Thinking of 25 boxing WoW - Not sure about a lot of things

[Sam DeathWalker]

As you know I am the 24 boxer From EQ. As I already have all the equipment in place I am thinking of 25 boxing WoW but I know nothing about the game. I do know that there are 62 WoW players for every 1 EQ1 players and it seems it might be time for me to go where the majority is.

I think my machines can take 5 instances of WoW each, as they work on 4 instances of EQ NP. If I have to upgrade Ill do so.

The way I work in EQ is I have 6 monitors and 6 computers and flip through each group starting an in game macro or social. I can go through all 4 groups in under 2 seconds.

Not sure if that will work in WoW, but it should.

I am thinking of all mages (and 1 priest for rez/heal/tank?). And the Undead Mage seems the way to go, with the anti-fear thing.

Im not sure how sheep work in pvp, surely you cannot just sheep all your oppenents and kill them one by one.

what I see in november this spell (available at level 60) should be my goal:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=44781 ('http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=44781')

Instantcast, 30 yards, 3 second recast

The thing is though if I roll 25 account (I have no concerns about money lol), I plan to ALWAYS play all 25. From what I see, based upon my limited knowledge, I won't be doing any 2X2 or 3X3 or 5X5 things, all dungons are also just 5 max, is that true? Also I don't is it even possible to level past 60 without doing quests that cannot accomodate 25 characters at the same time? Also only 1 of the 4 battlegrounds will allow more then 15 ...

I see also in november a new pvp zone, possibly this would be best for me running 25 at one time:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?zone=4197 ('http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?zone=4197')

Is it possible to "world pvp" (Im going horde on a pvp server but the one that has the most allience/horde ratio) and get decent gear?

Does any of this plan seem logical?

Anyway I mainly am wondering what difficulties (or impossibilities) I will face if I play all 25 all the time.

[Apollo127]

In my opinion 25 characters wouldn't be good in wow at all since most dungeons are 5 mans. And you would have to do a raid to hold all 25 chars, which I think kills xp, not counting the fact of the 25 characters splitting XP. I would just go with 5-10 characters like most of the high rollers on here do :)

[Stormweasel]

OK from my POV first of all /awe

I hope you pull this off - it would be insane.


Anyway I mainly am wondering what difficulties (or impossibilities) I will face if I play all 25 all the time

Well I think first of all, the pre-25 gearing will be insane. Unless Im missing something obvious, theres an exponential amount of time involved as you increase the number of 5 man groups. To gear them up as a whole I mean.

In order to gear up before raiding you are going to have to gear them up in 5 mans. Unless you do one group of 5 at a time this is obviously going to involve running not just one dungeon instance with all the micro-managing of 5 but five different instances of 5 man management.

If you took the other route of gearing 5 men at a time this is obviously going to take a phenomonal amount of time. I mean, see you in the next expansion

I mean, shit, good luck, I claim to be no expert on this but if you pull it off, you can be the godfather to my children :)

Its possible Ive missed something obvious but Ill leave that to the experts

EDIT - if Ive read your post correctly, you would like to box the 25 man content

[Bradster]

OK from my POV first of all /awe

I hope you pull this off - it would be insane.



Anyway I mainly am wondering what difficulties (or impossibilities) I will face if I play all 25 all the time

Well I think first of all, the pre-25 gearing will be insane. Unless Im missing something obvious, theres an exponential amount of time involved as you increase the number of 5 man groups. To gear them up as a whole I mean.

In order to gear up before raiding you are going to have to gear them up in 5 mans. Unless you do one group of 5 at a time this is obviously going to involve running not just one dungeon instance with all the micro-managing of 5 but five different instances of 5 man management.

If you took the other route of gearing 5 men at a time this is obviously going to take a phenomonal amount of time. I mean, see you in the next expansion

I mean, shit, good luck, I claim to be no expert on this but if you pull it off, you can be the godfather to my children :)

Its possible Ive missed something obvious but Ill leave that to the experts

EDIT - if Ive read your post correctly, you would like to box the 25 man contentThere perhaps is another way, maybe this would work. Maybe not with out the regen and the tank gear from PVE. But what if he PVPed for all the gear? That would be faster.

[Sam DeathWalker]

In EQ I did do tradeskills very heavy and most of my stuffs is trade skilled. I would assume that although its mind numbing boring that tradeskills (I mean I would only need one tailor at the highest level) could provide me with most my gear. Also during pve for the most part I am hoping to just intantly kill mobs with mages, so gear, for defensive purposes really isnt all that needed. I mean my guys are going to die if hit, even with decent gear mages are going down fast. I have to play so that they dont get hit ... Offensively its all about getting levels and spells asap. This kind of group is just not as gear dependant as say mellee or others.

Another question on a pvp server, if all my guys are horde will I be able to use aoe spells without hitting my own guys, if all 25 are within 10 feet of each other and do a pbaoe (aoe spell that hits npc's around them) will it also hit non group members? I havn't been able to pbaoe in EQ cause of that.

[Quarto]

Big difference in levelling between EQ and WoW is grinding. EQ mob grinding was good, fast xp. Grinding mobs out in WoW is pretty slow. Quests or boosting toons is where the fast xp is. I couldnt imagine grinding out mobs for xp with more than 10 toons, and would probably suck trying to get all the quests synchronized in a group bigger than 10.

[Aerilux]

Another question on a pvp server, if all my guys are horde will I be able to use aoe spells without hitting my own guys, if all 25 are within 10 feet of each other and do a pbaoe (aoe spell that hits npc's around them) will it also hit non group members? I havn't been able to pbaoe in EQ cause of that.Your aoe spells shouldn't hit you unless specifically stated (warlock's hellfire) So with 25 mages all using say... Arcane Explosion all at once, pretty much anything would go down.

Im not sure how sheep work in pvp, surely you cannot just sheep all your oppenents and kill them one by one.
Any damage will reverse the sheep effect. So the person will be in sheep form either until the timer runs down or he gets damage done to him (or he uses an anti-sheep skill)


hope this helps

[daviddoran]

Given the time it takes to level, and that it's not practical to level in groups higher than 5, and also since it's your first time playing, I would start with just 5 (never thought I'd say JUST 5 lol) and learn from there. Once you have 5, you can then get 5 more accts, and repeat, and keep doing so until you have your 25. Or you could just use the same accts and transfer off later depending on how fast you level. Then you don't have to worry about monthly costs for so many accounts all at once. I honestly think it will be boring with all the same type of character. I'd make one "holy trinity" group, with a paladin priest and 3x mages for your first group, then make 5x shaman, 5x locks, 5x druids 5x mages. Or 5x of whatever dps you want, with at least one of em a hybrid team so you can off heal/offtank. Or I guess you could make em almost all shaman, with a team of utility toons (mage for water and portals, lock for summons and ss, druid for buff/offtank priest for mana/health return.

[Tasty]

All I can say is 25 Shaman w/ totems down = epic lawl

And you'd get reported the second you did anything. haha Reason enough to 25box right there ;)

[Sam DeathWalker]

It seems that pbaoe will be a viable way to level up. I need one priest for rez, even if healing by group is not going to be all that. 24Mage 1priest can pbaoe mobs by the ton. Kill 50 mobs someone going to get exp ... You can level off of mobs after 60 I am assuming.

Sheep looks like a joke for pvp. Maybe shaman have some real advantages but I want to keep everything super simple. And nothing is simpler then just playing a class that does nothing but nuke. And that new nuke seems very powerful.

[Meilin]

honestly, i dont have much say in the matter, because i have never multiboxed,

i intend to in the future, but i have played multiple characters and have leveled multiple 70s

many people have said that the xp would suck, if all in a raid group together, true, i honestly dont forsee it being enjoyable with the amout of characters you describe, i dont want to say try 5 or anything, because i honestly dont know about 5 boxing, but i would however suggest not doing 25 right off the bat, the coordination involved in getting a quest for 5 boxers seems frustrating enough, not to mention the difficulties of gathering type quests, it would flat out take too long to do them with 25,

but its entirely your choice, if you can do it, honestly (seeing your characters at 70, fully equipped with matching equipment, same chacater model) would probably be the single most epic feat in wow history, if your trying to achieve an awe factor with 25 boxing, you will probably meet that goal if you can achieve a respectable level

good luck in whatever you decide :thumbsup:

[daviddoran]

Even if you do 5 separate parties, leveling will be AGONIZINGLY slow. I had 5 mages i was messing around with after a hogger raid, and I was still in the rid, and killing equal level mobs got me 3xp each, while non grouped I was getting like 25 exp. Unless you can find some place to farm endlessly respawning mobs, I don't think you will ever get leveled up.

If you do go for it however, Consider a shaman for your healer/rezzer, cause of the self rez. If you have 24 mages and 1 priest, and the priest dies, you are still in a pickle.

[SilverSlice]

how will you get to 70, or 80 when the expantionpack is launched.?

if your going to ding from 60 to 70 in raids the low xp will make it take ages.
if you do quests you cant do them in raid group so you have to divede up your toons in groups.
if you are going instances 5 toons pr instance is the limit.

i am quite serten that it is possible to multibox 25 mans raid instances. only trouble is to lvl 25 toons opp to the rigth lvl and gearing them up to actually doing it.
if you check the looting tabel for gruuls lair you will see that not everyting drops there.
and margs lair, if you pull that raid instance of make a movie of it please :)

mages are powerfull on the dps, but they are cloth users after all, they die easely so you gonna have to controll more then one tank in 25 mans unless you wanna risc wiping due to uncontrollable trashmob or complicated boss figth souch as the first boss in gruuls lair for example or counsill in bt

you will need more then one healer as well, shammy's have the advante of mail gear as well as selfres and res others + 5 totem pr shammy, migth be possible to make 15 of them and 7 tanks and 2 priests or someting like that

i do have a feeling that you will not be able to reach 70 before the expantionpack, and then you gotta figth your way to lvl 80 and with 25 toons that will take quite some time. but in the next expantionpack it looks like all the 25 mans instances will be 10 mans instances as well, so you will have a lot easier life if you downsize your idea to a 10 man raid team. :)

anyway if you go ahead with 25 or 10, make vids keep us updated :)

Silver

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Sam, if you use one of the software solutions that replicates keystrokes across the LAN, you won't have to bother with flipping monitors. Just all /assist and pew pew.

Also, there is no friendly fire in WoW. No AoEs can hit other realm-mates.

Something else to consider is that AoE healing spells don't work across raid groups, only within your group. NOte that this may change once the expansion goes live.

And yeah, if I were gonna do 25, I'd almost assuredly do mages. 25x arcane explosion would obliterate anything outside of a raid instance or world boss. Only thing neater than that would be seeing 50 DoTs on someone in 1.5 seconds. 8o

[Sam DeathWalker]

I think my exp plan would be similar to eq. I make one group which has 5 rested characters. ALL the other 20 are NOT IN ANY GROUP or raid. Pull a ton of mobs and pbaoe. The 5 rested characters will get all the exp cause they will do 5X the damage of any other single character, and as they are rested they get 2X exp I guess. Then take another 5 and do the same with them... etc. Undead can't be shaman, but I can see where self rez would be very usefull indeed. Let me read more about that. I am just to reluctent to level up a tank and healers and all that like I did in EQ. OK I can't do a lot of content without a tank I know it. But still there is a lot of content I can do and my focus will be pvp anyways. Ok I will never have the best gear but I hopefully I will get "good enough" gear to get me through pvp. Sides 24 mages will insta kill ANY single enemy and if I can target and cycle and cooldown all in 3-4 seconds; thats one dead oppenent every 4 seconds ... I guess I dont know... Why didnt Xzin need a shaman? That new spell (if it makes it live) is 3 seconds cooldown instant cast 30 yards and dosnt need any special "something of mind" whatever itwas to be instant. I mean 24 X 380 damage is well enough to kill anyone at level 60 I think.

Besides I think I can get honor by just camping a zone in and ganking whoever zones in. I know its cheap but if its waht I need to do to get gear well ... I won't kill anyone more then once in a hour period to be resonable though. The nahtul server or something is a pvp like 23,000 people with like 14,000 alliance. No shortage of targets. Its like 62 percent alliance so given they have every advantage in pvp there they shouldnt complain.

Ya I saw that about aoe heals, they are not all that, mostly rez is what I need I guess.

Im not going software ... Ill build my own hardware if I have to.

[Knytestorme]

Heya Sam, know you from the old FoH days and was going to reply to your latest dps thread there but will keep the flow of this forum and be nice :D

Basically, with your setup I'd look at:


Adding 4 more monitors and run 5 instances of WoW per box (one main instance on one monitor, 4 others on the second monitor per box)
Have each box run it's own 5 man group such as you currently do for EQ
Use keyclone on each box and then use a wireless keyboard + receivers (or vetra) to split a single keyboard to control all 5 boxes.
This would allow you to level up 5 groups of 5 at the same time through gridning without having to to join them as a raid....might even be possible once you reach high enough levels to have each group enter their own instance of the same instance and run 5 instances at the same time since initial mob spawns and bosses would all be the same.

The main difference between this and EQ is, as pointed out earlier, the xp grind in EQ was easier to do and WoW was designed around quests actually giving good xp for hand-ins.

Perhaps the best solution for you would be the following initially


Start a group of 5 paladins and play it like you were dual-boxing with playing the main, use one for heals and just ignore the other 3 with them on follow - This will let you get a feel for the game and zones, etc
Level this group to 70, respec them all to prot and make sure for all quest rewards in outlands to grab tanking gear...ignore instances for now
Create the other 20 characters you want and divide them into groups of 4 to join with 1 paladin each
Look at the boosting posts here and the flow people take (eg deadmines -> stocks -> SM -> ST) and then go boost each group in the same instances at the same time (again, mob spawns in these instances will pretty much be the same the entire time so you should be able to run all 5 like you are running one)
If this works you will then have 20 characters at level 60 after about 2 days played + the 5 paladins and will have all of outlands opened up to you as well as a knowledge of the basics of topography and mechanics of the game.

[Sam DeathWalker]

If pbaoe works out to level 80, Ill have no problems getting exp. Iv shakerpaged enough in EQ to know that killing 50 mobs at a time is some of the best exp going. My older guys in EQ have 280 or so days played Ill have no problems putting in the time. Only problem might be higher levels attacking me while I am low and weak just to take up my time.

I cannot possibly see running guys in different places at the same time, there is a limit lol ... running two instances at the same time lol ..

People dont have a good grasp on how much extra exp you get if you can do a group for double while the others help them kill mobs faster: If "rested" works like it does in EQ then I get a good bonus cycleing 5 groups.

Start at about post 87 in this thread

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=18187&page=3

Lol this forum is so polite compared to all the others.

[Knytestorme]

The only problem to this is that unless you stagger it so that you always have at least one group in an inn at all times, rested will be a slow matter.



For example, if I take 4 level 25's to SM with 100% rested xp on them that will last maybe 2 clears using my 70 paladin, after that they are out of rested and back to usual xp. If you have one group with 100% rested xp (which takes about 1 week in an inn to accumulate) then that will last them maybe 2 hours out in the wild with you using 3 other groups to focus-fire down mobs after the first group tags them, so then you either continue playing with that group having no rested or move to the next group and use up all their rested but by doing so you then have two groups that would have to be offline for a week to get back to 100% rested.

I know your exploits well enough to know you can see where this is headed so really, there needs to be a way found for you to level all of them up at the same time without being in a raid.

I guess you could just use a round-robin system for casting, have everyone ungrouped and just go rampaging through the lands with your horde spaming your cast button over and over...as you say, someone will get the xp but I guess the problem with this manner is not being able to funnel the xp in a consistently shared manner

[Malt]

Impressive.

[Otlecs]

So, the leveling question has been pretty much done I guess. AoE grinding and tagging in groups of 5 at a time is viable, but you're going to struggle to find an outdoor spawn at all levels that cycles quickly enough to make it useful without an outrageous amount of downtime.

The question is... what will you actually DO with 25 squishy characters, only one of which is a healer? The same question would apply, but without the raised virtual eyebrow, if they weren't all squishy actually :)

Actual 25 man content is pretty much out due to the complexity of the encounters, especially if you stick to your current model of screen flipping.

Even if you go for more individual control, responding quickly to events in a 25 man encounter is hard enough in smaller groups (some people can't seem to even manage one character!!) with proper tanks and multiple healers, let alone a single person with no tank and one healer.

I'll be interested to see how you get on, but other than wandering around as an "angry mob" to kill everything you see in the outside, non-instanced, world, I'm not sure what you'll actually be able to do even once you hit 70/80....

edit: clarity

[Nitro]

I dont know much about EQ but I do know plenty about wow and I'm surprised no one is setting sam straight on all this. You will not be aoe leveling in any way shape or form to an effective degree, you will not be honor grinding spawn points or anything of the sort. You have one option only and that is to level a single 5 man group at a time.

Sam, every idea you have posted in this thread leads me to believe you need to play a single toon, even if its only for a few weeks of hardcore and then you will have a better understanding of the possibilities of boxing in wow.

[BobGnarly]

The problem will be finding anywhere with enough mobs to get that kind of approach rolling. While there are a lot of mobs in wow, they leash back after they are drug a certain distance from their current position, unlike EQ where you could drag them all the way across the zone. I think you'll find you have a lot of down time waiting for respawns if you try to do this.

Also, wow works on a tag system (which is different than EQ) for deciding who gets xp for a kill. Basically, whoever hits it first "taps" it and will get xp, so make sure the group you want to get xp always gets the first shot if try this out.

25 is an odd number to choose, if you aren't planning to do the raiding pve content. It sounds like you are just matching to your hardware, but you might consider running less since really anything over 10 for pvp is going to be massive overkill in almost any scenario. The only thing I can even see that you could do with that number of toons is run Alterac Valley, which would be cool for sure, but that's about it. You could raid cities though. :)

I'm not quite sure I understand how you are proposing the do this exactly. Basically, with wow, you either use software to have multiple clients per PC (which you said you don't wan't for whatever reason), or you run 1 PC per client and use hardware keyboard multiplexers. I'm not really sure what you are saying about "socials", etc, but it's possible that wow may be a little different in the way you'll have to approach it. I'm not sure though...I played EQ, and I think you could do what we're doing for it as well. Anyway, could be something more to think about there, dunno.

Hope you pull it off, I'd love to see it. Good luck.

[blast3r]

All I can say is wow. If you do this I hope you come to Magtheridon! You might be able to find some level 70s who can help you instance boost a bit. Not sure how much, though. This would take an insane amount of time. I wish you the best of luck and would love to see it in action!

[Kyudo]

I sort of question how this is gonna be fun in any way shape or form, but each to their own.

As for areas with good respawns, here are 2 to get you started:

1) The Defias Windmill in Westfall (mobs around L13-L14)

2) The Gnoll camps in Wetlands here: http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=1007

Good Luck

Ky

[Dominian]

Atleast from my experience when it comes to high end pve i havent done any apart from gruul and that dragon in hellfire, but i did up to the 4 horsemen pre tbc wich is the hardest encouter i ever tried.

I fail too see how gruul is possible to do with all the position but since your going with 24 mages i assume your not putting your focus here.

25 means that you only can do AV and you will have fun but i doubt you can lose apart from playing very defensive. Holding IB would be the best tbh.

I realy doubt you can kill vandar even with a nuke and even less drek'thar(who worldwinds?)

But a good strategy would be to play defensive and stop the alliance rush, let your allies take the offensive bunkers then go and kill vandar fast. You would need a tank as he does crushing blows for 3-4k on cloth and will kill 1 mage in 3 hits. However i might aswell be wrong here since i never seen anyone try. :)

For ab and eots you could camp one 5 man group on each node but id rather have 15 shamans then 15 mages due to healing and armor. You wont win ab or eots by going in one group as they can easly cap the flags your not on. Wsg with 10 mages sounds ok but yet again if they decide to nuke your FC without healing it will fail at times. And before you manage to deliver your flag they already captured it again.

World pvp atleast on my server Kazzak EU is as good as dead. Last time i saw people stacked up was when they opened sunwell but most were hiding behinde the guards. Running around killing single people is totaly overkill and in my personally opinion would be a big waste and boring after 1 hour.

Running 5 instance with 5 diffrent groups with the exact setup is hard aswell due to patrols and 1 fear will mess up everything.

Atleast from pre tbc you didnt get exp in raids and you cant complete normal quests in a raid. (raid quests are tagged "raid" i belive)

1 thing i can say for sure is that having 25 mages at the opening of WOTLK would be totaly worth it! You could completley hamper the alliance on your own server. My advice however would be to have 5 priests who does holy nova to heal and it doesnt cause treath wich means they wont die first. Imagin how fun it would be to attack the enemy city at the start when everyone wants to level! :D

[sWaTs]

Totally aggree with Nitro here.

Go and play one char to a decent level first. You don't seem to know much about WoW mechanics.

I don't think you would have much fun with a 25 toon group at all.

You won't be able to get exp as raid. You won't be able to complete quests as raid. And most important you won't be able to enter most instances as raid. World spawn exp grinding is nearly impossible with 25 man group. Even with "only" 5 toons I can clear every spawn in no time and have big downtimes afterwards. And that's just a few of the many obstacles you would encounter.

Level one char to a decent level, get yourself 4 additional accounts and get happy with 5 boxing, where nearly all content is open to you.

Sorry ;(

[Imagine]

any way you try to do this will be pretty slow, you could potentially have 5 independent 5 man groups each in a high respawn area, where mobs will respawn within range, and spam next target, assist, nuke (broadcast to all 25 clients). (depending on exactly where, maybe some group by group rotation to face the right way =)) There's sufficiently few decent areas for each level range that you'd have the groups at staggered levels

If you do this, forget about PVP servers as you'll be a sitting duck.

In terms of timing, blizz will reduce the grind 60-70 with wotlk so given the epic amount of effort already required, I'd be tempted to not aim beyond 60 before release

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8202385165&pageNo=1&sid=2000#12

good luck

[Menthu]

Hi Sam,

To be clear about things:

1. AoE wih 25 toons doesnt work.
2. You need to level them up in groups of 5 IF you really want to do this (and I can asure you, you cant solo a 25 man instance)
3. You cant really PvP with 25 toons at a time because you will then always lose the Battleground (in the current WoW)

If you want to multibox more extreme then most of us, then go for a 10-box option. Level 2x 5-box groups and then you can pvp (in AV atleast) and you can do ALOT of instances in the future (or at this time Zul Aman or Karazhan)

Soooo.....5-box or 10-box.

I hope this helps you abit.

-Jungle Love

[Tonuss]

Sam,

Yes, grinding rested exp via AoE would probably work well enough. WoW is different from EQ in that most mobs out in the open world zones are designed to be easily soloed by same-level players. Thus, a five mage group can plow through mobs with ease (to say nothing of 24 mages). And AoE grinding mobs could also provide for quick exp.

Start at www.wowhead.com and check the list of mage abilities so you will know when the AoE fun can begin. But even before that, five mages firing a nuke at a mob in their level range should one shot it. You will probably have more trouble finding stuff to kill, since mobs in WoW are leashed to a location and won't follow you very far, so you cannot really do any truly massive AoE pulls.

Polymorph (the mage CC spell) will break the moment that a mob suffers any damage. And in PvP the duration is capped at 10 seconds (versus up to... 50 seconds I think in PvE). In the right instanced zone your mages could lock down a group of mobs and nuke them down in turn. Instanced (elite) mobs have more health and DPS than normal mobs, but they will go down fast to a group of mages.

If you want to have them grinding out exp, check wowhead for quests in each zone they're in. There are many quests that require only that you kill X number of a certain mob, and those will be easy to complete and will provide an exp boost and possibly a gear upgrade. grinding up 25 characters makes me wince, but if you've got the patience you can do it. It requires a TON LESS exp to level in WoW than in EQ. You will probably fall out of your chair when you realize how quick it is.

As for PvP, you're sure to become a favorite target of the opposing faction, but I guess you are used to that from EQ. Your detrimental spells will not affect your own faction, thus your AoE spells will not harm your groupmates or any other horde characters around you. I can't really compare world PvP between the two games, since I did not play on a PvP server in EQ. You may find WoW to be much more difficult or much easier in terms of world PvP.

Battlegrounds may pose a problem. PvP gear is purchased with both honor and tokens. The tokens are battleground-specific, which means you'll have to run each battleground a number of times to get your gear. One BG is limited to 10 people, two are limited to 15, and the other to 40. The 15-man BGs have objectives that are spread out and must be captured and held, which could be a real problem for a single player to handle. The 10-man BG is a capture-the-flag game, where being unable to run in at least two separate groups could hurt you. On the other hand, running the BG all by yourself eliminates whiny teammates. The 40 man BG could be a real spectacle if you are 25 of the people on your side. That would be worthy of a video, I think. :)

Where EQ has AAXP points, WoW has talents. You have a limited number of points to spend on your talents, and lots of talents to choose from. It is something you'll need to experience to better understand it. It's very different but effective in its own way. You don't grind talent points; you get one every level starting at level 10. And you can change your talent spec at any time, for a fee (that starts small and increases each time to change it, with a ceiling of 50 gold per change).

Anyway, good luck with it. My advice would be to start slow, level a single mage to 10 or 20 to get an idea for what the class can do and how it's played. It makes leveling a large group of them a bit easier. But I admit that there's nothing like selecting a target, pressing a button, and watching it keel over before it can even acknowledge that it's been attacked.

[xtobbenx]

25man sounds cool and all that.. But.. I really would advise you to stay as 5man. Since the 25man part of wow starts first after you have alot of gearing from 5mans basicly. So maybe get a 5man going, see how lvling and high end 5mans etc looks like before you start rolling more toons.

[Zakula]

with the new format in the wotl shaman totems work raid wide. so thats 25 wrath, 24 healing stream and 25 grounding totems.

so having +75% hit and crit with spells is just WOW! 25 grounding totems would make you immune to most ranged damage maybe from some world bosses o0o0o

all that extra crit will help tons for lack of gear in the beginning.





zak

[Drizzit]

Well no one thought Kara could be solo, but Nixi proved us all wrong.

[Drizzit]

so having +75% hit and crit with spells is just WOW

And that is only from the totems... You can easily get 25% crit on your toon too.

[sWaTs]

so having +75% hit and crit with spells You don't really think ToW will stack raid wide, do you?

[Zakula]

ya they will. thats why tranq totem got yanked

[sWaTs]

I'm sure even if it goes live like this, it will be nerfed in the future. Otherwise future raids will be 80% shamans(all raid members having 100% crit :D )

[Sanctume]

All I can say is 25 Shaman w/ totems down = epic lawl

And you'd get reported the second you did anything. hahaI bet you would crash the zone with 100 totems, lmao!

[Drizzit]

The money isn't going to be cheap :( you looking at $375 a month (that's $4,500 a year) if you do the 6 months at a time ($13 a month per copy) is $325 a month ($3,900 a year). If you really want to do this i would say get the 6 months you save $600 a year. Don't forget to refer a friend... lol you could get 2 years on 1 account for free. Well don't forget about the 1 time cost to buy all the copies you need 50 copies at $20 (that is the wow and bc) which is $1,000. Then you need the new expansion... that is 25 copies at $40 each that is another $1,000.

