Your Group Setup and why

[Sazed]

The only buffs that I have overlaping are the enchanter group buffs and the bards allegro AA ability, both of which add togther. DKTM from the bard AA will not stack, but the troub can get theirs to 12.5% with AA so its superior anyway. As far as gear, my Illy, Dirge and Pally are mythed the others have fabled epic. The Pally and temp are in T2, the chanters are in a mix of T2/T3, troub is only 78 so no shard armor yet. My dirge is raid geared, T3/T4 mix.

The only power buff I keep up is from the Illy, but before I got the Illy myth I kept the dirge power song on as well. TSO content is doable with one healer, just gotta start with the easy ones first and get a feel and some upgrades them.

As far as the damage it comes in order of dps Dirge (only due to gear), Coercer, Illy, Pally.

[Lokked]

3-box group related:

I created another 3-man group based on utilizing my guildies who play regularily and play high level tanks.

They are all lvl 63 with ~70 AA.

Brigand - uses a shield and specced STA, STR then down Honour Among Thieves in Brig tree.
Dirge - Specced STA, WIZ then down to Luck of the Dirge.
Warden - Specced completely Melee. STR, WIZ then down to Force of Nature.

The Warden's AE melee heals are extremely helpful. With a 1.2 speed weap, FBSS, Fortissimo and STR tree, I attack every 1.0 sec, 54% DA and 32% chance to heal off melee proc, which includes the 6 Combat Art skills for heal procs.

I couldn't live without stuns and mass interrupts after playing with this group. I time Brig Cheap Shot, Dirge Cheat Shot, Brig Stunning Blow, Brig Blackjack and Dirge Luda's and a ^^^ same con mob won't even get more then 2 autoattacks in before it's dead. The Warden's AE heals take care of this. Add Cacophony of Blades and Sandstorm? Pure CCing destruction. Keeping AE agro? A Double Up'd Barroom Negotiations + Swear has never caused attention to be drawn to my Warden (the only thing that would draw AE agro).

When playing with a tank, I simply visit my AA mirror on the brig to respec to AGI / STR and head down to Tenure.

Another thing to note: Brigand spells are dirt cheap, including masters (for the most part). Warden are pretty cheap as well. Dirge are the most expensive of the 3, but still cheaper then any of my other 3-man - SK, Lock, Defiler.

My Warden and Defiler are the same level, but I would have to say that Warden is becoming easier to manage and can fit in more DPSing while healing then the Defiler. You really need to get at least ~40 AA on the Warden in order to get the melee healing + the faster HoT ticks before the Warden becomes easily managed, though.

All in all, I love my no-Tank Class team. Melee Synergy rocks!

[Twiz]

Lokked,

That sounds like way too much fun. I've got an old level 48 pocket Fury that I may have to try that with when 6-boxing sounds like too much of a hassle.

[Milque]

Hi, new forum (and Inner Space/ISBoxer) user and first post.

Spent the better part of a week getting my head around ISBoxer. I'm still working out the best team and how best to use them (Using a G13 and G110 so not lacking for keys to assign).

The group right now conists of 6 on one PC: SK, Necro, Defiler, Inquisitor, Warlock, and Dirge.

I wanted an all evil team centered around the SK. I'm not sure if I decided on the best combo or not. Although now that the accounts are all set up, half of the characters are sub L10, so I have time to change. I'm still trying to find good resources on multiboxing EQ2 and group setup and I'm glad I found this site.

[Twiz]

Hey Milque, welcome to the forums!

That group is very near what I run. I would suggest replacing the Necro with an Enchanter (Coercer in your case). I played a Necro to 80 and, while fun, the benefits lost by not having a Coercer around are pretty massive.

I would also look into swapping Dirge for Troub (Can betray to keep evil team). Dirges generally work best with melee-based teams and, with a potential Coercer/Warlock combination, you want a Troub to benefit the casters.

I leveled up a bunch of small teams (amounting to 20-25 different characters) to level 20-21 before setting my main team in stone. It does get old doing the same low level area so often and so back-to-back, but it'll give you a pretty good idea on how a team feels and how it works together.

Hope this helps!

[Milque]

Hey Milque, welcome to the forums!

That group is very near what I run. I would suggest replacing the Necro with an Enchanter (Coercer in your case). I played a Necro to 80 and, while fun, the benefits lost by not having a Coercer around are pretty massive.

I would also look into swapping Dirge for Troub (Can betray to keep evil team). Dirges generally work best with melee-based teams and, with a potential Coercer/Warlock combination, you want a Troub to benefit the casters.

I leveled up a bunch of small teams (amounting to 20-25 different characters) to level 20-21 before setting my main team in stone. It does get old doing the same low level area so often and so back-to-back, but it'll give you a pretty good idea on how a team feels and how it works together.

Hope this helps!

Actually it helps quite a bit. I've been fighting with learning the most useful macro setups for my playing style. Combat is mostly centered on the SK with commands being sent to the other members. I've already realized I'm going to have to change this up as it's too hard to control positioning and relying on timers/macro chains for all the major non-autoattack zaps is convenient, but impossible to really have a clue what you're doing. Just getting the dirge to try to do anything this way (with most of the focus on the SK screen) had my brain twitching and I was afraid to try a CC caster. I'd hate to give up my necro, though (SK and Necro are my two favorite classes, and I was looking forward to seeing how the non fighter pets work at higher levels since I finally have a group vs solo).

Anyway, a lot to think through. Especially since I don't have all the facts.

I've heard mention of a spreadsheet of class stacking someone has put together here, but I'm not sure where it's at (been playing EQ2 since beta off and on, but at all things multibox I'm a pure noob.)

