Alright folks, this is my first group I've boxed but all is going well and I thought the community might could benefit from my experiences.
Group Makeup
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Paladin (tank) (armory)
Druid (healer) (armory)
Priest (dps, shadow) (armory)
Warlock (dps, destro) (armory)
Hunter (dps, beast mast.) (armory)
Hardware
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While theorycrafting my setup I put a lot of thought and $$ into hardware ideas. Didn't end up using an Xkeys but I tried a Logitech G11 and a Ideazon Fang. Problem is that I am boxing on a Macbook Pro and neither are supported well. The Fang recognizes as a keyboard but the key mapping is all messed up and I just didn't feel like it helped me that much. The G11 was similar. Being a windows keyboard, the CTRL, ALT, and for mac Command keys ended up mapped a bit weird and I reverted to just going back to using my standard keyboard that is on my laptop. I upgraded to 4gb of ram and by using the /maxfps and /maxfpsbk commands I don't have framerate issues except for city lag. This might be percieved differently from a PVP perspective but for PVE I don't have any problems.
Overall Impressions
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multiple classes hasn't been hell but it is harder than a group comprised of mostly the same class. I have to think individually about which abilities can be bound to the same key (IE, Feign Death, Fade, and Taunt can all be on the same key because when I am taunting, 99% of the time a FD or Fade go right along with it.) Mostly I just gear up my tank and healer first and even though I'm putting out sub-par DPS on my DPS toons it makes little difference and I kill crap pretty quick. I've primarily done instance grinding which is good XP and good practice. I've found questing kinda boring because with 5 toons everything dies really fast and it ammounts to just a lot of running around and the general feeling that I'm wasting my time despite the great tripple xp. Questing also generally leads to me dropping a toon on accident and a lot of taxi problems where as instancing is just kill kill kill, not to mention the blues help a lot to gear up my toons. Also lots of greens for DEing, cloth, etc. AND, I don't get bothered by people at all where as questing I can get ganked, or just have people bothering me. I like instancing a lot more. I started out pretty slow overall but I'm getting faster and learning the instances pretty quick. It's been a pleasant experience and now that I'm not getting slammed with new abilities all the time my macros are more static and my micro management is getting less troublesome. Lots of fun and I'd recommend giving it a go. Getting past lvl 20 was the hardest but totally worth it.
Leveling
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I leveled 1-20 in the Blood Elf starting zone. Lots of good kill quests, good XP and good rewards for the quests there. Plus, I like it more than the barrens or any other starting zone for that matter. Also, I'm running 4/5 BE so why not just stay there. Since then I've been leveling primarily with Instance Grinding. I ran RFK last night pretty smoothly but there was downtime. I'm thinking that I've been leveling about once every 20 minutes, but there is a lot fo estimation and error in that number. If I can run it again tonight I'll fill you in on better numbers.
I have a friend who's 4boxing and doing all questing. I personally didn't like that method. Too much clicking quest givers. Too much worrying about all my toons having all the right quests. Also too few gear rewards that my gear was serously lacking all the time it seemed. Instance grinding, if you can muster the will looks to be pretty good XP/hr and the drops are great. Make sure you get your bag space up because it's a bitch having full bags if you're like me and a whore about looting. I also believe I'm getting enough green drops that I may be able to keep a single enchanter leveled along the way, not to mention enough cloth for about 1 toon to level first aid fully.
Class Impressions
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Paladin
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Chosen as a tank for the simplicity of AOE tanking. Might have been easier to start off with my druid tanking and make the switch around lvl 25-30 but I stuck with it.
- I always use Retribution Aura
- If you are capable, do big pulls. Paly tanking mechanics work really well for them and it makes things run a lot faster.
- Talent retribution until lvl 29 or so (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZV0ex0b)
- Switch to protection around lvl 30 - similar to this (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZV0ex0b)
- Make sure you pick up your 5 points in Reconing next
- Consider manually using your paladin spells. Other than a judge/righteousness macro, I've resorted to intelligent control of my paly abilities.
- Took me a while to not spam my blessings too much and waste mana doing so. Learning to watch my judgement cooldown improved my mana efficiency.
Priest
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Priest took me a really long time to figure out. You need to setup a good castsequence for your priest or your priest DPS will blow. With points in improved mind blast, mine is something like this.
Code:
/castsequence reset=target Shadow Word: Pain,Vampiric Embrace,Mind Blast,Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast,Mind Flay,Mind Flay,Mind Blast,Mind Flay,Mind Flay
With the rest of the macro I'm at 255 chars, but this is the right ammount of time for SW:P to tick all the way down.
Druid
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Chosen as a healer primarily because I love druid healing and I wanted a druid in my group. I like the effectivness of Hots and that they keep working after the fact so on some level it takes less work, sort of. Heals consist of starting with Rejuv, then Regrowth when health is low enough and some Healing Touch spam when the hots are up.
Nature's swiftness is currently totally wasted on my druid. I almost never use it. Same with innervate. I used it for the first time tonight. I just don't know what key to bind it to and I'm being lazy with reworking key layouts.
Warlock
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Speccing destruction due to the current simplicity of Shadowbolt Spam. I use the imp for the added DPS. I had problems with my imp running off and attacking things occasionally but I solved that with a /stopmacro [noharm] in my bigbutton macro and life has been way more pleasant ever since. I haven't been using Corruption though I know I should because my lock's DPS has been seriously lacking.
Current DPS macro is
Code:
/castsequence reset=target Curse of the Elements,Corruption,Immolate,Shadow Bolt,Shadow Bolt,Shadow Bolt,Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt
Assuming you have 5/5 Bane, this macro cycles with exactly the right ammount of time for immolate and corruption to tick all the way down. You'll notice I'm using Curse of the Elements. I used Curse of Agony for a long time but realized that increasing all magic damage by 6%/8%/10% would benefit my group way more.
- keep your SS up on someone.
- make sure you have some shards.
- spam SB
Hunter
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Initially had pet problems but solved them the same way I solved my lock pet problems. OMG I love having a hunter. By far the highest DPS in my group and so automated. I am not using any stings yet but I'll be using scorpid sting since I just got it tonight. I use a castrandom to fire off Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot when they are off cooldown and I do a ton of DPS just autoshotting which is really nice. Pet does a shit ton of DPS too and nether require much of any attention.
I've had trouble integrating hunters mark and stings into my hunter macros so far. Until I get steady shot, I'll continue using a castrandom to cycle Arcane Shot, Multi-shot, and Rapid Fire since I believe that puts out max DPS. With the addition of steady shot in the 60's that will change, but even with those problems, my hunter stays at the top of the damage meters.
Master UI Layout
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This is almost up to date but not completely.
http://callmetom.net/img/ScreenShot_092708_152111.jpeg
Addons
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I use virtual directories in all my wow directories so I only really have 1 addon directory for easy updating and 2 wow directories (one for brain setup and one for slave setup). Makes switching between brains and slaves really easy because their layouts are saved different for if that toon is in charge vs if that toon is a slave.
I use Jamba (http://wow.jafula.com/addons/jamba) for my multiboxing needs. It's great and is actively developed and Jafula listens to and fills community requests.
I use various Fubar addons.
Cartographer for map stuff.
Pitbull for unit frames.
Chronometer and Quarts for castbar and cooldown timers.
Omen for threat
Recount and Recap for assessing damage output of party members.
Bartender for my bars.
Squeenix for the square minimap.
DrDamage for stat calculations on spells which is really only usefull later on
Tankpoints for easy upgrading of tank gear since I'm kinda new to tank classes.
Multiclass - PVE - Non-boosting, RAF leveling - My brain dump about my current leveling experience
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