5 Man Leveling / Instance Boxing Setup. Your Suggestions Welcome...

[Taybox]

I have heard that doing 2 melee can be tough. So here is what I'm thinking. If my computer will allow me to 5box on 1 screen, here is my setup.

Account 1 - Prot Warrior (Main Toon I will be controlling / tanking)
Account 2 - Mage
Account 3 - Warlock
Account 4 - Shadow Priest
Account 5 - Paladin (Healer) Maybe Druid healer ?

With this setup, should i be able to eventually do heroics and stuff by myself? that is my goal in all of this.

[Kulzor]

It's a strange group (to me), but I don't see why it wouldn't work well. Once your team is geared up you may find that the DoTs from the Warlock aren't very useful (mobs die too fast). They could shadow bolt though. On a boss fight the CoE would be very helpful.

Glyph of Holy Light would cover a gap in the holy paladin's healing arsenal with AoE heals, and the Shadow Priest can backup heal if the Paladin gets MC'd/dies/etc.

It should work. If you are going to do a prot warrior, personally I'd probably go with a tauren to get the extra aoe stomp attack.

[Taybox]

It's a strange group (to me), but I don't see why it wouldn't work well. Once your team is geared up you may find that the DoTs from the Warlock aren't very useful (mobs die too fast). They could shadow bolt though. On a boss fight the CoE would be very helpful.

Glyph of Holy Light would cover a gap in the holy paladin's healing arsenal with AoE heals, and the Shadow Priest can backup heal if the Paladin gets MC'd/dies/etc.

It should work. If you are going to do a prot warrior, personally I'd probably go with a tauren to get the extra aoe stomp attack.I was planning on spamming shadow bolt with the lock, fireball with mage, and whatever the shadow priwst does, never played one lol. The one thing im worried about is my choice of tank and healer?

[davedontmind]

I've never tried multi-boxing with a warrior tank, but as a single-boxing tank I found warriors quite complicated.

My mulit-box group has a paladin tank, and it's comparatively easy, mainly due to the all AoE attacks which makes holding the aggro from groups of mobs quite simple.

[Taybox]

I've never tried multi-boxing with a warrior tank, but as a single-boxing tank I found warriors quite complicated.

My mulit-box group has a paladin tank, and it's comparatively easy, mainly due to the all AoE attacks which makes holding the aggro from groups of mobs quite simple.
looks like i will be going with pally tabnk then

[phara]

I've never tried multi-boxing with a warrior tank, but as a single-boxing tank I found warriors quite complicated.

My mulit-box group has a paladin tank, and it's comparatively easy, mainly due to the all AoE attacks which makes holding the aggro from groups of mobs quite simple.
looks like i will be going with pally tabnk thenI would do more research tbh and make the decision for yourself. The 3.0.2 changes make druid / warrior tanks MUCH more viable for multi mob tanking. My main is a raiding druid tank, and since the changes myself and the warriors have been tanking everything where we used to use a pally (although the mobs are nerfed to hell so it's easier to hold aggro - I still think pallies will hold the most aggro on groups).

I have played all 3 classes as tanks solo and 5 boxing (only druid as herioc tank however) and I cannot agree with the "paladins are easiest" argument. I think the "complexity" wrt how much you have to micromanage due to abilities / cooldowns is (most to least complex): warrior, pally, druid.

With warrior you need to manage shield slam, revenge, devistate, plus stance dancing if you want to charge (unless this has changed, haven't used my warrior in a while).

With pally you still need to keep seal on every 2 mins, plus spam judgement, HS, HotR at least ... I have to keep 3 buttons for this and they all have long cooldowns (I don't use the castrandom macro because it does pick spells on cooldown, I've had HS get skipped 3-4 clicks which is not ok for bosses), and I still forget to keep seal up all the time. The pally taunt is nice, it generally has the same affect as charge without needing to move (it's long range).

With druid you mangle / lacerate or mangle / maul most of the time, I use 2 keys that I just spam and don't have to worry about anything else. You also get charge which comes in handy, and don't underestimate improved leader of the pack ... it ends up doing a LOT of healing (usually 8-10% of healing done for 5 and 10 mans).

I think they are all equally easy to AE tank with the new abilities. So knowing what the differences are, I suggest you weigh the other utility / group benefits of each class to choose. You can make them all work with enough spamable buttons :)

[phara]

As far as the rest of the group makeup, I'd urge you to really think about how you are going to tackle groups of mobs in heroics. A lot of people will just say "oh use leet pally tank you don't need CC". Most of those people don't appear to have any badge / heroic geared toons.

