Hello world, new guy here.

[XATM]

Hello everyone,

Great forums you have going here, I've been trolling around for about three weeks. I decided to give it a shot and I'm starting with a mixed team.

Shaman, Priest, Druid, Hunter, Paladin (master & tank).

I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself here. If anyone else is boxing on Alexstraza drop me a line sometime!
Here's a shot of them at 25 in SW.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/in...page&from=user

[Fef]

Welcome !

And congratulations for being so ambitious : 5 different classes is not the easiest thing, especially for a first group.
Let us know how you are doing.

[keyclone]

howdy XATM and welcome to the forums!

you already got them to 25? nice. good work there. running more then 2 classes is definitely tough. kudos!

drop us more pics in the screenshots section so we can watch your crew grow up. it would also be helpful if you described your keyboard layout and how you coordinate your characters

[Sychosys]

Wow, very nice. I am still doing single class leveling but I am finding it fun. Love the names of you characters though!

And since keyclone left it off

Welcome to the addiction

[XATM]

Since keyclone asked : ) and since I love to share, here's the low down. If you're trolling forums at work like I do sometimes it's a long read! If you get tired easily, probably best to move along and avoid the wall of text.

My setup is VERY basic in that I'm only using a single key to control all the dps right now, it's a work in progress and as they get to 50+ I'm going to add in more involved macro's and abilities.

I'm using RAF for xp gains. My main was leveled from 1-80 since 2004 through vanilla, BC, and WotLK... as a holy priest. So I'm used to living inside instances and that's how I'm running these, just skipping from Deadmines, to Stockades, to Black Fathom Depths and now setting up for SM Graveyard. Since they are leveling around 4-5 times a day I only plan reseting their "DPS SPAM" macro's every 10 levels or so, at least that's the plan until they gain some new ability I just have to add. All 4 of the casters (including hunter) are using a one key cast sequence macro. Later I'll be adding in more abilities as they come available and if stuff isn't dieing fast enough. Here's the setup so far using as few and as basic abilities as I can get by with. Luckily these are "bread and butter" spells and they get upgraded every few levels to a new rank!

"Macaroon" action bar set up for [bartarget=focustarget] with all casters using the pally as focus. Essentially it's the same as an /assist setup.
Hunter is a /petattack -> /castsequence reset=target hunter's mark, serpent sting, arcane shot, arcane shot, arcane shot, serpent sting, arcane shot, arcane shot
Druid is using /castsequence reset=target wrath, moonfire, wrath, wrath, wrath, wrath, moonfire, wrath, wrath
Shaman is using /castsequence reset=target lighting bolt, flameshock, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, flameshock
Priest is using /castsequence reset=target holyfire, smite, shadow word: pain, smite, smite, holyfire, smite, smite

The reset=target allows for restarting the sequence on a new mob when you switch targets. I burried the shadow word pain behind 2 casts so it doesn't go off unless i'm fighting elites or bosses normally, trash dies before that. Same for moonfire and the wrath's between them as a buffer allowing for a full dot tick from it & serpent sting etc... These are all bound to my hotkey 2 as is my judgement of light, this way I can spam it nonstop and use click casting (I know it's not as efficient but i'm new) for my tanking abilities. Thankfully paladin tanking is far simpler than warrior tanking IMO. Retribution aura, a nice shield spike, Concecration and Thorns go a VERY long way toward simplifying the tanking.

For the pally I'm just using one macro command right now and that's for Righteous defense, for anyone that doesn't know it's like a taunt but pulls up to 3 mobs off a friendly target so you have to drop the mob target & target the ally for it to work. This is bad because it can reset your castsequence on the dps guys so I have it macro'd to just /cast [target=targettarget] righteous defense. Since i'm using target of target frames (Isn't everyone?) it simplifies this a lot. As soon as I see the mob target one of my squishies I just hit the Righteous defense macro if my taunt is down, ez sauce.

For healing I just have three simple keys set up, anything that isn't covered by that I just pickup the slack with the pally doing self healing. The three are mapped to numpad 8,9,6 so that they are close to my mouse hand.
8= druid & priest both cast. Druid Rejuvenation and priest shields. They are macro'd using /stopcasting -> /cast [target=focustargettarget] "Spell" so I can interrupt their dps spam and pop them off quickly, as soon as I hit it I can keep spaming my 2 key since it's not tied to a "stopcasting" command. Since the pally is the focus, his target is the mob and the mob's target SHOULD be the pally so he get's the heals. If I lose agro and my taunt is down I have no way to heal the pally unless I can find a mob that's targeting him... it's not perfect but as long as the tanking is good it works.
9= same cast setup for druid and priest but using their instant HoTs, Renew & Regrowth.
6= Just the priest so far with the same macro casting "heal" at max rank. I may add another caster into this keymap later once tank HP is high enough to warrant two larger heals at once.