What i just released that i have to buy 5 copies of the new expansion, that is $200... shit the wife is going to be sooooooooooo pissed at me.

[Drizzit]

All I can say is 25 Shaman w/ totems down = epic lawl

And you'd get reported the second you did anything. hahaI bet you would crash the zone with 100 totems, lmao!lol i can see the raid leaders now. "K, the max number of totems we can use before we cash the server is 30... what 30 would be the best"

[gbremset]

As people before me has said: WoW.. :) Just the thought of this is impressive, and definitely something I would love to see.

However, as others also have pointed out, you would not be able to gain anything from grouping your team as a 25man, as wow works on a first tag gets XP basis, but also reduces that XP based on how many other sources applies damage to that target, so if you run into an area with your 25 ungrouped toons, the first one to hit one of the mobs in the area, will get XP from it, but it will be reduced based on the amount of other toons that hit the same target with their spells.

To my experience, if you rule out 5 man instances, the most efficient way of levelling in WoW is a combination of quests and grinding (which is often part of the quests), and while in a 25 man raid group, you will not get XP (or extremely reduced XP), you will not be able to complete quest objectives (if the quest says "kill X amount of Y mob", you can kill 200 times that, and not a single kill will be registered, unless the quest you're doing is marked as a "raid" quest), loot quest items etc etc.

In addition to that, is all the grief you'll be getting from wow players for multiboxing.. It is legal, and it is approved by blizzard, but the opposition is still strong:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=4965966567&sid=1
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5062066398&sid=1
Are examples of this, and these are only/mainly talking about 5 man groups, so I can't even begin to imagine how people would react to a 25 man boxed group.

Again, as others have said before me, start off with levelling 1 character only, choose either a class that you find interresting, or use these forums to help you choose one, and play it to say lvl 35 (that gives you a mount at lvl 30, and allows you to experience both some of the grind, as well as some of the different areas and obstacles you meet in the game.)

As for choice of multiboxing class, well.. the opinions on that are many. Personally I chose the warlock, as it has it's own personal tank (demon), as well as great spellpower. But others favour the shamans for their healing ability along with their increased level of armor over a caster. That is a choice I don't think anyone can make for you, but something you should try out yourself, by experimenting on some solo levelling with the different classes first, and the escalating to maybe a 5box team after that.

Good luck, and keep us updated, I'd really love to see this in action. :)

[Catamer]

having a 25 man shaman army would just own any type of PVP harrasment, almost like the hogger raid. I guess you need a few pallys for the 10+ raids.
I think leveling up more than 5x at a time would be hard though.

[Drizzit]

Well what he can do too, is get 40 accounts. that way he can lvl in 40 man raids. that will probably get him to around 65 hopefully. Or group with some other people to do 40 mans... I bet a couple of 70 will love to do the old stuff because they never did it before. Or roll on a server like mag and i bet some people in the zerg would love to go to 40 man.

[Sanctume]

As you know I am the 24 boxer From EQ. As I already have all the equipment in place I am thinking of 25 boxing WoW but I know nothing about the game. I do know that there are 62 WoW players for every 1 EQ1 players and it seems it might be time for me to go where the majority is.

I think my machines can take 5 instances of WoW each, as they work on 4 instances of EQ NP. If I have to upgrade Ill do so.

The way I work in EQ is I have 6 monitors and 6 computers and flip through each group starting an in game macro or social. I can go through all 4 groups in under 2 seconds.

Not sure if that will work in WoW, but it should.

I am thinking of all mages (and 1 priest for rez/heal/tank?). And the Undead Mage seems the way to go, with the anti-fear thing.

Im not sure how sheep work in pvp, surely you cannot just sheep all your oppenents and kill them one by one.

what I see in november this spell (available at level 60) should be my goal:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=44781

Instantcast, 30 yards, 3 second recast

The thing is though if I roll 25 account (I have no concerns about money lol), I plan to ALWAYS play all 25. From what I see, based upon my limited knowledge, I won't be doing any 2X2 or 3X3 or 5X5 things, all dungons are also just 5 max, is that true? Also I don't is it even possible to level past 60 without doing quests that cannot accomodate 25 characters at the same time? Also only 1 of the 4 battlegrounds will allow more then 15 ...

I see also in november a new pvp zone, possibly this would be best for me running 25 at one time:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?zone=4197

Is it possible to "world pvp" (Im going horde on a pvp server but the one that has the most allience/horde ratio) and get decent gear?

Does any of this plan seem logical?

Anyway I mainly am wondering what difficulties (or impossibilities) I will face if I play all 25 all the time.IIRC, EQ allows 6 players per group, so that's probably why you have 24 account, and have 4 groups you can go through in 2 seconds.

I think the best approach to leveling 25 toons is doing quests 5x each as a group. You don't need a tank to do quests outside of instances. If you group together as raid of 25 toons, you can't complete quest objectives.

If I were to level 25 toons, I would level 5 gorups:

5x Blood Elf Paladins. 5 tanks! And maybe make 3 holy healers later.

5x Undead or Troll Mages. See Undead has this fear break, and troll have Spell Haste which will be good for PvE raiding.

15x Shamans? : Orc for +dmg racial, Troll for haste racial, Taurens not so much for PvE aoe stun/more hp.

or you can mix up some other class for raid buffs: Priest (hp, spirit), Druid (+stats, +armor, boomkin aura), and Warlocks (health stones, curse).

If you're talking about EQ1, then most of the bosses there are Tank and Spank. Bosses such as Nagafen, Vox is tank and spank.

The 25 man content in WoW such as High King Mulgar requires many tanks, with mobs doing a variety of crowd control and aoe damages: such as fears, stuns, cleaves.

Consider running 10-man perhaps first until you get a feel of how WoW runs?
According to WotLK, the content there will be made for 25-man and has a corresponding 10-man content.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Right well humm didnt know that resting takes like a week ... and that mobs are teathered so killing 50 at a time is out.

I am thinking of this server:

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=19

There is 14,000 enemy to attack, if I am horde

Ok just completly forget about raiding or being in raid formation, or being in a raid, all of that is complety out. There is no such thing as killing raid mobs without a tank ... With leashing maybe pbaoe is also out, humm.



Is it possible to camp spicific zones and get enough honor killing enemies in world pvp on that server? Shurly there will be some high level zones where enemy will be zoneing into on a regular basis.

Tagging exp will help actually as I can then get it into the group needed. Although as stated you will get less exp with others helping, because mobs HP is so low (made for solo), it may be that little outside help is needed and Ill just be running 5 groups in different areas (to help with repops), a bit from each other might be best way. Kill a bunch with one group, then let them regen mana, while I kill some mobs with the next group etc. This is really bad that you lose exp the more that help but I guess with the mobs having so low HP relitivly you don't need much help.

No Faction, No AA, No Keys humm ... WAY WAY less exp is needed then EQ. I know people can't stand the thought of leveling up Five times in seperate groups but to someone used to EQ this dosn't seems like much really lol ...

Given the almost zero advantage of having 25 for exp purposes maybe I have to do 5 at a time ... lots of reading to do for sure.

Ya the AV seems the only pvp zone Ill be doing in, or that new pvp only zone in WoLK.

Is cities possible? I better read about that.

Well if these totems do stack raid wide ... well thats why I posting first, seems there is a lot to learn for sure, maybe might have to wait untill December to start so that we will know what is nerfed and what made it live and what kind of environment will exist. Surly if all these totems do allow raid wide bonus then shaman will be casting spells that have as much damage as mages, I would think.

[badashh]

Reading through the different posts I am going to have to agree with the strat of leveling 5 pallys to start off. Once they hit 70 activate your other 20 accounts and level them with each pally as prot.

Ist off this will save you time and money. Aoe bombing instances with your pally tank is the fastest way to level, and you don't have to worry about quests, crappy exp from low level mobs... And with the 5 pallys you will learn how to play one of the more complicated classes. I definitely think starting with 25 chars is a bad way to go. just my opinion.

[TMNT]

I say you give it a shot and see what happens. I want to see this!

[Sam DeathWalker]

Is there a good source of infromation as to pbaoe being done sucessfully?

Is there a source of info as to the exact exp forumula as to how it goes down the more people involved in the kill and what the bonus for group is etc.?

The reason I picked mages is becasue they have the best single nuke, if shaman can do more nuke damage with lots of totems stacking, why not then use shaman? If all have self rez thats save SO much time.

[Bena]

Agreed pretty much with what everyone else said. Only things I
can suggest.. level a pally. First it will give you a better idea
of wow leveling but it will also provide you with a toon that you can
use to boost your other groups. If you decide to have 5 groups then
using him you can boost your groups through SM/zolo. If the goal
is to reach max level as quickly as you can then within a month, you
could potentially have 5 groups that are at 60.

I've never played EQ but from what I gather one difference is the mob
respawn. In wow you can very quickly wipe the area of mobs; what
you're going to hit is the respawn timers. That's why boosting
with a pally is much more quicker method (although very boring; but you
can read/browse/watch tv :))

PVE: if you want to do any of the raid content, tank is needed (your
pally would be good for that). Some require quiet a bit of movement but
after seeing kara one manned I'll say anything is possible heh

PVP: atm AV is the only zone that can take 25+ players. You'll
have the burst power to kill everyone but eventually everyone on the
opposing team will go after you and zerg you. Gearing in pvp gear
will force you to play the 5/10 man bgs for tokens though.

[Sanctume]

Is there a good source of infromation as to pbaoe being done sucessfully?

Is there a source of info as to the exact exp forumula as to how it goes down the more people involved in the kill and what the bonus for group is etc.?

The reason I picked mages is becasue they have the best single nuke, if shaman can do more nuke damage with lots of totems stacking, why not then use shaman? If all have self rez thats save SO much time.I think the Pbaoe you're referring to is power levelling.

I would highly suggest to power level your Paladin tank to fast to 70, with the supporting group: 1 mage (for porting, and mana biscuits), maybe start 3 shamans (1 as a healer) to see how totems benefit.

Then search how Paladin tanks can be used to power level 4 other lowbies from level 10 to 55/60, sometimes referred to as "boosting" in instances.

No doubt Mages have the potential of being the best single target nukers: Pyro + Pom/Pyro. combo; provided that they won't steal agro from the tank.

[Sanctume]

lol i can see the raid leaders now. "K, the max number of totems we can use before we cash the server is 30... what 30 would be the best"Imagine this.

Horde01: "South Tower burns in 1 minute.:
Horde02: "They on Drek @ 60%"
25Boxer: casts 100 totems.
You are disconnected from the server.

[blast3r]

Is there a good source of infromation as to pbaoe being done sucessfully?

Is there a source of info as to the exact exp forumula as to how it goes down the more people involved in the kill and what the bonus for group is etc.?

The reason I picked mages is becasue they have the best single nuke, if shaman can do more nuke damage with lots of totems stacking, why not then use shaman? If all have self rez thats save SO much time.

Using 25 shamans would just be awesome. For one they will survive better. They have healing totems (currently benefits the group). Mana totems as well. Also Fire Nova and Magma Totem would make for some great AOE. 25 of those would do some serious damage. And another thing to think about is the elementals you will get. Imagine 25 Fire elementals. Holy crap. lol. That would be 50 damage dealing entities at once.

I just went through and looked at some of the ranged/AOE for shaman and used math (i have a calculator :) ) to figure out what damage for 25 toons. It looks pretty impressive. I imagine it would be fun AOE killing groups of mobs with 25 shammies. I see running through mobs dropping earthbind/stoneclaws and running to a spot then dropping health totems and timing right for dropping the nova/magna totems would probably work pretty good.

Level 1
Lightning Bolt
13 to 15 Nature damage
14 X 25 = 350

Level 4
Earth Shock (instant cast 6 second cool down)
17 to 19 Nature damage
18 X 25 = 450

Level 8
Lightning Bolt Rank 2
26 to 30 Nature damage
28 X 25 = 700

Earth Shock Rank 2
32 to 34 Nature damage
33 X 25 = 825

Level 10
Flame Shock
21 Fire damage immediately and 28 Fire damage over 12 seconds
21 X 25 = 525 (on contact damage)
28 X 25 = 700
Total one shot damage 1225

Level 12
Fire Nova Totem (lasts 5 seconds)
48 to 56 fire damage to enemies within 10 yd
52 X 25 = 1300

Level 14
Lightning Bolt Rank 3
45 to 53 Nature damage
48 X 25 = 1200

Earth Shock Rank 3
60 to 64 Nature damage
62 X 25 = 1550

Level 18
Flame Shock Rank 2
45 Fire damage immediately and 48 Fire damage over 12 seconds
45 X 25 = 1125
48 X 25 = 1200
Total 2325

[Otlecs]

Is there a source of info as to the exact exp forumula as to how it goes down the more people involved in the kill and what the bonus for group is etc.?
Mob XP (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Mob_XP)
Quest XP (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Quest_XP)

[Drizzit]

Like everyone is saying lvl 1 team of 5... Or to save a little money dual box. The reason i say duel box is have a pally and mage. Even though a pally can power rush your team quick a mage will be able to power rush you though the early easy instances like RFC and SFK and maybe even SM. But your first team should have pally and mage and the other 3 can be what ever, you just need those 2 for quicker power lvling.

[Sanctume]

Right well humm didnt know that resting takes like a week ... and that mobs are teathered so killing 50 at a time is out.

I am thinking of this server:

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=19

There is 14,000 enemy to attack, if I am horde

Ok just completly forget about raiding or being in raid formation, or being in a raid, all of that is complety out. There is no such thing as killing raid mobs without a tank ... With leashing maybe pbaoe is also out, humm.



Is it possible to camp spicific zones and get enough honor killing enemies in world pvp on that server? Shurly there will be some high level zones where enemy will be zoneing into on a regular basis.

Tagging exp will help actually as I can then get it into the group needed. Although as stated you will get less exp with others helping, because mobs HP is so low (made for solo), it may be that little outside help is needed and Ill just be running 5 groups in different areas (to help with repops), a bit from each other might be best way. Kill a bunch with one group, then let them regen mana, while I kill some mobs with the next group etc. This is really bad that you lose exp the more that help but I guess with the mobs having so low HP relitivly you don't need much help.

No Faction, No AA, No Keys humm ... WAY WAY less exp is needed then EQ. I know people can't stand the thought of leveling up Five times in seperate groups but to someone used to EQ this dosn't seems like much really lol ...

Given the almost zero advantage of having 25 for exp purposes maybe I have to do 5 at a time ... lots of reading to do for sure.

Ya the AV seems the only pvp zone Ill be doing in, or that new pvp only zone in WoLK.

Is cities possible? I better read about that.

Well if these totems do stack raid wide ... well thats why I posting first, seems there is a lot to learn for sure, maybe might have to wait untill December to start so that we will know what is nerfed and what made it live and what kind of environment will exist. Surly if all these totems do allow raid wide bonus then shaman will be casting spells that have as much damage as mages, I would think."Specific zones" are called instances or dungeons. Some are 5-man, 10-man, 25-man, and 40-man capped.
Most leveling instances are 5-man. If you go over 5-man, you turn that into a raid, and you can't complete quest unless they are raid-specific quests.

"Tagging mobs" work, as long as the higher level player helping out "cons" green (meaning, the mob is green to the higher players.) Search wowwiki about it. It works out actually.

For example, I'm level 63 and fight a level 63 mob solo. I "tag" this 63 mob, and a level 70 dies 99% damage. The result is, I gain 100% exp as if I soloed the mob.
However, I've leveled a bunch of 70s already, and my experience it at level 68. I kill a mob "solo" via tagging. I need to kill like 30 or so mobs to get 1 bubble worth of exp (5%). Completing a quest at that level give about 30 mobs worth of exp. So grinding is least productive, especially when grinding mobs for 5-man groups. It's better to just complete quests.

However, a level 70 with 4x level 10 lowbies is "comparable" in exp/hour grinding and clearing instances. This is because mobs in instances are elites and gives more exp that non-elites. And the most important part is the "group bonus." Even though a level 10 mob inside give 10 exp, the group bonus can yield up to 35 exp per mob kill. You gain more exp for having a full 5-man group. So, all you need is to get a high level capable of clearing low level instanes: Paladins are the best choice since they can be used to clear even level 60 dungeons in outlands.

A Mage, Warlock, Warrior and Shamans can do the job, but it gets harder when you reach level 40+ instances where the mobs have more health and armor.

[Tonuss]

I've never played EQ but from what I gather one difference is the mob
respawn. In wow you can very quickly wipe the area of mobs; what
you're going to hit is the respawn timers. That's why boosting
with a pally is much more quicker method (although very boring; but you
can read/browse/watch tv :))
Mob respawn is a major difference between EQ and WoW, and it is related to how they are played. Not in terms of the timers (those vary from zone to zone and mob to mob, for both games) but in terms of certain mechanics. (Bear in mind that I haven't played EQ since late 2004, so much of this may have changed)

- Everquest zones, even the non-instanced ones, require you to "zone in". Outdoor zones in WoW do not. In Everquest, you will be running through a zone and suddenly your screen will freeze and the words "LOADING, PLEASE WAIT..." will appear for a few seconds. And then you are in the adjacent zone.

- Everquest mobs will follow you across an entire zone until such time as you enter another zone. EQ outdoor zones work like WoW instanced zones in this case. What this means is that an AoE group could theoretically pull an entire zone's worth of mobs for killing. Mobs in WoW will follow you a specific distance and then de-aggro and return to their patrol route.

- Everquest respawn timers were tied to each specific mob spawn location. WoW respawn timers are tied to a specific area. In other words, when you clear an area in EQ, the mobs will respawn in exactly the same order that you killed them. In WoW, when you clear an area, the mobs will respawn in random order. This allowed for "breaking a camp" in EQ, where you would purposely stagger the mob deaths in order to have an area where you could safely pull and kill mobs as they spawned.

- Camping an area in Everquest involved having the group set up at a "safe spot" (where no wandering mobs would aggro) and having one person bring mobs to the group, one at a time. The group would kill the mob, regen mana and health, and wait for the next one to be brought. They would not move from their spot the entire time. In WoW, camping an area involves working your way through mob spawns and constantly moving through the area in order to kill the next mob(s).

It's two very different ways of playing the game. Mobs in Everquest are not split into normal and elite mobs... they're all effectively elites. A group of six people might spend 20-60 seconds killing a single normal outdoor mob. In WoW, solo players can tear through a zone and will often survive attacks by one or two (or more) adds.

I think Sam will find it a very new experience. :)

[Sanctume]

Mob respawn is a major difference between EQ and WoW, and it is related to how they are played. Not in terms of the timers (those vary from zone to zone and mob to mob, for both games) but in terms of certain mechanics. (Bear in mind that I haven't played EQ since late 2004, so much of this may have changed)

- Everquest zones, even the non-instanced ones, require you to "zone in". Outdoor zones in WoW do not. In Everquest, you will be running through a zone and suddenly your screen will freeze and the words "LOADING, PLEASE WAIT..." will appear for a few seconds. And then you are in the adjacent zone.

- Everquest mobs will follow you across an entire zone until such time as you enter another zone. EQ outdoor zones work like WoW instanced zones in this case. What this means is that an AoE group could theoretically pull an entire zone's worth of mobs for killing. Mobs in WoW will follow you a specific distance and then de-aggro and return to their patrol route.

- Everquest respawn timers were tied to each specific mob spawn location. WoW respawn timers are tied to a specific area. In other words, when you clear an area in EQ, the mobs will respawn in exactly the same order that you killed them. In WoW, when you clear an area, the mobs will respawn in random order. This allowed for "breaking a camp" in EQ, where you would purposely stagger the mob deaths in order to have an area where you could safely pull and kill mobs as they spawned.

- Camping an area in Everquest involved having the group set up at a "safe spot" (where no wandering mobs would aggro) and having one person bring mobs to the group, one at a time. The group would kill the mob, regen mana and health, and wait for the next one to be brought. They would not move from their spot the entire time. In WoW, camping an area involves working your way through mob spawns and constantly moving through the area in order to kill the next mob(s).

It's two very different ways of playing the game. Mobs in Everquest are not split into normal and elite mobs... they're all effectively elites. A group of six people might spend 20-60 seconds killing a single normal outdoor mob. In WoW, solo players can tear through a zone and will often survive attacks by one or two (or more) adds.

I think Sam will find it a very new experience.OMG, you just reminded me how I HATED EQ after all that. And how great WoW is when I got into alpha/beta friend & family before the first release.

I remember the J-boots camp. There's only 1 spawn for the entire server--and it's camped. It's camped by people, and there's a "List" on who will be qualified to loot the next J-boots. For you WoW players, think J-boots as an self-cast run speed buff. I camped that shit for 39 hours straight, no sleep! W T F !@@!@

For Sam, imagine there's an items you want similar J-boots in WoW that is dropped by a mob in a specific dungeon (instance). Well, you can just zone your group in that instance, and it's yours. Just like other people zoning their group in their own instance. You can reset an instance 5x per hour, max.

[Drizzit]

You can reset an instance 5x per hour, max.

I found that you can reset an instance 5x per hour put you can only go in that instance 4 times per hour after resets. Found this out doing scholo power lvling. Finished 4 runs in 56 minutes (i know this because i had 1 hour long poison on my weapons at the start). I reset 4 times in went in 4 times, i went to reset on the 5th, it reset but i couldn't go in... 4 minutes later i was able to go in.

[Jezebel]

nothing will survive 20 scorches or 20 arcane explosions. those last few mages will just be wasting mana. my suggestion would be to drop 4 mages and add 4 full holy priests. circle of healing is a targetable, instant group heal that will hit for 4,000+ without crits. in PvP gear you will have 8,000-10,000HP. thats nearly 1/2 your HP pool instantly, with no recast and a very low mana cost (particularly if you downrank, as i do.. 300ish mana out of a pool of 12000). 5 priests spamming CoH on a target group makes even a mage very fucking difficult to drop unless youre talking full groups of people focus firing one toon (mortal strike and aimed shot will hurt you).

set up macros on priests for 1: targetself, 2: target group1, 3: target group2, etc. so that you dont even have to target something, you can just hit a hotkey and your priests will start spamming instant group heals at that group.. or, you can hit target self, and since you will have one priest in each group, they will start spamming group heals on their own groups. CoH>PrayerOfHealing purely because its fast, you can target other groups and you can cast it while youre moving and spamming arcane explosion on your mages. roll in, wipe out anyone stupid enough not to run away, then sit ontop of the flag point and pick off anyone who comes in range with your scorch.

20 arcane/fire mages. any melee stupid enough to come anywhere near you will die in one or two arcane explosions (instant AoE with, again, no recast) (10000 damage is a very conservative estimate for 20xAX, even without crits, and thats still greater than the average HP pool). use scorch as your ranged nuke, since its very fast casting and procs a stun, which youre nearly guaranteed to proc, with 20. you will stunlock nearly everything you focus fire until its dead.. which will be 1-2 volleys at most, since it does more than arcane explosion.

thats your point blank and focus fire.. now ranged aoe. set up a camera hotkey so that all your mages have exactly the same forward perspective. after /following your main, all your alts should have (roughly) the same perspective. train your mouse on your main screen to where you want to drop your flamestrike; cast. anything in that circle just got instakilled.

this is exactly how i play my 10box setup, except i play with 6 mages and 4 priests, two priests per group.

if you wanted to get even more fancy, you could add a shaman per group for resist totems, grounding totem and.. more importantly, tremor totem. you have no idea how amazing 5 stacked tremor totems will be to a setup like yours once WoTLK hits. it will pretty much make your entire raid immune to aoe fear.. and believe me.. aoe fear is a number one bitch to any WoW boxer.

[Littleburst]

Respawnrate of mobs depends on how many players are in the area, so if you would be with 25 characters on 1 spot that would result in an insane respawnrate? I guess it will have a cap, but it will be fast for sure.

(I hope that hasn't been said yet)

[Aradar]

Not sure if anyone has already mentioned this since I did not read every post but you can't get the full set of pvp gear by just doing AV/New BG and world pvp. Much of that gear requires marks from the other 3 BGs unless things change.

[konraddo]

Agreed pretty much with what everyone else said. Only things I
can suggest.. level a pally. First it will give you a better idea
of wow leveling but it will also provide you with a toon that you can
use to boost your other groups. If you decide to have 5 groups then
using him you can boost your groups through SM/zolo. If the goal
is to reach max level as quickly as you can then within a month, you
could potentially have 5 groups that are at 60.
Similar to this idea, I'd sincerely suggest Sam to start playing right now and not wait until WotLK is out.

Gather an ordinary tank-healer-dps group and get them to 70 before WotLK. You have two advantages. One is you can get a better understanding of the game. Second is you can either use your 5 x 70 to boost your other characters or to keep levelling only 5 characters if 25-man idea turns bad in WotLK. Lastly, you wont lose too much if you decide to stop playing after WotLK is out. A pretty safe idea I believe.

Oh btw, there is no zone-wide pulling in WoW. As such, any idea of massive aoe-griding does not work in WoW. Yes, you can do that in instances but it's not going to be as 'massive' as what you expect. Also, WoW zones are extremely small in size as compared to EQ's, so there will definitely be insufficient mobs for you to kill, seeing that you can instant-kill any moving objects.

Regarding your idea of camping at specific spots for honor kills... it wont work as there are flight masters in WoW. If you camp the flight masters, people will just spawn at the rebirth spirit to get rid of you. If you camp at cities' entrances, people will take a flight and fly away.

[Drizzit]

Respawnrate of mobs depends on how many players are in the area, so if you would be with 25 characters on 1 spot that would result in an insane respawnrate? I guess it will have a cap, but it will be fast for sure.

(I hope that hasn't been said yet)I don't think it has. This was one of the patches that blizzard put in this year. The reason was because every lvl 70 was in hellfire wasting time waiting for mobs to respawn. I don't know if it works in the old land though.

[Sanctume]

Not sure if anyone has already mentioned this since I did not read every post but you can't get the full set of pvp gear by just doing AV/New BG and world pvp. Much of that gear requires marks from the other 3 BGs unless things change.That is true, you will need Marks from the other BG. But AV seems to yield the most honor per hour. Unless you can 5 cap AB in 6 minutes, or 4 cap EotS in 5 minutes--but even that, he only can put 15 players in, and rotate 10 in.

[Bena]

really? didn't knowt that.. cool!






Respawnrate
of mobs depends on how many players are in the area, so if you would be
with 25 characters on 1 spot that would result in an insane
respawnrate? I guess it will have a cap, but it will be fast for sure.

(I hope that hasn't been said yet)

[puppychow]

your 25 man mob would be the #1 target on any server you roll on, and would get chased down by a ton of people. mb'ing in WoW is not as easy as it is in EQ (they have removed a lot of the stuff that allows bottish type actions) and just 3-5 well played characters could easily take down a mob of 25 controlled by 1 person. For example, if you have 25 mages just a few hunters on you with high arcane resist pets, your pbAOE wouldn't hit them, pets would be heavily immune (esp bestial wrath) and chew you up, and with a lot of strafing they'd be out of forward line of sight making you very frustrated when trying to do direct damage spells (just positioning 5 correctly is hard, 25 would be insane).

try 5 man first and grow from there, 25 man doesn't really buy you much since most of the raiding is heavily scripted and requires very precise gameplay thats hard to multibox heavily, and in PVP you will get destroyed a lot by much smaller teams.

