A comprehensive view of a multi-class setup with some examples

[Nuclearone]

Firstly, I�d like to say thank you to everyone on these forums for teaching me how to multibox. I�ve been doing it about 6 months now, and I love it. I�m writing this to both educate others and seek improvements for my setup. I�m going to describe my setup in basic terms, as I�m at work and don�t have all of my specific macros in front of me. There are better write ups in other areas for everything, so if you have any questions about specific methods, you may want to use the search function above.

I use a basic FTL system for attacking and assisting. For most other actions I use simple key bindings. I have W,A,S, and D on the Do Not Pass List. My team consists of an Unholy DK Tank, Resto Shaman Healer, Arcane Mage, Balance Druid, and Survival Hunter. They are all level 80. I basically leveled the same specs, with the exception that my Shaman was specc�d Elemental for leveling. I ran into no situations where healing was an issue while leveling. I leveled via quests alone. The following is my basic setup. If you want my specific macros, just post here or PM me and I�ll get them to you.

1= follow

2=pull. DK deathgrips, Shaman casts water shield, Druid does moonfire and then IFF, Mage casts Focus Magic on Druid, Hunter does Hunter�s Mark.

3=spammable dps and tanking key. I�ll go ahead and list basic macro:
---DK----
/cast Rune Strike
/castsequence reset=target/combat/6 Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge SA
---Shaman---
Nothing at all
---Druid---
/use 13
/use 14
/castrandom Wrath, Starfire
---Mage---
/use 13
/use 14
/castsequence reset=target/5 [nochanneling:Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage
---Hunter---
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/use 13
/use 14
/petattack
/cast Kill Command
/castrandom Explosive Shot, Explosive Shot, Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Aimed Shot
*note: this is from memory, and probably isn�t exact.*

4= Only thing I have bound to this atm is DnD.

5= Nothing Atm

6=Oh shit pour on the dps. Boss killing use only pretty much. DK pops gargoyle, Shaman does heroism, Mage does mirror image and icy veins and arcane power, hunter does Rapid Fire. I have all the dps toons trinkets on this macro as well. I�d like to say that an arcane mage with heroism, arcane power, icy veins, and mirror image at the same time does some scary, scary dps. Think upwards of 4k dps with my group on a heroic boss. Threat can be an issue if you don�t wait for the tank to build it before using this. By comparison my hunter and boomkins are doing about 2400 at the same time.

That�s all there is to my basic kill stuff setup. Now on to a really cool button:

Number pad 0= Shaman casts earth shield and rip tide on tank, druid casts thorns on the tank, hunter casts misdirection on the tank, and the tank casts bone shield on himself. I use this button right before every pull. I don�t know why, but I really like this one.

And lastly, my healing setup. It�s not very robust atm, but works pretty well
Number pad 1: Healing Wave on tank
Number pad 2: Chain Heal Shaman
Number pad 3: Chain Heal Druid
Number pad 4: Chain Heal Mage
Number pad 5: Chain Heal Hunter
Number pad 6: Chain Heal Hunter�s pet
Number pad 7: Oh crap, heal the tank.

/use 13
/use 14
/cast Tidal Waves
/cast Nature�s Swiftness
/castsequence Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Healing Wave

Number pad 8: Same as number pad 7 except it heals the healer

Number pad +: Drop totems. I usually use /castsequence reset=combat/5 Mana Spring Totem, Flametongue totem, Strength of earth totem, Wrath of air totem.

I used to use smart buff for buffs, but it was giving me problems when WotLK launched, and I haven�t got around to checking it out again. I use Bindpad for macros, and I used Multiboxer v2 while leveling. I use a lot of other add-ons, but those are the only multiboxer specific ones.

I will gladly accept and ideas for improvements, and for those of you just getting into multiboxing, I hope this helps.

