Tanks, tanks and more tanks!

[kalrok2]

Hey guys

I've got 2 80s, a Druid and a Warrior, and after playing WOW for 2 years I've realised I enjoy tanking the most. However I've gotten sick of raiding as it's just too much drama and admin and starts feeling like work after a while. Both my chars are kitted out with gear from heroics and Nax 10 man for all specs and I don’t really feel like doing badges for emblems for slight upgrades.

To keep me playing WOW I’ve decided to level another tank, a DK currently at 64. However I’m now thinking I want to go the whole hog and level a paladin as well so I have a tank of each class once the expansion comes out and then I can decide on which tank(s) I want to focus on in the expansion.


After reading these forums for a while now I'm seriously considering creating a multiboxing team to level with my paladin. Reason being I’ve heard RAF is really good for levelling 1-60 and then from 60-80 I can just run dungeons by myself as I think this is the best way to grind XP, especially as there are no travel times now. Once the team gets to 80 I can then just do heroics with my Pala and DK to farm gold and emblems until they’re kitted out.



After reading the forums I have come up with the following options:

Option 1 : Create 4 shammies to level with my paladin to level 60 with RAF. Alternate my DK / pala with the 4 shammies to get them from 60-80. At 80 use the 4 shammies to grind gear for all my tanks at level 80.

Pro 1 : Easiest way to manage a 5 box team
Con 1: Will have to use each tank separately, so will take longer to gear them all out.
Con 2: After thinking about it, if I do this might as well just keep all my tanks on 1 account and then grind PUG heroics like normal so no point multiboxing a team just to kit out my 4 tanks
Con 3 : When the expansion hits I would have to level all 4 tanks


Option 2 : Use my paladin as a tank (seems like it's the easiest one for multi boxing based on what I’ve read), use my warrior for dps (fury I guess?) and DK as dps (no clue on DKs which spec is best for multiboxing dps?) , use my druid as healer / dps (whichever is easiest for multiboxing), create a 5th character as dps / healer (depending what my druid and whatever class is easiest to complement this team for multiboxing)

Pro 1 : Quickest way to gear up all my tanks as they’re all in the same group.
Pro 2 : When the expansion comes, I can level up all 4 chars I want with 1 group myself
Con 1 : Harder to 5 box due to different classes

QUESTION 1: Is option 2 a viable setup for multiboxing and if so what is the best group composition?




Next question I have is about hardware. The specs of my laptop are:

Dell XPS 1640
Intel Duo CPU T9400 2.53GHz
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670
4 GB Ram
128 GM SSD harddrive
Windows 7 64 bit
I’ve experimented by creating 4 trial accounts and setting the graphics low and it seemed to cope pretty well so I’m thinking it should cope with 5. However that was in a starter zone and I’m wondering if heroics would be a different story?




If required I could use my old Desktop:

Intel 4 3.2 Ghz
2 GB RAM
ATI Radeon X850 256 Megs Rams
Windows XP
Just for info I will be upgrading my desktop within the next year or 2 and that will definitely be able to handle 5 boxing.


Question 2 : Would my laptop be able to handle 5 WOW copies at low detail at once or would I have to split up the WOW copies across the 2 computers?

That's about it for now, look forward to your feedback!

[Moorea]

if you set things on low you can run 5 wow on your laptop - it will be bad in dalaran because of memory though but at least until you get to northrend it'll be fine

If you have a druid and warrior tank and want the other 2 tanks and you also want to maintain 5 accounts for a while I would make a RAF group with
Pally tank, Throwaway dps something, healer, dps, dps
replace the throwaway by a DK at 60 (you can raf dual DK and get 2 DKs to 61 in a couple of hours)

As your group will be melee heavy anyway, you could start with 5 pallies (1 prot 4 ret) and later swap 1 for the dk as above

When some toons get to 59.9 make sure to grant 1 level to get them to 60.9 - you can use the levels from the DKs too for that


I think it mostly depend whether you want to actually multibox or just get toons faster - but you can start 1-60 multiboxing and see if you get the bug

[kalrok2]

Hmm to answer your question I would rather get toons / gear them up faster rather than multibox full time.

