Multibox ZG (last character for team- input appreciated)

[Multiboxforme]

A while back I came to this forum asking for some input on a 10th party member for my 9 person team (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57585-Suggestion-for-a-10th-party-member). Thanks again for all of the responses.

However, since that time I went crazy and instead of adding 1 more account I added 10. For the new team members they are now in their mid 30s to 50s. Here is the current composition including the existing 9 60s.

1 Prot Pally- I know, I know. However, I'm already vested in this character in spite of the infuriating lack of taunt. Also, has mainly purples at this point.
6 fire mages (my 60s with a mix of MC/ZG gear)
3 Holy Priests (1 has mix of ZG/MC gear)
2 Holy Paladins
4 Warlocks
2 Prot Warriors
1 Resto Druid- my main. Pretty much in phase 4 bis and picking up phase 5 pieces now.

Probable debuff slots
Demo shout
Sunder
CoE
CoS
Imp Shadow Bolt
Imp Scorch
Ignite
Seal of Wisdom
Immolate x 4
Faerie Fire
CoR

This is a super caster heavy team so I'm on the fence regarding Faerie Fire and CoR. However, I'm thinking about the two warriors keeping threat. Open to suggestions on debuffs.

Now for the question. What once character (to make 20) would you add to this team taking all of this into consideration? Goal one is seeing what ZG bosses I could down and then maybe give some AQ20 a try. Some AQ20 mechanics would be super hard imo, but I'd still like to see what can be done by the team.

Thanks in advance for any responses. I know I'm going to have some other questions as well as I've seen some super awesome setups lately that hopefully some of you can give me some guidance on.

[nodoze]

In case it helps I put together the following which depicts the makeup of your current team including slots which can be multi-role-speced without losing much (if anything) in the role you listed them as currently targeted for:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=87338360

Note that the above isn't in the order that I would necessarily do the parties and is more focused on seeing the relative ratio for the various roles.

6 Healers seem kinda high but for a slow/steady fight that may be OK and 2 of them can be dual-spec'ed into decent Tanks which would allow you to flexibly Tank up to 5 targets (not counting pet tanks) yet still have 4 Healers so I don't necessarily think 6 is terrible...

With the above in mind my thought would be to add another DPS. With your current setup you have enough Warlocks to have one per party and give everyone the stamina buff if you wanted (at the cost of pet Tanks) so I am not sure if you need more Warlocks (though they do get better in TBC)...

For 20boxing the 2 comps that captured my imagination when theory-crafting were either:


:go all in on mainly Warriors+Shaman (and cheese though mechanics with Diamond Flasks) or
:go minimum Tanks+Healers+buff/debuff needed and otherwise all in on Mages for Ignites...

If it were me I likely would have gone even more Mages than you have and try to push Ignite even more than you currently are but I don't know that is actually best (just the idea of a huge rolling ignite is capturing my imagination). If you want to see my theory-crafting on a max ignite 20box you can see the tab next to yours named '20box1'. That being said you are low on Melee DPS (your Warriors can be spec'ed to do decent DPS) so maybe another would be better (and could be another off-tank).

If I have time I will come back and revisit again (and I look forward to quality feedback from others) but my initial thought is to go with a class that has at least a strong DPS output/role in Classic and pick the one you think fits your planned raid fights and play-style the most.

[Multiboxforme]

@nodoze Wow I really appreciate it. Your reply and the spreadsheet breakdown is extremely helpful.

One of the things I took from it immediately is the concept of talenting the paladins holy/prot. I really like this and I'm kicking myself a bit for not thinking through that as an option. It would be a nominal hit to healing in a group that is likely a bit heavy on healers already. The flexibility it provides could be really useful. Fantastic suggestion.

I'm with you on the two intriguing teams when theory crafting through this. Frankly, a full warrior + Shaman team can likely down many targets before mechanics even come into play, which I think is huge when multiboxing. As you point out add diamond flask and you can likely cheese through a lot of content. However, I'm on Alliance so that leaves me the second option you listed which is try to stack up on mages for rolling ignites and incredible AoE.

