12 boxing EverQuest

[Tdawg2008]

Okay, I admit, I got the idea from Sam Deathwalker. I've been reading his old posts on a few forums, but I see he has moved onto WoW. Hehe, So right now I am 6 boxing EverQuest. My goal is to 12 box so I can do my own raids. Please keep in mind that this won't happen until sometime in 2009 when I can afford another gaming PC. Right now I am just planning it out.

My current team is: Ranger, druid, enchanter, warrior, cleric, and beastlord.

I think my 6 new toons will be:

Shaman, paladin, bard, magician, necro, and a 2nd cleric.

Anyone have any suggestions for a different set up? The shaman and the paladin are a must to maximize HP buffs.

Feel free to add suggestions or feedback.



P.S. No flames please, I know I am playing "an old school MMO." I just can't really get into WoW enough to box it.

[Gomotron]

I've 6-boxxed EQ way since probably 2000, but stopped once I started WoW. So I have extensive experience boxxing EQ (at least 6-man).

My group was SHD, SHM, CLR, ENC, ROG, DRU. Knowing what I know now about multi-boxxing, the fewer the classes the better off you'll be. EQ, unlike WoW, is very heavily dependent on buffs, so I agree that you need to keep the basics covered. However, CLR/SHM combo has that covered probably 75% of the way as far as HP/AC goes. So streamlining DPS with Wizards is probably your best bet, imo.

Understand that this is per game mechaincs in EQ circa 2004, so if things have changed significantly, all of the above may be complete rubbish.

So, if I were to box 12, the second group would be a full group of wizards, or 5 wizzies and a cleric.

For your group, I'd definitely pick up a shaman, so 5 wizzies and a shaman.

Definitely stay away from bards, as they are incredibly hard to box effectively. They are at their most potent when they are twisting songs, and that is nearly impossible to do with multiboxing.

[Tdawg2008]

I've got a bard at level 51 on one of my current accounts. They added a /melody command around 2005-2006. It's an autotwist macro, i.e. /melody 1 2 3 will autotwist song 1, 2, and 3. Thanks for the feedback. Now, I just need to buy/build the computer for my team.

[ObesAU]

Isn't eq a little tricky as the windows require focus ?

[Tdawg2008]

Not with WinEQ. I can alt+tab between them all or click on the taskbar as needed. Windowed Mode for teh win.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya I dont know why WinEQ works so well, and Keyclone dosn't as far as switching between accounts (but keyclone rules in everything else though and is the way to go in WoW).

Anyway for EQ:

1 Tank (warrior)
2 Heal (cleric)
3 Slow/CC (chanter cause of the new knockback root).
4 DPS/Utility (Wiz / Ports)
5 DPS/Utility (Mage / Coh and offtanking)

Now you are covered and can go for:

Ranger (best snare and ranger/mage coh is best pulling i think)
Bard (puller mana regen)
Shaman (buffs and best slow)

Then fill out with Wizards for DPS and Clerics for Heals.

In your case I would drop the BL (more then one mellee and its a pita to mico manage) and the Druid (not best at anything). Necro kills to slow, get wizard instead. Although a Pal might give a bit nice buff, another wizard (if you have a shaman espically) is better.

[ObesAU]

I used to 2 box using 2 pcs in eq. For atleast the first 12 months you couldn't even alt-tab and meditating meant looking a spellbook. I had a monk and a priest, loved the monk Feign Death was very OP'd in EQ, wish the priest had been a shaman and the lack of snare was annoying.

But if I could software multibox a full group in eq that'd be interesting.

I take it raids have been downsized since the PoP days, if you are talking 12man raids.

[ObesAU]

My brief reading today (from a few forums) suggests that an EQ window still requires focus to process a key stroke. And so far only ISX / Innerspace seems to be the only solution, which kind of makes me reluctant to try it. Or am I not reading things right ?

The only other solution I can think of VMWare and its experimental directX support (assuming VMWare will accept output without having focus).
Or autohotkey scripts to swap windows focus and press a key (sounds questionable).

