10 boxing - group theorycrafting thread

[Stabface]

Looking forward to WOTLK, there are a lot more 10 man raids coming down the pipe. So is it time to start thinking about kicking it up a notch and move to 10 boxing? I have been, starting a thread to theorycraft about ideal group makeup
Of course its a little hard, since we don't know much about WOTLK 10-mans and how the fights will work. But we can look at it from a multi-boxing perspective and figure out what combos would be easy to control and flexible enough to handle most fights. Movement fights and gimmicky things like that will of course be hard no matter what class makeup you have. But surely some if not most of the content will be doable by a 10-boxer.


What is the best group makeup for 10-boxing? Nixy is using ... Prot Paladin, Holy Priest, Holy Paladin, and 7 DPS = Mage, Warlock x2, Shaman x4 ? Any other successful 10-boxers out there?

Seems like a good balanced 10-man group is 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 6 dps, with some hybrids in there so if you really need extra healer or dps you can swap roles. With sufficient gear you can start dropping a tank or healer for extra DPS, but for hitting L80 and starting on 10 mans it seems a balanced group would be best (then respec something later on).


2 tanks : Protection Paladins. Well, 1 tank is good for most all existing 10 man content but on some fights 2 tanks are pretty much an absolute requirement (like ZA Bear boss). So maybe go 1x Prot Paladin, equip the druid with tank leather that would otherwise just get melted, and pick up a DPS.

2 healers : Tree Druid, Holy Priest perhaps? Great single target heals + HoTs, AoE healing for raid damage, fort + mark. Seems like the best 2-healer combo you can get. Druid gets all the feral tank gear so if you need him to tank he can.

6 DPS : Thinking about... 1x Shadow Priest, 1x Warlock, 4x Shaman ? 1x spriest is almost a given, obviously. 1 warlock seems like it's worth it for SS, soulwell, +damage curse and they make pretty good 1-button-DPS with some clever enough macros. And I already have 4x L70 Shaman... but I could level something else easily enough. 4x Mages perhaps for sheep and AoE power? 4x Warlocks and for Seed of Corruption AoE madness?


Ideas? Thoughts? How will a Deathknight fit in?

[Kedash00]

i temporarily turned off my main 5 accounts and bought 5 more about a month and a half ago, they are lvl 42 at the moment, i was going to try soloing kara, i'll post more when they hit 70 and get some decent gear on the project...

right now i have my origional 5:
Pally (tank)
Priest (healer)
Lock or shammy i haven't decided
Lock
Mage

The extra 5:
Shammy
Shammy
Priest
Druid
Druid

I dont even know if my second pc will run 5 but i know my first pc will but as it gets close i'm gonna test it out. might try to run them through mc or something just for fun.

Should only be another month or so till i get the extras to 70
I dont know if i can control 2 tanks so i didn't level a second one up, but we shall see if you can solo tank kara :P

[Farleito]

I've got much repect for those of you who 4+ box... so don't take this the wrong way... I'm just curious...

10 boxing is like.... having sex on extacy. You just can't go back. You've just ruined regular sex. Everything else just isn't the same anymore and it's expensive to keep doing it. When I say expensive, I'm not talking money. $150-$200 a month is just a couple of hours of work for most of the people on this forum. It's expensive in the sense of time and dedication to keep it going. It only takes 3-4 toons to one shot something and if you focus on multiple targets, it takes too much time to set up, no? When one mob falls, a few toons are standing around w/o a target? You can't level them all together because you can't complete quests in a raid.

I guess I'm thinking more from a PvP perspective. Hitting someone for 40k damage is a bit overkill. Are you guys strictly running 10-mans? When/if you do 5-mans, how do you decide who runs it, and do you find it a bit....repetitive to gear the other 5? When you do play only 5, is it boring? What about when you play 1 toon?

I'll admit that running heroics w/ my 3x shammy team is somewhat difficult because I have to find a healer and a tank..and I pull agro all the time. However, I own face in the bg's. I'm always on the top for hk's, kb's and damage done. I found it easier to gear my guys by pvping rather than raiding/heroics.

Maybe world PvP w/ 10 is feasible. You could probably take over major cities by yourself. I've run kara w/ my 3 shaman team, just to see how complicated it would be and I must admit it was fun... but got old very fast.

[Stabface]

Well, my intent is 10-box for PvE only. I don't see that 10-man in PVP really is useful.

[daviddoran]

Well, my intent is 10-box for PvE only. I don't see that 10-man in PVP really is useful.

It'd be fun to pwn some towns with 10 70s, but eventually with all the fear bombs, deaths, it would get too hard to manage.

I know I'd soil myself if I was in Gadgetzan or Booty Bay and 10 70s of the opposite faction were rolling the place...

