pally, priest, lock, 2 mage: to much?

[nerfshot]

I just set up a new multibox based on Syro's amazing guide "how to kill stuff" (honestly, without that I would have been lost in the woods). My question is, is this to diverse a group?

My primary goal is PVE and endgame instances (heriocs if I can manage). Should I swap the priest for a more durable healer? Should I remove the lock for another mage or even supplant the mages for another dps class?

I am worried that I will not be able to map all the diverse skills into 4-5 combat macros (obviously not counting tanking and healing). Syro's outlines his techniques in the post, but is there a better (read: easier) way?

Thanks for any tips. BTW. This site has been an amazing help! I've been toying with the idea multiboxing for a while. It's awesome to have started one, finally!

[Owltoid]

The biggest "must have' that you're missing is a shaman. Fear protection is the shamans greatest contribution to the multiboxing world. (I don't have a shaman, and I don't really regret it, but I do recognize that it would make things easier)

[Jubber]

Having an elemental shaman in there will also save you from De'ing all unusable gear. The elemenatal shaman can pickup the leather and mail pieces so not everyone is fighting for the same gear.

I also love disc healing. So then what I would do is make a disc priest healer, drop a healing totem instead of mana since you can give everyone wisdom and have a little AOE healing that way. I would go with pally, ele shaman, 2 frost mages and disc healer

[nerfshot]

I see your point on the shaman. I enjoy the lock but I am having a hard time seeing what it brings to the team other than DPS, something my mages have in spades. Due to the macro rotations and limited keybinding/button mashing available on a multibox I doubt I would ever be able to use the Lock to its full abilities. While getting another toon up to 17 to join the team is not all that enticing (I have limited play time) I can see the advantages to having a shaman on the team.

Having never played one I will need to look into its rotation and how his DPS will match up within the mage DPS rotation. the totems in combination with a priest and a pally can really bring a lot of passive benefits to the team.

So Disc priest? I was thinking holy as she will not really be doing much DPS aside from the occasional Pain or Smite. Disc may give her some longer life though.

My goal is PVE and instances. I guess like any multi-boxer you need to make critical decisions on what to put into you 3-5 DPS macros and how they all play together. I'm also trying to 'limit' my healing buttons to 6 (flash, heal, shield, renew, ... , ... ).

For the shaman Im wondering how all the instant casting will effect my rotations and if I will need to have a few buttons reserved just for those or if I just stick with 2-3sec casts like chain lighting - which I understand is the bread and butter attack.

[daviddoran]

I am leveling some locks now to be able to sub in with my mages. Locks add 13% DMG buff, imp hp buff, summoning and soulstones.

I'd ditch one Mage for a shaman though. Gearing 4 clothies sucks. I plan on leveling shaman next, to ultimately have 5 classes in my main team, pally priest Mage lock shammy.

[nerfshot]

after a weekend of boosting I have a Pally, Priest, Mage and Shaman to lvl58. Now the hard question comes in; Who should be my fifth team member? Originally, I was thinking a second Mage but wanted to open it up to discussion as another Shaman could also be good.

most of my play will be instances and pve. I like the dps of the mage as well as the CC and polymorph. The shaman brings 2xreincarnation (handy for instances) and some nice dps as well. Thoughts?

[Greythan]

See my sig for my team.

A few comments:

I've used tremor totem only in ToC so far and its effectiveness is marginal. Now, I haven't downed a ton of instances but getting a shaman just for tremor totem would be silly. Now for the gear benefit (all leather/mail sp stuff gets used) and totem of wrath is uber. I also like him as he *can* heal when needed.

Warlock is nice for the stones. I used healthstones all the time. Also, the pet's passive DPS in a deep demo spec is nice for getting started in tougher content. You can pretty much go with a straight shadowbolt spam and felguard melee for decent dps. I just recently introduced a spell rotation using /click if that gives any perspective.

Priest. I spec'd holy and can't imagine going disc especially with the group healing needs of ToC. I've had no problems main tank healing instances spec'd as holy.

Love the mage. Love the pally tank.

Net-net is I picked a five class group because I wanted solo/partial group flexibility. If I had it to do over again AND wasn't interested in solo play I'd have gone pally/shaman x4. The synergy/simplicity of that combo seems hard to top.

[Ualaa]

Well a shammy isn't just for Tremor. That is one thing they add, which is huge.
They also bring:
-- Heroism/Bloodlust.
-- Totem of Wrath (Team 280 SP, 3% crit)
-- Elemental Oath (Team 5% spell crit)
-- Wrath of Air (5% haste) or Grounding (Spell Protection)
-- Fire Nova (stun), Earthbind (Root), Thunderstorm (Pushback)
-- Frost Resistance Totem, Fire Resistance Totem, Nature Resistance Totem (if you want resists).
-- Mana/Health totem, Cleansing Totem.

And they put out very good dps.

Still a Warlock is a very good class, and they bring a lot to the table too.
Health stones, Summons so you can hearth buy/sell/bank, various curses, pet buffs, good dps too.




A holy priest heals better then a Disc Priest.
Especially for AoE, although the Disc has pretty much the same tools.

Disc mitigates a ton of damage, which won't show up as healing.
There's nothing in the game better at keeping one target alive.
Pain Suppression, PW: Shield on steroids, Divine Aegis..
Penance is an amazing heal.
Definitely pick up ~15 pts or so into Holy.
I'd go with Penance and Renew glyphs, not sure on the 3rd.

Disc is my favorite healer, they are an active healer, you have to hotkey/click things.
But they have so much mitigation and healing power.

[nerfshot]

@Greythan (http://www.dual-boxing.com/member.php?u=5876) You went Arcane with your mage? I would have thought fire for DPS, then I am still learning about speccing mages. I'm leaning toward a shaman but I still have a day or so to decide.

[daviddoran]

I'd go for a lock as #5. Porting and summoning is awesome, they do crazy good dps ( hit 80 over the weekend and in quest and dungeon blues I'm pulling 2500 dps, which is very close to my epicd mages...). Soulstones have a shorter cd than ankh, pet passive dps, doomguard for bosses......

[Greythan]

Yeah, I went arcane after reading a fair bit on the elitist jerks forums. The warlock was my original main so I didn't know much about mages.

My main reason for speccing arcane was what looked to be a bit less micro when compared to fire. I basically have a sequence that always casts arcane missles and probably 2/3's of the time the missle proc is up. DPS on my mage (also my best geared toon) runs anywhere from 2600 on fights with bad RNG or movement to 3000+ when bloodlusted, etc.

More than adequate for a single button DPS mash.

ymmv.

[daviddoran]

Yeah, my mages are all arcane too. 3.2.2 is a huge buff for arcane mages, the liklihood of missile proc is going to be increased, and you can stack 4 arcane blasts, at a reduced mana cost for all, and when missile procs, it costs no mana. I was about to respec my mages Fire due to my warlocks leetness, but now I'm gonna just leave em arcane, and tweak the maro.