I debated a long time on the four warlocks. I originally was only going to do one and the other three were going to be mages. However, this is why I went up to four.

1. Flexibility when TBC comes out (by far the biggest reason)
2. Imps in each group for more hit points
3 Flexibility for more summon bots if needed
4. Spread out healthstone creation for the raid

The theme is still fire with the warlocks. Imps (fire damage) and a somewhat heavy destro build to take advantage of imp scorch and CoE. I have one toon with arcanite dragonling and could do more if it could potentially be worth it.

I should have come here for input from all the more experienced folks here before creating the next ten. I just kind of got excited about the concept and got going :). Your concern regarding healer heavy is one I started to have after toons were already at a decent level. Initially, I was enamored with the concept of a priest in group 2 through 4 for the AoE heals and Holy Nova for trash AoE along with 3 pallys for 3 blessing per class.

I'm with you on the last class being a dps. I've gone through a lot of thoughts. Hunter to have a toon with a different set of loot needs so mail and some weps don't just get disenchanted. Warrior for another offtank/dps. Shadowpriest to augment Warlock dps. A couple of those options take more debuff slots.

However, one thing I keep coming back to is this. Can I go wrong with another mage? It fits the synergy of the group well and can potentially get more ignite goodness.

Thanks again for the post. You've already given me some great ideas, and I appreciate it.

[nodoze]

Thanks for the thanks :o. For the remaining slot I was also leaning toward a Mage myself though a Warrior could be good (and I had forgot about a Hunter which is also a decent option).

Another advantage of the Locks is that you can soulstone all Priests such that if they go OOM & die they can go into crazy 'Spirit of Redemption' mode and then self-rez in combat via SoulStone and then pop potions/runes for mana. If you know you have a run-away mage with huge ignite damage you can Blessing of Protection him and SoulStone him before he dies (lots of options including Warriors who could self-rez, get quick heals, & taunt back into the fight)... Also a limited number of Locks can DoT to put max debuffs on bosses that aren't being FocusFired down and soften them up without stealing aggro from offTanks.

Edit: Another advantage of Locks is that with the PVP Gloves & a Paladin Concentration Aura a Soul-Linked Warlock can be a decent off Tank with no-push-back Searing Pains...

Regarding Paladins I both mained them and multi-boxed them in many different party/raid compositions from Vanilla through WoTLK so I tend to think of how to leverage them as multi-role Hybrids... I also have already done theory-crafting for my own Classic 10 to 20 box (see Paladin tabs and various "box" tabs on my spreadsheet) so I can easily grab some things for you to ponder upon...

Some baseline minimums to consider for Paladin roles (and there is some flexibility even in the minimums):

Minimal Paladin Holy Talents needed to be decent mana efficient healer 20/0/0 (https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/055031105) : 31 points free;
(obviously more is better)

Minimal Paladin Prot/Holy Talents needed to be decent AoE Threat Tank; 11/13/0 (https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/055001-0532003) : 27 points free;
(especially if another Paladin in party/raid gives you Sanctuary);

Paladin with both Healing/Threat minimums met 20/13/0 (https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/055031105-0532003) : 18 points free;

For additional reference this is Matricus's Paladin 30/21/0 RaidHealer/5boxTank build (https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/0550312250115-513221300301) which he runs to great effectiveness as both a Raid Healer and a Tank in his Pa3MP 5box.

If you are a single Paladin trying to do both roles 30/21/0 (lots of options in there) is pretty common but in your case your 3 Paladins are part of a 20box raid so you can be pretty creative if you think of them as "a hive" working together...

