Does multiboxing in Battlegrounds require less skill?

I've thought long and hard about posting this, it's not an attempt to troll, it's just something that's been preying on my mind for some time and I thought I'd put it out there for discussion.

I feel that it takes less skill to multibox my 4 shaman in battlegrounds than it does to play solo in battlegrounds.

The shaman can just stand stock still plant some totems and blast away. I might need to ghostwolf to get out of AOE or to avoid a bladestorming warrior, but I can heal through an insane amount of damage whilst my magma totems burn someone trying to kill me. I've effectively got 4 times every wonderful ability a shaman has - which does a lot more than increase my ability to survive and kill by 4.

I see a lot of multibox pvp'ers saying how they one shotted someone. But at the back of my mind I'm thinking - No you actually 4-5 shotted someone just all at the same time.

I then compare that to playing any of the classes I play solo and I feel I require a greater level of skill to survive and do well.

Then I think about it in another way - The reason i feel I am more skilled as a solo player, is because I'm generally not getting the support that the shaman have. I can't rely on getting healed so I have to be more survival focused, picking targets taking them out and relying more on CC etc to try and even odds. i may even need to avoid certain classes depending on what class I'm playing. When I do get in a group that runs together and that is healing then I notice that the skill level that I need drops and I can just stand there and pump out damage.

So, when I think of it that way multiboxing is like running with a good group all the time. And I know that battlegrounds are about never being in a fair fight.

I guess to remove my doubts I should pick one of my shaman and play it solo for a while, until I'm happy with the level I can play an ele shaman solo (I've played enhancement solo and was happy with the way I played that). This would remove any of my self doubts and i would be able to multibox without the awful feeling of being a pvp fraud (on the shaman anyway) :)

Does anyone else have these doubts when it comes to multiboxing and pvp?

Should I just shut my mouth and enjoy the ownage regardless?

You are right if you meet one/two/three/... guys in a BG and "os" him/them. It requires not more than a button press.

You're less right when you make a stand with only 3-4 more players at Galva and make 20-30 alliance wipe there, which is 8 out of 10 times :). This is just a typical situation but there's many others like recovering/attacking a tower crowded with enemies, making a stand to def something you just tagged and they come in swarms. This is how all my avs look like and tbh, still after several hundred avs going up a horde tower it's damn hard with alts following xD.

What I also think is that boxing BGs is much easier than boxing Arenas mostly due to los issues and most of us being casters that can really run after them.

I say, enjoy the ownage :), you're being a great help to your side and at least in AV/IOC/EotS having a multiboxer on your side, playing the game can really help winning it.

I'm happy with my performance in AV with a group of shaman, but I suck at solo elemental pvp.. However, I don't play solo elemental in pvp so I'd expect that.

I don't compare my skill with that of solo shaman as that's not what I play, and the lack of boxing groups in my AVs makes it hard to gauge any kinds of personal skill level.

My talents/macros are for PVE and I use focus and target, so no ghost would or finely tuned I-win button and everyone can see who I'm aiming at. So as pvp multiboxing goes, I lack the more advanced stuff, thus you can happily consider yourself more skilled than me :)

I suspect any non-seasoned multi-box would fare well in AV against a pug, so yeah I think it requires less skill, but one can still become skilled at it. :)

The comparison is sort of flawed, because you need the same context in order to properly compare. If you, as a solo shaman, grouped up with 3 other shaman and a healer, then you'd probably find it to be a lot easier to play solo (as in grouped) than to play five :-)

The reason that it feels easier, is because noone takes BG's seriously enough to come up with good strategies and be tight in their playing style - or in other words, it's a lot less efficient to be running around alone than running with a group. Thus, it's also harder to play alone. It'll be a different situation with rated battlegrounds I think :-)

Yep - I'm trying to compare apples with oranges again :)

I have done BG's with a group of friends before - and that does seem to take even less skill than multiboxing :)

I thought that playing a solo elemental shaman might solve things - then remembered that I much preferred the far more aggressive enhancement playstyle for solo pvp.

Battlegrounds are easy if I have a dedicated healer come with me - in that case we can effectively steamroll everyone. The strategy amounts to simply staying in the rear and "one shotting" people with lightning bolt + chain lightning - I generally don't bother with lava burst in BGs because people typically aren't in full relentless like arena and the LB+CL is enough to burst most people down.

