10/25 box raid melee team

[doommachine]

Im seeking your guys advice. Im planning to multibox raids. 10box to start but hope to 25box eventually. I also want it to be mostly melee. What do you expect to be feasible in cataclysn raids? My current idea for 10 man is TANKS: prot war and prot paly. HEAL: holy priest and resto shaman. DPS: sv hunter, mut rogue x2, fury war and frost dk x2. Idea for 25 man isnt set and still has 2 open spots....TANKS: prot war, prot pally and blood dk. HEALS: resto druid x2 and resto shaman x4. DPS: sv hunter x3, mut rogue x3, fury war, frost dk x3, ret pally x2 and frost mage. Any thoughts on this guys? Also a few other questions... Are bear tanks too difficult to multibox with in raids? I havent found much of anything on them besides all druid groups in 5mans... Why are the top guilds switching too DK tanks and would the reason for it justify having a DK tank in 10 or 25 man? And finaly... Would it be a good idea or even worth it to max 2 professions on every toon to get the extra benefits from them? Like tank BS/JC?

[Svpernova09]

What's your previous WoW raid experience?

[Kedash00]

i'd trade out the prot warrior for a bear or dk, or even another pally, warriors require alot of micro managment, and running 10 toons you are going to have your handsfull anyways. Both pally and DK are easy to macro through castsequence, and both are aoe tanks, if you do use that combo i would suggest running the dk as the "main" and have the pally iwt.
Warriors seem to be superior in holding aggro for single targets but suck at aoe tanking, so if you do keep the warrior he will be good on bosses or loose adds, but i wouldn't make him the main tank, espically for pulling trash.
But in the end it's all up to you and what you find to be fun.

Other than that i can't really comment, i have always run casters as the dps with my groups.

[doommachine]

My raiding experience is mostly just icc. So a bear tank would be easy to multibox? Cuz from my experience theyre hard for me to tank with cuz i cant see anything. Lol. Guess that doesnt matter since it would be iwt? Also i was looking for insight into whether or not a mostly melee or all melee team would work or do i have to mix casters into it? Especialy if its 25 man? Thanks.

[outdrsyguy1]

I personally think your going to get pwnd. whatever aoe the boss throws out at one random person will always hit most of your team if they are melee. Good luck to you! I personally like the idea of melee but haven't had much luck with it. Inevitably a couple of IWT melee run off an pull agro or get stuck on stuff or get out of range, it's just more to manage unfortuneatly.

[Kedash00]

if you are set on doing 25 mans, you are going to have to throw some casters in it, most of the fights in wolk had casters doing something, and melee doing something else, in many raids.

Casters are easy though, you can get them all setup and positioned for the most part before the fight even begins, then if you need to move them just /follow then hit your spread out keys and they are set back up. really easy compared to melee in my opinion.

Another way to play if you dont want to be the tank and can't see what's going on, you can have your main setup as say, your main healer, and you can run around and see more of the fight that's going on, and just use iwt for both your tanks, this will give you better perspective on the given fight, it takes some getting used to to play like that, i had alot of success in lower level battegrounds with a shammy+4 warriors and i controled the healer, was when we first got to use iwt but i haven't played with it much since then.
Was really fun though, a different way to play.

[doommachine]

@outdrsy The main reason i want to do both a mostly melee team plus it be 25man raiding it cuz i want it to be more challenging. I can always bring in an extra healer or 2 and just keep tinkering with it til it works. If the melee idea proves to be too hard to be fun i can always switch to mostly casters. If 25man is too hard to be fun i can always do 10man. Im going to level over 40 toons with RAF so ill make sure i have plenty of extra healers and casters sitting around to rotate in.

[doommachine]

@kedash Controlling everything from the main healer sounds like a great idea. Also would i need 2 or 3 tanks for 25 man? What would the ratio of melee/caster need to be? 10 melee/5 caster, 7-8 of each or like 5 melee/10 caster?

[Kedash00]

25 man usually takes 3 tanks, i dunno about cata raids as i haven't done any yet, but i'd imagine it's going to be 3 at the least.
as far as the melee/caster ratio i really can only speculate, again as i haven't done any raids in cata yet, we will find out soon i'm sure, but until then your guess is as good as mine

[doommachine]

Ill start with 3 tanks and probably 10 melee and adjust from there. So no warrior tank, im thinking 2 DKs and a bear, anything wrong with that?

[doommachine]

do you guys max 2 professions on your toons for the bonuses? Or would that just cost way too much to be worth it?

