gaiusbulltar
01-15-2009, 04:20 PM
I've been dual boxing a feral druid and a priest. I've run most of the level 80 heroics, and am just starting into Naxx with my guild. But there are a several things that are very challenging for me to do in a dual box environment, which may be an artifact of my setup *. I'm wondering if any other multi boxers have encountered these, and what workarounds might be useful?
Following vehicles - /follow doesn't seem to work right when both toons are in vehicles. This is mainly a problem for things like Wintergrasp and the Wyrmrest dragon daily, which are not such a big deal, but the Oculus uses vehicles (and vehicles' abilities) for a substantial portion. I've been avoiding Heroic Oculus for this reason.
Independent movement - There are a few bosses that require independent movement for all characters at some points. Drakkari Coloussus in Gundrak drops puddles which players must move out of quickly, and the /follow lag doesn't cut it. Loken in Halls of Lightning has a lightning nova that has to be escaped quickly (and he must be returned to quickly afterward); again, /follow fail. Anub'Rekhan in the Arachnid Quarter was tricky, having to move my tank constantly during the kiting phase while still doing stuff with the healer. For these, I've resorted to putting one hand on each keyboard, hoping my brain doesn't explode.
Targeting in 25-player raids - I've got macros set up that send F1-F5 to my priest's box, as well as the normal hotkeys. So I can target a group member and drop a heal on them without having to mouse over to the priest's box. Works great, but doesn't scale. For 10-player raids, I can use F1-F10 if I manually set up /target macros for the ten players - some initial overhead, but works fine once I remember who's mapped to what. But for 25-player raids, I'm stumped. I was thinking of trying to cook up an addon that lets me right-click the player frame on my main box to send a /whisper to the 2nd box that instructs them to target that player, but I don't think the addon API supports that. Adding meta keys could help a little, but the task of memorizing who's mapped to [Shift][Control][F1-F10] for each and every raid is frightening. So far I've found it easiest to go with one toon at a time to the 25-player raid instances, at least while I'm still learning them. But in the long run, I'd like to put together tools to do these effectively too.
Arena - totally at a loss on how to do anything reasonable here. Predictability seems to be important at least for my current setup.
* My setup: I'm using two computers (Macs) with Synergy for keyboard and mouse sharing. I've mapped Command-X on the main box to send X to the second box, where X is any combination of Shift, Alt, Control, and primary key (0-9, -, =, F1-F19, arrow keys). I use Bartender on both computers to map [Shift][Control]{0-9,-,=} to 48 bar buttons, with Alt as self-cast. I use Pitbull for replacement unit frames and activate "show target of party member" for some extra feedback about who my priest has targeted. I use ThankGod on the second box to get audiovisual warnings for things like Surge of Light and Holy Concentration proc.
Following vehicles - /follow doesn't seem to work right when both toons are in vehicles. This is mainly a problem for things like Wintergrasp and the Wyrmrest dragon daily, which are not such a big deal, but the Oculus uses vehicles (and vehicles' abilities) for a substantial portion. I've been avoiding Heroic Oculus for this reason.
Independent movement - There are a few bosses that require independent movement for all characters at some points. Drakkari Coloussus in Gundrak drops puddles which players must move out of quickly, and the /follow lag doesn't cut it. Loken in Halls of Lightning has a lightning nova that has to be escaped quickly (and he must be returned to quickly afterward); again, /follow fail. Anub'Rekhan in the Arachnid Quarter was tricky, having to move my tank constantly during the kiting phase while still doing stuff with the healer. For these, I've resorted to putting one hand on each keyboard, hoping my brain doesn't explode.
Targeting in 25-player raids - I've got macros set up that send F1-F5 to my priest's box, as well as the normal hotkeys. So I can target a group member and drop a heal on them without having to mouse over to the priest's box. Works great, but doesn't scale. For 10-player raids, I can use F1-F10 if I manually set up /target macros for the ten players - some initial overhead, but works fine once I remember who's mapped to what. But for 25-player raids, I'm stumped. I was thinking of trying to cook up an addon that lets me right-click the player frame on my main box to send a /whisper to the 2nd box that instructs them to target that player, but I don't think the addon API supports that. Adding meta keys could help a little, but the task of memorizing who's mapped to [Shift][Control][F1-F10] for each and every raid is frightening. So far I've found it easiest to go with one toon at a time to the 25-player raid instances, at least while I'm still learning them. But in the long run, I'd like to put together tools to do these effectively too.
Arena - totally at a loss on how to do anything reasonable here. Predictability seems to be important at least for my current setup.
* My setup: I'm using two computers (Macs) with Synergy for keyboard and mouse sharing. I've mapped Command-X on the main box to send X to the second box, where X is any combination of Shift, Alt, Control, and primary key (0-9, -, =, F1-F19, arrow keys). I use Bartender on both computers to map [Shift][Control]{0-9,-,=} to 48 bar buttons, with Alt as self-cast. I use Pitbull for replacement unit frames and activate "show target of party member" for some extra feedback about who my priest has targeted. I use ThankGod on the second box to get audiovisual warnings for things like Surge of Light and Holy Concentration proc.