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well I play full screen so the window I am on always has focus ... but ya I think there is something about that only the focus window gets the keys in EQ, not 100percent sure though.

[Herc130]

Updates? Hows it working out for you and how do you have things set up? I started out six boxing and have added 3 more accounts myself and would be interested to hear more on this. Maybe in a week or so after I get everything moved around and my new computers built, loaded with EQ and set-up, I will take pics and show how I do things. More then likely someone here can tell me how to do it better lol (serious...I am probably doing something not as well as it can be done).


I thought about doing raids, but most raids will be out of reach for my bot army or if the gear and advantages of beating the raid can be done by me.......then there are now group encounters out there that are better then the raid drops and the flags are no longer needed. The only raid that I thought in reach and worth doing is Shyra...for bazu augs. But then I found that some new nameds in SoD expansion has drops that makes it pointless for me to put the effort in to getting augs to advance my warriors current gear and I was better off doing those new nameds. Which makes it way easier as doing raid encounters would require me to have at least 2 clerics...which outside of raid encounters is not needed. And as far as I can see, there are very few raids out there that a box army can win that is still worth winning, so what is the point of setting up the bot army for doing raids....which would have you loose dps accounts in favour of healer accounts?

Especially now with mercenaries for hire. You cannot take the merc's into raid encounters, so if you set-up for raids, you will still need bot healers. Outside of that though, you can now just make a tank account, add in buff classes, then the rest just DPS.

My 9 accounts are: Rogue, warrior, bard, shaman, cleric, enchanter, druid and mage x2. My warrior is on his own computer to my left and I control with an n52. I pull with my rogue which is on my main computer right in front of me. I bring mobs near my warrior and he grabs agro pretty easy and the mobs run straight over to him and usually sets up perfect everytime. Then I just need to position my rog. My bard shares my rogs computer and I flip back and forth between em with WinEQ2. Right now all my bard does is /melody mana regen, overhaste and whatever else. I had asperations of easily playing my bard, rog and warrior, but now I am not so sure. The main reason I added the bard was to pull, but in most cases, my rog is fine for pulling and with a mage, I can do ok with splitting hard pulls. So I may be starting a third mage on my bards account.....although bards also sing songs that can add as much as 30 to 40 % for caster DPS and melee DPS.....I just haven't read up too much to decide yet if the bard is earning his keep by just standing around /melody.

I wouldn't do a whole bunch of differnt casters. I would keep the enchanter for the buffs and gimp DPS, but the rest of casters, just go wizard or mage. I would go mage myself as I think a wizard will go splat much easier by grabbing agro then a mage will and the mage will probably out dps the wizard in a bot army. I don't know what ways caster drop agro, but at one point I decided it was too much effort to do in a box situation, so I never bothered. I sometimes play with a guildie that boxes a wizard......his wizard dies alot. My mage nukes are pretty good and I can cast em back to back and not grab agro. I am pretty sure a wizard cannot. Add in pet DPS and honestly, the mage will probably do better then the wiz. Plus, you gotta think some mobs resist nukes, but melee they do not. Also, mage air pets stun mobs, which will help your tank live longer and if your tank does not, a high level mage air pet with AA's is many times better tanks then bazaar gear player tanks. Then add in coth...which helps with pulling and mala line spells. Wizards has nukes and ports. To me...wizard nukes can get you a dead wizard unless you use it sparingly or you take the effort to drop hate...so wizard nukes not much better then mage+pet. Ports? EQ is so easy to get around now with fellowship camps and every class having some kinda clicky port item, that wizard or druid ports are not a selling point to me for a bot army.

You are gonna be playing a ranger, a beastlord, pali, bard and warrior? Those are all melee classes. Granted, you can just stand the ranger to one side and have him bow, pretend the beastloard is a gimp shaman with a strong pet, /melody ony with bard, but that is alot of not using the classes even near to what they can do. If you got em for buffs, theses classes mostly cancel each other out for buffs as they don't stack. Under my set-up and how I do things things....running these would take a buttload of effort and I just wouldn't enjoy it, but you maybe do things a different and better way then me, so I'd be interested to hear how it is going.