January 4, 2012

Basic Guide To Multi-Boxing

World of Warcraft From L1-L65
By Jackie

This is a guide to multi-boxing World of Warcraft. WoW is a very fertile terrain
for MMO multi-boxing due to the large number of dungeons, strong macro
system, and steep gear/power curve.
Five-person dungeons in WoW are too easy for a full group but perfect for
boxing. Plus, you can start any number of free trial accounts and try boxing for
free up to level 20, including dungeons.
I am currently three-boxing Burning Crusade (first expansion) dungeons
around L65 with three characters at once on three accounts, beating those
dungeons on-level without any special gearing efforts.
Simple tank-DPS-heals three-boxing, without a large amount of extra software
and add-ons, will be the focus of this guide. The techniques described can
equally be applied to other types of boxing through modification of the scripts.
This guide was written in January, 2012 for the new boxer who wants to learn,
but it also may contain useful things for experienced boxers. My goal is to help
anyone who wants to explore a fun and challenging gaming activity that is
outside the box.
~INDEX~
1. What is multi-boxing?
2. Setting up multiple WoW accounts.
3. Setting up hardware and HotKeyNet.
4. Setting up your macros and functionality.
5. Class selection for boxing.
6. Dungeon tips.
7. Specific dungeon notes.
8. PvE Leveling Strategies
9. Troubleshooting, extra info.
10. More Reading.
WHAT IS MULTI-BOXING?
There is a lot of ignorance and prejudice against multi-boxing in MMOs today.
People think its cheating and against the TOS, for example, just on general
principle. People may report you, hate you, or call you a cheater, like the person
who left a comment to my LotRO boxing guide. The fact is that boxing is
perfectly legal in many MMOs and is discussed openly in MMO forums.
At its most basic, multi-boxing refers to running more than one copy of a game
at the same time on one or more computers, and using that setup to play more
than one character at once in the game. This can be done with many types of
special hardware and software schemes. There is a lot of confusion about boxing
because while the definition is basic, boxing is really what individual players
make of it.
Many players box to win at PvP. They enjoy chaining multiple characters
together to one-shot enemy players via key cloning or to assault enemy cities
with their own personal group or raid. Thats not what this guide is about,
although the techniques used here can be used for PvP.
The focus of this boxing guide is solo PvE in World of Warcraft with your very
own party of characters. This allows you to explore great dungeons at your own
pace, roleplay and make camp for a while if you want, and generally enjoy the
content without being dependent on other players for your enjoyment.
Is this an extreme activity for hardcore players? It can be. It doesnt have to
be. If youre good at three-boxing, most normal WoW dungeons are easy using
quest gear without any special effort. The hard part is really in the
administrationmanaging the software, the multiple accounts, the macros, and
the key bindings.
SETTING UP MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS
Blizzard makes this easy and cheap, and they throw in some nice bonuses. Youll
want to use the Recruit-A-Friend system. Log into your Battle Net account, click
your active WoW account, and click the Referrals and Rewards link on the
bottom grey bar. Send a RAF invitation to your chosen email address for your
new account. (Links removed to avoid another WordPress TOS violation Ed.)
What will RAF do for you? +300% XP to XP on both accounts when grouped up,
plus your RAF account can then grant free levels to lower level characters on
your original account. Each of your characters on each account can also
summon a character on the other account once every half hour. This makes it a
snap to get to dungeons, but if you go for three or four accounts, be sure to chain
them instead of RAFing all to one. That way you can chain summon your group
to a dungeon (1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4) using each characters cooldown. You cant use
the random dungeon finder teleport unless you have five.
You also get one free month on your original account when you sub on your RAF
account at the end of the free month (if you buy the Battle Chest), and if your
RAF subs a second month, your original account gets a free rocket mount. (All
of this is accurate at the time of this writing.) Once you have two or more
accounts linked, log in, group up, summon your characters together, and youre
ready for the next step (Ill talk about serious class selection later.)
SETTING UP HARDWARE AND HOTKEYNET
Hardware requirements for boxing arent well-known, but I have a very old
computer and it runs three copies of WoW easily. Im running the game off of a
second hard drive to optimize load times by dividing the stress away from my
operating system drive. Running multiple copies on different physical drives
will also particularly result in performance boosts.