With a "Paladin hive approach" in mind and the need to tank 4 bosses in a pull you could consider something like the following for your Trio Paladins in Raid and your 4 Tank Party:

Tank Party Slots:
1): Warlock with improved Stamina buff+Fire_Sheilds;
2): Warrior 1;
3): Warrior 2;
4): Main Paladin Tank (11/31/9) (https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/055001-553221330001051-05202) Defense Capped w Improved Devotion Aura for Tank Group;
5): Paladin Healer-offTank1 (21/13/17) (https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/055031105-0532013-50205021002) w Improved Retribution Aura for Tank group;

Paladin Healer-offTank2 (30/21/0) (https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/0550312052115-503231300031) w Sanctuary & both Improved Devo & Concentration for caster group (you could choose one or neither);

Note that dual Sanctuary Blessings stack in Classic (Greater with regular) so I tried to work that in even though it isn't mandatory... The above could give you on all 4 Tanks and Warlock+pet in your Tank Party:

Kings
Blessing of Sanctuary;
Greater Blessing of Sanctuary;
Improved Retribution Aura;
Improved Devotion Aura;
Imp Stamina Buff;
Imp Fire Shield;

*Note: Swap Devo Aura for Resistance Aura if helpful for a given fight or Concentration Aura on demand if the Tanking Paladins need to supplement heals... My Main Tank has Concentration Aura on hot key for when he needs to switch to off-heals or heal the primary healer...


I may be missing something but my quick thoughts right before a pull with 4 bosses would be to have the 3 Paladins buff the Tank group & themselves as follows:

-Paladin Healer-offTank2: Bless Warlocks, Paladins, & Warriors with Greater Blessing of Sanctuary (GBoSanct);
-Paladin Healer-offTank1: Bless Warlocks & Paladins with GBoKings & Warriors improved GBoMight;
-Paladin Main Tank:
--- Bless Warriors with Greater Blessing of Kings;
--- Bless Warlocks & Paladins with Greater Blessing of Salvation;
--- replace Salvation with regular Sanctuary on self and offTank1;
--- If desired drink quickly and while drinking have Imp buff all tanks with FireShield and then pull;

Note: For Warriors you could instead have offTank1 do Kings and Main to regular Sanctuary...

Note that you can macro the last parts to do it all quickly right before pull...

At 3 mins into the fight you can use a macro to rebuff imp fire shield and regular Sanctuary on Maintank/offTank1;

Anyway there is lots of flexibility and since I already had most of the above on spreadsheets or in my head I figured I would share it with you...

[Multiboxforme]

@nodoze And just wow again. I was optimistic to get some good feedback on this forum, but your thoughts are more than I was hoping for. I really appreciate it sir. I'm sold on your suggested Paladin setup. You obviously know the class very well (much better than I do) and the suggested differences than my original plan of just holy gives me a ton of additional flexibility. So to recap here is the current plan with adding mage as final dps.

Group 1
1) Warrior tank 1
2) Warrior tank 2
3) Warlock improved imp
4) Prot pally 11/31/9
5) Hybrid pally 21/13/17

Group 2
1) Warlock
2) Hybrid pally 30/21
3) Resto druid
4) Holy priest
5) Fire mage

Group 3
1) Fire mage
2) Fire mage
3) Fire mage
4) Warlock
5) Holy priest

Group 4
1) Fire mage
2) Fire mage
3) Fire mage
4) Warlock
5) Holy priest

Once again probably a bit light on DPS but my hope is the abundance of fire mages with fire debuffs will somewhat make up for it.

I like the thoughts regarding buffs and just discovered Buff'o'mat a couple of weeks ago. Boy, that was life changing and has made buffing so much more seamless. I just have it hotkeyed on a single key and spam it until buffs are done across all characters.

I'm going to have to improve my current setup a LOT as I know there is just a ton of opportunity for improvement. Right now with the 9 60s I just have repeater regions setup for healing, buff'o'mat for buffing, and GSE for my damage rotation on the followers. I've seen some crazy good setups that have shown me I have a long ways to go and after I get the remaining toons to 60 I'm going to pause and really spend some time on optimizing my configuration before hitting the raid content.

When I give ZG a whirl I'll update here in case anyone wants to know how things worked. Thanks again Nodoze- this was really, really helpful.

[nodoze]

Glad to help and for me it allows me to live though it somewhat vicariously as I just don't have time to level tons of characters... That and your 20box team is closer to what I was thinking of doing since as Alliance we don't have Shaman which makes multiboxing Warriors more difficult (don't like the idea of trying to heal tons of Warriors in melee range without Chain Heal).

