Sharp skill curve adding a tank to the mix?

[Ellay]

People who figure they can move from one keyboard to another and do multiple things with different classes are in for a hard time. Im not saying its impossible, espiacally with only 5, but you are going to run into some issues for sure.

It is hard and there is a learning curve, but I play on 2 keyboards at the same time ever since I start dual-boxing :P

To note I did try in EQ2 a healer / tank / dps 3 boxing a longg time ago and my brain shut down at 10 minutes. Was not happy fun times.

[Turenn]

Seriously tanking with a warrior post 3.0 is just stupid easy.

Here's how you do it. Have a key for thunderclap and shockwave, and a /castrandom Shield Slam, Devastate, Revenge on the same key as your DPS macro on your slaves. Open with charge/bloodrage (if you are worried about forgetting to put the slave off follow just bind the charge/bloodrage key to move forward key on your slaves) to get rage, thunderclap, shockwave, and just start spamming your tanking/dps/heal buttons.

Post 3.0 I have not lost aggro once using this method, and it seems to me that thunderclap isn't ever resisted anymore.

[DgtlSorcrs]

It has been my experience that you must pick classes based on their ability to do ONE thing great. You only get one key to mash basically when multiboxing. Tie the priest heal key to the mage nuke key and the warrior tank key (whatever they do besides attack). Write a single macro using the best ability you have and then spam the key.

/castrandom works well for this.

People who figure they can move from one keyboard to another and do multiple things with different classes are in for a hard time. Im not saying its impossible, espiacally with only 5, but you are going to run into some issues for sure.

So true... I nearly fully play my pally tank, but for my Holy priest, and arcane mage, I just hit my 2 key for (/assist TANK /cast OPENER_ATTACK) and then spam the 1 key for (/cast LONGER_CAST DPS SPELL)

Effectively, my holy priest uses her massive +spell power to deliver pretty big hits on shadow word pain for an opener and /castrandom Holy Fire, Smite, Mind Blast for DPS while my mage does A Frostfire blast for opener followed by Arcane Missiles (with a /cast [channeling];Arcane Missiles so I can spam it without constantly interrupting my own missles)

Since my pally tank is well geared, I only occasionally need heals. For that, the holy priest it PERFECT... I have a macro for /target MY_TANK /cast Prayer of Mending

The PoM is so incredibly useful if my toons all start taking damage, and I can use that key even if the PoM is on CD to retarget my tank and then whack renew

Basically, PoM and Renew are almost all I ever need, and those can be whacked when needed and I can hit Pom, and renew, then back to smite/holy fire before the mage has even gone through one channel of arcane missiles


However, I totally agree about keeping it simple. My Mage has other very useful spells... I'm sure that blink and invis and blizzard and polymorph would be terribly useful if I were sologing. Likewise, when I run an instance with my priest healing, I never do any dps casting, but use all of my various heals as they are needed. My pally's the only one I pretty much play the same whether multiboxing, or soloing... except I need to "mute" my mage and priest as I tend to unconsciously reach for my PoM and Renew buttons even while my pally is MTing an instance.

[genocyde]

With my PvE group (druid tank, ret pally, disc priest, mage, hunter) i started out with every single button on my N52TE gamepad (all 3 states) bound to some combat action. I could use any ability on all 5 classes at any time and I headed to my first instance. This was a massive wipefest of wrong button presses, forgetting to do something, or poor action resulting in 15 min single trash pulls.

I immediately abandoned this bind everything method, despite hours of macro work, and started over with 3 buttons; 1 heal, 2dps, 3 tank. Things went very smoothly until my mage pulled a boss of the tank and i realized i had no taunt macro available and lost my mage and hunter before getting aggro back on tank and then 2 tooning the boss the last 20 some % while the ret pally sat off in the distance where the boss used to be. Slowly I have worked my way back up to the point where I am running out of buttons on my N52TE for my 5 classes which is a scary thought (I wish they'd make an N52 style pad for the right hand with a trackball style mouse ball instead of a d-pad).

If theres any wisdom I can impart from my experiences it is:
Start small; bind only 1 heal spam macro, 1 tank spam macro, 1 tank taunt/oh $#!+ button, and 1 dps spam macro. Bind them to 4 DIFFERENT buttons. The sooner you learn to separate the dps,heals,tanking the sooner you'll be able to do complicated fights like bosses with a total aggro dump. Aggro dumps area near guaranteed wipe if your dps is tied to your tank button and your not ready with taunt.

Positioning: a button thats bound to walk backwards on all ranged dps is very helpful for getting them out of harms way. I set my team up as follows
Button 1: A quick tap of this button as i get to where I want my raged dps to sit.
Druid tank: enrage
Ret pally: Favorite seal
Ranged DPS/healer: Walk backwards

Button 2: This button engages the boss and positions my ret pally.
Druid tank: Faerie fire
Ret pally: Judge/startattack
Hunter: fire misdirect on tank
Mage: cast Slow on boss (arcane mage)
Priest: Prayer of Mending tank

After a while I got so used to this style pull that I found myself chain pulling instances all the way to the boss and forgetting to even rest up before pulling the boss (bad Idea in heroics in WotLK so far)

Using this setup I have accumulated a good chunk of emblems so far in WotLK and until i met Jedoga Shadowcaster in heroic Ahn'Kehet I thought I would steamroll all heroics in WotLK. Good luck to anyone with a holy trinity group on this boss.

