Raid boxing

[eqbox]

Hi,
I am new to this site but congratulations to a great place. I myself have boxed for 4-5 years at everquest. Currently I 4-box on 4 machines.

I am interested to hear people starting to contemplate or do raid boxing (like Gameslah, Xzin and Sam).

However, apart from "zerg" tactics , it is difficult to do do much raid content which are often scripted and require ever changing tactics that in volve offtanking, off-kiting to deal with multiple adds (often up to 6-10).

So how would you deal with that?

To me, group PVE is accomplished by many people in these boarrds. But upping the challenge to do raid content wll require a more complex setup.

I myself is comtemplating desiging a do-able system but I don't know where to start. Even for group content handling multiple adds can be difficult. (need a good puller class to start off with).

Any ideas from you veteran boxers?

[unit187]

I don't really see any raid boss you can kill besides attumen the horsemen. All other fights are simple but require accurate positioning (like maiden) or complex without any chance for boxer.

[Bunny]

I agree!

I have seriously considered 10 boxing to try kara but I have done kara with my ex guild and I assume that even boxing attumen is a big challenge! moroes: no way, maiden: no, curator: i guess not, I don't know about the rest but I assume it doesn't get easier.

Zul aman: Who knows but it is supposed to be harder than kara.
What might work ist 10-20 boxing old instances (MC and Zul G, but not BWL or AQ40) but i whouldn't be too sure about that.

Anyways, I think it is big enough of a challenge to beat the 5 mans and the heroics.

Bunny
(69.5 and going...)

[unit187]

shadw of aran, illhoof, netherspite, nightbane, malchezar - no way :)

in whole karazhan you can actually win only attumen and chess event ;D

[Sam DeathWalker]

I dont know I am set up for raiding (900 AA warrior - 4 to 5 clerics, slowers, lots of dps) ... but I still need a lot more progression to get there.

Adds still do me in a lot but I have not had my SK (aoetaunt) and Warrior (tank) in the game at the same time yet.

A single warrior type mob will probably be easy no matter if it has a million HP or whatever. But a mob that has a ton of adds that I can't handle is going to slaughter me.

Well its all specutation at this point, once I get all my guys to 75 and like 100ish AA, Ill start doing ligit raid targets, I am sure some will be easy and others will slaughter me ... And with level 80 coming in november (EQ1) I am sure a lot of former raid targets are going to be trivial.

One kinda cheap trick I can do is if the mob does not regen very fast is send in a wizard, hit the boss with 7K or so of damage then Call of the hero him out, or even exodus, the wizard out so that he no longer has agro ... I can do that an infinite number of times ... anyway we will see.

[zanthor]

I've said all this in another post... but I firmly believe that KZ would be EASIER for a single player to box than a raid to handle.

However - you could NOT accomplish this with the common 4+1 team style that boxers are so fond of. You would need a somewhat balanced raid.

I'd try this Boxing build for 10 man raiding:
Warrior - Prot
Paladin - 20/41 holy/prot
Priest - Holy
Priest - Shadow
Mage
Mage
Mage
Warlock
Warlock
Warlock


Attunemen - Simple tank and spank fight - with a properly geared tank you can single tank it - if you are using a paladin or bear for your MT the multi-target threat gen is perfect for this.

Moroes - Simple Tank and Spank + Control fight. Setup your two shackles, pull with the paladin, split off Moroes with the warrior, chain shackle 2, kill 2, kill moroes. You can then walk out of the room and let the shackles reset if you like. You have bubble + 3 soulstones for handling the Garrotte, bubble will be reset before the 2nd soulstone is needed, so thats more than enough to handle the full fights needs.

Maiden - Simple tank and spank fight - positioning is important but accomplishable. Put the paladin behind the tank - spread everyone else out facing in with a single key bound for moving forward - it's a symettrical room so everyone could move in the same distance from the wall.... Three dispellers for the holy fire, paladin to heal through the stun's with blessing of whatever the fuck hurts the paladin when the warrior gets smacked...

Opera - R&J - Split tank tank n spank - ezmode.

