[EQ2] New Multiboxer Questions

[bkd]

Hello everyone. First off, I'd like to give thanks for the plethora of great knowledge that's available on this board. I'm a long time WoW player who used to play EQ2 and just recently (thanks STEAM sale!) decided to get back into EQ2. I've never really multi-boxed before outside of towing alts around in WoW. That being said, I've decided to give multi-boxing a shot with EQ2. I followed the awesome guide on here and have gotten everything setup and configured with Inner Space and Keyclone. All of my clients will reside on a single gaming rig (Intel i7 920, 6GB DDR3, Dual GFX275's in SLI). Through testing with this setup it seems to handle three clients without issue, and I think if I played around with settings I could push it up to 4-5 if necessary. However, due to being new to multi-boxing I'd like to start somewhat small. My hope with multi-boxing leveling/AA is quick through using the RaF system and having minimal downtime due to never needing to stop to look for help.

Which leads me to my questions...

1) Going with a 3 toon team, I've decided on the following three classes: Guardian, Warlock, and Inquisitor (all dark elves). I chose a guardian as my tank due to wanting the best mitigation, and the most forgiving tank. My understanding is that they are somewhat limited in AOE tanking, but I'd prefer to have to tab cycle spam as long as the survivability is top notch. I chose the warlock due to wanting some DD ability but also AOE. Lastly, the Inquisitor was chosen due to preferring reactive heals and direct heals. This setup would probably synergize better with a shadow knight, but from my previous experience (way back when DoF was new), guardians were tops when it came to best tanks and it wasn't even close. Will this make a good team, especially for a newb multi-boxer? If not, what would your recommend I change and why?

2) My initial testing with multi-boxing one thing I found was that managing quest journals can be somewhat trying. Currently, I collect the quests on the MT (main toon) and then share them out, alt-tabbing between windows to accept. Is there a way to macro auto-accepting quests or a better way to be doing this that will stream line the process and make it quicker?

3) From the posts I've read here it sounds like its best to group spells into categories and then macro the groupings in descending order of priority. Therefore, I plan to macro taunt on the MT and assists on the slaves to 1. Hate building DD abilities on the MT and DD nukes on the slaves to 2. AOE hate building abilities on the MT and AOE spells on the slaves to 3. Etc... The function keys will be use to point the healer focus when necessary and the heals will be on another key. Buffs on another. Am I on the right track with how I'm doing this? Should the debuffs be mixed in with the damaging abilities or possibily bound to 1 along with assist?

4) Lastly, from everything I've read it sounds like the way I'm going about doing this is technically against the EULA. I'm willing to accept the risk, but just for clarification sake, Inner Space is technically a bannable offense, correct? Additionally, is the way I'm going about macroing the skills considered automation and thus bannable?

[Noxxy]

Hi bkd - and a sincere welcome back to EQ2!


...3 toon team...Guardian, Warlock, and Inquisitor (all dark elves)
- guards do have the best mitigation BUT woeful snap-AOE plus no fear resists (unless you count pots, etc)
-- whereas crusaders have 100% fear resist (bottom of WIS line), lot of snap-AOE and a very nice damage output for a heavy tank
-- the crunch killer for a boxing team is the snap-AOE + fear resist - pretty sure as you came from WoW you'd know what devastation a fear bomb can do to a boxing team
-- IMHO, as your going lock (great AOE dmg), grab an SK
-- As far as history goes, yes, at release, SKs really did suck - they were a very very poor class - that has all changed now so that the class is more in-line with what they are meant to do

- 'locks - sure, nice aoe BUT again they would be better matched with an SK.
-- If you did match with a guardian, the aggro control would be a nightmare (i.e., once the 'lock had aggro it's bye bye lock no matter how much the guard spams).
-- The disease damage of a lock + SK goes together very nicely

- inquis - they're ok, great debuffs, nice procs and DHs but you may find (for an SK team) that a defiler would be better suited (again with the disease synergy)
-- plus, inquis can be toned up in DPS via going 100% melee (i.e., battle cleric aa spec) whereas SKs is considered a caster, lock is a caster so you may be better off with a caster healer

