Questions for Bulge and other 6 Boxers

[hershel]

This is my first go around at anything other than 2 and 3 boxing.  I have started to learn 4 and can actually do that on two computers with only a couple of issues.  Anyway I wanted to go to 6, but with the way I do it, they will either have to be a third window on each computer or on a third computer.  I do not have strategic commander or that AVG (spelling?) switch. 

I play
Warrior
Bard
Beastlord
Cleric

I know one of the next two will be wizard.  What would you do for the last slot?  I want something low maintenance like a wizard, but I am not sure either of my choices of shadowknight and/or necro for dots and backup snare/puller/FD will work.  It is probably too much work or am I wrong.  What do you think?

Secondly, my biggest issue with multi-boxing is traveling.  I cannot have each one on a seperate computer due to financial limitations.  Therefore, some will not stay on autofollow all the time due to being in the second tab window.  Will I just have to live with that or am I forgetting something?

Thirdly, how many AA would you suggest getting before say 65-70.  I do this at leisure so time is not an issue.  Thanks in advance guys.

[AbyssalMage]

As I only 2 box I can't answer all your questions but I would recommend getting a companion program so you can run multiple accounts on one screen.  EQ tried to address this when they made the option of going into Windowed mode but it still doesn't work for me.

As far as what would be a low maintnance character, you have the bard for pulling and you plan on using a wizzy (that will take care of your porting to zones and speed travel time up), so the only low maintanace toons I can think of would be any of the int casters remaining (Mage, Enchanter, Necromancer) or Shaman (would say druid but really wouldn't ass a whole lot thats beneficial).  Positioning box'd mellee and dealing with push is just to frustrating for me.  So saying all that I would say Necro, you have another rez'er, you gain a reliable snare (combined with Beastlord AA snare and Bard if you choose to use it) should be no running mobs, and the DPS he provides should work well for you.

Although necromancer's have a way of making other classes look inferior when you discover 90% of the time you don't need the other classes to do things.  The 10% comes into play when you have summoning mobs or not enouph room to kite.

Not everything you asked for but a start!

[Chasom]

Necros really aren't low maintenance dps.  They require a fair bit of attention or their dps will either suck due to not keeping up with DoTs or dying to overaggro.  I'd probably consider a mage or shaman.

As for travel, create a fellowship.  You only need 3 toons to drop a campfire.  It also really eliminates the need for a second rezzer when your cleric can campfire back if you wipe.

[hershel]

Thanks for the replys so far guys.  I think intelligence caster is the way to go and not the sk for less trouble.

I do use campfires, but I was really talking about like when I first log on and had to run through about 3 zones to places.  I know mage and COH is the easy answer, but my ultimate hope is to try and 1 group epic 1.5's in the very long run.  Magician one is not an option to me.  I have done them all but enchanter with a guild, and some on multiple occasions.  Bard may be out of the question too, but I will not drop hier

I guess it is necro or chanter.  Thanks for any replies guys and if anyone knows about good numbers of AA's, the please do not hesitate to respond.  I was a heavy raider with one or two characters before and now I just want to have fun with my own group.

[Khauruk]

Enc would be a pretty much wasted slot, w/ the bst and bard there.  Necro would be not great w/ that many toons there - though would do better since you don't plan on raiding (relative mana efficiency/dps don't hold up as nicely raid vs. group compared to many other classes).  I'd go second wizard since you don't want to do a mage (which would be my #1 choice), or go w/ a shaman.

[KrocodyleTZ]

I honestly would suggest a berserker for a low maintenance toon.  Melee can be a little tough to box with, but with a little patience and practice, you'll find it's not all that difficult once you get the hang of it.  Berserkers only provide minimal push, so there shouldn't be any issue with that.  You can also put frenzy and volley on a macro hot button (see berserker forum for help) and in the words of Ron Popeil, "Set it and forget it."  You'll need to control your aggro with any well geared berserker, but until the toon reaches 1.5 or better quality weapon and 200ish AA's, you shouldn't have a problem.  The berserker will provide a significant boost to your group's DPS (which is something that is always necessary for any large encounter including 1.5 fights) with little effort.  With a lot of work and effort, however, the dps output will be wonderful and you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.  Oh, and not to mention that berserker 1.5 and 2.0 is fairly easy, comparatively speaking of course, except for the god awful Ancient Sebilite Protector event in sebilis.  Plus instant snare and stuns when you're in a pinch.