[Nuclearone]

I was wondering what kind of dps others are getting with similar mixed teams in Heroics. I'm at work, so I can't post a screen shot, but from memory, i get the following on most bosses when I pop all my cool downs and heroism:

DK tank: 1400 dps

Mage: 3700 dps (yes 3700, mages cooldowns are the bomb)

Hunter: 2300 dps

Druid: 2300 dps

My toon names are Nuclearone, Tiresome, Bnuclear, Anuclear, and Interest. The server is US Aegwynn alliance. If anyone has a mind to look at my talent specs and offer advice, I'd be thrilled. My current macros are still very simlar to those listed in the first post.

So far I've five boxed the following heroics: Gundrak (35 minute farm), UK (too slow for fun), HOL up to loken (will try that again soon, as I've had a few upgrades), and DTK (ignoring second boss).

[thinus]

/castsequence Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Healing Wave

????

[Nuclearone]

Yeah, no need. It's a legacy issue. At first I believe I tried something like /castsequence Healing Wave, Riptide, Chain heal, but decided that wasn't the way to go.

I actually did change that one a while back, as just a plain old /cast Healing Wave there works

[heffner]

I think for my Boomkin I cast a few more wraths relative to my starfire (just looked it up, I am using /castrandom Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Starfire, Starfire. No clue if this is better though). I also cast IIS.

I use the same basic sequence for my mage, although I am trying to avoid /castsequence but have only been moderately successful at that. My mage macro also includes PoM, Icy Veins and Arcane Power as well as Mirror Image. However, I know a lot of people just save these for manual activation but I am lazy and use it all the time.

Typically the totems I use are Grounding Totem, Mana Spring, Totem of Wrath and Stoneskin. I probably should re-investigate this as I haven't really looked into the optimal set of totems in a while.

[Nuclearone]

Since I was talking about it, I decided to go to HoL and smash Loken. It was down right easy this time, using the same strat I tried before. It's amazing the difference gear makes. The entire HoL took less than an hour, and I wasn't hurrying. Last time I was there I was OOM after every pull. Now I sit and drink between rooms.

[shaeman]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time round.

It's nice to see how people have things setup.

I just wanted to ask, have you refined your resto shaman macros at all.

I've been raiding on my enhancement shaman and have picked up pretty nice gear for resto.
(I've dual specced for it).

I decided to try out healing for the first time ever and did a heroic Utgarde pinnacle.
I found that keeping a tank up (he wasn't particularly well geared, but was crit immune) was really easy.
An earth shield, Riptide (the instant cast heal, with hot component) topped most things off.

Now there were aggro issues (especially on Skadi as the tank wasn't picking up the adds too well) , which I wont experience as much with my multibox team, but there were occassions where I needed to pop a quick heal on one of the others. So I found that I needed lesser healing wave to keep them alive before doing a bigger heal.

Did you find any occassions where you really need to oh sh*t heal a dps instead of just a tank. Is it less of an issue because you are casters and tend to see the mob running for your alts so can load up a heal?

[KvdM]

I was wondering what kind of dps others are getting with similar mixed teams in Heroics. I'm at work, so I can't post a screen shot, but from memory, i get the following on most bosses when I pop all my cool downs and heroism:Seems like you need to work on your hunter and druid macro's. Although there will always be some dps difference, if your team is equally geared then there shouldn't be a 1400dps gap between its members.

[Khatovar]

I always tended to use other tools outside of main heals when I could for the group. Bubble or HoSac/Salv on my paladin, druid had it easy as pie with WG and tranq. While solo healing, I was big on preventative measures on my shaman. Depending on the situation, I could drop an Earthbind or FS on a loose mob on my shaman to give the tank time to taunt a mob before it gets to DPS. I've even used Stoneclaw or Elementals to buy time if I saw incomming agro to DPS.

Beyond that, it was always the quickest heal possible. And don't forget that it's not all up to the healer to keep people alive. Most classes have a means to prevent or reduce damage and aggro and all tanks have a means of rescue. With your melee team, you should get a ton of AOE healing for them from the priest's AOEs, LotP, you can use instant chain heals if you have Maelstrom Weapon on your shammy and so on. It's a good setup that should provide a lot of ways to keep everyone up.

