Short video mainly to show the ISB setup, which is a work in progress. Mage, Enchanter, Bard, Wizard, Mage 2. Wizard is at 12k-ish AA, Mage 2 is at 16k-ish, and is actually my buddy's, I play it for him when he can't play (he duos Shaman/Mage when we play) The basic design principle behind the layout is to minimize eye movement. I have divided my play in these phases: Assist Debuf-pull Pet Attack Nuke-spam Relocate/Rune With an extra button for activating burn AA for Nameds. Location: Chardok, my currently preferred XP grind spot ( cirkeling around to Flightmaster, Matron, Warmaster PH and other trash) Sorry for the low framerate, my PC can't really handle capturing while playing 5 EQ accounts, but it should be possible to get a general idea of the layout I chose. I am still polishing, so any suggestions are welcome. On my To-Do are Better Gina-lists of spells, so I don't have anything I don't need Fewer chat boxes Renaming of similar abilities to same name across toos in the ISB-area, example: "Orator's Unity" --> "Unity", "Thaumatugist Unity" --> "Unity" More compact UI, I am using the default. I want to shave away anything I don't need. Specifically, Health bars shoudl be a larger part of the allocated space Nicer arrangements/alignments of UI elements. I need to go to the config files and write... Edit: not the most concentrated play, was distracted a bit by the recording.
Assuming you pull with bard? Do you global repeat movement or have a follow macro set up? What level is your box team? I'm looking at adding mages to my box team instead of the zerk/ranger dps setup and am curious as to how you like it. Currently running SK/bard/shaman+merc healer...
I pull with mage/mage/enchanter/wizard :-D. I have them all cast a detrimental spell, at the same time, or I send in pet to attack, and possibly mezz adds afterwards. That is because it fits me better to move the combat to the mob than vice versa, unless I am in a very high mob density area, where I can pull everything with detrimental spells, standing still. I use group coth to move the group, even a short distance. That is precise and compact, albeit not very fast. My box team is 106, 106, 105, 105, 105 (I think). Trying not to trivialize EoK, so some toons are buying TS AA that they will never need... Adding mages to your box instead of zerk/rangers would be superior in awesomeness (because mages) but vastly inferior in dps, I am afraid.
Agreed he is the master of boxing . Boxing melees, or boxing rangers. I would assume archers would be easier than melee. The thing mages bring is a pet, which is a “poor mans tank”. If I had a tank, a healer, and a bard, and I wanted caster dps, I would consider 3 wizards for dps rather than 3 mages (even though mages are more awesome because mages).
I was always under the impression that mages were the easiest toon to box because you could get away with less "active" gameplay. I find the ranger hard to get a lot out of because he's either in melee a bunch or need to re-position a lot to maximize DPS.
Humm... My mage box take slightly more attention than my wizard box. With my mage, I have to make sure that I have right target, and that pet is attacking, before starting spamming the multibind, with wizard I just have to make sure that he is on the right target. Configuring which things to fire when, composing phases in the combat, is the more complex part (still not too bad, and quite fun), and I would guess that wizards are a fraction simpler than mages (and somewhat less awesome). This is in the context of boxing, not maining. I would never advice any boxing without IS Boxer, btw.
I just assumed that having to constantly position melee, worrying about things being in range and hit boxes made mages much more forgiving. A number of encounters in RoS also pretty much require ranged DPS (group bosses I mean). I was in the process of leveling some mage boxes to begin EoK progression on and to try them replacing the other DPS I had.
I definitely think you are correct about that. I don’t think mages beat wizards for dps nor simplicity, I would expect you to get 30%+ more dps from wizzies.
Is the wizzy "rotation" simpler in a boxing environment? I figured wizzy was actually going to do less DPS as a box than a mage would (not to mention downtime), and when combined with a bard the mage might actually beat out a wizard.
Humm... if you use Kizant’s web tool, you can see that a wizard will out-dps a mage. Adding in their big tools, which is not trivial, this out-dps’ing I would expect to be quite substantial. But I am not sure of it.
