4 Mages, 4 hunters, 4 shamans or other?

[Clovis]

Hello everyone,

I came across this place and the software while looking for a mod to make multi-boxing easier. I currently run my mage and shaman (both lvl 72) using only dual monitors and no otherwise special software (just assist and follow macros for whichever is the slave depending on the situation).

I initially came across videos of 3 mages and then the 5 shaman (I had heard of you as well, you're infamous on the Sargeras pvp server at least).

Anyhow, so I bought the software and I've been playing with it for the past hour. I have a total of 3 accounts (my two plus my wife's 3yr old inactive). It occured to me that I could use two accounts to use the whole recruit a friend to turn 2 accounts into 4.

My shaman is resto so I want to use the shaman as the group's healer - but should I do 4 hunters + 1 shaman, 4 mages + 1 shaman or 5 shamans?



Another option (a tad cheaper) is just running 4 and getting a healer on the 5 man team. Thoughts?



-Clovis

[Stealthy]

4 or 5 Shamans, or 4 Shamans with a Pally.

These are proven combinations for boxing that work. And with the recent talent changes announce for Shams, they keep getting better.

Cheers,
S.

[Clovis]

Shamans is where I'm leaning.

Basically here's what I see. I want to use my resto shaman as the healer, regardless of the group make up and the master character - so the total group will consist of 5 characters.

Benifits of 4 mages: Huge burst damage and concentrated AOE damage (arcane explosion)

Benifits of 4 hunters: Namely 4 pets - I think this would make leveling the characters easier - I also currently have a L72 hunter and L72 shaman (on seperate accounts, I currently dual box these) so I would only need to level 3 togather.

Benifits of 5 Shamans: Totems, decent burst damage. The main benifit that I can think of would be healing - through having a macro on each character, you can have one character togather another, target another, target another, ect and cast chain heal. Also with 5 shamans its harder to target specifically the healer since the resto shaman can cast chain lightenings as well.

Another option with the mages would be leveling a priest with them and using that as the healer instead of my shaman.

Choices, choices!

[mikekim]

if you purchase another two accounts and RAF them to your existing two, you will have enougth time to level up to 60, 4 of each class

I would start with shamans, then the choice is yours

I finally decided on the following for my raf levelling (already had 5 shamans (60), 1 warlock (70), 1 mage (60), 1 hunter(60), 1 paladin(70) and 1 Druid(60))

Mages ->58 (ready to grind for the winterspring frostsaber)
Warlocks ->60
Hunters -> currently at 23
Druids -> next on the list

I also gifted a Rogue and Priest to 60 and will be able to gift two more to 60 at the end.

once you have them levelled up you can mix and match to find the combination of charaters that suits you best :thumbup:


on another note - leave the wifes account alone when you multibox, as unless the accounts are in the same name you could risk getting all of them banned

[Nicbennett]

on another note - leave the wifes account alone when you multibox, as unless the accounts are in the same name you could risk getting all of them banned

this might be a stupid question, I am new at this, but why might that get them banned?

[Sam DeathWalker]

Its a violation of the ToS to allow others to play you accounts ... (only exception is your minor child).

[Trammel]

Is your main goal to pve or pvp?

PVE wise:

Paladin
Druid
Shaman
Shaman
Shaman

or

DK
Shaman
Shaman
Shaman
Shaman

PVP

5 Shamans is fine, but a DK might be nice (and a druid is really nice).


Seems like speccing the DK for the magic bubble = really good for pvp.

[Clovis]

Firstly, thank you everyone for the wealth of information on this site and forum and of course the program itself. For the ease Keycloner ads to multiboxing, a $20 fee is very reasonable IMO.

Here's what I did to get a taste of things.

My goal is for a 5v5 arena teams and of course the fun of nuking enemy combatants while leveling. I don't forsee PVE being in their future as my guild already typically has people sitting out our raids as it is; the only PVE my hunter saw was from PUGs that I ran myself.

I used only my two accounts and left the wife's alone (all though same last name, same address, same IP, ect I doubt it would be an issue for "sharing accounts").

I used my two accounts to send out a total of three RAF invites to create 3 trial accounts. I play alliance and you can't make a shaman on a classic trial account, but this is easy enough by buying TBC, especially with the "battlechest"s on sale for $20 this friday.

So to get a taste I made 4 mages and 1 priest (all human, for the every man for himself (aka human WOTF). Using Xzin as an example I lead with the priest and casting "smite" with her causes the mage firing squad to all cast fireballs.

I was able to get the hang of things and got the characters to level 8 - One interesting thing - the characters do not gain experience eveninly, despite being all created, leveled and RAF togather - infact one mage is a full level behind the priest, I haven't yet figured out what's the reason behind that.

Issues so far:

The xp issue mentioned above.

