A few questions from a newbie

[Vega]

1) I noticed that the vast majority of multiboxers in WoW are running 4-5 shamans. I've never played a shaman. What's special about them that makes them such a good multiboxing class?

2) I wanted to be a little different and do my own thing - learn on my own terms - so I decided to make my first 5-box team a Paladin and 4 Priests (3 Shadow, 1 Holy.) I'm wondering now if that was such a good idea. Not only do they lack CC in ~90% of instances, but their DoT damage may be too slow to be effective. I'm afraid I'll have mana issues with my healer and find myself swapping out the shadow priests for something else (which I don't want to have to deal with my first time through). Thoughts? Advice?

3) I considered a 5 mage or 5 warlock group to learn on, but I was afraid I'd just end up playing one mage/lock x5. That kinda seems like cheating - even though I know it's not. But I'm in this for the challenge. I want to do something different from just playing a single toon (or a duo, as I've done before). But I also want to learn to do it right, and I fully expect to suck at first. Is a 5 mage (for example) combo viable in instances? I know 5 mages can unleash hell on a mob, and 5 warlocks have 5 pets. But I wonder if the lack of real tanking and healing would make this a bad way to learn to multibox. (?)

4) I saw that there are guilds for multiboxers. I'm more of a social player despite my desire to multibox. Is there a server this community considers their realm? Are new multiboxers considered in these guilds (perhaps after they level up enough to learn the ropes?) I want to multibox, but I hate to play alone. IMO friends are what make MMOs fun. Unfortunately for me, I get bored easily and always want to try new things. Which is what led me here in the first place.


Yeah.:p

[zenga]

1) I like my shamans as a new wow/multiboxer player because they have an easy rotation, they have lots of buffs (totems), they have decent heals in dps spec, mail, great synergy with pally tank ... If i was to go for a new caster team, i'd go with a more challenging setup however. All in all shammies are very straightforward for any new boxer.

3) There is a guy here on the forum who has cleared several instaces at his level (i believe the post was made when he cleared ramparts). Was pretty impressive. Having no tank will be a serious issue for the end game hc's is my humble opinion though.

4) for us players it's kil jaeden (?), alliance, for eu it's gim bartol horde (pvp), there are subforums for both inhere

if you want a pve server on EU, i can recommend kul tiras. Very no nonsense atmosphere and there are currently 4 5-boxers on horde here.

[Stealthy]

1. They do decent DPS and have a nuke with a guaranteed crit (good for PvP). They also mitigate both physical damage (mail & shield) and magic damage (through grounding totems, which stack). Totems also offer a range of complementary buffs, and some stack (healing stream for example). Overall they tend to offer the best 'synergy' of stacked classes.

2. For PvE, you can pretty much make any team work as long as you have a tank, and the DPS & heals to back them up. Pallies make excellent tanks for boxing, since you can essentially 1 button tank with a macro. 4 priests are unconventional, but definitely viable for PvE (although they will suffer a bit from lack of stacking buffs). Probably not a good choice for PvP, since as you acknowledged, they lack burst.

3. Class stacking is good for new boxers since it's often easier to set up, get going and requires less micro-management than a mixed team. In terms of heroics though, you are definitely going to need a tank (although Maxxion has had some success brute forcing heroics with 5 shammies), since most heroic mobs and bosses will blow through pets in a few hits. Clothies can expect to be one shotted (two if your lucky ;)).

4. There's not really an "official" server for boxers, however the two with the highest boxer population would be Kil'jaeden-US for Alliance (PM Svpernova09 or Fursphere for more info) and Magtheridon-US for horde (send me a PM for more info). New boxers are always welcome!

Cheers,
S.

[daviddoran]

if you want an easy to set up and use group, go pally + 4 shaman. If you want more synergy, and more complexity go with a mixed class setup. Having 3 classes of DPS helps a lot, some mobs are nature immune, some fire, some frost, etc. fire immune mobs suck for destro locks and fire mages... Nature immune mobs suck when u have only shaman. Plus mixing classes helps you gear up faster, as not all your toons are looking at the same gear.

[Ualaa]

I'd say the easiest group for PvE is probably...

Paladin Tank.
Warlock, any spec.
3x Elemental Shaman.