Actually thinking about it, I think maybe my best bet is to dual box 2 tanks at a time. This would save me double the time by using 2 toons at once and it would not be as much effort as running a full team.

Currently I have 2 WOW accounts (used RAF to level up some alts with keyclone):

Account 1:
Lvl 80 Druid / Horde
Lvl 65 DK / Horde

Account 2:
Lvl 80 Warrior / Alliance

I guess the best bet would be to do RAF with Account 1 to get an Alliance Paladin and then Transfer either the Druid or DK to account 2. If I did this I would then have:

Team 1 : DK Tank with a Druid (I guess boomkin as ranged DPS is easier to manage?)
Team 2 : Paladin Tank and Fury Warrior

Question 1 : If I wanted to make 2 teams to do 5 man content is this the optimal class combo and spec combo for the 4 classes I want to play using dualboxing? Or should I consider doing the new Faction change thing to get the best combos?

Question 2 : As a dual boxer, assuming I wanted to tank and DPS with my other char in the group, do you think I would encounter problems doing Random Heroics, either technically running the setup or people complaining that I'm a dualboxer?

Thanks

[offive]

I do think the pally is the easiest to tank with, I have all the tanks but a feral drood (mine is 72 and leveling with a pack of hunters). The classic pally shammy combo does offer a lot of advantages, hence the popularity. Pally tank rotation is really simple, shammy /click sequences are simple as well. You can get massive healing and quite good dps out of the shammys. There are many ways to skin the cat so to speak, it all comes down to your level of interest and creativity.

If you set up your mixed melee and ranged correctly its not too much harder to play than a tank/ranged team. The big additon is hitting interact with target so your melees run and face the right way. I have run mixed melee and casters with my different tanks and really I find it a nice break from the classic tank and ranged team makeup.

When I was leveling my group of DKs I found and stuck with a blood worm and permanent ghoul spec that allowed for decent self healing and dps in blood presence. Tanking spec is pretty much dual wield full frost for howling blast. I boiled my dps DKs down to a single cast sequence rotation based on rune timing and I am happy with the dps level they kick out.

If you want the pally tank fast, a RAF setup is the fastest way to go. If your looking for fast ways to gear toons out then full 5 boxing makes the badges roll in once you get a base level of decent 80 gear. I also think once you start 5 boxing you will get hooked, as most do. Two boxing... tank and healer would be your ideal for pugging, but tank and ranged dps would be the easiest to control. Raiding anything as a multi boxer is easier if you pick all one class and spec. I know you said your not into, but I thought I would throw it out there.

Just like you, I want options when Cataclysm comes out, so that I can play whatever classes get tweaked into popularity or gets me interested. The whole hunter focus thing has me interested so I will have 5 hunters ready to level up to 85.

I only play games on laptops when I am on the road, otherwise I prefer the big honking monitor (or two) and full speaker setup. So I would say sure your laptop might play 5 wows, but why would you want to? If your going to box, it means your gonna spend the money, so spend the money and do it right. You can find lots of computer spec's in the hardware section. The base key things for software boxing are quad core proc, at least 8 gigs of ram, a fast video card if not two, and decent hard drive speed (but it looks like you know about SSDs). Hexa core procs are on the way this year, but no real date set to my knowledge.

I hope my wall of text helps you out!

[Drizzit]

at least 8 gigs of ram

This will only work if have a 64 bit chip and 64 bit version windows. If you use the 32 bit windows the most the computer will see is like 3.5.

If your main goal is to get a dk and pally to lvl 80 then you can try this. Get 2 more accounts and link them together so they get the RAF bonus. Create a pally and a throw away toon. Lvl them to 10. Use their your druid or warrior (whatever can handle a bunch of low lvl elites) and power lvl them SFK 10-20; SM 20-35ish; 35-45 ZF/ST; 45-55 Scholo/Strat; 55-59 ramps. At 59 get to 1 bar before you lvl (you can get closer if you want just don't ding 60). Get the throw away to 60 and grant the 59 to 60, which will be 61 really soon. For you DK you can either run with 1 dk in the story mode and get out then grant lvl to the dk to get to 61 or run 2 dks in story mode. When your DK is out, run outland quests with your pally and dk. Depending on how well geared your tanks are you can also run instance in outland to lvl them, but i think this is slower then questing.

