Positioning your melee's. Also: what Weapon?

[Bulge]

I am thinking about making a new group, but this time I am thinking of using some of the toons (or all) for melee too, instead of having my boxed toons cast in the background.

I hear that positioning is hard, but I am am looking for experiences and tricks concerning this.

To start off myself, I am thinking the /follow command is crucial here, please correct me if I am wrong.  I hear some people actually position their boxed melee switching to the box itself but with all the push going on, this sounds like an excruciating and fruitless effort, resulting in 90% "out of reach" messages?

I was also wondering what weapon would compensate best for the "out of reach"  thing: a fast weaponskill or the low delay weaponskills? I am not very at home in these mechanics.

Also, how easy is it to have a rogue Backstab? Does he have to stand still for this? I am such a newbie with  pure melee. :D

[Kashmiir Battlekat]

Positioning is key.

If you have 3 Melee them place them in a "Triangle" Pattern around the mob.

If you run 4 Melee place them in a "Diamond" pattern around the mob.

I triple box so for me a "Triangle" patterm works best or is Ranger is using bow I do a modified "Triangle" by placing my warder a little closer to my ranger.

Myself and my best friend 6 box between us so we have perfected the art of positioning for best push balance.

I think this may be something you just need to experiment with and get some first hand experience at it. It is difficult to explain... as you can see :)

[Bulge]

Ah, but I would never ever want to have to switch to the toons themselves to position them: I hate that sort of thing. This is why I am using a KVM-switch and the Strategic Commanders and pet-classes. :)

But I was thinking that with auto-follow it is rather easy to get them all behind the mob: indeed you will have to deal with the push. Your Main will have to keep backing up, else the others that are on auto-follow will loose contact with the mob. But since the mob is glued to you (you have aggro) this "out of range" thing may be a serious problem.

Kashmir,  do you have any experience how hard it is to keep a bot in melee-range when he is on auto-follow?

[Zoban]

Botting melee is pain in the ass over all as you need to adjust melee range and the likes but is doable.

[Phurbi]

Ah, but I would never ever want to have to switch to the toons themselves to position them

You might as well write off the idea of having more than one mele then.  It's not going to be efficient if you're not willing to reposition\balance push.  DoT\DD\pet classes would probably work better, and even then you're going to have to watch pet push.  They move stuff all over the place.

*Edit - Thinking about it, with a gamepad to take care of the twist during fights, a bard might be good.  Run a 3-4 song twist + some mele, could add some decent damage.   Great puller, and mana\health regen between fights as well.

With my 3, (bst, warder and cleric) a triangle with the bst and clr close together on one side, opposing the waders push works very well.  The occasional riposte on the cleric isn't a big deal usually.

Adding in the wifes warrior adds a fair amount of push and I've got to adjust a bit.  Not quite a square, the warrior pushes a bit harder than my two PCs together, or the pet by itself.

[Kyrran]

I'd say you're pretty much spot on in your assumption, Bulge. To work at its most effective, you really should watch each box and position manually - but since you want to do it without looking at each screen, auto follow is essential. You will have issues on some of the larger mobs though

You'll need to be careful with the placement of your main primarily - if you get knocked too far back by the mobs melee or shift a little too far, it'll throw everything out. Your secondary melee characters will be unable to hit the mob and the rear push will be lost. Still, it's doable. I've tried it myself with two melee alts and there are just occasions where you'll lose some melee power. Casters are definately my preference for boxing.

Regarding a rogue and backstab, no, they don't need to be stationary. Backstab is just another melee ability, albeit for considerably higher damage. As with all melee abilities, it can be used while moving. No impediments there.

Hope you figure it out to your satisfaction.

[Kashmiir Battlekat]

Kashmir,  do you have any experience how hard it is to keep a bot in melee-range when he is on auto-follow?

Feasible, yes. Does it work in practice? Rarely.

Manually repositioning is a key element in any boxing situation. You will almost never get 'perfect' placement unless you can consistantly corner a mob in the same spot every time.

Thats about the only idea I have man.

[Mindlet]

Personally I don't know how anyone can manage to play 2 melees effectively. Whenever I try 1 is always out of range most of the time. Although that maybe because I only ever do it on raids.