Instance Effectiveness

[cheekyarab]

Just some background before I get into my topic. I've been IS-Boxing for a while in many games, like EQ2 (Triple) SWG (Triple) LOTRO (Dual). I've run tanks, buffers, DPS & healer combos in one fashion or another. So I'm no stranger to working out 3 classes into a cohesive effective group. A friend I played LOTRO with just went back to WoW and I took his RAF and started up two shaman. The two shaman are fun, and WoW's macro system makes life as a boxer the easiest next to SWG of any of my boxing experience.

My concerns pertains to instancing; I used to play WoW ages ago when MC was the only raid; so I have experience with the core mechanics. I am looking for the most viable combination to experience "group"/"heroic" oriented content with the least amount of accounts. More often than not a straight tank/healer combo is not enough DPS to have the endurance from a mana/power perspective to heal the MT and burn down big targets without going OOM (from my experience). An off-tank class or mid-range tanks often don't have the mitigation or full on tanking abilities to survive the harder encounters.

I need the WoW veterans perspectives on this in order to answer this one. I'm sure I could just sub 5 accts. and level them to 80 and make it happen; however I'm looking for alternatives at the moment as I reaquaint myself with WoW (as it's been years since I was a player). If I asbolutely need more than two to accomplish this, that's fine I can accept it, however there has to be people who push the limits of these sort of things to see what they can accomplish. Ofcourse all instances vary, and some might be simply to tough to do this due to certain scripted events, however if those are the minority versus the majority I'm more than willing to deal with those fewer occasions. I know with my old dual and triple box set ups I could accomplish things that would wipe whole groups in other MMO's. I appreciate any feedback.

[emesis]

Assuming you are interested in running level 80 heroics, these encounters are tuned for 5 level 80 players in decent (blue) gear.

Although some aspects of multiboxing (trivial focused fire) facilitate running these, in my experience multiboxing 5-man heroic content is much less forgiving than when running them with 5 seperate people (PUG issues notwithstanding). Movement and gauntlet scenarios are particularly much more challenging playing multiple toons at the same time than playing as one in a group of separate players.

At my current gear level, I can easily run some heroics with only 4 toons - but not all of them. However, it would have been hard to get to this gear level without running heroics successfully in the first place.

My feeling is that starting heroics with less than 5 toons would be very painful. Of course, if you are willing to pickup or play with other players, running a smaller number of toons and letting someone else tank would completely change the dynamic.

Outside of Northrend, you can roll over a lot pre-WOTLK content, raids excepted, with SOLO level 80 characters. So, it ultimately depends on what your goals are.

[cheekyarab]

I suppose my overall goal is to be able to experience as much content as possible without relying heavily on others. I wouldn't ofcourse mind picking up a random pugger for the gaps here and there, when necessary. I'm sure I could grab my buddy and his guys to complete some of the 80 content. I would assume most any combinations of 80's could destroy most pre-WOTLK content so this would primarily directed toward outfitting a team and getting them in a position to join WOTLK/BC raids as necessary and have the overall freedom to enjoy the game in almost any facet. Ofcourse I don't expect to get picked up with 4 shaman in a raid group with crap gear and maybe not even 4 shaman with top end craft/heroic gear but I'd like the option to have a main do these things and during off-peak guild/raid schedules I can still get the most out of group/heroic content and maximize overall potential. For instance in LOTRO you can steam roll almost any of their new content with two healers and a champion (AoE DPS class with heavy armour). in EQ2 it takes about four tank, cc, dps, healer. (You can ofcourse blend dps/cc into an enchanter/coercer).

The only thing preventing me from subbing more immediately is I'm still holding onto two LOTRO sub's so I can bring my healer/dps to our raid (the one lonely raid that exists - Only one fight to boot). So I've got six or so subs spread out over a few MMO's and my thoughts were that I could consolidate those into 2-4 in WoW depending on the needs to accomplish these sort of goals. Ofcourse since I'm not fully reintergrated into WoW I'm somewhat aprehensive to just crank out a group of 80's that won't be very viable from an end game perspective, be it farming rep/coin/heroics.