Opera - Oz - Lots of fire and fears help here, use the control character to move the tin man around, keep a mage firenuking the strawman with a focus macro, keep a lock fear + dotting the lion, kill Dorothy, Kill dog, kill the rest as you desire. Hit your follow macro and kite the Krone around the room without getting hit by the vortex.

Opera - Big Bad Wolf - This fight you would HAVE to be johny on the spot with running and would have to be able to switch which box was under control but still throw heals from all boxes on the right character... Other than that, it's a point dps fight.

Curator - Zomg 3x COD, 3x Trinketing mages Evocates would DESTROY the guy... all that point dps on a guaranteed /assist would devestate the sparks better than any group could imagine. Eazy fight.

Illhoof - 3x warlocks 3x healers + LOTS of dps = ezmode on this one. Chains will die nearly immediately again because of the point dps NEVER fails to assist.

Shade of Aran - You would think this would be your hardest fight... you would be wrong. IT takes a LOT to get 10 people to stay out of the blizzard, to stop moving on the flame wreath etc... but one persons easy to control. DPS would be great, you would NEVER waste an interupt because someone else had just used theirs... when the adds spawn you have point DPS to destroy them quickly... everyone moves as a pack... ezmode.

Chess - Free Epix

Netherspite - This one WOULD be hard because of the positioning - I'd personally swap two locks out of the blue beam using lifedrain, and I'd swap the warrior/paladin between the red/green beams for tanking... but definitely accomplishable.

Prince - This fights about positioning - slap his ass on the far wall and get everyone in the right spot and no one gets infernaled... then it's healing and DPS.

Nightbane - This fights about having control over the dragon (warrior tanks) and the adds (Paladin tank + 6x AE). Easy as hell.

So, ten boxing KZ is definitely possible, the fights aren't impossibly complex.

I don't think that you could 25 box say Gruul's Lair - however on that same note I'd wager that 5x5boxers could dominate raid content better than any 25 individuals in most cases.

[unit187]

attunemen - easy even with one tank

moroes - in theory easy. But there your raid will get damaged by adds so you will need to care about healing whole raid. In the same time you gotta tank moroes and move warrior since moroes vanishes and you gotta catch him. And in the same time dpsing focusing dps. Pretty hard, also gotta make 1000 macros for all chars.

maiden - pretty easy tank, but how are you gonna dispel with 3 dispellers in the same time? afaik decursive doesnt work anymore in the way it did before 2.0

curator - there will be problem with outhealing sparkles' aoe I suppose, otherwise it is easy.

illhoof - you gotta have 2 tanks here for imp and the boss himself. You gotta have good gear on MT so he can survive it. Also you gotta heal all the time AoE people, chained person, 2 tanks. Easy? no

shade of aran - elementals will be hard, you can ofc focus them but they are doing insane damage on single target, you gotta care about making them nuking one target you want them to nuke, thats pretty hard. In the same time you will be nuked by aran himself.

netherspite - switching between 6 characters all the time is confusing... also you have to do good control on tanks and aoe heals. In theory easy, on practice I'd say it is nearly impossible.

Nightbane - dont forget you will need to move chars from charred earth, also they can be feared under nb which might cause insta death, also you will need to reposition them after fear

Prince - you have to move your raid all the time from infernals, same shit with warrior. Flying axes are bastards too with help of shadow volley

So it is very very hard and some fights are nearly impossible because you have to do constantly healing (and conserve mana) on a few targets or whole raid and in the same time tank/dps/do other bossfight stuff...

[caldvn]

Rolf if you think multibox karazhan is that easy with the exceptions of a few bosses. But hey I would love to be proven wrong considering I have 10 70's and have had to cover with alts to fill actual raids and not in theory.

[Bradster]

You know I really considered building a raid.

I figure I could run key clone across my 5 computers, have a couple wow clients loaded per machine. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

But then I started running Outland instances. Sure I’ve done them before in groups. But now that I’m doing them with my 5 boxing group I’ve received a preview of what’s ahead. It doesn’t look good.

Right now I’m having trouble killing the 2nd boss in Ramparts at level 62. Just handling the adds with the boss has proven to be most difficult to manage everything. Not only that my Voidwalkers are dieing a great deal. They really aren’t meant for main tanking instances. Only now it’s truly starting to show.

