[WoW] 5 boxing pve grp setup ?

[Otlecs]

I have two semi-serious PvE teams:

Team one:
Pally tank, played by somebody else.
Holy priest, played by somebody else.
Warlock, played by me.
2 x mages, played by me.

This is great fun, ticks all the boxes, and has been hugely successful so far. This is the one I look forward to playing the most, but which sadly gets neglected the most because of the need to co-ordinate with my wife and a good RL friend.

Team two (all played by me):
Pally tank, played using an X-stick.
Holy Priest, played using an X-keys pro and track ball.
Elemental Shammy
Frost Mage
Destro Warlock

Finding synergies between them was difficult, but that's actually the part I enjoy most about multi-boxing, and I solved that. The team's good, and so long as the Pally manages to hold aggro with his three button sequences, everything works really well.

Best of all, when they finaly ding 70 (80?! *shudder*...), I have five perfectly good characters to play solo in instances!

I'd never consider using that group in PvP though (which is far too dynamic for me to respond quickly with three different input devices), but it's great on my home PvE realm.

Not relaxing, but fun.

The disconnect issue doesn't seem to have a single solution that applies to everybody. I've recently moved onto running my five instances on three machines to and noticed two things that never used to happen before:

1. One of the characters - always the same one - gets disconnected periodically.

2. My "main" character. Lags like crazy at times, but in a very odd way. If I look at the other screens, I can see that he's still moving around the game world (which implies that he's transmitting), but nothing's being updated on his screen.

Under those conditions, I literally play by one of the other screens and after a delay (often many seconds - 5+ in most cases) it all updates.

I only use follow between encounters, and always break follow before an engagement. There's anecdotal evidence to suggest that this helps alot.

The "main character" problem I'm beginning to suspect is a client-side or machine issue. I've ordered a replacement network card (because I noted that even my browser stutters at the same time).

If I ever bottom this one out, I'll be sure to post about it!

[Rin]

I think that if you wanted a very strong PvE and PvP team, your best bet would be to run 4 Shaman and a Paladin. Shaman aren't tough like a tank, but as they get up in levels they can wear mail which makes them a little bit more effective at tanking heavy blows. The Paladin you should setup as either Protection or Holy (depending on your flavor), the Pally will be able to take the hits from even the hardest npcs (granted, you'll need to watch the Paladin's health if you go up aganist something like Talon King Isis), but doing Heroics shouldn't be much of a problem. Some encounters just aren't made for boxers though, and you'll learn as you go along which ones are more feasible than others. As far as PvP goes, the 4 Shammi + 1 Pally team really shines. If you're up aganist another multi boxer who doesn't have complete control over what they're doing - Chain Lightning them; you're guaranteed to take at least one of them down (no one has over 15k hps - which is what the initial shock should do @ around level 70 with 4 chain lightnings - 1 target, some moderate gear) and then if you're lucky, you'll also kill either 1 or 2 of the other boxer's teammates. Thus giving you an advantage.

Of course, this isn't an unbeatable combination or anything; but it's the setup that I'm running right now after weighing out all of the advantages and disadvantages of the common 5-box setups seen here (e.g. the 4-lock + 1 priest combo). And, I don't want to chop my arm off by saying this, but if you're looking at PvE solely, then you definitely are going to need some kind of tanking. If you've seen how any end-game bosses hit, you'll know quickly that: a) you need to survive for at least 1-2 minutes in order to defeat one of the bosses and b) Felguards don't work that well in a "real" tanking situation. The shaman + paladin setup will give you that longevity - plus with Windfury you're paladin DPS will reach a respectable level.

My 2 cents.