25-Shaman MB discussion

[ShasVa]

I have an idea to have a party of 25 Shamans. Haven't decided on the race just yet (Goblin, Troll, Orc and Draenei are my candidates). Each group would consist of 4 Elemental and 1 Restoration Shaman. The goal is to have a powerful party that will be able to decimate any (and hopefully all) instances and raids.

But I must consider some things first, and that is where I'd like some advice. For the purpose of this topic, I am Aussie so I will be using AUD for currency.

Initial Hardware Setup
- Five physical machines, as cheap as possible, but powerful enough to play WoW...obviously, and no overclocking
- All-Low settings would be used, to save on resources, and Sight Distance would be the only one on Ultra
- CPU could just be a cheap quad-core, would use a passive heatsink if possible
- Memory would be 4GB DDR3
- GPU I'm not sure on, shouldn't be too expensive
- Hard Drive could be an SSD, seeing as the machines would be dedicated entirely to WoW (Patriot have a 60GB SSD that would be perfect)
- PSU I'm not sure on, something with enough watts but being somewhat silent in operation
- Monitor doesn't have to be too big, but should be able to fit five 800x600 windows (four in each corner, one in the middle overlapping the others)
- Operating System should be something 64-bit, probably Win 7 or Ubuntu 10.10 (using the latter may be able to bring the size, and cost, of the SSD down since Ubuntu doesn't use space or resources like Windows does)

Network Setup
- Was thinking about Gigabit (10/100/1000) connections across the board (mobos, switch and router), as well as Cat6 cables to maximize data transmission

The MB Concept
- A total of 25 accounts. This translates to 20 Elemental Shamans and 5 Restoration Shamans spread across the 5 physical machines (4 EL + 1 RE on each).
- Named appropriately to prevent easy targeting by enemy players.
- Leveling would be done via RaF to reach L60 with all 25 toons easily. After that it would just be a lot of instances.
- After much raiding, the vision I have is for all 25 toons to have full T11.5 gear, with the appropriate gems, enchants and reforgings.

Costs & Stuff to Consider, aka the "fun" part (/sarcasm)
- The total cost of all five machines (approx $2000+ for all five).
- The initial cost of buying 25 WoW keys after their trial days have expired, and then upgrading all 25 up to Cataclysm (unknown, but bound to be costly).
- The ongoing cost of subscribing 25 toons (approx $380 AUD for all 25 toons per month).

I'd like some discussion to start on this subject. It seems like a good idea, in theory. I'd just like some advice and criticism on it. Maybe even a pro-/con-point on whether it is even worth it or not.

[Ualaa]

Composition:
I'd really consider a few tanks, if you want to do all raids. Prot Pallies are very easy to box, but with 20x DPS you'll be able to burn some things down.

You'll be missing quite a few raid buffs and debuffs on the mob. Not sure what Sam or Prepared use for when they raid.


Hardware:
If you're going with five machines, you need a software which will allow the computers to communicate. I believe that narrows your choices to GCP, HKN, IS Boxer, or Keyclone. Of these, HKN is free but is a scripting language. IS Boxer would be my recommendation, it is $36/year and the subscription allows for five computers.

If you'd want to try Pwnboxer, you would need a single powerful computer, which might be an option if you were to decide on 10-boxing (see Another Idea), but it probably not viable for 25-boxing on one system.

If you're putting five toons on a computer, I'd go with 6GB per PC. 1GB per warcraft, and 1GB for the operating system. You might get by with 4GB, but the OS will be using 0.5 to 1.0 GB of ram, and then five Warcrafts will use some too.

The GPU doesn't have to be all that good, quite a few people are 5-boxing with 8800 GTX's. Shadows are the only thing that pushes video cards, and to a much lesser extent Spell Effects and Weather Effects.

I've got the Patriot 64GB SSD in my system (Torq), although I believe they have a better line out now. I'm happy with Patriot SSD's anyway. A cheap SSD, purely for warcraft is a very nice boost.


Another Idea
From a PvE progression point of view, 10-man will drop the same quality of loot as the 25-man. And then you're managing two groups instead of five.

Quite a few people had success in ICC10's, in particular Mercurio cleared almost all 10-man content, solo.

The cost is quite a bit lower.

Rated battlegrounds will rotate between 10-man's (One week, queuing for a Rated BG will get a random 10-man) and 15-man's (the next week, you'll get a random 15-man).
10/15 toons in one place, is a severe detriment for any BG with objectives, you'd be the most successful with the lowest percentage of toons in the BG, ie., Isle of Conquest or Alterac Valley.
Ten or twenty-five, you'd dominate Tol Barad/Wintergrasp and World PvP.

[ShasVa]

There are certain items that I want to obtain for these would-be toons. Four out of five of the Regalia of Raging Elements gear set, Incineratus, and Elementium Earthguard (all Heroic of course). All of these items are Level 372 (from memory), and it is those items, as well as a few others, that I want for all the shammy toons.

