How do you level up as multiboxer

[SethLan]

Do you grind mobs? or just quest, i started multiboxing yesterday, 4 shamans, looks like going thru all the quest lines takes alot of time.

do you guys grind in one area? or just quest? or just lvl up each character.?

thanks!

[Smithnweson]

Hello Gni3w,

Grats to making your multibox team!

Questing:

The quests are quite linear with Cataclysm and they tell a story so if you are into the lore of what is happening to your faction and why, it would be good to go through these quests. The quest XP is decent and you can go at a pace that suits you without having to worry about others.


PVP

Grind battlegrounds while you quest is an option, however if you are in a battle group that tends to lose a lot, the xp is not as good and you will be grinding them out longer. On the flipside, you could end up with a BG weekend and you can chew through the levels quite speedily if you win a lot.


Dungeons

I would suggest making a tank class either Paladin or Warrior if you want to start at lvl 1, a choice to switch to DK at 60, tho u will have to do the DK starting quest line solo. Multiple class box teams do very well in dungeons if you set your skills and macros up to maximize what you have. There are a few tips in the Guide section of the forums to assist you.

The final verdict in my humble opinion, is that the best way, is the way that gives you the most satisfaction and highest fun factor. Otherwise why bother.

NOTE: If you are using REFER-A-FRIEND this will boost XP much more so.

NOTE 2: If you have a main and plenty of gold, I would insist that if you are honored with your guild to buy 4 x Helm/Cloak of your class from the Guild Vendor found in Org/SW. At the moment I think that is the only requirement, my guild was maxed 25 before I bothered to look. This will boost xp additionally.

[SethLan]

thanks for info, looks like everyone is boxing 5 toons, are there any people that are boxing 4? i'm interested only in BG's . as far dungeons i could get a little help from friend of mine to run me thru few, since i dont have 5th toon and make him as tank.

also i know they nerfed xp if someone at higher lvl want to carry low lvl thru dungeons, lets say power lvl .

[Ualaa]

If I have RAF, I do dungeon boosting from 20th to 60th.

Without RAF, I quest for 90% of my leveling process.
A little pvp here and there, at the highest level of a bracket.
Very rarely will I instance to level, that is usually something to do at maximum level for me, although I'm more PvP focused this expansion.

There are quite a few four-boxers, especially for those whose focus is PvP.
Five is the magical number for being your own group.
Four DPS can blow up an opponent, basically as quickly, easily and assuredly as five.
In the larger battlegrounds it makes no difference if you are four or five.
In the smaller BG's, particularly the 10-man's, being four is a huge asset to your team.
Also, if you're pursuing high end arena, you almost always require someone else to be playing a dedicated healer in the fifth slot.

[SethLan]

right, anyone ever tried to do arenas as 5 shamans? I activated the fifth account since $16 more per month wont hurt me.

[Kojiiko]

Originally Posted by gni3w

Do you grind mobs? or just quest, i started multiboxing yesterday, 4 shamans, looks like going thru all the quest lines takes alot of time.

do you guys grind in one area? or just quest? or just lvl up each character.?

thanks!

hey bud, what are the name of ur toons? what server are u on?
If u are creating shamans are u going elemental or enchancement? Did u do the RAF account?

[Ualaa]

Elemental was the top composition for Shammies in the late Burning Crusade era. Four of those could blow up basically anything with a chain of Flame Shock + Elemental Mastery + Lava Burst + Chain Lightning + Frost Shock.

In the current game, both for PvE and PvP they are relatively underpowered. Having one in a caster team (Elemental) or one in a melee team (Enhance) absolutely rocks.

At least two teams of 4-5 Enhance Shammies are looking very good in PvP at the moment.
If you were to PvP with shammies, at the moment I would either go Enhance or Resto.
Not saying you cannot try Elemental if you want to, just that it is currently an up hill battle.

Most of the PvP active teams seem to be going 4x Frost DK's with 1x Healer type, usually a Paladin or Priest.
For PvE, any tank plus any healer plus and three DPS should work, with a Paladin then Druid being the easiest tanks (Druid is missing some essential tanking skills until 81st).
Non-typical PvE teams can work, like:
- 4x Blood DK's and a Healer or
- Tank + 2x Healers + 2x DPS... think dual Pallies, each Beacon a DPS and self heal through Protector of the Innocent, while alternating or both healing the tank through burst damage.

[SethLan]

thx for good info, yeah i decided to use only 4 toons, since I will be only in bg's with them. =)

For now i'm lvling up as elemental all four, i think when i hit around 19 ill make one healer, 2 elementals, 1 enh

[SethLan]

Ualaa: So how about 4 ench, and 1 healer?

how about 5 arcande mages ? I would like huge burst of damage right of the bed, im lvling them just for pvp. I know 5 shamans in bc used to rule before.