[Bradster]

While Xzin and I were coming up with a guild name (settled on the zerg) Xzin suggested "GG Debuff limit" Could you Imagine 10 lock dots ? rofl

[Nixi]

If I were to do it over again, (or just add classes) I would probably just go with 3 paladins and 7 shamans. Having so many classes with such limited button space firmly implanted in my muscle memory means i'm using everyone at like 10% effectiveness. I'd rather just cut classes and increase effectiveness.

I'm not sure if I could clear to Attunmen in Kara without at least 2 shamans having tremor totems in each group. Using 2 shamans per group (4 total) is pretty good at keeping people together, but 3 shamans per group (tremor totem is on a 3 sec pulse) would be the best. One of the reasons I can't do nightbane by myself is because of the fear. I put 3 shamans in my tank group, and he's good, but my other group with only 1 tremor totem is dicey. Once a toon ran outta '/follow' range and I wiped because i switched control over to him to bring him back to the pack. 2 tremors in each group means my tank could get turned around and run far enough for the boss to move (and my 9 toons get tail swiped).

Any time your dealing with fear you need a shaman. No other classes/abilities/trinkets/racials can reliably keep your team together. In PVE, the enounters might have fears spread far enough apart that trinkets+other stuff can keep the fear off, but in pvp forget it. You need a shaman.

10 boxing is like.... having sex on extacy. You just can't go back.

Lol, that made me chuckle.

I do have to disagree on this though. Since in WOW the primary group structure is the 5 man, you'll find that having 10 toons is combersome. Just like someone said about running the same heroics over and over. Well you have to keep your whole team progressing. That means farmnig the same damn instances x 2. I mean, you're probably farming heroics for badges and thinking, 'ugh this is old'. Just imagine trying to do it twice....

TBH i can't do it. I have a fulltime job and g/f. Contrary to popular belief (as I understand it from all the reponses I got on the 10 man video. lol) I do things other than play Wow.

I was actually wanting to add more warlocks to the team. I originally had one, then I leveled another thinking about how awsome locks are with plans on bringing the count up to 4. I still might level 2 more. Most of my grinding time is during downtime at the office, so I can't fire up 5 accounts (without serious chocking my work PC) so I just play 1-4 toons. Leveling new guys is fairly easy for me.

[Knapenburger]

10 Retridins!

Would smash any boss to fuck!

[Bunny]

I have a group of 5 shams at 70 as well as a holy priest. I have always played with the idea of 10 boxing but never really got around to doing it for several reasons. I recently decided I will give it a shot for wotlk (ofc inspired ny nixi). There will be so much more to do with a group of 10 in wotlk than in bc (basically only kara). I thought about it for a while and decided to level 5 more characters on the same accounts and later transfer them to 5 new accounts. My shams run the fast 6 sso dailies to earn money (~300g for 30m every day) and the rest of my (limited) time I level my new group. I try to make as much money and get all tradeskills for all toons to 375 to be prepared for wotlk. I also collect herbs and leather as I level up the new groups gathering profs to be ready for a char to have the new profession.

As for the composition of the new group I went with:
prot pala
heal pala
mage x 2
lock


Add to this my already 70s:
4 sham (1 will be ditched)
1 healpriest

and I think I will have a decent group. It is almost the same as nixis setup. The heal pala is going to be my second tank for the fights where one is needed; one sham has to heal if that is the case. I considered adding a driud for motw and tanking/healing capabilities but decided not to. One of the advantages of the new group: all are be and could be started in the same starting area. The new group is currently lvl 14 but is going to be a lot of fun when i get into the 20s due to its aoe capabilities.

Anyways, if that doesn't work I ccan always add a dk or two or three....
Bunny

[Lyonheart]

I'm thinking that the same logic that makes the perfect 5 man group would work for 10 mans in 'most" cases. Two palies and 8 shaman? And in WotLK this will be even more true due to totems effecting the whole raid. 10 man raiding will be level 80, and in WOtLK Shamans will have HEX for CC, even though it sounds like hex will not be spammable. Hex will have a long cooldown ( one minute or more ) with 6-8 shaman that wont be an issue. You would only need to HEX some targets. Now the only thing that will keep this make up being "perfect" will be decursing. you will need a mage or druid for some DCing. but for me.. i will swap out a shamy for one of the above only on fights where its needed.

Now if they nerf the stacking totems then this will be less effective. But if they don't? 7 healing wave, 6-8 grounding totems, all those tremor totems, and ToWs !??!! they will effect the whole raid!!! I will be leveling a druid and a warrior for fights that demand them. I have a mage and priest now. Ill be 10 boxing in WotlK 8) And maybe they will add a totem that removes curses ? ok I can only dream!