I have a both a warrior and Druid (Feral). I replaced one of my warlocks for my druid. Tried main tanking, healing, and doing dps. Long story short it didn’t go well.

Not saying doing all three isn’t possible. I’m sure in time with practice that it could happen. But raiding with 5-6 different classes seems.. well Unlikely successful. Least in Wow.

Now in Everchase *cough I mean Everquest 2 combat is a bit more slower. I think it would be totally doable. In fact I’ve been fighting the urge to go back to EQ2 lately. Just because I know how possible it would be. But I love PVP and can’t play with out it. Yeah I know EQ2 has PVP, I hated it. Give people every right to get away with no risk. Chase after people for 20mins until they zone jump until you give up. Yay good times there.

Edit: Sorry just a bit bitter about EQ2. I honestly really loved that game. It just became so boring with no PVP. I started duel boxing there first since I could never find anyone to group with. Then PVP came out and I thought all my game wishes have come true. Only for it to be the biggest let down for me. So back to wow I went :cry:

[caldvn]

10 characters worth of gear, 5 man farming instances pre Karazhan, 5 man farming rep, then 5 man heroic farming instances pre Karazhan, then maybe if you've done that, you'll get a taste of what 10 boxing will be like in Karazhan.

If you can't handle 5 toons for heroic instances, many heroic instances, then yeah you got a chance at doing Karazhan, very small chance. Be successful is different story.

[kadaan]

Agree that Attumen would be easy (and it's ATTUMEN dammit, NOT 'Attunemen'


moroes - in theory easy. But there your raid will get damaged by adds so you will need to care about healing whole raid. In the same time you gotta tank moroes and move warrior since moroes vanishes and you gotta catch him. And in the same time dpsing focusing dps. Pretty hard, also gotta make 1000 macros for all chars.
Moroes vanishes, and when he reappears he runs straight to #1 threat. No chasing required. The healing through garrotes would be the difficult part, but it sounds like zanthor says to let the first 3 garroted people die and not worry about them (soulstone them when they get garroted).


maiden - pretty easy tank, but how are you gonna dispel with 3 dispellers in the same time? afaik decursive doesnt work anymore in the way it did before 2.0
/cast [target=focusmouseover] dispel? Wouldn't that cast dispel on your focus' mouseover? Just have your main char the focus, and mouseover someone who got holy fire'd and hit the macro.


curator - there will be problem with outhealing sparkles' aoe I suppose, otherwise it is easy.
Position as he's walking away so everyone is spread out and you're good. The AE is only ~700 damage, with 6 ranged dps they'll die in 3s (one cast from each). I think this would be a cake fight.


illhoof - you gotta have 2 tanks here for imp and the boss himself. You gotta have good gear on MT so he can survive it. Also you gotta heal all the time AoE people, chained person, 2 tanks. Easy? no
You don't need two tanks. The imp hits for nothing. Just have the warrior cleave to keep aggro on the imp the whole time. We never use an off-tank for the imp. Mages can dampen so you take almost no damage from from the imp's fireballs. Should be really easy to heal through, especially with 3 seeds up killing imps as fast as they spawn. Easy? Very.


shade of aran - elementals will be hard, you can ofc focus them but they are doing insane damage on single target, you gotta care about making them nuking one target you want them to nuke, thats pretty hard. In the same time you will be nuked by aran himself.
3 locks? 3 banishes+3 fears for 4 adds = more than you need. I think the hardest part would be moving out of the blizzard but not too close to get silenced by aran.


netherspite - switching between 6 characters all the time is confusing... also you have to do good control on tanks and aoe heals. In theory easy, on practice I'd say it is nearly impossible.
Agreed with you here. I've dual-boxed him before with mage+druid, and just having to tank the blue and red beam was tough. Easier with locks in the blue beam I suppose... netherbreath during banish phase would be a huge pain to avoid.


Nightbane - dont forget you will need to move chars from charred earth, also they can be feared under nb which might cause insta death, also you will need to reposition them after fear
His fear is only ~25 yards, you can easily out-range it to never get feared. Just make sure to stancedance on the warrior and this should be a pretty easy fight too.


