5 boxing - Need some advice

So, I just started 5-boxing the seemingly popular 1priest 1mage 3lock group, and I've gotten to level 8 on them all, and I have some questions for people that have done this group (Steph in particular).

How did you handle targetting? For example, did you click a target with your main that you wanted to kill, hit a /focus macro for your secondary characters, then hit your attack buttons? What if theres more than 1 target? Did you have to hit /focus then attack for each one?

The reason I ask is because I figured that just making a macro for all of my spells that said "/assist MainChar; /cast Shadow Bolt" would be a good idea but:

1) It's so time consuming to make the macros for each spell on each of 4 characters.
2) When the main character dies, my idiots are helpless.

#2 is mainly due to the fact that I unbinded the target key (tab) because when I was using tab to target with my main, then attacking with those /assist macros, sometimes the secondary characters would attack something other than the mains target.


Another main concern I have is looting. This concern is because for some reason I can get all 5 wireless keyboards to synch, but not all 5 wireless mice (even though they were all bundled together as a "desktop" package). I find myself putting loot on FFA and having my main pick everything up... but you fill up quite quickly.

Also, I was wondering how you grinded. Did you run to a spot, stop, and cast bolts at targets? I almost think that once you get Dot's that you can slap 3 lock dots and a priest dot on a target and run to the next one... but I'm not sure if thats any faster.

Thats all I have for now :)

I'm only dual-boxing, but I believe that my principles should be fairly extensible.

First thing I did was write a macro for my alt(s) to target my main's target.

[code:1]GENERIC ASSIST FOCUS MACRO

/assist focus[/code:1]
I'll have my main target something, then broadcast the "targeting" macro to all my characters (shockbeta suggested using the tilde (~) key, and it works nicely).

Next, I needed to assign a focus. I used something like this:

[code:1]SET MAIN FOCUS MACRO

/target {Main Character's Name}
/focus
/targetlasttarget[/code:1]
With this macro, I can instantly set focus (even in battle) without losing my target. You'll have to click this button once per session (perhaps more if you lose your focus).

I also went ahead and made another macro for each of my characters (I assume you would make 4 more), and those simply set the focus to each of your characters, so you can make any of your characters the "leader."

Running around was simple.

[code:1]FOLLOW FOCUS MACRO

/target focus
/follow
/targetlasttarget[/code:1]
With those macros, it was easy to target, move, and cast spells without too much hassle.

I set them to the same hotkeys for all of the characters (it doesn't matter if your leader follows himself or assists himself).

To play, I would simply target an enemy with my main, hit my assist focus macro (~), then cast like normal—no need for individual spell macros.

If your main dies, just hit one of the other set focus macros and keep dominating!

As for looting, I just have my main loot everything and use my other characters as more bags. When my main gets full, I trade to the other characters. It might be a good idea to pool your characters' money at first and just buy some Mageweave Bags off the AH as soon as you can. They should only be around 1g (probably less, if you're on an established server).

I am following Joanna's Horde Leveling guide and doing all the quests (even the collection ones), just because it's fast, concise, and I get to grind a lot. I'm playing two warlocks, so I just target, pet attack, Immolate, Curse of Agony, Corruption (if it's instantcast), then Shadowbolt spam until dead. Wash, rinse, repeat.

With 3 warlocks, you should be able to just throw DoTs and go, and that should go faster. You'll just have to come back through and pick up the loot.

Hello Gallo,

My attacks work with /focus. Once focus is set, you can do /cast [target=focustarget] shadow bolt and so on and so forth. Even /petattack [target=focustarget] works. This is passive targetting, so your characters current target is not changed. Important if you do CC with it.

To avoid being helpless in the event of death or when playing a character by yourself, you need to have macros to set the focus to all party members. That is five macros. Put them in the same locations on each char, then you can do Shift-4, hit 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 and Shift-1 to swap the focus to the corresponding char.

I use FFA and loot with the main. To trade you can drag things on the char party portrait. Having a /Script AcceptTrade{} macro on the same action bar slot with all chars helps, because you just drag the item you want to trade, hold ALT and click the remaining ones, then hit your trade button once or twice and the items are moved to one of the secondary chars. I love CT_MailMod for making Alt-leftclicking move a char to mail or trade windows.

For healing, I also use passive targetting with 'Clique' a mod that triggers spells on party/raid bar clicks. I alt-left click a party bar or pet bar for greater heal for example. The great thing is that this does not loose the priests target, so I can alt-leftclick one bar to cast a greater heal and keep hitting '1' during the casting time to hit the target with another shadowbolt salvo.

Until level 50 I used to have afflicion/shadow spec rather than demonology and holy. I found that I dont do enough damage with the priest and running about takes care of mana regen anyway. Lots of DoTs and Drain Life is very powerful, but for killing non-elites Demonology and a bit Destruction is clearly better. The good thing about Demonology is that you get bonus damage and healing in a level range where you wouldnt usually have any, compensating for lack of good gear. Since there is the gear-o-rama from level 58 onwards in the outlands, looking for better gear before that is basically pointless.

I hope this helps, if you have more specific questions, dont be too shy to ask them.

Cheers, Steph.

Thank you guys both very much. The rotating /focus macro's is a great idea. I knew that i'd have to implement focus somehow, I just didn't think of how to do it. Guess I better re-bind tab so that my other characters can target :)
It still sucks that you need to make a macro for every single spell on every single character though :) I'm thinking of learning where the macros are stored on my harddrive and copying 1 macro list to the other 2 warlocks.

Yeah, I've been looting off my main and using the others as bags too, was just wondering if you guys did it differently.

Another question I guess I had was, what did you do about professions? I'm a serial alt-a-holic, and every time I've leveled an alt (had 3 60's pre-BC before I boxed) I felt that gathering professions slowed down leveling so much. I was thinking about making my main character an Herb/Skinner and making one secondary char an Alc and one char a LW and have all of them learn Tailoring. If I make one of them miners, and only mine when I physically run into a mine node (I dont want to have to look on the other screen ALL the time for mine nodes), I feel like I will easily come to a point where my mining is too low for the level I'm at.

So many management decisions lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gallo

I'm thinking of learning where the macros are stored on my harddrive and copying 1 macro list to the other 2 warlocks.

---

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\<Account Name>\macros-cache.txt
and
World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\<Account Name>\macros-local.txt

It's fairly self explanatory inside those files if you've ever made any macro in game.

As far as tradeskills go, gathering professions sell well, it's good that they're all tailors because the new tailoring specializations are really, really good for crafting. I'd recommend one be an enchanter so when you start making green cloth items you can DE those and have enchants and then sell your leftover enchanting materials on the AH.

Gallo:

With my setup, you don't need to make a macro for every spell you cast. :?

I do agree that using Clique does help out immensely, as well as using something like Perl Classic to monitor the targets of your party (instead of looking back and forth across the different screens).

I don't know if there is a new version or not but I really liked Monitor Status that was included with Cosmos.

Yep, it is still around.

http://www.wowwiki.com/MonitorStatus

VERY useful to always have on your healer type.