Heroic dunegons and 5m setup

[Mearwen]

So after policy change, I am still planning to go into tbc with 5m setup, with restrictions .. No software or hardware Multiboxing, just 5 windows with addon supporting follow etc, so as long as follow is in the game I am gonna do that.
I will try to "hide" as much as possible but for sure there will be a time to expose myslf and get reports which in the end might lead to ban as what is behind wording "streamline" in policy update is enigma to me and basically they can do whatever and whenever they want. But thats not the topic.

Aim is to do heroic dungeons and only that, no raiding, just gear from dungeons / hc dungeons and badges.
Considering window switching and making actions in each window, are heroics feasibile? My main focus going to be mouseover clients and scroll. Of course there are limitations to basicaly 2 actions: scroll up and scroll down with possbile macros to castsequences etc + any standard binding but significantly slowing efficiency.

1. Do you think, based on such setup, heroic dungeons will be feasibile?

2. I have 2 options to go as a char setup, prot pala + 4x shaman or 2nd team prot pala + h priest + 2x mage + lock, which option considering all limitiations will be better?

My idea is to go with pala +4x shaman as it seems to be easier to bind more things as sequences under focus scroll macros etc, but I will miss some utilities coming from priest / mages and lock.
In the end, I want to have faster clear times. Probably shamans will be faster killers, but overall performance is under question mark.

I would be glad to get any feedback from your side

[nodoze]

I don't like that Mages & Shaman need to be spammed over and over to maintain their DPS and considering the ToS changes that playstyle can look to an external viewer like simultaneous inputs (or close enough). Note that in real life I am somewhat disabled due to military injuries to my back and neck (and have bad carpul tunnels & BPPV as well) so not needing to spam things often in clients has been a thought process when designing my teams even before these ToS changes... I bring this up so you are aware that I have a bias/need here to avoid spammy gameplay (separate from the ToS changes) and now both concerns just happen to align...

The best thoughts I have come up with so far is doing mouse-over-focus boxing for at least my Tank+3DPS. I may also do my Healer via mouse-over-focus though I am considering having my Healer in it's own PC/VM with it's own keypad or a key-stick which I would maybe setup to be somewhat close to a single seamless keyboard via affixing like this (not sure on best placement for me yet):

https://www.fentek-ind.com/images/xks16.jpg

Regarding the best team since the ToS change the team I am still thinking that Tankadin+3Warlocks+Healer may be best for me. Currently I have been running a Priest as my healer though I am thinking of leveling up a Shaman Healer for TBC when the PrePatch hits. Another good option may be Tank+3Hunters+Healer as the hunters only need to send in pet and start auto-shot to produce decent DPS. Periodically you can go into each Hunter, one at a time, and burn their mana down to zero and then go to the next hunter and thus avoid any appearance of simultaneous inputs though they will have more interaction/inputs than Warlocks... EDIT: Having 3 Mages for DPS with 3 Blizzards could also only need interaction every ~8seconds for Blizzards with the advantage of the Tankadin being able to reliably kite due to the slows helping mitigate damage. This is not something I have done as I like Tanky warlocks but it may actually be more viable when incoming damage is high.

Under the current mulitboxing paradigm one of the things I like about Paladin Tank is that, after gathering mobs and positioning and starting your main rotation, you really only need to interact on that client once every ~8+ or 10+ seconds to maintain AoE threat (refresh Consecration and maybe Holy Shield).

Similarly I like the Warlocks as I only need to interact with each AOE DPS window once every 15+ seconds to maintain AoE DPS via Hellfire (or 8+ seconds for Rain of Fire). For TBC I was planning on shifting my AoE DPS to be Seed of Corruption based AoE but that requires a more spammy gameplay that may look like input broadcasting to an external observer so likely I will just stick to Hellfire which only requires one input every ~15 seconds like I have done in Classic (or Rain of Fire every ~8seconds).

The healer is the only one which is more on demand and may require spamming of buttons and I would prefer to have dedicated buttons for that which is why I am considering getting something like:

https://smile.amazon.com/X-keys-USB-...dp/B009ROIFQ6/

Note: I currently have a 60 Mage on a 6th account for portals/food/water for my 5box teams. For TBC I will likely still take 1-3 Mages to 70 but may do it on one of my 5 accounts and drop my 6th account. Going forward I don't know that I will ever portal a multiboxing team to any city again and instead will do my movements one character at a time when in public spaces...