In any case, all you need to do is start up the game multiple times and log into
your different accounts on each copy. You dont need multiple installations of
the game, but you cant log into the same account twice, which is why you need
multiple accounts for boxing.
There are a number of software solutions for multi-boxing multiple WoW
accounts, including ISBoxer, Pwnboxer, and HotKeyNet. I use the last option
because its basic, free, and functional. For me, these are good things. Download
HotKeyNet and read a little bit about how to use it on the HKN website.
Using HotkeyNet requires a few very simple steps: start the program; load a
script that tells HKN what to do; rename your WoW windows to match the
coding in the script; activate a pre-determined toggle key (Capslock or
Numlock) to tell HKN when to pass your keystrokes to the game windows.
Thats pretty much it.
Go ahead and try a simple learning exercise. Start up HKN and two copies of
WoW with two accounts. Copy the simple cloning script (#1) from this page into
a text file in notepad or another text editor. Save the file and load it into HKN.
The script should load with no errors.
This basic script has three blocks/paragraphs of code. Block one defines a set of
keys from your keyboard using a format that HKN can understand. KeyList
tells HKN you are making a key list. MainKeyList is what youre naming the
list. Then you have the list of keys. Block two informs HKN that you will have
three windows (two will also work just fine, and you can remove the references
to the third if you like) called WoW1, WoW2, and (optionally) WoW3. Go ahead
and rename your game windows to match the script as pictured here.
The third block of the script says that when CapsLock is on, the MainKeyList
keys will be sent to the code labels w1, w2, and w3, which correspond to WoW1,
WoW2, and WoW3 windows. Go ahead and put one of your characters following
the others and test the script. When CapsLock is on, the keys in the MainKeyList
should be sent to multiple windows. Your characters will do the same action at
the same time.
Will this work for a dungeon? No. You need tanking, healing, and DPS all acting
separately. So now that we kind of understand script #1 (hopefullyif not, seek
more knowledge at HotkeyNet, and experiment), lets look at script #2. This is
the same script except it defines three key lists instead of one, and sends each
list in different ways to the three different windows.
The DPSkeylist is F1-F12. On your DPS character in the WoW3 window, youll
want to pick some skills and keymap them F1-F12 on a hotbar devoted to
boxing. (These will need to be macros to target correctlythats the next
section.)
The MainKeyList is for your tank. This list excludes, or excepts a lot of keys. You
dont want all of your characters to do everything the tank does, like open quest
log, look at character sheet, jump, open the chat box, etc.
The AllCharsList will be sent to all windows, as you can see in the last block of
code in script #2. These are my key picks for the commands youd like all
characters to use at once. These are Numpad decimal, which Ive macroed on
each character to follow their focus target; Numpad minus, which when mapped
instructs all characters to mount up; and Oem3 is the unmodified tilde key, or `,
which tells everyone to stop following immediately. This can be important
sometimes. Refer to the macro section next.
It should be noted that mouse clicking isnt going to get it done for boxing. You
need to be a keyboard fiend, and you need to map and macro everything to get
the job done. Here is my setup, including all windows and
keymappings. I use the Numpad heavily. In battle, I have one hand on ASWD
and the other on the Numpad. My tank mostly uses Numpad 0-9 and Shift-
Numpad 0-9, while cntrl Numpad 0-9 keypresses are sent via HKN to my
healer. This means I can switch fast back and forth between sending commands
to tank and heals.
Needless to say, HKN does not obey WoWs global cooldown. It will send
commands almost as fast as you can hit them. You can shoot commands to
different characters between GCDs and healing inductions. So lets look next in
more depth at how to follow, unfollow, and set up your macros for boxing.
The HKN use and scripting is really the hard part, and I cant really handhold
through this. You either figure it out at some point or you dont. If you have
specific questions or want to add something, feel free to discuss in comments.
Once youve learned and gained some experience, youll see that the scripts Ive
outlined here can be expanded to include four or five WoW windows or more
with small additions to the code. You could combine script #1 and script #2, for
example, so you could have a five-group of tank-heals-DPS with three cloned
DPS instead of just the one.