[Drizzit]

For example, if you have 25 mages just a few hunters on you with high arcane resist pets, your pbAOE wouldn't hit them, pets would be heavily immune (esp bestial wrath) and chew you up, and with a lot of strafing they'd be out of forward line of sight making you very frustrated when trying to do direct damage spells (just positioning 5 correctly is hard, 25 would be insane).

But the person wont know how many people are with him. They will only be able to see the main and a group of people with him. Sense people know about 5 boxers they will assume it was a 5 boxer, not knowing it was a 25 boxer. Dealing with 5 toons is hard, but as soon as they find out it is 25 people they will probably run.... i would love to see the spread out macro for that. Other thing is fear. It kills a 5 boxer, trying to get the toons back, it will be a lot harder for a 25 boxer... so you at least need 5 sham just for the tremor totems.

[Stabface]

Healing Stream Totem x 24 would be a lot of healing, some napkin math shows it's possible with L70 stats to get something around 3K+ per 2 seconds to the entire raid if this totem stacked. lol.

[Drizzit]

Healing Stream Totem x 24 would be a lot of healing, some napkin math shows it's possible with L70 stats to get something around 3K+ per 2 seconds to the entire raid if this totem stacked. lol.With that much healing you only need 1 healer and tank lol

[Toned]

The problem I see with this is I'm a veteran EQ player I used to 18 box, but unlike EQ WoW has an agro range limit. Unlike EQ you can't make massive trains to aoe down so getting 50+ mobs will be almost impossible in some areas it will be doable. But the exp nerf from being a raid group would be ridiculously slow.
It seems that pbaoe will be a viable way to level up. I need one priest for rez, even if healing by group is not going to be all that. 24Mage 1priest can pbaoe mobs by the ton. Kill 50 mobs someone going to get exp ... You can level off of mobs after 60 I am assuming.

Sheep looks like a joke for pvp. Maybe shaman have some real advantages but I want to keep everything super simple. And nothing is simpler then just playing a class that does nothing but nuke. And that new nuke seems very powerful.

[Tonuss]

I'm wondering how they'll deal with some of that. I suspect they'll cap the stacking on some totems and limit others to group members only. I doubt that they'll hurt arena teams much, but instance runs might become a bit tougher. Depends on what they change, though.

[Lokked]

If it hasn't been said, I need to explain some game mechanics which might dent your initial solution for PBAoEing mass mobs:

In EQ, the XP was given to the group which did the majority of the damage. If Group A did 51% damage and Group B did 49%, Group A would be rewarded all the experience and loot rights. Likewise, if Group A did 49% damage, and a single non-grouped char (EI a high level) did 51% damage, the single char would be awarded all the XP and loot rights. This was the birth of the KSing QQs (one group would steal a kill from another group that pulled a rare by outdamaging them).

In WoW, the first person or group that deals damage in any form to a mob (hit, spell, damage shield) has "Tapped" the mob, and will receive loot rights no matter what. For the group to receive all XP from the kill, they must outdamage other groups/chars by 50% of the mobs health. If they do not to at least 50% damage, they receive a portion of the XP scaling downward from 100% - 0% based on what portion of 50% of the mobs health they took away.

I bring this to your attention for the following reasons:
Your rested group, which is meant to get the XP, will have to pull and tap each mob.
No mage early on can survive pulling more then a few mobs at a time. You heal the mage, and all the mobs go after your priest/healer.
Mobs only chase chars a certain distance before agro resets to nothing and they "Leash" back to where they were agroed, or where they spawned. This would prevent you from amassing any significant size of pull.
Masses of world mobs is much smaller then that of EQ. I remember AoEing some outdoor Iksar fortress in some lvl 30-40 zone with a lake which had about 100 mobs inside, all bunched together relatively tightly, and being able to pull almost the whole thing with my bard. Nothing like those areas in WoW.

I'm not saying it is doable, but I really believe that you will have far more success doing the following to level your teams:
Create a single Paladin and level it up to 70 OR Create a 5-man group of Paladin, 3 mages, priest (because you want to end up with 24 mages + priest) and...
Get the Paladin + group to 70 asap.
Lvl Mining and Jewelcrafting on the Paladin.
Create Figurine of the Collosus, for use with the Paladin.
Buy or make gear for Paladin for tanking purposes.
Use the Paladin to AE your next 4 mage group through instances, using the many Paladin Boosting guides out there.
When each of these mage groups reaches 60, consider trying out the Paladin + 4 mage or Priest + 4 mage to see what works better for you in instances. Grind out instances to reach 70.
Repeat this for each of your sets of mages.

You may want to try to PBAoE the whole group to 70, but this depends on what your goal in this endeavor is: Leveling 25 chars at once, or playing end-game with 25 chars. Personally, I would skip all the crap in between, as with 25 chars you will be missing a vast majority of the content as is, and beyong content, there isn't much else between 1 and 70.

At least leveling the first group I mentioned you would get to see all pre-70 instance content (or whichever you choose to see, you have the ability to see it all), and, in my opinion, end up reaching 70 with all 24 mages faster then if you were to PBAoE them the whole way.

Good luck to you.

[Jezebel]

i have not ecountered any of the problems you mention while 10boxing (lol arcane resist?) boxing is about picking a setup and sticking with it until you know it inside-out. the only issue i can see is having to level 5 separate groups, 5 at a time. one priest 4 mages will grind extremely fast, but will be limited in elite instances. its perfectly possible (and just as fast) to buy decent greens/blues from AH and AoE grind non-elites all the way to 70. at which point you start queueing for your PvP epics.

as for "getting destroyed by smaller teams".. it takes at least twice my numbers OR a skilled, equal-number premade to drop my 10man setup in PvP. i frequently entertain myself by wiping 25 man raids prepping outside instances/at portal stones. you are right about 5+ boxing high end raiding.. but.. PvE..? who cares. PvE is a temporary inconvenience that must be endured in order to kill allies.






your 25 man mob would be the #1 target on any server you roll on, and would get chased down by a ton of people. mb'ing in WoW is not as easy as it is in EQ (they have removed a lot of the stuff that allows bottish type actions) and just 3-5 well played characters could easily take down a mob of 25 controlled by 1 person. For example, if you have 25 mages just a few hunters on you with high arcane resist pets, your pbAOE wouldn't hit them, pets would be heavily immune (esp bestial wrath) and chew you up, and with a lot of strafing they'd be out of forward line of sight making you very frustrated when trying to do direct damage spells (just positioning 5 correctly is hard, 25 would be insane).

try 5 man first and grow from there, 25 man doesn't really buy you much since most of the raiding is heavily scripted and requires very precise gameplay thats hard to multibox heavily, and in PVP you will get destroyed a lot by much smaller teams.

[Drizzit]

Create Figurine of the Collosus
I am pretty sure that this is a drop... and not a very common drop

[Toned]

Create Figurine of the Collosus
I am pretty sure that this is a drop... and not a very common dropIt drops in shattered halls and I shard one almost every time I run it on heroic.

[zanthor]

Other thing is fear. It kills a 5 boxer, trying to get the toons back, it will be a lot harder for a 25 boxer... so you at least need 5 sham just for the tremor totems. Show me a fear that hits more than 5 targets.

25 locks... dot, dot, dot... 125 debuffs... no one would survive that.

[Stabface]

There is currently a cap on the number of buffs and debuffs a target can have (40 of each as I recall). So it's not possible to stack 125 DoTs on a single target.
This will of course require a change in either the way things stack or the things that are stackable in WotLK, since people are already frequently hitting the debuff limit and in rare occasions the buff limit as well.

[Drizzit]

Show me a fear that hits more than 5 targets.

True I forgot about the limit.

[Jezebel]

25 (or 24) of anything is a mistake, imo. circle of healing truly is godly in large numbers (5+ priests). the minor sacrifice in AoE DPS is made up by the fact that nothing except serious, numerous focus fire on single mages will kill them.

if it were my setup, i would be looking at 15 mages, 5 shamans, 5 priests. one shaman, one priest per group. i would also spec the shamans for resto. run in alltogether with shields/earthshield precast, drop totems and stack your healers ontop of them somewhere reasonably safe, but within line of sight of your mages, then put your low rank chainheal/circle of healing on "toggle" with your G15 and forget about them. (except to press your hotkeys for changing the group focus of the heals) while you run around with your mages on /follow and kill everything in sight.

think of the 10 healers as a moveable unlimited HP turret.

[Dorffo]

Just a random FWIW comment:

you can train mobs all over the world/zone without them leashing (losing aggro) with some creative healing... with my mage/priest duo i used to run around spaming rank1 heal over time while the mage aggro'd stuff and as long as the heal was ticking mobs wouldn't leash, not sure if thats changed in the last month or two.

I do the same thing with my Pali / sham group - setup shams in random positions around my pull area so that they are in heal range and just cast rank1 heals on the pali as he rounds up mobs -- you can round up a lot of mobs this way :D

[Havelcek]

edit...dupe post

[Jorai]

in all honesty it doesn't sound like money or time leveling is an issue here. this is about pushing limits and it surely will. this is pretty sweet dude...i think i read about you and your EQ adventures. you definitely got your share of love and hate and know how to deal with those who do not understand your path haha

resists - you can resist an arcane explosion. you can resist 2. you can't resist 50 in two seconds lol...25 mages sounds insane. you will not solo raids without tanks and healers. but you know what? nothing is stopping you from making 25 mages, and also making some shaman and priests or pally's. you have enough slots on each account to experiment.

no one will know or expect you to have that many toons if they are all on /follow. like someone else said, they will think it's 5. except it wont be 5, it will be 24 ROFL...i can just imagine blast wave x25...followed by 5 arcane explosions in a row (and by 5 i mean 125). how about 25 cone of cold? how about 500 mana biscuits hahahaa

i salute you for even thinking about this, good luck and please keep us informed. with a few tanks and healers i am sure you could find ways to overcome some insane challenges.

nothing is stoppng you from making 25 mages AND 25 shamans...so i say go for it if you can afford it and have a blast (literally haha)

25 shaman - 25 ghost wolves! 25 shamans summoning ghost wolf guardians in the x-pac 0__0

[Jorai]

another thing i'm thinking about.... the Alterac Valley battleground, especially at 70, is pretty routine. there's one area where both teams just ride past each other. you could totally shake up the strategies by dismounting there and wiping their entire team.

the raids in the expansion will be both 10 and 25 man - there will be 2 versions of them, and from what i read the 25 man versions will have better drops , a full tier above the 10 mans... though i am not completely sure.

[Littleburst]

Respawnrate of mobs depends on how many players are in the area, so if you would be with 25 characters on 1 spot that would result in an insane respawnrate? I guess it will have a cap, but it will be fast for sure.

(I hope that hasn't been said yet)I don't think it has. This was one of the patches that blizzard put in this year. The reason was because every lvl 70 was in hellfire wasting time waiting for mobs to respawn. I don't know if it works in the old land though.I'm sure that it is the case in Azeroth, since a GM told me that after i pretty much got stuck at a certain point because of very fast respawns. No idea about Outlands, but i don't see why it would be different there.

[Sanctume]

Create Figurine of the Collosus
I am pretty sure that this is a drop... and not a very common dropLol yeah. I'm on my 18th clear of Shattered Halls (normal) and the dang thing wont drop for my 2nd Paladin.

I know I've disenchanted 3 of these in the past on my main Paladin tank--it's unique, so I had to DE my existing to loot the new one.

[entoptic]

The big question is... what are the names? I bet since WoW has been out for so long that making the names alone would take a day.

What happens when you lose one guy? or 3?

Either way this is epic and I want to see it!

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well one thing is for sure, I not doing anything untill december and we see what WoLK brings. Surely if totems stack raid wide then shaman is the way to go, but as others have pointed out that sounds to good to be true.

3mage 1shaman 1priest also seems good, just and in one tank and I have a strong pve crowd also. Lets ask this is there any enemy that 25 mages would kill that 15 would not?

If the mages are undead that eliminates any fear problems right?

Is there ANY use for the sheep thing? Maybe because of high dps it won't matter if the target goes to full health. Also I would sheep oppenents at full health anyways I assume.

Seems a lot of not sures, can mobs be rounded up to be pbaoe like 50 at a time, is the respawn rate really fast with 25 in an area. Another advantage of waiting is that I will have a lot more time to read up on everything, and surely there is a lot of reading to do, although it does seem much less then EQ. Just this one thread is full of tons of ideas, once I post on the wow forums I am sure tons more will show up.

I guess with arcane explosion hitting enemies there is no need to target so it dosnt matter who goes down (if they take out my targeting / assist toon Im kinda in trouble lol) ... big edge there over a single target nuke.

Ya this is going to get expensive for sure as I am not going to give up my EQ accounts, but considering equipment is 1/2 the cost and I already have that invested that helps.

No one thinks that with 14,000 potential targets that I cant get world pvp honor points enough to equip my guys?

Anyone care to speculate about the new pvp only zone in WoTK?

Ok gonna read the exp forumulas and whatever I can find about attacking cities.

[TMNT]

Well one thing is for sure, I not doing anything untill december and we see what WoLK brings. Surely if totems stack raid wide then shaman is the way to go, but as others have pointed out that sounds to good to be true.

3mage 1shaman 1priest also seems good, just and in one tank and I have a strong pve crowd also. Lets ask this is there any enemy that 25 mages would kill that 15 would not?

If the mages are undead that eliminates any fear problems right?

Is there ANY use for the sheep thing? Maybe because of high dps it won't matter if the target goes to full health. Also I would sheep oppenents at full health anyways I assume.

Seems a lot of not sures, can mobs be rounded up to be pbaoe like 50 at a time, is the respawn rate really fast with 25 in an area. Another advantage of waiting is that I will have a lot more time to read up on everything, and surely there is a lot of reading to do, although it does seem much less then EQ. Just this one thread is full of tons of ideas, once I post on the wow forums I am sure tons more will show up.

I guess with arcane explosion hitting enemies there is no need to target so it dosnt matter who goes down (if they take out my targeting / assist toon Im kinda in trouble lol) ... big edge there over a single target nuke.

Ya this is going to get expensive for sure as I am not going to give up my EQ accounts, but considering equipment is 1/2 the cost and I already have that invested that helps.

No one thinks that with 14,000 potential targets that I cant get world pvp honor points enough to equip my guys?

Anyone care to speculate about the new pvp only zone in WoTK?

Ok gonna read the exp forumulas and whatever I can find about attacking cities.Can i please know what you do for a living? You have alot of time on your hands it seems and the money to do this. Drugs or business or both?

[Sam DeathWalker]

Landlord in San Jose, Ca ... I own 3 properties and manage 5 for my family.

[TMNT]

Ahh i see. This would make sense.

As far as your post goes, Mobs do spawn faster when more people/people killing the mob. Mind you PvE is HARD for 25 boxing it, leveling will be hard, pve you will need to go to AV NEED TO!!!! World pvp is there just not alot, there is no ganking massive ammounts of people needed for the points. However you can go to a major city with some guildys (perferbly ALL healers lol) And start it, 50-100 will come out and if you survive long enough more and more will come. It will be an interesting server to play on no doubt lol.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ok this is good. If all 25 are the same level (and assuming this solo stuff applies to groups) there is no exp hit for same level outside of group helpers.

Solo Experience Modifiers
The experience amounts given above assume that the solo character and their pets have done 100% of the damage to kill the mob. Experience will be reduced when:

Someone else (ungrouped) helps to damage the mob. The XP you receive depends on if that someone else will receive xp for killing that mob. If yes, you get full XP. If not, you get a tiny fraction. It doesn't matter how many other ungrouped help damage nor how much damage you done.
Example: You're 6th level fighting a 6th level mob. If the ungrouped helper is level 10 or lower damage the mob, you will get full XP because a character level 10 or lower can receive XP from a 6th level mob. If the ungrouped helper is level 11 or higher, you get a tiny fraction of the XP.

Someone else (ungrouped) helps you by healing you in mid fight. This will cost you only a few XP points per heal.
Your damage shields do significant damage to the mob. This is usually a small loss, 5-10 XP points at worst.
The effect of this is that power-leveling low levels is much less effective than at higher levels. It is faster for low levels to kill without help, than it is to powerlevel them. It also makes it hard to determine the solo XP for high level mobs, since you won't get an accurate number unless the character does 100% of the damage.

The way to power-level is to be near the character level you're power-leveling. Thus, a 49th character will be much more effective than a 70th character in power-leveling a 40th level character. More effective would be multiple 49th characters power-leveling the 40th level character.

Ok the rested stuff is usless if you play everyday, if you know you going to be afk for a week or something its good but otherwise worthless. Outland mobs of the same level seem to give a nice bonus, as does elites, and being in a group of corse.


I wonder if this is true or been nerfed:

Outland Farming Spot Instant Respawns


This farming spot is on level 67 Humanoid mobs. They are casters and do a decent amount of damage so if you have an ability that can heal you then you're set.

This spot is recommended to Shadow Priests and Warlocks because their DoT's can kill any mob without ever having to refresh(assuming you are are 900+dmg) Anyone with a healer can take advantage of this place though.

Here is a picture of the spot. This is Legion Hold in Shadowmoon Valley.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=4ierjnn

The 3 pylons have 4 mobs each on them and there is 1 mob that walks along the infernals on each side. That is a total of 14 mobs.

When you first start it will seem like no mobs are respawning, but then once there are less than 6 mobs total, they will start instantly respawning pretty much on top of you. They will never stop unless you leave 6 mobs up, then they start to respawn at a natural rate(about 5 minutes).

The only thing you need to watch out for is the big elite dude that walks around the area every 10 minutes or so. If you have a healer you can kill him(I tank him on my shadow priest with another dps/healer there)

Enjoy!!!

These mobs drop netherweave, aldor rep items, and have a chance for all level 70 epic items because they are within 3 levels of the item level. Definately one of the best farming spots there is, especially since rep items sell for tons.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well if this is true lol:

http://www.worldofwar.net/forums/showthread.php?t=346958&page=2

Code says mobs in a spicific area cannot fall below a spicific number so if you kill fast they respawn fast ...

Humm looks like its kinda true:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=433fWESbz4U&feature=related

Well it is true:

Mar 25, 2008 9:57 am PT
I've had that happen, on a crowded day in the Netherwing mines a mob has occasionally spawned while I was in the middle of looting it
---

[Otlecs]

Code says mobs in a spicific area cannot fall below a spicific number so if you kill fast they respawn fast ...
That's not been my experience, and I've spent *alot* of time camping / farming over the years.

I have, however, come across bugged spawns.

For three or four days earlier this year, the fire elementals on the plateau would spawn non-stop (and I mean non-stop - if I hadn't been a boxer, I would never have had a chance to loot!!!) and more than once I've seen a blue blob in Nagrand spawn repeatedly for no apparent reason when I've been farming shadow.

I have also spent hours on end running laps around the same area in Nagrand with no spawn, and around the various mana forges watching a painfully slow respawn, having AoEd the spawns down several times in succession.

In other words, although there's anecdotal evidence to support the theory, there's at least the same amount of anecdotal evidence for the opposite, so for heaven's sake don't *rely* on it as a bullet-proof way to AoE level, because it isn't.

[Carnage]

With the leveling changes, i am so much certain that it would be faster to level 5 boxes at a time. It will also allow you to get to grips with the game, If you put your mind to it you can level really fast by instance grinding - Activate 5 accounts at a time, get the 5 charecters to 70 and then do 5 more ect... when you get to 70 on 25 chars then you can do heroic (5 mans) and Alterac valleys for honor. The badges from the heroics will allow you to gain either gear or gold (by selling some of the things you can buy).

Wish i was a landlord of 5 properties :)

[kayb]

25boxing in wow is a failboat idea. The only thing it will be good for is Alterac Valley rushes (you'll probably be able to outmanouvre a pickup AV raid, and go straight for the boss kill at the end). So you'll probably be able to gear reasonably fast with some experience. You're not gonna solo current 25-man raid boss encounters, I don't care what anyone says....AINT GONNA HAPPEN! You're not gonna ble able to gear up from world-pvp. You will meet a random schmuck and nuke him with with a fire blast. 4-6 of the mages will do actual damage and split the honor, and the rest will nuke thin air. Worst case scenario: Your 25th mage will NEVER get any honor points. The undead will of the forsaken racial is not gonna solve your fear problems. The only viable solution is adding a shammy in each group for tremor totem. But even this wont help you if you get ambushed while riding to the AV boss. You'll still have a decent chance to nuke the boss down with heroism on all the mages (you'll only have 5-6 seconds to nuke down the end boss before getting totally gibbed by him and his guards). Lose to many guys while riding to the boss and you'll not be able to kill him.

Incoming AOE damage is not gonna be a huge problem (since aoe damage scale down the more targets you're hitting). For example 1 arcane explotion on 1 guy for 2000 damage, 1 mage arcane explotion on 10 guys for 1000 damage each, not entirely accurate but you get the point. I would still add a priest in each group for circle of healing, or even holy nova spam. 1 priest is not gonna be enough for heals/rezzes (it takes 10 seconds of UNINTERRUPTED spellcasting to rez 1 guy). If your 25 guys sit idle for 2 minutes while your priest rez 3-4 dead guys (which he will probably not even be able to since he's gonna be harrassed/or be tagged as "in combat" from some npc you ran past 200 yards before), you would have already lost the AV match.

Leveling: *** **** a paladin with decent gear and boost 4 guys at a time. This is the ONLY way if you wanna reduce time spent leveling. You should be able to get down to around 3-4 days pr group from level 0-70, if you rotate the groups so you always have a decent amount of rested xp. So lets assume 20-25 days (ingame time) for the whole crew. It is true that (as mentioned above) mobs respawn faster the faster they're getting killed, but only up to a certain point. If grinding outdoors you will have SEVERE downtime, the only choice is instance grinding, since you have a set number of creatures available and can instantly respawn them by resetting the instance.

Final comments: If you got time to waste, do it.

[odon]

I did'nt read anything about this. Everybody seems to forget that whereas AV is a 40-man BG, it is either the only one where you can NOT queue more than a 5-man party... So, actually even if it is seems to be a pretty fun idea, it looks like you won't have anything to do at max level.

[dRiN]

A guildie of mine, on this forum named imbest, had a conversation with a GM about the spawning rate at a questlocation. The GM told him some information I had never heard about before.

The spawning rate is upped when more characters are near. So I would think, if you have 25 charcaters at some point where you could do some decent out of the group grinding (where the mob being tagged is green for the ones killing the mob), giving a xp rotation posibility for 5 x 5 person groups where you have infinite spawn.

I think if you do the long grind it will be possible to level 25 chars this way : )

[Steph]

Some thoughts on this. As I understand, money and time are irrelevant.
I will therefore only share my thoughts on class setup, control and purpose.

Purpose
You really want to think of this first. Yes, you can absolutely make 25 mages, and no player will live if you push the AoE button for all 25. Boss monsters in dungeons or outdoor raid bosses will live though. I see three things that you can do with a 25 man group:
a) PvP+PvE attack the cities of the opposing faction. (There is no character limit as this is open world movement.) That should be the best option, because in a nutshell you are the event then. =]
b) PvP+PvE 40 man battleground Altherac Valley. (In the normal game client, one can sign up to AV only with a party of 5, but there is a Horde only addon that syncronizes up to 8 parties for a full 40 man raid group.) There are a number of strategic mini objectives in different places on the map that you will not be able to fulfill. On the other hand, you can arrange for 15 other people to group with you and sort those. Nuking the miniboss and then the boss of the opposing faction is definitely possible. If you do not take down the sub-objectives, this is much much harder and will require multiple tanks and significant healing compared to the normal situation of going for the end boss after the sub-objectives are met. http://www.wowwiki.com/Av
c) PvE 25 man raid encounters. This will be difficult to pull off. You need to tank, heal and dps at the same time. Many encounters require individual character movement and individual simultaneous reactions by individual characters. Get an overview on http://www.wowwiki.com/Raid. This will be the hardest to pull off.

Group Setup
Ranged damage dealers are the key component in your group, but you should forsee healing and tanking as well. For group healing that can be done with one button and requires no targetting, take five priests, one for each group. I would also add at least one paladin tank, these are best suited for multiple mobs and do not require more actions per minute as the number of mobs increases. Note, tanking is PvE only, you can not tank players. To decide the setup of your 25 character raid group you should also consider the different types of buffs. There are self-buffs, buffs for a friendly target, group buffs and debuffs. For example the priests can use http://www.wowwiki.com/Power_Word:_Fortitude to buff the raid's stamina/hit points, while the mages do the same for the mana points. Then there are party wide buffs, like paladin auras, shaman totems, Druid Moonkin 5% spell crit aura and a number of others that affect only the five players in a party. There is talk of this being changed to a raid wide effect in WotLK. Finally, there are debuffs on the hostile target. Shadow priests increase the damage taken by the 5%, Warlock curses reduces resistance against magic damage types, increasing damage. Your paladin tank also can offer 3% more crit for each spell against the target, mana returns and some others. You already said that you want to wait for the expansion to see what happens with the group buffs. Considering however that the buffing classes do not just buff, but also provide comparable damage output themselves, that is not so critical. The power leveling process works only for up to 5 players, so if you need to pull up a few characters later, that won't be of any real impact. Today, I would go for a setup like this: 1x Paladin-tank 5x holy/discipline priest, 5xMoonkin, 5x elemental shaman, 1x warlock, 8x mage. If the group->raid buff for WotLK is true, you could go for 1x Paladin-tank 5x holy/discipline priest, 5xMoonkin, 1x elemental shaman, 1x warlock, 12x mage. Also, the new death knight does some frost things which might be in good synergy with frost specced mages, but that is TBD. Be aware that for 25 man raid dungeons you need at least two, sometimes three or four tanks per encounter.

Control
For WoW, there are no macro's with delays, and using delays in game input devices, programmable keyboards and whatnot is not permitted. It will get you banned. The default damage caster needs to cast a new spell every 2.5 seconds. Toggling through the characters is therefore not effective. You want have simultaneous control input on all characters. There are different hardware and software ways to do this. As I see it, the best way in your case would be five quadcore machines to run five clients each and handle the distribution of input to all windows via software multiplexing, for example via KeyClone. This software is the best known one at Blizzard's side and nodded off. No seals of approval or anything, but your best bet. Then have a vetra hardware multicaster to broadcast input to all five quadcores. If you want to go all hardware, cascade some vetras and use micro-PCs. Pentium-M notebooks with discreete graphics do work as minimum spec example. However, control and maintainability will be best with five quads. You will also need considerable amount of keys. A normal keyboard, plus some X-Keys pro and maybe even foot pedals would be my expectation. Using Multiplicity from Stardock you can move your mouse and main keyboard over all computers and clients - if you go for five computers, their solution does not allow more than eight PCs.

My 3 cents. =]

Kind regards, Steph.

[Jorai]

something else just occurred to me that is pretty funny. mages can turn invisible for a short amount of time.