I have to provide the disclaimer that I have NOT multiboxed heroics yet, but I have tanked and healed dozens of them, so I know what it takes to handle the big pulls.

You should be aware that PVE multiboxers fall into 2 groups - non traditional burst dps (typically 5 shaman with some variation) or the trinity (tank / heal / dps|cc). Burst dps groups use non-traditional methods (kiting, elemental pet tanks, stoneclaw totems) inside isntances combined with insanse DPS to down mobs quickly. When you do a traditional group (as you are) you lose 2 spots to non-dps roles, so you're not going to just blow everything up (especially at first). For your tank to handle that with little CC you need to be well geared (to include some badge gear).

That's NOT to say you're proposed group can't handle it - I'm just suggesting you plan out how you will do it. For instance, you may need to use druid roots, spriest mind control, or warlock seduce in addition to your single mage sheep on big pulls. Read up on those forms of CC and think about how you would manage it with how you are controlling your toons and then decide if it's the right group make up (again, I think you can do it but some pulls will require some special prep). Several badges later you'll be able to just AE tank everything and kill it, but it can be a frustrating road getting there.

[Kulzor]

Actually, paladins also have one really, really nice ability that comes in handy on a rare boss fight: Lay on Hands. 20 minute cooldown - heal yourself for your full health.

So in cases where the healer(s) die, and or everyone else dies, and the tank is left trying to finish off the boss... Boom, full heal plus some mana for some offense.

Granted, a warrior/bear won't run out of mana in a boss fight, they'll gain more rage - but once you pot a single time, you are about out of options to heal yourself. (Bandages would be interrupted, starting that cooldown. If you are an herbalist you can get 1200 health back from that instant, other trinkets can work too - but aren't changable mid-combat.)

Something to think about.

Personally, I've found that my paladin is as easy to "spam a button" as the dpsers and healer are in my party. Unless something odd occurs, once battle has begun I can literally just hit one button to dps, heal, and tank.

[sthar]

I'm doing this grp.
Pala tank
Frost mage
Balance Druid
Elemental shaman
Bm huntard
-There you have almost all the important nonstacking buffs.
Dpsing and healing with the druid and shaman.
But then I have maxed out all my general and personal macros.( I should rly start to use macaroon...)
I find that I lvl very fast and easy with this grp, and that is a big + for me.

[Ualaa]

My PvE team is entirely 70's who leveled up alone (well two computers, two accounts, no Keyclone).
They've since been account transfered, so I have 2-3 70's per account.

My PvE team, with the goal of instances and heroics is:
- Prot Paladin
- Shadow Priest
- Fire/Arcane Mage
- Demon Warlock
- Dream Druid

I'm in the process of deciding on macro's and keybinds. I'm thinking of dividing their primary offense into two portions.

Hot Key: 1
Paladin /castsequence reset=combat Seal of Vengeance, Avengers Strike, Judgement of Wisdom,,,
Priest /castsequence reset=combat ,,Shadow Word:Pain, Vampiric Touch, Vampiric Embrace
Mage /castsequence reset=combat ,,Scorch, Scorch, Scorch
Warlock /castsequence reset=combat ,,Corruption, Curse of the Elements, Immolate
Druid /castsequence reset=combat ,,Moonfire, Faerie Fire, Insect Swarm

Hot Key: 2
Paladin /castrandom Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous
Priest /castrandom [target=party1Target] Mind Blast, Mind Flay
Mage /cast [target=party1Target] Fireball
Warlock (Line 1: /petattack, Line 2: /cast [target=party1Target] Shadowbolt)
Druid /castsequence [target=party1Target] reset=combat Wrath, Wrath, Wrath,,,,,,,,,
Druid /castsequence [target=TankName] reset=combat ,,,,Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Lifebloom,

So, I'll open with Key Press 1, three times no matter what the target is.
This gets my Paladin to Seal of Vengeance, pull with Avenger's Strike and judge the mob with Wisdom.
Each of my other toons casts their first ability as the Paladin casts her third: SW:Pain/Scorch/Corruption/Faerie Fire.

Against trash or fast dying mobs, I'll then move on to my 2nd dps key, but on tougher mobs I'll press it twice more for:
Priest VT/VE, Mage Scorchx2 (3 debuff counters each via Glyph), Warlock CoE/Immolate and Druid FF/IS.

The 2nd dps macro is pretty much burn stuff.

I'm not sure if this idea helps anyone's set up or not. I like it, quick to die things aren't debuffed heavily, prior to moving on to the damage dealing. Tougher things are debuffed more.