[zenga]

All melee is gonna be a bitch. Valiona and theralion - which is the 2nd boss in whats 'considered' the entry raid in cata - requires you to move a lot, spread out, stack ... with a rather short enrange timer. The impossible can be done, boxers showed that in the past, but that were only a handful. But you said you have *just raided icc*. What does that mean? As in boxed icc or as in solo'd it with weekly pug and did 4-5 bosses? Or did you beat hard modes? Etc ... No disrespect, but raiding in cata works slightly different than raiding icc.

The best advice i can give you is to spend an hour or 2 watching cata raid videos on ytube. That will give you a good idea if it's possible or not. Better do that than level up 10 toons and realize you are screwed.
(http://lostinblood.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=12)

[Bloodcloud]

I am ready to see the movies of it ;)

[doommachine]

@zenga My only raid experience were solo on my war tank. Never made it past gunship. I will watch vids and study as much as i can. Im not worried about leveling toons and then i cant use them, ill be making 40 alchemists so i can use them anyway. Plus im going to level 15 or so casters/rdps/heals to tweak my line up as needed. @bloodcloud I will certainly be recording and posting my attempts for everyone to laught at and learn from (as in now i know not to use 16 melee dps).

[Toned]

I'd start smaller... maybe play 4 ranged dps in a 10man to get a feel for the cata raids. Then go to 2 tanks + 6DPS + 2 Heals (1 of the dps ready to go healing if you need 3).

[doommachine]

im also thinking of having a balance druid that can tank in case i needed 3 tanks in 10man. Also which tank combo would be best? For 10 im thinking DK/Bear. What would be best for 25? 2 DK/ 1 bear, or 1 DK/ 2 bear? War tank is my fav but evidently too hard for boxing and i dont like pally tanks.

[Kedash00]

as far as tanks, if you are going to run 3, use a DK, Bear and Pally, that way whatever drops will be useful for some type of tank, and pallys are really easy to macro and just let them go, they are still great aoe tanks for pulling trash and off tanking, the 3 different types of tanking are going to be DK which is a avoidance tank, with all the extra parry and dodge, or a migitation (sp) tank, which will be warriors and pallys, they can negate alot of damage through their build and gear, talents, etc. or a bear tank which just has a huge health pool.
each has it's own advantages and disadvantages, but i would suggest if you are going to run 3 tanks, dk pally and bear, if only 2 i'd use dk and pally personally. but that's just my two cents.

[doommachine]

thanks for the help. Ill run dk, pally and bear for 25 but with 10 ill start with dk and bear and see what happens. Switch out bear for pally if needed. I think the last thing i need answered is if you guys max out 2 profs on the toons you raid with? I know it would be expensive but if it gave me enough of an advantage it would be worth it to me.

[doommachine]

with the idea of a mostly melee team, would it help at all to mix in ele shammies and ret pallies to help with the healing or would their heals be too weak to make a difference?

[Boylston]

Best thing you can do, doommachine, is stop spamming the forums with all kinds of help requests and go out and play a PvE team to L85. Then you'll have a better feel for what you're doing and what you're up against, multi-boxing-wise.

I think we all try to be helpful, but you're asking a ton of questions from the perspective of a complete novice. You're not going to plan the entire "25-man raid" thing out before you get started. Get some experience, then ask good questions based off that experience...

[doommachine]

spamming? You act as if im the only person to ever ask a question on this forum. Im new to the idea of multiboxing of course i have questions. And the answers dont just benefit me. An all melee raid team isnt an original idea. There are others that these questions could help too. Even after leveling a team to 85 i will still have questions. Like if any of you max 2 profs on all your toons you box with for the benefits when it comes to raiding or pvp? Youre the only one that seems to have a problem.

[Dorffo]

The topic of professions has been covered repeatedly and in depth - but in short: yes, max both professions on your raid toons for optimal min/max performance.

[Boylston]

spamming? You act as if im the only person to ever ask a question on this forum. Im new to the idea of multiboxing of course i have questions. And the answers dont just benefit me. An all melee raid team isnt an original idea. There are others that these questions could help too. Even after leveling a team to 85 i will still have questions. Like if any of you max 2 profs on all your toons you box with for the benefits when it comes to raiding or pvp? Youre the only one that seems to have a problem.

Spamming? Yes.

You started your account in December 2010 - as in, less than 17 days ago. (You've created 5 new threads in that time.)