I found that boosting 1-60 is a joke with RAF (about 3 days part time)
I heard that 60-80 is best threw questing.

[Boylston]

Actually thinking about it, I think maybe my best bet is to dual box 2 tanks at a time. This would save me double the time by using 2 toons at once and it would not be as much effort as running a full team.


This is your best bet. If you want to fill out your stable, get an RAF setup for the two characters and then just dual-box them together through quests. If you go the DK+Pally route, you also have the flexibility of speccing the DK as Tank, the Pally as Holy, and just using the dungeon finder tool to grab 3 PUG DPSers if you want.

RAF+Questing+Dual Boxing means that this little pair will level very, very fast, and you can even do collection quests without a huge headache.

Making a 5-character multiboxing team for the purposes of "leveling fast" is not a good idea.

You might also consider some powerleveling with one of your existing tanks on account 1 while account 2+3 (RAFed together) soak up the XP... Then quest from 58 or so onward.

[offive]

This will only work if have a 64 bit chip and 64 bit version windows. If you use the 32 bit windows the most the computer will see is like 3.5.
.


Sorry, my bad, have not been on any 32 bit OS for long time.

[Drizzit]

Sorry, my bad, have not been on any 32 bit OS for long time.

Don't worry about it :D. I wasn't trying to be harsh or anything. I have a 64 chip but use 32 OS, just because a lot of people at my work, IT, say that 64 has too many problems with it. Trust me i wish that i did have those extra 4.5g of memory. Maybe I will go 64 with windows 7, if they worked out all there bugs.

[kalrok2]

Hey guys

Thanks for all the feedback. I think the best thing for me to do is:

OPTION 1 : Account A (MAIN) --RAF--> Account B --RAF--> Account C

Then use A to boost B and C through the 10-60 dungeons. Once my paladin is at 64 I will dualbox him with my DK via questing and doing random dungeons with rested XP.

However seeing as the WOW battlechest is only £5, and I will be boosting my RAFs anyway (ie the amount of admin would be the same for 2 or 4 accounts), what about this:

OPTION 2 : Account A (MAIN) --RAF--> Account B --RAF--> Account C
Account A (MAIN) --RAF--> Account D --RAF--> Account E

By doing this I would get: 6 Level 60s (4 from boosting 2 from granting levels). In the end I would transfer them back to my main 2 accounts in case I ever decided to try a different class in the future.

I'm guessing that OPTION 2 means the boosting would take twice as long as OPTION 1, seeing as the XP is split 4 ways and not 2. However this is probably worth it if I end up with 6 x 60s rather than 2, what do you think?

[offive]

Hmm XP 64bit was problematic, but VIsta x64 was fine, and Win7 x64 seems to be fine as well... Also enterprise/work "bugs" could range from out of date applications to ancient hardware that would be defined as bugs of the OS. My guess is you have more up to date hardware and software at home than you do at work. Most gamers do. I mean I just ripped an old dumb terminal controller out at a client site just last year... check your work site, if you see thick net and vampire taps in use, it's probably safe to upgrade your home computer to Win7 X64 :p

[offive]

Just remember that your level 80 boost tank will not give the experience boost to your newly minted toons. I think the RAF paired toons need to be within 5 levels(?) of each other to get the experince boost from each other.

So if your using two accounts you will get the RAF (both toons are same level), but will not be able to boost (one lvl 80 and one low level). The triple experience in instances makes level 10 to 60 go really fast, I think average time for teams is around 24 hours of play to get up to 60 with a lvl 80 tank booster. So speed of leveling is kind of moot... compared to days played for a solo effort.

At a minimum you need to get 2 more acccounts to have a high level tank drag the 2 new lowbies through and get RAF bonus exp.