There honestly is nothing wrong with your originally selected trio BUT an SK + lock + defiler would IMHO be more enjoyable for the followed repeated/summarised reasons:
- 100% fear resist
- snap-AOE
- disease synergy
- wards
- all 'caster' team
- all 'evil' team
- and as an extra bonus - Delfs have some nice spell crit and int racials...very nice for a caster team thankyou very muchly

(2) If only! I'm full hardware so I click 6 screens for everything and I admit it does get very tiring after a while (not to mention potential RSI case!) I did see a slash command /acceptpendingquest?????? [sp] but I could never get it to work

(3) I tend to mix my debuffs and dmg spells mainly because I get a better damage boost (or to hit boost) if the mob is debuffed so tend to shoot them off at the start of a fight - but when it comes to actually setting up the ordering etc I think you'd find we all do things differently. The only thing I can suggest is experiment a lot with ACT to see what is working and what isn't

(4) Honestly can't help on this one - as mentioned above I am full hardware (6 pcs, 6 screens, vetra, etc)

Good luck bkd

[Khatovar]

Is there a way to macro auto-accepting quests or a better way to be doing this that will stream line the process and make it quicker?

Via in-game macro, no. It's a function that is called in the interface that can't be pulled from command line. However, Mayve's Accept/Decline ('http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/info4824-AcceptDeclineQuestsusingEnterEscape.html') works very well.


Should the debuffs be mixed in with the damaging abilities or possibily bound to 1 along with assist?

Debuffs draw agro, I would probably advise against casting debuffs while your tank is trying to get a foothold on agro. I personally had a seperate button for debuffs and alternated randomly between casting some debuffs and damage, as with easier mobs, it was a waste of time to debuff and harder mobs you didn't want to be recasting debuffs that had not run thier duration yet.


Inner Space is technically a bannable offense, correct? Additionally, is the way I'm going about macroing the skills considered automation and thus bannable?

IS is perfectly fine. For EQ2 ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=181973#post181973') and all SOE games ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=189163#post189163').

Automation is bannable. You are allowed to cast up to 2 spells in EQ2 with one keypress, if you have spell queueing enabled in game. If it is something you can do within the in-game macro system, you shouldn't have any issues, as long as you don't attempt to take it outside the game to use wait commands, external spell queueing or movements. The out-of-the-box IS setup should not be able to do anything {AFAIK} that resembles automation. You can PM Lax to see if there's anything you could possibly accidently mess up in the config that would put you in the automation zone, but I'm pretty sure all that Banhammer stuff requires additional scripts, so steering clear of that should be all you need.

[Mooni]

Hiya BKD,
I agree wholeheartedly with what Noxxy said. So much in fact I might ditch my templar and warden (Currently 4boxing, been playing EQ2 for a week) and make a defiler and something else.
SK - best and easiest for our purposes. I haven't played a pally, but trust me the guardian's not worth it.
Warlock - at level 28ish has 3 AoEs, one of which is a PBAoE. Don't even need to take them off of autofollow, it's beautiful. SK has 2 AoE damage and 1 AoE taunt/debuff disease resist, so these line up macro buttons nicely too. Warlocks also siphon power (the blue mana-lookin stuff) from your enemies and feed it to your group, starting around level 20ish.
Defiler - I've heard nothing but good about how these match up with SKs. They have something called "wards", which are kinda like runes if you played EQ. They're protective, so you slap those on and the ward may be good for 1000 points or something before it breaks. Then you just recast it. It's like a force field the enemy has to break through before they can damage you. Defilers do also heal, and they get a pet dog.


What am I ditching?
Warden - wasn't good for my setup until she hit about level 30 and I could spec 21 AA into becoming a melee warden. Even so, her AoE (although it's amazing damage) has a 24-second cooldown. HoTs are too slow, the direct heal portion of the HoTs isn't big enough to turn a fight around usually. I'm gonna miss the umpteen group buffs, though.
Templar - bleh, it's just a healer/debuffer right now. It's okay, but their heals seem to do maybe 18% of my SK's total health. I'm just not feelin' that the Templar is that necessary; I'd rather have a defiler or something that can bring more to the fight.

