 75 mp5 seems ridiculously over-the-top.

It would make it so you could have one shaman spec into 5/5 Restorative Totems and provide enormous mana regen during and between battles.

[Phsyclone]

Too bad mana springtotem doesn't stack. :cry:
Though 4 healing stream totems would equal 400+ health per tick, so I'd probably use 4 healing stream and 1 mana spring in most cases.

With Shaman's Lightning and Chain Lighting cast times being reduced and receiving a reduced +damage coefficient, I'm wondering if their reduced nuke capability makes it worth it.

I actually have a level 57 BE paladin in storage who I've been dualbox leveling with a hunter, so Latency's suggestion of 4 warlocks + 1 priest with a pally to tank heroics and such does make a strong case.

Despite the warlock nerf bats in 2.2 and 2.3, I think 4 warlocks + 1 priest or 3 warlocks + 1 priest + 1 holy paladin (most 5v5s do better with 2 healers, especially if a moonkin cyclones 1 healer).

So far my picks would be either
4 warlocks + 1 priest (with pally on side for heroics)
4 shamans + 1 paladin

Most of this discussion is up in the air atm, probably once 2.3 classes changes are set in stone, I may change my setup. I still working on my computer and display setup, more on that later.

Edit: more spelling mistakes than I care to admit. lol

[Vyndree]

4 shamans + 1 paladin


Copycat. ;)

Just kidding. I have mid 40's team of 1x pally 4x shammy. The shammies heal only when needed, which isn't much. However, I do like my warrior with the 4 shammies better - she can't hold much aoe damage, but chain lightning is on a cooldown anyway and hte shammies aren't really aoe'rs.

I've started a couple other multiboxing groups -- I'm having alot of fun with 1xpally, 2xshadowpriest, 2xlocks. Because the 2 shadowpriests and locks both are dot classes (primarily) it works really well. The pally heals during trash (blueberry tank) and tanks harder elites. The hardest part about a dedicated pally tank is runnign up to the mob. Such a waste of time.

I have a macro set up so that the pally only uses offensive abilities when the blueberry is NOT her focus. This really simplifies things for me when doing easy quests with a voidy tank.

With the pallies and 4x shammies, the pally rushes in while the shaman lay totems. She grabs all the aggro, and the shaman dps each one down one at a time - chain lightning every cooldown only whenever there are at least 3 mobs. However, it still feels slow. They're basically unkillable and 4x selfrez plus DI makes it so I never have to corpse run. The warrior is better for questing and such as she uses charge which, to me, speeds up the grind.

SUMMARY:

Paladin + shammies: can use EVERY totem my shammies lay, somewhat slow pulling, great aoe aggro but chain lightning is on cooldown which slows things down, shammies LOVE blessing of wisdom -- paladin sometimes goes oom even with regular healing, mana totems, seal/judge wisdom, AND bless of wisdom. Horrible to die to oomness.

War + shammies: WINDFURY! Some totems not helpful for war (i.e. mana spring), warrior can charge which speeds up quest grinding and easy mobs, war seems to last longer before needing heals -- if shammies go oom, warrior can zomg windfury them to death

My vids thus far only show warrior tanking, but I'll make a couple with pally tanking so you can see how it's done. Check the vid forum.

[Phsyclone]

Yup one warlock will be swapped out as needed.

I was thinking of the 1 pally, 2 shadow priest, 2 locks approach but for some reason shadow priests just don't appeal to me. I played a while ago and don't feel like playing a 2nd one. Though a shadow priest's shadow word death does the dot equivalent of corruption and curse of agony in less time when the lock / priest have equal spell damage.

Plus with 4 warlocks, each affliction on the target increases drain life by 5% (4% in 2.3) ... 4 locks x 4 dots each (corruption, siphon life, shadow embrace if it stacks, coa) 16 affliction dots on target ... 16 x 4% = 64% ... effective cap 60% healing and damage bonus to drain life. With enough spell damage and improved fel armor that would heal for nearly 500 per second. IMBA!