Planning to 5box. Which toons to pick?

[Zub]

I've stopped 3boxing a few months ago with the arrival of my daughter, and have been playing solo and raiding a bit with my pally and druid in the meantime, but now that the bub is sleeping a bit more consistently i'm thinking of going back to boxing.

i basically have 1 main account with 2x80, 1x72 and 5x70, and two other 70 on separate accounts (zubwan and zubtres, from when I 3boxed shamies in TBC)
The class makeup i have at 70+ is basically my sig plus another shaman.

I'm thinking of reactivating those two accounts, getting another two (5 total) and doing some transfers to get 5man groups going. The question is, which toons to transfer where?
So far i've come up with 2 x 5-man groups i like, one (stronger) mostly ranged dps for serious content, and one full melee group (to be played later) just for the added challenge boxing various melee classes

The ranged group, with a couple 80s, should be able to easily blast through the wrath instances, and should help me get the hang of 5boxing. plus my paly is currently a holy/ret dualspec, so i'll have to get his prot gear sorted.
The idea is not necessary to level up very quickly, but rather to have fun along the way to 80.

Any suggestions / changes welcome.

Group 1: Prot paly, balance druid, Elem shaman, frost mage, holy/disc priest.
That will give me pretty much all buffs, totems, , food, ports, several cc, replenishment, innervate, backup healers, all resists buffs, good synergy on dmg buffs/debuffs, several rezers, one pop, one Brez. - the works.



Group 2: Prot warrior, rogue, two enhance shamies, and a holy/disc priest.
An all melee group will make the healing much easier efficient than a split ranged/melee group. I'm thinking of perhaps swapping the warior and paladin just for the JoLight heals though



Cheers,
Zub

[Zal]

pally tank, ele shaman x2, boomkin(or resto druid), resto shaman(or 3rd ele shaman)

DON'T MAKE A MELEE GROUP

[Zub]

pally tank, ele shaman x2, boomkin(or resto druid), resto shaman(or 3rd ele shaman)

i kinda like having 5 different classes, and i've done 3 ele shamies before.
What exactly does 3elems or 2 elems/1boomkin bring that 1elem/1boomkin/1frostmage doesn't?
is it just to make things easier?

DON'T MAKE A MELEE GROUP

I see plenty of 5-paly or 5-DK groups working well, so i believe it's probably ok to do melees (even though probably less forgiving than range)
what do you warn against exactly?
in any case, this would be the second group, and not played nearly as much (and probably not before the first group gets to 80 and a few heroics )

Thanks for the feedback
-Zub

[Zub]

i just realized there was a Multiboxing Group Composition Discussion section, mods please feel free to move my post if needed. apologies.

[Svpernova09]

Do a mixed group, for the love of everything, mixed group. Throw in a mage for int, food, ports, Priest for Fort / SPI / Shadow prot / Fear ward, Shaman for totems maybe, Warlock for healthstones / soulstones, Hunter for strong DPS.

You can also do things like Frost mage, Destro lock, Shadow priest, and or Surv Hunter for Replenishment procs. Also make sure if you run alliance, to get at least 1 dranei for the 1% hit, it makes a difference when you want to start heroics and your hit rating sucks, shadow priest will also help with this.

[mikekim]

Do a mixed group, for the love of everything, mixed group. Throw in a mage for int, food, ports, Priest for Fort / SPI / Shadow prot / Fear ward, Shaman for totems maybe, Warlock for healthstones / soulstones, Hunter for strong DPS.

sounds similar to my mixed group:

Prot pally
Frost Mage
Demo Warlock
Holy priest
MM Hunter

been having a balst with them so far, alternating between this group and a 5x Druid group and 1x DK + 4 Shammies. the varying playsyles make the game a challenge with each different group I play (also because I rotate them I always have rested XP :P )

[heffner]

I run a mixed group similar to your group 1.

HEALER - I haven't really tried a druid or shaman healer, but I find the AOE healing with my cleric to be awesome. It makes like so much easier to just spam Holy Nova (with rune), especially when the shit hits the fan. However, ultimately it would depend on your entire party makeup as multiple elemental shaman have been proven to work well. AOE heals are the key to making things a bit easier here though IMO.

TANK - I find warriors to be very boring. I don't know what it is, but I never enjoyed playing a warrior. I'd go with a paladin or DK or druid as your tank. They offer more to the party and tank just as well. With the upcoming defense changes [I believe they are changing somethign in 3.2?? don't recall what exactly] I am not sure what the does to the druid tank though (if anything).

DPS - Any ranged DPS will work. The main issue here is if you want to have different classes for later. WIth dual spec this is even more of a consideration. If you only care to do 5-mans and not really care about having a choice for a raid toon (assuming you will solo raid) then anything will work. Another consideration is buff stacking. Some of the largest benefits of one class are offered by another class and don't stack, so you may not want both of those classes in your group (I wish I had a good example, but can't think of any off the top of my head).

Melee DPS - I am sure it can work. I think combat would be really annoying though due to the way follow works. Not sure about a rogue. Never really played one, but don't they need to be behind the mob? I suppose you could just engage with your tank and move the mob to the group?

I can't imagine why you couldn't do all 5-man content with a holy trinity group (tank, healer, 3 DPS) or a tank + 4 shaman (4 SP might work too? whatever DPS class that can still offer decent AOE healing should work). It really won't matter what classes you pick in those cases. You can make it work.

Also multiple classes of the same type is not easier to play than mixed classes. I hit one or two buttons in combat, which would be the same two buttons if I had 4 shaman or 4 different classes. Only the initial setup and maybe some noob quests are different.

Anyway, I would just make both groups and try them out for a few levels. How you interact with your party and do combat won't change much at later levels so you will at least get a feel for how an all melee group would work relative to the ranged DPS group.

[Zub]

Thanks for the replies, but i think i haven't made myself clear.

I have no intention of levelling 1-70 ever again, i did it 8 times separately, and once as a 3box team and have had enough :-)
All i intend to do is to use the toons i have at 70-80, and build teams of 5.

The toons i have are:
1 x 80 Paladin - Soap
1 x 80 Druid - Ghør
1 x 72 Shaman - Ghur
2x 70 Shaman - Zubwan & Zubtres
1x 70 Rogue - Wazza
1 x 70 Mage - Frizza
1 x 70 Warrior - Shaiah
2 x 70 Priests - Cian & Cixi

All the 70s (apart from the 2 boxed shamies) are in Karazhan gear or better, the paly is in naxx25/ulduar10 holy gear or naxx10 ret gear and the druid in naxx10 gear.
A hunter or warlock would be nice as suggested, but i have none at a high level.

Thanks for your suggestions
-Zub

[mikekim]

Paladin - priest - shaman - shaman - rogue

Warrior - priest - shaman - druid - mage

would be typical setups. best bet would be to level them all to 80 and then play around with finding the ideal group composition

[Lemartes]

Hi, i was 3 boxing in TBC and just recently (1 month ago) reactivated my accounts and switched to 5 boxing.

I had Pally + 2 Shamans and added a Druid and Priest.

Current setup :

Pally - Tank
Shaman - Triple Crit Spec - Will have Mana Tide Totem at 80
Shaman - Elemental
Druid - Balance
Priest - Disc

So far im only in Steamvaults - As the priest is only level 66. The group does very well though. Lots of buffs, good utility. The only thing i might change is make the Druid go Resto and Priest go shadow.