Another tread on team selection + profession question

[Seldum]

First off, nice forum and thanks for all the efford and help you guys give and share!

Inspired by this great site, I have spend the last two weeks reading up on multiboxing, and found out I want to go with a software approach to multiboxing.
Last night I created and got 2 more accounts (trial) up and running. Im totally in love with my main character who is mage, so I created 3 undead mages to tryout multiboxing. And I had a blast with them!
Here’s my question 1:
I want to be able to run instances by my own. I have the hardware to setup another computer beside my main (Main, quadcore, Geforce 7950GX2 1Gb DDR3 ram + 2 GB DDR3 ram on motherboard), so that wise I can do 5 boxing without to much trouble/lag.

I’m not into pvp, for this I have my main mage char. My goal is to be able to solo a lot of the instances out there.

Which characters should I go with?

1) 5x shammy?
2) 1x priest, 4x mages?
3) A mixed team? Tank, healer, 3 dps? (this seems rather complicated to me).
4) 5x mages?
5) 5x locks?

Im seriously considering the mage/priest setup like Xzin. 1, I have extensive expirence with the mages, and I have a lvl 53 priest also. 2, dps ftw! Also considering having the same types of characters seems like a good choice, and easy to use. I was also thinking about going 5x mages and just AoE nuke everything. But this won’t do for instance runs I think. I would probably get killed.

Shammys looks fun. I have never played a shaman before, so I would have a learning curve.

Here’s my question 2:

What about professions? The optimum would be a mix and including all gathering profession in the team, but are there any macros to help you skin corpses, mine nodes etc? or do I have to do this manually all the time?
If there’s a macro or something ill find it myself, but so far I haven’t looked deeper into this.

Thanks for the help guys!

[Fuzzyboy]

Q1:

If you're going to do PvE only, go with a holy trinity setup (tank, healer, 3xdps). While you can some instances with uncoventional setups, a holy trinity setup is much more future proof and will cause you less headaches. I'd suggest paladin for tank (easy to manage), any healer will do (I prefer shaman, but different healers have different strengths), for dps, make sure you cover some of the important buffs. Mage/balance druid/shaman could work well, as well as 2 shaman / balance druid, etc. etc. - basically you can mix and match, just keep an eye on buff/debuff synergy.

Q2:

There is no auto-mining or auto-herbing, but you can "cast" skinning so to use your main to target the mob that needs to be skinned. If I could redo my professions I'd lose my gathering professions, since 95% of my income is from dailies / looting / disenchanting. Just pick the professions you have most use for. I have engineering/blacksmithing on my paladin (main) and a mix of other professions on my other chars: JC, Inscription (skip this, it isn't very useful tbh), Alchemy, Tailoring, LW, Enchanting, Mining, Herbalism. Going with Engineering on all chars could be nice for mount/headpiece, but that's really a matter of preference (and gold) :-)

It can be a good idea to select the professions relating to the armortype of the char (tailoring for clothies, LW for leather/mail etc), but keep in mind that once you replace the BoP epics from the crafts, they don't have a lot of use. Theyre nice to gear up with.

If I was starting over, I'd make a party of paladin, resto shaman, elemental shaman, balance druid and a mage. This way you'd have a nice buff/debuff synergy, very nice utility, excellent CC and effective looting (1 cloth class, 1 leather class, 2 mail classes and 1 plate class). My current setup (see signature) works well also, but there is no definite answer - try some different classes out and see what you like. Keep in mind that a lot of classes have different playstyles in the later game than in the early game. I'd stick to gathering professions and worry about the rest once I was level 70 and had a bunch of gold :-)

[Fuzzyboy]

Oh, and btw, relating to Q1 - don't worry about tank, healer, dps seeming complicated, it's just something to get used to and it's not as complicated as it seems. You're going to put in a lot of time playing your team and you'll have all this figured out once you hit 70. The first dungeon is harder that if you had 5xchar team, but it's a matter of a few extra hours to learn :)

[Tynk]

Fuzzy has it pretty much all down there.... but another thing to keep in mind is that Blizzard is making the line between roles for hybrid classes a lot thinner.
Right now I am running

Prot Pally = Tank
Fury Warrior = Melee dps/back up tank
Elemental Shaman = Main Heler/DPS
Balance Druid = Back Up Healer/DPS
Arcane Mage = DPS

With this I also can use the druid for a back up tank. Gives a lot of versatility to compensate for the more complicated setup.
While questing I use them as full dps and a tank, while instancing the shaman goes full healing.

