Very successful foray into 5-mans today: Botanica, Mechanar, Shadow Lab cleared!

[TheBigBB]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=RGalleryImageWrapper&itemID=358&type=page (couldn't get image link to work)

So this was the first time I instanced at all at level 70 with my 5-man team (Pally, Priest, Mage, Druid, Shaman)

Only the priest has really great gear, the shaman, druid and pally are in junk from quests so keeping threat and all that fun stuff is a real challenge.

Here's a summary of how it played out:

Mechanar: First boss: I spread out on the stairs and just damaged him when the shield was down. Healed tank with tons of Prayer of Mending to help with threat. He went down easily. His bombs just floated below us and never blew in the group.
Second boss: Spread them all out, took elixirs and food. Healed with nonstop Prayer of Healing. Aggro jumped all over the place, but didn't do enough damage to any one character to wipe me. Lucky.
Last boss: Had a near wipe when he came out, my healer had died on the trash and I wasn't ready, so I had to run out. I re-pulled him and got good luck on the mind control. I AOE tanked all the adds with the pally. He went down easily.

Botanica: First boss: Pretty much tank and spank here. I ignored adds until after. I didn't bother doing anything but healing and DPS.
Second boss: I tried moving in and out, but almost died, so I just stayed in there and killed the adds through his healing. No problem. AOE tank all adds and focus fire when I could.
Third boss. I killed it using only my tank and healer. I hid the healer and all dps out of line of sight and just wailed on him with the tank and a fire elemental. This was to trivialize the sacrfice.
Fourth boss. Ignored adds. All DPS on boss. Killed him before it got out of hand, but mage had to iceblock to survive because he pulled aggro. All hell had broken lose when he died, but I didn't lost anyone.
Warp Splinter: As usual, adds were ignored. I lost aggro on him a lot because I got too nervous waiting on DPS. Could have killed this guy easily if I'd been patient. I almost lost some guys, but got taunts off in time.

Shadow Labyrinth: First boss: This was a real nightmare. Too much fear. I had to just try and fear ward and keep turning my DPS to try and face him after he spread my team. This kill took a long time. No deaths, but very messy. 1 tremor totem wasn't doing it.
Second boss: Even messier than the first. It was very tough to reposition everyone. I wound up with many deaths. I killed him with 2 guys left, I believe. He doesn't hit hard at least.
Third boss: I decided that I would try to all-out dps on this guy to avoid all of the mechanics of the fight. Boy was this a good idea. I killed him before he even did anything. Not one voidwalker reached me, and not one rain of fire occurred. I didn't even bother getting tank aggro. I just burn burn burned. No deaths even.
Murmur: Very very tricky. I spread them out and pulled. Easy at first, but the silences started hitting everyone, and he kept pulling guys into him which wound up dead. I killed him with only tank and shaman left. Tank had to divine shield to live at one point.

[Fleecy]

Congratulations!

[mmcookies]

congrats!

[Dooz]

very nice. people who run multiple classes amaze me. I can barely walk an chew gum. Nice job.

[Zub]

very nice. people who run multiple classes amaze me. I can barely walk an chew gum. Nice job.
i stop when i chew gum. it's safer.

Grats on the kills BB!

[TheBigBB]

very nice. people who run multiple classes amaze me. I can barely walk an chew gum. Nice job.I have a setup that works well. This is it, in a nutshell:

Arrow keys move and turn anyone but the tank for in case I need to move the group out of a fire or something. The tank moves with QWEASD as normal.

The healer's action keys are all on the num pad. I hit them with my right hand in between using the mouse. No one else has those keys as bindings. She also has a DPS cast sequence key just in case I need it.

The tank's actions are all mapped onto the Z-M row. I hit these keys with my left thumb. The closer to the left, the more likely I need to use that skill.

The DPS are all mapped onto 1-0 and some of the F keys. I hit these like I'd play a normal character. The shaman uses the most unique keys for totems. The mage and druid really only have a couple of macros. I have some shift+mod alternatives set up in case of immune mobs.

[Dooz]

Very cool. Thanks for posting that. Not that I would be able to come close to doing that yet, but I was able at least understand how you do it. Still, I'd need a couple of extra hands. A brain dump from you would be an interesting read.

[TheBigBB]

It's so funny how at the same gear level, I used to be scared of wiping or not even finishing in these instances when I did PUGs. Last night I cleared Shattered Halls and Steamvault, too. I only wiped one time between the two of them due to somehow pulling 3 groups in Shattered Halls in that final big trash hall.

I'm pretty confident that some day I'll be doing all the heroics in the expansion, seeing how effective this group is.

I remember Magister's Terrace being extremely difficult even on normal for a bad group, so I'm going to have to give that place a go before WOTLK hits.

[Babbaganoosh]

It's so funny how at the same gear level, I used to be scared of wiping or not even finishing in these instances when I did PUGs. Last night I cleared Shattered Halls and Steamvault, too. I only wiped one time between the two of them due to somehow pulling 3 groups in Shattered Halls in that final big trash hall.