[Starbuck_Jones]

After reading your orignal post it seems to me like you need to decide if you want to multibox or not. It doesnt take any time at all to gear out one toon at 80 with the random heroics. Tanks and Healers right now dont have any wait time in the queue. I think about 2 min is the longest ive ever gone with my paladin queued as a tank, however I have waited 40 min queued up waiting for a tank to show on my shamen...

When 3.3 launched I spent about 5-7 hours. (felt like 5 prolly was 7 or more) and ran about 15 random heroics and walked away with 96 badges on my paladin so you can get 5/5 T9 in a weekend if you wanted.

If you do multibox with 4x shamen, I would keep the tanks all on the same account. Once you gear the first tank, the shamen will be geared as well and it will make gearing up the next tank even easier as they curb stomp everything.

Also I would level the shamen up to 80 the whole way with one tank, then take the 4x80's group with the new tank and just slaughter everything and quest from 60-80 in record time. I did this a long time ago w/o RAF when I had a prest and 4mage group. Needed a tank so I started one and with 4 level 70 spell casters in the group 1-70 flew by. Arcane mages were so OP for this. Kill and gather quests were nothing. Round up the mobs and one hit of arcane explosion from 4 mages killed everything.

[Boylston]

I think the central question is... Do you really want to multibox, or are you looking for a way (With RAF+multiboxing) to get a few more L80 tanky characters in your solo stable.

It's still not clear to me what your ultimate objective is!

[Drizzit]

Hmm XP 64bit was problematic, but VIsta x64 was fine, and Win7 x64 seems to be fine as well... Also enterprise/work "bugs" could range from out of date applications to ancient hardware that would be defined as bugs of the OS. My guess is you have more up to date hardware and software at home than you do at work. Most gamers do. I mean I just ripped an old dumb terminal controller out at a client site just last year... check your work site, if you see thick net and vampire taps in use, it's probably safe to upgrade your home computer to Win7 X64 :p

You know what i didn't think of that :D. True that my work places have old computers and old programs. Hell they still have old school mainframes that they are using and old programs that will not work on 64 bit. I just got a new computer this year too, been working here for about 2 years and people where getting new computers and i told them that mine was 8 years old and they didn't believe me until they looked it up. 2 weeks later i get a new computer and i tell you it is night and day.

Anyways, i have been lagging a ton in the main city, so much that i now hearth to shatt (now a ghost town) to lvl up my tailoring and enchanting. I heard great things about windows 7, again my work doesn't like change, but my boss is trying to push to 7 because it is so great. I just have to double heck to see if i have a 64 bit chip (i think i do), if i do then it is time to get 64 windows and 4 more gigs (hopefully they still make the same memory, i really don't want to mix and match).

Hmmmm... just looked up my chip (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10007603&prodlist=celebros)and motherboard (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Sku=E145-2034). I couldn't find my video card on the site, but worse case i can just buy a new one. The only shitty part is that i cannot use my old memory i have to buy 4x2g :(

@kalrok2, don't forget about the money issue. Each transfer is going to be $25. Just something to consider too. I also think that you can transfer a toon from an inactive account to an active account.

[Ualaa]

I'm kind of with Starbuck on that.

Have the tanks on the same account, so they are interchangeable.
You can plug them into the group with shammies, and gear them through heroics/badges as desired.

However, I would change the composition from 4x Shaman to 3x Shaman (all Elem.) + 1x Warlock (Destruction).
That gets you the 13% spell power buff, and the warlock will be similar dps to the shammies.
3x Elemental can heal through anything you'll face in 5-man content.
And you'll kill a lot faster then 1x Resto (shm) or not having the warlock on the team.

[kalrok2]

Hey guys

Well I went ahead and decided to try the RAF thing out and try the multi boxing thing out. In the end I opted to try boosting and was so impressed with the results I boosted all the way to 60 via dungeons. It took me 23 hours /played to level 4 chars to 6 (well 5 actually with granted levels since both my RAF linked account were refered from my main account). If I were to do this a 2nd time I'm sure I can get this to sub 20 hours now that I know what I'm doing and where to go etc.

