Quote Originally Posted by Apatheist View Post
Other people might have different opinions but I don't feel like mages are the most optimal character to 2box. About the only thing I can think of is having a disc/holy priest with power infusion on follow to keep you shielded and healed while your mage AE grinds. Which isn't even necessary. Mages already excel at solo farming and AE grinding. Having a second character tagging along is only going to slow you down.

I've already stated above but I feel like having one character capable of tanking and another capable of healing is the best duo comp. It makes forming groups for dungeon quests simple and heals make melee classes exponentially stronger. If you absolutely want to play a ranged character rather than melee, priest/warlock or paladin/hunter would be a more optimal choice than mage. Pets can tank any quest elite and warlocks/hunters can grind indefinitely with a healer. You'd even be able to solo DM tribute runs by yourself with a bit of gear.

What is it about 5boxing that put you off that you feel won't be an issue with 2boxing? Once you get your setup streamlined there's honestly not a whole lot of difference between managing 2 characters and managing 5 and the payoff is a lot higher being able to farm dungeons without having to share loot.
Mage+something might not be the most optimal but I really want to play mage though. Healer+tank sounds very nice in theory, and I might try that for an alt-team, but it won't hit the spot for the first round. For AE grinding a priest could help with holy nova, a paladin could hold aggro, warlock/hunter pets could gather the mobs up etc. It wouldn't necessarily make it more efficient, just more safe. On that note I didn't do a single bit of AE grinding 14 years ago with my mage, but that is mostly because I was scared of it

I reckon a mage+healer/tank could get into dungeon groups fairly easy as well. Also with any partner the mage could hit those elites fairly safe too. I see it more as a mage+helper rather than a super optimal duo, but I can't decide which helper would be the best one.

It's not so much about the amount of characters per se, but rather how the game plays and feels. I miss the feeling back in the day when you "were" your character, you felt so connected to it, while exploring the world and doing quests. With 5 I just don't get that, it feels more like a top-down game where you are commanding units rather than playing a character. But I still want to multibox to make life easier for myself, so a dualbox is kind of a middleground I guess.