I'm not the only one that "has a problem". Others have somewhat politely encouraged you to actually go out and try some 5-man stuff before inundating the forums with a.) basic gameplay questions that aren't multiboxing-specific or b.) silly to someone who's multiboxed more than a few weeks. Here's an example from someone other than me:


Its an interesting thought experiment, but I encourage you to Safety Dance (http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=1996/the-safety-dance-10-player)a few times with just your 5 box rig now and get the feel for how this isn't a hardware issue at all. Just replicate a simple 5box setup and your done.

You might also preface these questions as thought experiments or what not.

I've been a helpful part of this community for years. Please don't take my comments as antagonistic-- there is no substitute for real multi-boxing experience! It's as if you are going to NASA and saying, "Hey, I'm planning a mission to Mars, and I have a few questions based off the few times I've flown as a passenger on a commercial airliner."

My fear, after having seen many posters like you come and go, is that in a few short days or weeks, there will be more questions that have the same spirit as your posts to-date. Something like, "Hey, does anyone have a good keybind setup for my <<insert whichever team you are starting to play>>?"

Doesn't help that you're almost certainly a native-English speaker and your grammar/punctuation is abysmal. It adds to my perception that you're lazy about this incredibly lofty goal that you have.

I love to help budding multi-boxers along. But I prefer it if they come with well researched questions, have tried something on their own first, and are trying to achieve reasonable goals. Again, there is no substitute (not even d-b.com) for experience...





I leave you with some of your own posts, read them from our perspective...


Hi everyone, im new to the site and am aspiring to be a multiboxer and eventually a 25 boxer (pve raiding). I was wondering what the logistics are of this kind of undertaking and what kind of computer i need to accomplish this with 1 machine and 6 monitors (#6 for browsing internet) and any ideas or suggestions you have for me or anyone else that would want to try this? Would i need a powerful computer like a $4500 iMac? Or could i grab a cheap computer and upgrade it for like $1500?

i was just thinking that 1 computer would be alot simpler to set up. And ive read that its doable. Its also what i would prefer to do unless 2 or 3 machines would improve performance. And ya i could spend $2,000 and build a computer that makes a mac look like a paperweight with such party tricks as HEY LOOK WHAT I CAN DO *crashes the internet* BUT wheres the fun it that?

well based on the replies ive decided to go with 3 computers. 2 to run 4 slave monitors and 1 beast to run the mains monitor and browsing monitor. Also, im aware that i dont get anything extra from 25 boxing raids instead of 10 boxing. Its just an idea at this point but its what i want to do atm. Im going to RAF arund 40 toons anyway to have a ton of alchemists. So 25 boxing would be a way to make use of them. Ill RAF all the toons i want and begin 10 boxing raids. After that ill decide if i realy want to 25 box or just 10. Thanks for your help guys and any other thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
yes im aware of that. Im just a lil crazy in the head and have taken my 10 boxing idea and am turning it into a 25 boxing idea. Plus it would give me alot more roflstomping power in world pvp.

i was thinking of doing some world pvp with my 25 boxing once in awhile for a change of pace. Would it be best to be on a pvp server or would a pve server do just as well? Also how to i make a signature (like how you list your server and what toons you have and all that)? Thanks for you help, Doommachine

@ualaa This is a great idea. Im going to try it out. Should be way faster than i thought it was going to take (6 months or more). Even tho i currently only have 1 account, with an 80 and 2 15s. It shouldnt be long til i have the money to get the computers and accounts (2-3 months).

@merc In the same post you basicaly said to use said to use druids or to not us them...i take that as it realy being anybodys guess as to what is better, especialy 6 months down the road. I just figured that even tho none are any good now due to lack of gear, that there would still be one that stood out as the favorite/best. If this was wrath i think id be fine with 6 shammies chain healing, but that got nerfed into the ground. And with my lack of experience i have no idea what to do.

@zenga My only raid experience were solo on my war tank. Never made it past gunship. I will watch vids and study as much as i can. Im not worried about leveling toons and then i cant use them, ill be making 40 alchemists so i can use them anyway. Plus im going to level 15 or so casters/rdps/heals to tweak my line up as needed. @bloodcloud I will certainly be recording and posting my attempts for everyone to laught at and learn from (as in now i know not to use 16 melee dps).

so chain heal is worthless? There goes my plan...any idea if it would be best to have all your healers the same class/spec to make healing simpler?

@kedash Controlling everything from the main healer sounds like a great idea. Also would i need 2 or 3 tanks for 25 man? What would the ratio of melee/caster need to be? 10 melee/5 caster, 7-8 of each or like 5 melee/10 caster?