I'm pretty confident that some day I'll be doing all the heroics in the expansion, seeing how effective this group is.

I remember Magister's Terrace being extremely difficult even on normal for a bad group, so I'm going to have to give that place a go before WOTLK hits.You give me hope. I'm leveling a Pally, Priest, Shammy, Mage, Lock group. It's nice to see people making these multiclass groups work. I think the key to it all is to think of it as 3 classes. Tank, Heals, and DPS. At least that helps me keep my key layout organized logically. Good work in those instances man.

[Kulzor]

Great start, congrats! Very cool hearing some bits on what you did to win. :)

I've been doing heroics lately with my multibox team, and I've found that my group is actually more successful with just me controlling them than with live players. On trash at least. The third and later bosses I've found are often much easier with at least one other live player in the mix.

[TheBigBB]

Great start, congrats! Very cool hearing some bits on what you did to win. :)

I've been doing heroics lately with my multibox team, and I've found that my group is actually more successful with just me controlling them than with live players. On trash at least. The third and later bosses I've found are often much easier with at least one other live player in the mix.Thanks! I also have to mention, as you might also be able to attest to, how much more quickly instances go with just yourself. No setting up pulls or anything. You already know they're going to hit the right guy. I don't even bother with CC. I'd rather the paladin just have a bigger orgy of baddies to dance with than worry about sheeping. Maybe this would change on heroics.

[Rudi89]

Thanks! I also have to mention, as you might also be able to attest to, how much more quickly instances go with just yourself. No setting up pulls or anything. You already know they're going to hit the right guy. I don't even bother with CC. I'd rather the paladin just have a bigger orgy of baddies to dance with than worry about sheeping. Maybe this would change on heroics.Yes, this has been my experience as well. I've set up and used Sheep CC several times but in general it doesn't seem to matter. If need be I just send more heals to the pally with the other shammie. I also agree that the instancing goes wicked-fast and, well, if you get a bad pull you don't have to feel bad when you wipe (and you tend to not eff up the wipe recovery by having both shammies reincarnate on the same wipe, for example). ;)

Personally I have my keys set up with a 'DPS/Tank Spam' key and then keys for the healer and the back-up healer and 'oh crap!' keys. Plus the all-important arrow keys to control the non-tank.

My girls are at level 63/63/63/62/63 right now and I don't figure to do much in the way of questing to level them up. Instancing is too much fun. :D

[Solmaran]

I also run a multi-class group even though they aren't all 70 yet. I leveled them up to 60 with RAF and am now leveling a second group before the 3x exp runs out.

I run my main as my paladin tank. She has pretty respectable gear ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kel%27Thuzad&n=Velanda') . Most of it is badge/kara but has some other various pieces from gruul/ssc. The rest of the multi-box team is a Shadow Priest, Balance Druid, BM Hunter and Affliction Lock.

I've taken them through Ramparts so far and found it was all pretty smooth with few deaths once I changed my macros and such around some. Usually I lose between 0-2 people on Omar and another 0-2 on the last boss.

My setup is a Nostromo N52 Speedpad to control the main window(tank) with my left hand. All of the additional chars are controlled with my X-Keys pro. I have a button that will make the shadow priest or druid heal my tank but I rarely need it. I also have a castseq attack key on all of my guys except the tank. I also have a buff key that activates OMGBuffs on everyone and both a setfocus and follow key.

Basically the tank focus's himself and then I press a key and everyone focuses party1target which is the tank. Then I press a follow key that makes everyone follow focus and reset their target back after. I have a key that makes everyone but the tank take a step forward which breaks follow so I can position everyone. The castseq macro on the alts is sticky targetting so that I can move my targets around on the tank and the dps all dps the same target.

I prefer not to have the alts castseq macro on the same key as the tanks attacks so that I can choose to get a lead on threat before opening up. Right now it doesn't really matter because of how much lower they are, but it will make a difference later I think. I find once I start the fight I don't move around a lot so I move my right hand from the mouse to the xkeys to dps and move the alts forward if needed only switching back to the mouse if I need to reposition my tank.

[TheBigBB]

My girls are at level 63/63/63/62/63 right now and I don't figure to do much in the way of questing to level them up. Instancing is too much fun. :D I pretty much did every quest there is, only skipping a small few collection quests. I did it to level more quickly, but also to make sure I get every instance quest. I refuse to do BM before I'm on that step in the Kara chain (soon), for example.


I prefer not to have the alts castseq macro on the same key as the tanks attacks so that I can choose to get a lead on threat before opening up. Definitely a good idea. I can't imagine being forced to have the DPS shooting dmg spells when I hit a tanking button. They will pull off me, and quickly. Outside of epic content, there isn't much in the way of good pally tank gear yet. You either give up a lot of threat or a lot of mitigation. I am excited for when stamina grants spell damage!