Just imagine buffed-up, FS-boosted Lava Bursts coming off of 10/25 of these so-armed Shamans. The damage output would fry most enemies not completely resistant to Fire damage! Moving on...

Having a 10-man MB team would be somewhat easier to manage - physically, mentally and financially. In Cata it seems Valor Points are the key to getting T11.5 gear (the goal as stated above), so if a 10-man raid team can rack them up, then I might just go for that instead.

[Tim]

Why not just use 1 computer to play 25 games? It definitely is possible. I've loaded 38 WoWs on my single PC without doing any prep work. Sure, my PC is a beast, but that fits in exactly with the topic.

If you are serious about running 25 mans yourself, I would definitely go the single PC route and build your setup from there. Plus it would be more manageable IMO to have it all on a single PC.

I've 10boxed AV a bazillion times with 1x Druid 9x Shaman on my PC, and that was before I beefed it up. 10x WoWs is pretty easy to do, and 25x WoWs would basically require you to plan out and obtain one helluva gaming system, but it is definitely doable.

[Tim]

Also, on an interesting note, Pwnboxer currently supports 10x WoWs on a single PC. However, since high end PCs can play far more than 10x WoWs, the upcoming Pwnboxer 3.0 will support 50 instances of WoW on a single PC.

[ShasVa]

Thanks for the replies Tim.

Although I can imagine the DPS potential of a 25-Shaman team, right now it just isn't financially possible to maintain long term. A 10-Shaman team however, is somewhat more practical for me. Also, a 10-Shaman team can still earn Valor Points at a decent rate, which is the currency I need for T11.5 gear.

Ten lots of Lightning-Shield-x9 charged Earth Shocks, or ten FS-boosted Lava Bursts is going to pour on some serious hurt! Ten Chain Lightnings or ten Earthquakes is bound to cause serious havoc as well!! And this is just the spells themselves - when boosted via trinkets and totem buffs, the DPS potential is bound to be massive. I shudder to think what would happen when such attacks are used with full T11.5 gear!!!

Or, imagine ten Fire Elementals bashing the **** out of things. Suck to be the target then!

Likewise, multiple Chain Heals would most likely get everyone back up to max health in one shot! Moving on...

A 10-Shaman team seems like a better option for me. As stated by Ualaa, such a team would still be able to obtain the VP I require, and the setup would be less costly. One gaming-type PC and dual monitors could do it, yeah?

[Zub]

i'm pretty sure you'll need some tanks to clear raid content though.
can't cast much when you get one-shotted >.<

[ShasVa]

How many tanks would you suggest, and what kind? I was thinking Paladin Protection-tanks. They seem to be quite sturdy, and they can heal too.

8x Elemental Shaman + 2x Protection Paladin?

Was thinking there is no reason to restrict this idea to just Shamans and Paladins. Perhpas mix it up with Mages, Warlocks and/or Hunters. Water Elementals, various pets, and demon spawn would greatly assist in a raid attack, for sure!?

Or is mixing up classes like that not a good idea? I will stick to the Shaman/Paladin combo if "going crazy" with the classes is not recommended.

[Ualaa]

Do a google search for Mercurio. He managed to clear almost all of the 10-man raids, through WotLK. He even did so with three full teams of 10-toons per team and had partial success running 5-toons with another 5-boxer. Pretty sure his compositions are multiple classes, something like four to six classes per team of ten. You could easily do a 10x Shaman or 10x Boomkin composition purely for BG's too.

Definitely look into some kind of a macro addon. A lot of the fights are extremely macro intensive, where you need each toon to be doing something different. You can macro camera angle, maw, pitch and distance, which is necessary for some fights. You'll need mouse broadcasting for some windows but not all, or at least others did through WotLK content. IS Boxer lets you activate and deactivate keymaps (groups of mapped keys, which are like macros); you'd greatly benefit from something that could load/unload sets of macros, for any fight that required something other than straight tank + spank.

Going a computer per five toons, would be cheaper than a single massive system. But I'd probably lean towards something like an i7 930, which you can overclock slightly if you want or run at stock speeds, grab 12GB of ram, an SSD, a decent video card... and then you have a very killer system for other applications, and something that will box 10 toons every easily.

Take a look at all the boxing software options, most have some kind of a trial period, so you can see if they're good for what you want, before investing.

I'd probably RAF up five accounts. Link them something like:
A >> B >> C
A >> D >> E
And transfer a booster to the "A" account.
For every set of toons A boosts to 60th on BCDE, A will get a 60th from granted levels.

Then do the same with the other five.

[Tim]

The following system can play 10x toons quite well:


Intel i7 980x
12GB DDR3 RAM
1x Whatever HD for windows install
2x SSD Drives for WoW installs
---Put first WoW on SSD #1, second WoW on SSD #2
2x GTX 480 GPU
2x 30" Monitor

Put 1x WoW on your main monitor, then split the other 9 on the other. -OR- Put your healer + tank on main monitor, DPS on others. etc. If you can plug in a 3rd or a 4th monitor, divvy the games across those as well.

I've done it on both 2 and 4 monitors, works like a charm.