Sounds like you're on the right track!

[Noxxy]

Hey Mooni,

dr00ds are great but more as off-healers which is probably what you are finding out for yourself. They do have the fastest heals in the end-game (and not to mention ports which are great for getting around) but unfortunately, if the tank is taking heavy damage, and a dr00d is the only healer - well - things could go south pretty fast (assuming a standard equipped character)

When it comes to matching a dr00d to a main-heal I'd probably go with the following combos:
- fury = defiler or templar (all casters)
- warden = mystic or inquisitor (all melee)
..these combos can be further complimented by matching the appropriate bard to the healer damage type as well (i.e., troub = spell, dirge = melee) - but not like you will be relying on the healers to provide the dee-pee-sss

If I had to choose and a dr00d HAD to be in the group:
- fury + defiler is an excellent combo with the defiler doing the main healing and the fury topping up and dishing out the dps
- maybe warden / inquis as a distant second choice

Can even narrow this down further, as I hinted above - fury + defiler = some very nice dps - this is the combo I tend to use when I am in farming mode for low-mid end content

But, even though I have offered these suggestions on how/where to use a dr00d - when it comes to crawling through a high-end dungeon (remembering I run 6 chars) - I leave the dr00d at home - I ALWAYS bring one of the shaman (defiler for more dps OR mystic for massive defensive warding PLUS a cleric (normally the templar)). I tend to favour the mystic / temp combo as to me it's the 'I can't die mode' (when high-end dungeon crawling BUT it is slow!). To add to this further - besides the healing, I leave the dr00ds at home when going high-end as simply, I find they die to easily! Leather wearers just get eaten too fast (even in full T2 + fables and crapola) unless they stand way back which is not my style as I always ensure everyones alway in melee range when I go hunting

..and just to add - I do have 5 of the 6 healers types (all 80s with some at 200aa - don't have a warden) so I have tried a fair few of the different healer combos but, as always, I don't know 'everything' so please post if you have had better success with other combos (and how you did it!)

N.B. of course if you did choose a shaman you want to make sure you choose the appropriate matching tank (i.e., sk + defiler, paladin + mystic, etc etc). Also some ppl swear by putting an inquis with the pally and a temp with the sk but I prefer the pally/mystic/temp and sk/defiler/fury combos (as I use the pally for crawling and the sk for farming).

Edit: - forgot to mention the guard tank - fair few ppl swear by the guard/defiler/temp combo - have tried that too and personally, I just hate having my @ss feared all over TSO so don't play the guard enough to comment

Edit 2: Just read through the post and better put it in context - when I say 1 tank and 2 healer I of course mean in a group of 6 chars because if you went this combo for a 3-box you'd be poking your eyes out with a pencil

[Frosty]

I have a full group... but the SK is WAY more fun to play than the Guardian IMO. ;)

And the match up with the Warlock and Defiler is pretty darn nice.



Welcome to dual-boxing!

[mesmerise]

well guardians have been nerfed ( less dps from stamina line ) and the fighters revamp is still delayed, now they have agro issue. Wait and see.

[Captive]

Hmmm - I'm sort of wishing I hadn't gone with a Guardian as the tank for my current group. I just started playing again recently after a long hiatus, and my team is up to level 42 (separate posts on that below). As I haven't played another tank in at least a year, and never another tank while multiboxing EQ2, I don't have a great frame of reference. It sounds as though down the road I'm going to hate the lack of fear-resistance. Is there a spell or ability in one of these other classes that helps compensate? I have a troubadour, conjurer, warden, mystic, and illusionist. I know I can look up the complete spell lines for each character - I'm just wondering if anyone knows off-hand of a counter to fear that one of these classes has.

I really hate to start over with a new tank, as the AAs take a wihle to accumulate and I have a lot invested in this character. I guess I'll just keep plugging along - right now, at level 42, I've only fought one mob that fears - one of the bosses in Deathfist Citadel.