[shaeman]

Good point. I keep forgetting what my final group composition will be :) I've been running the shaman resto recently to learn my offspec but when the final two of my group hit 80 I will be running him as enhancement 90% of the time.

[Effex]

first off thx a lot for posting this Nuc! especialy this bit


DK tank: 1400 dps
Mage: 3700 dps (yes 3700, mages cooldowns are the bomb)
Hunter: 2300 dps
Druid: 2300 dps

Ive just been trying out my new group in normal nexus and I was getting a bit concerned on DPs especialy on my mage. currently running

DK
boomkin
mage
shaman
priest

the thing that worried me as I mentioned was made DPS my recount was showing around

35% sham (not surprised he was from my orinal 5 box team and heavily out gears the rest and has a lvl on them)
27% DK (again not too surprised as this was on trash and hes using a AOe macro)
23% druid (about what I expected given the other 2)
15% mage (WAY below what i was expecting)

Im thinking its mainly down to the fact i was in nexus with a lot fo trash being non elite and the fact the mage hasnt got an optimal spec or gear. but i was really considering swopping him out for another one of my shammy

[Gadzooks]

first off thx a lot for posting this Nuc! especialy this bit



DK tank: 1400 dps
Mage: 3700 dps (yes 3700, mages cooldowns are the bomb)
Hunter: 2300 dps
Druid: 2300 dps

Ive just been trying out my new group in normal nexus and I was getting a bit concerned on DPs especialy on my mage. currently running

DK
boomkin
mage
shaman
priest

the thing that worried me as I mentioned was made DPS my recount was showing around

35% sham (not surprised he was from my orinal 5 box team and heavily out gears the rest and has a lvl on them)
27% DK (again not too surprised as this was on trash and hes using a AOe macro)
23% druid (about what I expected given the other 2)
15% mage (WAY below what i was expecting)

Im thinking its mainly down to the fact i was in nexus with a lot fo trash being non elite and the fact the mage hasnt got an optimal spec or gear. but i was really considering swopping him out for another one of my shammyWhat spec is your mage, and what rotation are you using? I'm going to be working on mine to get her dps up as well - I'm focusing on gear, enchants and a few AH specials. She just got a titansteel spellblade, and a Faces of Doom, which boosted her DPS by 450 alone - well, well worth the price (she's inscription, she made the Faces Of Doom with stockpiled mats). I could be wrong, but it's probably best to overdo the spellpower as much as possible, so the spammable attacks hit for more.

Also, don't go by trash numbers - I used a rotation that my Mage rarely finishes, the mobs die so fast, I had to simplify it for trash to max out the amount of DPS she pumps out. Drove me crazy that she was always at the bottom of the DPS list, until I look at the combat logs and saw she kept resetting on the rotation, and was'nt critting - I changed it, and her DPS went up.

Dunno, hope that helps! :)

[wowphreak]

Just putting in my 2 cents worth.

My group in mostly level 78 gear from instances

resto druid
balance druid
elemental shaman
aff warlock
prot pali

basically spent most of my time gearing up my prot pali (made sure he was over defense minimum) and my resto druid. Most of my other chars dont have any enchants or gems

When I started doing herioc utgarde keep highest dps was my prot pali just barely breaking over 1200 dps, averaged over the whole run using (using recount)
My other chars barely broke 1k dps.

After spending about a week doing utagarde keep, some boss in Drak'Tharon Keep and take my char one at a time to the target dummy to improve there dps macro
My prot pali still only doing about 1200 dps but all my other chars are on average doing over 1300 dps with the warlock having the highest variability depending on whether or its a boss or just trash mobs

Now I just gotta work on getting my guys "to hit" higher and figure out different macro from trash mobs and bosses.

