Handling multiple mobs

[Durete]

Hello guys, I'm new to the multiboxing and it goes quite ok(with levelling) however I'm kinda sad that I can't get past groups of more than 2 mobs in instances,

my characters I run with are:

prot warrior
balance druid
combat rogue
destro lock
holy priest

all are in the level 30 now but even at instances with green levelled mobs I simply die at aoe groups. (like gnomeragan, or SM gy)

atm my buttons are this:

2=Tank/DPS rotation
3=Hot on the warrior
4=shield/direct heal on the warrior
5=focus warrior
6=follow target (my ranged dps follow my healer, healer+rogue follow my warrior)
7= assist target,
0=buff target of warrior.

now the other spells of my warrior I control manually by clicking.


so atm I just spam thunderslam whenever possible and the rest revenge on my warrior, and spam the dps/tank rotation on 1 target,
yet the other mobs around still kill my ranged dps/healers even while they aint attacking them.

Does anyone have tips on how to handle situations with more than 2 hostile targets better?

[Ualaa]

You could try to crowd control them a bit.

Have a keybind, which has your Druid assist your Warrior and make that target their Focus.
You could have another key, which does the same for the Priest, Rogue and Warlock.

Then have another key, which has your toons cast their CC effect at their Focus.
For the Druid, you have Entangling Roots and Cyclone.
For the Priest, Shackle Undead is your CC effect.
The Rogue will have Blind, and you can pre-Sap prior to the pull if you want to too.
The Warlock can Banish elementals or demons.

If you have too much on you, and have pulled well back, so adds won't be much of an issue...
The Priest, Warlock and Warrior can all AoE fear.

Holy Nova is no-threat AoE healing, which can top everyone up.
You can try pulling with the warrior, and no one else does any DPS for a little bit.
Pre-Hot the warrior with Druid/Priest HOTs and Shielding, to give you extra time to build threat.

Part of it might be a lack of tools for your given level.

[Longshot17]

I've only tanked with a prot pally, and now a bear tank, but on both toons, I have my threat generation rotation on a separate button, so when I spam that, the rest of the party only does non-threat activities. When playing my druid (and it should be the same for a warrior), I try to tag each one, at least once, before spamming the dps key.

Other suggestion, don't rate your group by how they do at the lowbie levels, unless you want to spend a few gold twinking them through the Auction House. I find with the rate that they level in the 1-60 range they 'grow' out of their gear real fast.

Finally, and this will change as of today, but I believe Prot warrior was considered the more difficult of tanks to multibox. I don't totally agree with that, it's just a matter of finding a reliable threat-rotation macro that works.

I actually found/use a /click macro on my warrior (can't remember it off the top of my head), but that rotation and the /click macro will probably be invalid after today's patch.

Don't give up, and don't let the low level instances discourage you. I found my groups weren't super reliable until I got up in to ZF, BRD, LBRS and Ramps.

[EaTCarbS]

I usually can hold threat with cleave, thunderclap, and revenge. I would suggest the improved revenge talent, but they all just changed. >.<

[Durete]

Originally Posted by Longshot17

I've only tanked with a prot pally, and now a bear tank, but on both toons, I have my threat generation rotation on a separate button, so when I spam that, the rest of the party only does non-threat activities. When playing my druid (and it should be the same for a warrior), I try to tag each one, at least once, before spamming the dps key.

Other suggestion, don't rate your group by how they do at the lowbie levels, unless you want to spend a few gold twinking them through the Auction House. I find with the rate that they level in the 1-60 range they 'grow' out of their gear real fast.

Finally, and this will change as of today, but I believe Prot warrior was considered the more difficult of tanks to multibox. I don't totally agree with that, it's just a matter of finding a reliable threat-rotation macro that works.

I actually found/use a /click macro on my warrior (can't remember it off the top of my head), but that rotation and the /click macro will probably be invalid after today's patch.

Don't give up, and don't let the low level instances discourage you. I found my groups weren't super reliable until I got up in to ZF, BRD, LBRS and Ramps.

thanks for the tips,

indeed I dont really have that much ability's yet, I just got the single target stun on my warrior x)
which helps right away a load.

but time to fix the cc's/aoe cc rotation in macro's!

what I'm wondering is is it viable to put aoe damage spells in a macro aswell, or is that not really viable as I'd could imagine that it would be hard to put the "click to place" aoe's on the different characters.

*continue's to level by quests and trying out packs in instances*

[Ualaa]

In the current game, heroics are doable by an entire team which is fresh to 80th. The initial heroics aren't necessarily easy, but there will be 7 or 8 bosses which should be doable almost immediately. Further, you could take a totally ungeared tank toon and spend a weekend running random dungeons, your queue time would be instantaneous and as a tank people would be hesitant to boot you. With a weekend of dungeons, the most critical toon (the tank) for your team would severely outgear most heroics.