Blizzard apparently limits the number of accounts you can create in a period of time. I'm assuming this is to combat gold farmers. I had to have my friend enter information for the last account to create it so it's likely IP related. The magic number seems to be 3 accounts at one time, anything more and you'll get an error upon creation.

While the machine doesn't seem to have a problem running 5 instances (it glitches slightly but overall runs around 40 FPS; three instances is perfect) I am having the problem of the characters running off in their own direction while on /follow. To work around this I have been spamming my /follow key every second or so but if there's a better solution please fill me in! I did read it started with patch 3.0.2 but I haven't found anything beyond that yet.

Trial accounts can't accept trades / gold (which makes buying spells a little rough since I was looting on with the priest before I figured that out).

Assuming there is still a Circut City opened in Colorado Springs I'll pick up 1-3 copies for $60 on Black Friday. I'm still deciding if 3 would work better for me, as opposed to a team of 5 (performance, the /follow issue didn't happen with 3 and of course monthly expense)

So I've narrowed my choice to all shamans or the mage + priest set up. The shaman has the advantage of I already have one levled up and geared ;)

Basically, does the ability to do the massive burst DPS, along with AOE enough to offset a 5 shaman team (4 elemental, 1 resto) - that's what I have to decide.

[Jheusse]

One thing it sounds like you may have overlooked in your setup of keyclone, your do not pass keys.

Keyclone broadcasts every keystroke to all instances unless you tell it otherwise.

Most MBers put at minimum WASD on their do not pass list, so only the active focused window receives your movement commands. Additional keys like /, enter, or spacebar are also sometimes added to that list.

You can also set keyclone to the inverse, where it does not pass any keystrokes besides the ones you put on the list.

When I set up my first set of accounts I muffed my links and had the result be that one toon started falling behind because he was linked to my main account, which was not supposed to be in the chain (and wasn't in the group). I returned those battlechests for a refund and canceled the accounts. Either that or you had cases where someone was dead or out of range when a kill or turnin happened. Check the links in account management or call Billing to have them look at it. One level behind by level 8 seems to me that that toon isn't linked right. Figure it out while they are still trial accounts, since you can cancel and redo.

I'll also note that people have had fun with balance druid teams too, though not sure how much arena they've been.

Read up on Jamba, it'll be a help once you're settled in. (Macros forum sticky)

I had to set up my accounts on the phone with Billing, but you're right, 3 seems to be the cap, and setting that 4th one up takes another IP or Billing's help.

Entering the realm of the multiboxer brings much higher scrutiny of your accounts, so yes they can and will catch the difference in wife's account. Recall there will be obnoxious and jealous haters out there who will report you regardless of what you do.

[puppychow]

Keep in mind in s3/s4 for arena, most successful multibox arena teams were (1) in the 5s bracket, (2) consisted of 2 players, a mb controlling 4 shamans and a second player controlling a healer, there were maybe 3-5 teams controlled by 1 player that hit high arena ranking (1900+) and virtually no multiboxer was having success after patch 3.0. Its really hard to tell at this point what teams will do great in season 5 -- could be a few DKs, maybe hunters, maybe shamans. The later a season gets the harder it gets since your new team is going to be undergeared compared to other teams, something else to keep in mind.

Its still a hell of a lot of fun though, especially when you start working out strats for countering other powerful teams.

[Soundeyes]

Playing 1xPally and 4xMages has been very fun. They are 74 now and can easily kill level the level 80 horde that try to gank. I also have 5 shaman, 5 druid, and 3 warlock all at 60 but the team getting the most attention has been the mages.

Do what's fun for you, don't do the flavor of the month just because everyone else is doing it. (not dissing 5x Shaman, it's way OP)

[Kaynin]

Mages and hunters are seriously cool too. Really, but in terms of 5 man and utility, shamans are still the best overall..

They have more utility to cope in PvP situations, and due to having decent healing capabilities while being a dps spec. (At least when you are 4x elemental shaman). Causes 4x shamans to still be the best all round quad box. And they too are seriously fun. ;)

In terms of mages, I would go 3x mage and 1x priest. Or as far as hunters to, 3x hunters and 1x priest. If you do that you will have very strong PvE capabilities and apart from vehicle fights, should do fine in battlegrounds too. Arena is another story, but it's not even certain if elemental shamans will do as good in arena as before. We still have potential. But I'm not seeing us reach 2k rating 'as easily' (not easy at all, just very possible. :P) as before.

As for multiboxers reaching 1900+ in 5v5, I think only one 5-boxer managed this, forgot his name. And quite a few quad-boxing shamans. I was 1890 myself, but never topped in gear (had 1050 spellpower and 390 resiliance tho, so pretty close to the best avail :P ). If I had one more week before the 3.0 patch I probably would have gotten 1950+. Still a bit sour from not getting the most awesome looking set in the game in full. :<