"hmm no one's around i wonder where all the mobs went. OH SHI-"

[Tonuss]

Leveling: You ebay a paladin with decent gear and boost 4 guys at a time.Bad advice. Multiboxing with accounts that you do not own (legitimately own, as per Blizzard rules) could get all of your accounts locked and possibly banned.

[Drizzit]

You ebay a paladin with decent gear and boost 4 guys at a time. This is the ONLY way if you wanna reduce time spent leveling[/url]
Quote from Vyndree

None of us want to get anyone banned, but we are human and do make mistakes so it is typically best to get it straight from the horse's mouth (i.e. Blizzard). If you are asking the community to help you figure out how to sneak around the rules, you'll want to revisit the [url='http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Board&boardID=31']community guidelines ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=1044') which is found at the rules ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Board&boardID=31') menu tab on the top of every page. please don't talk about account sharing/selling this is becoming a good forum. I would hate for it to be locked by a mob.

[Anjuna]

Please do this on Magtheridon US Horde ;)

[OzPhoenix]

Wow. Nice long thread.

Sam - more power to you if you pull this off. I must say though, I don't see this working too well in WoW. As many have pointed out, grinding XP here is slower (and much so in a raid) and quest XP is much higher. I can see how you could force a much higher mob respawn rate in certain locations, but grinding all the way from 1-70...ouch.

Then as was on the previous page, what would you do with them at 70?

If you can pull off a Raid boss - any raid boss - I'll be impressed as hell, since virtually all of them require more individual character control than a multiboxer can give.

As much fun as it sounds - and I'd love to see the vids of this like everyone else here - I don't see a lot for you to do @ 70.

[Sam DeathWalker]

You really want to think of this first. Yes, you can absolutely make 25 mages, and no player will live if you push the AoE button for all 25. Boss monsters in dungeons or outdoor raid bosses will live though. I see three things that you can do with a 25 man group:
a) PvP+PvE attack the cities of the opposing faction. (There is no character limit as this is open world movement.) That should be the best option, because in a nutshell you are the event then. =]
b) PvP+PvE 40 man battleground Altherac Valley. (In the normal game client, one can sign up to AV only with a party of 5, but there is a Horde only addon that syncronizes up to 8 parties for a full 40 man raid group.) There are a number of strategic mini objectives in different places on the map that you will not be able to fulfill. On the other hand, you can arrange for 15 other people to group with you and sort those. Nuking the miniboss and then the boss of the opposing faction is definitely possible. If you do not take down the sub-objectives, this is much much harder and will require multiple tanks and significant healing compared to the normal situation of going for the end boss after the sub-objectives are met. http://www.wowwiki.com/Av
c) PvE 25 man raid encounters. This will be difficult to pull off. You need to tank, heal and dps at the same time. Many encounters require individual character movement and individual simultaneous reactions by individual characters. Get an overview on http://www.wowwiki.com/Raid. This will be the hardest to pull off.

Lets forget ebay, I plan to level up all my guys myself from level one.

Ok if the undead racial trait doesnt stop fear effectivly then I guess I have no alternative but to use a shaman tremor totem. Can the shaman also take care of healing (if restro), instead of a priest? I see that priest has the group heal and shaman does not but cant I just target each member and cast heals in order or is that way to much mana. Or use that chain heal thing? Well Right now it does seems that Shaman/Priest/3 Mage is the best set up, with one tank in the mix. Still thats 10 defensive characters out of 25.

Lets forget raids, I can see that unless I guild up or do pick up raids that is out.

So that leaves:

Altherac Valley
Cities Attack Halaa seems most interesting
WoLK PvP Zone

Thats a lot to do isnt it? Isnt there someplace where there are lots of enemies gathered (well like 10 heh) most all the time that I can attack, besides cities? Maybe outside 10 man dungons or something?

[Sanctume]

something else just occurred to me that is pretty funny. mages can turn invisible for a short amount of time.

"hmm no one's around i wonder where all the mobs went. OH SHI-"With run speed enchant on boots, I can cast invis from the beginning of the bridge in Stormpike graveyard in AV and into North Tower without getting archer agro.

[Sanctume]

You really want to think of this first. Yes, you can absolutely make 25 mages, and no player will live if you push the AoE button for all 25. Boss monsters in dungeons or outdoor raid bosses will live though. I see three things that you can do with a 25 man group:
a) PvP+PvE attack the cities of the opposing faction. (There is no character limit as this is open world movement.) That should be the best option, because in a nutshell you are the event then. =]
b) PvP+PvE 40 man battleground Altherac Valley. (In the normal game client, one can sign up to AV only with a party of 5, but there is a Horde only addon that syncronizes up to 8 parties for a full 40 man raid group.) There are a number of strategic mini objectives in different places on the map that you will not be able to fulfill. On the other hand, you can arrange for 15 other people to group with you and sort those. Nuking the miniboss and then the boss of the opposing faction is definitely possible. If you do not take down the sub-objectives, this is much much harder and will require multiple tanks and significant healing compared to the normal situation of going for the end boss after the sub-objectives are met. http://www.wowwiki.com/Av
c) PvE 25 man raid encounters. This will be difficult to pull off. You need to tank, heal and dps at the same time. Many encounters require individual character movement and individual simultaneous reactions by individual characters. Get an overview on http://www.wowwiki.com/Raid. This will be the hardest to pull off.

Lets forget ebay, I plan to level up all my guys myself from level one.

Ok if the undead racial trait doesnt stop fear effectivly then I guess I have no alternative but to use a shaman tremor totem. Can the shaman also take care of healing (if restro), instead of a priest? I see that priest has the group heal and shaman does not but cant I just target each member and cast heals in order or is that way to much mana. Or use that chain heal thing? Well Right now it does seems that Shaman/Priest/3 Mage is the best set up, with one tank in the mix. Still thats 10 defensive characters out of 25.

Lets forget raids, I can see that unless I guild up or do pick up raids that is out.

So that leaves:

Altherac Valley
Cities Attack Halaa seems most interesting
WoLK PvP Zone

Thats a lot to do isnt it? Isnt there someplace where there are lots of enemies gathered (well like 10 heh) most all the time that I can attack, besides cities? Maybe outside 10 man dungons or something?Undead racial is a fear break ability which you would use as needed, or when you anticipate a fear coming. Dragons such as Nightbane does a ground shaking prior to his fear.

Shaman Tremor Totem is placed and pulse every few seconds to break a fear. If you're feared, you can't cast totems. But for PvP, it's one of the totems casted in anticipation of fear.

Resto Shaman has some passive small heals via Healing Totem. They have single target heals. They have chain heal which heals up to 3 people in their group, heals becomes less as the chain heal jumps target. There is Earthshield which is a targetable heal over time that has 6 charges of healing on the target; consumed every so often but not at every hit.

Priest has heals like Prayer Mending which is heals a target, then jumps randomly to anyone damaged. And ofcourse their AoE heals ae huge. They even have Holy Nova which heals the party, and damages the enemy without agro--cost lots of mana though.

[Tonuss]

As many have pointed out, grinding XP here is slower (and much so in a raid) and quest XP is much higher. I can see how you could force a much higher mob respawn rate in certain locations, but grinding all the way from 1-70...ouch.Keep in mind that the level grind in Everquest makes WoW look like a walk in the park. Any leveling path he takes in WoW will feel fast compared to EQ. I agree though, that grinding out your levels from start to finish will still be boring as hell.

As for Sam's question about healing-- shaman can make excellent healers, especially with Chain Heal, which heals its primary target and then automatically selects two more targets to heal (the second target receives a 30% smaller heal, the third target a 60% smaller heal). It selects the additional targets based on how badly they are in need of healing, and thus is a highly-efficient heal. However, shaman do not have an untalented instant-cast heal, and they do not have a heal-over-time. A resto shaman has a 41-point talent that provides a healing shield (heals target when they get hit) that can provide de-facto damage mitigation.

In short, they are very good healers as long as you are aware of their limitations and properly spec/gear them for healing.

[lacitpo]

Leveling:

I am almost 100% confident that leveling 25 at once will be slower than taking them as 5 man groups. Mobs are tethered. XP gain is decreased in raid. There are a few places in the world where mob spawns may be fast enough for you to lvl 25 via grinding, but no-where near as fast as doing it 5 toons at time.

Class Makup

You have some decent ideas, but as you know about MMO's,there is a lot of information to know about to game, and I don't think you know enough to make a really informed decision. Mages are going to be your easy mode option. They are good at nuking, and their AOE is great, etc. I just don't think you know enough about the game to really understand your decision.

Things you can do.

World PVP is currently not very big in wow. You've cited numbers from warcraftrealms.com but the honest truth is that finding a steady stream of enemy players to kill in the outside world is going to be nigh impossible anywhere other than an enemy city. Upon entering an enemy city, you'll do some damage, but I guarantee it won't take them long to start picking off your characters one by one, despite the best efforts of your healer. Yes, you'll kill a ton of enemies but I don't think the experience will be what you are expecting it to be.

Running Alterac Valley is likely your best option. With 25 toons you'll be a force to be reconned with, killing any single target with ease. However, winning AV with you controlling 25 toons may be difficult due to the nature of the battleground.

Engame PVE is pretty much out of the question though thats been said plenty.

Conclustion:
You might consider rolling on a server that's got an established multi-boxing community. You should almost definately roll a single character or two and play up through lvl 20-30 on the classes you are thinking of so that you can do more than just theorycraft. You should read up on some of the programs people here are using such as keyclone and synergy so that you can maybe improve your setup and streamline the whole ordeal.

[Jezebel]

shamans are good healers.. but all their heals (excluding earth shield, which is a reactive heal) have fairly significant cast times. chain heal is 2.5 seconds. trying to micromanage single target or targeted chain heals on a 25 characters would be a full time job and leave you very little time to focus on killing with your mages. the best setup would be.. 1 shaman, 1 priest, 3 mages per group. as soon as you see youre about to engage, drop your totems and drop your 5 priests/shamans in a tall stack ontop of them. this will A: make it difficult for your enemy to target the priests (much squishier targets than shamans, who wear mail armor/shields) and B: give you a 40 yard radius (the range of both chain heal and of circle of healing) to maneuvre your mages around and still be within range of your spam heals. when youre in control of the area you can hit your healer /follow macro and move your stack. when totems are raid-wide your entire healer stack will be close to immune to fear/poison and 5 direct damage casts every 15 sec.. not to mention earth shield and the new WoTLK shaman talent that splits damage up (utterly nerfing any kind of focus fire). your healer stack will be tough enough to break up without serious numbers.. let alone with 15 mages roaming around it dropping people like flies.

also, because there are 5 priests within that stack.. if you get any annoying melees charging your healers you can round-robin (awesome keyclone feature that im just learning to appreciate fully, after having only used hardware to box for a long while) the priests instant AoE fear and break them up a bit until your mages can push them back. if you find the benefits from resto as shamans dont work too well, the elemental tree has that insane thunder push-back that will slam people away from your healers.

chain heal targets a single target within a group, but the two "proc" heal jumps target the two targets within proc range with the lowest heal pool. this means, if you use all rank1 CoH and chain heal, youre looking at GROUP heals of 3000+ from the priests, around the same from the chain heals, and the procs will seek out low HP targets. thats a MASSIVE amount of HPS. the most efficient way to heal your raid will be with 6 hotkeys purely for targeting a group, one for each group and one to targetself and spread the heals out when no particular group is being focused. if you have a G15 keyboard, you can simply toggle your heals on/off and only actively play the healers when you have to switch their target or refresh totems.

this will leave you free to concentrate on circling with your mages and taking people out. as you start to thin them out, creep your heal stack forward a bit at a time and replant your totems as you advance. if you get rushed, drop 5x fire nova totems, aoe fears, holy novas while you pull your mages back into and start spamming arcane explosion to push them off your healers.. when they break and run (as they will) switch to scorch and drop single targets as they back off.

the most beautiful thing about the setup would be that it requires very little micromanagement. despite the fact that youre running 25 toons.. the healers only need to be targeted on a group and forgotten about. since all your dps is 15 mages, their hotkeys will be exactly the same and very simple to single nuke/spam aoe.




Lets forget ebay, I plan to level up all my guys myself from level one.

Ok if the undead racial trait doesnt stop fear effectivly then I guess I have no alternative but to use a shaman tremor totem. Can the shaman also take care of healing (if restro), instead of a priest? I see that priest has the group heal and shaman does not but cant I just target each member and cast heals in order or is that way to much mana. Or use that chain heal thing? Well Right now it does seems that Shaman/Priest/3 Mage is the best set up, with one tank in the mix. Still thats 10 defensive characters out of 25.

Lets forget raids, I can see that unless I guild up or do pick up raids that is out.

So that leaves:

Altherac Valley
Cities Attack Halaa seems most interesting
WoLK PvP Zone

Thats a lot to do isnt it? Isnt there someplace where there are lots of enemies gathered (well like 10 heh) most all the time that I can attack, besides cities? Maybe outside 10 man dungons or something?

[Sam DeathWalker]

Given the chain heal seeks out the lowest HP person in teh group it seems perfect. By getting restro shaman I should be able to heal "good enough". I can still get one priest for rez and one tank. Taht will give me 18 mages. So I can do 4 groups that are 1 sham and 4 mage and the main group of tank priest sham and 2 mage. Main group can lead and tank will target for everyone, and tank can hopefully draw fire in pvp and agro in pve. And I can still go undead on the mages/priest/warrior and something else on the sham.

Keep in mind that the 25 will never be in a raid during exp times. If I can find a fast spawner or spawn area, Ill have 1 group of 5 getting the exp with everyone else ungrouped. Its just a matter of finding a fast spawn or spawning area (i.e. where they spawn instantly if killed instantly .... )

[Vyndree]

By getting restro shaman I should be able to heal "good enough". I can still get one priest for rez


You know, shaman can rez.

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20777

[cepheus]

Given the chain heal seeks out the lowest HP person in teh group it seems perfect. By getting restro shaman I should be able to heal "good enough". I can still get one priest for rez and one tank. Taht will give me 18 mages. So I can do 4 groups that are 1 sham and 4 mage and the main group of tank priest sham and 2 mage. Main group can lead and tank will target for everyone, and tank can hopefully draw fire in pvp and agro in pve. And I can still go undead on the mages/priest/warrior and something else on the sham.

Keep in mind that the 25 will never be in a raid during exp times. If I can find a fast spawner or spawn area, Ill have 1 group of 5 getting the exp with everyone else ungrouped. Its just a matter of finding a fast spawn or spawning area (i.e. where they spawn instantly if killed instantly .... )

I think Chain Heal also will heal outside a party if everyone in your own party is fully healed. So this would make healing a lot easyer for you since it would semi-automate healing targeting (allthough the jumps give lower heals)

So I think a group of 5 resto shamans would be a wery good choice of healing for your project. Another good thing about a 5man resto shammy group is that it will never run oom with 5x mana tide totems

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ahh well dump the priest then, I was thinking shaman only get self rez. Great, if I wipe I get 5 self rez and then they rez the rest ... big time saver. I can't put the 5 shammy in same group during pvp cause I need the tremor totoms for each group right? So 4 groups of one restro shammy and 4 mage, and 1 group of resto shaman, warrior and 2-3 mage (maybe 2 shaman in this group for even more healing of the tank).

If you are in raid it will jump to raid targets as a priority, I suppose during pvp I would be in a raid.

[Xzin]

Sam, if you do this I only ask one thing. Do it on Mag so if/when I come back to WoW, I can see this in action.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I need a server where hord is underdog. Where I will have many oppenents to attack. Where there will be at least some chanch of world pvp.

Ner'zhul seems the most logical choice.

Don't worry, Ill have blue ray 1440 avchd videos of all 6 monitors (not the low resolution ingame stuff everyone else has) taking movies from behind me when I do something of value. Not only will you see the game in action you will also see how i do it in action.

SamDeathWalker.com will be happening at some point.


Why are these people complaining about mages so much:


I played a mage in World of Warcraft since its release. After seeing the alpha talents for mages in WotLK and seeing the damage out put of my mage versus warlocks in inferior gear in Black Temple, I opted to reroll. I have since leveled a warlock and warrior to 70; primarily due to the leaked WotLK alpha talents. If my mage is ever to be touched again, Blizzard has some serious overhaul work to be doing. I have to say it's pathetic that already a warlock in tier 5 can out DPS a mage in tier 6... if WotLK talents stand as they are now... mages are to be a thing of the past. My form class has been ignored so long and faced so much degradation, that I've finally chosen to just reroll and become a warlock and or warrior since Chaos Bolt and Titan Grip are so superior to "annoying sparkler" or any of the other pathetic mage treats. I highly recommend rerolling my mage brothers, because frankly, we've been ignored since day 1. :)

Edit: I won't even begin to complain out how my paladin was ignored.
Also so you know I'm not a whiner if you didn't read the above: Loving my warlock and warrior :D
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8402820450&sid=1&pageNo=3 ('http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8402820450&sid=1&pageNo=3')


I don't see any warlock spell even close to arcane barage

Arcane Barrage Rank 3
610 Mana 30 yd range
Instant cast 3 sec cooldown

Launches several missiles at the enemy target, causing 936 to 1144 Arcane damage.

Instant cast, you can cast while moving lol can't be interupted, 30 range, 3 sec recast what more can anyone ask for?

[Jezebel]

its your setup, of course, but i really think you will miss the instant burst healing that multiple priests bring to the table. that 2.5 second chain heal cast time when any of your clothies is being focus fired will kill you. plus, chain heal is not a guaranteed hit on low HP targets. it "attempts" to seek out the lowest friendly target within range with its procs.. but its not guaranteed to hit. also, its procs heal for less than the initial burst per-jump. CircleOfHealing/PrayerOfMending/AoE Fear/and buffs will double the durability of your mages. prayer of mending works even better than chain heal by jumping from target to target, healing anything that takes damage. between that, 5x stacked HoT's from renew, multiple earth shields from the shamans and stacked HealingStream totem (once its raid-wide) your entire raid would be receiving massive amounts of passive healing, even without chainheal/circle of healing.

prayer of mending - 25 x 800
earth shield - 30 x 270
healing stream - 5 x 3240 over 2 minutes, stackable.
renew - 5 x 1404 over 15 seconds, stackable.

that is ALL passive healing.. absolutely discounting direct/group/aoe heals. and those are just the base numbers. all those values are increased dramatically based on your healers +healing from gear, wrath of air totems and crits.

theres really not a lot that 20 mages will do that 15 wont. as people have said, those last 5 mages will always overcast the target and just be wasting a group slot. 15 nukes = death. to anyone. add in crits, stun procs and aoe spam and DPS will not be a problem. you would be much better off investing those extra 5 slots on characters that will keep your mages alive and doing damage longer.

i think, without the priest/shaman healer combo to keep your mages up, you will be forced to resort to suicide bombing graveyards, taking out as many as you can before you get wiped. shamans by themselves will not have effective enough AoE healing to keep your mages alive Vs even close to even numbers. the 1priest/1shaman combo will actually make your DPS very difficult to take down. i do exactly this, only without the benefit of shamans. with 3 mages 2 priests per group, i could not live without the amazing burst heal of 4x circle of healing (which is why im pushing it so hard =P). people usually think of circle of healing as a situational heal. nobody seems to realise how amazing it is when youre focus firing instant aoe heals from a full group of priests. if any of your mages are about to die, target that group, hit CoH, that by itself will be 50% of his hp bar, guaranteed, for next to no mana.. followed up by the 5x chain heals that will hit 3 seconds or so later. i think you will come to love that staggered heal effect that comes from the combination of those two heals. shamans by themselves just dont have the instant burst heal capability. if they happen to be moving while you get spiked, or one of your characters takes a few big hits.. that 2.5+ second delay (assuming the shamans arent being hit, and their casting interrupted) gives your mages plenty of time to die before they receive a heal.

i, personally, would even be inclined to say 2 mages 3 priests per group, rather than shamans, but i think the setup i mentioned, with your healers in a stack, will be much stronger with raid wide tremor totems, come WoTLK, to negate fear. just make sure you make all your priests/mages female undead, your shamans male orcs. with their shield and larger body size, when you stop your healers /following, they will be in a perfect stack behind your main, your priests will be completely hidden (and untargetable via clicking) by the shamans. choosing all 25 characters with a simlarly themed name and switching between your mages as your "main" toon (to confuse people, so they will never know which mage is driving) will also somewhat prevent people from using /target and focus firing on you.

also, if youre planning on leveling via grinding world mobs.. you really dont need a tank. shamans have mail/shield, heal with the priest and ArcaneExplosion spam with the mages will clear spawns very well without needing to waste a group slot on any kind of actual "tank". the only reason id bother rolling a tank in this setup is if you plan on trying any kind of raid or 5man PvE content. and, personally, if youre so inclined, id roll your main groups first and then powerlevel a tank to use one one of the mage accounts later on.

as for arcane barrage.. cycle it with your other instants. ice lance, fireblast and arcane explosion are all instant cast and can be cast while moving. 15 fireblasts will generally kill the target. 15 arcane explosions will just about do the same.. ice lance is a little weaker than the other instants, unless you frost nova first, so you might have to hit it a couple of times, but if youre doing say.. a conservative estimate of 4.5 to 5k damage every 1.5 seconds it wont take long to drop targets, even if theyre being healed. cycling those icelance/arcane barrage/fireblast and arcane explosion/fire nova if you run into a stack.. your mages can do all their DPS without even needing to stand still to cast anything.. and without being interrupted by damage, since its all instant cast.

lol 11 edits and a novel later.. just consider the benefit of having an all but unlimited HP pool on all your mages (until your priests run OOM) compared to having 4-5 more mages that /cast fail constantly because their target is already dead =P
Ahh well dump the priest then, I was thinking shaman only get self rez. Great, if I wipe I get 5 self rez and then they rez the rest ... big time saver. I can't put the 5 shammy in same group during pvp cause I need the tremor totoms for each group right? So 4 groups of one restro shammy and 4 mage, and 1 group of resto shaman, warrior and 2-3 mage (maybe 2 shaman in this group for even more healing of the tank).

If you are in raid it will jump to raid targets as a priority, I suppose during pvp I would be in a raid.

[Steph]

Priests are superior healers for multi-boxing purposes in my opinion. There can be no argument that Resto Shamans are great healers if there is a player actually focusing his attention on the character, but the relevant difference for boxing between shaman and priest is the lower amount of attention and actions per minute you need to spend on a priest to heal a group effectively.

Examples:
Prayer of Healing - heals the priest's party, no target needed.
Prayer of Mending - set a fixed target that is likely to take damage, then fire and forget, it bounces around merrily.
Circle of healing - heals a party, which can be the one the priest is in, or the one of the person that the priest is targeting.

Think of the possibilities. Say 2-3 players are aoe'ing your group. You can on reflex hit the PoH button for your five priests and be sure that every group member will receive healing. Assume you are busy killing the faction boss in the enemy city. You can target heal your tank, bounce prayer of mending off the tank. You can also have all five priests heal one group that is low directly if you set up Circle of Healing to target the specific groups for all priests. G3 low? Nps, 5xCoH. Fixed. You can essentially reduce the healing buttons you usually use to a ridiculously small amount.

For a shaman, you have chain heal yes. But that requires the primary, secondary and tertiary target to be close enough (4-6 steps) to each other for the spell to jump. This is a much more annoying constraint than the priest's group heals that work over a 36 yard range.

[Jezebel]

its ridiculously easy. i try to remember to use renew, prayer of mending, shields, purely because i like to keep my skill level up and use them if theyre there.. but to be honest, with multiple priests circle of healing is the only heal spell you will ever need. even using low ranked CoH, my mages go from 500hp and nearly dead to 8000/full hp in two casts. with minimal effort.

also, dont forget holy nova. it costs a lot of mana, but in a pinch you can suppliment your mages arcane explosion spam with holy nova and with 5 priests it will be a pretty significant boost in DPS.
You can also have all five priests heal one group that is low directly if you set up Circle of Healing to target the specific groups for all priests. G3 low? Nps, 5xCoH. Fixed.

[Otlecs]

So that leaves:

Altherac Valley
Scratch that.

You can only queue one party (5 people) at a time. There are mods that try to queue more than that, but they're hit and miss. The chances of consistently ending up with all 25 in the same AV are slim.

So you're really left with world PvP, such as it is, and very few opportunities to gear up as a team.

Ten is a much more useful number for WoW, albeit less unique and with less visual impact. You can actually DO things with ten characters (including most of the WotLK encounters if you're skilled enough), whereas you're pretty much stuck with dance-offs if you go for 25 :)

[Jezebel]

im really interested in seeing if the 10man content from WoTLK is doable by a boxer. if true end-game PvE sets are obtainable in a 10 man raid, i may actually consider rolling a tank and possibly a few utility class' and see if i can get some end game PvE sets together.. or selling raid slots for gold so i dont have to farm? =)
..including most of the WotLK encounters if you're skilled enough

[Drizzit]

There are mods that try to queue more than that, but they're hit and miss. The chances of consistently ending up with all 25 in the same AV are slim

I wouldn't use the mod. I heard from a couple people that it is bandable. With 25 toons in av you will probably get reported tons of times from the other team.

[Otlecs]

I heard from a couple people that it is bandable.
I'd like to see an official source on that - a WoW forum search and my old mate Google both say the opposite, though with no explicit blue comment.

Some of these mods have been around since 2006, are still maintained, still work, do nothing more than synchronise calls to a public LUA function, and the closest I found to a credible comment on their legality is an ollllllld post (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=59248302&sid=1) from an MVP and a European thread (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html;jsessionid=34D1143CF267BFF2CDAA7E485F4 1DB67.app09_04?topicId=2111661605&postId=21110142012&sid=1) from a while ago.

The European thread sees somebody asserting the legality of one of these mods, some.. erm.. "discussion" (*cough*) ensuing, and a blue closing the topic due to the flamefest without contradicting the intial assertion.

In short, I have no reason to believe these mods are in any way illegal, but I wouldn't want to rely on them to get a full 25 man team into AV simply because they're not THAT reliable :)

[Drizzit]

Thanks for the clear up Otlecs. It was just hearsay that i heard it from, like realm chats and bg chats. I would probably open a forum, email, or open a ticket before i would try it though just in case. To get 25 toons band at lvl 51 or higher would really suck.

[Jorai]

concerning priests, i would also add that in the x-pac the 51 point holy talent is "guardian spirit" - basically throws a guardian spirit on your target that increases healing to said target as well as preventing them from dying by sacrificing itself and giving them 10% of their life. could be interesting.

[Nixi]

I've gotta say running 10 characters is a full time job. I actually read all 7 pages worth of comments, but i'm gonna go ahead and say it again. Wow is built around the 5 man party and you're going to be forced to micro-manage your guys 5 at a time.

I've tried 10 boxing the battlegrounds. It's really not fun. I blame part of it on my class setup, (and i keep myself awake at night thinkign about 10 mages) but you're going to lose pretty much every single battleground because you can't complete the objectives. It's fun for awhile 'oneshotting' people, but it gets old. Fear will ALWAYS be a multiboxers worst nightmare and the only way out of it is shamans.

People have already talked at length about a shaman's viabilty to heal. I haven't personally tried using my shamans to passively heal like I use my paladins, but it is micromanagement. A priest is the best multiboxer multitarget healer where a paladin (imo) is the best single target healer.