I just got these to 60 last week and am working on trying to find my next team make up. (Gota make full use of my RAF :) )
I was thinking about doing the full druid make up. This will give me a simpler set up as far as control and macro's go will giving me a extremely versatile team.

[Seldum]

Thanks for the nice feedback. Eventually professions etc. all boils down to what you like etc. For me its more a question of putting together a good team for instance runs etc. because profession can always be dropped, thats not possible with the classes unless you have to much time on your hands hehe.

I think I could try out the party you selected as it seems a bit more versatile than just going full out with 5 mages hehe, even though that would be fun aswell. In the long run, I think 5 mages woulden't get as far as with a more balanced group, just like you said yourself.

When I start out on a server, I usually pickup skinning and mining/herbalism as its a good gold generator to begin with, and easy to lvl. But with 5 characters, you could cover them all (nearly) I guess. Makes me considering 5 duids hehe.

Does anyone else have something to add?

*Edit: Typos

[Seldum]

Tynk - Excactly what im thinking aswell. Even though a full druid setup would miss some of the kewl buffs offered by the other classes, it would definetly be easier to play. And to my knowledge, druids geared as tanks is doing a good job at that aswell as being able to also be geared as a good healers.

But I don't have enough expirence, to be able to say if druids is good enough to be able to fill all the roles (if specialized)?

[Fuzzyboy]

One last thing of note - melee characters are a lot harder to box. If you have a rogue/fury-war/retri-pala in addition to your tank, there's another learning curve and some movement issues on some bosses/mobs.

[ILikeTwins]

I love the idea of playing a 5 druid team. One feral bear spec, one resto spec and either 3 balance specs or 1 feral cat spec/2 balance. You would miss out on some of the synergies of having a more balanced group but the payback is that they could all tank/heal/dps in a pinch. I generally two box but this would make me want to five box

[Seldum]

would look nice to creap up in stealth and attack a mob or whatever and puff - one bear, one healer and 3 Moonkin muhahaha! Or 5 dire bears, just swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe

[Tsunami]

seems hard not to want to take advantage of all the cool things that an all shaman team can do. 20 totems, thunderstorm, chain lightning, chain heal, hex @ 80. lets not forget 5 elemental earth or fire totems for boss fights. but if you don't want to be limited to only one class than i would say that 1 pally/ 4 shammies would be the next best thing.

preist/4warlock or priest/4mage would be able to dish out a ton of damage but ultimately they don't have armor. individually controlled their survivability goes up but when 4 boxing slaves your ability to multitask 5 toons goes down exponential.(hope that makes sense) if they get feared, stunned, cc'd this group dynamic doesn't seem the best for recouping from a bad situation. plus with one healer if they are killed than your s.o.l.

the all druid team very interesting with all the possible combination, plus with blizzard allow duel spec you could change the group mix without having to change toons and lose experience or rep with your main group of 5. 5 druids on a pvp server would be alot of fun to play.

i would go with survivability as the main deciding factor for your group.

[Seldum]

Tsunami@

Another valid point. As im new to the MB scene I would like to streamline my first team, and I have been thinking about going all shammy.... even though me luv me mage :(

Im also considering a pvp server - Ravenclaw as some of my mates are playing there. But my other mains is currently at Silvermoon and Arathor both PVE servers.

So ravenclaw would be a "whole new start" both in boxing and in playing on a pvp server. Also having to gather gold in the beginning to be able to buy bags etc. sucks....

Thanks for all the input. Does anyone here have expirence with playing with druids? 3,4,5?

[Tsunami]

just remember if you start your 5box team using RAF you will get 4 free mounts and level 3x faster than when you solo'd, so that will save a lot. plus you will not be alone, you have 4 toons backing you up. so you don't need the best gear. not like when you are solo. 5 lightning bolts + 5 earth shocks will kill most mobs 3-4 levels higher than you. also you will be collecting the reward from 5 quest turn ins. so pull your gold and one of your toons should have enough cash to be able to afford some big bags.

if you have some friends on playing on the same server than get them to lend you some gold. you should be able to level quickly.

[Solon]

My thoughts on professions: All of my boxing toons are enchanters. I get so many unusable BoP from quests and instance runs that make for d/e into mats to level enchanting. I don't make any gold off it till I level enchanting out of a particular mat, but once you get high enough it is easy to go after certain mats to AH.

[Seldum]

Again, very nice and very constructive comments. Thanks.

If I choose to start at ravenclaw I might be able to get a few 16 slots bags from my friends, but I think thats it. I could also consider moving my main from silvermoon and brig the gold, that would help a bit even though im alliance on silvermoon, and I would create horde as my friends are all horde on Ravenclaw.

I think I will need to think a bit about the pros and cons with this decission.