Prince - you have to move your raid all the time from infernals, same shit with warrior. Flying axes are bastards too with help of shadow volley
Lots of luck on this one. If you get lucky and never have to reposition it should be free loot. If you have some bad infernal spots there's not much you can do.

Also I don't think chess is free epics. When they added in all the "cheats" medivh uses it makes it a lot more difficult. You can't really macro it because of all the point and click movement, so unless you have a way of switching which char you're controlling it would be very difficult to pull off.

Overall I think Netherspite would be the only one I'd be afraid of. The others should be easy with just a little practice.

[unit187]

Agree that Attumen would be easy (and it's ATTUMEN dammit, NOT 'Attunemen'

doh I wrote right but zanthor confused me :P



Moroes vanishes, and when he reappears he runs straight to #1 threat. No chasing required. The healing through garrotes would be the difficult part, but it sounds like zanthor says to let the first 3 garroted people die and not worry about them (soulstone them when they get garroted).
aha can you do in the same time: reshackle, heal 2-3 tanking targets (MT and those who tank adds and the one with garrot if you want them alive), soulstone some1 (I think you will just waste SS and wipe so not every try you have them, so go to healing part), tank 2-3 targets, dps... argh



/cast [target=focusmouseover] dispel? Wouldn't that cast dispel on your focus' mouseover? Just have your main char the focus, and mouseover someone who got holy fire'd and hit the macro.
mmm really? maidens room contains a few columns, so time by time you will have hard time clicking targets out of los. You can position toons in los but I am not sure if you have to spread people out. Holy fire bounces I think so you dont really have lots of space


Position as he's walking away so everyone is spread out and you're good. The AE is only ~700 damage, with 6 ranged dps they'll die in 3s (one cast from each). I think this would be a cake fight.
how long will it take for you to position while raid throughout the room? he will spawn a few sparkles already and you will be like owned



You don't need two tanks. The imp hits for nothing. Just have the warrior cleave to keep aggro on the imp the whole time. We never use an off-tank for the imp. Mages can dampen so you take almost no damage from from the imp's fireballs. Should be really easy to heal through, especially with 3 seeds up killing imps as fast as they spawn. Easy? Very.
well kinda. Still shackles and moving toon back to position is annoying.



3 locks? 3 banishes+3 fears for 4 adds = more than you need. I think the hardest part would be moving out of the blizzard but not too close to get silenced by aran.
well ye forgot about banish, gotta switch between 3 warlocks fast to banish 3 targets
also with listed setup you lack interruptions so aran will drink ~_~



His fear is only ~25 yards, you can easily out-range it to never get feared. Just make sure to stancedance on the warrior and this should be a pretty easy fight too.
ye I wasnt sure about fear range. Anyways you cant kill him. Being 100% focused on stance dance (which is the most hardest part here because being 1 sec late on stance dance causes you to wipe if u havent got fear ward) and in the same time heavy heals (he hits pretty hard, especially crushing blow+arc hit at nearly same time) and in the same time position your raid after landing and fear (I wont be that sure you will catch him that fast and accurate so whole raid will be out of fear range). Because if you dont position them back, sooner or later they will be feared to charred earth or nb's cleave. Also if you get charred earth under raid you gotta move raid, in that time I am pretty sure you will miss stance dance or heal.


Lots of luck on this one. If you get lucky and never have to reposition it should be free loot. If you have some bad infernal spots there's not much you can do.
in 98% of cases normal raid can avoid infernals but as boxer you have to do /follow on someone and move whole raid in the same time. So you cant throw any heals because infernals will burn someone untill you are out of infernals' aoe range. No heals at that time and a few heavy hits by the boss (especially in phase 2 with fast attacks) will more likely cause you to wipe.

Also I don't think chess is free epics. When they added in all the "cheats" medivh uses it makes it a lot more difficult. You can't really macro it because of all the point and click movement, so unless you have a way of switching which char you're controlling it would be very difficult to pull off.