Coming back to the question which I was unsure of, do I want to multibox or just if I wanted to boost a bunch of toons quickly, now that I've seen how much time I've saved by creating 5 chars in 23 hours I really can see the benefits of multiboxing if you want to have multiple chars.

Also thinking about if I wanted to have multiple 80s the amount of time saved by gearing them all out in heroic gear at once is immense that it outweighs the extra costs involved. So I've decided try out multiboxing properly.

Seeing as I already have a druid and warrior at level 80 with full epic gear, I've decide on the following setup up:
Tank : Warrior (80 full epics)
Healer : Paladin (60 crap gear)
DPS1 : Boomkin (80 full epics)
DPS2 : Death Knight (level 66 alt)
DPS3 : Due to my RAF experiment I have a lvl 60 of each class. I'm thinking Shaman would be the best bet due to totems and heroism? Any suggestions for this DPS slot?

To level my 3 non 80s, I'm guessing instance boosting is not viable after 60 without RAF? Seeing as my 2 60s will have crap gear, should I use my Death Knight to multi box with the 2 60s (as he will get some basic XP as well) or should I just boost the 60s with my Feral Druid until they are the same level as my DK? Another option is just to use rested XP and boost in instances with Rested XP seeing as I will be working soon (hopefully if I find a job!) and would only be able to do 3 or 4 sessions a week?

As for hardware and software, my laptop seems to handel 5 instances of WOW fine and keyclone seems to meet all my basic requirements, is that all I need to multibox heroics effectively?

Thanks

[Ualaa]

Instance boosting, is basically running a toon through, with another toon for whom the content is pretty trivial.
If you can two-man, between say Warrior Tank + Boomkin Healing...
Not sure how far you could boost, but certainly the lower Burning Crusade instances are an option.

If you enjoy playing the whole team, then boxing will be fun.
Whether its PvE (dungeons/heroics/dailies) or PvP (world/battleground/arena).

[Moorea]

paladin healer is somewhat unconventional (for boxers its' typically shaman (because of tank+4 shamans setup, + earth shield is awesome) or druid (nice group heals; hots; less maintenance) or priest) but let us know how it goes; and you can always respect your druid (or shaman) later

[kalrok2]

Thanks for all the replies. Based on some of the advice I've received I've now decided to level a 5 man team of shammies. It seems a tank and 4 shammies is the best set up to run heroics, both in terms of setup and being easy to multibox. Once I have all my chars geared up I will try my idea of a mixed class heroic group made up of the 4 tanks classes and a shammie.

[Boylston]

Don't bother with 5 shammies, perhaps. Just do 4. You can use an existing tank to rapidly powerlevel them, and you'll find that Tank+4xShammies is a great PvE setup. 4xShammies plus a healer buddy will also serve you well in Arena.

For BGs, I vastly prefer 4xShammies over 5xShammies for all maps except Alterac valley. 4xShammies is enough firepower, and leaves another crucial slot to be filled by another player for maps like AB, WG, and EotS...

[kalrok2]

Reason why I'm thinking of 5 shammies is that I will have 5 at 60 anyway and leveling 5 should take around the same amount of time as leveling 4. Main reason for having 5 is that I already have a warrior and druid at 80, and I plan on transferring one of them to another account. I will then level a DK and paladin on seperate accounts as well.

That way I will be able to run my tank and 4 shammies from any account, but then eventually once they are geared up I will be able to try out my idea of 4 tanks and 1 shammie in the same group for heroic grinding.

[kalrok2]

I've just finished RAF boosting 3 teams to 60 so I have a few options available to me. First thing is, I now realise that multiboxing with melee seems a lot more troublesome than ranged dps, so my idea of having my warrior and DK as mellee DPS doesn't seem so great now.

I am now thinking that instead of creating 1 team to contain all 4 tanks and a random, I will create 2 teams which will contain 2 tank classes and 3 random ranged dps.

This means the following:
1) I will be using my warrior and deathknights as tanks
2) I will be using my druid and paladin as healers

Based on the feedback I've had, I realise that a paladin is not the best healer for a boxer setup, but I have a plan! My 3 random ranged dps will be elemental shamans. That way I will have 3 healing stream totems for group healing, and if required I could have a button that will cast a chain heal on each shaman.

