Samefudge
09-19-2014, 04:52 PM
Hello all,
After several months of 4-boxing D3 with ISBoxer, I thought it was time to talk about my experiences with it.
Pre-2.1, I started with mine and my wife's account dual boxing 2 wizards. This worked fine, until I tried to get past about T2. It was then I did my serious build research and discovered the WoW/EB builds... but had yet to find a single Wand of Woh (even now, still not a single WoW).
I decided to change my main account toon to a Witch Doctor, as they were the "most powerful" and T6 capable, and pets were pretty powerful for lower torments, and needed little to no control at the micro level. This worked fine and I was having a blast, but other gear was dropping that I didn't have a use for, and wanted to use it.
At the time my son was playing Blessed Shield and Holy Shotgun crusader builds, and I had leveled a crusader in the past myself, so I knew how powerful they could be, plus they offered some nice buffs. I created another account, paid for my software, and created my new crusader. Playing a crusader without any build defining gear with two range classes was... not fun.
So, after some research, I decided to add a zDPS pull/support monk and another WD on a fourth account. This was VERY fun for a few weeks, and worked very well pre-2.1.
Along the way I accumulated:
WD: Full Zuni, full Jade, Jeram, TnT, Quetz
Wiz: 2-missle Mirrorball, full FB, Magefists, Cindercoat
Monk: full SWK, Storms, various legs
WD2: Bits and peices
Pretty soon after 2.1 I decided that a second WD was not my best option, and powered a DH up. This gave me 2 classes for INT gear, and 2 classes for DEX gear. This went OK for a little while, until 2.1 hit and the monk changes occurred. It took about a week or so of 3-4 hour a day playing to get full M6 w/ TnT but once I did it was evident where the power was. So, I switch the monk to another DH.
With 3 ranged classes, it was now more evident that Jade WD was not going to work well for me with a mid-range 3-core CPU PC. I switched my main WD back over to Grin Reaper build, then back to FA/Zuni pet doc, and things have been going much smoother now. The addition of a 6-core CPU has also been a huge boost; no more stutter-stepping unless I intend to!
Here's my basic set up with key maps:
L-Click: DH1+DH2 > Sentry, WD > Addling Toads, > Wiz MM
R-Click: DH1+DH2 > EA:FA (10 Hatred spender, so a spam won't drain my hatred), WD > Piranhas:Piranhado, Wiz > Black Hole:Blazar
1: Wiz > Blizzard:Apocalypse
2: Wiz > Meteor:Molten, WD:Big Bac Voodoo: Slam Dance
3: WD > Spirit Walk: Jaunt, Wiz > Mirror Image: Duplicates, DH1 + DH2 > Smoke Screen:Lingering Fog (the OH CRAP button for all toons)
4: DH1 + DH2 > Companion:Boar Companion (on 2 sec reset round robin)
If a key isn't listed for a slot, it's either a buff (wiz), summons (WD), or a hatred spender (DH's) that I don't want spammed; if I need them pressed, I swap to that toon and left click them manually; those keys have been eliminated from receiving key presses through either re-mapping or round-robin configuration.
I play with stacked windows on my main monitor. I play with the WD as main with several VideoFX viewers, showing cooldowns for both Companion abilities, Meteor, and Black Hole.
On the second monitor I have a dxNothing window with viewers for all 4 mini-maps, with a toon head and mana bar section in the lower left corner of each, like so:
http://i.imgur.com/g4uJ3TZ.png (screeshot from the monk days and only playing 3 accounts at the time).
As a team, I am able to run T6 rifts in ~15 minutes on average. I have also killed the ubers three times and made two amulets (had to turn down uber Diablo to T5 my first time, then it was easy). Key farming is a snap on T6. I have also cleared Grift 29 with > 3 minutes to spare. Not the best grift level or time, but it's getting there (and I've only had the new CPU for 3 days :cool:).
Funny side-story; while I was running public rift games on the 4th account demon hunter, we popped a goblin portal. The last account to get added to the mix was the first to get Boon of the Hoarder, and was by far the richest toon until last weekend when I finally got the portal on all my other account too.
I have been thru a lot of trial and error to get this far, and I am having a blast with it. So much reading and learning, and a lot of ideas came from sites like this. Hopefully my own experiences can help someone as you all have helped me.
