A Foray into Multi-boxing

Multi-boxing (the same player playing more than one account at the same time) is a topic that can raise passion in players. I know, from personal experience, that it can really suck when a team of 5 shamans targets you in a battleground... Before you can do anything in defense, you're waiting for the Spirit Healer. So, I get that multi-boxing seems unfair.

That being said -- I'm going to admit something: I'm a new multi-boxer. Hold on before you unleash hell on me -- I'm focusing on PVE content and I'm not intentionally or unintentionally interfering with anyone else's enjoyment of their game. I'm keeping to myself, but myself now has 5 toons instead of one!

My Multi-boxing Team: "The Spice Girls"

I started experimenting with multi-boxing in January with two accounts, and I've had such a great time that I've now signed up for 5 Battle.net accounts.  I gotta say -- playing my team of female blood elves and running through Vanilla instances has been some of the most fun that I've had in this game!

The Spice Girls team has the following members:

• Tank: Protection Paladin
• Healer: Discipline Priest
• DPS: Beast Master Hunter, Arcane Mage and Destruction Warlock.

So that's the team, but how in the world can you manage it?

Abilities

First, we need to identify the abilities that the characters on the team can actually perform. To manage all of the various spells and abilities that harm enemies, I first broke down my most common abilities into categories. Then, for each character, I started making my list of abilities they would use within the category.

Harmful Abilities

These are things that would be cast in combat against an enemy.

Base DPS Rotation

This is the bread and butter -- and yes, I realize this would never pass inspection for an Elitist Jerks chart topper. It's not intended to! These are the core leveling abilities up to level 60 that I've felt necessary to incorporate into the rotation. I know I'll need to tweak these into higher levels, but this is the framework for that effort.

• Paladin: Shield of the Righteous, Sacred Shield, Crusader Strike, Judgment, Holy Wrath, Avenger's Shield, and Hammer of Wrath. 
• Hunter: Kill Command, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot
• Mage: Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Supernova
• Warlock: Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagration, Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn
• Priest (Atonement Healing): Shadow Word: Pain, Smite, Holy Fire or Power Word: Solace, Penance

AOE DPS Rotation

When we pull a pack, switch to this rotation for multiple targets. Again, this is not optimized, but it's close enough to get the job done.

• Paladin: Hammer of the Righteous
• Hunter: Multi-Shot
• Mage: Arcane Explosion
• Warlock: Fire and Brimstone
• Priest: Mind Sear

Edit: Omitted Cooldowns on original post

Cooldowns

• Paladin: Guardian of Ancient Kings, Ardent Defender
• Hunter: Bestial Wrath
• Warlock: Dark Soul: Instability

Interrupt/Silence

Interrupt the target's spellcast.

• Paladin: Rebuke
• Hunter: Counter Shot
• Mage: Counterspell
• Priest: Silence

Stun

Stun the sucker (snot bubbles are extra bonuses). Anyone who ever played American football will get the snot bubble reference.

• Paladin: Fist of Justice or Hammer of Justice

Ground AOE

Apply a ground-based effect (anything with a targeting circle). This is also known as "pull the room!"

• Paladin: Consecration (with Glyph of Consecration)
• Hunter: Explosive Trap, Ice Trap (with Trap Launcher)
• Warlock: Rain of Fire

Taunt

Tell that mob that you met its momma last night and....

• Paladin: Rebuke

Dispel (Enemy)

Like an instant time out on my toddler.

• Hunter: Tranquilizing Shot
• Mage: Spellsteal
• Priest: Dispel Magic

Beneficial Abilities

On the other hand, we needed to identify beneficial abilities (heals & friendly dispels). My Priest is my primary healer, but I've also identified where the Paladin can contribute in a pinch.

Heal

The slower, big benefit/cheap mana heals.

• Paladin: Word of Glory
• Priest: Heal

Heal (Fast)

Faster though less efficient heals.

• Paladin: Flash of Light, Lay on Hands
• Priest: Penance, Flash Heal

Heal Over Time

• Priest: Renew

Group Heal

• Priest: Prayer of Healing

Group Heal (Fast)

• Priest: Circle of Healing, Holy Nova

Shield

• Paladin: Hand of Protection
• Priest: Power Word: Shield

Shield (Group)

• Priest: Power Word: Barrier

Parasitic Heal

Heal a party member but also heal the caster. 

• Priest: Binding Heal

Dispel (Ally)

Johnny went to a bar and came home with something nasty...

• Paladin: Cleanse
• Mage: Remove Curse
• Priest: Purify

Keystrokes

Ok, so now we know the main things that the team can actually do; next we need to actually tell the characters to do these things. I don't have five different computers with individual keyboards that I'm magically pounding keys on; instead I'm running multiple game instances on a single computer with two monitors and using a software package called ISBoxer to broadcast keys to the game clients.

Single Class

If my team was all of the same class (like my 5 goblin Death Knights that are also a ton of fun to play), the keystroke broadcast is pretty simple.  All I really need to do is ensure that each character's action bars are identical -- meaning the same abilities in the same action bar slots. Then, I tell ISBoxer to broadcast my standard combat hotkeys ("1" through "=") to each of the other game clients.  Under this scenario, I'm driving the lead character and press "2" to cast Icy Touch, and the other four game clients also receive the keystroke of "2" and also cast Icy Touch!

Multiple Class

But with multiple classes, that approach doesn't really work.  Enter the "Pro" setup. I claim absolutely no credit for this -- it was an idea pioneered within the dual-boxing forums and has been rolled into a wizard within ISBoxer to make it simpler to configure.  But essentially, instead of having a single keymap that broadcasts "1" to each window, the Pro system virtualizes the keymap and replaces it with class-specific entries.  In other words, I press "1" and my Paladin uses a Paladin set of key broadcast instructions (called a keymap) to process "1", while my Priest uses a dedicated Priest keymap to process "1", and yet the Mage uses a third version... This allows for each class / spec to process different instructions all the same keystroke I hit on my keyboard.

My ability categories above are now mapped to a single key -- for example, the Base DPS is "2". The Paladin keymap contains instructions to cast  Shield of the Righteous, Sacred Shield, Crusader Strike, Judgment, Holy Wrath, Avenger's Shield, and Hammer of Wrath.  The Priest keymap casts Shadow Word: Pain, Smite, Holy Fire or Power Word: Solace, Penance. Rinse and repeat with the other classes.

After all is said and done, you end up with a class-specific keymap (collection of keystrokes) that are called for that class only. This lets me press a single hotkey for base DPS, AOE dps, interrupts, taunts, etc.. and then each character will perform their version of that spell (if mapped).

I've spent hours playing around in ISBoxer using guides published in the forums and on YouTube (MiRai in particular has tons of helpful videos), and I've gotten my system to a place that works for me. It's far from done and I keep noticing spells or abilities that I would like to use that aren't mapped in my class keymaps, so it's an ever evolving process. But, it's fun as hell!