Little planning ahead but I need advice on this setup I'll have in 2 weeks time...

I know I'm planning to far ahead but I wanna make sure I have everything working right and correctly. In about 2 weeks I will of finished ordering all my PC parts (I have to order slowly due to my job not paying a lot) and have 3 more accounts and have the upgrades for BC and WotLK. So, here's what I'm planning to do so could I get some advice on the setup?

The rig:

ASUS P5Q SE PLUS LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
MSI N260GTX-T2D896 OC GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8400 - Retail
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail x2
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM x6
SAMSUNG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model SH-S222A - OEM
Windows Vista Ultimate 64 Bit

I know that's a bit much on the rig, but whatever. I just mainly copied/pasted from newegg since I was to lazy to edit/format it. Onwards.

Now, I'm thinking of the following teams. Which would be good for a beginner?

Warlock x5
Shadman x5
Priest x5
Mage x5
Warlock x4 Priest x1
Warlock x2 Mage x2 Priest x1
Warlock x3 Priest x1 Paladin x1
Shaman x3 Paladin x1 Warlock x1
Hunter x5
Hunter x2 Warlock x2 Paladin x1

Out of those teams which would be easier for a beginner to learn with and still level decently fast?

And now for leveling. I dislike questing 100% so I'm thinking since I'll have a 5 man team all the time would grinding on mobs around 8-10 levels higher be a good source of XP? Or should I just tough it out and do quests til I'm high enough to run Deadmines/Wailing Caverns (I think those are the lower level instances)?

Also which realm should I roll on? I want a active, mature guild that does multiboxing to so I can learn from them as well. From reading the wiki I've learned some things, but not enough about Warlock teams, Mage teams, etc, etc.

As for the UI and all, anyone got any good mods/addons I SHOULD get and all? I hate the look of the standard UI, but have no clue which mods I should get to benefit me and multiboxing. I've got Jamba and it's suppose to auto accept/complete quests on all the Slave toons from the Main, but it never does. I have all the options checked to auto everything and even click Push to all characters. Still nothing.

Thanks for the opinions and advice.

Hi

I just started blogging not too long back. I had trouble deciding what was easier myself. However since doing the paladin + 4 shamans I discovered it to be one of the easiest to level up. You may want to try 5 shamans too

:) http://rathoftherich.blogspot.com/

So, since you've gotten from 21-22 just in the Draeni starting area, could you tell me which quests you did or ones that would be good to do? I'm thinking of buying BC for these 5 accounts (still on classic right now) and making a Draeni character for my team. Also, care to share the macros you use for your shaman team? That seems to be the only part I'm gonna have trouble with.

How would a 5 pally team do you think? Pointless or OP?

Anyone else got any more advice for me?

Other opinions?

Definitely read the wiki linked from this site.

If it were me, I would go for a Quad core with that set up. Maybe with a slightly larger power supply. I would also increase the RAM to 8G since you are going with 64-bit Vista. That being said, my slave box runs 4 and is similar to what you posted - my video card is only a 9800GT and I have 32 bit Vista.

Team [kinda] depends on your game focus - PVP or PVE or both. You will always need some sort of tank and healer for instances. This could be five shaman or the standard tri-fecta such as paladin, priest, and 3 mages/locks/boomkins/shaman/mixed.

All melee groups are doable. Some say they are more difficult, I have not done this myself, but my assumption is once you do it and learn how it's probably not much different. Efficiency is a different question (e.g., five rogues might not work out well for PVE).

If you have played WoW before and levelled up a toon to 70 the group makeup won't make any difference IMO. If you haven't, then using all the same class and a 1/4 mix is probably a bit easier simply due to only having to learn 1 or 2 classes.

I don't think you can grind on mobs 10 levels higher thant you - I mean, can you even hit them? Grinding will work but questing is probably way faster especially with RAF. If you can boost, that is the other more viable option to just grinding. Also, it won't take long at all to get to the level (I think it's level 17? maybe 12?) where you can start doing the instances.

UI is no different than what you would use for a single toon. People use all sorts of stuff. The slaves don't need anything fancy and I believe most people load the bare minimum. There is a sticky regarding Add-ons. For MBing I find the following necessary for me: Smartbuff, Jamba, Bartender/Macaroon, X-Perl, Questannouncer - might be more, but that's off the top of my head.

Someone else posted this add-on pack they use: http://grimpickle.com/index.php it's not MB related though. It looked pretty good to me, although I don't use it as a pack I do use many of the add-ons in it.

As for server, I think a lot of people are on Mag'theridon (sp?). However, people on this board seem to be all over the place. Maybe we need a survey to find out?

A lot of what you asked has been covered quite a bit on this board, so I would suggest spending some of that 2 weeks going through it all ;)

Good luck!

I read the wiki like 10 times already. Half of it looks outdated and poorly organized for me. Maybe that's why I'm having a hard time following it.

I have no other toons, just these that I'm starting. Never have really played the game either, so I'm jumping in. I find MMO's really boring when you play one character at a time, that's why I'm gonna 5 box. Also, I tried getting in contact with some people on that Mag. server. The Zerg guild I think it is. No one ever seems to be online when I am. So that makes me think that server is dying now.

Is there anyone on a PvE realm? I hate PvP with a passion.

hey sorry just read your replies

Macro-wise shaman is easiest to set up - assist party2 or set your main as the focus then just shoot ahead. Nothing else matters /castsequence lightning bolt and chain lightning. with a paladin and 4 shamans at level 60! with just gear from farming instances (SM , BRD) , 4 mana spring totems, no use of manatide/elemental mastery, using judgement of wisdom, watershield and BoW... my shamans could shoot a sequence of 3Xlightning bolt 1Xchain lightning for 4min20s straight. (IF level 60 dummies). This might change, but wow... I haven't sat my shamans down to drink before in an instance (level 61 already)

It is also easiest to have range characters on your team during instances, as I realised. Melee requires much higher control and positioning and with graphics/game lag would be slightly harder (But not impossible - i intend to have a melee team too) As a pure pver, it may be better to have a 'mixed' setup of physical and magic dps (IE. Hunter thrown in, maybe a mage).

just my 2cs worth

Don't worry about quests, just pick and follow along. i randomly pick and skip gathering quests, but i share all killing quests. Grinding instances from 1-60 is way better in terms of loot, cloth and drops.

If you're interested in running instances and such (PvE) going with a Druid or Paladin + 4 shaman is a very easy way to get into the swing of things.

The learning curve is there, but you can get to the point of being functional very quickly. As you play you will find there are a lot of subtle nuances to how group synergy works together - but the gist of it is that you have a tank and 4 characters that can do ranged DPS as well as heal. The reason for shaman being easiest (IMO) to get your feet wet with is due to the wonderful range of utility that the totems provide, especially when you lay down 4 sets of them.

From your list of group comps and the question about which would be easiest i'd go with:

Priest + 4 warlocks (a bit squishy but tons of fun outside instances)
5 shaman (learning one class + learning control of 5 toons seems like a nice place to start).


Running an all melee team is very doable - but may be an excercise in frustration if you are working on learning all the other mechanics of the game (not that it's super complex or anything, but again there are plenty of kinks to work out when rolling with 5 'toons).

So much of it comes down to personal play style that I think. Leveling doesn't take very long in this game, so if you get one group up to the 50s/60s and decide that they jsut aren't your thing you can just transfer wealth/items and start over with a team that sounds more fun :)