After several months of 4-boxing D3 with ISBoxer, I thought it was time to talk about my experiences with it.
Pre-2.1, I started with mine and my wife's account dual boxing 2 wizards. This worked fine, until I tried to get past about T2. It was then I did my serious build research and discovered the WoW/EB builds... but had yet to find a single Wand of Woh (even now, still not a single WoW).
I decided to change my main account toon to a Witch Doctor, as they were the "most powerful" and T6 capable, and pets were pretty powerful for lower torments, and needed little to no control at the micro level. This worked fine and I was having a blast, but other gear was dropping that I didn't have a use for, and wanted to use it.
At the time my son was playing Blessed Shield and Holy Shotgun crusader builds, and I had leveled a crusader in the past myself, so I knew how powerful they could be, plus they offered some nice buffs. I created another account, paid for my software, and created my new crusader. Playing a crusader without any build defining gear with two range classes was... not fun.
So, after some research, I decided to add a zDPS pull/support monk and another WD on a fourth account. This was VERY fun for a few weeks, and worked very well pre-2.1.
Along the way I accumulated:
WD: Full Zuni, full Jade, Jeram, TnT, Quetz
Wiz: 2-missle Mirrorball, full FB, Magefists, Cindercoat
Monk: full SWK, Storms, various legs
WD2: Bits and peices
Pretty soon after 2.1 I decided that a second WD was not my best option, and powered a DH up. This gave me 2 classes for INT gear, and 2 classes for DEX gear. This went OK for a little while, until 2.1 hit and the monk changes occurred. It took about a week or so of 3-4 hour a day playing to get full M6 w/ TnT but once I did it was evident where the power was. So, I switch the monk to another DH.
With 3 ranged classes, it was now more evident that Jade WD was not going to work well for me with a mid-range 3-core CPU PC. I switched my main WD back over to Grin Reaper build, then back to FA/Zuni pet doc, and things have been going much smoother now. The addition of a 6-core CPU has also been a huge boost; no more stutter-stepping unless I intend to!
Here's my basic set up with key maps:
L-Click: DH1+DH2 > Sentry, WD > Addling Toads, > Wiz MM
R-Click: DH1+DH2 > EA:FA (10 Hatred spender, so a spam won't drain my hatred), WD > Piranhas:Piranhado, Wiz > Black Hole:Blazar
1: Wiz > Blizzard:Apocalypse
2: Wiz > Meteor:Molten, WD:Big Bac Voodoo: Slam Dance
3: WD > Spirit Walk: Jaunt, Wiz > Mirror Image: Duplicates, DH1 + DH2 > Smoke Screen:Lingering Fog (the OH CRAP button for all toons)
4: DH1 + DH2 > Companion:Boar Companion (on 2 sec reset round robin)
If a key isn't listed for a slot, it's either a buff (wiz), summons (WD), or a hatred spender (DH's) that I don't want spammed; if I need them pressed, I swap to that toon and left click them manually; those keys have been eliminated from receiving key presses through either re-mapping or round-robin configuration.
I play with stacked windows on my main monitor. I play with the WD as main with several VideoFX viewers, showing cooldowns for both Companion abilities, Meteor, and Black Hole.
On the second monitor I have a dxNothing window with viewers for all 4 mini-maps, with a toon head and mana bar section in the lower left corner of each, like so:
http://i.imgur.com/g4uJ3TZ.png (screeshot from the monk days and only playing 3 accounts at the time).
As a team, I am able to run T6 rifts in ~15 minutes on average. I have also killed the ubers three times and made two amulets (had to turn down uber Diablo to T5 my first time, then it was easy). Key farming is a snap on T6. I have also cleared Grift 29 with > 3 minutes to spare. Not the best grift level or time, but it's getting there (and I've only had the new CPU for 3 days :cool:).
Funny side-story; while I was running public rift games on the 4th account demon hunter, we popped a goblin portal. The last account to get added to the mix was the first to get Boon of the Hoarder, and was by far the richest toon until last weekend when I finally got the portal on all my other account too.
I have been thru a lot of trial and error to get this far, and I am having a blast with it. So much reading and learning, and a lot of ideas came from sites like this. Hopefully my own experiences can help someone as you all have helped me.