SETTING UP YOUR FUNCTIONALITY AND MACROS
Open the macro tool in WoW either via the bubble on the side of the chat box or
by hitting Esc and selecting the system menu option. The arts and rules of
making macros are beyond the scope of this guide, but Ill try to hit the high
points. Here is a basic rundown at WoWWiki. You can search and find much
more information. Your main goals with boxing macros are: forward your skills
via macro targeting commands to the correct character or monster target, and
make things as easy as possible on yourself.
First, you want a macro that will let you press a key and follow someone. Then
youll map that macro to Numpad decimal, as in my script #2, or other key that
will pass via a HKN script to your windows 2, 3, 4, etc. In my group, I will set
the focus target of each character to the character I want that character to
follow (by right clicking the portrait and clicking set focus, which will stick
throughout the dungeon.) Then Ill trigger the following macro via HKN for all
characters, and the characters will all fall in line with one keypress.
/follow focus
Thats the macro. Drag the saved macro to your hotbar and correspond that
hotbar location to the key you are sending. Now youll want to make your party
stop following your tank on many occasions, so they are in strategic position.
There is no stop follow command in WoW, so well just send a movement
command to WoW2, WoW3, etc. via HKN, such as step back, which will break
follow with one keypress for all your characters and leave your tank free to
operate.
My selection was the ` key (Oem3 in my HKN codesee the end troubleshooting
in reference to Oem). I just went into the key binding controls of my following
characters and added the ` key as Key 2 for Move Backward. Add Oem3 to
your script (its in script #2 already) and youre good to go. Now you can make
your party follow and stop following with single keypresses.
Now you mainly need to be able to macro heals to go to from your healer to your
tank and to forward your DPS skills to the monsters. I target directly in this case
by character name. (You could also target by focus if youre sure of which
characters will be focusing which other characters.) So an example healing
macro on your healers bar would be:
/target Portiah
/cast Greater Heal
You then map a key to this macro on your bar to WoW2 via HKN, and youre
good to cast heals from your healer while playing your tank. Its also important
to be able to heal each member of the party individually. I have one macro that
allows the priest to heal herself in an emergency, and another to heal my DPS
for example:
/target player
/cast flash heal
/target Jaheira
/cast flash heal
Groupwide heals dont need to be targeted, of course. For DPS, you can use
various ways to target the monsters through the tank. You can research them
and use your own methods. If the DPS has the tank set as focus and is following
the tank, you can use /target focustarget to target the monster, then cast a
damage skill. I use a hunter as DPS, and if the hunter follows the tank, she is
usually too close to attack with a bow, so I have my hunter following my priest.
So Ill use the following line in my macro to Wyvern Shot a mob via the tank
Portiah directly:
/target Portiah-target
/cast Wyvern Sting
The command /assist (YourTankName) should also arrive at the same target.
Macros can only trigger one cast command, but commands that do not trigger a
GCD (Global Cooldown) are free. One type of free command is using a trinket.
Another type of free command is using petattack. Here is an example of the
most complicated macro Im currently using. I have it mapped to F1 on my
hunters rightbar (image again) and transmit the F1 keypress via HKN while
controlling my tank. I use the macro at the start of a battle, and/or to send in
the pet ahead of my tank in some cases. For example:
#show Hunters Mark
/use Essence Of Erankus Shade (any trinketI dont really use this
one.)
/target Portiah-target
/petattack
/cast Hunters Mark

The #show command will just make the macro show the Hunters Mark icon
instead of the trinket icon. Usually youll just use WoWs handy auto-show
feature when making a macro, by selecting the (?) image in the icon selection
when you make your macro. The game will then show whatever the /cast spell
is. So. Speaking of hunters, lets talk class selection now for multi-boxing in
WoW.
CLASS SELECTIONS
As I said at the outset, Im not really a veteran, so I havent tried all
combinations and classes yet. I have tried some that have worked well, and I
have some experience. My focus is also on three boxing the Tank-DPS-Heals
holy trinity for running dungeons for challenge and profit, and not PvP. These
class selections will be personal preference, but you might find some wisdom in
them. Part of the fun of boxing is trying out different combos for yourself.