Multiple alchemists is like printing money. But besides alchemy, what is the best profession with a cd to have multiple of? Tailoring to make money off the dreamcloth cd? (Which would be from the gear or whatever you craft since dreamcloth is BOP.) or Jewelcrafting with the fire prisms? Or blacksmithing with the its cds? Which would be the most profitable?

hmmm...anyone feel like donating 1 million gold so i can max 40 alchemists and 40 tailors? Lol. Stacking JCs is an interesting idea but i cant justify it in my mind if you cant sell all your green and blue quality gems youd get from prospecting on the level that Shodokan was talking about.


how do i make a kill on site list and how does it notify me when i come across an enemy thats on that list? As for me i love trying to kill any ally i come across. I having started boxing yet but i cant wait til i do and am strongly considering making my 25man raiding team on a pvp server. Ive been on both pve and pvp server and my current is pve. When i was on vek'nilash (pve) me on my prot war and an ally dk were farming in ungoro and battled each time we crossed paths for roughly 2 hours. I lost most of em but it was intense and tons of fun.


You have to be lvl 84 to go into the phased zone. Not too much of an inconvenance(sp?) to go 9 lvls higher to add a ton of gold to your mindless goldmaking scheme. So do you just have to go to the phased zone to learn recipes/ get training? Or do the tailoring toons have to repeatedly go there or stay there?


any idea if the dreamcloth bop will be removed eventually? Like in 6 months? It makes no sense to leave it bop the whole expansion. Blizz might as well come out and tell tailors theyre not allowed to make gold this xpac...


thanks for the help. Ill run dk, pally and bear for 25 but with 10 ill start with dk and bear and see what happens. Switch out bear for pally if needed. I think the last thing i need answered is if you guys max out 2 profs on the toons you raid with? I know it would be expensive but if it gave me enough of an advantage it would be worth it to me.

[Kedash00]

Again, there is no substitute (not even d-b.com) for experience...
Truth

[Sam DeathWalker]

I asked a lot of questions when I first started playing wow and was also told "stop theory crafting and go and play". I really wish I would have spent months more theory crafting.

I screwed up my raf's twice before coming up with the best way to grant, and I went with ele shaman for dps instead of the fire mages I am making now. Not sure if a lot more theory crafting would have helped but ....

My current way to raf (on my forum for 49cents) is that you can get X (the number for total accounts you have) level 60's if you level X-2 level 30's and 2 level 60's, and do one transfer.

Anyway if he wants to ask "noob" questions then many will answer them, those who don't like these kinds of threads are not being forced to read his "spam".

The only foolish question is the one you don't ask.

[Sam DeathWalker]

As to his actualy questions.

I am very very sceptical that mellee will work. IWT was a BIG plus for mellee players AND with the IsBoxer two step macros developed first by merc and fine tuned by aragent procs can be handled easy.

Still IWT can't be spamed from what I read.

I don't have any raid experience but I would look at the make up of what boxers have conqured raids and I am sure we will see that most are casters. By the way what is the highest level raid done "solo" boxer now days anyways. I think Merc was at the top last time I checked. Anyway thats waht I would relie upon.

One of the great things about WoW vs. EQ is that you don't really have to raid to have pvp competitive gear (the game is all about pvp to me). If you craft and pvp a lot you will get to 95 percent of the raider imo. In EQ you could never get near a full time raider without raiding.

Sure there is no substitute for actually doing it but research now saves time later. Just see what the big guilds do in these raids and emulate them (trying to replace mellee with casters in my opinion as mellee is bad news to boxers, I think, but there are some who have done melee well).

And back to shaman, well they are the only class that can have one of the best healers in teh game and one of the top six (?) dps as well and they are mail ..... and have self rez ..... Top 2 in healing and Top 6 in dps .....

Still with Fire Mage / Restro Sham I get Top 1 or 2 in healing and Top 1 dps for pvp (of casters anyways). Have to look up how fire mages do in PvE but I can think they are near the top as well.


To win at raids you will have to master IsBoxer and make macros spicific for each encounter. Thats a LOT of work but here are the two threads you have to understand completley, you have to know why they do what they do and how to modify your macros per each encounter (well similar encouters to what you have dont need redone).

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=32633

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=33080


And why I say you have make macros for each encounter is that you just can't have "max dps" rotations and fire off every proc as soon as its avalible and expect to win in complicated situations. Lets say a well placed ring of frost will save the raid right after mobs X appears. Well you have to come up with a way to macro that (if you know how much time before mob X appears then you can place "don't advance to next step" time limits in IsBoxer macros) or if Mob X appears randomly you have to place ring of frost on a seperate key and make sure that the mage that casts it when you press the key is facing the right way. All of these nuances are extremely difficult to program (if you want the encounter down to spaming a key or two) and need be custom for each encounter.