I'm very lost, so appreciate the advice.

[Twiz]

It can be fairly overwhelming at first. I practiced all the macros first on a training dummy.

As far as the necro goes, I'd say play what is the most fun for you. As more veteran members of the board will attest, your group will already be more efficient that your common PUG, simply because you created the characters to fit the team; you didn't create a team out of existing, pre-made characters, so to speak.

There's a lot of info on these boards concerning macros, etc. I think it's best to keep it simple. Find the most useful CA/spells for each class and use them over and over. I use about 6-8 CA/spells per toon, spread across 3-4 keys (2 CAs/spells per macro). While I may not be utilizing everything in my inventory, this keeps it easy to manage. This also may change in the future as my team levels.

As far as commands being sent through the SK, that's exactly how I play. My macros are roughly setup like so:

1: SK pre-buff (not assigned to any other toons)
2: SK single target taunt (not assigned to any other toons)
3: SK Taunt, Toons/Defiler Pet assist + 2 CAs/Spells (fight buffs/debuffs)
4: Debuffs
5: Damage
6: Damage
7: Damage/Positional damage (backstabs for Dirge and Swash...start with Walk the Plank so the mob is facing away for both Dirge and Swash)
8: AOE/Encounter if toon has it
9: Can't remember...another AE?
0: Attack/Spellcasting Off
- : Follow
=: Stop Follow
F1: Target Tank
F2: Group ward
F3: Group Heal
F4: Cure Tank
F5: Ward/Reactive Tank
F6: Single Target Heal Tank (Inq/Defiler)
F7: Single Target Heal Tank (Inq/Defiler)

And that's about it. It works for where I'm at but I know full well it will probably grow in complexity. For instance, I have yet to mez anything. I don't have a button for battle rezzing, etc. I still manually click Escape if I have to (yikes!).

Anyways, your setup will change as you move through the levels. There's a wealth of info here on the boards that was absolutely invaluable to me when I started. In fact, I still read old threads simply because it may apply to me now as opposed to 30 levels ago. Also check out the wiki, got heaps of good info on it.

[Captive2]

I'd hate to give up my necro, though (SK and Necro are my two favorite classes, and I was looking forward to seeing how the non fighter pets work at higher levels since I finally have a group vs solo).

I completely agree with Twiz here. Play what sounds like the most fun. I have a conjuror in my team for almost the same exact reason – I duo’d one with a fury and wanted to see how the non-tank pets did.

There are certainly combinations that work well together, and you’ll find lots of good ideas in this thread. But play what sounds like fun – your team will be so much more powerful than a pick-up group it will stun you. Plus, you don’t have to share any loot

I’m currently playing my first 6-box team – a guardian, troubadour, conjuror, illusionist, warden, and mystic. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably swap out the conjuror for a wizard – but I have enjoyed the conjuror class and their fire pet puts out some nice DPS. He’s just awfully squishy I’m currently level 70 with around 130 AAs.

My next team, which will probably be a while off as I still have a TON of things I want to do with this team, will be a Freeport or Neriak-based team. I’m leaning toward something very similar to your team – a shadowknight, defiler, inquisitor, troubadour, warlock, and coercer (or maybe illusionist). I also want to try a monk tank – I’ll probably go with a monk, dirge, templar, mystic, illusionist, and swashbuckler. I haven’t thought much about that team, yet, but it’s a lot of fun to try new classes and see how they work together.

Enjoy 6-boxing EQ2, and welcome to the forum!

[Milque]

Wanted to say thanks to those who gave advice. I've kind of split the difference on team composition. I swapped out two character classes for new toons:

Slot 1) SK
Slot 2) Necromancer
Slot 3) Defiler
Slot 4) Coercer (swapped out the Inquisitor. I may regret the loss in heals later, but I'm hoping the CC makes up for it, and dual healing from one keyboard was proving inefficient - i.e. I was dead by the time the extra heals would have helped or I simul casted both healers and wasted mana 95% of the time)
Slot 5) Warlock (So far the necro mentored down is outparsing her severely, but I think that will change when the group's levels even out)
Slot 6) Troubador (swapped out the Dirge)

We'll see how it goes.

So far I've got everything mapped out nicely to where I can run any toon and manage combat (with the tank pulling aggro as long as the puller survives the initial pull).

I've got something funky going on with my group target macro that I can't figure out. Each character has Ctril 1-6 set as a macro to follow character 1-6. I've set ISBoxer to use F1 through F6 to send the Ctrl-1 - Ctril-6 to each character but the one in the main window. The idea is that I can use the same key and get all the characters pointed at the right toon as opposed to the normal F1-6 behavior which is dependant on group order.

I've verified all the keys and mappings, but when certain characters use the command others end up targetting the wrong toon.

Ugh... So close.. But I'll get it figured out.

Thanks again, all.

[Twiz]

Sounds like a plan to me! The best thing is to just start playing around with combos and see which feels best.

One thing to try is this: put similar classes on the same account. For instance, I have an account for tanks, one for main healers, one for dps, etc. It makes it easy to to swap characters in when/if needed.

Another benefit of setting up your accounts this way is easy macros. I'm not sure how ISBoxer works since I use HotKeyNet but I imagine it may be similar. For example, if I want to send a command to my healer, I send it to the "MainHealer" window, instead of "Nabok" (inquisitor name). If I want to Evac/Escape, I send it to "DPS1" or "Rogue1" instead of "Fingel." This way I'm not editing a load of text files for each combination.

This also helps my brain! No matter which team I'm using, I always know that F5 will be pre-buffs, F6-F8 will be heals, F1 will be "All Target Tank," etc.