Unlike Wrath of the Lich King, it sounds like heroics in Cataclysm will be closer to the Burning Crusade model, where they are much harder the normal mode dungeons. So, in the current game you won't likely need much by way of CC effects, but these will probably be fairly important in Cataclysm, especially initially. During the first raid of the expansion, heroics will be pretty close to raid gear in terms of item level/gear score, but once the second raid has been released, heroic (badges/justice points) will buy you gear a step ahead of the gear which is required for heroics; as later raids become available this will exacerbate the issue.

Bottom line, I'd work the CC's into your play. You'll likely need them for any content which is challenging, which should include almost all five-man heroics for the first 3-6 months of the expansion. And if they introduce more challenging five-man's, similar to the ToC and FoS/HoR/PoS instances, you'll likely need to use all your tools for those too. Even if you don't require a CC ability for a given encounter, having the option to use it is good.

As far as AoE effects go, I have those on two keybinds. The first has only the tanking toon do that type of move. This is to gain threat on secondary targets, especially to out-threat the healer types who keep the tank up. I also have another AoE key, which in addition to the tank doing their thing, has the group doing AoE DPS too, which speeds up trivial content enormously.

The ground target AoE's can be handled by putting them on the same keybind. Then depending on your software you can set it to auto enable mouse broadcasting for the next click, when you hit that hotkey... or just have manually enable mouse broadcasting, click the thing and then disable mouse broadcasting.

[Durete]

Alright thanks for the tips all:

with the tips I made the following macro's,

# stands for the title, so it shares the same button with the other ##'s
not sure if the aoe fear one wouldwork though!


warlock:
#CC
/focus
/cast fear

#Aoe fear
/castsequence reset=combat ,Howl of terror,,


#aoe damage
/cast reign of fire


#groupsave
/cast [nochanneling] Drain Life

druid:

#DPS
/castsequence reset=combat moonfire, insect swarm, wrath, wrath, starfire

#groupsave
/castsequence reset=combat Tranquility, Wild Growth, Wild Growth, Wild Growth, Wild Growth


#CC

/focus
/cast Roots

#aoe
/cast hurricane

Rogue:
#CC
/focus
/cast stealth
/cast sap
/cast kick

#aoe
/cast Fan of Knifes

#silence
/cast Kick

#Groupsave
/cast Vanish

Priest:
#CC
/focus
/cast shackle

#Aoe damage
/cast Holy Nova

#Aoe fear
/castsequence reset=combat Psychic Scream,,,

#Groupsave
/castsequence reset=combat Circle of Healing, Holy nova, Prayer of Healing, Holy Nova, Prayer of Healing

Warrior:
#Aoe fear
/castsequence reset=combat ,,,,Intimidating Shout

#silence
/cast Shield Bash
/cast Disarm

#Aoe damage
/cast thunder Clap


#groupsave
/castsequence reset=combat Challenging Shout, Demoralizing Shout, Thunder Clap, Thunder Clap, Thunder Clap

[trowabartan]

Unless you are running around in grey gear you really shouldn't be having issues.

Try having some tank abilities not tied to your dps macro to allow some threat building at the start.

Have a key to break follow for your ranged so they don't get hit by PBAoE

Work on setting up heals for everyone else. Healbot is good, target-of-target or macro-per-char is good, and a group heal macro

Start working on movement and formation keys for your slaves. You won't really NEEd them till Shattered halls or so(if you don't skip) but you'll find once you nail down your ability keys movement and positioning will take the most finesse

Personally I found all 5 mans in Vanilla to be very easy unless you decide to run UBRS(yes I know it's technically a 10). Never did down the beast though I did get drak by having my boomkin go bear

[Durete]

Hmm, by a key bound to stop follow, you mean something like straffe I suppose(as that stops following?)

atm I use only 1 positioning and that's the following:

Tank< Rogue <healer<druid and warlock

this is to create a bit of distance between the healer, the tank and the dps and tank.

as for tank ability's not bound:
I have atm only sunder armour bound to the dps key, the rest I click as I putted them on the bottomleftbar.

[Ualaa]

You'll want keys for independent slave movement.

If your software supports Key Maps or the like, then use that.
By this I mean, you're able to send a keystroke to the slaves but not the main.
And when you switch to a new main, that toon also does not receive the slave move key.

If you cannot dynamically set up Hotstrings/Keymaps, you can just bind keys in Warcraft, and then lead with a given toon who has their own movement keys.
You'll lead with the tank 99% of the time, so dynamic move keys are not essential. Just go into keybindings in warcraft and give the slaves and master different keybinds so one set affects one toon but not the other.

I personally use WASDQE for the main/active toon.
And the Up/Down/Left/Right arrow keys for the slaves.
Although I've been toying with Home/End/Insert/Delete/PageUp/PageDown keys, since that would give my slaves the option to both turn and strafe.

You can then use any movement key on the slaves (Down Arrow) briefly, to break follow.
And press your Follow hotkey, once you want them to follow again.
Independent movement, lets you move your slaves out from puddles of acidic goo that a boss might spray about during an encounter.