Advice for a beginner?

[tommyg]

Hi all, great site you've got going here. :love:

I've always been fascinated at the prospect of 5-boxing my own instance groups, but never been willing to make the big step. This site is making me think twice, though. I'd like to get some feedback on my particular situation. I've already got two accounts, and regularly set my lowbies on auto-follow and boost them through instances with my 70 druid, specifically just for gear and quests. It doesn't feel fast enough to exclude my adventures to just instances. Plus, questing is fun and keeps the weapons skills/money/gathering profs up.

I've got a bunch of alts at somewhat similar levels: 37 paladin, 37 priest, 37 rogue, 43 mage, 46 warlock. What I would prefer to do is just turn them into one big adventuring group and level them all at the same time. This would require me to make four character transfers and buy three new accounts: $100 + $60. I wouldn't need expacks for a while, yet. I've got a decent desktop machine which I think wouldn't curl up and die if I asked it to run four instances of WoW at once. I can run my primary toon on my laptop. Equipment seems fairly well covered.

Alternatively, instead of transferring my toons to new/old accounts, I could just start up new toons. That would allow me to pick a better set of complementary classes (I shudder to think of trying to 5-box a group with a rogue in it) and save a Franklin. However, that seems like a lot of wasted time I've invested already. Does 5-boxing level-appropriate instances yield decent XP or no? How many hours /played am I looking at to get fresh toons back up to level ~37? Is it worth spending the afore-mentioned Franklin to start my multi-boxing adventures with mid-level toons? Of course, I've got a lower-level hunter I could bring up to join the group in place of the rogue, but that would take some time as well.

That's my situation. If you don't have much to say other than "transfer your toons" or "start over", feel free to say just that. I'd rather see a bunch of responses than only one huge response.

Thanks!

[thinus]

Make your main the tank
Make your clones ranged
Rogues, ferals, meleeing shammies = headache to box non-main
Other than tank and healer almost any ranged dps combination will work pre-heroics
Pally tanks are arguably easier than warriors for a boxer (dunno about druid tanking)

As for transfering etc.

The first 20 levels or so for a 5-boxer is painful. Your majority of time will be spent in instances and once you hit WC, SFK, BFD, RFK , etc you will be flying. Exceptions are "dry" spots between instances. Some world areas are really good for questing, ie all the quests the Horde can do at the same time in the Hinterlands at Jintha'Alor or however it is spelled.

Starting the group in the 30-40s is probably easier, you have the majority of abilities available and can macro/setup your environment for that and need to tweak it a lot less than leveling from scratch and having to tweak each time you get new abilities. You also save the leveling time which can be significant.

Personally I started my whole group together as I didn't mind the time spent leveling and wanted to get the "whole" experience. Personal preference in my opinion. I don't think you will be missing anything by starting a 30+ group instead of leveling them together.

[Gallo]

I'd say to start over (at least 2 characters) in order to get your melee characters out of the group. 5 boxing is better off if you're running your tank as your main, and you have 4 ranged players backing them up. You could eventually try melee characters, but its ultimately a pain in the ass.

"Conventional" 5 box groups designed for PVE include:
- Holy Priest, (some 3-person combo of locks and mages), +whatever tank you prefer
- Prot Pally, 4x Shadow Priests
- Holy Priest, 4x Warlocks (the pets will destroy all non-heroic instances)

There are a lot more out there, I would only suggest that you stay away from melee at first.

[-silencer-]

Starting out from the beginning is rough. Since you've got 5 party members to split xp with, you won't have as high of a level when you're done with the quests in a zone. I was usually level 12 when leaving the draenei area solo, but ended up at only 10 with my party of 5. This won't be as big of a deal later in the game with instances and the greater quest rewards. The levels 1-20 for Alliance though - they take awhile. If you want to step into running instances at lower than ideal level, make sure your party is well-geared, especially the tank. I couldn't believe I wiped 3 times at Rhank'zor in Deadmines at level 17, until I realized I had level 7-12 gear on my Paladin tank. A few simple upgrades made a huge difference.
Don't shy away from collection quests completely. They're a pain in the butt to do 5x, but the xp continues to come in and sometimes the rewards are worth it - especially since +spell dmg has been added to so many low level rewards.

[Lost Ninja]

Personally I'd always say start from scratch, mainly as I find I like levelling more than I enjoy end game. (I have a 70, in a good guild, I hardly play.)

1-20 gives you a feel for the characters and classes you've picked especially if this is your first foray into multiboxing. Most people learn to play solo, moving from a solo game to a 100% grouped game is not always that easy, even if you know the classes inside-out. Besides if you decide that X really sucks it doesn't take long to train a replacement or two.

One thing about doing it this way is that you get time to iron out your control, before you actually need to. Even if you stick to PvE on a PvE server you will encounter situations that mean some part of your party has to run away, being able to seamlessly switch control is a useful technique. Above and beyond that if you have the system working well you can also use it to do collection quests.

Collection quests are the bain of a multi-boxer, no doubt about it, but they still generate useful XP. And unless you can stay in instances from 10-70 (Alliance, no idea how high you need for RFC) you will need extra XP. If you have the control right you can switch mains as you fill each character up with the needed items, I'd suggest also using Lightheaded, Tomtom and a compatible quest log mod (I use nQuestlog). Then you actually get to see what other people have already found out about drop rates. (Comments come from WoWHead.) A quest announcer is handy to be able to see how many kills others need for kill quests.