[Mearwen]

Thanks for feedback.
Although I have only 2 options as char setup.
Either pala + 4x shaman
or
Pala + Priest + 2x mage + lock
Everything beside pala is already 60 and I will level pala once pre patch hits. There is no other option than any of above mentioned teams.
I know, it would be easier with locks for example during leveling as you hit hellfire and thats it, repeat after kills/15s etc. Mages can use blizzard too, but not that well efficient like AE + FS (more effort required). At 70 with SoC and locks gonna be the same as shaman, u need to spam and spam, but probably you will need to switch target as SoC might not blow up before 2nd one will reach target, which for me it would be even more difficult than shamans. That is why I thought 2x mages will be enough to force blow up SoC of single lock so switching targets will not be needed.
But overall, my main focus gonna be heroics, meaning, there is no option to pull many mobs to AoE them down, so any AoE lock / mages will lose value compared to shamans, which can get down grps of 2-4 mobs very quickly.
But I loose utility cause of that compared to priest / mage / lock team.
This is my main concern about choosing proper team.

[nodoze]

Thanks for feedback.
Although I have only 2 options as char setup.
Either pala + 4x shaman
or
Pala + Priest + 2x mage + lock
Everything beside pala is already 60 and I will level pala once pre patch hits. There is no other option than any of above mentioned teams.
I know, it would be easier with locks for example during leveling as you hit hellfire and thats it, repeat after kills/15s etc. Mages can use blizzard too, but not that well efficient like AE + FS (more effort required). At 70 with SoC and locks gonna be the same as shaman, u need to spam and spam, but probably you will need to switch target as SoC might not blow up before 2nd one will reach target, which for me it would be even more difficult than shamans. That is why I thought 2x mages will be enough to force blow up SoC of single lock so switching targets will not be needed.
But overall, my main focus gonna be heroics, meaning, there is no option to pull many mobs to AoE them down, so any AoE lock / mages will lose value compared to shamans, which can get down grps of 2-4 mobs very quickly.
But I loose utility cause of that compared to priest / mage / lock team.
This is my main concern about choosing proper team.

I hear you and many of your points are valid. Note that you can do one free level 58 boost per account for any race/class (except Draenei and Blood Elves) so you could consider swapping in a strategic option here/there...

After thinking about it more I am now leaning toward doing:

Paladin+2Locks+Mage+Healer

Which is pretty similar to one (or two) of your options: Paladin+Lock+2Mages+Priest (or replace Priest with Shaman)

Considering the ToS change and wanting to avoid anything that looks like broadcast inputs I am still thinking of doing the AoE approach with rotations only needing at most 1 input per Tank+3DPS every 8+ seconds but just swapping in a Mage with Blizzard which should allow my Paladin to easily kite if incoming damage is too great. The Warlocks could switch to 8 second Rain of Fire since the Tank's Consecration and Mage's Blizzard already need refresh every 8 seconds but since my Locks are SoulLinked they don't take that much damage from HellFire so I may stay with Hellfire in most scenarios.

Considering the new ToS and no streamlining nor broadcasting, at 70 I am not planning on changing my play style and generally mixing in Seed of Corruption anymore and instead will be planning on sticking with an all AoE party that generally doesn't need to target any mobs and only needs interaction once every 8seconds or so... It will be slower on small packs but could be faster on larger pulls and having at least 1 Blizzard may make incoming damage really small with kiting...

One thing that kinda bothers me is that without ISboxer the only way I can easily put down AoE is via @Player which means I will be kiting (or tanking and spanking) fairly close to my party which means for some encounters with heavy cleave damage or AoE damage I will likely have to some some "spammy" play options... I guess that can be minimal with just applying lots of dots and then wanding so I don't need to keep going back (or maybe a GSE macro that does multiple shadow bolts if possible). That or I will just have to mouse-over my 4 quadrant windows (Tank+3DPS) and kick off abilities but if I do that I will purposefully go slow enough that it doesn't look like input broadcasting...

On a related note I am not sure which Healer I will use yet. When I was leaning toward Tankadin+3Locks and asked for feedback over 200 respondents recommended Resto Shaman compared to ~130 recommending various Priest specs (75 Holy, 21 Discipline, 33 Shadow)... Now that I am considering swapping 1 Warlock for a Mage I am leaning toward Priest though Shaman does have some pros/cons as well... In case you are interested in that poll and the Reponses you can find them here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwowt...din_3_warlock/

[Carto]

The benefits of adding a shaman to that setup instead of a second lock/mage I think far outweigh the lesser AoE output. Prior to the nerf I was planning on running paladin tank/holy priest (main)/lock/mage/ele shaman. The bloodlust for harder bosses and the earth/fire elementals are huge benefits, especially now that we are going to be far more delayed in our abilities compared to what we are used to with JMB and other programs.