The best setup I've seen mentioned (for pvp since i think you've already said PVE is out of the discussion for now) is the priest, shaman, mage setup. But with only 1 shaman per group fear -will- become an issue at some point. it pulses every 3 seconds, so there is time for someone to run out of follow range, or worst case someone kills one totem protecting a group and then it's gameover for those guys. I think someone else made a good point about fear having a maximum number of targets, so it might only happen once in a blue moon that a fear hits an unprotected team member. The other problem is your using 3 classes so you're multiplying the available abilities by 3. Everytime you add classes you are adding micro management.

You know, if you're just doing PVP and the number has to be 25 (24?) then why do you need mages for firepower? It's been mentioned several times that most of the mages will just be firing at corpses. Maybe you can take one of the weaker DPS classes and by using a huge amount of them you'll still have that insta-gib effect but with more utility than a mage brings.

25 paladins holy shocking? Consecration? what rogue could stand in 25 consecrations? how long? 25 priest holy novas? (fear is still an issue with these classes)
Maybe 10 Shamans + some other class.

I'd only 25 box for PVE bragging rights, and in the current state of the game I don't think it's possible to kill any 25 man raid bosses. I can't even take down netherspite. That encounter is just asking 3 people to act independently and it's just soo hard to do it solo. I cant imagine an encounter that demands more than 3 people to be awake.

[badashh]

I'm confused


Thinking of 25 boxing WoW - Not sure about a lot of thingsAs you know I am the 24 boxer From EQ. As I already have all the equipment in place I am thinking of 25 boxing WoW but I know nothing about the game. I do know that there are 62 WoW players for every 1 EQ1 players and it seems it might be time for me to go where the majority is.

I think my machines can take 5 instances of WoW each, as they work on 4 instances of EQ NP. If I have to upgrade Ill do so.

The way I work in EQ is I have 6 monitors and 6 computers and flip through each group starting an in game macro or social. I can go through all 4 groups in under 2 seconds.

Not sure if that will work in WoW, but it should.



I played a mage in World of Warcraft since its release. After seeing the alpha talents for mages in WotLK and seeing the damage out put of my mage versus warlocks in inferior gear in Black Temple, I opted to reroll. I have since leveled a warlock and warrior to 70; primarily due to the leaked WotLK alpha talents. If my mage is ever to be touched again, Blizzard has some serious overhaul work to be doing. I have to say it's pathetic that already a warlock in tier 5 can out DPS a mage in tier 6... if WotLK talents stand as they are now... mages are to be a thing of the past. My form class has been ignored so long and faced so much degradation, that I've finally chosen to just reroll and become a warlock and or warrior since Chaos Bolt and Titan Grip are so superior to "annoying sparkler" or any of the other pathetic mage treats. I highly recommend rerolling my mage brothers, because frankly, we've been ignored since day 1.

So have you played before or not?

[Sam DeathWalker]

No that a quote from the wow forums from some guy complaining about mages.

Well the above posters sure make a very very strong case for having shaman/priest/3mage groups. Gonna have to really think it over again. I think one tank is overall worth it, maybe i have to do some 5 or 10 man content at some point who knows? The Orc Shaman and female undeads is a great idea also heh.

Boy thats bad news about AV might not get in all 25 ... dang. I guess I really have to wait and see how http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?zone=4197 ('http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?zone=4197') wintergrasp works out. Seems like that and cities are my only options. Kinda sad really.

I kinda dont understand the world will have say 3000-4000 enemies in it at any one time, I'll be on a pvp server and there is no where I can go where I will run into them? They all going to be in instances? Isnt there some kind of enemy stronghold or something? Is there a popular spot where there are lots of instances that people ususaly buff outside of? I see they are safe in their own territory lol ..

The 15X15 BG's are also que 5 at a time? LoL ...

[Jezebel]

for someone who has boxed as many characters as sam has (in any game) im sure hes aware of the difficulties and time involved.. having to res/repair targets and regroup after a while, for example. people that play single characters might say the same thing to us about playing 5 or 10. its all about perspective and what you enjoy. sam obviously enjoys pushing the envelope =P

as for tremor totems.. he's planning on starting after WoTLK. at which point totems will be raid-wide. 5 staggered tremor totems will completely eliminate fear within their radius.

micromanaging 5 shamans, 5 priests and 15 mages wont, i think, actually be all that difficult (aside from general boxing issues like lag, losing /follow, etc) as long as you keep things simple.

hotkey: castsequence/reset to cycle your totem field.
hotkeys: (example) alt+1 through 5. target groups 1 through 5.
hotkey: (G15, set to toggle on/off) spam r1 chain heal/CoH. obviously, this would have to have an in-game keybinding to trigger casting.. but switching heals on/off with a G15 allows you to start your heals and only have to switch targets depending on which group is being targeted, and theyll start getting healed. you can cast low rank CoH/chain heals all day long.. i cant see mana being an issue unless youre in combat for 10+ minutes straight, with no break to stop and drink.

then, your standard 1-9 keys are purely reserved for DPS/sheep/counterspell, etc with the mages.. which is exactly like playing a single mage, only multiplied by X.

so.. effectively, youre playing your entire healer setup with two buttons. target a group, toggle heals on/off. very simple.

[badashh]

I bet if you ran into a major city and bombed the auction house a few times that would get their attention.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Because my groups are on 5 different computers I have basically perfect autofollow. Of course I can only move one group at a time. So like my leader toon (shaman) will be on the main computer and the 4 followers will be on seperate computers. Autofollow has problems when the leader and follower are on the same computer. I think Ill have little problems with the hardware/control part (just ordered 2 more HP 2335 1920X1200 monitors, so I have 4 of them now and 2 that are 1650X1080 or whatever).

Ya keep it simple is the key for sure, I was reading about macros and scripts all last night and except for buffs I doubt i gonna hardly use them, I just going to target with warrior, then assist arcane barrage, cycle from group 1 to group 5 untill the target is dead. If not dead then do the same again, because only 3-4 mages will attack at one time I won't waste mana.

Lets say its 1Prest/1Shaman/3Mage per group for simple. Because cool down is 3 seconds Ill switch between group in 3/5ths sec each (I can do 3 switch in 2 seconds now)

Start: 3 mages hit
.6 seconds later 3 mages hit again
1.2 3 more
1.8 3 more
2.4 3 more
3.0 first 3 again after cool down.

If target is dead after say 9 mages then I just cycle to the first gorup again, target someone else and repreat. Basically I wont even use macros or scripts, at least for non healing offesive. Thats kinda why a warrior is needed for targeting, Once I lose my assist Im kinda hurting. On the other hand if they are targeting the warrior then they arnt attacking the cloths lol ...

So press one key to cycle between groups, and one key to cast arcane barrage. Then just alternate untill target is dead. Also same thing staggers the totems perfectly.

[Jezebel]

i wouldnt bother cycling your targeted nukes. sure, you may conserve a little bit of mana.. but you also give your targets a chance to run out of range (will happen often, anyway. people will generally see you and run, regardless if youre targeting them or not).. or be healed. since you have 15 mages, one nuke from each mage will nearly always instakill a target. since each mage only needs to cast once per target, you will rarely have mana issues unless youre forced to resort to AoE spam.

i run 5 PC's, also. 2 clients per. moving one group at a time wont work. it will kill your response time and give you that much less time to DPS. just set your /follow on your focus target and switch it between your mages, changing the lead mage frequently to throw people off trying to "kill your main" which many people seem to think will stop a boxer. since all the mages should be set up identically, switching between mages as your lead client shouldnt cause much problem. have two separate follow keys.. one for all your toons, one for mages only. when youre about to engage, stop moving on your main. your alts will stop in a perfect stack behind you. drop your totem field and hit your >Sit hotkey. this will drop all your characters out of follow, and your healers will stand up again automatically as soon as you start your heal sequences. then hit your mage-only /follow key , target your lead mage group with your healer focus hotkey and start your heal macro.

personally, i wouldnt even bother micromanaging heals except, obviously, to change which group is being healed. just start the macro and forget about it so you can focus your full attention on killing with the mages. downloading a good UI with a clear raid bars will help a lot so you can see straight away who in the raid is being targeted by hostiles (the bars turn red) and change your healer focus to anticipate damage. dont worry too much about conserving mana. circle of healing rank1 costs 300 mana. my priest has 11,000 mana and regens 160 mana/5 sec, plus you will have mana spring totem. youd have to be spamming r1 CoH for literally 5+ minutes straight to run OOM. if you havent wiped out any opposition inside of 5 minutse with 15 mages, something si wrong.
So press one key to cycle between groups, and one key to cast arcane barrage. Then just alternate untill target is dead. Also same thing staggers the totems perfectly.

[Draz]

Because my groups are on 5 different computers I have basically perfect autofollow. Of course I can only move one group at a time. So like my leader toon (shaman) will be on the main computer and the 4 followers will be on seperate computers. Autofollow has problems when the leader and follower are on the same computer. I think Ill have little problems with the hardware/control part (just ordered 2 more HP 2335 1920X1200 monitors, so I have 4 of them now and 2 that are 1650X1080 or whatever).

Ya keep it simple is the key for sure, I was reading about macros and scripts all last night and except for buffs I doubt i gonna hardly use them, I just going to target with warrior, then assist arcane barrage, cycle from group 1 to group 5 untill the target is dead. If not dead then do the same again, because only 3-4 mages will attack at one time I won't waste mana.

Lets say its 1Prest/1Shaman/3Mage per group for simple. Because cool down is 3 seconds Ill switch between group in 3/5ths sec each (I can do 3 switch in 2 seconds now)

Start: 3 mages hit
.6 seconds later 3 mages hit again
1.2 3 more
1.8 3 more
2.4 3 more
3.0 first 3 again after cool down.

If target is dead after say 9 mages then I just cycle to the first gorup again, target someone else and repreat. Basically I wont even use macros or scripts, at least for non healing offesive. Thats kinda why a warrior is needed for targeting, Once I lose my assist Im kinda hurting. On the other hand if they are targeting the warrior then they arnt attacking the cloths lol ...

So press one key to cycle between groups, and one key to cast arcane barrage. Then just alternate untill target is dead. Also same thing staggers the totems perfectly.



Its like he doesnt even read what anyone is saying. Its VERY obvious YOU have never played WoW before, Some things just dont transfer over from EQ very well. I suggest you run a group of 5 SOMETHINGS(doesnt really matter what) to 60+ to get a feel for the game and how everything works. Mages would work best since you can then PL every other group with them, and you can still use them for DPS once everyone is 70.


You will not have to cycle through groups, you can use keyclone or multiclass and simple press 1 key for 25 toons...IE; hotkey 1 nukes for mages, heals for priests, ect. Its all about the Macro set ups and the addons, not so much switching between computers.

[Jezebel]

there is no difference between learning with 25 and learning with 5. either way he will have to adjust to a new game and learn to manage his setup.

lets read back through your first few posts on this forum and see how we can criticize you for asking questions. try to be a little less critical and offer something constructive.

Its like he doesnt even read what anyone is saying. Its VERY obvious YOU have never played WoW before, Some things just dont transfer over from EQ very well. I suggest you run a group of 5 SOMETHINGS(doesnt really matter what) to 60+ to get a feel for the game and how everything works. Mages would work best since you can then PL every other group with them, and you can still use them for DPS once everyone is 70.


You will not have to cycle through groups, you can use keyclone or multiclass and simple press 1 key for 25 toons...IE; hotkey 1 nukes for mages, heals for priests, ect. Its all about the Macro set ups and the addons, not so much switching between computers.

[Draz]

there is no difference between learning with 25 and learning with 5. either way he will have to adjust to a new game and learn to manage his setup.

lets read back through your first few posts on this forum and see how we can criticize you for asking questions. try to be a little less critical and offer something constructive.





Its like he doesnt even read what anyone is saying. Its VERY obvious YOU have never played WoW before, Some things just dont transfer over from EQ very well. I suggest you run a group of 5 SOMETHINGS(doesnt really matter what) to 60+ to get a feel for the game and how everything works. Mages would work best since you can then PL every other group with them, and you can still use them for DPS once everyone is 70.


You will not have to cycle through groups, you can use keyclone or multiclass and simple press 1 key for 25 toons...IE; hotkey 1 nukes for mages, heals for priests, ect. Its all about the Macro set ups and the addons, not so much switching between computers.LETS look back and see what I asked, considering this is now my 3rd post...and you be alittle less hypocritical

[Jezebel]

its your third post using that username. common practice is to ask all your newbie questions and then make another username once you know what you need to know, so you can pretend you knew it all and you were never a clueless newb, as we all were at some point. i also suggest you invest in a dictionary and look up the meaning of hypocrisy, since im quite sure it doesnt mean what you think it means.

Re: Sam..

a warrior will just be wasting a slot in your group makeup. running into melee range while multiboxing in general is a pain.. doing it while trying to manage 24 other characters would be a nightmare. plus it means a whole new set of abilities/macros to manage, and a lot more hotkeys. its just not worth it except when you need a tank for PvE (in which case, id recommend a pally rather than a warrior). if you set up your macro system well, it should only take one or two keypress'to switch your assist focus from one mage to another.. tabbing over or switching PC's, obviously, to directly run that client. Synergy or a KVM switch works great for switching your mouse/keyboard to a new client on another PC without having to actually move to another physical keyboard (as im sure you know already).
LETS look back and see what I asked, considering this is now my 3rd post...and you be alittle less hypocritical

[samfan]

sam is going to redefine what boxing is.

ignore that he has no idea about how works at all, and corrects people when he claims he will "cycle."

one day soon you will see how he has the highest burst dps in all of WOW. Even though right now he's choosing the wrong class for it, and not listening to people about "macros that he'll never use."

He will kill a squirrel with 25 people all landing a nuke at the same time and ask if anyone has ever come close to such massive burst dps. He still thinks there are "zones" he can camp in games, because we all know how amazing PVP is in EQ, and expresses concerns that WoW doesn't cater to someone who can invest that much money into a game that would allow him to singlehandedly win a battleground.

He'll ignore the fact that most times when you're in a BG with a 5+ boxer, it is a loss because it is like running short 4 people even though those 5 can, more or less, gib at will.



See, his understanding about EQ is that they were a lot less lenient in separating boxers from their money and required inputting to each box, which is why cycling was necessary. WoW has redefined the term "character automation" and allows 1 keystroke to be split amongst as many unmonitored clients that you can handle. Imagine if you could do that in EQ sam? No more cycling! Gasp! WoW really has taken the skill out of MMORPGS! He's in for a real treat when he realizes how autofollow is used/not used in WoW because of the keystroke splitting! Mmm!

I can't wait to see how this turns out. People just don't care that he does his 24 boxing in a dead game on useless targets. Time to expand the audience. Take his posts here and multiply the unashamed ego, know-it-all nature by over 9,000. You are chatting with one of the greats, and he will destroy your mindset about boxing.



Even the post title "Thinking about 25 boxing..." Not 5. Not even 1. 25. Not "thinking about learning anything about wow before I post ridiculous assumptions about the game in my half-baked plans." Sam does not need defending. Clearly everyone who knows nothing about a game at all should make an advanced post about how he's planning on levelling 25 characters to max and playing them all at the same time.



Strap yourselves in. Sam has arrived.

[Draz]

its your third post using that username. common practice is to ask all your newbie questions and then make another username once you know what you need to know, so you can pretend you knew it all and you were never a clueless newb,




And thats where ASS-U-ming gets you in trouble. I have never created an account here before. The mods can check the IPs if you wish. I have a pretty good grasp of the english language, other than spelling (seriously, who takes the time to spell correctly lol). And you are a hyprocrit for critizing me for telling Sam to learn about the game, when he even started asking questions in the wrong forum. This is the general forum btw.

*Ahem* According to the board rules, you should ask all questions in the correct forum. So why did you not correct him on this mistake, but yet take the time to make an asnine assumption about something you have no clue about? Hypocrit!

[Sanctume]

Because my groups are on 5 different computers I have basically perfect autofollow. Of course I can only move one group at a time. So like my leader toon (shaman) will be on the main computer and the 4 followers will be on seperate computers. Autofollow has problems when the leader and follower are on the same computer. I think Ill have little problems with the hardware/control part (just ordered 2 more HP 2335 1920X1200 monitors, so I have 4 of them now and 2 that are 1650X1080 or whatever).

Ya keep it simple is the key for sure, I was reading about macros and scripts all last night and except for buffs I doubt i gonna hardly use them, I just going to target with warrior, then assist arcane barrage, cycle from group 1 to group 5 untill the target is dead. If not dead then do the same again, because only 3-4 mages will attack at one time I won't waste mana.

Lets say its 1Prest/1Shaman/3Mage per group for simple. Because cool down is 3 seconds Ill switch between group in 3/5ths sec each (I can do 3 switch in 2 seconds now)

Start: 3 mages hit
.6 seconds later 3 mages hit again
1.2 3 more
1.8 3 more
2.4 3 more
3.0 first 3 again after cool down.

If target is dead after say 9 mages then I just cycle to the first gorup again, target someone else and repreat. Basically I wont even use macros or scripts, at least for non healing offesive. Thats kinda why a warrior is needed for targeting, Once I lose my assist Im kinda hurting. On the other hand if they are targeting the warrior then they arnt attacking the cloths lol ...

So press one key to cycle between groups, and one key to cast arcane barrage. Then just alternate untill target is dead. Also same thing staggers the totems perfectly.This can be done in using KeyClone and the simple macros:

Key 0:
Shaman01_Group1: /castsequence Tremor Totem,,
Shaman01_Group2: /castsequence ,Tremor Totem,

Shaman01_Group3: /castsequence ,,Tremor Totem


Hit 0 every second, and you'll have a tremor totem pulsing every second to break fear.

Key1:
Mage01_Group1 to Mage03_Group1: /castsequence reset=target [target=focus] Arcane Missle,,,,

Mage01_Group1 to Mage03_Group2: /castsequence reset=target [target=focus] ,Arcane Missle,,,

Mage01_Group1 to Mage03_Group3: /castsequence reset=target [target=focus] ,,Arcane Missle,,

Mage01_Group1 to Mage03_Group4: /castsequence reset=target [target=focus] ,,,Arcane Missle,
Mage01_Group1 to Mage03_Group5: /castsequence reset=target [target=focus] Arcane Missle


You hit 1, Group 1 Mages cast Arcane Missile to the target of the focus (your tank).
The next time you hit 1, Group 2 Mages cast.
The next time you hit 3, Group 3 Mages cast.

If the target is dead, and your tank switches target, it starts again with Group 1 Mages shooting.

[Sanctume]

sam is going to redefine what boxing is.

ignore that he has no idea about how works at all, and corrects people when he claims he will "cycle."

one day soon you will see how he has the highest burst dps in all of WOW. Even though right now he's choosing the wrong class for it, and not listening to people about "macros that he'll never use."

He will kill a squirrel with 25 people all landing a nuke at the same time and ask if anyone has ever come close to such massive burst dps. He still thinks there are "zones" he can camp in games, because we all know how amazing PVP is in EQ, and expresses concerns that WoW doesn't cater to someone who can invest that much money into a game that would allow him to singlehandedly win a battleground.

He'll ignore the fact that most times when you're in a BG with a 5+ boxer, it is a loss because it is like running short 4 people even though those 5 can, more or less, gib at will.



See, his understanding about EQ is that they were a lot less lenient in separating boxers from their money and required inputting to each box, which is why cycling was necessary. WoW has redefined the term "character automation" and allows 1 keystroke to be split amongst as many unmonitored clients that you can handle. Imagine if you could do that in EQ sam? No more cycling! Gasp! WoW really has taken the skill out of MMORPGS! He's in for a real treat when he realizes how autofollow is used/not used in WoW because of the keystroke splitting! Mmm!

I can't wait to see how this turns out. People just don't care that he does his 24 boxing in a dead game on useless targets. Time to expand the audience. Take his posts here and multiply the unashamed ego, know-it-all nature by over 9,000. You are chatting with one of the greats, and he will destroy your mindset about boxing.



Even the post title "Thinking about 25 boxing..." Not 5. Not even 1. 25. Not "thinking about learning anything about wow before I post ridiculous assumptions about the game in my half-baked plans." Sam does not need defending. Clearly everyone who knows nothing about a game at all should make an advanced post about how he's planning on levelling 25 characters to max and playing them all at the same time.



Strap yourselves in. Sam has arrived.So you're implying it might be a troll post.

Still, 25-boxing is a good discussion. Even if Sam does not go through his plans, the discussion of 25-box shows that it is doable, but for me, there's no game goals requiring it.
10-man at most for KZ just like how Nixi is doing it. Heck, Grull, a 25-man dungeon has been 7-manned before.

And from the various info on WotLK, 25-man contents will have a corresponding 10-man version.

[samfan]

So you're implying it might be a troll post.

Still, 25-boxing is a good discussion. Even if Sam does not go through his plans, the discussion of 25-box shows that it is doable, but for me, there's no game goals requiring it.
10-man at most for KZ just like how Nixi is doing it. Heck, Grull, a 25-man dungeon has been 7-manned before.

And from the various info on WotLK, 25-man contents will have a corresponding 10-man version.




No, it's not a troll post. Sam is genuine. He has lots of computers hanging from chains in his dungeon, weirs a loincloth / codpiece and brags about hookers and concert tickets. Look him up on the internet if you don't believe me.

I'm saying he is not really looking for discourse. He is looking to share a bit of his glory with you. He knows nothing about WoW, but I guarantee that soon enough any shred of "Sam the Beginner" will be a hazy memory while the infinite SAM DA MAN will reign supreme.

It takes a while of slogging through his references to EQ macros working in WoW to think that he really has that large of an ePeen, but you'll get the drift soon enough. Make way for Sam.



"Why would you bother?" quickly turns to "That's not really relevant." I kid you not, this forum will see a "Highest Burst DPS" thread in the near future, on some frivolous target, with the claims that noone else has even come close to it.

[Jezebel]

i see that the more popular boxing gets, the more people migrate over here from the wow forums. i suppose it was only a matter of time till the community here degraded to that level.

[Draz]

Never have and never will visit or even look at the WoW-forums. Please get off your high horse, if anyone seems to be a bnet tard, it is you.
i see that the more popular boxing gets, the more people migrate over here from the wow forums. i suppose it was only a matter of time till the community here degraded to that level.

[Jezebel]

i wasnt speaking to you. which is why i didnt quote you. dont bother speaking to me again.
Never have and never will visit or even look at the WoW-forums. Please get off your high horse, if anyone seems to be a bnet tard, it is you.

[samfan]

i see that the more popular boxing gets, the more people migrate over here from the wow forums. i suppose it was only a matter of time till the community here degraded to that level.


Is that like stating the obvious in order to sound masterful?

I have no idea of the rest of the community, but Sam Deathwalker is the quintessential boxer, and predates this forum and even WoW by quite a few years. So if your perceptions are limited to this thread, you're incorrect, since it has been posted on many forums that Sam has finally made the leap to WoW.

Even the June 30, 2007 thread from Xzin in Elitist Jerks (which is the first time I heard about this community) has posts about Sam:






For those of you who may have missed it (be glad you did), Sam was active around 2003-2005ish on some of the popular EQ message boards of the time. He played on one of the PvP servers that EQ had (even though EQ's PvP was so broken I refused to play on a PvP server). He had a tendency to boast about his "accomplishments". As in challenge people to see who had the highest burst dps (uhh 6 casters vs 1 person?) or how many thousands of people he killed/owned whatever. I am all for being confident in your abilities but Sam took things a bit.... too far in my opinion. What really highlighted Sam's appearance in the early EQ PvP scene was his online photo gallery shots.

You see, he openly admitted to hiring hookers. He then intentionally posted pictures of said hookers to his online photo galleries. He would have them write on whiteboards about how long he could go for, etc. It was.... weird. I mean, personally if that is his thing then thats fine. Just.... keep it to yourself? Plus - the guy looked a bit.... unkempt? His outfits were a bit out there and combined with his computer setup.... things just got weird.

Then there was his physical setup. It looked like he raided Home Depot and hacked it together with chains and wood and bolts. He basically made a bed, and suspended his monitors in front of him. The idea made logical sense but keep in mind this was the early 2000s - so flat panels were EXPENSIVE. So he used CRTs. That weighed something like 30 lbs each. The whole thing together was just.... amazing. And amazingly weird. Perhaps if he had made it professionally, it would have looked pretty decent - but he just sorta hacked it together from what the pictures showed. Most other WoW setups I have seen have been far more professionally done.

Now, I may not be one to argue seeing as my setup is pretty massive. I mean honestly, I am getting ready to 10 box. But I don't feel the need to epeen war about it. Plus, my setup is professional and very well done. I intend to write about it as soon as I finish the last few parts.

So yeah - Sam was quite the character. Not sure if having him associated with multiboxing is a good thing or not though. I try to bring a level of professionalism to this hobby. To Sam..... I am not entirely sure what it was really nor do I know if he is even still playing EQ or not. If so, I sincerely hope he has figured out a way to control his characters in PvP better. He died a lot in EQ PvP from what I understood - although to his credit he was getting better at PvE from the last that I heard.



So, I'm not entirely sure what the focus of your sweeping generalizations were, but you're catering to probably the most obnoxious not-a-troll-but-genuinely-insane person because you felt that somehow he validates your community's "achievements." In fact, most people I know think of boxing and SAM DA MAN as one in the same, just at a different degree. Never mind that someone already 23 boxed WoW (and could probably handle more since his setup was 23x2, 46 boxes). We're talking 25 here.



Behold, beware.

[Wilbur]

I dont know much about EQ but I do know plenty about wow and I'm surprised no one is setting sam straight on all this. You will not be aoe leveling in any way shape or form to an effective degree, you will not be honor grinding spawn points or anything of the sort. You have one option only and that is to level a single 5 man group at a time.

Sam, every idea you have posted in this thread leads me to believe you need to play a single toon, even if its only for a few weeks of hardcore and then you will have a better understanding of the possibilities of boxing in wow.

QFT. Learn the game first before you decide how you are going to do everything. Also you said you are gonna be putting 5 chars per PC. What specs are they? You said you aren't going to use software, obviously you dont have a clue what we are talking about when we say "software" :P

[samfan]

i wasnt speaking to you. which is why i didnt quote you. dont bother speaking to me again.




Never have and never will visit or even look at the WoW-forums. Please get off your high horse, if anyone seems to be a bnet tard, it is you.




You didn't quote anyone, so therefore you mustn't have been speaking to anyone?



Anyway, here is the audience you are defending:

http://www.samdeathwalker.com/images/BEST1.jpg http://www.samdeathwalker.com/images/samdaman.jpg http://www.samdeathwalker.com/images/Pantera-meandPhil.jpg http://www.samdeathwalker.com/images/BestMe.jpg

[Wilbur]

I'm surprised he decided to switch to WoW. What with the US property market being what it is.

[badashh]

Holy Crap that guy's my landlord. I thought he just wore the codpiece when he picked up rent.

[Wilbur]

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/2919/93228232ft1.jpg

Gentlemen, good evening.

[Toned]

i see that the more popular boxing gets, the more people migrate over here from the wow forums. i suppose it was only a matter of time till the community here degraded to that level.