[tommyg]

Thanks for the replies so far, guys. I just picked up three trial disks from the game store (can't imagine what the guy up front was thinking when i picked up three of them ?( ). I'm going to give a few different groups a try as soon as my Keyclone payments go through (paypal sucks). Probably going to give the tried-and-true 5-shammies a whirl first off. There's something to be said for simplicity. ^^ I'm also planning on giving a brand new pally, priest, mage, lock, hunter combo a try. That will probably be a lot harder, but I've already got a system in mind that I think will work. Plus, I like the flexibility such a group would have. If I ever plan on doing heroics, I think this group has a better shot at completing lots of different content than a more conservative set of classes. Of course, if I enjoy this, there's no reason I can't run multiple 5-man groups.

I've got most of the software I think I'm going to need (Maximizer, Keyclone, Synergy, twoboxtoolkit addon), and things are looking pretty good for my (main)laptop+(4-alts)desktop setup. Anyone have any suggestions on other addons or software that would be useful?

I'm also mulling around other group make-ups that sound intriguing, such as something involving boomkin+elesham+mage. Seems like there'd be a lot of synergy there. It also seems like a tank plus a bunch of shadow priests might be fun as well, maybe throw in a lock for good measure (and CC). Would four shadow priests be enough to keep a tank healed on the higher-level stuff? I know we'd be lacking burst dps and burst healing, but VE is hawt. Plus, I could always switch one or all of them to holy for healing/damage nuking if I get bored or things get rough. With a paladin tank, I could lay a few holy damage booster debuffs on the mobs for my priests to chew up.

I'm liking the idea of starting from scratch more as I think about it. If this doesn't turn out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I haven't locked my characters to a bunch of superfluous accounts for three months and tossed a big chunk of cash into blizz's pocket (again). Thanks for the words of wisdom, and I'll let you guys know how my new kids work out.

[thinus]

When I bought 3 additional wow boxes just before christmas the guy at the store asked me if it was gifts. I looked at him with a shocked expression and went "NO!". Hahaha.

5-boxing really makes the game fun again. Everything feels new The pally, priest, mage, warlock, hunter combo is challenging but really powerful in PvE.

Enjoy!

[Mac]

5-boxing really makes the game fun again. Everything feels new The pally, priest, mage, warlock, hunter combo is challenging but really powerful in PvE.

Hi All, FNG here, /wave

I have been reading stickies and trying to read through all the posts, but I still am scratching my head about how you can play 5 different classes at the same time. I can wrap my head around 5 of the same class, because once you set up all the bars and use the keyclone to pass the strokes to the different clients, but I can't concieve 5 different classes, 5 different bars/spells.

I have a 70 Tanking Druid up to Gruuls atm, and a 70 S.Priest decked out in full Epic PVP gear, I can play them both singularly very well, however , I am having a hard time trying to immagine just playing both of them at the same time, much less FIVE! Please tell me how you guys make this possible, I'm not grasping that concept. Unfortunate for me, I learn best by seeing something working as opposed to just reading about it, but I will try to "get it"

TIA
Mac

[marvein]

5-boxing really makes the game fun again. Everything feels new The pally, priest, mage, warlock, hunter combo is challenging but really powerful in PvE.

Hi All, FNG here, /wave

I have been reading stickies and trying to read through all the posts, but I still am scratching my head about how you can play 5 different classes at the same time. I can wrap my head around 5 of the same class, because once you set up all the bars and use the keyclone to pass the strokes to the different clients, but I can't concieve 5 different classes, 5 different bars/spells.

I have a 70 Tanking Druid up to Gruuls atm, and a 70 S.Priest decked out in full Epic PVP gear, I can play them both singularly very well, however , I am having a hard time trying to immagine just playing both of them at the same time, much less FIVE! Please tell me how you guys make this possible, I'm not grasping that concept. Unfortunate for me, I learn best by seeing something working as opposed to just reading about it, but I will try to "get it"

TIA
Mac

it certainly takes more work than 4-5x of the same class which is why it is not a recommended first attempt. Also, playing 4-5x melee classes is downright futile, even Xzin said it was bad lol. But the idea behind multiclassing is picking ones that have good synergy together. Most often your group will consist of a tank (paladin is the most popular) which you will actively play as your main followed by most often casters/ranged dps/CC like mages/priests/shamans/warlocks/hunters. This is also the time where having additional sources for keybindings, like x-keys, G15 keyboard, various game pads etc come in handy for when you want more granualar control. Otherwise you pretty much just do a generic setup where 1 key is bound to the most common spell on all characters. like say you press 4, and your mage does flame shock, priest does SWain, lock does corruption, hunter does arcane shot. Things like that work well because in the end there is very few things that require micromanagement even when playing different classes. So other than manually targeting for CC its fairly normal and plus you get the advantages of party buffs from other classes (AI, Fort, TSA, etc) and the utlity of each class. And of course when you get to 70 and want to take a break you have 5 different classes you can play solo for fun



*edit* I forget his name but he has several videos in the video section of heroics. he runs I beleive 1 warrior, 1 priest, 1 lock and 2 mages, his goal is to do every TBC instance on normal/heroic. He is doing an awsome job with it.

[Mac]

... And of course when you get to 70 and want to take a break you have 5 different classes you can play solo for fun



*edit* I forget his name but he has several videos in the video section of heroics. he runs I beleive 1 warrior, 1 priest, 1 lock and 2 mages, his goal is to do every TBC instance on normal/heroic. He is doing an awsome job with it.

Thanks for the response. I'm liking the idea more and more. But I have a question about this statement. For example, lets say I keep and use my current Bear tank, and set up the other drones to where their bars are all macro'd with follows and assists etc, is there an easy way to switch their bars back for solo play? Are there any addons that allow you to set up profiles for something like that?