I use a bear pet to assist tanking, he is a big help. I have the mend pet set up on the hunter for shift+1 and feed pet macro set up for Ctrl+1 /cast feedpet -> /use "insertfoodhere".
The shaman has a reset=combat macro for totems so they can be refreshed as needed bound to the + key. The fire totem is first so it normally only get's one press (45 sec on that totem), but I hit it again if my Strength totem has expired(5 min on it) but I normally move up to a new pulling spot before that one even expires.

The only other macro I use is a standard set focus & follow macro bound to "F" and I'm using Jamba with the follow strobing OFF. I like to be able to control the follow myself & haven't found any benefit to the strobe yet. No auto follow after combat either since I'm living in instances. I just put them in formation and pop out my totems.

I use "Smartbuff" for buffing on all the toons. This is a fantastic mod that is a MUST have if you are running multiple classes IMO.

MANY thanks to everyone that adds to these forums. Everything I've put into these guys in the last two weeks is based on what I've found and searched for here. I'll keep updating with new pictures as they grow up

[Acerak]

Wow, that's pretty impressive. I haven't taken the plunge to five different classes yet, and have dual-boxed 3x teams, four-boxed 1x, and am now planning on five-boxing. I was planning to do a mixed team at some point but now I want to try it!

One-key HoT+PW:S is awesome. Now that I think about it, I like one-key for lots of things...I seem to have this need to make a whole bunch of keys, but admittedly I lose track sometimes so maybe more one-keys makes sense.

And, I need to get smart buff..I've been doing it manually with my 4-pally team, which is silly.

Anyway, welcome!

[Sychosys]

Wow, nice read (And yes I am trolling the forums at work, slow day for me as I start in on a new project).

I started with a Pally + Shammy x 4 set up and I know down the end of the line I want to run heroics so I will be looking at somewhat of a mix. I guess they key really does seem to be writing the nice macros, right now my setup is very simple (and 5 shamans) actually with any sort of staggering of totems and the like actually just being done because of the bar setups being like that. I did not want to get into it too far with 3.2 changing how totems can be dropped.

This does make it seem to be a bit more possible however and I am actually looking forward to branching out a bit after I get as many different classes to 60 as I can.

Very nice and very informative, welcome to the forums (again)

[XATM]

Double posted and it won't let me delete this one*

[XATM]

I was messing with the idea of the shaman group, something like pally / priest / shaman x3. Are you using round robin for the mana stream? I was thinking about that and I had an idea that may be helpful. Since I only have two accounts with BC upgrade I can't do this yet though, I'm alliance and can't Shaman it up without more upgrades to Burning Crusade. I was thinking instead of round robin you could just insert a null in the cast sequence to save keyboard real estate.

Something like this having them all bound to the same key allowing a rotating mana tide while keeping up a max number of Healing totems.
Sham1 /castsequence reset=combat Healing Stream Totem,,,,,Mana Tide Totem
Sham2 /castsequence reset=combat Healing Stream Totem,,,Mana Tide Totem,,,
Sham3 /castsequence reset=combat Healing Stream Totem,Mana Tide Totem,Healing Stream Totem,,,
Sham4 /castsequence reset=combat Mana Tide Totem,Healing Stream Totem,,,,,

So first press would get 3x heals & a mana tide, 2nd get's a replacement for the first mana tide with healing stream and drops the next guy's mana tide, 3rd press get's a replacement for the 2nd mana tide with healing stream again and makes the next shaman drop his mana tide totem and same for the 4th. If I have this set up right the next press would restart the order or just reset when you enter combat again. If someone knows about using the extra , to null a cast please let me know if this is correct. My thought is that above would cause the rotation with mana tide starting at 4, 3, 2, then 1.

I would think you could use the same concept for the various totem schools too, but my first ever shaman is only 28 so I'm just starting to learn about the various cooldowns and stacking abilities for totems. I know it would be nice to keep an earthbind down with though, and you could use null entry to keep just one of them dropping that while keeping Stoneskin and Strength of earth up.

Stoneskin,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Strength of Earth,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Earthbind,Earthbind,Earthbind,Earthbind etc...

I would appreciate your input on how you worked out your totem farms and your thoughts.

=D Thanks for the welcome!

[EaTCarbS]

Welcome to the addiction!

oh, and nice FF8 avatar