Too diverse of group?

[Kulzor]

Here's my situation, I'd like feedback from those who've run instances with just their own group. My goal is mainly to farm rep, but if I can take down bosses that's even better (by far).

I have 4 boxes.
Acct 1: My "main" (most powerful toon) is a kara-geared 70 hunter. I use her to powerlevel the others.
Acct 2: Healer is a 70 resto druid (1460 +heal so far).
Acct 3: Tank is a 70 prot pally.
Acct 4: Currently leveling up a shaman to be a 4th - currently at 37th level. I'm leveling this toon along with another druid (boomkin-to-be) on Acct 2, and a fire mage on Acct 3.

Is that too diverse a group to bring into instances? I've been farming Botanica's trash at the beginning for rep so far with the 3 accounts, but it's a real pain so far coordinating them. Good thing the hunter can "get by" with hitting the shot macro by hearing alone so I don't have to watch that monitor much. But dealing with the pally and the druid are a real pain. I'm thinking the shaman will be nice as a fourth for the self-rez, rez others, and firepower. I'm just hoping the timer is close enough that when I spam the shot macro on the hunter that the shaman's spells will fit in. I do that via keyboard work with the left hand.

My right hand controls the tanking keys on the tank's keyboard, and mouse clicks for healing - but that gets pretty hectic.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas on if this is a smart class combo or other way to do things?

By the way, I've *just* started using HotKeyNet to send commands to the other PCs, so I don't have much setup for one PC to control them all. My guess is that assigning Alt keys to have the pally kick off her attacks, and perhaps Ctrl keys to have the druid heal the pally with various spells might work better.

[Sanctume]

Do you use Keyclone?

Are you controlling the pally tank? I think controlling the pally tank gives you time to add dps and healing in the pally tank cycle.

How familiar are you with the tank cycle? Before I multi-box, I ran my pally tank solo in instances such as Ramparts and Blood Furnace.
So having 1 extra player either dps or healer makes things easier and faster.

My pally has button cycles:
Exorcism (even tho mod is not undead/demon)
SoR / Judgement

In between, I do:
Holy Shield Rank1 or Max Rank
Consecration Rank 1 of Max Rank.

And occationally:
Hammer of Justice
Hammer of Wrath

Since I spam Exocism as my first move, I assign that to the clones to assist me. All classes would do this.


I use 1 and 2 for SoR and Judgement. So you can map any dps start to those keys.

I use Holy Shield every 10 seconds, so any dots in this slot on the clones would work out.

I have separate keys for healing me, individual members, or my target or /targettarget using keys that my tank don't cast any spells such as U I O P keys.

It worked out with a Priest casting Prayer of Mending when I hit Holt Shield Rank 1 on a pull. And do Holy Nova when I do Max Consecrate.

[daviddoran]

The diversity is better served with a 5 man team, that's where you see the most benefit. with less than 5, you have less potential DPS. With a smaller team, you would probably be attempting slightly smaller pulls than a 5 man team (unless you are really well geared)

You already have 4 accounts, and are doing a diverse setup, so I'd just bite the bullet and roll a 5th. You could easily double up on an existing DPS class if you wish, to keep things simpler. Or you could go the 5 unique class route, and have more utility.

[Kulzor]

Aw, man, you guys are evil.

@Sanctume: I use HotKeyNet - as I understand it they are extremely similar, though I don't believe HotKeyNet can transmit mouse clicks yet (not a biggie to me). It'll work across PCs or against multiple WoW's on one machine. Good idea on the "right half" of the keyboard setup for pally/healer keys. I could keep my hands on one keyboard instead of two keyboards and a mouse. Or perhaps change the number keypad for that. I'm not sure what the numkeys do in WoW anyway... ; (Pretty sad considering I've played so much time over years...)

I'm torn on the 5-man idea for several reasons:
1. I like to leave room in my party for a guildie to join me for easy rep as well. If I run five, I guess I could just toss one of my toons out of the party for the run - but my guildies are more important to me than running solo.

2. I'd have to buy a 5th PC and WoW account. (Or I suppose run two WoW's on my main and most powerful machine, but then I couldn't see that window while playing, not sure if I'd like that.) If I bought a 5th PC I'd probably have to run another power line from the circuit breaker to my living room as well, it's just too much power draw.

If I *did* do a fifth account, I'd just transfer either my level 50 mage, or either the to-be-boomkin, or mage from accounts 2 or 3 to a 5th account so I didn't have to level from scratch. The fifth is tempting - it'd make rep grinding pretty trivial I'd think. On the other hand, if I ran five, it'd let me have any alt of any guildie replace any key position in the five. Hmm. Darn you guys for even making me think these evil thoughts.