Overall I think Netherspite would be the only one I'd be afraid of. The others should be easy with just a little practice.[/quote]

[zanthor]

Just a comment - Prince - there IS positioning right now that never involves moving - EVER. I can stick the prince in the right spot every time I pull, and I've got a half dozen in my guild who can stick the ranged dps spot every time... and from my Point of View I can generally tell if they have it right...

Charred earth, you have to move 1 character, the rest are on follow... No biggie.

Sparks on curator, hit a max of 3 players, stack up all 9 who aren't tanking, the ponit DPS will likely kill the sparks before they ever get to the dps/healing players... I know that with 3 of my top DPSers on them they rarely take damage...

Dispelling is trivial with the right mods. A dispel grid placed properly and a program such as Multiplicity or Synergy so you can mouse over and clicky clicky to dispel on hardware solutions (I'd think moving a 2nd mouse would make it harder)...

I also think the KEY to this success would be having the right gear for it. The MT needs 13K HP, 15% dodge, 15% parry, 20% block, critproof to start in KZ, before that he's too squishy... Pallies would have slightly less HP, but still.

[zanthor]

Rolf if you think multibox karazhan is that easy with the exceptions of a few bosses. But hey I would love to be proven wrong considering I have 10 70's and have had to cover with alts to fill actual raids and not in theory.

What class mix on those 10 70's?

[kadaan]

Moroes would be a tricky fight, with with good setup and macros I still think he's doable.


mmm really? maidens room contains a few columns, so time by time you will have hard time clicking targets out of los. You can position toons in los but I am not sure if you have to spread people out. Holy fire bounces I think so you dont really have lots of space
When we do Maiden we just have everyone stand in front of a pillar. No LoS problems at all, although you won't be able to dispel someone on the opposite side of the room. You'd have to place the dispellers on opposite sides from each other. Holy Fire is the DD spell + DoT, there's another spell she casts that chains (but doesn't do much damage at all if it doesn't chain.)



how long will it take for you to position while raid throughout the room? he will spawn a few sparkles already and you will be like owned
Maybe 20 seconds? Depends on how you have everything setup. A simple 3x2 grid for locks/mages along the back wall, priest/pally on the sides near the cubbies, tank in front. Actually pally would have to be behind curator in melee range to eat the hateful bolt things. You can setup the mages/locks without aggro'ing curator, then run the pally/priest into position, and finally run the warrior out as curator paths back to grab aggro.


well kinda. Still shackles and moving toon back to position is annoying.
True. Depends on which toon got shackled I guess. Everyone could technically just sit on that spot and only the warrior would have to move.


well ye forgot about banish, gotta switch between 3 warlocks fast to banish 3 targets
also with listed setup you lack interruptions so aran will drink ~_~
3 Mages for CS + warrior for shield bash should be enough. Shield bash is 12s and CS is 30, so you could interrupt at least half of them. Still would probably get to mass poly phase without good dps gear on the casters. Banishing would take some quick movement, but the elementals don't really hit _that_ hard.


ye I wasnt sure about fear range. Anyways you cant kill him. Being 100% focused on stance dance (which is the most hardest part here because being 1 sec late on stance dance causes you to wipe if u havent got fear ward) and in the same time heavy heals (he hits pretty hard, especially crushing blow+arc hit at nearly same time) and in the same time position your raid after landing and fear (I wont be that sure you will catch him that fast and accurate so whole raid will be out of fear range). Because if you dont position them back, sooner or later they will be feared to charred earth or nb's cleave. Also if you get charred earth under raid you gotta move raid, in that time I am pretty sure you will miss stance dance or heal.
He doesn't fear very often, only 2-3 times per phase I believe. Well, depending on dps I guess. Alliance with a dwarf/draenei priest would definitely make this fight a lot easier though.


in 98% of cases normal raid can avoid infernals but as boxer you have to do /follow on someone and move whole raid in the same time. So you cant throw any heals because infernals will burn someone untill you are out of infernals' aoe range. No heals at that time and a few heavy hits by the boss (especially in phase 2 with fast attacks) will more likely cause you to wipe.
True, not to mention it would be a tough fight with only 2 healers for a non-boxed raid. Especially without the massive druid dots to keep ticking while repositioning.