Be a little careful with my feedback as much of my input is just theory-crafting on how to flexibly do a 20box as Alliance...

A couple additional thoughts/recommendations:

- I agree you may be light on DPS so I would get a Warrior spec that allow your Warriors be strong tanks but also be good DPS and try to use the Prot pally 11/31/9 as a main tank unless the boss has Threat Wipes and/or needs Taunts. For the 2nd Tank spot try to use the Hybrid pally 21/13/17 and let the Warriors help with DPS. So for the ZG fight that had 4 bosses tanked separately I would likely try to kill targets in order of Warrior1, Warrior2, Hybrid, Prot and that way the Warriors can switch to max DPS weapons/stance on as the bosses go down. Through trial and error you may also find that your Warriors can not just swap to DPS weapons but maybe could swap a few pieces of tank armor for DPS armor. This may help with your lack of DPS a little and get more out of the Paladins as likely the 3 Priests, the Resto Druid, & the Holy Paladin are enough dedicated healing. If not focus the Hybrid Paladin more on healing and that could be the first target you kill (though he can be no-push-back healing regardless with Concentration Aura).

-Buff-o-mat is great and due to some bugs in SmartBuff I switched to Buff-o-mat awhile back... It will likely handle almost all your buffs though I can't remember if I got it cast Fire_Shield reliably on my tanks or not. Regardless I already had a macro for that I used right before pulls (same button put on my Paladin: Imp_fire_shield+Priest_shield+regular_Sanctuary as he starts running to do pulls) and I use that even though I also have Buff-o-mat as I want those only only cast right before pulls. Also having your main tank Paladin put Greater Salvation on all Paladins (including himself and the Hybrid Paladin) allows him to go back and replace Greater Salvation with regular Sanctuary (for dual Sanctuary stacking Regular and Greater) and I am not sure if you can set that up in Buff-o-mat or not (it may keep trying to overwrite each other).

-Playing ISboxer: You hit the nail on the head that in the end much of your success will depend on how well you setup ISboxer to handle groupings and scripting... You will need to be able to toggle (ideally on the fly from your main foreground client) which characters stay on their own targets and which ones join in on the main raid's focus fire DPS and likely script some things like rotations and rolling HoTs/etc. I remembered a video showing this when we were discussing 20boxing raids and the 4 boss fight so I did a search and found this thread for you which I would read in depth and watch the related videos multiple times:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57545-Currently-leveling-up-a-20-man-ZG-AQ-farming-team-What-do-you-all-think

I checked out the channel that had some of the videos and noticed that that 20boxer (ZooBoxing) recently totally redid his ISboxer setup (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo2C7HJU2nE) so you likely should review the before/after setups for ideas.

Best of luck and please both report back both progress and lessons learned.

[Dilb]

I've got a lot of experience with ZG. I have a 10-man team that's 4/8 in ZG. (I've done Hakkar with +3 humans helping and all bosses with 1 friend).

If you're willing to go full-mixed, you should bring one hunter. Their damage is extremely good while being safe and providing a lot of utility. Hunters don't parse well in big raids, so people think their damage is bad. Really, they're just bad at carrying worldbuffs. They don't scale well with crit, can't use melee attack power, pets essentially can't carry worldbuffs, etc. etc. But unbuffed they consistently will do top damage while bringing trueshot aura and screech. The mathematics of screech are a whole topic, but suffice to say, it's *way* more effective than the tooltip indicates.


You can probably do Venoxis and Marli right now with your 9 man.

Venoxis isn't that bad, and it's more fun to do when it's a challenge than when you just roll it with 20.

Mar'li has some tricky positioning, but you can cheese it with BoF (or have a second tank). I don't think it's possible to tank Mar'li with a paladin, as there's a PBAoE threat wipe.

[Multiboxforme]

@Dilb thank you so much for your reply! Hmm so I was thinking hunter as well as I was going through this exercise because 1. Different loot set which is nice as I have a lot of toons to distribute cloth to 2. Brings some utility I'm lacking (traps, pulls with FD) and 3. Can still perform a level of dps even without mana unlike my caster heavy team.

