A comprehensive view of a multi-class setup with some examples

[Nuclearone]

Firstly, I�d like to say thank you to everyone on these forums for teaching me how to multibox. I�ve been doing it about 6 months now, and I love it. I�m writing this to both educate others and seek improvements for my setup. I�m going to describe my setup in basic terms, as I�m at work and don�t have all of my specific macros in front of me. There are better write ups in other areas for everything, so if you have any questions about specific methods, you may want to use the search function above.

I use a basic FTL system for attacking and assisting. For most other actions I use simple key bindings. I have W,A,S, and D on the Do Not Pass List. My team consists of an Unholy DK Tank, Resto Shaman Healer, Arcane Mage, Balance Druid, and Survival Hunter. They are all level 80. I basically leveled the same specs, with the exception that my Shaman was specc�d Elemental for leveling. I ran into no situations where healing was an issue while leveling. I leveled via quests alone. The following is my basic setup. If you want my specific macros, just post here or PM me and I�ll get them to you.

1= follow

2=pull. DK deathgrips, Shaman casts water shield, Druid does moonfire and then IFF, Mage casts Focus Magic on Druid, Hunter does Hunter�s Mark.

3=spammable dps and tanking key. I�ll go ahead and list basic macro:
---DK----
/cast Rune Strike
/castsequence reset=target/combat/6 Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Scourge Strike, Scourge SA
---Shaman---
Nothing at all
---Druid---
/use 13
/use 14
/castrandom Wrath, Starfire
---Mage---
/use 13
/use 14
/castsequence reset=target/5 [nochanneling:Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage
---Hunter---
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/use 13
/use 14
/petattack
/cast Kill Command
/castrandom Explosive Shot, Explosive Shot, Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Aimed Shot
*note: this is from memory, and probably isn�t exact.*

4= Only thing I have bound to this atm is DnD.

5= Nothing Atm

6=Oh shit pour on the dps. Boss killing use only pretty much. DK pops gargoyle, Shaman does heroism, Mage does mirror image and icy veins and arcane power, hunter does Rapid Fire. I have all the dps toons trinkets on this macro as well. I�d like to say that an arcane mage with heroism, arcane power, icy veins, and mirror image at the same time does some scary, scary dps. Think upwards of 4k dps with my group on a heroic boss. Threat can be an issue if you don�t wait for the tank to build it before using this. By comparison my hunter and boomkins are doing about 2400 at the same time.

That�s all there is to my basic kill stuff setup. Now on to a really cool button:

Number pad 0= Shaman casts earth shield and rip tide on tank, druid casts thorns on the tank, hunter casts misdirection on the tank, and the tank casts bone shield on himself. I use this button right before every pull. I don�t know why, but I really like this one.

And lastly, my healing setup. It�s not very robust atm, but works pretty well
Number pad 1: Healing Wave on tank
Number pad 2: Chain Heal Shaman
Number pad 3: Chain Heal Druid
Number pad 4: Chain Heal Mage
Number pad 5: Chain Heal Hunter
Number pad 6: Chain Heal Hunter�s pet
Number pad 7: Oh crap, heal the tank.

/use 13
/use 14
/cast Tidal Waves
/cast Nature�s Swiftness
/castsequence Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Healing Wave

Number pad 8: Same as number pad 7 except it heals the healer

Number pad +: Drop totems. I usually use /castsequence reset=combat/5 Mana Spring Totem, Flametongue totem, Strength of earth totem, Wrath of air totem.

I used to use smart buff for buffs, but it was giving me problems when WotLK launched, and I haven�t got around to checking it out again. I use Bindpad for macros, and I used Multiboxer v2 while leveling. I use a lot of other add-ons, but those are the only multiboxer specific ones.

I will gladly accept and ideas for improvements, and for those of you just getting into multiboxing, I hope this helps.