Have to run out for a bit with the wife but would love to discuss in more detail. I check Discord far more and will send a message there at some point as well.

[nodoze]

The benefits of adding a shaman to that setup instead of a second lock/mage I think far outweigh the lesser AoE output. Prior to the nerf I was planning on running paladin tank/holy priest (main)/lock/mage/ele shaman. The bloodlust for harder bosses and the earth/fire elementals are huge benefits, especially now that we are going to be far more delayed in our abilities compared to what we are used to with JMB and other programs.

Have to run out for a bit with the wife but would love to discuss in more detail. I check Discord far more and will send a message there at some point as well.

Understood but that assumes you have a Priest Healer (which is understandable since it is your main). That being said can you get most of the benefits by adding a Resto Shaman instead and keeping all the AoE... IIRC Resto Shaman can still do Bloodlust & Elementals and Totems (Magma AoE + Earthbind/Tremor + Tranquil/Wrath-of-Air + Healing/Mana) and still apply Earth Shield and Chain Heal (and/or still do some DPS here and there).

To be clear, I have posted many times in many places that I think Paladin+4Shaman (and having a 5th Shaman option) is the optimum team for clearing TBC dungeons for most folk though that was before the ToS changes... Besides the fact that I have bad Carpul Tunnels I am just not going to play a spammy playstyle that may look like streamlined or broadcast inputs unless I have to (at least until we learn more about the ToS changes and fallout)...

[TheMias]

Before I say anything, AFAIK there is no free Boost for the TBC launch, but you can pay them 40 bucks for the privilege - hope that does not change your plans Nodoze


I ended up modifying my own plan for TBC, though less to the TOS changes but rather to the short time span of Pre-Patch. Originally I was going to rock 5x Shaman, but since I already have a geared up Paladin with all the level 60 goodies for boosting, I'll be going with 1x Paladin + 4x Shamans. Like Nodoze said, that is the best combo IMHO for clearing with speed and ease of configuration in mind.


As far as feasibility goes, I can tell you that you can do all of the heroics with a hodgepodge team of 4 (mage-boomie-priest-war) using absolutely no broadcasting as I did this back in the original TBC with my collection of under geared alts, even Magisters Terrace. You just have to be prepared for a long slog and a lot of deaths in that case. Heck, even did Kara with my brother Tanking (post nerfs near the end of the expansion). So having 4 of the same class with bloodlust and an occational drum will do far better.


As far as the speed of your actions go, yeah it can look almost like broadcasting using hover over mouse focus. But I will say it is very noticeable IF someone is paying attention that there is always a delay from the 1st to the last DPS, and that occasionally some don't do jack on a mouseover pass. But that gets so tiring even without a disability, and you limit yourself to just mouse up and mouse down with NO modifers. So I'll just use the mousehover activates window feature of windows 10 and press buttons - will be slower, but I think with a paladin tank you have the headroom for a slower rotation.

[nodoze]

... [deleted lots of good stuff that had some humor mixed in] ...

LoL the humor is appreciated. I don't drink much, don't smoke, don't do fast-food or other indulgences much, so spending $40 on my hobby for a boost for a strategic change of a class/spec for a slot or two on my main team is not something I would frankly even blink at but I obviously understand if others might...

Thanks for sharing and in general I agree with most everything you said except that I personally would not be able to clear many of the Heroics with a hodge-podge team like that even with lots of deaths and slogging... I am pretty patient and persistent but I would switch to a better comp before banging my head against a wall for too long. Even if I have lots of weak-classes or meme-specs in my stable I generally try to have a dedicated optimal 5box team for dungeons for each expansion and generally will only swap in one weak/meme class-spec for a single slot at a time. For example for TBC (without the new ToS concerns) I would have Tankadin+4Shaman (and a 5th Shaman on my Tankadin account) and then swap in as needed (Tank+3Shaman+weak_link) to minimize pain. In original TBC I had on my main 5box accounts 5 Paladins, 5 Shaman, 5 Druids, and at least 4 of the rest of the classes to mix/match as desired and try various things. Considering the ToS changes I don't know that I will go that far this time around but I will likely try to have at 70 cap my main 5box team optimized for how I want to run dungeons and then will have at least 1 Rogue, 2 Druids, & a 2nd Paladin (Healadin) to swap in for any dungeon drops or marks I want for those characters.