Is that like stating the obvious in order to sound masterful?

I have no idea of the rest of the community, but Sam Deathwalker is the quintessential boxer, and predates this forum and even WoW by quite a few years. So if your perceptions are limited to this thread, you're incorrect, since it has been posted on many forums that Sam has finally made the leap to WoW.

Even the June 30, 2007 thread from Xzin in Elitist Jerks (which is the first time I heard about this community) has posts about Sam:






For those of you who may have missed it (be glad you did), Sam was active around 2003-2005ish on some of the popular EQ message boards of the time. He played on one of the PvP servers that EQ had (even though EQ's PvP was so broken I refused to play on a PvP server). He had a tendency to boast about his "accomplishments". As in challenge people to see who had the highest burst dps (uhh 6 casters vs 1 person?) or how many thousands of people he killed/owned whatever. I am all for being confident in your abilities but Sam took things a bit.... too far in my opinion. What really highlighted Sam's appearance in the early EQ PvP scene was his online photo gallery shots.

You see, he openly admitted to hiring hookers. He then intentionally posted pictures of said hookers to his online photo galleries. He would have them write on whiteboards about how long he could go for, etc. It was.... weird. I mean, personally if that is his thing then thats fine. Just.... keep it to yourself? Plus - the guy looked a bit.... unkempt? His outfits were a bit out there and combined with his computer setup.... things just got weird.

Then there was his physical setup. It looked like he raided Home Depot and hacked it together with chains and wood and bolts. He basically made a bed, and suspended his monitors in front of him. The idea made logical sense but keep in mind this was the early 2000s - so flat panels were EXPENSIVE. So he used CRTs. That weighed something like 30 lbs each. The whole thing together was just.... amazing. And amazingly weird. Perhaps if he had made it professionally, it would have looked pretty decent - but he just sorta hacked it together from what the pictures showed. Most other WoW setups I have seen have been far more professionally done.

Now, I may not be one to argue seeing as my setup is pretty massive. I mean honestly, I am getting ready to 10 box. But I don't feel the need to epeen war about it. Plus, my setup is professional and very well done. I intend to write about it as soon as I finish the last few parts.

So yeah - Sam was quite the character. Not sure if having him associated with multiboxing is a good thing or not though. I try to bring a level of professionalism to this hobby. To Sam..... I am not entirely sure what it was really nor do I know if he is even still playing EQ or not. If so, I sincerely hope he has figured out a way to control his characters in PvP better. He died a lot in EQ PvP from what I understood - although to his credit he was getting better at PvE from the last that I heard.



So, I'm not entirely sure what the focus of your sweeping generalizations were, but you're catering to probably the most obnoxious not-a-troll-but-genuinely-insane person because you felt that somehow he validates your community's "achievements." In fact, most people I know think of boxing and SAM DA MAN as one in the same, just at a different degree. Never mind that someone already 23 boxed WoW (and could probably handle more since his setup was 23x2, 46 boxes). We're talking 25 here.



Behold, beware.I was 6 boxing EQ back when Vallon Zek first launched in Aug99... I played EQ up untill nov2005 when I moved over to WoW at the time I was 18 boxing, and never heard of Sam untill some one linked a post on the wow forums late last year. I've seen his stuff and it looks like he knew what he was doing for EQ.

EQ and WoW are totally different when it comes to game mechanics and multi-boxing. 5 computers with 5 accounts on each will work but you will need a mix of hardware / software, or just all software. There is no way of sending multiple commands to multiple clients on 1 machine without a software like keyclone/etc... If you are using no software what so ever you would have TONS of wires everywhere and 25 individual machines, reading the post I've seen you have great theorycrafting, but you have an EQ mindset.

Experience the game a little bit and go from there I don't doubt you when you say you are going to 25 box, but start doing it and then post. So we can help / comment on what you're doing instead of going off what you are "thinking" of doing. Because the plan sounds great but it will change drastically when you really set it up. I personally side with the people that say make 5 paladins and get them to 70 and power lvl that way, or the people that say level 1 char to 70 so you understand the game, but whatever works.

[zanthor]

What I love is that some folks are talking like the dual-boxing.com community has no idea who Sam Deathwalker is... he's been a member since near the begining, he's posted here and there about EQ and boxing in general, and has contributed a fair amount to the community.

So he's an odd one, so he's proud he's an odd one, who gives a FSCK.

The man wants to try WoW, he's got some ideas that will work, others that wont, and some that simply can't be answered because no ones tried it. I'd wager that Xzin got a lot of similar crap when he first mentioned the concept, and I'm sure the guy from Team Wizzy did as well... I've had my own friends tell me you can't do that, it won't work... then they watch me do it... and behold, sometimes they are right and I die horribly and painfully... other times, victory is mine.

All said and done, I'd really rather deal with someone like Sam who knows who they are and is comfortable enough to be proud of it than someone who's entire existance in the forums is to badmouth someone else.

I think a LOT of people in this thread need to read:
Community Guidelines - Read Before Posting ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=14540')

[Wilbur]

What I love is that some folks are talking like the dual-boxing.com community has no idea who Sam Deathwalker is... he's been a member since near the begining, he's posted here and there about EQ and boxing in general, and has contributed a fair amount to the community.

So he's an odd one, so he's proud he's an odd one, who gives a FSCK.

The man wants to try WoW, he's got some ideas that will work, others that wont, and some that simply can't be answered because no ones tried it. I'd wager that Xzin got a lot of similar crap when he first mentioned the concept, and I'm sure the guy from Team Wizzy did as well... I've had my own friends tell me you can't do that, it won't work... then they watch me do it... and behold, sometimes they are right and I die horribly and painfully... other times, victory is mine.

All said and done, I'd really rather deal with someone like Sam who knows who they are and is comfortable enough to be proud of it than someone who's entire existance in the forums is to badmouth someone else.

I think a LOT of people in this thread need to read:
Community Guidelines - Read Before Posting ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=14540')


..But... its my job :-(

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well posting is how to see if my ideas are stupid or not. One thing for 100 percent sure is that if you come up with something that isn't smart it will be pointed out to you asap, thats the purpose of forums. Initially my plan was to go 25 mages ... now, based upon what people have said in this thread, I am leaning towards 1 warrior, 5 priests, 5 shaman and 14 mages. If I would have started 3 days ago I would have made 5 mages, if I start today I make a warrior, priest, shaman and 2 mages. Tahts a big difference. Those who want to share their experience can, those who don't want to are not being forced to do so. I was once a noob in EQ (didn't even know which server I was on lol ... ), yet you go to the warrior forum now, or maybe the wizard forum a few years ago, or without doubt ingame on Zek and I am answering questions right and left and arguing over this or that all the time. As can be seen my knowledge of WoW is very limited, but it is in fact a simpler game then EQ, and I am reading 6 hours a day right now during my learning period.

Ya I dont make any bones about it the ONLY reason I am moving to a simpler cartoony looking game is so that more people will hear about (62 people play wow for every one person that plays EQ) me, and reacat with positive or negitive comments. And Ya Ill be killing a moss snake and bragging about evey step I make (although on SamDeathWalker.com mostly). LoL look at the Fantastic Four Cartoon in this thread:

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/retard-rickshaw/35323-sam-deathwalker-hits-115-000-dps-16.html

Don't worry this is the most polite forum in the world compared to where I been, the EQ sk forum is really rough to newcomers.

Ok back to points at hand.

I was not planing to use software, such as keyclone, to broadcast to all clients on a single machine. I know that keyclone is clean and fair but Im not even going to learn a system that is software based, because it is possible that at some point someone at blizzard will conclude that its 3rd party software, even though now that is not the case. Yes cycle though takes time BUT I have a 3 second cool down to deal with also. Yes, someone could run out of range, but they are taking 3 mage worth of damage every .6 seconds, thats kinda fast really. I dont switch keyboards, I can actually cycle though all my guys in 2 seconds in eq. That .5 seconds a cycle. Because of the cool down time, if I only use arcane barrage, over 12 seconds or whatever if I cycle or use keyclone Ill be doing about the same amount of damage.

I can see your point, if you are using keyclone, and in your position I would also, and you can press one key and go to all clients at the same time, then my system seems poor by comparision, but in my case I will have so much money and time invested that I can't take any chanch that my playstyle method will be compromised in the future. I mean they already prohibit delays in keyboard or game pad macros, thats kinda showing restrictions right there. Also if you think you are getting reported a lot, I think you can imagine the number of times GM's will be looking very closely at me ... Also from this thread you can see there is going to be endless ongoing argument http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26308&page=24. Few if any will complain about non software based alt tabing between clients.

Well more and more its slowly becomeing clear that I might need a 10 man group, and a tank. It seems with a warrior, Ill have the pve covered: Tank healing and dps. (and I guess Mage is CC also), and Ill have 10 and 5 man groups also covered. I would never consider the tank for dps, and in pvp I have no intention of getting the warrior to anyones range. I am sure a full Protection Warrior is the highest HP and ability to take hits in the game, and warrior can be undead.



"You hit 1, Group 1 Mages cast Arcane Missile to the target of the focus (your tank).
The next time you hit 1, Group 2 Mages cast.
The next time you hit 3, Group 3 Mages cast."

Thats not really much faster then I am now, I have a finger on the switch group key and a finger on the nuke key, I never move off those keys. Doing the same thing 1000 times a day for 5 years Im fast enough now that I can cycle the two keys just about as fast I can press one repeatedly. In fact think about it for a second: When you repeat a single key you have to go up and down. While you are going up on a key you can similtaionsly be going down on the other key. So actually you can cycle 2 keys as fast as you can reapeate one ....

I am assuming that I can switch clients without delay, I hope that to be the case lol ...

Also I ahve a 6th computer I am not sure what to do with ...

Ok the rabbit fur in that pic started to come off from the back, its supposed to be tight not hanging down. And in the green photo thats Phil from Pantera shaking my hand.

[Sanctume]

"Why would you bother?" quickly turns to "That's not really relevant." I kid you not, this forum will see a "Highest Burst DPS" thread in the near future, on some frivolous target, with the claims that noone else has even come close to it.

There's a vid out there with a shaman critting for over 10k, twice in the same vid clip. Mages could not do that. But for whoever did it, the name did not stick.

[Bloodyeye]

i think one of the other problems aoe leveling with mages is finding enough mobs. I know when my best friend and I level 1 mage each it was hard to find mobs that (1) lots of them and (2) were not casters. The places we did find were small and had to wait on spawns. Not many in BC either, some fun BE's in Netherstorm at 70 though.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya I kinda going south on the aoe stuffs, I am hopeing that I can find a instant spawner mob someplaces lol ...

[Dorffo]

if you leveled up a group of 4 or 5 ZOLO boosting toons you could actually ZOLO up all 4/5 groups simultaneously if you will be logging in 25 at once :D

[Gurblash]

if you leveled up a group of 4 or 5 ZOLO boosting toons you could actually ZOLO up all 4/5 groups simultaneously if you will be logging in 25 at once

If I were to do 25 accounts, THIS would be the way to do it. Level 5 Paladins at once *yes I know but its considered your overhead*. Get them to 70, make your other alts. Get to 10 then boost to 35. Then to 58 in ST. From there pick your poison.

[cepheus]

25 paladins holy shocking? Consecration? what rogue could stand in 25 consecrations? how long? 25 priest holy novas? (fear is still an issue with these classes)
Maybe 10 Shamans + some other class.

I would agree very much to this. I have tried 4x holy nuke specced priets, and they deal quite a punch. Not enough to be efficiant in pvp with 5 priests, but It will definitivly be insane with 25 holy nova specced priests.

I have a little video I made from my holy nova specced priests here:
http://ts.fh-guild.com/div/botanica2.avi

You can see that they are doing decent damage even though they are crap geared.

With priests you would have the mosts utility you would need.

- Aoe (not very strong individually, but if you have 25 of them it wont matter, you would kill someone anyway)
- Aoe healing WHILE dpsing. 5x holy nova heal for quite a bit.
- Button of instant death (25x shadow word:death, sequence them into 2-3 "bunches" so you can insta kill more ofthen. (it have cooldown) 8-10 shadow word deaths should be enough to kill someone I would think)
- Automated healing (every priest prayer of mending on theirself)
- Fear immunity (fearward,will of the forsaken, and last but not least: if everyone is a priest, you can set up a round-robin dispell macro. So each priest will dispell the next in line. you will never get fear on every toon, so there will always be someone to dispell those that get feared.
- unlimited supply on aoe-fears :)

[Sam DeathWalker]

Then there was his physical setup. It looked like he raided Home Depot and hacked it together with chains and wood and bolts. He basically made a bed, and suspended his monitors in front of him.

Don't underestimate the power of pipes!

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/6094/6computersdk3.jpg

[Sam DeathWalker]

This guys opinion of wolk from eletist jerks forum.


07/23/08, 3:57 AM #49 (permalink)
resuemae
Banned


nude
Gnome Warlock


<nomnomnom>
Alexstrasza Paladins will remain the most CC'able healer, and unless I am missing something obvious(?). They will be even more CC'able with blessing(hand) of sacrafice being nerfed.

Shamans will be switching roles with them, however, spending the most time out in the open casting. But, as things stand now, grounding and tremor totems will pretty much overcome mosts buffs paladins get relative to shamans by a pretty large margin, at least versus CC heavy teams.

Predicting the following, but will have to see how it ends up in game:

Best healers while being focused:
Priest > Druid > Paladin > Shaman

Best while left alone to cast:
Shaman > Paladin > Druid > Priest

Best while being actively CC'ed:
Druid > Shaman > Priest > Paladin

Mana conservation:
Paladin > Druid > Shaman > Priest

Offensive ability while healing spec:
Priest> Shaman > Druid > Paladin

Just my opinions by what things look like on paper

If a shaman can out heal a priest while not being attacked, and has almost the offensive ability of the priest (and is obviously more durable), why would I not go no priests and all shamans?

Chain heal is looking just to powerfull for boxer as it seeks out the one that needs healing the most. 8 or so shaman healing a tank as the target with the chains healing the raid seems so powerfull in pve or pvp if the tank is focus of enemy attack. Multiple chain heals from different shaman eliminates any interupt problems. Also it seems if ONLY chain heals are going to be used then 37 or so points is restro is all thats needed. Leaves lots of points for elsewhere.

Lets say 8 shaman, 1 war, 16 mages .... With all the shaman spamming Chain Heals, it matters not who is the target the heals will heal them ...



This is today from a guy in beta:

Yesterday, 3:57 AM #274 (permalink)
Ana
Von Kaiser


Analla
Night Elf Priest


<Renaissance>
Proudmoore Ok I was able to test some of the totems tonight w/ a fellow shaman.

-Healing Stream and Mana Spring both stack if the shaman are in the same party, and neither stack if they are in different parties in the same raid (i.e. in raid you only get one healing and one mana regardless of how many are dropped)
-Mana Tide is limited to the group only.
-Strength of Earth is also limited to group only (not sure if this is a bug or not, although I submitted it as a bug just in case).
-GoA and WF are both raid wide and both buffs can appear on one person. So I guess if an enhancement shaman needed to heal they'd have some spell haste.
-Flametongue is raid wide, but doesn't stack with more then one Flametongue.

EL weapon ticks for about 267 per second when it procs , but no passive +heal amount is currently shown on the character panel. The hot does scale w/ gear. 267 was the amount w/ about 1200 spellpower.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t27030-resto_shaman_wotlk_talents_discussion/p12/

[Bigfish]

Just off how WoW spawns work, killing things fast enough increases the rate at which they spawn. This can be observed in a number of locations and situations. The point is, with a group of 25 characters, I would imagine you could find a nice plot of land to park yourself on, and just kill things as fast as they spawn. How fast this would level a raid group, I have no idea. They wouldn't necesarily even have to be raided. Just 5 5-man groups killing things fast enough to maximize respawns.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Bigfish that is exactly what I invision. I will never be exping in raid formation. 5 5 mans, as you say. If the first group tags dosnt even matter if everyone else does more damage in "eq lite" lol ...

Modifiers:

1 person group = 1.0
2 person group = 1.0
3 person group = 1.166
4 person group = 1.3
5 person group = 1.4

Mobs that are flagged as elite will give twice the amount of experience as a normal mob for the same level.

Elite XP = 2 * XP


Not sure if this applies to groups but:

Higher Level Mobs
XP = (Base XP) * (1 + 0.05 * (Mob Level - Char Level) ), where Mob Level > Char Level


Just need to make sure the mobs are elite and 4 or more levels above the highest in the group. Assuming that holds for groups:

Total XP will be: (Base XP) * (1.2) * (2) * (1.4) if I am in a group killing a elite mob 4 levels higher then the highest in the group. Maybe there is some kind of cap I dont know.

That sounds kinda nuts but I am sure that there will be some real edge over solo killing ...

Lol they dont have their parenthses right I bet the level bonus is .05 X the 4 level different or .2 so its 1.2 instead of the way they have it of 4.2 .. Still that is pretty phat for a single kill.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Just off how WoW spawns work, killing things fast enough increases the rate at which they spawn. This can be observed in a number of locations and situations. The point is, with a group of 25 characters, I would imagine you could find a nice plot of land to park yourself on, and just kill things as fast as they spawn. How fast this would level a raid group, I have no idea. They wouldn't necesarily even have to be raided. Just 5 5-man groups killing things fast enough to maximize respawns.

Also the reason some have said that this does not occur, and the reason it is not always observable is that the code may not kick in untill a ceritan floor of mobs is reached. Like that example of the tower guards, the guy didnt see instant respawns untill the total number fell below 6 in an area. So certian areas may have a lower limit of mobs before the code kicks in. So someone instantly killing a single mob wont observe the effect and conclude it does not exist. Also if you want insant respawn you must kill instantly, how many kill exp mobs in under 1 second?

[temuchin]

I multiboxed in EQ as well as in WOW. You wont have any problems multiboxing in WOW but there are differences.

First of all, these guys talk about leveling 5 separate groups but there is no comparison, leveling 5 groups to 70 in WOW takes less time than leveling one group to 50 took in EQ, let alone to lvl 70 or 80 plus AAs etc. Contrary to what you've heard, grinding is the most efficient means to lvl in WOW just as it was in EQ. The first guys to 60 and 70 on most servers were lone DPS classes (hunters typically) who grinded mobs and skipped quests. Min/maxing JUST grinding you can expect to finish about 25% faster than someone who does all the quests and spends time running around. Keep in mind however that raids pay a substantial exp penalty, and you'll be leveling each group independently. Also keep in mind that starting with Burning Crusade, grinding exp might be faster but wont necessarily be the best way to level. A substantial time sink especially early in your career is faction reputation... questing is the most efficient way to grind faction so it might make more sense to just do the quests.

In terms of utility, however they're right, unlike EQ which allowed more discretion in grouping raids and encounters, WOW is a much more regimented game. Most content is not suitable for a full 25 man raid. Dungeons since patch 2.x do not allow more than 5 characters, 10mans are limited to 10, and every battleground save AV does not support 25 man teams. World PVP (even on PVP servers) does not exist in WOW that support 25 combatants.

Of course WOW raiding is heavily based on EQ, down to the fact that Jeff Kaplan and Afrasiabi were recruited by Blizzard for their roles running LOS and FOH in EQ, the mechanics of the game are very different. For one thing there are much more active demands in raids in terms of dynamic positioning and tanking than in EQ. Most raids past tier 1 mandate that you actively move your characters as well as spam agro with your tanks during the course of the battle, if you can make 25 man raids work given the greater mob AI in WOW that would be awesome but both holding agro and positioning your characters takes much more work than in EQ. Not to mention dispelling/counterspelling etc. Also keep in mind that you're going to have to have separate spell rotations for each class not only between characters for healing but also with each individual character to get the DPS required. To contrast it to EQ for example to play a dps warrior you have to actively watch the swing timer in order to properly apply slam and mortal strike (not to mention WW and HS when mana permits) and that's ONE character, you'll need to be doing separate calculations for 15 dps in raid. To relate it to EQ every class is like playing a dumbed-down version of EQ's bard. There's less thinking and situational judgment in WOW than in EQ but timing is important, and there's a good deal of button mashing. You wouldn't exactly call it "skill" but you do have to move each character when your boss mod tells you to move or press the button when your swing mod tells you to swing. Some encounters such as Teron Gorefiend in BT basically involves one raidmember playing a minigame during the course of the encounter, it could take all your concentration to get through that single part, let alone manage your other 24 characters. I dont think it's impossible but IMO it would require more automation in macroing than is acceptable to Blizzard to solo some raid encounters.

Overall, boxing is much easier in WOW than EQ. Basically boxers in EQ were the best of the best, people who knew their classes inside and out.. and playing 2 characters was harder than playing 1, playing 3 was harder than 2 etc. In WOW, macros and add ons make boxing much easier than playing a single character, granted that you have your keyboard splitter/software correctly in place. For example boxing 5 shaman gives you the luxury of ignoring basic cooldown management and timing that playing 1 shaman necessitates... for example dueling a warrior as a single shaman, you'd have to wait for him to activate his global cooldown so you can get some distance from his intercept, fake his pummel with a .5 sec LB etc. Versus a mage you have to save the cooldown on your ES in order to interrupt the right spell or have decent timing to get your grounding totem up before sheep and after ice lance. Boxing gives you a much easier time of it... personally boxing shaman, I dont even have to bother interrupting heals or spells. worry about totem cooldown management, or think about counterspells, silences/fears... only to crank out max DPS in short order.

CAN you run 25 characters easily? Sure I'm not sure what the point would be... you can get as good gear a month or so later simply by having a single decent arena team.

[Sam DeathWalker]

We need to see what wintergrasp brings to the table. Its a whole zone, no limits to number of people, everyone can enter at the same time. ...

Someone did 10 box some raid so maybe some are more boxer friendly, who knows. Ya probably Ill level up 25 and then have to fight in groups of 10 or 5 or whatever, at least I can pick a solid 10 man team from my 25 or something, I don't know. Maybe attacking cities .. I mean I go into the enemy area someone will attack me I assume. I mean horde goes to the allaince starting city and no one bothers to attack them? How is that?

[Ellay]

I'd say give it a shot, open up 25 trial accounts and you've got 10~ days or so to mess around with what you want to try, even if it is low levels you can get a feel for the game and how it plays out without any loss on your end.

[Bena]

I get the feeling that EQ is more pvp orinted than wow. Yes you can go into the capital cities but you'll be swarmed with never ending npcs that will kill you. I'm not even sure how much if any xp you get from killing another faction. What I see is that you'd get to an area.. something like kara entrance or something, wipe the players there and the people will just simple stop going there while you just sit there. Either that or the whole server is going to go after you and end up camping you.
We need to see what wintergrasp brings to the table. Its a whole zone, no limits to number of people, everyone can enter at the same time. ...

Someone did 10 box some raid so maybe some are more boxer friendly, who knows. Ya probably Ill level up 25 and then have to fight in groups of 10 or 5 or whatever, at least I can pick a solid 10 man team from my 25 or something, I don't know. Maybe attacking cities .. I mean I go into the enemy area someone will attack me I assume. I mean horde goes to the allaince starting city and no one bothers to attack them? How is that?

[Lorune]

I'd say give it a shot, open up 25 trial accounts and you've got 10~ days or so to mess around with what you want to try, even if it is low levels you can get a feel for the game and how it plays out without any loss on your end.Unfortunatly this does not work anymore, they limited it to 3 trial accounts on one IP :/

[Wilbur]

Proxy + diffrent email addresses = win

[Kyudo]

ust need to make sure the mobs are elite and 4 or more levels above the highest in the group. Assuming that holds for groups:

Total XP will be: (Base XP) * (1.2) * (2) * (1.4) if I am in a group killing a elite mob 4 levels higher then the highest in the group. Maybe there is some kind of cap I dont know.

That sounds kinda nuts but I am sure that there will be some real edge over solo killing ...
Again you are showing your inexperience of not having played WoW much I'm afraid. Good luck finding large groups of elite mobs outside of instances that respawn at a reasonable rate.

If it's instances you are talking then fine. Go with AoE heavy groups, be a level or so higher, and just AoE your way through. If you are 4 levels lower however, you'll simply die.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Just need to find one that respawns instantly when killed instantly, maybe there is no such thing, who knows. Ok if I can't find eleits I go with mobs just 4 levels above ... Base X 1.2 X 1.4 is also fine.

[Kyudo]

I posted earlier in this thread about areas with respawn rates that are sustainable for grinding with multibox group. I posted 2.... Because they are the only ones I know of that still exist, and both are below L25....

Google "fast respawn wow" and similar searches, I've done it before, they are VERY few and far between...

And Btw Fur, even Tyr's hand and Hearthglen are non elite now.

[Ellay]

I think 20 boxing would be more doable and then outfit a group of 5 others to compliment your set, which can fill in the tanking / healing roles, so that you can just go all out DPS. 20 Shaman would work wonders in this scenario.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well right now I am leaning to 8 restro shaman for tremmor totams and chain healing max talents, for my defensive. and 1 war for tank and 16 mages for offensive.

Just can't see priests given how the chain heal is just so great for multi boxers.

And I am hoping that with 16 mages killing mobs instantly that some locations where mobs are not ususaly killed insantly might be found newly to respawn instantly. Thats all complete speculation though.

Right now working on switching clients without keyclone but ...
also not sure how yet how to reduce background clients rendering without keyclone either heh ...

Maybe a dumb version of keyclone that does not allow broadcasting (and thus would be less objectionable over the long term), but just allows switching and control of background and foreground rendering speeds (like WinEQ) might be considered.

That Jumpkeys might be the ticket, at least for switching.

[Otlecs]

common practice is to ask all your newbie questions and then make another username once you know what you need to know, so you can pretend you knew it all and you were never a clueless newb,
Damn!

Wish I'd thought of that!

:wacko:

[Bena]

You should really get a few trial accounts and log in. Get your feet wet and see the game mechanics.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ill just pay for one month of 25 accounts, I really need to see how 25 work. Still its best to wait untill about 4 weeks after wolk is released so everything is stable and I can know what is best and what isnt without worry about change.

[Wilbur]

No. Dude. See how one group works. We aren't saying for no good reason. I've played EQ for several years and WoW for a couple. The gameplay you are thinking of is imagining that most 25 man content can be done with a straight trinty (Tank, Pew Pew, and Healers). Take a look at what Nixi has done recently, soloed the 10 man raid instance. Look at his group composition and look at what happens in the fights. Now watch some videos of boss fights, The combination you are talking of wont work if you are still maintaining you are going to do this bullshit "cycling". You will need to be using several diffrent abilities simultaneously on boss fights, targeting diffrent mobs in order not to wipe your raid. You need to look at the techniques and hardware/software setups we are currently using. Fights aren't as forgiving in WoW as they are in EQ. It can go from fine to wiping in a few seconds due to a couple of missed interrupts.

You really need to read up a shitload of the stuff on our wiki and boards.

[Syrass]

I really think the following question needs to be asked:

What do you wish to achieve with your group? IE are you looking at doing PVE content - soloing instances and possibly raids? PvPing? Terrorising a server in world PvP?

Now I understand that this is to be post WotLK, so we are still getting data on how it will look.