Wish I had 10 accounts I could try it with. Would be great to hop on the PTR's with pre-geared characters and play around :).

[Dor]

I was able to take down attu, but other than that it was a joke (i was the joke part). Just too much going on for me to keep up. Healers always getting garroted it seemed, shackles breaking early, stuff like that. On maiden LoS was an issue til i piled my chars had my warr and pally up front rest on wall but still wasnt able to get far (having to watch aggro, seal for freezes, curing etc). For now Im going to stick with trying to finish all the 5 mans all the way thru, figure if I cant do that, then I have no business in raid instances.

[caldvn]

Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Druid, Warlock, 5 Mages

[kadaan]

Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Druid, Warlock, 5 Mages

Paladin or Druid would have to be specced for tanking to OT stuff, which leaves you with only 2 main healers. Doable, but very difficult for one person I would think.

1 CC for the whole zone? 1 shackle + 2 tanks would make some pulls a bit tough (like the 5x elite groups between Moroes and Opera.)


The more I think about the harder I think it would be for a single person to do it all. Two 5-boxers working together would make it 10x easier. There's simply too much reactive gameplay required in BC that you didn't have to worry about in old world raids. Also each class brings something very useful to a raid, but the more classes you have when boxing the more difficult it becomes to manage them all.

[caldvn]

Not interested trying, I've covered Karazhan a few times with 5 toons before, till we people started showing up. Calling raids and making sure everything is running smoothly is a pain in the ass.

[zanthor]

in 98% of cases normal raid can avoid infernals but as boxer you have to do /follow on someone and move whole raid in the same time. So you cant throw any heals because infernals will burn someone untill you are out of infernals' aoe range. No heals at that time and a few heavy hits by the boss (especially in phase 2 with fast attacks) will more likely cause you to wipe.

I can show you positioning with zero movement once you pull. You fight int he exact same spot from 100% to 0% no running from infernals. No door exploit, just a very specific positioning thats possible in at least two spots on the balcony.


True, not to mention it would be a tough fight with only 2 healers for a non-boxed raid. Especially without the massive druid dots to keep ticking while repositioning.

In the build I suggested you have three healers - a holy prot pally, a shadow priest and a holy priest. We generally get through with only 2 anyhow so having the 3rd is just gravy.

As far as maiden positioning goes, you spread out 1 character between each pillar... you face them all straight at the maiden, and bind a key to move them all in at the same time... you charge in with the warrior with the paladin on /autofollow, then press the run-boxed-toons-forward key and hold it til they are all in position between the pillars. With the build I suggested you have 3 dispellers, so put the pally behind the warrior tanking, and put the other two dispellers at his 10 and 2 o'clock positions. The last member stands at max range behind the paladin, the pally can dispel them, dispel left right and center... the priests can cover the other 2/3rds of the raid.

I figure it takes you less time to position 10 by yourself than it would 10 in a raid that way.

[caldvn]

Paladin or Druid would have to be specced for tanking to OT stuff, which leaves you with only 2 main healers. Doable, but very difficult for one person I would think.

1 CC for the whole zone? 1 shackle + 2 tanks would make some pulls a bit tough (like the 5x elite groups between Moroes and Opera.)

There are many different ways to do the same thing. That also includes ways to clear trash. My karazhan group, normal non-boxing, usually comprises of one mt, and one off tank (Doesn't need to prot spec, just as long as he has tanking gear) 3 healers and rest dps. Or 2.5 healers and a shadowpriests (OP baby) and the rest dps, 2-3 melee and the rest ranged dps.

[Bunny]

I was able to take down attu,
Wait a second - you 10 boxed attumen??
I whould die to see a vid of this!
Thanks and keep up the good boxing work ;)
Bunny
(Currently struggling in CoT1 - a lot of work to do...)

[zanthor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBJAJncfSNM

Video shows positioning with the hellfires in place, no movement.

Comment on the "5 pulls between moroes and opera"... just walk past them. We never kill them... you have to pull the roamers and the big non elite packs, but the 5 pulls you can ignore.