[Nuclearone]

I was wondering what kind of dps others are getting with similar mixed teams in Heroics. I'm at work, so I can't post a screen shot, but from memory, i get the following on most bosses when I pop all my cool downs and heroism:

DK tank: 1400 dps

Mage: 3700 dps (yes 3700, mages cooldowns are the bomb)

Hunter: 2300 dps

Druid: 2300 dps

My toon names are Nuclearone, Tiresome, Bnuclear, Anuclear, and Interest. The server is US Aegwynn alliance. If anyone has a mind to look at my talent specs and offer advice, I'd be thrilled. My current macros are still very simlar to those listed in the first post.

So far I've five boxed the following heroics: Gundrak (35 minute farm), UK (too slow for fun), HOL up to loken (will try that again soon, as I've had a few upgrades), and DTK (ignoring second boss).

[thinus]

/castsequence Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Healing Wave

????

[Nuclearone]

Yeah, no need. It's a legacy issue. At first I believe I tried something like /castsequence Healing Wave, Riptide, Chain heal, but decided that wasn't the way to go.

I actually did change that one a while back, as just a plain old /cast Healing Wave there works

[heffner]

I think for my Boomkin I cast a few more wraths relative to my starfire (just looked it up, I am using /castrandom Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Starfire, Starfire. No clue if this is better though). I also cast IIS.

I use the same basic sequence for my mage, although I am trying to avoid /castsequence but have only been moderately successful at that. My mage macro also includes PoM, Icy Veins and Arcane Power as well as Mirror Image. However, I know a lot of people just save these for manual activation but I am lazy and use it all the time.

Typically the totems I use are Grounding Totem, Mana Spring, Totem of Wrath and Stoneskin. I probably should re-investigate this as I haven't really looked into the optimal set of totems in a while.

[Nuclearone]

Since I was talking about it, I decided to go to HoL and smash Loken. It was down right easy this time, using the same strat I tried before. It's amazing the difference gear makes. The entire HoL took less than an hour, and I wasn't hurrying. Last time I was there I was OOM after every pull. Now I sit and drink between rooms.

[shaeman]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time round.

It's nice to see how people have things setup.

I just wanted to ask, have you refined your resto shaman macros at all.

I've been raiding on my enhancement shaman and have picked up pretty nice gear for resto.
(I've dual specced for it).

I decided to try out healing for the first time ever and did a heroic Utgarde pinnacle.
I found that keeping a tank up (he wasn't particularly well geared, but was crit immune) was really easy.
An earth shield, Riptide (the instant cast heal, with hot component) topped most things off.

Now there were aggro issues (especially on Skadi as the tank wasn't picking up the adds too well) , which I wont experience as much with my multibox team, but there were occassions where I needed to pop a quick heal on one of the others. So I found that I needed lesser healing wave to keep them alive before doing a bigger heal.

Did you find any occassions where you really need to oh sh*t heal a dps instead of just a tank. Is it less of an issue because you are casters and tend to see the mob running for your alts so can load up a heal?

[KvdM]

I was wondering what kind of dps others are getting with similar mixed teams in Heroics. I'm at work, so I can't post a screen shot, but from memory, i get the following on most bosses when I pop all my cool downs and heroism:

Seems like you need to work on your hunter and druid macro's. Although there will always be some dps difference, if your team is equally geared then there shouldn't be a 1400dps gap between its members.

[Khatovar]

I always tended to use other tools outside of main heals when I could for the group. Bubble or HoSac/Salv on my paladin, druid had it easy as pie with WG and tranq. While solo healing, I was big on preventative measures on my shaman. Depending on the situation, I could drop an Earthbind or FS on a loose mob on my shaman to give the tank time to taunt a mob before it gets to DPS. I've even used Stoneclaw or Elementals to buy time if I saw incomming agro to DPS.

Beyond that, it was always the quickest heal possible. And don't forget that it's not all up to the healer to keep people alive. Most classes have a means to prevent or reduce damage and aggro and all tanks have a means of rescue. With your melee team, you should get a ton of AOE healing for them from the priest's AOEs, LotP, you can use instant chain heals if you have Maelstrom Weapon on your shammy and so on. It's a good setup that should provide a lot of ways to keep everyone up.

[shaeman]

Good point. I keep forgetting what my final group composition will be I've been running the shaman resto recently to learn my offspec but when the final two of my group hit 80 I will be running him as enhancement 90% of the time.