I cant imagine 5 locks affliction and all targets dotted.

[Ualaa]

A healer is a huge bonus, in that you can heal your toons... and should one or more of them die, you can rez them if your healer can get out of combat.

A healer is a weakness, in that they don't contribute a lot to the kills and are frequently a priority target of the opposition.

I personally really like having a healer on most of my teams, but I've seen quite a few people prefer to go 5x Warlocks or 5x Mages, instead of 4x + 1x Healer.



Team Beeq is 5x Arcane Mages, and they have almost every current heroic boss on farm, without any form of tank or healer.
So you know the team has a massive DPS potential, especially with cooldowns.



In the case of the Warlocks, they can each Soulstone themselves which is a single get out of death card.

Affliction has a lot of self healing, via Haunt and Siphon Life (a percentage of your corruption damage) and Drain Life; plus Soul Link is early enough in Demonology for you to take that too.

A priest/druid is a mobile healer, for the Affliction style... but is also a priority target for the opposition.

I've got a very low level group of 4x Warlocks + 1x Priest.
They've not been played in quite a while.
Lots of damage, but not a lot of success in WSG.. which is the only BG I've done, but its one that I don't enjoy at all; they'd probably be a lot more fun in a larger scale BG down the road.

I know of at least one 5-box Demonology Warlock... who absolutely raped my 5x Feral Druids in comparable gear, but bunched up cleave teams destroy bunched up non-cleave melee teams, so it would likely be the same with a lot of compositions.




4x/5x Enhance has potential; there is a 5x Enhancement Shaman team on dual boxing.
Pinotnoir is running 5x Enhance; Eatcarbs has 4x Enhance with 1x Holy Pally.

Shammies essentially get 1x Trinket vs Fear/Charm/Sleep extra, per Shaman on the team... thanks to how Tremor Totem now works.
Fear is a major pain in the ass for pvp boxing.



The 4x Frost DK + 1x Healer (Paladin is most common, but Priest is pretty close and some have gone Shaman) is probably the top PvP team this expansion.

Paladin has bubble, making them a poor first target. Priest can heal for 8 seconds after dying for a guaranteed healing window. Shaman has no immunity effects or after death healing, but is fairly hard to kill and brings Tremor Totem to the mix.

The DK's use a pseudo priority system. Two rotations. Howling Blast > Frost Strike > Necrotic Strike, is the AoE attack sequence. Obliterate > Frost Strike is the single target rotation, and is often paired with Outbreak to disease the target for higher damage dealt plus Hungering Cold for a point-blank AoE CC effect.

The team essentially has unlimited number of Death Grips, which means they're immune to any root/snare effect (Howling Blast snares as much as the team could be snared, or Chains of Ice roots).

Anti-Magic Shell prevents a large amount of magical damage, and the application of any spell that has a debuff icon; this is 7 seconds (glyphed), every 45 seconds.
Icebound Fortitude breaks Stun and makes the DK immune to Stun for its duration.
Pillar of Frost lasts 20 seconds and is on a one minute timer, it makes the DK immune to knockback effects.
Lichborne is a second trinket, it breaks Fear/Charm/Sleep, and depending on your racial (my gnomes have Escape Artist) can be combined with that.



I've played 5x Ferals in PvP; they were my team until the 4.1 nerfs... although 4.2 essentially has given half of the nerfs back.
In PvE questing, they were able to every +1 level higher Elite quest mob except for the fire guy in Hyjal that pulses fire; the 4x DK's + Paladin were not able to kill three mobs while leveling that the Druids downed easily.

Nothing I've ever played has the DPS of five ferals, although Elemental Shammies had more burst towards the end of Burning Crusade.
Part of this is because it is five toons dealing damage.

They used a simple rotation of Mangle, Rake, Mangle, Mangle, Rip. This is a better than 97% chance that their next nature spell of under 10 seconds is instant (think Battle Rez or a large Healing spell).
This is what let them beat the +1 level elites while questing... the heal is a Complete Heal.

They have a devastating alpha open -- Pounce > Ravage... but it is useless against a moving target.

With the 4.1 changes, Savage Roar lasts 8 seconds and provides AoE immunity (plus breaks) roots; put that on round-robin for 8 seconds of immunity to roots per Druid on the team.
Dash also breaks root/renders the Druid immune to them, but that is self only.

Druids quest faster than anything; flight-form renders ground-spawn collections simplistic as you can hover 3 feet off the ground and a Fel Reaver ignores you. Plus you kill anything that needs to die or needs to die and drops something, faster than any other team.