Another new Multiboxer

Howdy all,

I have been reading and researching how I want to multibox for months now, and I have finally taken the plunge.

I have been raiding on my Hunter for years now, so I start multiboxing with 3 Hunters. I have my 80 and a 71 & 70. I did not use RAF since these were toons I was leveling with my Wife until she got bored, lol. I have been doing well and decided to take the real plunge and start a couple of 5 man instance groups. This is where I need some advice.

Group 1,
Paladin, Prot
Hunter x 3
Priest, Holy

Group 2,
DK, Frost
Mage x 2
Warlock
Paladin, Holy

I will end up with a 10 man group. I have read that DKs are not the preferred tank for a Multiboxed 5 man, but with the amount of AOE threat and damage, I can not understand why not. That is why I have seperated the groups that way I have. I am thinking the DK will have more then enough threat for the Mages and Lock to just open up a few seconds into the encounter. I am planning on using Misdirect with the Paladin since they do not generate as much threat as quickly as the DK.

I will be starting off with a standard setup of 5 machines until I get everyone to 80 and semigeared. I am looking for some opinions as to my group makeups just in case I have missed something.

Thanks for the great site,

G

A DK is not the preferred multiboxing tank just in terms of ease and utility. A DK or pally are fine. Personally i'd take a Pally or DK over a warrior or druid tank for multiboxing.

It's the number of keys you need to click, for the toon to tank effectively.
A single boxed -insert tanking class- can easily hold threat in any situation.

When you're also clicking the heals for the healer and the dps for the damage dealers...
Your ability to click a lot of abilities on the tank go down.
The more classes you bring into the mix, the more options/buffs your team has, but the less efficient each class is played.

A paladin can get by with:
/castrandom Consecrate, Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous

You could put that macro on keys, 1-4 and 7-0.
Assign keys 1-4 as dps keys.
Assign keys 7-0 as heal keys.
Anytime you're DPSing or Healing, the paladin is clicking a tank/threat move.

I won't claim that it is an optimally played paladin.
But it is playable, and you can tweak it from there to add additional functionality.
Don't think DK's, Warriors or Feral Bears are as easy to multibox, even if they're as effective tanks.



*Edit*
Looking at your groups, you have:

1 - Paladin (Tank Plate)
1 - Hunter (Mail) x3
1 - Priest (Heal Cloth)

2 - Death Knight (Tank Plate)
2 - Mage (DPS Cloth) x2
2 - Warlock (DPS Cloth) x1
2 - Paladin (Heal Plate) x1

As far as gear is divided, both the DK and Pally tank will want the same stuff.
The 3 hunters will each want the same things.
The 2 mages and warlock will want the same things, priest might want some of their stuff.
Pally healer is gets basically whatever they want, aside from trinkets.

The Pallies get both tanks Blessing of Sanctuary and Kings. Others get Kings + Might or Kings + Wisdom.
You have Fortitude and Arcane Intellect, Mage Food and a Soul Stone.
If any of the hunters are engineers, you might have Jumper Cables.

I'd consider a Druid, both for MotW and because Caster Leather will rot.
An elemental shaman seriously buffs a caster group, brings Heroism and no one else cares about Caster Mail.

Before I started Boxing I was a paladin tank as a main and I have no trouble at all getting my threat way up there. I've not once, in any situation been taken over by the OT or any DPS when I'm tanking.

But as Ualaa said, the Paladin will have more support for your group with it's buffs.

Thanks for the great responses. I thought about the Druid and Shaman, but I was trying to limit the amount of leveling of other toons that I will have to do.

My main is a Lvl 80 Hunter, and I have a 70 & 71 Hunter, 70 Priest, 70 Holy Paladin in BT/Sunwell gear and a 59 DK. I just started two RAF accounts for the mages, lock, and Prot Paladin. I might as well start a 3rd for the Druid and Shaman.

What I have been doing when I run my three hunters, I have 2 macros that do really good DPS. What my plans are about hotkeys and macros are as follows. For all of the DPS, which is all caster by the way, there will be two macros. 1 for their DPS rotation, and 1 for their trinkets or racial abilites. Both tanks will have 2 tanking macros that are similar, tanking and trinkets, but they will have a third on for an oh shit situation, health stone, pots, herbilism heals and so forth. The layout of the keys used will be similar to the following, assume using the 10 key on the keyboard.

1 - 2 Tanking, DPSing, along with trinkets.
3 Oh shit buttons, healthstones, pots, etc.
4 - 5 Racial Ablities and special spells
/ Greater Heal
* Priest HoT on Focus, Paladin FoL on Focus
- Priest HoT on Paladin's Focus, Paladin FoL on Priest's Focus
Shift-~ is the Misdirect to the Main Hunter's Focus, Priest Prayer of Healing on MD Target.

This is basically how I am setting things up. It makes it easier for me to manage things for now. Since I am not 80 and doing the 10 mans yet, we will have to wait and see. But, I have played around using buddies toons and tried these things in 5 mans. I also used to 2 box heal ZA back in the day using the healing stuff I mentioned.

Thanks again for the input.

G