Healing Classes
Your obviously looking for a healing/ressing class and both the Shaman and the Priest are suitable. I basically can't see a 25 man boxing group going without at least 1 Shaman, and the Priest will most likely create the better healer while moving. Both Chain heal and Circle of Healing appear to be a raid (several 5 man groups combined) boxer's dream. It appears they will both be "smart" heals that will hit the right people (WotLK onwards).

Tanking Classes
A single warrior tank basically will not be viable IMO. I would suggest a paladin for this role, mostly because they have AoE tanking abilities. They also Passively tank well, but it would appear that this may change somewhat in the expac. This would also provide the paladin buffs to your groups.

DPS Classes
The mage has some interesting abilities, but I'm unconvinced that this is the class to play. You are going to have mixed success with AoE grinding, and honestly, I'm not sure anyone has cracked the secret to this style of leveling. The Shaman is tried and proven to be quite effective against multiple mobs. They have instant casts, chain lightning (a spell that hits 3 targets), resurrection, self resurrection, possible fear mitigation (tremor totem) and can actually do partial tanking via their earth elemental totem.

I actually believe that a mix, mostly of Elemental Shaman(DPS) and Holy Priests(Healers) will be the way to go, and this "group" would probably be the best outdoor PvP setup.

It should be noted that Shaman have a larger pool of usable items due to their "Mail" clasification armor, but that they have more difficulties finding "ranged" slot items. Shaman should also be able to grind mobs in open zones without need for a separate tank, something that a mage will have more problems with.

Diminished XP from "Raid" grinding
I'm not exactly sure what the formula is, but I was under the impression that XP gained worked like this:
% that tapping party did of the mob is applied to the party
The XP applied is done in a ratio based off level (IE a level 70, a level 30 and a level 20 are in the party, the 70 soaks most of the xp, the 30 gets some, and the 20 gets less)
The XP then has a multiplier based on the mobs level vs the players level. the XP is about "correct" between -3 and +3 levels. I think there is a limit to where you get XP, and that is your (level/10)+5 below you will give you XP (I think this changes at very low and very high levels).
The XP is then doubled if your rested.

When in a party (2-5 people) there is a party bonus. This appears to be small, but based off your group size.
When in a raid (2-40 people, selected by modifying the party to a "raid") you receive a penalty.

IE: if you had 5 groups that all are separate, that all do 20% of the mobs health, the tapping party will get 20% of the mob's value of XP, and get to loot it.
If you had 5 seperate groups killing their own mob, each character will get about 20% of the mobs XP.
If you had a raid (of 25) that killed 5 mobs, each member would get a little less than 20% of the mobs XP (assuming all things equal).

I hope this is of assistance.

[puppychow]

Sam isn't going to PVE, he thinks he's going to run around with a 25 man mob in the world and be an unstoppable PVP army.

Keep in mind that leveling 25 characters to 80 is going to be eye-gougingly horrible. Insanely, awfully, terribly, mind-numbingly boring. There are no magic spawns where you can just kick back and AoE for 50 levels, the fastest ways (instance boosting with a level 70 pally tank) still require lots of moving from A->B->C and repairing and are not "hands off". Even the ST trick from 35-55, which will probably get removed eventually, is only 35-55. Leveling 60-80 will be painful, you'll have to take groups of 5 into instances and run them over and over and over and over.

And I really think you are overestimating how good 25 players controlled by 1 person in PVP is going to be - you may gank a lot of solo nubs questing, but really, you could do that easily with 2 or 5 players. Halaa or the terrokar towers can sometimes get heavily contested, your 25 man army will have virtually no chance if a 10-15 man raid force decides to take you out. And every day you will find plenty of people who will do nothing more than hunt your team down and kill you, over and over and over.

Finally, Blizzard constantly juggles class balance - at the beginning of TBC melee was very underpowered, hunters were terrible, now near the end melee (rogues) are very powerful and hunters very good. So while you may roll 25 of the "OP" class (almost guaranteed to be deathknights), you may find a month or two later they are suddenly not so OP anymore.

[Xzin]

And every day you will find plenty of people who will do nothing more than hunt your team down and kill you, over and over and over.

I disagree. It will be more likely that nobody goes near him as he can 1 shot entire groups. But who world PvPs anyway? BGs? Good luck getting them all in AV.

[Bena]

This.. I can see some bored guild forming a raid and going after him for the novelty of it but outside of that.. world pvp in wow is non existent. You get your one/one pvp in contested areas but that's just that one on one. Again EQ and WOW two different games.


I disagree. It will be more likely that nobody goes near him as he can 1 shot entire groups. But who world PvPs anyway? BGs? Good luck getting them all in AV.

[SilverSlice]

i can image the guild application where it says

i multibox 25 char can i join your guild please. i have cleared karazhan, gruuls and marg so far..


or a multiboxer with 20 char. creating a guild and looking for tanks and healers :) now that would just be cool


Silver

[Sam DeathWalker]

Diminished XP from "Raid" grinding
I'm not exactly sure what the formula is, but I was under the impression that XP gained worked like this:
% that tapping party did of the mob is applied to the party
The XP applied is done in a ratio based off level (IE a level 70, a level 30 and a level 20 are in the party, the 70 soaks most of the xp, the 30 gets some, and the 20 gets less)
The XP then has a multiplier based on the mobs level vs the players level. the XP is about "correct" between -3 and +3 levels. I think there is a limit to where you get XP, and that is your (level/10)+5 below you will give you XP (I think this changes at very low and very high levels).
The XP is then doubled if your rested.

When in a party (2-5 people) there is a party bonus. This appears to be small, but based off your group size.
When in a raid (2-40 people, selected by modifying the party to a "raid") you receive a penalty.

IE: if you had 5 groups that all are separate, that all do 20% of the mobs health, the tapping party will get 20% of the mob's value of XP, and get to loot it.
If you had 5 seperate groups killing their own mob, each character will get about 20% of the mobs XP.
If you had a raid (of 25) that killed 5 mobs, each member would get a little less than 20% of the mobs XP (assuming all things equal).

That does not appear to be correct

http://www.free-wow-leveling-guide.com/warcraft-world-leveling/power-leveling/

They claim that if you tag if first and everyone else who attacks the mob can also get exp from it there is no exp loss. ONLY if those who attack it cannot get exp from it (i.e. are way over its level, and yours) do you lose exp. My plan is to level everyone up at the same time, so all will be about the same level.

I'm not chosing classes based on a bunch of factors just on very few. Fear will kill boxers, so I need shamans. Shaman Chain Heal is ideal for boxers so I kill two birds with one stone and take shamans. Tank, who has most HP/AC - warrior no brainer. DPS. What class has the most damage, fastest casting, longest rage, lowest recycle time, single target nuke? Arcane Barage for Mag is the clear winner. My eq guys cast ONE HEAL, and the wizards cast ONE (maybe two if mob lives that long) Nuke. I am chosing a heal and a nuke.

I am not planing to aoe grind ...

Mostly plan to pvp but as everyone points out there is little or nothing for 25 group to do in pvp currently, again we need to see what wintergrasp turns out like. BG and Arena is out. MOST raids is out, surely SOME raids will be tank and spank friendly. Maybe I will just have to have 25 but do 5X5's ... unless they change the queing system to keep raids together or something. Of course I can start a guild, and do raids that way (like everyone else does lol).

I can only move one group at a time so even assuming the priest is better healing while being attacked or while moving, 4 groups won't be moving. Shaman does both, anti fear and heal (and is more durable the priest).


Im trying to watch movies but the best I can find are 640 X 480 and they look horrible on my 1920 X 1200 monitor. Are their any really high rez (1080i or 720p) wow videos out there?


Seems lot of complaining about "premade" raids in AV:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2215433172&postId=22153447260&sid=1#163


It is insanely easy to get your teamates into an AV right now without 15+ minute queues.

How? "ok everyone, Q in 3, 2, 1 NOW!"

Wait 3 minutes, if everyone gets the same AV, you go. If not, don't, do again. Almost always works out.

There are even mods that do it for you


Lots of QQing on the wow forums about "pre mades" and "av afkers" ... It appears that boxers sure have an edge in that all their characters are on the same page, seems in AV 1/3 is afk and the rest have like 10 who are following their core statagy to win and the rest are farming honor or just doing whatever. Ya a 25 boxer would get completly destroyed by a codenated 15 people easy, but against random oppenents with no plan?

Also if I play during dead hours (3 am pst) its a lot more likly that my guys will end up together in the same AV BG, also there is a way to choose the one you get I think but not all 25 will get it, but who knows .. ?

[suprahunter]

taking instant gib to a whole new level... :thumbsup:

[Syrass]

Diminished XP from "Raid" grinding
I'm not exactly sure what the formula is, but I was under the impression that XP gained worked like this:
% that tapping party did of the mob is applied to the party
The XP applied is done in a ratio based off level (IE a level 70, a level 30 and a level 20 are in the party, the 70 soaks most of the xp, the 30 gets some, and the 20 gets less)
The XP then has a multiplier based on the mobs level vs the players level. the XP is about "correct" between -3 and +3 levels. I think there is a limit to where you get XP, and that is your (level/10)+5 below you will give you XP (I think this changes at very low and very high levels).
The XP is then doubled if your rested.

When in a party (2-5 people) there is a party bonus. This appears to be small, but based off your group size.
When in a raid (2-40 people, selected by modifying the party to a "raid") you receive a penalty.

IE: if you had 5 groups that all are separate, that all do 20% of the mobs health, the tapping party will get 20% of the mob's value of XP, and get to loot it.
If you had 5 seperate groups killing their own mob, each character will get about 20% of the mobs XP.
If you had a raid (of 25) that killed 5 mobs, each member would get a little less than 20% of the mobs XP (assuming all things equal).

That does not appear to be correct

http://www.free-wow-leveling-guide.com/warcraft-world-leveling/power-leveling/

They claim that if you tag if first and everyone else who attacks the mob can also get exp from it there is no exp loss. ONLY if those who attack it cannot get exp from it (i.e. are way over its level, and yours) do you lose exp. My plan is to level everyone up at the same time, so all will be about the same level.

I'm not sure exactly what your suggesting isn't correct, and I'm happy to put up my hand to say I'm incorrect.

1. If your not in the group that tagged the mob, your not getting XP from it (those 20 characters aren’t in the tagging group, they get 0XP from the kill).

2. There was a change (and I haven’t done this, so I am working from memory - and I'm not near my machines to specifically test it) that reduced the XP that you get from having people outside the tagging group help you.

This stops you creating a 5 man group - with a 20 man raid behind them (but not grouped with them), the 5 man group taps it, the 20 man raid also opens and you kill the mob with 25, distributing the XP from the mob kill to just 5. Or more simply, having a mate run around with their level 70 ripping up the boars after you tag them on your level 10. I'm fairly sure in this case, your XP gain (on the level 10) is based on the percentage damage done to the mob. If the level 70 was in the group, you would receive a percentage of the kill based on your level difference to your party members. The 70 would take most of the quota (and not actually get any XP due to the calculations done afterwards) and your 10 would gain an amount.

3. When your in a party, you get a party XP bonus from mob kills. It is small, but I believe it is to encourage grouping in outdoor common areas. When your in a raid, you receive a raid penalty on mob kill XP (This may require further investigation, I believe the amount can be shown the combat log - again, I am not at my computers to test).

[Syrass]

I'm not chosing classes based on a bunch of factors just on very few. Fear will kill boxers, so I need shamans. Shaman Chain Heal is ideal for boxers so I kill two birds with one stone and take shamans. Tank, who has most HP/AC - warrior no brainer. DPS. What class has the most damage, fastest casting, longest rage, lowest recycle time, single target nuke? Arcane Barage for Mag is the clear winner. My eq guys cast ONE HEAL, and the wizards cast ONE (maybe two if mob lives that long) Nuke. I am chosing a heal and a nuke.

I am not planing to aoe grind ...

Mostly plan to pvp but as everyone points out there is little or nothing for 25 group to do in pvp currently, again we need to see what wintergrasp turns out like. BG and Arena is out. MOST raids is out, surely SOME raids will be tank and spank friendly. Maybe I will just have to have 25 but do 5X5's ... unless they change the queing system to keep raids together or something. Of course I can start a guild, and do raids that way (like everyone else does lol).

I can only move one group at a time so even assuming the priest is better healing while being attacked or while moving, 4 groups won't be moving. Shaman does both, anti fear and heal (and is more durable the priest).

Class Selections

I agree that for 25 Box, shaman will be very valuable, and I do agree they should have a presence. They are viable as both a healer (especially in boxing) and as a DPS.

Arcane Barrage is nice, but if your rotating through groups and waiting for the 3 sec CD to be off, why not just cast a spell that takes 3 sec if your not going to be moving? They will do a lot more damage, but the benefit of Barrage is that it is instant - you cast on the run. If your planning on moving like this, you would want a complimenting heal (instant) where CoH (Priest) is far superior than chain heal (or lesser healing wave which may take over the spot of Chain heal in WotLK.

As this doesn’t appear to be the case (about moving and casting on the run), a Frostmage setup may be the way to go using Frostfire/Frostbolt. As the talents are still being "polished", its hard to tell, but it may be possible to go for a shatter combo setup. It may also be useful to use Arcane Missile, as this turns your characters to face the mob when they lock on (assuming the mob is within 180deg) and can be talented to use low agro - meaning your tank has more chance of holding the mob (or less time spent trying to hold it). Just remember that Mages defend themselves very actively. If a mob is on a mage while your boxing - he has a low survival probability.

As for the tank selection, you want the character with the most life and armor? At 70 (and probably 80) that is a druid. Can the druid hold agro without being micro managed? I don't think so. The paladin forms (in my eyes) the best tank for boxing as it creates agro in a passive manner. This means you can focus on your groups more.

Got frost mages going? It appears that an unholy/Frost Deathknight will increase their damage by up to 9%. Got Elemental Shaman spamming LB - Try a Moonking Druid for a potential 6% damage increase that can cast Wrath in approximately the same rotation. A Ret Pally Tank may add 2% damage and 3% haste in WotLK and still be able to tank.

How stuff is currently done in WoW (Macros and things)

Basically when boxing in WoW you use the ingame /follow command. This allows your character to "train" behind another player of the same faction. The character will simply turn to face that character then run after them as they move. This means that most boxing teams will have a "main" and the rest on follow. People then duplex commands to characters, usually creating simple in game macros (Blizzard implemented this feature, and supports the use of these macros). In its simplest form this means that your main will target something, you hit a key and that character will start to cast (say FFB) and then duplex to the other 24 and they will hit the macro that - 1. targets the thing your main character is targeting, 2. Cast FFB.

This means that you move one character and the rest follow - you don't duplex the movements across. And you press one button to duplex groups into uniform movements.

This means that you can have the movement of one character, run after something and Barage it down, all 25 characters (effectively) running together and casting while on the run. Based on this assumption, I would suggest priests would be the most suitable class as a healer.

Raids

At the moment, no battleground will let you queue 25 characters into the same game through basic in game means. There are mods that let you do this fairly effectively, and you can even place an "auto join" threshold. IE if 20 of your characters get the same game, they will simply join.

Having a tank suggest PvE content. While I understand this isn't the focus, I'm sure that the possibility of this aspect of the game shouldn't be ruled out. Most PvE raids don’t work off the same as the 5man "standard". In 5 man wow, you expect a tank a healer and 3 DPS. In raids it depends on the encounter - but its more like 1-3 tanks, 7-8 Healers, 15 or so DPS.



Disclaimer: This isn't the only way, just the way that many seem to use, and it seems to work well. All people are people, therefore we hope they have thought processes and the ability to make decisions. If you are incapable of making your own decisions, go away now. Much of this is simply theory, and may be untested on this scale. I don't know everything, I am not God today, even if I think I am.

[Sam DeathWalker]

It changes a lot of my anayisis if I am able to auto follow one with 25, it did not appear to me that such was possible, gonna read up on it now. I need a tank for pvp also so that I can follow that lead character and target off him (assist), so he has to be hardy and stay up. Also if he draws fire then fire is not going to the weak mages. Thats why 4 shaman are in his group ..

But let me see about this duplex or 24 auto follow 1.

Well ya you can do it. Maybe I am completly wrong ... they do say that if you send the identical signal to multiple clients its legal, which means of course that keyclone is legal, and if they do change it I would think given their current stance they would have to give a warning before banning if they change the policy:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5288579356&pageNo=1&sid=1


Q u o t e:
Semantics issue #2:
Software (such as Keyclone, Octopus, etc) to emulate a keyboard multiboxing solution is, by nature, "3rd party". Is "3rd party software" synonymous with "bot" or "automation"? Are all types of "3rd party software" bannable?
Likewise, hardware, by nature, is "3rd party". What kinds (or uses) of 3rd party hardware are bannable?

Is it sending an identical signal to all client windows or switching between them to send commands? Not automation.
Is it playing the game for you, or rather, for one of your client windows? Automation.
All hardware is considered neutral as long as its commands and features are not being used to automate gameplay.

Ok Ill reply in full tommorow looks like I just might move to using keyclone and sending same signal to all clients at the same time ...

And you are right about moving/not moving, its not resonable to claim that Ill use chain heal because Im not moving and then use an instant on the mages because I am ...

[Syrass]

It changes a lot of my anayisis if I am able to auto follow one with 25, it did not appear to me that such was possible, gonna read up on it now. I need a tank for pvp also so that I can follow that lead character and target off him (assist), so he has to be hardy and stay up. Also if he draws fire then fire is not going to the weak mages. Thats why 4 shaman are in his group ..

But let me see about this duplex or 24 auto follow 1.
Fairly simply, you have your WoW action bar. You can write a macro (/follow Samdeathwalker) and place it on "3" so that you simply send a keyboard stroke of "3" to 24 clients.

Most wow boxers will run a contingency plan for when their "main" goes down, but I guess with 25 you can probably "Waste" a character as your leader character. In this case, I would actually suggest that you run a paladin. The Protection Paladin is set up for sheer survival through damage absorption. It has an immunity bubble that can be used every few minutes, has the ability to heal, but most importantly survives through mitigation. They are also versatile and can buff your characters (10% extra stats for example) and are "Tough". Fairly simply there will be 4 possible tanks in WotLK - Warrior (I don't recommend this), Paladin, Druid (Moonkin may be an option - or feral bear) and Deathknight(DK).

An interesting twist is that the Deathknight may be what you seek. It appears that it may have an aura to have your group run up to 15% faster, and Area Magic mitigation ability and a self magic absorb mechanic. With the mage "instant" setup you may be able to run down opponents quite effectively. This is yet to be confirmed. DKs may also be able to "pull" opponents to them.

I still personally like the idea of Shaman as the DPS and 5 (or so) Priests. The priests also bring a life buff, and one could possibly bring a Spirit buff that increases spell damage. Shaman also have spells that are similar to baragge - look up "shock" - there are a number of them. The Chain Lightning is awesome in PvP, and works like the chain heal. Basically if you have a group after you - Chainlightning is your friend. At this stage (and we can expect it to get nerfed) Elemental Shaman also get a totem that adds 3% crit to spellcasts. If you had 14 shaman (assume 5 priests and a pally/DK) these would all stack, giving you over a 50% chance to crit with each hit (once talents etc are factored in).

[Sam DeathWalker]

The 3percent crit totem is just for party members.

Assuming movement then comparing instant spells, mage is about 1000 single target damage every 3 seconds. shaman is about the same damage spread over 3 enemies every 6 seconds.

For pure offense mage is still better, unless of course its way overkill and a lot is wasted, which would not be the case with the shamans.


Protection specced Warriors with appropriate gear are the best Boss Encounter tanks in the game. They have the best damage mitigation vs. single targets, and the largest and most versatile array of tools for tanking, which includes threat generating tools such as Revenge, Shield Slam and multiple taunts, many mitigation abilities, and finally a few panic buttons like Shield Wall and Last Stand. The only problem area for warrior tanks is aggro generation, particularly their initial aggro generation is lower. In long fights, all three main tank types actually create comparable amounts of aggro. Finally, Warriors depend more on their gear than any other class (this can also be a boon, because a warrior can increase his abilities further than the other classes with better gear).

http://www.wowwiki.com/Tank

Let me read more about the DK. Im not so sure about agro Ill be killing things kinda fasts anyways. For pvp warrior has the best damage mitigation also I assume.

[Syrass]

The 3percent crit totem is just for party members.

Assuming movement then comparing instant spells, mage is about 1000 single target damage every 3 seconds. shaman is about the same damage spread over 3 enemies every 6 seconds.

For pure offense mage is still better, unless of course its way overkill and a lot is wasted, which would not be the case with the shamans.
Seems that they have just fixed the WoA totem - it does now specifically say "Party" and not "Group". There was information that shaman totems would be raid wide, it seems they have fixed this (in respect to WoA).

The Mages will have a bigger damage output, but fairly simply taking today’s numbers - heavy end game tanks are around 24k life (raid buffed). Mages with fireblast (similar to barrage, but in today’s terminology) do around 1200 damage (quite decent pvp gear).

This means that with 15 mages, and 5 crits from them (Fire mages would usually have around 30% crit), you will "One shot" basically any character out there.

Its believed that barrage will do more damage, and scale better than fireblast has. So to scale that up - I dont see anyone surviving from 15 instants (even the shaman should 1 shot people if there are 15 of them).

The problem here is that your only killing 1 person every 3 seconds. I guess you can thread in fireblast and kill 3 people every 6 seconds, and maybe icelance on the other GCD.

I think you really do need to do a bit of a trial and see what you like. The mages will be viable, IMO, but they wont be very hardy. With this number of Mages, it may even be worth going frost and just icelance spamming people down.

[Sam DeathWalker]

There is a 33/0/38 build that will give shamans full chain heal and up to lightning mastery in elemental (no tow). That would be 24 chain lightning alternating with 24 chain heals, every 6 seconds ... Have to be stationary for 3 seconds of that though. Thats would be some serious serious defensive and very solid offensive.

DK clearly will require lots of micro management to play well to their full abilities. I think a warrior will do most of his mitigation without doing a bunch of things. Ya he brings more to the table, if played properly to his max but with 25 toons its keep it simple.

Looking like female draenei is the way to go considering I have to look at the toons forever ...

[Temor]

If pbaoe works out to level 80, Ill have no problems getting exp. Iv shakerpaged enough in EQ to know that killing 50 mobs at a time is some of the best exp going. My older guys in EQ have 280 or so days played Ill have no problems putting in the time. Only problem might be higher levels attacking me while I am low and weak just to take up my time.

I cannot possibly see running guys in different places at the same time, there is a limit lol ... running two instances at the same time lol ..

People dont have a good grasp on how much extra exp you get if you can do a group for double while the others help them kill mobs faster: If "rested" works like it does in EQ then I get a good bonus cycleing 5 groups.

Start at about post 87 in this thread

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=18187&page=3

Lol this forum is so polite compared to all the others.

You won't have any problems getting experience as pbaoe will work all the way to level 80 when the expansion is released. However, I'm sorry to inform you, but it will take you at least 2 years of constant playing 16 hours a day for you to get all 25 characters to level 80 (when the expansion is released because you're not going to be making level 70 prior to then). How would I know this? For several reason, one is that I've leveled up 5 characters to level 70 at the same time and it takes a very long time to do this. I'm also working on 15 shamans right now on a PvP realm. They are level 22 so far and I'm anticipating that they will all be about level 55 about November of this year.

I've also boxxed in Everquest 1, you didn't indicate that you were using 1 or 2 of Everquest, but since you didn't put the 2 there, I am guessing you boxxed 24 in Everquest 1. World of Warcraft is VERY very different from Everquest. Some of the things you posted that you were going to do in WoW, don't apply. For example, you mentioned you would wait at a zone in to an instance and kill players as they joined. It doesn't work like that in WoW. In Everquest, you could wait at certain areas for players to join an instance. In WoW battlegrounds, you have a mission to do such as cap a flag or kill enemy bosses at certain areas or carry a flag to the opposing base. The WoW battlegrounds don't exist in Everquest 1, they are kind of like the battles you see in 1st person shooters with flag runs, flag capping, etc. A new player will only join a battleground if someone left or if there was an open slot. So waiting for a player to join thinking you're going to kill them when they do is not feasible.

If you do box 25 characters in WoW, you'll be the highest I've seen so far outside of me boxxing 15. So far I've not heard of anyone that has boxxed more than 10 characters in WoW other than myself. My boxxing days started in Diablo 1 in January 1997. And I boxxed Everquest in March 1999 (four days after it was released). So I can understand what it is you want to do.

I stopped playing Everquest in January 2007 and didn't hear of the 'rested' method you've mentioned. In WoW, there is a rested mode where if you are logged out or standing in an Inn or major city, you accumulate time that is applied to getting double experience later on. If you stand in an Inn or a major city and you camp out, this is the best for accumalating time to getting double experience later on. However, the real pay off is only if you leave them that way for at least a week. Anything less and you get double experience only for a little while when you log in and play. So if you're planning to play all 25 characters at the same time and play them every day, you won't be getting double experience for long and it won't be worth even thinking about.

If you're planning to box 25 characters in WoW, I would suggest that you start with that number. Don't start with 5 and get them to level 70 then another 5 to level 70 because it will take at least twice maybe even times as long to get them all to level 70 than it would if you boxxed all 25 of them. However, as I said before, it will still take you about 2 years to get all of them to level 80. Not only are you going to be learning how WoW works (and how different it is from EQ), but you won't be able to get experience in raid form (at least not be able to get very much anyway) plus you'll need to be in a group to do the quests. If you're in a raid, most quests will not be able to be completed because kills won't count etc. Another thing I would suggest is that you don't do any gathering quests that involve collecting many pieces. There are plenty of quests in the world and once you complete the kill quests and single item gathering quests, you can move on to other locations that have quests at the same level that have more kill and single item gathering quests. Another thing I would recommend is that you don't do any dungeons or PvP until you're at max level (80 for when the expansion is released). This would allow you to focus your time on levelling instead of getting equipment because you won't need equipment if you have 25 characters helping the experience group. You should start with a 10-day free subscription with all of your accounts so that you don't have to set up a subscription until after that time. You'll need to buy the game for all accounts and you'll have 30 days to play them all before you have to start paying the subscription.

There are some very big bugs in WoW that probably will never be fixxed. One of them is the dreaded 'Graphics location bug' as I call it. Players that box in WoW know of this bug very well. It involves you getting hit by some mob that you can't see or that you see way off in the distance and you can't hit him or you'll be at one location with your boxxed group showing on the map at a different location but they are really right next to you. The 'Graphics location bug' shows up mostly when you stop for a little while and then move again. At least that's when it happens to me most of the time. Just letting you know about this so when you box in WoW, you're prepared and can handle it. If a mob is hitting you that you can't see, look around corners or off in the distance and you might see him hitting something that isn't there. The best thing to do is either run away or run to where you see him hitting on nothing then you can attack him there.

I would highly suggest you use Octopus or Keyclone as your keyboard replication software. This will drastically help in multiboxing in WoW. I didn't use anything like them for years in Diablo 1 or Everquest 1 or even WoW until a few months ago. Having separate keyboards will work for multiboxing but keyboard replication software helps tremendously in getting things done.

