Hello from a new Dual-Boxer

[noileum]

Hey guys & gals

A quick post to say hi to everyone and to thank all those that have contributed to the site, filling it with such a wealth of information. I've been reading the discussions\articles here for the last week or so while I try to get my head around what I need to do in order to get myself on the road to Dual-Boxing (I think I can only really justify 2 accounts unfortunately, however I may play around with an additional 3 trial accounts just to see how far I can get in the trial period though).

As it stands, I plan on Duo'ing a Rogue and Druid (although I'm toying with the idea of switching out the Rogue for a BM Hunter, so I have essentially 3 in the party), and also a Warrior and a Priest as a DB side project. Once WotLK hits I'll also be Duo'ing my Lock and Shaman (70 (edit ) and 65 currently) to 80. I've currently got a Warrior\Priest\Rogue at between 29 - 35, and my Driud is 16. I'm not that worried about the cost of transferring 2 or 3 of my toons across to the new account in order to get a head start on the leveling process, although that said I can see the bonus of starting from scratch to get used to playing them under DualBox control.

My main WoW machine is a Macbook-Pro, and while I know it'll run two instances of WoW ok, I've also got a Thinkpad that I used to play WoW on before I got my Macbook. Is there anything that I need to take into consideration when Dual-Boxing across the Mac\PC OS? I've had a hunt around the forums and WiKi and nothing seems to address this configuration (apologies if I have missed something, I've had multiboxing info overload these last few days :-) )

I'll try to post up a few updates as I go through the process, and I might even start up a(nother) blog regarding how it all goes.

If anyone has any tips regarding the Mac\PC setups, or class combo's I'm looking at I'd love to hear them

[shaeman]

I think the key issue is that there is no software native to the mac that has a version that runs on windows (and communicates between the two), that I know of.

If you are willing to (and the mac is a powerful enough laptop) you could run windows on it and get two copies of keyclone one for each machine.

If you are only dual boxing then it might be better just running two versions on the mac using the mac key broadcaster, which should be listed on the wiki.

[spannah]

...
Once WotLK hits I'll also be Duo'ing my Lock and Shaman (79 and 65 currently) to 80.
...

79 currently???? HAXOR!!!! :P

[noileum]

...
Once WotLK hits I'll also be Duo'ing my Lock and Shaman (79 and 65 currently) to 80.
...

79 currently???? HAXOR!!!! :P

8| 8|

Well spotted

[ElectronDF]

I use 2 Macs and 3 PCs. I use RealVNC on the PC to watch the Macs using ARD (Apple Remote Desktop). Then I use HotKeyNet to broadcast to the VNC and the other PC's. It works about 95-98%.

For combinations, I would just theorycraft in your head for a little and see what comes out. Pick what you really want to play with. Pick what your final goals are. Pick what your playstyle is. Think about what would happen and see what happens out of it.
1) You really like rogues, so you pick a warrior and healer to go with you. You dump aggro off rogues onto tank and tank gets healed. Not bad, but melee have a hard time with facing and melee distance. What do you plan to do if a mob keeps distance (runs away to try to cast on you)? What do you do if you can't get behind the mob while tank is in front (mob keeps moving)? What if your healer gets aggro, how do you get it off again?
2) You pick 4 mages and a healer. What do you do against mobs that are fast melees (slowing casting)? What do you do against mobs that can't be slowed or CC'd? Do you want to work with all the macros to figure out how to CC 3 mobs?
3) You pick a mixed group (shammy, lock, druid, rogue, priest). Can you time their spells to work together (lock has instant DOTS, but shammy takes 2 secs to cast lightning and rogue has to wait for energy to rebuild)? Can you use most of the different classes abilities (only rogue would kidney, only shammy would earthshock, only lock would soul drain, etc)?
Etc, all of them have advantages, and disadvantages. After you thought it out, try to get a group to 10-20. After you get that far, you will probably be able to see if you would like it. It doesn't take that long and think of the time as learning what works and what doesn't.

Groups I have thought of:
5 druid: (stealth, healing, DPS, ressing, but melee range and facing issues)
5 locks: (DOTS from hell, have healing, no resses, fears for BG's, pets for CC and tanking)
5 hunters: (I have lvl 40's, ownage in every situation, costs lots of mana if you spam every shot, no resses, no healing, pets to DPS and tank)
5 shammies: (heals,resses, DPS, melee and casting, anti-casting, totems from hell)
5 pallies: (heals, resses, NODPS, melee, no casting, no anti-casting, mobs take 1-2 days to die, but you never die)
mixed but like groups:
3-4 casters and healer: (heals, resses, ranged, can't take melee in their face)
3-4 toughies and healer: (heals, resses, some ranged, can take melee in their face, but not all of them)
3-4 caster/healer and tank: (heals, resses, ranged, can take some melee in their face)

You can try