New Boxer--Comments Please.

I've been intersted in boxing for quite some time, and have formulated some ideas/plans. I am no where near done gathering all of the neccessary hardware/software yet, but thats a tale for a different day. Since you first have to plan out your goals, here are some of mine, please comment/flame any of them. (oh ya, I want the capability to do 5-man heroics at 70)

Theory 1- Pally/Priest/Lock/Lock/Mage
Pally= Tank. Ability to self-heal and draw agro on multiple mobs relatively quickly. Group buffs, and consecrate ftw.
Priest= Healbot. AoE Heals are godly when AoE'ing mobs, and their stam/spirit buffs would help the locks quite a bit.
Locks= DPS/Utility. One of my locks would be affliction (at level 70, prolly destro until 70) for the fast nuking capabilities. My other lock would be Demonology, for the tanking and surviveability.
Mage= Water fountain. Group buff that will contribute to everyone, and the ability to create water/food and open ports, to decreast transportation time. Frost Nova would be used to help the pally gathering the mobs and whatnot.

---I know this may sound noob and uninformed, but I'm typing fast, sorry. My Theory 1, imo, would be sufficient in any 5-man up to and including level 70. The self-sufficient tank, and the AoE heals, would keep my DPS going at a steady rate. I would also have quite a good amount of CC (sheep/shackle/seduce/VW/FelGuard/multitanking/banish/enslave). The mage/locks would work well together, and with the locks stam and the mages ice block, they would surive quite well to (and with SS, it would reduce downtimes on wipes). Since I would have 3 machines, and after various testing, I have decided to put the Locks/mage on 1 machine, and the priest/pally ont he other 2. I know it will be hard to micromanage these toons, and especially difficult to move/place/tank/heal/dps in 5-mans, but practice makes pwnage. Since I have extensive expierence in end-game tanking at 60/70, i think I can manage. Getting to level 70 though, will be a bit more difficult. Up until level 15ish, or whenever I decide to start running instances with myself (im lonely) i'll keep my pally on follow, and have him heal/buff, since melee is to hard to get to a mob b4 my DPS nukes it down. Besides that, I find Theory 1 quite achievable once I collect all of my hardware/software, and practice a bit.


Theory 2- Priest/DPSx4
Priest- Healer.
DPSx4- DPSx4

I know this may sound noob, because, IMO, its only viable in pvp and the easier 70 instances (i know, 5 sham can take down Heroic SL and whatnot). I'm trying to keep away from this route, even though it woudl be easier to level and AoE grind instances.


Any advice on my Theory 1/2 would be greatly apprecaited. Keep in mind, these are planned for mostly 5-man instances (the 3 DPS ill just put on a 3v3 team, and create a crap 2v2 for my tank/healer).

Voidv/Voidw/Voidx/Voidy/Voidz
PS- Whoever stole Voidz on magtheridon...

Hi Voidx,

Planning this out is definitely a requirement for multiboxing, so good to see you've put some thought into it. :)

IMO, four classes are going to be very difficult to manage, even if your micro-management skills are good. Not impossible, but if this is your first attempt at multiboxing, you might want to start with a simpler combo, say priest n locks, and then try something more complex once you have the hang of it.

You've said that you want to do heroics at 70 - I haven't had first hand experience, but I've heard that pali's don't tank so well in heroics.
In fact don't know anyone who's multiboxed heroics (yet), so most of what I've heard and read so far has been only theorycraft.

Anyway, just my 2c...

Cheers,
Stealthy

Thx for the input. I will most definatly start out, maybe get to level 20ish or w/e, with 2 diff classes or something, to test out my setup. I am also worried about pally tanking as well. I play a 70 warr on Zul'Jin, Voidx, and, IMO, warriors just don't cut it to well. Their boring, and don't have many gearing options. ALso, they dont buff a group like a pally, although command shout+locks=more mana, and Salv would be amazing. I am confident that a warrior would be easier, and less complicated with drawing agro (since I am one) than a pally. THe pally will probably need more healing, and time to draw agro, even with salv, which would slow me down a bit. The tank is the spot where I am still wondering about the most.

Oh ya, if i have a shaman in my group, just say elemental for now. Is it possible to have everyone flag, except the tank, and do tranquil air totem for threat reduction? and the buff would only go to the flagged people in the party? I know this wouldn't work in a pvp server...but on PvE I am a bit curious.

Re: Tranquil Air

No the only way this would work would be to make a raid, and put the tank in group 1 and the rest in group 2. Flagged or not won't make a difference...

Cheers,
Stealthy

Or make sure the tank is out of range for its buff, and keep the rest in range of it

I went through a similar thought process from what you describe, and I settled on group 1, except I use 2 mages and 1 warlock. I just prefer 2 sheeps for heroics. I can't imagine a pet tanking much in a heroic. I've run tons of heroics, and well geared tanks were hard to keep up in some places as a healer, against 1 mob no less. Even if the pet wore plate, your healer will draw aggro trying to keep it alive, causing more problems.


Paladins can tank fine in heroics. Hell, they tank fine all the way into SSC. After that, I don't know. It's easier to have a warrior in some situations, but a good pally tank can handle all heroics with no problem. I personally chose the class because of the extra buffs, and I can switch out to backup heal and have the pet tank if things get hectic. Plus, if I get bored with the setup, I can make the pally heal, and have a shadow priest in group.

Planning is overrated, I didn't plan. Just do it!

I see, in some cases, 2 mages being more useful than 2 warlocks. THey are easier to control and handel, no offense... and are very useful in AoE situations. But on the other hand, while there are alot of humanoids/beasts or whatever in heroics to sheep, there are also alot of things to banish/enslave/seduce. Although seduce has its flaws, I think the other CC abilities of a warlock, including fears, overcome a mage. And they have SS, which would decrease downtime between wipes. If anyone else has any opinions over mage/mage/lock or lock/lock/mage, please chime in, thx.

Btw, thx for all of the input, I really appreciate it.

I'm going for a similar group. Priest, 2 mages and lock. Still can't decide on pally or warrior either.

just curious lance, but why 2 mages over 2 locks?

Instead of deciding on warrior vs pally, or mages vs. locks... I decided on both in both cases.

I'm levelling a bunch of mages along with my main group of 1 warrior, 1 priest and 3 locks, and levelling a paladin to switch out with the warrior.

Ya :P
Why not just level 5 of every class?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Voidx

just curious lance, but why 2 mages over 2 locks?

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I just wanted 2 sheeps and one pet rather than other way round.

how does one go about controlling that many sheeps/targets? Setting up for the first shot seems easy enough... but what happens when a sheep is up and you want to resheep. It seems overly complicated to me to know which mage has which target so you don't cross sheeps.

That's the main reason I went without crowd control, it seems like it would be very hard to keep track of it. I realize this is actually the essence of multi-boxing, the challenge behind it all. To me though, it didn't seem worth it to go with mages for that reason.

Set up focus targets and macros to do your CC spells onto the focus, it's also good to have some UI mods that let you keep a better eye on CC'd targets.

Hm, yeah, simple solution, really. That definitely changes my view on CC altogether. Should have thought of that.