No matter which profession I choose one will atleast be a profession so im capable of generating some items for my team.

Thanks for all the positive and constructive posts!

[heyaz]

I'm currently running paladin + 4x elemental shaman and I love it. Just blast through everything and the pally holds aggro like a champ.

My other team is a heavy dps team, 2x shadow priests 2x warlocks. It's fun in pvp, but other than that it's kind of a gimmick, I can't do any serious pve especially without a tank, and there's no arena viability at all.
I think other teams run into similar problems, like the all mage teams. However, it's all about what you want to accomplish.

I went with shaman because I can blast through the instances with elemental, have viability in pvp, and with the paladin be able to do any 5 mans I want.

[Souca]

One thing to keep in mind is even if you play 5 of the same class, you are playing three different roles. You will always have to cover tanking, dps and healing. Single class groups do add some simplicity, but not as much as you think when you eventually have to start handling the three roles. One of the nicest things about boxing is the flexibility it offers. While this may be the first group you get to 70, it doesn't have to be the only one you ever play. Once the first group makes it to 70 or 80, it becomes even easier to get other characters up there, insanely so with RAF. As you get new characters into the fold you can try a new combination or even create a new team. You are gonna have so much fun it should be illegal ;)

- Souca -

[Souca]

As you mentioned starting over on a new server, and a pvp at that one, three comments:

1- Some pvp servers you will apparently be ganked a ton specifically for being a multiboxer. Know this going in, both for frustration and to have a kill on sight addon installed so you can find them once you hit 70.

2- With RAF you will level very quickly, which means you will be constantly struggling to have the gold to train your skills if you're a complete re-roll on a new server. You will be forced to pick and choose which skills to train unless you have a source of gold. Coming back from a 90 min quest session and having 35 skills available to train is not uncommon.

3- Casters are less gear dependent than melee. You'll find many stories on this site of people getting their warlock or priest or whoever team to 60 while wearing gear that averages some ridiculous level like L23, because when you run 3,4,5 synched casters, most mobs get at most one swing. My shammies wear a lot of cloth for the caster stats right now at 53 and only wear quest prizes.

This is some really good info right here. Jheusse, you hit the nail on the head. I wish I had kept a log, but I'm pretty sure I spent close to 1500g on my 5 team by the time they were 60 in training costs alone. Once you get to Outlands money gets easier. Until then, don't expect to finish most quest chains as you will out level them before you to the final reward. Add in the fact that you generally kill 1/5th the mobs and each character gets on 1/5th of the gold and things get expensive fast.

- Souca -

[algol]

3- Casters are less gear dependent than melee. You'll find many stories on this site of people getting their warlock or priest or whoever team to 60 while wearing gear that averages some ridiculous level like L23, because when you run 3,4,5 synched casters, most mobs get at most one swing. My shammies wear a lot of cloth for the caster stats right now at 53 and only wear quest prizes.Hell, I do this for single-play casters. A few things from quests don't hurt, but the main thing it governs on lowbie gear is how big your mana pool is, and how many hits it takes to kill you. And it doesn't do much for those. On a shammy, when you can get meaningful armor, maybe a bit more than usual...but grey drops will cover a lot of that and quests the rest. Level then gear up, unless you're some poor melee sap who hits like a girl if they don't get a new pointy stick every few levels.

[Jheusse]

As you mentioned starting over on a new server, and a pvp at that one, three comments:

1- Some pvp servers you will apparently be ganked a ton specifically for being a multiboxer. Know this going in, both for frustration and to have a kill on sight addon installed so you can find them once you hit 70.

2- With RAF you will level very quickly, which means you will be constantly struggling to have the gold to train your skills if you're a complete re-roll on a new server. You will be forced to pick and choose which skills to train unless you have a source of gold. Coming back from a 90 min quest session and having 35 skills available to train is not uncommon.

3- Casters are less gear dependent than melee. You'll find many stories on this site of people getting their warlock or priest or whoever team to 60 while wearing gear that averages some ridiculous level like L23, because when you run 3,4,5 synched casters, most mobs get at most one swing. My shammies wear a lot of cloth for the caster stats right now at 53 and only wear quest prizes.

[Seldum]

@souca

When I was thinking the 5 druid setup I was concluding the excact same thing. No matter how I twist and turn it, I will have to do the tank, healer, dps thing. And If I choose to run the same race I will miss the importent aspect of the different buffs the different toons provide..... what to do, what to do.

Anyway, I looked into the RAF thing yesterday and guess what! Im not in one of the countries enabled for RAF! bummer. Guess I have to do it the old fashion way then hehe.