Post Wed Mar 12, 2014 3:28 am

Multi-box team setup in PoE (with skill tree and thoughts)

Here is a general guideline on how to build an effective team for multiboxing in PoE, if you want to try it. As a warning, I have been banned (all my accounts) 2 times already so don't complain if you do. GGG said that multi-boxing is OK, but it's not. They really need to make their mind. To be clear, I have only been using IsBoxer. No bot stuff of any other third-party software, so I have been banned for mere multi-boxing.

I have been multiboxing with 4 to 6 accounts. Maximum team in PoE is 6, but with 6 I found out that you waste too much time regrouping your guys (or girls). My first team was 6 (in open beta), and then I created a team of 4 at release which was more convenient. I have been dual-boxing in the hardcore leagues, too.

You need to use the same class for all the characters of your team, because different classes don't move at the same pace. Actually it's more a matter of armor wearing than of classes, but whatever. It's a major annoyance when your characters don't move at the same pace in PoE.

About dual-boxing (in HC leagues), I was using teams of 2 Barbarians, mainly because I knew this class well, and also because in HC leagues having a lot of life matters. They were either ground-slamming, or spectral-throwing. But other teams are probably good too, like 2 shadows or 2 rangers with rain of arrow. Didn't try tho.

About multi-boxing (4 to 6), I could't find more efficient than Witches with Dual Totem. However, you need to know that the "Dual-Spork" (Spark+Fork) template, which was very efficient during last stages of beta, have been heavily nerfed at release. I then started a Dual Fire Totem team, as GGG was kind enough to buff Fire Totem damage by about 280% in some patch. LOL. I pushed this team to level 83 in Domination League. I also tried a team of 4 Templars with Dual Shockwave Totems but the knockback effect (when using 8 totems) made the server mad and the critters tend to desync. I mean, desync more than usual ;)

One of the best advantages of multi-boxing is that you can spread your auras among your characters, specially your resistance auras. You can have 2 auras per character and still have remaining mana to cast (with mana reservation reduction nodes from the passive tree, and Reduced Mana gems). Resistance auras are 40% mana reserved, so I suggest you have one character with let's say Purity of Elements + Purity of Fire, and another with Purity of Ice + Purity of Ligthning. This will give you A LOT of resistance, and you will need only few resistance items to reach resistance cap.

And yes, Purity of Elements stack with others resistance auras, so Purity of Ligthning + Purity of Elements at level 18 gives 26%+37%=63% Lightning resistance. This seemed so stupid to me that I hadn't even figured it out in the first place. Well... of course you want to pick nodes with aura augmentations in the skill tree to buff all that.

Obviously the other auras that you want to pick for a Witch team are Clarity and Discipline.

Another real advantage comes from "Culling Strike". With this skill gem, you are certain that one of your characters gets all the kills. So all you have to do, is stack this character with Magic Find (which is called Item Rarity in PoE), even if he/she doesn't dps a lot. Let the other dudes do the dps, and this one get the kills. I reached 280+ Item Rarity in Domination, and playing a team of 4 with the 280+ IR dude getting the kills lead to 20-25 yellows at each map boss kill. At a certain point you might not care about yellow drops, BUT remember you can turn yellow sets to Chaos orbs or Divine orbs, which are interesting currencies if you want to trade. Also you will need Chaos orbs to shuffle your rare high-level maps.

One last advantage is that you don't need a lot of gear to be an efficient multibox team. Some solo players are looking for tri-resistance gear with high life and are willing to spend a lot of currency to get them (or even real money), but you really can do without all that. You don't need some specific legendary items, neither. Actually I have been crafting most of my gear, rather that finding it, speciallly the Item Rarity stuff. All I did was picking some 20% IR amulet at last vendor (act 3 Merciless), shuffle it with Alteration orbs till I got a nice secondary roll on IR, and then use a Regal orb. This way I got a nice 20% + 33% IR amulet and 2 rings with 15% + 20% to 22% IR. Add this 40% IR helm which was a natural drop (I've got to be lucky sometimes), nice gloves and boots, and an IR gem with 20% quality... There you go.