Fursphere - having a mage in the party isn't needed for food/drink. Since we all have 3+ accounts, all we need to do is log one toon off, log the mage on, invite them to the party, summon them to the instance, make a table (or make drinks if you/I don't have that spell), and just hand them out, then log other toon back on.

I've noticed (so far) that it works best having the level 36/37 druid/mage/shamans cast Instant spells because if they don't, the 70 mage kills mobs too quickly, at least in SM:Cathedral. Level 70 elites don't fall as fast, so they could go back to full spells I'd think.

[daviddoran]

Aw, man, you guys are evil.

@Sanctume: I use HotKeyNet - as I understand it they are extremely similar, though I don't believe HotKeyNet can transmit mouse clicks yet (not a biggie to me). It'll work across PCs or against multiple WoW's on one machine. Good idea on the "right half" of the keyboard setup for pally/healer keys. I could keep my hands on one keyboard instead of two keyboards and a mouse. Or perhaps change the number keypad for that. I'm not sure what the numkeys do in WoW anyway... ; (Pretty sad considering I've played so much time over years...)

I'm torn on the 5-man idea for several reasons:
1. I like to leave room in my party for a guildie to join me for easy rep as well. If I run five, I guess I could just toss one of my toons out of the party for the run - but my guildies are more important to me than running solo.

2. I'd have to buy a 5th PC and WoW account. (Or I suppose run two WoW's on my main and most powerful machine, but then I couldn't see that window while playing, not sure if I'd like that.) If I bought a 5th PC I'd probably have to run another power line from the circuit breaker to my living room as well, it's just too much power draw.

If I *did* do a fifth account, I'd just transfer either my level 50 mage, or either the to-be-boomkin, or mage from accounts 2 or 3 to a 5th account so I didn't have to level from scratch. The fifth is tempting - it'd make rep grinding pretty trivial I'd think. On the other hand, if I ran five, it'd let me have any alt of any guildie replace any key position in the five. Hmm. Darn you guys for even making me think these evil thoughts.

Fursphere - having a mage in the party isn't needed for food/drink. Since we all have 3+ accounts, all we need to do is log one toon off, log the mage on, invite them to the party, summon them to the instance, make a table (or make drinks if you/I don't have that spell), and just hand them out, then log other toon back on.

I've noticed (so far) that it works best having the level 36/37 druid/mage/shamans cast Instant spells because if they don't, the 70 mage kills mobs too quickly, at least in SM:Cathedral. Level 70 elites don't fall as fast, so they could go back to full spells I'd think.

I use HotKey Net as well, and it works great for me.

I 5 box so I don't have to fill in spots with guildies, or otherwise. But to each his own. I say still go for the 5th acct, even if you don't play all 5, you can still have more options with party makeup with 5 accounts than with 4.

Do you use SLI? If not, then there's nothing stopping you from adding a second monitor to your main computer (or any of the others) and running 2 wows there. You could also run the second wow in a very small window, even partially covered by the main. There's plenty of solutions. I have 4 monitors, so 2 toons are doubled up on one.

When boosting, I find that the 70 does so much more dmg, that having the lowbies help is usually counter productive, because i spend more time controlling 5 toons than one powerful one. Plus if they start fighting, they might pull aggro, and die easily. I just park em in a safe spot and pull the instance within xp range and do all the killin with my 70.

[BobGnarly]

imo, yes, it's too much. I won't say what works for you, but there is no way I'd want to try to coordinate that many different classes. Others have so maybe you could too, but you asked, so there ya go.

As far as setting up the key layouts and whatnot for a keyboard broadcast, this is the hardest part of getting it all up and going, to me at least. You really need to just sit down, figure out how all your toons are going to work together (very hard for 4 diff classes), and lay out the keys that make the most sense to you given that. There really is no shortcut here, just gotta bite the bullet and spend some time on it.

[Sanctume]

I 4-box too, because I play with guildies still.

My level 70s are:
Account 1: Holy Pally, Combat Rogue, Elemental Shaman
Account 2: Holy/Disc Priest, Elemental Shaman

Account 3: Prot (Shockadin) Pally

Account 4: Arms Warrior, Resto Shaman


I'm still open for a 5th account, and probably get one for wotlk and xfer one of the 70s from account 1 to the new 5th.

For now, BGs are fun with guildies.