Dual Boxing

[Kaeil]

Greetings!

I'm going to setup dual boxing for some fun in game.  Any advice?  I have two scenarios I'm considering

1. Setting up another account which may require leveling up a character (bleh)

2. Playing Shikke from time to time, either his swashbuckler or sin, mentoring down to me.

Can you run two games on the same box?  Advice for aggro control/macros?

Thanks!

[Krystalus]

Overachiever!

[Rowah]

Not sure how easy it would be to run them on the same box.  I know that EQ2 requires injection to read some of the keys and I hadnt been wanting to go that far.  Injection meaning a hook into the window beyond just sending keys.  I use hotkeynet to send my keystorkes to my various PC's when I Tri box.  One of the things I had run into was that ALT /CTRL or any key altering strokes just dont work very well with EQ2.  It hasnt really become a problem since 1-0 seems to work wonderfully.  The way you can setup macros really is helpfully.

I generally have 2,3 setups for Taunt and single target dmg on my tank, then single target dmg on my warlock for both of those.  Then the Healer ends up with single target dmg stuff on 2, and a heal on 3.
I move on 4 as my "stop the bleeding single target"  Warlock has his stuns/stifles there.  Tank has his "heal thyself" and Healer has more healing
5 is pulling
6 is PBaoe and 7 is all my encounter based aoe. The real trick is sticking the healer's6 to aoe heal.  Handy cause normally when i pull lots... the mobs like to do pbaoe.. and hurt the group.

You should give it a whirl with recruit a friend.  You get a second account.  You get your primary account paid for just by paying for the new account!  You get 300% exp when grouped pluss 10% when your main is riding his horse.  And you get 10% more to mentor your alt account.

Running Shikes chars would be... painfull. He has 2 dps classes that require positional attacks to dish the dmg.  You could run him as main and just have your tank do the taunts as you tried moving around.  its tricky, but very possible.

In my experience, the main trouble with a Tank/DPS(I ran that Combo initially) is that even with an SK healing himself on dmg, it just wasnt enough for Even con Heroic mobs.  At least not triple ups.  It was close and definitely liveable though.
The problem with a Tank/healing class was "less overall" dps.  I think the Fury gets the closest to being able to dish it early on.  The Defiler gets a handy dandy wofl pet.  The Templars and such get lots of double attacks.
Using the paly though, it may be enough with all the healing you can do. 

But really, with the 300% bonus exp and you always grouping together, you would be very amazed at how quickly you could bring that toon all the way up to 60 range.  Talking less than a day of play if you kept the slider low and just ran through dungeons.  You would prob take names pretty well if they were blue and at the exp rate, blue would be very nice.

So long story short, I think you can prob get hotkeynet(free) to send keys to a back eq2 window without tooo much trouble.  I never have done it in eq2, but i did set it up in wow a few times on vacations where I only took one pc.

Hit me up if you got questions.

[Kaeil]

That's very helpful.  I'll give it a try!

Thanks, Rowah.

[Kaeil]

I took a look at the options and, with a little help from Shike, decided to go with a Mystic.  My thoughts are that this will provide some buffing and healing for my pally who can draw agro really well, and deal out AE damage.

Now, off to study macros and their flexibility!

[Rowah]

Been gone all weekend! Looking forward to how that works!  Mystic is one I have not done.  I have a Shaman who si the Evil alter ego, but he is the "slow down their dps" guy while layering on the protective wards.     I have not played a healer in this game that I didnt like!

[Kaeil]

Your description fits the Mystic almost entirely.  My mystic is very ward heavy, with healing and MOB debuff/spec lowering.  I don't do much of the MOB lowering stuff because it's not convenient with dual boxing.  He also have "fair" damage.  All around, though, I'd say so far he's pretty weak.  We'll see when he hits Kaeil's level how he does.

The wards are nice because I can do them out of combat and rush in with out having to alt-tab during battle.  His healing is slow but steady, which is not ideal, but the pally takes a lot of damage so I can outlast the initial hits.

All in all, I almost wish I had stuck with a more pure healer class, but this'll work because I don't want to start over.   (how much does Sony charge for an inline reroll? )

[Shike]

I say start over if you want.  It's been what... a week so far with the mystic?

[Kaeil]

I'm considering it...
I went to the Mystic 101 page: http://www.eq2flames.com/mystics/64284-mystics-101-basic-mystic-information-here.html and I see that you should be casting ward IN battle as well.  Well, I didn't know that.   I'll give him a couple days and see if he can redeem himself.

[Kaeil]

So I said two days, I meant two hours. 

I rolled a Templar, Eisen, coming soon to a group near you...

[Rowah]

Wards are awesome!  The negative to pre casting a ward is that aggro transfers TO the priest.  So if you body pull, be prepared!

SO healing breakdown!

Wards.  They absorb the dmg before any health gets dropped from your warded person.  Positives!  If you ward someone and they are down some health and they dont "take" up the ward in dmg it converts to a heal on termination.  Negatives? If your getting the beat down, wards dont seem to catch up.  Group based wards give your "group" a total and any dmg to group absorbs it.  So a 5k group wards, means one person takes 5k, or 5 people take 1k each and its gone.  Nice right?  Well Regens on group, regen whole group, whole time!  So a group regen that will do 5k to one person, does it to all! 

Regens, well easy enough right, dont pre cast if you dont want, regens catch up on dmg.  Work nicely with reactives.  Not as well with wards, though still pretty decent.  Ala if your target goes full health with a ward on.. your regen is wasted.  Of course the full health is always the prob on regens.
Regens are nice consistant over time heals.  Handy for slow/fast hitting mobs.

Reactives.  Very nice time on the reactives.  Puss is that they boost health when your hit for less than the reaction.  Mitigate the drop when hit for more... DO nothing when your hit for mad crazy dmg(ala with 15k health, being hit for 5k and reactive helping you with 500... useless! Cause in 5 more secs a 5k is hitting!)  But lots of little hits reactives rock and can crit.

Regens are nice for duoing because you can cast it over and over.  Shorter lenght, and generally recast is just before it would normally "finish"
Reactives are brutal.  LONG lasting... but you never know how long untill they need to be refreshed.  Could be 5 hits in 5 secs... or you may get missed for 30 seconds.
Wards, similar to Reactives, if you rnot getting hit much they are a waste.

Each healer comes with nice "healing" spells too.  However when duoing, you can often find yourself healing when ya dont need!  I generally have a toolbar/hotbar for easy mobs.  Hotbar for bosses. and one of my buttons is always setup to spam group healing when i am aoeing multiple mobs.

Beserkers/Paladins/Sks are all plate, so they mitigate the hits to be smaller.  Nice on reactive.  Monks/Bruisers are all about being missed, handy on regen/reactives.  Guardian is also plate, but i ran a regen with him and it rocked!  Mostly cause he gets NO healing abilities, unlike the other plate guys.

Just some insights