[blast3r]

I will be watching this thread with great interest. Going to have 10 pallies myself. Actually have 5 level 80 pallies and 5 somewhere around level 40.

[doommachine]

@dorf Thank you :)

Maybe youre not trying to be antagonistic. But im completely missing youre point. I dont understand what the problem is with attempting to gain knowledge from those that have experience? I also have no idea how you could think i am lazy based on my questions. I also find it hilarious that you think theres a point in posting all my posts back to me. Have a great day mr. Elitist.

@sam Thank you. Its mistakes like this that i am looking to avoid.

@sam thank you for the explanations and links. They will help a great deal.

[Boylston]

I can think of no better mentor for you, doommachine, than Sam Deathwalker.

I think you're in good hands now.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I'll take that as a compliment (even though I know better), thanx.

On a side note I just got Cata for $29.99 (one copy) a second ago (key was good) so maybe I be in cata sooner then I expected.

[Mercbeast]

I don't think a melee raid group will work. In fact I would say it would be impossible. IWT is finicky in PvE to say the least. Hit it at the wrong time when the mob moves and your entire raid is running off into the wild blue yonder forcing you to spam IWT to keep everyone hitting the target, albeit inefficiently and to keep everyone from running out of command range. Then you have to hit everyone follow me, pull everyone to you including anything you are fighting, and hit IWT once again to get everyone facing the target. Adds? Forget about it, you will just get overwhelmed.

Stick with ranged DPS IMO, use hunters for your physical DPS, and casters for magical. Only melee should be your tanks.

I think if you follow this approach you will avoid many, many headaches. Unless your entire raid are prot paladins. Then you just run in, and put WoG on round robin ;p

[Boylston]

I don't think a melee raid group will work. In fact I would say it would be impossible. IWT is finicky in PvE to say the least. Hit it at the wrong time when the mob moves and your entire raid is running off into the wild blue yonder forcing you to spam IWT to keep everyone hitting the target, albeit inefficiently and to keep everyone from running out of command range. Then you have to hit everyone follow me, pull everyone to you including anything you are fighting, and hit IWT once again to get everyone facing the target. Adds? Forget about it, you will just get overwhelmed.

Stick with ranged DPS IMO, use hunters for your physical DPS, and casters for magical. Only melee should be your tanks.

I think if you follow this approach you will avoid many, many headaches. Unless your entire raid are prot paladins. Then you just run in, and put WoG on round robin ;p

Please don't disturb Senors Quixote and Panza.

[doommachine]

Melee is by far my favorite over casters. I havent meant to be so stubborn about it. I came in asking how to make melee work and you people with the experience are basicaly saying not to even try it. I should listen and will likely be proven wrong. We shall see what happens. I havent even started my teams yet. Lol. Plenty of time to decide to go all or mostly all casters. And in reality (i believe) those that were successful with melee did it around the end of wrath after the nerfs and they were overgeared for the places. Which makes it far easier than trying to replicate it in cata even 6 months from now. Thank you for your help and opinions. I cant wait to share my results with you no matter what they are.

[Bigfish]

Raid boxing seems a silly thing to throw time and money at. I should know, I've done it. Raids are designed around an entirely different philosphy than 5 mans. In a 5-man, you play your role, and that's the extent of it. On its own, neither tanking nor dps nor healing is diffucult. Raids, however, are not designed around simply tanking or dpsing or healing. They are designed around each player individually paying attention to the scenario and reacting accordingly all while performing their typical party role.

What this means is that boxing raids scales in difficulty based on how many points of attention there are. 1-2 things to pay attention to? Not really hard. 3-4 gets iffy. 5-6 things get dowright annoying. And then you have to factor in how well you can automate your team, and how fast you can switch your point of attention. From personal experience, I spent more time writing macros to deal with each encounter than I really should have, and eventually it just gets really annoying, so much so that I would just consider botting the thing were it not against the ToS and probably not as simple as I would like to think.

[doommachine]

im still going to try to make melee work even if its only a few. But id be just as happy getting it to work with all casters. Going to go watch youtube vids now if you have any suggestions.

[Bigfish]

Melee is by far my favorite over casters. I havent meant to be so stubborn about it. I came in asking how to make melee work and you people with the experience are basicaly saying not to even try it. I should listen and will likely be proven wrong. We shall see what happens. I havent even started my teams yet. Lol. Plenty of time to decide to go all or mostly all casters. And in reality (i believe) those that were successful with melee did it around the end of wrath after the nerfs and they were overgeared for the places. Which makes it far easier than trying to replicate it in cata even 6 months from now. Thank you for your help and opinions. I cant wait to share my results with you no matter what they are.

