Priest Zethra and Rogue Rhodar - The Sinner and the Saint, A RAF Dual Boxing Story

Ok, so it's not really a story, but more what I've enjoyed about the combo (and the drawbacks), as well as musings on boxing in general and my self-imposed "rules".

Some background:

MMO's
Played EQ for a couple years on and off before quitting, tried WoW many years later and have been playing fairly steadily since shortly after BC was released. Now have a nearly full roster on Feathermoon, including four 72+ characters (Feral Druid (first main), Enhance Shaman, Fury Warrior and the obligatory DK).

Tools
Been RAF boxing for about a month, and have tried quite a few combos only to lose interest. I use IS and windowsnapper, and have been utilizing macros of slowly-increasing complexity. I've little background for this sort of thing, or I'd try my hand at clickboxer as well (my attempts so far have been unsuccessful). The instant window snapping feature is invaluable for swapping screens.

Rules
1) I decided to start on a new server, so no twinking or initial cash.
2) As a result of 1), I must level two gathering professions on lead character, and less importantly two manufacturing tradeskills on the follow character. I grabbed the skills at lvl 5, which really helped get them levelled up early.
3) Non-pvp server, as I'm not yet qualified :p
4) No rushing, take my time and enjoy the levelling process. This rule is basically play them much like I'd play a solo character.
5) Key gear upgrades once every ten levels, at most (notably, high dps weapons for rogue are important since he is easily 70% of my dps).

Classes
I toyed with many, many ideas. I actually got a couple of hunters to 35ish before losing interest, as they were seriously overpowered and I know I can trivially get them to 60. Two mages was a snorefest, and pally (prot) and mage (arcane) has tons of potential but found they boiled down to spamming one button for the quickest kills. I'll likely go back to the pally/mage as I can tell it has much to offer, but I needed a bit of break to think it over.

I knew I wanted one melee class, as I just enjoy being up in the action. I've levelled a warrior, so I decided on rogue. Knowing rogues kill fast but often need healing, I quickly decided upon a priest as pallies are a melee class and I didn't want to do two melees, and I already have a high level shaman and druid. So, I decided on human combat rogue / shadow priest (wait...who's the saint again?.. ;) ) For professions, the rogue went mining/skinning and the priest tailoring/enchanting. Started these two characters Saturday morning.

Levelling path:
Newbie zone -> 5
Not much to say here..was over in an eyeblink.

Elwynn Forest -> 11
Basic setup: smack smack with rogue, smite with priest, lesser heal on rogue after fight.

Dark Shore / Auberdine -> 21
Around this time I had to build some slightly more robust macros. Two keystrokes buffs both characters, and I can shield or heal either character with a single keystroke as well, and attacks are bound to the same keystrokes.

It was at this point I discovered what made this combo fun and challenging. My priest attack buttons are tied to the same keys as the rogue's attack buttons (which makes sense), but I found that if I spam rogue buttons so that he's effective, the priest was constantly oom. Also, spirit tap became rather useless if the priest didn't get the killing blow.

So what I do now is use a combination of keystrokes and mouse clicks on my hotbar, utilizing the global cool down for activating priest abilities when I don't want the rogue to activate whatever that key is bound to. This makes for the fun, active playstyle that I was hoping for with this combo.

Wetlands -> 23
Short foray into this zone only to realize how lame it is for boxing (lots of collects, not to mention traveltime). I moved on quickly.

Darkshire - > 30
Had an awesome time here. Getting my rhythm down, and plowed through the quests like warm butter.

Ashenvale, Forest Song -> 33
Doing all the first tier quests in just Forest Song is a seriously huge chunk of XP, and it went very quickly. I even did the collects with both characters, which wasn't at all painful (hint: for ground loot items like the wood, loot them with slave first so that you can easily spot them on your main the entire time).

Stranglethorn Vale -> 36 (current status)
I mostly enjoy this zone, and it's enormously beneficial to skinning skill :thumbup:

Current standing: Both lvl 36, skinning 225 8o / mining 105 :evil: / tailoring 115 :| / enchanting 70 ?(

What I like about this combo:
1) It's fun and challenging! You have to watch your timing, but not so much that it's a clickfest.
2) Nearly no downtime. Once I perfected getting the final blow with the priest to activate spirit tap, downtime became more or less zero.
3) Fairly resilient. Shield + renew is very effective when things go sour.

Downsides:
1) Adds. They suck, bigtime. I can usually handle one-two extra, but if I get too many it gets out of control rapidly, even with bubbles and heals. Haven't gotten down when is the best time to simply have the priest bubble and run so she can rez, as I usually try to heal and end up wiping.
2) Even with macros, there's quite a bit of management involved. For me this is something of a plus, but others might not find it so.

Other thoughts:

Levelling tailoring/enchanting is a pain if you try to do it as you go. I think it'd be more efficient to just level up and buy the mats with your superior buying power later.

Money is a huge pain. I train only the essentials, but I find the cost to train is far outpacing my income. I'm guessing/hoping it'll all equalize once I hit Outlands and levelling speed drops. Epic flyers are a pipe dream at this point.

Just thought I'd share my experience with you all!

Cheers! 8)