I should note that in the beginning I considered a Feral Druid, Shaman, Hunter
combo because I could service all of those classes with a leatherworker. Since
reaching the higher level dungeons, however, there is something to be said for
your characters all having different armor types to maximize your usage of
looted gear. If youre crafting, you might want to determine your die-hard, most
set-in-stone class (I chose my priest) to do Enchanting, allowing you to
disenchant all of that Bind-On-Acquire dungeon loot that doesnt fit your
characters and would otherwise go to waste.
If youre doing a Recruit-A-Friend chain scheme for your boxing accounts like I
am, you might also consider which account will have the DPS, tank, and heals
for most flexibility. Because of the level-donation benefit for referring accounts,
you can chain-donate levels back to your original account, resulting in multiple
leveled characters. For example, I liked multiple DPS options with one main
tank and healer, so my original account (which benefited from all of those
chain-donated levels) ended up being my DPS crew. Its complicated, but
something to consider.
Tank: DPS is a weakness for small-group boxing, so when I started, I wanted a
tank that could contribute DPS. Some hard encounters in dungeons are
classified, for example, as DPS races. If you cant DPS, you lose. Looking at the
WoWWiki tank comparison table for the DPS race category, I see some logic
arguing for the Death Knight and the Druid.
Since these classes also have in-combat resurrection skills, dont use shields (I
hate shields), and have passive power regen (if you let them sit and switch to
controlling your other characters, your DK or Druid will be ready to burst when
you get back) these were my two picks. The Feral Druid benefits from being very
simple. You spam a few skills over and over, giving you time to throw in skills
from your other characters.
At this time, I like the Death Knight more than the Druid because the Druid rage
bar is painful. I dont like entering combat with my skills all greyed out. Its a
creative but frustrating class design in my opinion. The Death Knight enters
combat with all of her skills charged and ready to use, plus has a full set of
strong gear coming out of the start zone at L58 (A DK starts at L55).
One drawback of going for a DPS-strong tank is trying to DPS too much with
your tank. The tank should be holding aggro and soaking damage. I like my
Death Knight, but one place I could personally improve as a boxer is to improve
use of my DPS character.
Note that you cant make a Death Knight until you get one character on your
account to L55, so youre basically forced to experiment with other tanks. This is
good.
Healer: I started with a Shaman and had great success with Druid and Shaman
dual-boxing Scarlet Monastery. The Shaman offers lots of passive buffs and
passive healing, which is a benefit to a boxer because its a good ratio of high
power to low maintenance. Shamans also offer self-resurrection in case of a
wipe, and youre going to wipe if you challenge yourself. A Shaman can also take
some decent punishment due to mail armor. This is good. A problem with
boxing is handling the big crowds of monsters that can threaten your back rank.
A Druid has excellent heals over time and can move while healing, which is said
to be important in some later encounters in WoW. A Druid is more difficult due
to the fact that heals-over-time require more maintenance. I really wouldnt
recommend a Druid as a main healer. You might try one though if youre
looking for a character that is super-flexible, because Druids can offer some
strong DPS and can also tank. A Resto Druid can cast a hurricane for extra AoE
DPS when healing is not needed, and a Moonkin/Balance Druid is a very
interesting choice for your DPS character.
Ive found that a Priest is very squishy, but makes up for it with amazing heals,
especially the ability to hit some big heals or shields quickly. When youre
managing a party all by yourself, these fast reactions can save the day. Im now
using a Priest while keeping a Druid in the wings as crafting support with
potential to heal later. My druid has found a niche on my team as a pro
gathering alt using cat stealth and flight form. I may try a Shaman again if I do
another play-through in the future.
DPS: There are a lot of ways you can go here. I think crowd control via off-
tanking is pretty imperative for a small-team boxer. There are too many cases
where your tank is taken out of commission and the mobs rush the rest of the
group, such as the final boss of Upper Blackrock Spire, the troll witchdoctors of
Lower Blackrock Spire, the troll boss of Sunken Temple, and the dragon boss of
Sunken Temple, to name a memorable few.