Another suggestion is that you box all 25 shamans. Why shamans? For several reasons. One is that they can all heal. Another is they can all cast direct damage spells or AOE. They all have a few instant cast spells. They all wear Chain (after level 40). They all get ghost wolf form at level 20 (allows faster movement). They all can rez or do their own instant rez (with a reagent). They will all be able to put down 4 totems each at high levels. They will all be able to cast a fire or earth elemental at later levels. In contrast to the mage, the mage wears cloth armor, has direct damage and AOE spells, but doesn't have rez nor heals nor ghost wolf form. The mage has a water elemental later in levels. All in all, the shaman is the best class (in my humble opinion of course) to multibox in World of Warcraft. I would also suggest starting your characters on a PvP realm. If you decide later to move to a non-PvP realm, it will cost $25 per character to move, however if you start your characters on a non-PvP realm, you cannot move them to a PvP realm.

Auto-follow in WoW works 10 times better than it does in Everquest. Macros in WoW work 10 times better than Everquest also. However, the most annoying bug in WoW to me is one where your main that you're assisting doesn't have a target and all your clones do an assist from him (either using his name or focus) and the clones chose random targets nearby. It should be such that if your main doesn't have a target your clones should not get a target when you assist him. Another bug in WoW that is very annoying is that the key labeled 'Target nearest enemy' doesn't always target the nearest enemy. It usually targets something directly in front of you, but it can also target mobs in back of you or to your sides. Everquests 'target nearest enemy' was flawless and I got used to that. With WoW, it's bugged out bad and if you're like me, you don't use the mouse to target mobs in battle, you use the keyboard.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. Good luck and if you do choose to play shaman, choose Orc, they are solid! :-) But if you decide mage is the way you're going to do, definitely choose undead. Whatever you do, please don't choose Alliance!

[Syrass]

I just dont think you pack the punch you want until you get to Elemental Oath/Lightning Overload (current beta Talents)

On the flip side, Natures Blessing and Blessing of the Eternals will increase the healing amount in a big way.

There has also been discussions about Druids getting a CoH style heal, which may even be better than CoH/Chain Heal. I nearly wonder if it isn't worth taking one of each (Priest and Druid), with 3 fully resto shaman to have 5 dedicated healers, this will give you some healing on the move (just bind the CoH and Flourish with the Chain heal button, and if they are moving, the chainheals wont go off).

This will also provide additional buffs to add damage and survivability to the group, as well as the druid possibly adding +heal received by the group. This doesn’t mean that the resto's wouldn't use LB, and that the others wouldn't heal. If that was the proposal, that would suggest 1 Reto Duid, 1 Prot Pally, 1 Holy/Disc Priest, and 22 shaman Resto/Elemetal.

At that rate its nearly worth looking at swapping the Priest for another Resto Druid, and the pally for a feral druid. You could then spec the Shaman into Instant Ghost Wolf, the Druids would take travel form, and the Feral "Tank" would use improved cat form - moving your group faster than normal while in combat.

I really think you need to have a look at the game, see how the interactions work, see how you handle combat in motion, and how the characters "follow" then decide if you can handle the 2.5 sec cast on frostbolt/lightning and if you would instead go for instant spells.

Maybe the Mage/Shaman setup is coming back around.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Cant get elemental Oath with 34. Will have all 5 in Lightning Overload though.

I get improved chain heal 2, and Purification with 37, and 5 of tidel mastry, no natures blessing or blesisng of the eternals ... Maybe there is better ways:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/shaman/talents2.html?tal=35030015032150510000000000000000 000000000000000000005205031305003530002000000






This would allow you to focus your time on levelling instead of getting equipment because you won't need equipment if you have 25 characters helping the experience group That is so true ... Levels is more important then anything.

Well have to log in at 3 am to get my PHAT LOOTZ from LGuK in EQ1 - will finsih later

[merujo]

Gotta think on present content. And present content, where u can put all 25chars to use is on AV, a 40 man Battleground, where u pretty much could turn the tide of battle, but like Zin said, u can only put Queue on party, thats 5 man (u can use and addon to try and q more at the same time, but it takes time)

Classic WoW allowed raids of 40 men, u dont have that now. U wouldnt take much advantage of having 25 toons - dont get me wrong, is a lot of power and will - but u wont have fun IMO. No one will be near u to get instakilled.

I'll try to make it simple according to what i think u are looking for, and what i think:
u won't take advantage of that power unless in some strange, huge ocasion like a world event or a gathering, something that happens like once a year. the idea is impressive, but the leveling would be so hard, and the 70 content available to a man boxing 25 soooooo little, that the effort wouldnt be worth it.

[Tonuss]

Why are these people complaining about mages so much:
It is the WoW forums, there are always people complaining about something. Either their own class is underpowered, or another class (or all of the other classes) are overpowered, or any other thing that they can find to whine about.

[Tonuss]

No, it's not a troll post. Sam is genuine. He has lots of computers hanging from chains in his dungeon, weirs a loincloth / codpiece and brags about hookers and concert tickets. Look him up on the internet if you don't believe me.

I'm saying he is not really looking for discourse. He is looking to share a bit of his glory with you. He knows nothing about WoW, but I guarantee that soon enough any shred of "Sam the Beginner" will be a hazy memory while the infinite SAM DA MAN will reign supreme.

It takes a while of slogging through his references to EQ macros working in WoW to think that he really has that large of an ePeen, but you'll get the drift soon enough. Make way for Sam.



"Why would you bother?" quickly turns to "That's not really relevant." I kid you not, this forum will see a "Highest Burst DPS" thread in the near future, on some frivolous target, with the claims that noone else has even come close to it.I think this forum is much more tolerant of "look at me, see what I did!" type of posts. It's one of the things that most of us like about it, seeing what another person has managed to do via multiboxing. Sam's posts in other forums (the FoH forums are the ones I have in mind) were not really a fit for those forums, they were often more general in terms of subject matter and there was little or no interest in what he was doing with 6, 12, or 500 characters. Here, that is the whole reason for the forums, seeing what we can achieve with multiple characters. If he wants to crown himself king of DPS or king of HKs or king of getting camped by the opposite faction, no one here is going to care enough to start long flame threads. I think people will be interested in seeing how he did whatever it is he is boasting of doing.

In other words, it's like he's come home*.




*And that is a line that will surely generate more ridicule than the universe can handle!

[Sanctume]

Well right now I am leaning to 8 restro shaman for tremmor totams and chain healing max talents, for my defensive. and 1 war for tank and 16 mages for offensive.

Just can't see priests given how the chain heal is just so great for multi boxers.

And I am hoping that with 16 mages killing mobs instantly that some locations where mobs are not ususaly killed insantly might be found newly to respawn instantly. Thats all complete speculation though.

Right now working on switching clients without keyclone but ...
also not sure how yet how to reduce background clients rendering without keyclone either heh ...

Maybe a dumb version of keyclone that does not allow broadcasting (and thus would be less objectionable over the long term), but just allows switching and control of background and foreground rendering speeds (like WinEQ) might be considered.

That Jumpkeys might be the ticket, at least for switching.You might want to look into the "ease of use" of Paladin tanks over Warrior for multi-boxing purposes.
And when it comes to power leveling, a Paladin is best from level 40+.

I just did Zolo on my 2nd poorly geared 70 Paladin and it does the job great.

I've tested just my 70 just this weekend with a 43 Shaman who exhausted his exp bonus. In a 22 minute Zolo fight, I got 78k exp for the 43 Shaman.

Then it got rediculous when I added 3 lowbie Paladins from 38 to 41 in the mix. Each Paladin was taking turns casting DI so after the 3rd DI, I would kill Zolo because I've exhausted 3 shields and my armor's durability was close to 0. My 3rd paladin went from 38 to 50 over 2 "sessions" of Zolo.

Check out Semihrage in The Underbog US for the crappy gear of this paladin tank that p-levels in Zolo Sunken Temple.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Underbog&n=Semihrage

[Sanctume]

And every day you will find plenty of people who will do nothing more than hunt your team down and kill you, over and over and over.

I disagree. It will be more likely that nobody goes near him as he can 1 shot entire groups. But who world PvPs anyway? BGs? Good luck getting them all in AV.25 targets is a nice HK farm. I know I'd send my 4-box team if I see him in a BG.

[Tonuss]

It depends on the server. There are some servers where being "famous" will draw large groups out to cause as much grief as they can. However, there's a difference between wanting to grief the local 3-boxer and wanting to grief the local 25-boxer. A lot of players who would otherwise join in may decide not to bother because they're not interested in being repeatedly flattened while they wait for enough reinforcements to arrive.

Just gotta try it and see.

And I agree that a paladin may prove to be the better tank, they seem to be able to keep aggro on multiple mobs with less effort. Warriors have a number of abilities that they need to use repeatedly in order to keep a mob on them. For a paladin you just cycle through one or two and you should be okay. Plus you can bubble the character that takes aggro from you and you have another one-button-taunt ability as well.

[Sanctume]

Protection specced Warriors with appropriate gear are the best Boss Encounter tanks in the game. They have the best damage mitigation vs. single targets, and the largest and most versatile array of tools for tanking, which includes threat generating tools such as Revenge, Shield Slam and multiple taunts, many mitigation abilities, and finally a few panic buttons like Shield Wall and Last Stand. The only problem area for warrior tanks is aggro generation, particularly their initial aggro generation is lower. In long fights, all three main tank types actually create comparable amounts of aggro. Finally, Warriors depend more on their gear than any other class (this can also be a boon, because a warrior can increase his abilities further than the other classes with better gear).


http://www.wowwiki.com/Tank

Let me read more about the DK. Im not so sure about agro Ill be killing things kinda fasts anyways. For pvp warrior has the best damage mitigation also I assume.Read again, "Finally, Warriors depend more on their gear than any other class" -- this is the most overused bs I often read about class, being more/most gear dependent.

Every tanking class have certain talent trees that improves that particular role. Likewise, a Paladin Tank can also be gear dependent in order to be that role.

I think when it comes to Raid progressions, it is "easier" to gear the Warrior main tank to survive and tank said raid content. It "was" that way in the beginning of WoW because the raid concepts came from EQ. The Paladin tank class has evolved and although has a "little less" mitigation than a warrior, offers other utilities.

Last Stand from a warrior can now be obtained from gear such as the PvP trinket that mimics the Last Stand skill.

Shield Wall is a nice ability on demand, but the Paladin tank has a similar talent called Ardent Defender (it's passive, and scales as your paladin gained more health). Maybe you should check out the Talent Calculator for tanking classes.

Taunt and agro has little to do with PvP. Those "oh shit" abilities such as Last Stand and Shield wall are ok in PvP but if our warrior is focused fires, those skill my not be enough to buy you time to react. The paladin's "oh shit" abilties are much better in PvP: invulnerable bubble every 5 minutes (wtf is that invulnerable cleric spell again?), and Lay on Hand (complete heal + some mana) every hour (less with talents)

[d0z3rr]

There's too much talking in this thread, not enough doing. You could theory craft for weeks, but its really a waste of time. Just go do it!

[Sanctume]

There's too much talking in this thread, not enough doing. You could theory craft for weeks, but its really a waste of time. Just go do it!Do what? He rolls his 2nd idea of warrior priest 3x mages, only to find out he loses agro after the first volley of fireballs--and realized the merit of what a paladin tank can bring to the table: front loading of threat + salvation?

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya really I am hot to get started but there are so many good ideas that I havnt settled on anything yet ... Let me read up on palidens again.

Is there any STRONG agrument against going 24 of the 33/0/38 or 34/0/37 Shamans besided they have to be still to cast heals?

OK here is a 0/54/17 build for a Prot Paliden

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000553051 335200210202150312300500050502000000000000000000


This stops you creating a 5 man group - with a 20 man raid behind them (but not grouped with them), the 5 man group taps it, the 20 man raid also opens and you kill the mob with 25, distributing the XP from the mob kill to just 5. Or more simply, having a mate run around with their level 70 ripping up the boars after you tag them on your level 10. I'm fairly sure in this case, your XP gain (on the level 10) is based on the percentage damage done to the mob. If the level 70 was in the group, you would receive a percentage of the kill based on your level difference to your party members. The 70 would take most of the quota (and not actually get any XP due to the calculations done afterwards) and your 10 would gain an amount.

If all 25 are at the same level the tagger group gets ALL the exp with no penalty.

My plan is to keep everyone at the same level, and not boost.

[raz]

Do what? He rolls his 2nd idea of warrior priest 3x mages, only to find out he loses agro after the first volley of fireballs--and realized the merit of what a paladin tank can bring to the table: front loading of threat + salvation? Remember Salvation is no more come Wrath. Pallies will still be nice because of the replacement which is a castable instant threat/damage reduction making pallies IMO still the best choice for a multiboxing tank, but there will be some things that are quite different come wrath.

[Bradster]

Sam,

I recommend you at least single box to 70 first. Just to get a feel for the game and understand it. What if you find out you don't like it? That's a pretty big investment. On top of that the things you would learn on the way may help you define the "Perfect setup" in your eyes. Where as after allready putting in the grind you find out the hardway and have to do another group.

I'm just saying it doesn't hurt to test the waters first.

Also just wondering why wow? Your and EQ guy I figured you'd pop on up EQ2 some day :)

[Sam DeathWalker]

I kinda thinking everyone is right and going with 25 shamy (5 each computer) and if you go with shammy then Paliden (1 on 6th computer) is best tank (warrior might be better with mages).

Im only getting 6 month at a time subscriptions if I dont like it, its chump change to me. EQ I have to buy 2 years at a time.

And Keyclone looks ftw. Just hopeing autofollow dosnt break when lol I can put the Pal on the 6th computer by himself that way none autofollow will be on same computer. I can then 26 box. Wow with just one client on the 6th computer I can play in max everything full resolution and everything humm ... wow how nice ... and Ill have no lag control of the Pal. Then I can turn off all the effects on the 5 computers with 5 clients ...

Some of my guys in eq have 280 days played so Im not worried about this "16 hours a day" stuffs.

Not going to EQ2 cause WoW has 62 players for every 1 in EQ - a lot have heard of me from AoK (age of kings) and EQ, but how many have not heard of me ...

[Bradster]

Not going to EQ2 cause WoW has 62 players for every 1 in EQ - a lot have heard of me from AoK (age of kings) and EQ, but how many have not heard of me ... If that’s the reason, for the highest population to be an E-Celebrity I highly recommend going with the pink Loincloth. It will identify the quality and seriousness of your intentions.

Edit:Just one thing, with your previous E-fame I ask you not repeat some of the things you have done in the past here. I’d hate to see you ruin it for all of us, or at least paint that image for other multi-boxers. I’ll leave it at "you know what I’m talking about".

[Sam DeathWalker]

Rats I was going to go Dranie but they are allience bleh.

Looks like Troll Females for the Shaman and Blood Elf Male Paliden for tank ...

[Sanctume]

Rats I was going to go Dranie but they are allience bleh.

Looks like Troll Females for the Shaman and Blood Elf Male Paliden for tank ...Look for Tehtsara's setup on pally + trolls.

[Syrass]

Cant get elemental Oath with 34. Will have all 5 in Lightning Overload though.

I get improved chain heal 2, and Purification with 37, and 5 of tidel mastry, no natures blessing or blesisng of the eternals ... Maybe there is better ways:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/shaman/talents2.html?tal=35030015032150510000000000000000 000000000000000000005205031305003530002000000
1 important thing - you want to split you group into DPS and healers.

I would set up your DPS to assist your Pally - see if the target is hostile - if it is, set it as the kill target, then cast on the kill target.
Another button would then Heal your paladins target if its friendly (Chain heal or whatever it is) otherwise heal the paladin or themselves.

This way 5-8 of your guys would be set as healers, the rest as DPS. To have your Hybrid spec on all 25 of them won't be as effective IMO. If you decide to heal, they will all heal? Sounds like too much healing to me.

You may also want to have a button that has the "healers" attack with the DPS.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya I want to heal with eveyrone, maybe I should spec into elemental deep then, if you think there is to much healing. I plan to heal then attack then heal then attack all at the same time.

Here is a elemental spec 54/0/17

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/shaman/talents2.html?tal=35030015032150513250135100000000 000000000000000000005205031001000000000000000

Big edge with the 54 elemental is that they will all have thunderstorm lol ... I can knock back tons of mellee heh.

[Zakula]

with the kind od death and destruction you want to spread you would have been better off 24 boxing DAOC when it came out. i miss the 80 VS 80 VS 120 battles in Emain.

that would have been hella fun.



zak

[Sam DeathWalker]

Wow, if I get 25 Thunderstorms, and during moving everyone stops on top of each other or really close when I stop, with keyclone that sends keys sequentially to different clients each time you press a key I could be immune to mellee attacks by just pressing one key to knock back enemies 20 feet, by the time they get back I can knock them back again (well every 2 seconds) and by the time I get back to the first guy again the 45 second cool down will be over. Dang... thats worth going deep into elemental for with all of them. And with 25 casting non talented Chain Heals it should be "good enough", also the knock back will keep mobs off the Tank as well ... Dang ... wow. Look at that for pve. knockback, heal, knockback, chain lightning, knockback, heal, knockback, chain lightning. I could pull unlimited mobs ...

[puppychow]

There is nowhere in the overworld where mobs will respawn fast enough for a 25 man army to chain pull anything. You will clear an area and then get xp at a pitiful rate as one mob respawns every minute or so. Instance leveling from 1-60 is the fastest, but without a 70 to boost you you cannot chain pull anything and the xp/hour slows down quickly if its just 5 even-level people pulling 3-4 mobs at a time in an instance.

The absolute fastest way to hit 70 would be to level 5 pallys, then use them to instance boost 20 other people in groups of 5. It's still going to take weeks - figure minimum 3 weeks each 5 man group, total of 15+ weeks. Trying to level all 25 simultaneously in the overworld will be insanely slow, at least 4x slower than instance boosting - you will spend a year trying to hit 70 that way. Much of the speed from instance boosting also comes from the 35-55 ST zolo trick, that will eventually get nerfed (before WOTLK, probably in the next few weeks) and that'll slow down leveling even more.

[Tonuss]

I agree with the idea of leveling one character up first. You get a much better feel for the game and for the differences between it and EQ. You can also see how PvP works from a single-character perspective, which will help you determine if world PvP will be to your liking or not. WoW is not a complicated game by any means, and it's not that hard to extrapolate figures once you've got some in-game experience.

[Syrass]

The pally I would spec something more like:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000553051 335200210202150312300500050502000000000000000000#n one

(please copy and paste all links to reduce the chance of keyloggers)

[Wilbur]

(Please dont be retarded. Learn how to spot a keylogger a mile off)

[germieb]

Dunno if anyone mentioned this but a couple of things that are going to mess you up.
1) You wont be able to do the 25 mans without a tank and in some cases specific classes, Your group is going to need much more variety, Multiple people that can decurse, Multiple people that can dispel, atleast 5 or 6 healers, 3 tanks (pref 4), and the rest be dps from there.
2) Leveling and gearing up for the 25 MANS will be very difficult to pull off
3) Priest cant tank


Good luck to you sir, but i think you are highly underestimating the challenge you are talking about here, learn the game first than develop a plan for this.


Edit: Read some more in this thread and I just want to emphasize what everyone else is saying about tank choice, Warrior is indeed the worst tank for multi-boxer because it requires a lot of attention to tank high level instances, especially 25 mans, It takes LOTS of button spamming that would take away from the 24 other characters you are trying to control

[zanthor]

The pally I would spec something more like:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000553051 335200210202150312300500050502000000000000000000#n one

(please copy and paste all links to reduce the chance of keyloggers)
(Please dont be retarded. Learn how to spot a keylogger a mile off)Look down and left, every browser I know of has it... when you mouse over a LINK it shows you the URL...

[Sam DeathWalker]

od
Dunno if anyone mentioned this but a couple of things that are going to mess you up.
1) You wont be able to do the 25 mans without a tank and in some cases specific classes, Your group is going to need much more variety, Multiple people that can decurse, Multiple people that can dispel, atleast 5 or 6 healers, 3 tanks (pref 4), and the rest be dps from there.
2) Leveling and gearing up for the 25 MANS will be very difficult to pull off
3) Priest cant tank


Good luck to you sir, but i think you are highly underestimating the challenge you are talking about here, learn the game first than develop a plan for this.


Edit: Read some more in this thread and I just want to emphasize what everyone else is saying about tank choice, Warrior is indeed the worst tank for multi-boxer because it requires a lot of attention to tank high level instances, especially 25 mans, It takes LOTS of button spamming that would take away from the 24 other characters you are trying to control

25 Elementat Shamans and ONE Blood Elf Protection Paladin as the tank/assist/lead. 26 total. The Paladin will have his own computer, the other 25 will be 5 clients on 5 computers.

[badashh]

Sam if you don't start until the WOTLK , you will be playing catch up for months and months. The thing is you need to level up your pally as fast as possible NOW. Then that will give you the option to boost whatever you want later. If you want to go with the shammy option, might as well dual or 5 box them together. (4 sham 1 pal) That way you will learn about 5 mans, class strengths/weaknesses, how to play them, and so on. Otherwise it seems like you are jerking us around if you don't follow through with anything.

Get started and I think you'll find that this community will help you along the way if you have questions about best ways to do things.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Im looking for wholesaler to sell me 26 wow battlechest copies. I am anxous to start lol .. Im not boosting.

If you have EVERYONE at about the same level and you have a group of 5 who getst the tag, it does not matter how many outside the tag group help you kill the mob (you only lose exp if those outside are to high to get exp for the mob). I wont be doing instances, Ill be out in the world killing mobs insantly after the tag. Ill get 1.4 for the group bonus and 1.2 for the high con bonus and 2.0 if i can find elits.

1.2 X 1.4 X 2.0 is whatever times normal exp for every elite kill that (in outlands I think) is 4 levels above the tag group.

[Zub]

if you go around with 10+toons in an area, you'll run out of mobs to kill very quickly and spend most your time waiting for the new spawns, or travelling to a new zone to clear i reckon.
Also, you'll need some 'main' toon to be able to somewhat finance the rest of the group. killing mobs with 10+ (let alone 25) will not net you with alot of gold per toon, even if only focusing on the 5 in the tag-group. eventually you'll not be able to buy all your skills as you level.

if i were to do this, i think i would either
- level 5 separate groups of 5, each with 4 shamies + 1 other class (healer or tank for example) and grind those groups of 5 toons in instances.
or
- level a first group of 5 to 70 as fast as possible, then use those new 70s to each boost a group with 4 new toons.

my 2 coppers

[OzPhoenix]

I really look forward to see your progress on this Sam.

I think it's going to be staggeringly difficult to do, but more power to you for it. :D

[badashh]

If you are talking about just mob grinding to get to 70, you might just want to stab yourself in the eyes with daggers now. The penalty for being in a raid will slow you down sooo much, and you can't complete kill quests while in a raid.

Ok so you don't want to boost or do instances. So that leaves grinding mobs or quests. I'm sure you've read that kill quests are a MBers best friend so maybe what you need to do is figure out every kill quest in the game(which would be a nice wiki for us!!!), and just grind them out. That will cure some of the boredom, and you will level much faster than just killing the mobs and getting that exp. You would have to just have parties of 5, no raid, and one party would get credit for each kill. Sit out a party when it is done with the quest then move on and so on.

You will run out of quest in zones, but I bet you could find a friendly Mage to port you to the different major cities and you could go to each starting area and do the kill quests there. That's how I would do it with your limitations.

[Tonuss]

Sam is not talking about grinding mobs as a raid. What he is describing is as follows:

He has five separate groups in an area.

Group 1 tags mobs and groups 1-to-5 nuke them down. Group 1 gets the exp. Rinse and repeat until they get the level he wants.

The group 2 tags mobs and groups 1-to-5 nuke them down. Once they are done, group 3 tags mobs. Etc etc etc

Yes, it's a grind and yes, it will be awfully boring and respawn timers might make that even worse. But as has been said before, if you've leveled up in Everquest before, leveling 1-70 in WoW will seem like a breeze.

[zanthor]

I'd really stick the paladin in with one of the shaman groups and stick to the 25 man concept.

Reason? Because with the shamans you have 16 totems for the pally... thats a LOT of wasted potential.

[Bunny]

I really whould like to see this but I doubt it will work. Anyways, my advice (and that of a few others) is: since you don't want to start your 25 till wotlk use the time and play one character to 70 (preferably a paladin). That way you'll get experience with the game mechanics and get some ingame cash for repairs of your 25. Or you could play a group of 5 containing all characters you consider using to get a feel for those characters.
Anyways, stop reading and theorycrafting - go, pick up a few wow copies and start playing around. Then continue reading based on the experiences you made.
Bunny

[Havelcek]

I really whould like to see this but I doubt it will work. Anyways, my advice (and that of a few others) is: since you don't want to start your 25 till wotlk use the time and play one character to 70 (preferably a paladin). That way you'll get experience with the game mechanics and get some ingame cash for repairs of your 25. Or you could play a group of 5 containing all characters you consider using to get a feel for those characters.
Anyways, stop reading and theorycrafting - go, pick up a few wow copies and start playing around. Then continue reading based on the experiences you made.
BunnyHe's been told this about dozens of times in these threads but he doesn't seem to get it. We shall see.

[Shuri]

you can't complete kill quests while in a raid. This is what's going to kill you honestly. That and there simply aren't enough mobs in old world content to kill back to back with the kind of killing power you'd unleash with 25 characters. That being said there is a dynamic spawn rate in Outland so if you park somewhere, lets say one of the Orge areas in Nagrand, the more people you have there the faster they respawn. There I could see this as being feasible and you're also going to make a ton of cash from blues, cloth, coin drops.

Good luck to you sir, I think we're all excited to see how this turns out for you.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Got one copy yesterday. Have 21 on order, will get 4 more tommorow on order.654rfvbgt

Settled on

1 Blood Elf Female Paladin (Prot)
25 Taruen Male Shaman (elemental)

Still not sure of server though, has to be LA data center with PvP. But hard to tell which has the most alliance targets ...

[Shuri]

PvP realms in LA are :
Aegwynn
Akama
Barthilas
Blackrock
Bloodscalp
Bonechewer
Boulderfist
Chromaggus
Crushridge
Daggerspine
Darkspear
Dragonmaw
Drak'thul
Dreadmaul
Dunemaul
Firetree
Frostmane
Frostmourne
Frostwolf
Garithos
Gurubashi
Hakkar
Jubei'Thos
Kil'jaeden
Korgath
Malorne
Mug'thol
Nathrezim
Ner'zhul
Smolderthorn
Spirestone
Stonemaul
Stormscale
Thaurissan
Tichondrius

I'm on Akama so I can speak for it, it's about a 1:1 ratio of Horde to Alliance. If you're looking to be outnumbered check out http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php?sort=server but keep in mind these can be way way off.

EDIT: Updated the list, I was missing quite a few.

[Sam DeathWalker]

You've only listed the Vengence BG

Bloodlust
Cyclone
Reckoning

are also from the LA datacenter.

[badashh]

Sam, before you do anything read this New Recruit a Friend Features ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=10772&pageNo=1')