Also, if you really want your group to shine and add a 6th toon to the crew, a shaman will intensify the dps output tremendously.  Might require more attention than you're capable of, but if you can handle it then you'll be in serious business then my friend.

Good luck!  Visit GoBerserker forums for any tips and help if you need it.

[MTBoxer]

I personally have a lot of difficulty with melee dps, positioning drives me nuts and it's inconsisent for me.  I'm going almost entirely with mages for boxing (I use 4).  I look at the group you've got and it looks like it'll be short on DPS.  You're already going to have to control the BL since a lot of the BL dps is derived from the BL itself and not the pet, otherwise you're not getting a lof of benefit there.  At that point, the bard is mostly going to be there for pulling and /melody.  You've got a solid combo with the warrior and cleric, adding a wizard will give you snares (go box XTC in SSRA for the snare dagger so it doesn't take up a spell slot).  So I'd say either a second wizard, but for me I'd say dps-wise it's a bit of a toss up, but the new mage pets, especially the fire pets, make them better than a second wizard - their pets can DPS even when they mage is oom and when you're boxing you'll really appreciate being able to coth.  The lvl 78 fire pet does about 500 dps and you don't have to spend time giving it pet gear.  If the mage option is getting eliminated due to the fact that you don't think you'd be able to box their epic, I think you're hurting yourself.

[AbyssalMage]

Necros really aren't low maintenance dps.  They require a fair bit of attention or their dps will either suck due to not keeping up with DoTs or dying to overaggro.  I'd probably consider a mage or shaman.

Necro DPS is actually really easy to control.  Basic set up is /assist, DoT, DoT, DoT, DoT, DoT, FD.  Its actually quite boring but if your looking for just pressing a few keys.  You only have 2 to get /assist, /pet attack, and 5 DoT's and FD to clear agro.  Is it better than Wizard?...Not unless the fight last 2+ DoT's.  Probally better than a Mage though although the new pet changes could make me incorrect.

As far as AA's....
Depends on class.  On necro with full DoT AA's your only looking at about 100 AA's at lvl 70.  Then it's about Spell Focus.  Not sure how many more AA's you need to continue line past lvl 70.
So best advise is grind AA's at lvl 70 or 75 as this seems to be the sweet spot for most classes.  Every class has others but its hard to tell you "how many"

[Bulge]

Hiya, 6-boxing is becoming a trend!  :-P

Well, I must say that I can not give good advice for people who run several accounts on one computer. I tried it again  with my last setup, even bought WinEQ2, tried everything but I kept having trouble, including /follow problems so this is just not for me. I upgrade a lot, so by now I could probably run a 9-box each on separate computers, but I realize this is not standard for everyone.

I am also a boxer who wants to travel around a lot, crawl dungeons and such, and never camp in a static place, so therefore I not only use Commanders, but now also have bought wireless keyboards for my 5 boxes, which I now control through a single keyboard. I have all sorts of group commands set up on the numeric pad of that keyboard which sits very near the left top of my Mains keyboard. So now I can give easy commands, like Nuke All, or Follow All, or Meditate through a single keystroke. By changing the key-setup per account I can have one box Slow, the other Debuf and the rest send in pets with a single keystroke. My "Incoming"key, I call this.

Anyway, this is of no use to you.

I would definately suggest 2 wizards though, they *define* my group already and I am only level 57 yet, with zero AA's. I also have a Mage  which hopefully one day will prove it's use through a good off tanking pet and CoH. Right now she is up there in DPS with the wizzies, but that will change soon, I guess when I get higher and get some AA's.
The problem with a High DPS 6-box is that you almost *have* to be mobile, since you will quickly deplete an area of mobs. And nothing more annoying then having to wait 7 minutes out 17 minutes respawntine before the mobs start popping again.  So I am constantly on the move, but this is what I like to do anyways. I realize moving around like this is also not very efficient in the end but it what I like to do.