Yes, you can macro Dispel Magic and handle some of these things with your
priest if youre quick, but youre almost certainly going to suffer if you have
nothing but two cloth-wearers standing there when the tank goes to sleep, gets
turned into a frog, or becomes mind-controlled. I would strongly suggest a pet
class, then, which also offers not only spot off-tanking but also passive DPS in
the form of the petDPS that you dont have to push skills to get. This means a
Hunter or a Warlock.
A Hunter offers the pet and a full-duration crowd control skillWyvern Sting.
Hunter AoE damage is also not hand-targetedits a cone spread focused on the
target. This is very good because its easy AoE damage by quickly spamming a
key. With a Warlock, Mage, or Balance Druid, you get stronger and more
sustained AoE, but you have to switch windows and target it by hand most
times. Its a trade off.
A Hunter also has no mana, so will never run out. Instead, she has a focus bar,
so like the Death Knight you can ignore her for a few seconds and then spam a
few DPS keys for spike damage. Switch again and let the focus build back up
while the pet keeps chewing away. The Hunter also offers traps, which can be
set up before battle. This is good for you. The more performance you can get
without having to get it by many pressing keys all at once, the better. Speaking
of this, a hunter will also often auto-attack passively while a Mage or Warlock
wont.
The Warlock offers the flexible pet and passive damage, plus better AoE
damage. The big problem with the Hunter is that she cant function at all in
melee range at the time of this writing (the Mists of Pandaria expansion might
change things.) If shes out of position, youre out of luck unless you throw a
Disengage and youre not fighting on a slope, or next to a cliff or anything (yes,
the cliff has happened to me.) A Warlock or Mage has no such problem. Bring a
swarm of mobs, and the caster can bring a swarm of point blank AoE damage
that doesnt need targeting.
A Hunter is also pretty useless (again, unless things change with Pandaria) for
quick gather-mobs AoE farming, while a Mage or Warlock is much better. A
Warlock also offers a Soulstone, which offers a self-rez to your priest or tank.
This can be very handy. The drawbacks to a Warlock are squishiness and
complicated keying of skills for single-target damage. A warlocks single-target
Crowd Control (succubus seduction) is weaker than Wyvern Sting, but the
Warlock has an AoE fear that can be cast back-to-back with priest fear to keep
lots of mobs in chaos. Im currently leveling a warlock to see how I like her.
The Mage offers perhaps the best DPS and crowd control skills (polymorph),
but is squishy and doesnt have much in the way of off-tanking. The Mage does
offer group teleports for getting your group around, which is nice. The Mage is
on my list of classes to play. I havent boxed yet with Mages, other than running
two at a time clone-keyed in Elwynn Forest for testing.
The Balance Druid offers off-tanking by way of shapeshifting. Ive three-
boxed Upper Blackrock Spire using a Druid Moonkin DPS and fighting the final
boss in Bear form. The Balance Druid also offers a combat rez, mana re-supply
via Innervation, and AoE damage via Typhoon and Hurricane. The Druid is a
very interesting and challenging choice for your team. The single-target damage
for a Balance Druid (where you have to monitor the sun/moon eclipse bar to
know what spell to cast) is tricky and requires much more micro-management
than the hunter. Again, its a trade-off. A Druid can also stealth past mobs and
resurrect, which might be situationally useful. If you wipe in a big dungeon like
Blackrock Depths, you may run into respawns before you finish as a two- or
three-boxer.
GENERAL DUNGEON TIPS
Its a good idea to study the bosses before you three-box a dungeon of any real
difficulty on-level. Otherwise, youre almost asking to wipe, no matter how
confident you are. For trash, use your crowd control. Use corners and line-of-
sight to your advantage and dont hesitate to take your time and park your party
well back.
Get your follow macro set up in HKN and your stop follow to make sure your
DPS and healer stay out of trouble. As I said in the class selection section, an
off-tank is really helpful. So much so, that I usually just run all the time with my
Hunters turtle. The turtle is considered the best tanking pet for the hunter, and
its not uncommon that Im finishing a battle and see the turtles shield come up,
showing that shes soaking damage for me. (This is a also a nice visual indicator
that the hunters pet needs to be healed.) My philosophy has always been to
have a strong defense first. Your philosophy may be different.
