considering 5 boxing, advice on my intention?

I'm running a team very close to yours - Pally tank, Holy Priest, Destro Lock, Boomkin Druid, and Arcane Mage.

Leveling is VERY easy. Set up simple trash macros that take it easy on mana, and you should be okay. I leveled my team most of the way to 80 with three - the lock, the druid, and the mage, and had no problems outside of instances. The Lock tanked with the Felguard as a Demon spec.

Later on, you'll need to study all of your toon's abilities and weaknesses, and macro with the other toons in mind, in terms of key hit rate (I use a simple one...two...one...two beat and time my macros to it.)

Your casters will be aggro magnets if you're not careful - the mage especially - but with 5 most mobs will die before they reach you (non-Elites). With the AOE potential in your group, you should be able to take out large crowds of mobs.

Study up on /click macros, they almost doubled my dps when I switched to them, Fursphere's thread on them is excellent.

Just know this - the team you're proposing will take a lot more work than a tank/shammy team, as you'll be learning 5 classes at one time, and keep their abilities straight, and then learn how to build their talents, their gear, and their gems/enchants. With that many casters, I would HIGHLY recommend you train a tailor, even your Boomkin will wear +spellcloth over leather gear.

I love my mixed team, as much as it would be nice to have 4 shammies (and I will eventuall), I love teh synergy and utility of 5 different classes, with buff and talents, multiple ressing makes wiping a little easier, I have healthstones and free food and portals...and when the team is running right, they're pretty awesome.

thanks once again for the input. It seems now that deciding my teams is going to be harder than actually playing them :confused:

Is a 4 mage 1 healer team not viable for arena? I was kinda hoping the sheer burst damage of 4 x arcane mages would be enough to destroy anything that moived, and then just work from there, but i guess its more complicated than that.

My current scheme of maneuver is as follows:

1) Level PvE team of Warrior, shammy, druid, mage/lock, priest
2) Swap the warrior with my main 80 pala for pve team. (already leveled)
2) Level PvP team A) 4 lock/mages (whatever i donbt have in pve team) to 30. Use RAF levels to get them to 60
3) Level 3 Shammies to 30, use RAF to get to 60
4) Level a priest n shammy to 30. RAF to 60.
5) Transfer shammy to account 4 (to join my recently leveled 3 shammies and my pals 60 shammy to make a 5 shammy team with 1 dedicated healer, unboxed) level these to 80 via pvp.
6) Transfer Priest to friends account to group up with 4 locks making 4 lock 1 dedicated healer team. Lvl to 80.
7) Transfer 80 Warrior to account 5, to PvE with 4 shammies for gear for PvP. Can swuitch one shammy witrh my friends to help him gear up.

Working this out has given me a serious head ache. Any problems?

#6 could be a problem.

You can only transfer toons to another account with the same name on the account.
Unless your friends account is in your name, or your account is in his name, you cannot do that transfer.

Ideally, you'd want every one of your accounts in your own name.
We get a lot of attention as a boxer.
Quite a bit of it is negative, and aside from being funny at times, can get us reported.
One of the things they check, is if all of the toons are ours.
The names on the accounts are how they do this.

The account is in my name, as my friend never had as debit card bacjk in the day when it was setup, so i paid for his account with mine and hed give me the cash. The inability to change the name of the owner of the account has resulted in him keeping an account in my name. Probably a bannable offense, but bit late now.

It looks like you've put a lot of thought and research into your decisions, and I commend you on that. I also thank you for not just rolling in here with the "lol i wanna bot help me rofl" standard faire.

I just have two comments, which are just that, so take them as you see fit:

1. I advise everybody's first boxing team to be either 5 of one char, or the 1 tank 4 heal/dps combo like 1 paly 4 shaman. The reason is simplicity. It's not that you can't figure out how to get them all to work. I like to think of it like your brain has only so many cycles to spend every second, and if a portion of those are "hey, i've gotta press this button every 5 seconds because my one druid over there needs to refresh lifebloom" or whatever, it leaves less time for observing, analyzing, and reacting to your environment. This is especially true in pvp. The simpler your team dynamics, the more time you have to spend reacting to the game instead of trying to manage the various rotations. This can be somewhat mitigated by clever macro and key overloads, but it's still very important. I've been boxing for quite a while, and I still tunnel-vision myself into mistakes.

2. 5x alchemy is certainly understandable in today's climate, but i wouldn't rely on that cash cow to continue. It might, but the prices might drop or who knows what changes might come by the time you're 80. It's a gamble, just wanted to bring it up. Also, I don't see the need for 2x enchanters. Not a lot that two can do that 1 can't, am I missing something?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BobGnarly

2. 5x alchemy is certainly understandable in today's climate, but i wouldn't rely on that cash cow to continue. It might, but the prices might drop or who knows what changes might come by the time you're 80. It's a gamble, just wanted to bring it up. Also, I don't see the need for 2x enchanters. Not a lot that two can do that 1 can't, am I missing something?

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Frost Lotus are going to be purchasable in 3.3, so the flask market is going to tank, hard.

Two enchanters, the only benefit are the ring enchants.

I agree, a mixed team is a LOT of work, if you're just starting out. I'd have preferred a 1/4 team, but the way I grew into 5 accounts, I had no choice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by moosejaw

You have a good class setup for future solo play. When you get to 80 and start gearing up in Heroics you may want to switch the class roles of the priest and shaman. It is much easier to manage a shaman healer (IMO) than a priest healer in a multibox setup.

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Priests have so many AOE healing options it's ridiculous. No class can spam heal up your entire team more easily than a priest, and you have the biggest single target heal in the game for when your tank is taking all the hits. You have an AOE "oh shit" healing button, an AOE mana regen button, Prayer of Mending which will bounce around the group, a HOT which heals instantly, inspiration, and three AOE heals, two of which are instant cast. I can't even imagine the argument in favor of a shaman healer over a priest. People use the shaman healers because we on this site tend to gravitate towards the class in general for overall play in PVP and PVE. If he's just doing PVE, priest all the way! I know it's just an opinion, but I feel very strongly about this. To me it's like someone arguing that 5x mages is better than 5x shamans in 5v5 arena team.

Nothing against a priest healer.
They provide strong single and aoe heals.
They add a strong buff to the group.
Discipline adds extra mitigation to a team.
Holy adds extra healing power.

A resto shaman is also a strong healer.
Earth Shield on the tank makes a lot of encounters much easier.
Totems are a configurable buff, adding more as you have fewer shammies in the mix.
Riptide gives a HoT, but compared to a priest, mobile healing is definitely weaker.
Chain Heal and Healing Stream Totem are strong group heal options.
Mana Spring Totem, Water Shield and Mana Tide are great mana regeneration options.
The toon is much less squishy then a priest.
And can wear healer cloth, leather and mail, instead of only cloth.


I wouldn't necessarily say, one over the other, as an automatic decision for healing.
And if I had a Priest and a Shammy in the same team, one had to heal and the other dps...
An Elemental is further ahead of Shadow, then either class is ahead of the other healing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raigirin

Keep in mind though, that a mixed group will require a bit more work in respect to macro writing.
The most gentle introduction to multiboxing is in my humble opinion the classic 1*paladin & 4*shamans.

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Quoted for thruth.