1st World Boxing Problems

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Gio-Cefalu, Jan 23, 2018.

  1. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    I'm an alt-aholic and can't make up my mind on a good boxing crew. My favorite classes are monk, BL, and SK. As you can tell, I seem to prefer characters with lots of buttons and melee positioning, which isn't exactly ideal for easier boxing. I generally use a cleric merc for main healing.

    Right now, I have 110 monk (acct 1) and 110 BL (acct 2). That combo works well, but it's pretty heavy on button smashing, and while the BL pet tanks well, it's hard to really beef him up past EM 18 (will shoot for EM19 in ROS T2 eventually) without raiding, and I'm really only looking at the group game here.

    My other combo is a 105 SK (acct 1) and 105 Shm (acct 2), and while I love playing the SK, this combo is just pathetically slow at killing stuff. The shaman requires more management than I originally anticipated because mana management with AA and spell canni is a must have if you're DoTing regularly. (Canni seems like a silly skill these days as the devs simply make all Shm Dots ridiculously expensive so you're spending all your time doing canni > DoTs > Canni > DoTs, but I digress.)

    I have even tried 105 SK and 110 BL, but that's also a lot of positioning, macros, button smashing, and a lot of attention. The more I macro longer series of commands, the less flexible it becomes with those 2, though they are strong classes.

    I keep bouncing between the 2 groups trying to accomplish the most content, but I'm having to go back to old expansions and complete progression tasks and HAs, stat augs, gear, dicho progression, etc, which is really slow when I'm swapping between the two groups.
    I do have a 3rd account I could use (heroic a character or transfer another character if needed), but I don't want to dilute my abilities playing each character at 20% instead of really playing 2 characters really well.

    I'm curious on thoughts about whether a 2 man crew (with mercs) is sufficient, which group you'd stick with, or if you'd make any changes. I have some other toons scattered through like an 85ish Mage (PLed, not Heroic), and 86ish Druid (can't remember if I PLed or Heroic), and a 105 bard with crap gear, so I could transfer toons around if needed.

    Many thanks in advance. Thoughts?
  2. Tucoh Augur

    If we're in the first world, pay for an I S Boxer subscription. You can send keys to specific or all instances of your EQ boxes and button-mash in unision. I run a 6 box melee focused group you can check out here:
    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/tucos-setup-critique-welcome.240258/

    Beyond that, a few points:
    . Virtually any team with an sk/war/pal is going to be stronger than any team without a tank.
    . 3 accounts make things much easier because you can add pure DPS to a well-rounded pair (ex: SK/sha).
    . Melee groups only work if you get really good at moving your team around using /follow and positioning the mob in the correct location. I also created a gina trigger for my berserker to notify me when he's not meleeing properly.
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  3. Daedly Augur

    Could I use IS boxer with WinEQ? All I want is the ability to send commands to another instance without having to switch to it. As in hit a group heal on my shaman while getting my bard into melee position.
  4. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    I actually have an I S Boxer subscription but use WinEQ out of simplicity. I am thinking the monk and BL are just better classes to play with a group of others rather than a boxing situation. Maybe the SK just makes more sense with nuking classes.

    SK/Mage/Druid? Gives me tankage, DPS, ports, CoTH, tracking, and use healer merc as needed. Does that sound reasonable? I think I could hotkey most of the mage/druid abilities with just a few hotkeys.

    Thoughts?

    And Daedly, if you get I S Boxer, you don't need WinEQ. It has the same screen swapping features plus the ability to send a keystroke to multiple instances, so you can press "3" on your keyboard and have it fire off the number 3 hotkey on your main toon and the 2 other toons at the same time. It does take a little setup though.
  5. Daedly Augur

    Oh, awesome. Thank you
  6. Tucoh Augur

    I don't have any opinion about WinEQ because I've never looked into it.
  7. Brohan07 Journeyman

    For years, I played Necro/Mage/BST and recently after a while tried out IS Boxer. Mage tanks, Necro pulls, and BST does DPS, both toon and pet, based on positioning. I added mercs as needed. Over the years, as I am a sadist, I added my chanter, Sham and Ranger.
    In my setup, I have JUST my Necro on my screen. One 31" Dell monitor 2600x1600. All other toons are minimized. I have specific key setups for assist, then a set for a quick trash kill, or a key for a longer fight and a key for DPS for named etc. I have keys set up for invis/movement, keys set up to buff tank (Mage pet) before big fights, keys to FD... keys to punt and Mez... group emergency heals from Sham, the list goes on. I HARDLY if ever look at my other toons. I did that for a quite a while when I still played. raiding.
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  8. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    It's made by the same guy who makes I S Boxer. It just handles faster window swapping instead of alt-tab. You can make a hot key to switch to the next window or hot key to a specific window.
  9. Brohan07 Journeyman