Movement or placement during some fights can be difficult but I've been able to master these in other games with some careful keymapping and macros and ofcourse rebound movement keys. Ofcourse some instances require custom mapping/macros in order to accomplish them based upon their specific challenges ofcourse; and not everything is doable. From everything I've read most people prefer to do the two anchors (Pally + Healer) and three identical DPS (hybrids mostly). So that leaves me trying to identify if this is optimal party count and composition. Is a 3-4 shaman group able to achieve these results or 3-4 druid group?

[Redbeard]

Couple things:

1) If I understood your first post correctly, be careful if youre using multiple accounts not under your name (it sounds like you took over your friends accounts). This can get you das boot from the game.

2) If your ultimate goal is to live in heroics then youre going to need 5 accounts.

If you can tell us more about what classes you want to use then maybe we can help with composition more.

[cheekyarab]

Couple things:

1) If I understood your first post correctly, be careful if youre using multiple accounts not under your name (it sounds like you took over your friends accounts). This can get you das boot from the game.

2) If your ultimate goal is to live in heroics then youre going to need 5 accounts.

If you can tell us more about what classes you want to use then maybe we can help with composition more.

You misunderstood my original post in item number one. I created one account and was referred by a friend with another (trial otherwise known as RAF). For item number two, I could have quite well assumed I could accomplish it with five, however I was expected a more varied opinion or examples of varying situations. For item number three, that is the premise of my question, I will build optimaly, so what class I want is really irrelavent. I enjoy all roles, I've played all classes in more MMO's than you can shake a stick at.

[Lightsout]

~shakes stick~

























*breaks*

[Starbuck_Jones]

For the most with the least, you will need one level 80 toon. You will be able to do 99% of the old world content and prolly 80% of BC. Maybe more if that 80 is decked out in the color purple. For largest volume of group content that is all you need. To get the rest, you will need around 3 people to most likely see the rest of Outlands and part of Northrend (non heroics/raid) Past that you will need 5 toons and all you will be missing is 10/25man raid untill the next expansion and you can outlevel and outgear it all.

For that one toon. pick a paladin. With their endless mana and ability to heal, you can walk backwards through any zone.

[wowphreak]

I tried running with only 4, worked ok till I hit bc then allot of instances just got to painful until I out leveled em or just plain out geared em.
I got all the way into first 2 instance in wotlk just outta sheer persistence and then caved in got a fifth account.

If yeh go with less then 5 yer gonna need to field a tank and a healer, dps are dime-a-dozen, literally.

After 60 there quite a few tanks because of people running deathknights, but its luck of the draw if they can actually tank.

[Redbeard]

Couple things:

1) If I understood your first post correctly, be careful if youre using multiple accounts not under your name (it sounds like you took over your friends accounts). This can get you das boot from the game.

2) If your ultimate goal is to live in heroics then youre going to need 5 accounts.

If you can tell us more about what classes you want to use then maybe we can help with composition more.

You misunderstood my original post in item number one. I created one account and was referred by a friend with another (trial otherwise known as RAF). For item number two, I could have quite well assumed I could accomplish it with five, however I was expected a more varied opinion or examples of varying situations. For item number three, that is the premise of my question, I will build optimaly, so what class I want is really irrelavent. I enjoy all roles, I've played all classes in more MMO's than you can shake a stick at.

I dont care for the tone of your response. Bottom line: there is no optimal setup really. Pick a tank. Pick a healer. Pick some dps. Thats the state of the game right now.

~shakes stick~

























*breaks*

Lol well played.

[cheekyarab]

I dont care for the tone of your response. Bottom line: there is no optimal setup really. Pick a tank. Pick a healer. Pick some dps. Thats the state of the game right now.

I'm sorry you feel that way, although I can't imagine why. My response is nothing more than a general response to those general statements as he outlined them; I suppose multi-quoting would have been easier

thanks for the overall responses.