So, my Domination team was :

- Character one :
5L on chest → Flame Totem, GMP, Faster Casting, Culling Strike, Item Rarity (+20%Q).

- Other characters :
5L on chest → Flame Totem, GMP, Faster Casting, Fire Penetration, Faster Projectiles.

Faster Projectiles can be replaced by something more efficient like Added Chaos Damage or Added Ligthning Damage, but I noticed that the range of Fire Totems isn't so great. Faster Projectiles helps a lot and it's only a 110% mana cost Multiplier (and it has a small damage buff too).

I had one character use a double curse (from a legendary ring). I was using Flammability + Elemental Weakness in the first place, but this was killing stuff so fast that I wasn't sure that the IR character was getting the kills. Later on I used Flammability + Enfeeble. One of the weaknesses of my team was against ranged physical critters, either leaping dudes or projectile throwers. Enfeeble helped a lot about that. My team consisted of CI Witches, which meant 1 Life, 0 armor and a ton of Energy Shield, but still my Energy Shield wasn't lasting long versus physical damage, just because of the 0 armor. Of course you want to have plenty of Granite Flasks, too.

While casting debuffs, the rest of the team was casting Summon Skeletons with Minion Life. This was just to add a lot of targets to critters. I was also using Ice Nova for 0 damage because of the Dual-Totem template, but still Ice Nova destroys crates, jars and environment while moving, so...

One another main weakness of a Dual Totem team is... When you don't have your totems. Actually you need to go through all Normal mode without Totems, since you get them in Act 1 Cruel.

But there are ways to work around this. I have been progressing in Ambush League with Fireball and LMP, and using Decoy Totems. To get Decoy Totems you need to create 4 Marauders or Templars and complete the « Breaking some Eggs » quest, which shouldn't be too long, right ? I also suggest that you create 4 Shadows, kill Hillock and gather the Fire Trap gems.

Now you find any Ambush chest, cast 4 Decoy Totems and 4x3=12 Fire Traps, trigger the chest, eventually throw in some Fireballs or more traps, then loot. It's as simple as that :)

My goals for the new league were to have 3 characters with either Fire Totems, or Spell Totem + Fireball, or Spell Totem + Incinerate (I wanted to test all that), and the 4th dude with Culling Strike + Item Rarity, but also with Spell Totem + Arc + Elemental Proliferation in order to shock targets (with the appropriate passive skill tree).

Talking about Arc, one main flaw of a Dual Totem team (at least with Fire Totem) is when you meet those pesky Blackguard Arcmages (the chicks from the Ebony Barracks area). Damn them, they can destroy all of my totems as fast as I can cast or re-cast them !

Also, this time I wanted to try to switch from a straight Dual-Totem + Chaos Inoculation + tons of Energy Shield Witch team wearing cloth armor (my template in former leagues) to something with less Energy Shield, wearing chainmail thus granting Armor as well as Energy Shield, but with Zealoth's Oath (Energy Shield regeneration).

One more reason to change armor type is that a Flame Totem (which is a Red gem) is using support gem slots of multiple colors. As an example, 5L on chest for Flame Totem, GMP, Faster Casting, Fire Penetration, Faster Projectiles is Redx2, Greenx2, Bluex1, so only one Blue Gem slot. And when you shuffle a 5L with Chromatic orbs, it take FOREVER to get Blue, Redx2, Greenx2, out of a cloth armor that "normally" rolls Blue sockets. A chainmail armor "normally" rolls Blue and Red sockets which makes things easier.


Overall, skill tree for my main character (the one with Culling Strike, a ton of IR and shock) would have been :

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skil ... C72RMvbw==

And the other dudes (fire-users) :

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skil ... qNl4XsVQ==

In case I wasn't satisfied with the Energy Shield regeneration thing, a more straightforward template would have been :

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skil ... 0cN2Yspg==

Good luck in PoE:)