Quote Originally Posted by Aoxomoxa View Post
Let me preface by saying the reason I am multiboxing is I have 3 rl friends who are interested in playing, but with summer just hitting no one wants to bother with it right now. I try to play mostly at work (I do get interrupted with calls, and I have to run and afk at a moments notice, sometimes for longer than 20mins).

I am new to multi boxing, and I have had a rough time. The most multi boxing I did prior to this was just leveling a warrior and priest up (real life friend quit on the priest). So my experience was just casting ~3 spells from the priest while my warrior killed stuff. I quit before I did any real raiding.

With the release of TBC I decided to give it a go, and I am trying the Paladin - Priest - Mage - Lock - Lock set up, and its been a struggle. Everything was basically boosted (except the priest, but it may have well been (very poor gear). I am using wow open box, and I am just Blizzard and rain of fire AOEing. Gear was the issue at first, but after I bought a "of the champion" green set for the paladin its been easy enough to clear the trash in ramparts.

Currently I am sitting at level 61 on all the characters, and I have a hard time with the bosses. I can do the first boss in ramparts (can not get down the other two bosses, though I think if i had a proper dps macro instead of just spamming shadow bolt and frost bolt, I could probably get it done. ( maybe another level also).

Blood furnace has been rough, I got the first boss down on the first try, but have since wiped 2x on it (Paladin keeps getting mind controlled). And I ran out of mana on the waves part of the first boss ( been buying some AH gear as I see it cheap for the other group members). The trash hasn't been a breeze, but that is mostly because I got lazy with positioning and the summoner/technician can aoe my guys down currently in a flash.

Right now, I am kind of waying my options on what I should do. My skill level really isn't there yet to do too much on these guys (I can do the rotation of the aoes pretty easily, as long as the paladin doesn't look aggro, but I'm not perfectly in tune to all these guys abilities.

two options im considering right now are:

1) Leveling the Paladin to 70 solo, and seeing how things go in these dungeons afterwards.

2) Switching to a team that is easier to handle. The Paladin and 4 shamans seems like its an easy rotation with much more survivability. but I don't really want to level 4 shamans up right now either. (I have never done a paladin leveling boost or mage leveling boost).


Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I can tell you that I have done exactly the same as you.

Started with Pally/Lock/Lock/Mage/Priest

It was awful for awhile. However, I did enough of the Hellfire quests to get all my old stuff upgraded to outland greens and switched to single target vs aoe. For me, the AoE just didn't work at that low level and gear level. Single target changed the game. I made sure the pally had good gear (AH/Quests) and I found myself able to clear trash almost effortlessly.

I did stop to level my hunter quickly so that I could raid with guild, but I got the group to 63. After 62 it got much easier. I still struggled with second boss and never downed the final boss in ramps.

I also made a Pally 4x shaman team and holy cow what a difference. With basic outland greens, I chewed through ramparts trash and the first two bosses. They are on pause as I get attunements/gear for my hunter, but I can say that in my experience, PSSSS was infinitely easier and safer at 60-61 than my PaMLLPr group was at 63 with better gear. I can only imagine this gap will widen as the shaman get more of their kit--elementals, etc.

I'm torn because I love having top end water available via mage, but leveling PSSSS is just so much easier. I may just level the mage solo and focus on the PSSSS once I'm done with the Hunter. After reading all the TBC info and watching a lot of the old videos, I can definitely say that I now understand why it was the go-to group for multiboxing.

One thing of note, of course, is that you do a LOT of clicking/window focusing with PaSSSS vs aoe with other groups. This is perfectly doable with windows and no addons, but could still fall into the 'iffy' column in terms of "streamlining." I feel safe enough doing it, but others may disagree. Regardless, I don't advertise myself by running 5 toons to a dungeon at once. I try to keep a low profile in the open world.

Hope this helps and good luck!