[Rin]

People who figure they can move from one keyboard to another and do multiple things with different classes are in for a hard time. Im not saying its impossible, espiacally with only 5, but you are going to run into some issues for sure.

I'm going to have to disagree with this, as I've recently converted my team over to an entirely mixed setup (1 Warrior, 1 Death Knight, 1 Paladin, 1 Priest, 2 Hunters, 2 Mages, 1 Shaman, 1 Druid), spanning across three (sometimes four) boxes. If you're serious about multiboxing, you've probably already read Xzin's great thread about the X-Keys, and/or you probably already know about the G15 keyboard (or similar device) offered by Logitech/other manufacturers. Multi-class boxing isn't very easy to learn, but it shouldn't be touted as overly difficult too. Vyndree said it best when she discussed breaking things down into roles; having specific characters that would do specific things.

For my setup, I run two distinct groups - Group A: Warrior, Death Knight, Hunter, Hunter, Priest; Group B: Shaman, Paladin, Mage, Mage, Druid
The priest is always on a standalone box, located to the left of my main guys; her keys are tied to random keystrokes that I can instantly access on my G15 keyboard. All of her main heals are covered by G1-G4 (Circle of Healing, Greater Heal, Renew, Lesser Heal). Usually, when running a Warrior + DK mix, the Priest can spam CoH without having any threat issues. By default, her heals are tied to whomever I select with my warrior that needs healing. If I'm really getting my ass handed to me, I can quickly swap the Priest's main cast line up with her secondary line, which lets her heal as if she were an independent player. This is handy in situations where threat management is an issue. Having her on her own box means that I can keep the mouse down by the heal area at all times... a simple left or right movement with the mouse that's tied to her = a heal. Its no more than a 1 second notion, and < 1 second if I realize that I'm going to be in trouble early.

While this is happening, my Warrior and Death Knight remain in the mix, throwing down blows; my hunter's and their pets also remain in the fight by doing their own thing. If I feel the healing may take more than 1 second, I can always line up a few shots (simply by going through keys 1-4 on my keyboard); and have them ready to go while I focus on the heals. There's nothing overly complicated to it.

On Group B, my Paladin is tanking (Avengers Shield + Consecration); while I can independently hit a separate key for the mage attacks (e.g. key 4 would fire off missles, and key 4 would fire off a lightning bolt), while the druid can hang out as an owl and provide her damage enhancements.

For positioning, I always hit the S key (sending my team back a few notches) before I engage mobs; breaking the follow and allowing for everyone to be out of range of the "tanking area", as I call it.

[Ellay]

n52 gamepad for all boxes besides main. Keyboard for main.
Left hand on n52. Right hand on numpad.
a simple shift to the right from this setup converts me to WASD and mouse control for the main character.

[Pikey]

n52 gamepad for all boxes besides main. Keyboard for main.
Left hand on n52. Right hand on numpad.
a simple shift to the right from this setup converts me to WASD and mouse control for the main character.

Gladiator Keyboardturner... Hmmm has a nice ring to eet.

PS. Numnum

[TheBigBB]

Why are you only using one key? I'm (usually) not going to consecrate when there's only one mob, or waste mana and a cooldown on another Avenger's Shield when the mob is about to die and I could just go chain pull something else with the shield right after. There's nothing hard about having different key sets.

Sam, I don't know why you're even posting in advice threads here when you basically don't know or refuse to learn how the game works before you box it. From what I see, you're just going to write one macro based off something you read in the macro forum and then call it a day and spam mindlessly until the end of time.

It has been my experience that you must pick classes based on their ability to do ONE thing great. You only get one key to mash basically when multiboxing. Tie the priest heal key to the mage nuke key and the warrior tank key (whatever they do besides attack). Write a single macro using the best ability you have and then spam the key.

/castrandom works well for this.

People who figure they can move from one keyboard to another and do multiple things with different classes are in for a hard time. Im not saying its impossible, espiacally with only 5, but you are going to run into some issues for sure.

[Bigfish]

Well, in his defense, I would advocate the one-character-one-role mantra. I've run characters trying to simultaneously heal and DPS, or heal and tank, or tank and DPS, and invariably I came to the conclusion that it just doesn't work. In fact, I think we had a conversation about that in another thread.

Anywho.

I would have to say the "put your best ability on a button and spam it" notion isn't particularly ideal unless you only plan on spending your time killing boars in Elwynn. You really need to develop a good /castsequence that utilizes as many class abilities as you can, not to mention knowing when to bind keys to certain functions such as crowd control, Mana Regens, etc. I'm even starting to ponder creating diffent castsequences for non-elites, elite trash, and bosses, just because of the subtle differences in dealing with those enemies warrants entirely different methods of killing them.

[unseen]

Thanks for all the responses so far guys! Glad to see I'm not going crazy for realizing it's a lot tougher than I had thought.

I appreciate the tips on handling the different roles and some of the macro suggestions. I was trying to control all my dps and healing with keybinds and clicking all my abilities on my tank, but that was a bit much for me. I think I'll make room for a few warrior keybinds (thunderclap and shockwave at least) to ease up the need to click as much. I'll also have to set up a macro for kind of a generic dps rotation so I don't have to pay as much attention to that as I did previously.