[Nuclearone]

The spec my mage is using: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Aegwynn&cn=Bnuclear&gn=Myst

You should understand that the 3700 dps is with all cooldowns popped +heroism. My mage seems to benefit much more than my other toons from the added haste. I do hold open the possibility that I'm missing something as well. My druid hit 2800 on boss today with heroism.

The mages spell rotation is basically /castsequence reset=combat/target/5 [nochanneling:arcane missiles] Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcan Barrage

I may actually do more dps without the missiles, but I haven't checked.

when i pop heroism I use (from memory) the following:

/use 13
/use 14
/cast Mirror Image
/cast Arcane Power (is that the right name? can't remember)
/cast Icy Veins

all of that together puts a lot of pain on

[Effex]

What spec is your mage, and what rotation are you using? I'm going to be working on mine to get her dps up as well - I'm focusing on gear, enchants and a few AH specials. She just got a titansteel spellblade, and a Faces of Doom, which boosted her DPS by 450 alone - well, well worth the price (she's inscription, she made the Faces Of Doom with stockpiled mats). I could be wrong, but it's probably best to overdo the spellpower as much as possible, so the spammable attacks hit for more.


she's fire atm and lvl72, i took my team Og and tested on a training dummy for a bit and tbh i think its just a gear/spec/lvl thing and not a real mage issue Im not that bothered right now as mainly questing till 80 anyway, i plan to go arcane with imp sorch at 80 with using this macro

/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=combat/10/target scorch, arcane blast, arcane blast, arcane blast, arcane missiles,arcane blast, arcane blast, arcane blast, arcane missiles, arcane blast, arcane blast, arcane blast, arcane missiles

from what i can gather this should pump out some nice DPS and give the 5% crit to target bonus that my team could do with.

Only thing thats griping me atm is whether my mixed team will out DPS my shaman team as my mixed is at 72 and my shammy at 73 it would be nice to know what would be most effective, though i guess the answer will be "it depends what your killing"

[Gadzooks]

That's cool - if it's gear, there's some easy upgrades - Hat of Wintery Doom goes pretty cheap on my server (I make my own, Lock is maxed Tailoring), Dark Runic Mantle is pretty cheap, and titansteel spellblades go for around 600g on my server - you can get some decent boosts for about 1-1500g. The jewelry is a bit pricier, which is motivation for my jewelcrafter to level, but she's a rogue, and I don't know if I want to group her through Northrend. Still pondering that one.

Just spend some time at the gear profiling sites, you should be able to gear the mage up fairly easily.

[Nuclearone]

Just a little update from this admittedly old thread. My dps numbers in mostly tier 9 for your average heroic boss now (with heroism and cooldowns):

Mage: 7-9k
Balance druid: 5k
Survival hunter: 4.5k
Paladin tank (I switched from dk and love it): 2300

Much of the reason for such high numbers is that bosses are now dead well before heroism finishes, and the mage usually still has mirror image up at the end. Mage spike damage is incredible.

Regards

[Pallarfo]

Crap,

My almost T9 mage, barely hits the 2700dps. Still fooling around with macros, made some improvements.
My hunter: 3k
Warlock (just added, getting some Tier pieces now): 2k, fooling around with some more advanced macros now aswel.
Pala tank does around 2-3k dps

I cannot find your mage on the armory, did you transfer it?

[Nuclearone]

Sorry didn't mention that,
Toons are now on Mal'ganis:

Mage: aaronfour
Hunter: aaronthree
Druid: aarontwo
Paly: Cnuclear
Shaman: Aaronprime

If you'd like, when I get time tomorrow afternoon when I'm at home I'll post my macros for you to compare to what you are using?

[Pallarfo]

Would be nice!
Noticed it's an arcane mage, mine is frostfire :)
Don't care if i need to respec him, he's dualspecced frostfire to try some different stuff.

Link of the mage: Ludmillo (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thunderhorn&n=Ludmillo)
Macros are always welcome!

Thnx