Being one of the original melee boxers, let me tell you, your single biggest pain will be encounter design based on the concept of ranged DPS being at, well, range. It doesn't come up often, but when it does its REALLY annoying. Nothing quite like everyone needing to be spread out so far or a whirlwind that is there just as a big "F You" to all melee teams. You don't see it too much in 5-man, particularly now with the LFG tool meaning you may get a misbalanced team for such things, but for raids, they plan around composition, and all melee is a no go. But, your money.

[doommachine]

@bigfish Well from the very beginning ive said that i would start all or mostly melee and adjust from there. It was never my intent to go all melee and leave it that way no matter what. From all the feedback ive gotten ive even conceded that i might not have any melee left when i get done except tanks. And am now planning to level 25 casters (originaly had said 15) to go with my 25man mostly melee team.

[Boylston]

I havent even started my teams yet. Lol.

LOL Indeed.

[EaTCarbS]

Have fun running 25 - I run 9 right now and it takes more work and effort than you may realize.

[doommachine]

Hmmmm whats the feasibility of a 25man raid that is nothing but PROT PALADINS? *shudders* i hate pallys.

[Sam DeathWalker]

My solution is as follows:


Tank: Prot Pal (aoe agro)
DPS: arcane (aoe) or fire (single target) Mage
Healing: resto shaman (riptide STACKS)
CC: Mage, Shaman


I am sure other tanks or healers could be sub (good thing about shaman is that you can convert to dps if needed), but this seems a solid balance, and with 3 classes programming should be simpler. And more prot pal if you need off tanks but mage also gives you CC, as does Shaman


Tank / DPS / Healing / CC

Pretty much takes care of 90percent of encounters.

[doommachine]

so 3 pally tanks 6 shammy heals and 16 mage dps.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Thats what I would do but then again I have no raid experience. Again best to see what the big guilds are doing and how they win these encounters.

But its obvious, raid experience or no, that you will need tanking, dps and healing and cc. And three is good for tank, you will need an offtank many times I am sure and a "replacement" tank if one dies. Or one to run to the healers or dps to get argo from them in emergency.

Thats the proper ratio though, a bit heavy on the healing as if needed you can make the shaman do dps.

Also mages have that new ring of ice spell which should be a great CC type spell.


Now you only have to deal with macros for three classes, much faster to make macros for each encounter.

I really doubt boss mobs in this game are going to kill yur prot pally with 6 riptides on him (unlike EQ which is way harder) ...... but I really have no idea.

[zenga]

Hmmmm whats the feasibility of a 25man raid that is nothing but PROT PALADINS? *shudders* i hate pallys.

I'm going to be straight with you, wheter you like it or not:

- if you would 've spend 30 minutes looking at cataclysm raids & tactics, you'd realize by now that 25m solo raiding as a boxer is not possible, just by mechanics
- you'd also realize by now that your all melee / pally / casters is nothing but stupid

Not even talking about the time it's gonna take you to get 25 toons up to 85, which is realistically several months, at least. And then you still need to gear them up to not getting 1 shotted by a raid boss. Add another month. By that time there is a new tier of gear/content out.

This has nothing to do with skill. This has to do with common sense and do 30 minutes of research (like suggested earlier) rather than talking nonsense about 25m raiding. You wanna box 25 man pvp? Sure go ahead, thats doable. Wanna box 25m pve raids? Forget about it, not gonna happen. The fact that you never got past gunship might explain you being naive, but it should not be an excuse.

Sorry to burst your bubble. But it might save you time and dollars.

[zenga]

My solution is as follows:


Tank: Prot Pal (aoe agro)
DPS: arcane (aoe) or fire (single target) Mage
Healing: resto shaman (riptide STACKS)
CC: Mage, Shaman


I am sure other tanks or healers could be sub (good thing about shaman is that you can convert to dps if needed), but this seems a solid balance, and with 3 classes programming should be simpler. And more prot pal if you need off tanks but mage also gives you CC, as does Shaman


Tank / DPS / Healing / CC

Pretty much takes care of 90percent of encounters.

1 think you forget is that you basically need gear that drops in raids to progress in raids. With so few classes specs, there is an insane amount of drops that 'll need to be DE'd. Having multiple classes / specs will make that you take advantage of gear drops.