*EDIT*
A macro you might like...

/tar [target=focus, nodead] focus
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
/assist Toon
/focus

Each of your CC toons should have something similar to this. My mage has this keybound to Num Pad 1. My Priest to Num Pad 2. My Warlock to Num Pad 3.
My paladin has gone into the default WoW keybindings and selected under Raid Marking section: Moon (Num Pad 1), Star (Num Pad 2), Diamond (Num Pad 3).

My mage has a second macro on Num Pad 4; the priest's version is with Shackle and is on Num Pad 5, the Warlocks is with Banish and on Numpad 6.
So for me, Mage Focus is 1 and Mage CC is directly above 1 (4).

/cast [target=focus] Polymorph
/cast [target=focus] Shackle Undead
/cast [target=focus] Banish

For me, I also use Num Pad 0:
/clearfocus

The first macro will have the slave toon target their focus if they have a living focus. If they don't, they assist your TANK and then focus that target.
So on your tank toon, you can press a key for the mage to Focus the Sheep target, and that target is marked for your reference.
The same can be done for each of your available CC's.
And each toon can individually CC its own focus.

[Tanntyn]

Ualaa,
I like your setup. I'll probably set up something similar.

[Bigfish]

Now THAT'S interesting. I did not know that about Commas. See, this is why I come here. Now to go implement it!

Edit: Bwahaha! I've posted before the string of posts I was responding to! The sands of time are mine to command!

[hits79]

wow I have no input in this thread, but I just want to say that this has made alot of stuff clear to me.

[algol]

Actions are comma delimited. However an action can be blank - "" instead of "Fireball" (or whatever). So ",,Fireball" means "do nothing, do nothing, Fireball." Clear?

[sthar]

When multiboxing multiclasses I would not been able to do all the complex stuff without the uber commas.
One thing to remember with the time reset on /castsequence is that it resets xsec from the last keypress.
And if you did not know you can do reset=0.1 for example, rly helps when you want to be able to semi spam a button. You can also utilize it so that when hammer it will go over to a sequence.
For the most part I use SHIFT 1-5, CTRL 1-5, ALT 1-5, SHIFT+ALT 1-5 for my multibox healing, 1-5 representing the toons.

Example:
/target toon1-5
/castsequence reset=0.1 Chain Heal,,Grounding Totem,Fire Elemental Totem
/castsequence reset=0.2 ,,Rejuvenation,Healing Touch
/cast Hand of Sacrifice
/castsequence reset=60 ,Amplify Magic,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/targetlasttarget
But if you want to heal with assist, (I'm using mouseover on the current leader and assisting). The problem with assist healing is that there is a delay on the target change so I use commas for delay and a short reset for semi spamming.
/click ActionButton10 (ab10 is leaderless (assist))
/castsequence reset=0.1 ,,Flash of Light,
/castsequence reset=0.1 ,,Holy Light,
/castsequence reset=0.2 ,,,,Healing Touch,
/castsequence reset=0.1 ,,Lesser Healing Wave,
/castsequence reset=0.1 ,,Healing Wave,
Will use HL when you dont have FoL, low lvl, same for HW and LHW

[lexuspartsdude]

Ive been using /castrandom and now im about to try the cast sequence when i set my toons up for an instance .. one question thought.. what are all the commas added in here for? Ive checked wikis and such on castsequence macros but i cant find where it says to EVER use more than 1 comma?

EXAMPLE

Druid /castsequence [target=party1Target] reset=combat Wrath, Wrath, Wrath,,,,,,,,, <--- Theres around 9 ... ?
Druid /castsequence [target=TankName] reset=combat ,,,,Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Lifebloom, <--- Theres 4 in there between combat and Lifebloom

I dont want to sound like a noob , but unfortunately thats what i am on this subject. ?(

[Jheusse]

The commas are basically blank spaces in the sequence that says "do nothing, go to the next command". Multiple commas are multiple delays to allow different actions to synch up.

For example, 3 mages want to round robin on frost nova

First one has a castsequence of Frost Nova,,
Second has a castsequence of ,Frost Nova,
Third has a castsequence of ,,Frost Nova

Hit that 3 times, the first mage novas, then the second one on next press, then the 3rd on last press.

My syntax is not accurate, but the principle should be clear. it's useful for roundrobin on interrupts or CC or as used above to force the dps to wait a command or two for the pally to get aggro. Shock rotations are very common for this.

[lexuspartsdude]

oK so each comma represents a keypress that basically delays the action for one keypress. IE put 5 commas in front of say FIREBLAST and itll take 6 keystrokes?