I'm already sure that most people will approve of my choice of 3 elemental shammie for the 3 dps slots, as they offer so much utility, plus their dps rotation is not too complex, plus having 3 dps of the same class makes it much easier to multibox.

However I need some advice on pairing the tanks to the healers. I would think that the paladin would be the better healer for a single target. Also I believe that a DK takes more spiky damage than a warrior so HOTs would work better on him. Therefore I am thinking of:
1) DK Tank / Pala Healer
2) Warrior Tank / Druid Healer

Any thoughts?

EDIT: One more question, I already have a War/Druid at 80 and a DK at 74 which I will probably solo level to 80, so I will be leveling my pala and 3 shammies as a team from 60. I guess I could use my 74 DK to help boost the other 4, but it seems like a waste to me and I think I should rather make a 5th char for this team, as it won't be much extra effort. I'm guessing Warlock would be a good choice for the synergy or what would you recommend?

[zenga]

The way i'm boosting my alt teams from 60 to 70 is questing with my lvl 80 tank. I get less xp per kill than when i would run them alone due to level difference, but i don't care that. My xp comes almost entirely from questing. With a the lvl 80 i can do quests way faster and it outweighs the lost xp per kill by far.

[Multibocks]

I've just finished RAF boosting 3 teams to 60 so I have a few options available to me. First thing is, I now realise that multiboxing with melee seems a lot more troublesome than ranged dps, so my idea of having my warrior and DK as mellee DPS doesn't seem so great now.

I am now thinking that instead of creating 1 team to contain all 4 tanks and a random, I will create 2 teams which will contain 2 tank classes and 3 random ranged dps.

This means the following:
1) I will be using my warrior and deathknights as tanks
2) I will be using my druid and paladin as healers

Based on the feedback I've had, I realise that a paladin is not the best healer for a boxer setup, but I have a plan! My 3 random ranged dps will be elemental shamans. That way I will have 3 healing stream totems for group healing, and if required I could have a button that will cast a chain heal on each shaman.

I'm already sure that most people will approve of my choice of 3 elemental shammie for the 3 dps slots, as they offer so much utility, plus their dps rotation is not too complex, plus having 3 dps of the same class makes it much easier to multibox.

However I need some advice on pairing the tanks to the healers. I would think that the paladin would be the better healer for a single target. Also I believe that a DK takes more spiky damage than a warrior so HOTs would work better on him. Therefore I am thinking of:
1) DK Tank / Pala Healer
2) Warrior Tank / Druid Healer

Any thoughts?

EDIT: One more question, I already have a War/Druid at 80 and a DK at 74 which I will probably solo level to 80, so I will be leveling my pala and 3 shammies as a team from 60. I guess I could use my 74 DK to help boost the other 4, but it seems like a waste to me and I think I should rather make a 5th char for this team, as it won't be much extra effort. I'm guessing Warlock would be a good choice for the synergy or what would you recommend?

Don't much care for warrior tanks, don't know quite why either. They do just fine, just something sucks about using them. Can't put my finger on it.

[kalrok2]

Zenga: Hmm I would have thought just by virtue of the fact that you are using 5 toons, regardless of whether or not one was an 80, you should be able to breeze through all the quests and group quest in any event? Seeing as I will be leveling a paladin as a tank , the 3 elemental shammies and a random dps, I don't think this will be an issue for me.

Multibocks: I think the problem with warrior tanks is that they have to use so many more abilities and use them more often than the other tanks, so they're proabably not the easiest for a multiboxing setup as the other tanks have a simpler rotation and are therefore simpler to multibox. I realise the paladin would be easier to tank, but I'm willing to put up with the warrior tank as I'd rather have all my dps as ranged dps than have to worry about my warrior as mellee DPS. If I find that a warrior tank really sucks I will have to revert to the paladin but I think it'll do.

Still wondering if anyone has thoughts on the tank/healer combos I'm thinking about and whether I should pick the lock as my random dps to tag along to 80.