You can easily break all of them down to one button dps/tank spam.
And 3x Elemental can heal any 5-man content.
Everyone is a mana user, so you want similar buff types.

If PvP is a motivational factor, probably go with a Feral Druid as tank.
Since you can dual spec to Boomkin, for battlegrounds.. and run 5x ranged DPS.

If you want to run 5x Warlock or 4x Warlock + 1x Priest, that will be PvP viable.
And you'll probably clear most/all normals, at level or close to it.
But heroics, and the badge gear will probably be out of reach.

So it depends on what you want to do with the team.
I'm running a PvE team.
Two PvP teams (one per faction).
And several mess around with teams, mainly for tradeskills, but also for casual fun not caring about progression.

[Maxion]

Since someone mentioned that someone's all-shaman group did ramparts at-level, my 5-shaman group cleared gundrak at lvl 75, and heroic UK shortly after hitting 80.

All of the same class of a caster class (maybe even melee class like paladin) is a good way to get into boxing.
Any group with a tanky class in the group will have a lot easier time in instances, but it is not completely required to do alright.

Mixed class groups take some more work / setup / practice, and I would recommend trying a simpler setup first for someone new to boxing/macros.

[Shodokan]

Since someone mentioned that someone's all-shaman group did ramparts at-level, my 5-shaman group cleared gundrak at lvl 75, and heroic UK shortly after hitting 80.

All of the same class of a caster class (maybe even melee class like paladin) is a good way to get into boxing.
Any group with a tanky class in the group will have a lot easier time in instances, but it is not completely required to do alright.

Mixed class groups take some more work / setup / practice, and I would recommend trying a simpler setup first for someone new to boxing/macros.

I agree.

I find playing both my 4 ret + dk, 3 mages and 4 shaman+ prot pally all very fun. Mostly due to the simplistic nature to these group compositions and their synergy as someone else mentioned. Though the 3 mages will out-dps the shaman by quite a bit at equal gear levels especially in heroics...both AOE and single target.

In my opinion if it is your first time, you really should go with something that has passive healing like shaman or paladins (ret).

[crowdx]

My first team was pally, resto druid, 2 locks and a hunter. They were fun and I still like their nuke capabilities. Now I am about to hit 80 with a druid tank, disc priest and 3 shammies which I am leveling to see what the fuss is about lol.
The big thing I am seeing to date is that the shammies with their totems makes for a lot of options for each fight, with most other groups you have your set buffs and so not much to mess with.
The shammies Fire Elementals and Heroism buffs can burn down bosses pretty quickly which is also a bonus.
My end goal really for boxing was to have at least one of every class at lvl 80, currently I am only missing my rogue being close to 80 (he is sitting at lvl 71).

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well a prot pal and ele shaman was my core but after using living bomb in pvp (41 yards iirc, instant cast, stackable, only gcd) I made more fire mages.

Iv not done any high level pve though.

[jinkobi]

After leveling 4 druids to go with my pally tank I have some reflections on my experience, lol.

While my team can kick a lot of arse especially now in all triumph gear etc... I find that having a shammie around would make my life a hell of a lot easier. Mainly for the totems as many problems can be solved with a totem.

It's like my only regret I guess lol. Not that I'm not having fun with my 4 druids and a pally. They lack any anti fear or magic purging abilities and many other things shammies have.

Needless to sayI'm going to box 5 shammies from lvl 1 =O. A bit daunting but I'll see how it goes. Really only need 1 shaman in the end to round out my team.

[Vega]

Thanks for all the great info everyone!

:)

[Greythan]

The primary factor for me was diversity. I knew I wanted options at level 80 in terms of classes, so I rolled a team of different classes. I recently leveled up a druid and my priest is now a solo toon (to get her 2 frost badges each day). So, I can take my pally tank into a raid, can play healer with my druid/shaman, or bring one to 5 dps to a raid (druid/priest dual specc'ed balance/shadow respectively).

I'd say this, however. If your primary and near sole goal is to solo five box.... I'd go pally and shaman x4. The synergy and learning curve is certainly easier than a mixed group.

[crowdx]

Just an update, I dinged my shammy team and did my first heroic boss with them last night, first boss in Gun. When I dinged my first mixed team I did have problems with him but with the new shammy team they had absolutely no issue downing him, this is probably a combination of experience and shammies just having a few more tricks to throw out there.