Runners are a big deal for you as a boxer. Most sentient mobs in WoW like to
run get friends. As a Druid tank, you may need to shift to cast a root or damage
spell on a runner. If youre not quick and careful, you might wipe. This is a bit of
a challenge. As a Death Knight, youll need to manage your Death Grip and
Strangulate cooldowns (Strangulate will bring mages running to you). A pet is
really handy to run down runners for you on its own, but it can also aggro more
mobs.
Dont forget your buffs. Know and use your all of your skills. This means things
like Dispel Magic and other debuff removals. Traps and Thorns can be cast if
you think they are worth it. Anything helpful that you can cast before battle is a
small advantage to you as a boxer. You have a lot to remember when youre
boxing, so you will constantly need to remember to use your skills.
SPECIFIC DUNGEON NOTES
Some dungeons in WoW (mainly specific bosses) are simply unforgiving to a
small-team boxer. Here are a few notes that I can makewisdom from someone
who has already passed along the way. For level ranges, see Instances by Level.
Its important to note that in the Cataclysm expansion, many of the dungeons
were revamped, so many of the older dungeon guides online are serviceable but
not 100% accurate.
Normal Deadmines. The only trouble here is Helix Gearbreaker, which is
the second boss. He will grab one of your characters and sit on their
head, and meanwhile litter the ground with bombs. Its a good idea to
manually get your characters away from those bombs, or burn him down
really fast. Exploding bombs may also interrupt heals.
Stockades. This should be bread and butter for you on level as a boxer. A
fun little dungeon that you can repeat for nice rewards. Wool cloth
should also earn you some nice coin on the auction house.
Blackfathom Deeps. This is a decent good-sized dungeon with some
sights to see. Your main difficulty is Twilight Lord Kelris, who will put
your tank to sleep and attack your DPS or healer. You need an off-tank,
or you need to run your characters laterally away from him until he goes
back to the tank. I dont remember wiping when I boxed this, but I
remember dying in a random PUG from it.
Scarlet Monastery. This dungeon has three wings that can be run at
various levels. This is a classic that shouldnt be missed as a boxer. The
Graveyard wing (leftmost entrance) is very easy with only one or two
tricky spots. The final boss of the Armory is deadly with his AoE attacks
keep him away from your healer. The library is a lot of fun, and so is the
cathedral. These two wings may be your first real test of how well you can
handle runners.
ZulFarrak. This is a nice outdoor dungeon with trolls who will run. The
basilisk boss might cause difficulties. Watch your back ranks. You may
need to look up how to handle the stair step battle sequence correctly to
unlock the doors and complete. Talk to the goblin.
Sunken Temple. This is a nice dungeon to repeat for gear. Bring your
skinner. This dungeon offers your first really tough situation where your
tank is taken out of commission. Jammalan the Prophet (a troll) will
mind-control your tank. Try sending in your pet and killing the Prophet
first. My best results were when the pet was controlled. If the Death
Knight tank was controlled and didnt happen to be rooted at the same
time, my other characters were in big trouble. The next boss, the Shade of
Eranikus, will put your tank to sleep. Here your off-tank (or other
durable character) will be called into duty again.
Stratholme. This was my first real frustration as a small-group boxer, and
I was unable to complete the undead side of the dungeon. Plan for
trouble with Cannoneer Willey on the live side. I skipped it after some
wipes, but fortunately he was not needed to complete. Much worse will
be Baroness Anastari on the undead side. She will take over the body of
one of your characters and attack the others. I found this impossible on-
level with an overpowered Death Knight tank in a party of three. You may
be able to survive if you use more advanced macroed target-switching
techniques and come up with some tricks.
Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire (Lower and Upper). This enormous
dungeon complex is another do-not-miss as a boxer. Youre in for some
great and exhilarating adventures if you box this on-level. Everything is
fun and doable, even wild at times. The final bosses of lower and upper
spires have some tricks up their sleeves. Youll need to be ready. Once
inside Blackrock Mountain, go down the chain and the central spire to
reach BRD. Hop up the chain and around the statue to the balcony with
the Spire entrance (its easier if youre flying). Once in the Spire, go down
and right into the lower Spire complex and up and left into Upper Spire.