Good luck, hopefully others can give you more technical advice on how to run several accounts on a single comp. :)

[Menarion]

I am also a boxer who wants to travel around a lot, crawl dungeons and such, and never camp in a static place, so therefore I not only use Commanders, but now also have bought wireless keyboards for my 5 boxes, which I now control through a single keyboard. I have all sorts of group commands set up on the numeric pad of that keyboard which sits very near the left top of my Mains keyboard. So now I can give easy commands, like Nuke All, or Follow All, or Meditate through a single keystroke. By changing the key-setup per account I can have one box Slow, the other Debuf and the rest send in pets with a single keystroke. My "Incoming"key, I call this.

So how do you do this?  Are there any good guides out there to walk someone through setting things up like this.  I 3-Box.  I've been thinking about moving to four but logistics are hampering me and I really down know how to set things up to make it easier to run the multiple boxes.

[Bulge]

I am also a boxer who wants to travel around a lot, crawl dungeons and such, and never camp in a static place, so therefore I not only use Commanders, but now also have bought wireless keyboards for my 5 boxes, which I now control through a single keyboard. I have all sorts of group commands set up on the numeric pad of that keyboard which sits very near the left top of my Mains keyboard. So now I can give easy commands, like Nuke All, or Follow All, or Meditate through a single keystroke. By changing the key-setup per account I can have one box Slow, the other Debuf and the rest send in pets with a single keystroke. My "Incoming"key, I call this.

So how do you do this?  Are there any good guides out there to walk someone through setting things up like this.  I 3-Box.  I've been thinking about moving to four but logistics are hampering me and I really down know how to set things up to make it easier to run the multiple boxes.

Being able to quikcly have all my boxes stand up and /follow, and also to have them all sit down and stop following is of crucial importance to my boxing fun. :) However to really make this a hasslefree thing, I think you need to have each account on its own computer, else you are still switching between clients.  Now there are programs that supposedly can activate a command in all of the clients you are running at once, like Keyclone, but I never got it running. I actually bought Keyclone, but found out later this does not work for EQ, only for WoW. The guy that makes keyclone said that there may be a way to make it work in EQ through the use of yet another program, but I never tried that. It seems that there is code in EQ that prohibits this program from working.  SO this is why I always end up going the hardware route and having each of my accounts on a separate box. 

However if you like to dabble with these programs, go here: http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Index There is a humongous amount of info there and people that are much more knowledgable about all this then I am.

So I went the hardware way of being able to send a command to my entire group at once which is simply buying 5  Logitech EX110 wireless keyboards, synchronize the receivers all to a single keyboard (shelving the other 4) and then adapt the keys in the game itself to let them do what you want them to do.  Synschronizing them to a single keyboard is easy: first push the Set button on the Keyboard you are going to use, then click all the buttons on the 5 receivers. The receivers I have glued to a piece of wood, nicely in a row, that sits directly behind the keyboard. The receivers simply connect to a USB port of each comp. You can still have a regular PS2 keyboard plugged in too, np, they will both work.
With this setup, I can just push a single button on the keyboard (I use the Numpad) which then sends this signal to all 5 comps. So if I push the Enter key on the numpad, it immediately goes to all comps, and this works absolutely flawless, and completely synchronous. In fact so much synschronous that I get the bug with the Horse Summoning, where some toons appear next to their horse instead of on them. This is a  known bug in EQ when players that are close together summon a horse exacltly simultaneously. Annoying but goes to show how synchronous this setup is.

Ok, so now I go into the Keys setup in each of the EQ clients, and setup the Enter Numpad key what I want it to do. For instance, I have made a macro in EQ that does:
/stand
/pause 7,/target Bulge
/follow

And put this on hotkeybar number 3, at spot 1. Now you go into options --> keys----> hotkeybars and make it so that Numpad Enter activates this hotkey.

To have them stop following, you can just push the back arrow key on that keyboard shortly.
To let them sit and meditate I made another hotkey with /sit and put this under the + key on the numpad. Now to make different toons do different things with a single keystroke, you just adapt the macro/hotkey that is triggered by that certain key on the keyboard.
So one of my toons has a Slow macro hotkey in that particular slot in that particular hotbar, while the other has a Send Pet macro/hotey in that very same spot. Push the one button on your wireless keyboard and these 2 toons will each do their designated task.