Using his tool is assuming 100% optimized play, which even if I go as far as Tucoh (not there yet) isn't going to happen though. I was always under the assumption in terms of boxing and losing active gameplay, mages *typically* were stronger than a wizard. And maybe I'm doing something wrong, but using Rk. II spells and a relatively safe "boxing" spell weave with similar gear, the mages pull ahead with my group aDPS. (Edit: in a longer data set, wizard wins out...)
Nice vid, I'll give it a watch later. I can't speak to wiz vs mage for boxing except that I'd expect a wizard should out-DPS a mage with equal boxing skill/setup. As for melee, as you two have said it requires more effort because melee have to be near and facing a mob, and there are generally more anti-melee fights than there are any-caster fights. However all classes have specific details that you have to really work at to get the most out of them. With a boxed mage, for example, you have to know when (and how) to switch to casting storm of many vs a swarm pet -> chaotic -> spear spam, and if you have multiple mages you have to coordinate alliance. These things really compound the difficulty in boxing them, but it's worth the effort!
This was very cool, thanks for putting it together. In my setup I've got four monitors and have fully-formed UIs for each of the charactes, but I really wonder sometimes if what you've done might be more effective. I think this video really shows the benefits of using the mage as the manager and relying on ranged DPS + CotH instead of dragging around a bunch of melee that get caught on everything. What do you have that puts the current DPS on the screen, is that some feature of gamparse/gina I don't know about? And do you find that it generally works? IT feels like it seriously under-reported your DPS on the Matron fight.
like how is this even fun? i never understood boxing more then 1 other toon it makes the game so non social and its not a MMO anymore its a nerd in the basement playing alone
It's Gamparse's live overlay, and as such it's just as accurate as gamparse is. Damage in EQ only reports to a certain range (the exact range varies by damage type), so with a primarily caster group (and parsing on a caster) you're naturally going to have range issues when parsing. The under-reporting has nothing to do with the live overlay specifically though.
Ignoring the mean-spiritedness, it's a valid question. Is this fun and why is this fun are two questions that a lot of gamers, especially those playing a legacy MMO like Everquest really should and don't ask themselves. Like a lot of people here, I play a massive variety of games. I can say unequivocally that EQ's many layers of expansions and lack of scope-retraction (due to budget reasons mostly!) have created an unintended monster of complexity and depth that really is unparalleled in gaming. There's just not a lot of games out there you can play with an information-hungry mindset for years and still be learning things regularly. Boxing not only increases the scope of things to learn due to the inclusions of other characters, but creates additional layers of difficulty on top that because you not only need to learn what and how to play a class, but how to do so simultaneously with multiple other classes. Doing so at a high level requires solving a lot of problems that non-boxers don't face, and it really creates an interesting problem to solve. I know personally I haven't peaked, but I have plateaued in my group's performance. And until I find a new avenue of growth I probably won't be playing much. If I had chosen not to box, I would've gotten bored a lot earlier on as soon as I felt like I had mastered one character.
Mages are a far better box class than a wizard, the pet adds tanking redundancy and aggro redundancy. Moreover, once you have 1 mage in your group youd be a fool not to add more, they synergize via FireForm procs, conjurers synergy, alliance, and more Pets to use OfMany, equalling more dps for less mana. Once you have 3 mages they are superior to a wizards dps plus the benefit of the Pet. They also become easier to manage via straight-key broadcasting across a single Copyd UI . Just 3-boxxed fell foliage with my mages. If youre already doing a multi-class boxteam, adding a wizard or mage probably doesnt matter. If your maining a mage though, my 3 mage box team is doing what others using 5-6 char box teams are. Integrating alliance isnt terribly complex, I use a basic social, 1 casts alliance / nuke while the other 2 cast nuke / nuke / nuke. Which mage casts alliance depends on which button i hit, 1, 2, or 3. Which does a key remapping that tells each mage to hitctheir respective social. To understand how simple this is once you understand it... I beat Fell foliage with 15 key strikes. When im grinding its either 2 or 3 keys per fight for 500kdps sustained, and i can fight for about 25 minutes without mana issues in a chain pulling group. And im new to boxxing and barely understand how to use [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software].
Mage 1 is almost 106 then I'll power the other up and deck both out in conflagrant. After that it's progression time... pistol, do you think 3 is the magic number or can I get away with 2?