I really doubt boss mobs in this game are going to kill yur prot pally with 6 riptides on him (unlike EQ which is way harder) ...... but I really have no idea.

Riptide is a dot. Raidbosses usually do more & constant damage than dots can heal for, so you gonna need at least a spell to heal through 'burst' damage.

[doommachine]

@sam thank you for helping me out and giving me advice.

[doommachine]

@zenga Watching the videos is what made me stop wanting to use melee dps cuz the groups with melee were getting annihilated. But what about it makes it IMPOSSIBLE to do with any combo of toons? Is it the mechanics or just the sheer amount of time it would take to level the toons and get them properly geared? And what about 10 man raids? Is that just as impossible (or just not worth it due to having to level and gear them all)?

[Svpernova09]

My raiding experience is mostly just icc.

ICC isn't raiding. Anyone that told you it was lied to you. Cataclysm raids will cock punch you and hand you a large cup of shut the fuck up and a hot plate of sit the fuck down compared to ICC. ICC was Candyland. There's cataclsym heroics that are harder than most ICC fights. I'm not going to tell you that Cataclysm raids aren't boxable. I'll leave that to boxers that have actually boxed shit before it was candy coated. I will tell you that you won't be clearing Cata raids on level with you boxing 25 toons. There's too many mechanics that would just blow your mind trying to work out a strategy for, and honestly, you don't seem to have the capacity to properly theorycraft it.

Consider this a wake up call that just because you've watched some videos, raided some cheese content while wielding a hot knife that you really don't have any idea what you're trying to get yourself into. There's a a reason Sam is shunned on these forums. It's because he's made a WoW career out of trolling the fuck out of people who don't know any better and blatantly ignoring advice he's asked for just because it wasn't done that way in another game. So sure, go to Sam for answers, it'll very much be the blind leading the legally blind.

[Griznah]

My solution is as follows:
DPS: arcane (aoe) or fire (single target) Mage


This. Is. Retarded.

Arcane has superior singletarget DPS and fire as superior AoE. You should get your facts straight before throwing stuff like this around.

[EaTCarbS]

@zenga Watching the videos is what made me stop wanting to use melee dps cuz the groups with melee were getting annihilated. But what about it makes it IMPOSSIBLE to do with any combo of toons? Is it the mechanics or just the sheer amount of time it would take to level the toons and get them properly geared? And what about 10 man raids? Is that just as impossible (or just not worth it due to having to level and gear them all)?

Your questions have already been answered in a previous post


I'm going to be straight with you, wheter you like it or not:

- if you would 've spend 30 minutes looking at cataclysm raids & tactics, you'd realize by now that 25m solo raiding as a boxer is not possible, just by mechanics
- you'd also realize by now that your all melee / pally / casters is nothing but stupid

Not even talking about the time it's gonna take you to get 25 toons up to 85, which is realistically several months, at least. And then you still need to gear them up to not getting 1 shotted by a raid boss. Add another month. By that time there is a new tier of gear/content out.

This has nothing to do with skill. This has to do with common sense and do 30 minutes of research (like suggested earlier) rather than talking nonsense about 25m raiding. You wanna box 25 man pvp? Sure go ahead, thats doable. Wanna box 25m pve raids? Forget about it, not gonna happen. The fact that you never got past gunship might explain you being naive, but it should not be an excuse.

Sorry to burst your bubble. But it might save you time and dollars.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Arcane has superior singletarget DPS and fire as superior AoE. You should get your facts straight before throwing stuff like this around.

Arcane has arcane explosion, castable while moving.

Fire has scorch and living bomb and maybe fireball if you dont need to move.

In pvp and I am sure in raiding you have to move a lot and spells that cast while moving are a big plus. Plus scorch requires no mana, ya its going to be less dps but haveing to never worry about oom is a plus. If you are thinking blast wave, it has a cool down, I don't count stuff you can't use all the time. If you are thinking arcane missles its channeled and standing in one spot for a long time is death. And fire spells are 40 yards........ And with 16 mages stuff dies fast and you need to switch targets fast making arcane missles even less powerfull.



there is an insane amount of drops that 'll need to be DE'd


Well ya just 3 classes but they are plate mail and cloth so that covers a lot. I think the advantages of making macros faster outweighs the fact that you have 16 cloth but if you are going to not use a lot of mellee then that leaves casters and that means cloth unless you go with shaman.