    Just to add, the Necro (at least for me) is the key. I can pull fast with him - if I really need to I will split FD but that's longer than just punt/park with necro or sham or chanter... use of skel pets etc., sucked when they put the skel pet line on the same timer. Worse I just use chanter to mez (If I can mez). Lots of options.
  10. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    For whatever it's worth, I think I've settled on SK/Dru/Ench. Going to give this a run. Thanks for the input.
    code-zero, IblisTheMage and UncleUms like this.
  11. Tucoh Augur

    SK/Dru/Enc is currently one of the strongest trios. It's gonna be fun, enjoy.
    code-zero, IblisTheMage and UncleUms like this.
  12. TheInquisitor Old Timer

    I picked up IS boxer with a sale code for the next 2 years at $75 US. Hope you like it Gio, it's fun just learning it and and practicing with your teams.

    As a FYI, I now play on the Everquest Project EQ (PEQ) which is an server (10+ years old). Very stable and about 900 on average daily (boxers). Boxing is allowed and the game is all free.. They're at Omens of War presently. They put a lot of work into it, pretty impressed.
  13. IblisTheMage Augur

    On top of IS Boxer:

    A mouse with a lot of buttons, plus a feature that lets you set up that if a key is depressed, it sends that key x number of times pr second.

    This feature alone completely changes the game experience from a feeling of frantic key bashing to a zen-like continous channeling of key-ness :-D. It is such an improvement, and frees up the mind to get into the flow and react more well thought through, for me at least.
  14. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    So I finally got IS Boxer working how I need it to. The problem I originally had was running out of key combinations as I prefer keyboard shortcuts over mouse clicks (most of the time).

    I use 1 through = for my primary hotbar, and Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+= for my 2ndary hotbar. This has been muscle memory for years and would be hard to un-learn. I then use ctrl+alt+# for switching toons with IS Boxer or WinEQ. That really only leaves ctrl+shift+# for hotkeys within IS Boxer, but that's not exactly something I can fire off really quickly in battle, or even for basic stuff like /follow macro.

    So, I reverted to using clickbars (which I couldn't get to work the last time I tried), and this has made it sooo much easier to box. So, DBG ended up getting 2 heroic characters and a 3rd account on Gold from all of this!

    I ended up starting with SK/Druid/Enchanter as suggested above, but my DPS was still quite pathetic as I have a defensive minded SK trying to PL 2 lvl 85 toons. I ended up going back to my SK/Shm and adding in a mage. I'm going to run that for a few days and see if it's easier to lvl up that Mage.

    If that works out really well, I may end up bringing the druid back into the mix on a 4th account so I have ports and tracking.

    Oh, and I definitely love my Razer Naga for the 12 buttons on the side. It's a life saver.
    TheInquisitor, IblisTheMage and Tucoh like this.
  15. Tucoh Augur

    The click bar is really nice. I set up a 6x6 grid with plenty of room to expand. You just can't have enough buttons even when you start getting crazy with Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F1 combinations that send your hand into spasms. And as you level through the many stratified layers of Everquest expansions and anniversary events you keep adding more and more and more abilities.
  16. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    Ooh, I hadn't thought about using F1 in there. I'm not sure if EQ will let you use Num1 as opposed to just "1" as a number, so my next route was going to try that, but ctrl+shift+F1 would give me even more click bars. I might try that.

    Thanks.
  17. AlmarsGuides Augur


    I recommend giving my Everquest Boxing Guides a glance: http://almarsguides.com/eq/gettingstarted/boxing/

    I share years upon years of boxing advice in those pages - including all of my keybinds and I break down the way I play so simplistically anyone can understand!

    I don't expect you to copy me (or anyone to copy me) but hopefully it'll give you a bunch of ideas
  18. Tucoh Augur

    Num1 works just fine.

    As does NumDel, Num*, Pause, Scroll Lock and the Application Key!!
  19. Aurastrider Augur



    I also used the 1 to = keys for years but switched over to using the number pad for my main toon and 1 to = for my boxed toons. It took a couple of weeks to get use to it but in the end it is worth doing imo. I can manage my sk using the keypad and my other toons using 1 to = giving me more control over agro and dps at the same time. I also recently figured out how to swap to different toons using my gaming keyboard. Doing this I can hit a key which will switch to one of my box toons and then I can fire off hotkeys on them that I don't want all my toons to broadcast such as horn of unity which is one of my mana recovery tools I have on all my toons but it would be silly to have all of them fire it off at the same time. To utilize both the 1 to = keys and the number pad you will also become very proficient at using asdw and the arrow keys for movement. I can swap back and forth rather naturally to move my toon. Again it did take a little while to overcome the muscle memory but well worth it in the end.