What I didn't account for was screech. I did some reading and that's super interesting and I have a debuff spot to spare. I haven't rolled my final toon yet as I'm finishing up the others, but I'm back on the fence between hunter or another mage with a slight preference towards hunter now.

If you don't mind me asking which 4 have you downed with your ten man team? Jeklik, Veoxis, Mar'li, and Arlokk or something else? That's super impressive and congratulations. Do you have any setup or fight tips/tricks you've learned along the way? I do have two warrior tanks in their 50s now I'll be bringing for the Mar'li fight regarding the aggro drop you note. I love pallys but aggro drop makes them non-viable for some things.

Thanks so much for the thoughts! I really appreciate the input.

[Dilb]

I've done Jek'lik, Venoxis, Mar'li, and Mandokir. I think I could do all the non-Hakkar bosses if I sat down, but I haven't done solo ZG pulls in a while. My new project was leveling up another group of 5. And since I'll have to do a ton of ZGs with them anyway, I'm going to wait until they're at least 50.

Arlokk is a good guess. She's probably the second easiest boss for a 20-man, but she has a strong enrage mechanic that makes her tough for shorthanded groups. During the second night, the number of panthers approximately doubles and continues there. Also there's a spawn of 3~6 panthers that seems to happen randomly. It *can* happen during the first night (kinda rare), and it always happens during the second night. Anyway, you can kill her before the second night with 3200-3400 dps, which is definitely plan A for any group. When she comes back, there's an aggro drop and she tunnels someone. Without taunt that person is probably going to die, but I'm not sure.

Most of the bosses are similar to how you'd do them in a group.

I think the lack of taunt on your MT will only be an issue on Marli and Mandokir. Thekal has gouge and blind in phase 1 (Zath does to be technical). I think there's an aggro drop. It might be a problem if your paladin gets gouged, but I think you can just spread out the three and it's fine.

Mandokir you can drop the Oghan stacks with BoP. I think I mentioned this, but the fight is extremely easy if you're abusing this. Mandokir himself has an aggro drop.

Jek'lik has an enrage mechanic in phase 2 where she drops AoE bombs faster and faster. If you have 2600 dps, it's pretty comfortable if you spread out, and if you have 3400~3600, you don't even get bombs at all. The important thing is to make sure there are no bats up when you transition her to phase 2. She also has a silence, I'm not sure how that affects Paladin tanking, but you can just hold off on DPS and build a big lead heading into phase 2 anyway.

Jin'do you can ignore all his mechanics. Park your raid in the mosh pit and tank him in front so the teleport doesn't do anything. Decurse the curse of jin'do. The curse does more damage than the shades do anyway. You are on a clock, because eventually the shades will pile up and wipe you, so you have to clear the totems efficiently (I set up specific totem rotations), but with <300k HP, he shouldn't be any problem for 20.

Everything in AQ20 is a huge step up in difficulty.

[Multiboxforme]

That is amazingly useful info and I really appreciate hearing the perspective of a boxer that has done this. Not only done this, but has done it without a full raid group.

Thank you so much for being willing to share. You and Nodoze have been generous in providing some thoughts. Think I've landed on hunter as the choice. I have the rest of the team in the 40s/50s now so getting there! I'll share here once I start giving some things a try in there.

For AQ20 I think everything except the first fight seems like it would be difficult.

[Multiboxforme]

@Dilb Oh and one last thing. How do you handle the threatening gaze from Mandokir and do you off tank the raptor or just kill it first? Was curious how most boxers were handling this.

[Dilb]

I set up a keymap that disables all keymaps, and then I can assign that keymap to a character. There's a button to disable it, and/or when I assign it to the next character, it automatically drops the keymap on the prior character.

If you're using the BoP trick there's no reason to kill Oghan. He doesn't hit very hard until the target has you know, at least 3+ sunders, and then you just drop stacks. Killing Oghan first isn't that bad. You'll take a lot of deaths, but if you stay focused and keep grinding/mitigate as many deaths as possible, he'll stop enraging eventually (1 minute) and then you can clean him up. Since you're alliance, there's no reason to risk this method, though.