And then you still need to gear them up to not getting 1 shotted by a raid


Thats all true but you can do well outside of raiding in this game. With top end crafting and pvp rewards you can have purples. I think you could have like a 245ilevel not raiding and 264 or a bit more raiding, at level 80 pre cata. Not sure how cata will play out but it seems that you don't need to raid to at least be able to raid the first one or two levels of raids without getting one shotted. Not saying that crafting for all is easy but its far from impossible.


Riptide is a dot for sure but SIX of them ....... thats what 5K - 10K healing every 3 seconds (not sure how much beyond the base a level 85 restro shaman will get but base for 6 is close to 5K per 3 seconds). Well I don't know but thats a lot of healing.

Its instant for 2300 (x6) with a 6 second cool down so if you don't mind overwriting the dot with a fresh cast you can get a 14 - 28 K burst (assuming talents and gear and stuff doubles your base) every 6 seconds. No doubt not very efficient mana wise but healing macro be very simple.





There's too many mechanics that would just blow your mind trying to work out a strategy for, and honestly, you don't seem to have the capacity to properly theorycraft it.




This is very true, and why I am not raiding. Nonetheless given Isboxer, its again VERY HARD but not impossible to macro the whole raid (some of them). You have to write macros JUST FOR A SINGLE encounter. You have to time the delay before you advance to the next step just right also. You will lose 20 30 40 times or more whatever before you even know when the do what but with a substaintial time investment it does not seem impossible. Although it is just a possible that 25 man raids just cannot be boxed as there are to many independant things to do at one time. But IsBoxer is a tremendous tool ....

Basically you are saying that cata raids cannot be boxed. I am sure Merc and others will prove that incorrect as time goes on. I mean we are two weeks into cata and things no doubt are looking way difficult. Lets see how we feel a year into cata. Most raids look almost impossible before someone comes up with a solid stratagy to beat it. And I am sure that tanking, dps, healing and cc will all play their part.

If its as hard as you say then blizzard will dumb down the raids. ICC might or might not be "raiding" but we know the ilevel of gear that drops is considered raid gear. If ICC isn't raiding just what pre cata is considered raiding?

Blizzard is not trying to make the game to hard (unlike EQ). Are you saying there has been some kind of change in philosphy at Blizzard in that they wish to make the game harder at the top end for some reason?


Ya its going to take forever to get 25 level 85's, and he will probably not stick with it that long but so whats none is forcing anyone to read these threads, taken me over 2 years just to get 9 level 80's but I will be positioned way better come next expansion (might even have all 31 at level 85 a few months before) to make a push.




Ya well the only big two things I would have done different are doing the raf better using my method (x level 60's from x-2 level 30's and 2 level 60, advise I never got when I started) and to go with mages instead of shaman for dps (and of course things have changed a LOT from 2 years ago). Tag boosting has turned out as viable as questing and in pvp range is still king, regardless of what others say....




There's a a reason Sam is shunned on these forums. It's because he's made a WoW career out of trolling the fuck out of people who don't know any better and blatantly ignoring advice he's asked for just because it wasn't done that way in another game. So sure, go to Sam for answers, it'll very much be the blind leading the legally blind.



Why don't you also shun the stratagy I invented of pressing a single key to have two characters cast the same spell at the same time. I was the very first to connect two accounts to a single key press.

[Boylston]

Why don't you also shun the stratagy I invented of pressing a single key to have two characters cast the same spell at the same time. I was the very first to connect two accounts to a single key press.

Wow. This thread is getting good!!

One thing is for sure, I bet that Sam and doommachine could pair up together with a team of 13+12 and multibox windmills together with Argent Tournament lances.

[Sam DeathWalker]

You do understand what that screenshot shows dont you? Thats the second SZ went live (as you can tell from all the GM's online). And thats me, samdaman and samistheman, connected to a single keyboard; thats about 2001.

See post number 8 in this thread; I was a pro before wow even existed.

http://www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php?12343-Robe-Visual-Comparison

[doommachine]

@svpernova To say its impossible is one thing. To say i dont have the capacity is downright hilarious.

[Boylston]

You do understand what that screenshot shows dont you? Thats the second SZ went live (as you can tell from all the GM's online). And thats me, samdaman and samistheman, connected to a single keyboard; thats about 2001.

See post number 8 in this thread; I was a pro before wow even existed.

http://www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php?12343-Robe-Visual-Comparison

I was once a pro with the ladies. However, I'm now chubby, balding, and have a wife and three kids. Your screenshot is pointless.

We let your current accomplishments stand on their merits, Sam. Which is to say, we're not impressed.


@svpernova To say its impossible is one thing. To say i dont have the capacity is downright hilarious.

You've never even multiboxed before. I'd say it's "honest", not hilarious.