If I'm running them by myself then its another story -- if I have to heal myself then I can't kill anyone and melee will swarm me (with a healer I can drop totems and take out the ranged while my totems kill melee).

Once I start losing shaman I generally just stop on the rest until I'm completely dead so I res togather - I feel pretty weak as a solo shaman or even with two shaman -- our set up is built entirely around burst which is severely degraded with only 1-2 shaman.

-Clov

Bleh, i keep going till the last mans standing. Simply but in a BG we are rape... with or without a healer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shaeman

I've thought long and hard about posting this, it's not an attempt to troll, it's just something that's been preying on my mind for some time and I thought I'd put it out there for discussion.

I feel that it takes less skill to multibox my 4 shaman in battlegrounds than it does to play solo in battlegrounds.

The shaman can just stand stock still plant some totems and blast away. I might need to ghostwolf to get out of AOE or to avoid a bladestorming warrior, but I can heal through an insane amount of damage whilst my magma totems burn someone trying to kill me. I've effectively got 4 times every wonderful ability a shaman has - which does a lot more than increase my ability to survive and kill by 4.

I see a lot of multibox pvp'ers saying how they one shotted someone. But at the back of my mind I'm thinking - No you actually 4-5 shotted someone just all at the same time.

I then compare that to playing any of the classes I play solo and I feel I require a greater level of skill to survive and do well.

Then I think about it in another way - The reason i feel I am more skilled as a solo player, is because I'm generally not getting the support that the shaman have. I can't rely on getting healed so I have to be more survival focused, picking targets taking them out and relying more on CC etc to try and even odds. i may even need to avoid certain classes depending on what class I'm playing. When I do get in a group that runs together and that is healing then I notice that the skill level that I need drops and I can just stand there and pump out damage.

So, when I think of it that way multiboxing is like running with a good group all the time. And I know that battlegrounds are about never being in a fair fight.

I guess to remove my doubts I should pick one of my shaman and play it solo for a while, until I'm happy with the level I can play an ele shaman solo (I've played enhancement solo and was happy with the way I played that). This would remove any of my self doubts and i would be able to multibox without the awful feeling of being a pvp fraud (on the shaman anyway) :)

Does anyone else have these doubts when it comes to multiboxing and pvp?

Should I just shut my mouth and enjoy the ownage regardless?

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I'll bite. Apply I-Think-This-Is-Really-A-Troll caveat...

You're comparing far too many different types of fruit here. Solo is easier any way you slice it. You wanna ultra-cheeze-EZmode BGs? Get on vent with your raid or even just your group, come up with a plan and actually execute your plan. Unless you're a halfway decent solo player and have good multitasking abilities, you will suck WORSE as a multiboxer in just about anything except measuring your sucktastic DPS on the target dummies.

solo and boxing both require skill to work well. It's a somewhat different skillset, but skills none the less.

solo you'll need to watch your back, pick your fights, survive etc.
boxing you'll need to manage your n toons, control their actions, survive etc.
(only examples of course)

solo while part of a group of 4-5 if again another skillset, that requires team skills, knowledge of other classes (friendly) abilities and what the other players in the group intend to do etc.

difficult to compare all of those.

heck it's difficult to compare to solo players of different classes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shaeman

The shaman can just stand stock still plant some totems and blast away. I might need to ghostwolf to get out of AOE or to avoid a bladestorming warrior, but I can heal through an insane amount of damage whilst my magma totems burn someone trying to kill me. I've effectively got 4 times every wonderful ability a shaman has - which does a lot more than increase my ability to survive and kill by 4.

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This is what I like to call the brute force style of play and I place myself squarely into that category. With a healer backing me up I am like a demi-god. Going up against top geared players with healers backing them up I still get roflstomped.

Then you come up against this other multi-boxer in a BG that completely redefines your view of hwo good you are. They always seem to blindside you, take out 1 or 2 of your team and then they are gone again. Extremely mobile, extremely deadly and damn hard to kill. I think a lot of those skills come from serious arena experience. I've only come up against one boxer that plays like this and I am in awe of their skill.