Though I am not an expert in this area I believe if you put the time into some strong GSE action sequences you likely could have a full complex single target rotation on mouse up and a full AoE rotation on mouse down for each class per slot (or use keybind or whatever).

[Nindenumene]

Just wanted to share my experience and thoughts in tbc private servers and tbc beta.
Leveling
TBC beta: I tested warlock 58 boost(demo build) and BM hunter to compare dps uptime, doing quest and killing mobs.
Warlock 58: Felguard does cleave etc- but quite soon u will se the pet starting to die (if) fighting two mobs- ur alternative to keep him alive, is either blood funnel or instant summon him again(then the mobs will come for u , since the agro is reset)
Was very disappointed compare to the hunter.

Bloodfunnel: u loose all ur dps healing the pet, making the fight even harder- since u go low on life and ur dps stops- very frustrating as this will increase ur level time- unless u want to go around with low life- u need to eat/drink.

its a slow stdy leveling, with potensial downtime as stated above.

Hunter 58:
Well what can I say, they are overpowered at this leveling stuff, and if things go sideways - u can always run away and feign death and live another day-
They have cc(trap) that doesn't include the target getting feared into 100mobs!( u never thought the fear would go into xD ).And hunters can trap in combat now tbc. Easy rotation, only need 1 macro to do top dps after 62.

Mend pet: Updated from classic, to be an instant spell- that continuously heals the pet( if its improved through talents - it will also cleanse the pet.)
U continue doing dps, while the pet is healed. If played right, u will have ZERO downtime- the dps is very high- and at 62 u get steadyshot that doubles the dps.

(On Private servers 4xhunters + shaman questing and leveling- everything instant dies and u just have only 1 macro to deal with in the dps rotation.)




PVE Dungeon leveling and Heroics TBC:MY thoughts.

1x paladin +3 warlocks+ shaman.:

My concern after the recent nerfs to software/hardware boxing, is the dps rotation and switching to always needing to lifetap as well.
Its the mouse over windows - that needs to be as easy as it can be. One singel macro for dps is preferred.
Having the group wander into a bunch of mobs- while paladin is tanking- using hellfire/rain of fire- or SOC- I can understand seems nice=).
But that doesn't kill singel bosses with ease either- need to test this- but hunters doesnt have mana issue like warlocks tho- and healing with ur shaman - he should be focusing keeping the tank alive- to ease the stress on everything, not being a mana battery to a certen class.


1xpaladin +3hunters +shaman:

One thing to remember , Hunters have misdirect(that focus the starting threat to the main tank ) and u have 3 of them - so threat issues ?dont think so.
Hunter talent Ferocious Inspiration stacks?,(so they say), so with 3 hunters, this will mean 9% increased damage to the party , ,the paladin tank will have good benefit from this. Feign death for removing threat as well.- still 3% if it does not stack- its better then nothing=)
Since the hunter in tbc comes with a Pet in all specs( u prob will play BM anyway) they have 3 more tanks to help out when things go sideways- choose diff pets with diff debuffs to the target as well, like melee AP debuff - they also have dots- thunderstomp aoe dmg and threath- fire breath aoe dmg. Pick and choose.
Hunters can help heal pets with one clickandforget spell.

And ofc the main aspect- simpel easy high damage output with one singel macro.

My setup will be.-
Addons that is a must have:
Ema
GSE
clique

shaman with clique mouse over+ a chain heal macro-

Paladin with a (wowlazy GSE macro) he will also have an interact with target macro in another macro with gse macro.
Hunters with a (wowlazy gse macro , building shift ctrl modifiers, normal rotation- then shift pop cds etc. all in one)


The main thing that does this so easy with focus mouse over windows, is my Razor keyboard- that spams this gse macro for me- so I only hover my mouse over and that screen spams the dps macro---- so then its just to move the mouse around fast- and pewpew.

*My shaman then has no keybindings in that action bar slot- but focus on clique addon for heals-

made a quick video right now,
this is without addons- its from the private sever tbc5man server- thew dungeons is scaled up to 70 normal- I didnt have time to equip everything in every slot, so the hunters are half geared with very bad green starter gear.(worse then the epic 60 gears, alot worse)

But is to show the basic- i made some quick assist macroes-
Quick note, it was very laggy this server for me, playing 5 accounts so the response on the macroes isnt as good as it should be, classic tbc wont have this issue.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wSlTDpQmd_A&feature=share

[nodoze]

Note: I deleted portions of the below for brevity and when deleting I tried to mark the deleted portions with [...].

Just wanted to share my experience and thoughts in tbc private servers and tbc beta.