Hellfire Ramparts and Blood Furnace. Both of these modest-sized
dungeons are really fun and doable on-level for a three-boxer. Use your
crowd control as much as possible. In Ramparts, grab the final drake fast
before he torches your other characters, then keep up lots of heals. In
Blood Furnace, watch out for summoners who summon succubithose
demons will charm your healer. Kite the mechanists (or whatever they
are) away from the bombs they drop. If you wipe, watch out for stealthed
orc rogues on your way back in.
Slave Pens. This Burning Crusade dungeon is a fun and challenging little
dungeon for boxing. You reach it by swimming down the pipe in the
middle of Coilfang Reservoir in Zangarmarsh. Your group will be
subjected to fears and mind-controls. Kill the healers, soothsayers, and
rays as fast as possible. Use whatever crowd control you have to manage
this. This dungeon was a pain because youre apparently trapped at the
end and need to port out, while at the same time the dungeon is remote
and a pain to get to. I used another (druid) alt parked at the entrance to
summon my team out using the RAF summon.
Underbog. Another fun little dungeon at the same location as Slave Pens
(go right instead of left in the cave). The last boss, Black Stalker, will
throw your healer up in the air, making healing difficult. There are a few
difficult trash pulls with patrols mixed in. I was able to absorb and
survive these pulls. As far as boxing challenge, this dungeon was notable
to me mainly for putting more difficulty on your party healing and
positioning.
PvE Leveling Strategies With Refer-A-Friend (Alliance-Focused)
Refer-A-Friend gives you great tools for advancing quickly through World of
Warcraftthe +300% XP bonus and the summoning ability. This is a blessing
and a curse, depending on your perspective. Dont forget you can turn on/off XP
gains (if you want to) for 10g by visiting Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in
Orgrimmar.
A good strategy is to make your RAF character a gatherer. Herbs and mining
will give very significant XPso much that your gatherer will significantly
outlevel the other characters in your team by around L40 depending on how
much you gather as you level.
In fact, youll advance so fast with +300% XP that if youd like to keep up your
professions as you level, you will need to make special considerations for that.
Its a good idea then that your RAF account has the gatherer so you can donate
the extra levels to your referring account.
If youre really getting into the boxing with RAF and youre leveling up a party of
characters quickly, you need to consider saving gold as well, and gathering can
help with that. Your flying mount skills at level sixty will run 400-500 gold per
character unless the character is a Druid (flight form comes out much cheaper).
To take advantage of boxing, ranged DPS is going to get the quests done the
quickest. A marksman hunter can burn down mobs very quickly and can tow a
lower-DPS tank or healer along. If youre not worried about creating a dungeon
party, two hunters or mages with cloned keys will burn through mobs in no
time. Literally.
You can also maximize the use of your summons. Bind one character to the
quest hub and the other to the main city. Summon, summon. Always use your
summoning strategically to save time.
This has been a basic guide to multi-boxing WoW. If and when I hit level 90 in
the coming Mists of Pandaria expansion, I may consider a part two to this guide,
boxing in WoW from L65 to L90. I also intend to update this guide as new
information comes to me in the coming weeks, and Im sure it will. Until then,
happy boxing.
Troubleshooting
Here are some random bits of info that dont really fit anywhere else. Ill add
things as I come across them.
Follow will break in WoW if FPS drops below 7. Check FPS by mousing over the
computer icon on your hotbar.
If your script just isnt functioning like you think it should, study the error
messages in the main output window of the HotkeyNet window. These will
almost always point you in the right direction for a fix.
Oem keys are special character keys on your keyboard that can vary from
manufacturer to manufacturer, especially in different countries. If the Oem keys
are not working for you, press the desired key and observe the registered key
code in the upper right corner of the HKN window. Make sure HKNs
code/name for the key matches up with your script and your key mapping.
More Reading And Tools
Multi-Boxing.com
Jamba Multi-Boxer Assist. This offers advanced tools for multi-boxing
specifically in the form of a WoW add-on, with the cost of complexity.