So one macro looks like:
/pause 6, /assist Bulge
/pause 8, /cast 3
cast 3
/g Slowing %t !

This includes an antifizzle line and also a grouptell with the toon telling me what it is doing. Obviously the Slow spell resides in Gem 3 on the Spellbar.

The other Toon has this macro on that particular hotbar/spot:

/pause 6,/assist Bulge
/pet attack
/g Sending in pet to %t


One thing: if you use that keyboard to talk to NPC's or players you must realize that all of your toons will start talking...... this is kinda funny, but can also be annoying. It is handy for quests though, since you just have to use all the leywords once, and each of your toons will say it, and get the next dialogue or Task. Make sure you have targeted the NPC first off course. For this I have another key. But beware if you want to do stuff with that keyboard for a single toon, since all the others will mimick his moves/speech!

Setting this up is a lot of work but for me that is part of the fun. However once you have set it up, moving through a dungeon is no hassle at all anymore. I constantly move around. :)

Here is pic of my desk: notice the 5 black receivers above the black keyboard, glued on a stick. (I guess my desk need some dusting lol.) http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/boxsetup.jpg

[hershel]

Thanks for all the replies guys.  I ended up going with a chanter.  Yeah I know 3 slows and my dps is not good, but the key was I really wanted a long lasting AE mez and 6 differing classes.  The reason being on the mez is I really do not have a second tank if the warrior bites it.  For that reason I am going to make the bard the puller and second tank and beef her AC up for times when things go bad. Enchanter can handle the mezing.

I gave thoughts to shaman and druid after all for a second healer and attack buffs/debuffs depending on which one.  I may well go back if things do not go as planned.  After all this is about having fun and I just wanted to try some things.  After raiding for several years, this is a nice change of pace.

I can go see the hot zones from 50 to 70 and the old ones and get the augs and am catching up my last 2 with the TSS 45 armor real soon that the others have.  All should be in the mid fifties in a couple of days. 

No one really mentioned AA's too much, but I am just gonna max stuff as I can at the certain levels like 51, 55, 61, etc.  I plan on seeing a lot of places in the 50's if I can.

Thanks again everyone for the advice even though I went in a slightly different direction than most suggested.  I did examine a lot of the ideas.  And like I said, I may change if it does not go well as this is my first time 6 boxing.  I play on probably the smallest populated server, so I can do as I want and see things as I want as long as it is not Raid stuff. 
   

[Bulge]

I may well go back if things do not go as planned.  After all this is about having fun and I just wanted to try some things. 

I plan on seeing a lot of places in the 50's if I can.
   

I totally agree. I am using a Bard for slower, but I may also level up my Druid further and see how I do with an Attack debuff and lots of DPS. If that does not work, I will level up a Shammy or use my Beast. I love the low and mid level game anyway. :)
Also there are so many great zones for levels 40-65, it would in deed be a waste if you flew by those levels and were restricted to the later expansions, which aren't really the most interesting RPG-wise for me anyway.

Have fun! :)

[hershel]

I may well go back if things do not go as planned.  After all this is about having fun and I just wanted to try some things. 

I plan on seeing a lot of places in the 50's if I can.
   

I totally agree. I am using a Bard for slower, but I may also level up my Druid further and see how I do with an Attack debuff and lots of DPS. If that does not work, I will level up a Shammy or use my Beast. I love the low and mid level game anyway. :)
Also there are so many great zones for levels 40-65, it would in deed be a waste if you flew by those levels and were restricted to the later expansions, which aren't really the most interesting RPG-wise for me anyway.

Have fun! :)

Not flying at all bud.  I got 4 of 6 epic 1.0s done.  I am 1 fight left for my bard, just haven't made the time to kill Trak to get the undead bard up.  I need to catch it on a serverup maybe.  Last one will be the warrior as she seems to have the worst luck on hers :).  Right now i am doing some old LDON points for 3 or 4 spells and anger augs just because I want to LOL.

I was planning on moving to POR armor next, but it looks like Defiant armor will be my deal now when it gets patched to my server.  I am a little different than most here as we have no bazaar really other than a few spells and plenty of tradeskill stuff.

Be good bud.