Leveling
TBC beta: I tested warlock 58 boost(demo build) and BM hunter to compare dps uptime, doing quest and killing mobs.

Warlock 58: Felguard [...] Was very disappointed compare to the hunter.

Bloodfunnel: [...] u need to eat/drink. Its a slow stdy leveling, with potensial downtime as stated above.

Hunter 58:
Well what can I say, they are overpowered at this leveling stuff, and if things go sideways - u can always run away and feign death and live another day- [...]

PVE Dungeon leveling and Heroics TBC:MY thoughts.

1x paladin +3 warlocks+ shaman.:

My concern after the recent nerfs to software/hardware boxing, is the dps rotation and switching to always needing to lifetap as well.
Its the mouse over windows - that needs to be as easy as it can be. One singel macro for dps is preferred.
Having the group wander into a bunch of mobs- while paladin is tanking- using hellfire/rain of fire- or SOC- I can understand seems nice=).
But that doesn't kill singel bosses with ease either- need to test this- but hunters doesnt have mana issue like warlocks tho- and healing with ur shaman - he should be focusing keeping the tank alive- to ease the stress on everything, not being a mana battery to a certen class.

1xpaladin +3hunters +shaman:

One thing to remember , Hunters have misdirect(that focus the starting threat to the main tank ) and u have 3 of them - so threat issues ?dont think so.
Hunter talent Ferocious Inspiration stacks?,(so they say), so with 3 hunters, this will mean 9% increased damage to the party , ,the paladin tank will have good benefit from this. Feign death for removing threat as well.- still 3% if it does not stack- its better then nothing=)
Since the hunter in tbc comes with a Pet in all specs( u prob will play BM anyway) they have 3 more tanks to help out when things go sideways- choose diff pets with diff debuffs to the target as well, like melee AP debuff - they also have dots- thunderstomp aoe dmg and threath- fire breath aoe dmg. Pick and choose.
Hunters can help heal pets with one clickandforget spell.

And ofc the main aspect- simpel easy high damage output with one singel macro.

My setup will be.-
Addons that is a must have:
Ema
GSE
clique

shaman with clique mouse over+ a chain heal macro-

Paladin with a (wowlazy GSE macro) he will also have an interact with target macro in another macro with gse macro.
Hunters with a (wowlazy gse macro , building shift ctrl modifiers, normal rotation- then shift pop cds etc. all in one)

The main thing that does this so easy with focus mouse over windows, is my Razor keyboard- that spams this gse macro for me- so I only hover my mouse over and that screen spams the dps macro---- so then its just to move the mouse around fast- and pewpew.

*My shaman then has no keybindings in that action bar slot- but focus on clique addon for heals-

made a quick video right now,
...
Video is uploading.*

For reference note following thread I started on 11/5/2020 right after the 1st input broadcasting change:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57978-Best-Teams-for-no-broadcast-multiboxing

As stated between 11/5/2020-11/10/2020 I and many others agree that Tank+3Hunters+Healer should be a solid team after the changes.

I would love to see a video but I don't think private server videos can be linked on this site so I would not upload it here (you can send me a PM here or a DM on Discord with a link instead).

Also if your razer keyboard is auto-spamming anything that is against the ToS so I would recommend a different approach.

Personally I have changed my team from Paladin+3Locks+Shaman to Paladin+Mage+2Locks+Priest/Shaman. I would like to do Shaman but I don't think I will have time to level one up in 2 weeks before 6/1 so if I become active again when the portal opens it likely will be with my Priest as the healer (and at least 1 Mage)...

I agree that Paladin+3AoE_DPS (Mages/Shaman)+Healer teams will need to have single target DPS rotations for bosses and plan to do that via a GSE macro. That being said most of my time will be grinding groups of mobs and I am still going to stick with all AoE for non-bosses (except now I plan to mix in at least 1 Blizzard instead of all Hellfire/Rain_of_Fire).

Note that even with Paladin+3Warlock+Priest team I always have had free water/food so when I eat/drink on the Tank/Healer I also just eat/drink on my DPS (even though I could lifetap instead). I was more likely to lifetap my Locks when I could Input Broadcast but now that Input Broadcasting is against the ToS I try to use the least amount of clicks/buttons where possible due to pain in my carpal tunnels...

I don't really focus on leveling single characters or farming with single character but I agree that Hunters are likely better than Warlocks for many things including likely single character leveling/farming (but certainly not AoE). That being said you may want to retry your single Warlock leveling and farming with a build more like this for a better comparison:

TBC Warlock Infinite Mana build