I haven't had huge problems maintaining agro with my guardian, but I'm not terribly advanced with my DPS setup. I usually try to start out with an AOE on the guardian, plus the taunt that hits the entire encounter, and that usually maintains agro throughout the encounter. I imagine things are going to get hairier later on as I increase in levels - but hopefully there will be tactics available to help hold things together.

[Noxxy]

Fear resist buff - Templar - Sanctuary

[asgradth]

Hmmm - I'm sort of wishing I hadn't gone with a Guardian as the tank for my current group. Odd. I have played of each tank (zerk, guard, pally, sk, monk, bruiser) to at least level 30, exclusively in a 6-box config... I got all of them past level 40 except for the Pally (i just hate paladins for some reason). I started as a Guardian, so I compare all tank abilities to him. There are two things that make your tank great: Healers & Aggro Transference.

I run a Templar & Defiler with my Guardian and can literally stomp through Chelsith like it's a day in the park. The key, tho, is a Dirge. Dirges not only reduce group Aggro, but they can also channel aggro to your guard. Troub's cannot. If I yank out your Troub and replace him with a Dirge, your aggro issues will disappear.

I just started a new team: SK, Warden, Illusionist, Troub, Conjy, Wizard. I absolutely love the firepower of the team but I hate the glass-cannon feel it has. Maybe once I get them into T1 shard armor and all lvl 80 w/ 100+ AA's, things will change.... But as of right now, at level 24, I really have to pay attention to aggro and save taunt spells for when i NEED them.

Just to verify things, I yanked out the Troub and added the Dirge to the team. My aggro problems were gone. With auto-attack and the two taunts of the lvl 24sk, my lvl 76 Wizard (mentored to 24) was unable to pull aggro of the SK. With my troub, the wizard would have died.

It's sad to say... but there are a couple of classes that make Boxing exceedingly easy and they are Templars & Dirges. All of their special abilities just... rock.

As for getting Feared... get used to it :P. Once you outlevel the Mob, you won't get feared as much, but it still happens. I mapped the key "shift-R" to toggle Crouch/Walk mode. Even with the dirge's speed song, when crouching and walking, you won't move that far. I also setup the following macro key across all my toons for when i need them to get-back-together (for instance, after being feared):
/autoattack 0
/stopfollow
/target TANK
/follow TANK
/pet backoff
/stand

G'luck

[Frosty]

I run a Templar & Defiler with my Guardian and can literally stomp through Chelsith like it's a day in the park. The key, tho, is a Dirge. Dirges not only reduce group Aggro, but they can also channel aggro to your guard. Troub's cannot. If I yank out your Troub and replace him with a Dirge, your aggro issues will disappear.
I'm pretty sure I have a hate transfer on my Troubador. I think it's an AA though and requires a ranged item.

I haven't needed it with the SK as tank though (yet).

[Captive]

I should have been more clear - I apologize. I'm not regretting my choice of guardian as tank - yet. I was just noting several comments from people regarding the fear-immunity of the SK. I haven't progressed high enough to encounter fearing mobs, and in fact I wasn't even aware that fear was an element of the game when I selected my tank. Given how much of a pain it is in WoW, I would have given more thought to fear-immunity. But I'm having loads of fun with my guardian tank. Down the road, when I start running into fearing mobs, I'll just have to adapt. I guess you could say I have nothing to fear but fear itself.

[Noxxy]

Honestly Captive - you'll be fine

You'll have pots and sanctuary if you have a templar plus maybe even the guild emblems if your guild is high enough - and of course, all healers tend to have that end of the line cure which removes most things so I'm sure one will be a fear removal as well

Fears tend to be a pain in the @ss mainly for the TSO instances but I'm positive you'll find ways around it and do just as well as a crusader

The only thing I could probably recommend (which won't be a bad idea to pratise) is just like asg recommended - /crouch, /walk with the possible addition of a /stop as well (i.e., unhook the followers) before pulling a mob - this way if your feared, the followers stay put and can cast /cures and fear removals (without interrupts) while your running (crouching) all over the place - once the guard regains control it may be worthwhile if the slaves threw a memwipe or detaunt so the tank has an easier time regaining control (if required)

Guards are great tanks and you'll have fun on raids as they can take a hell of a beating