TonyO wrote:I want to thank you Lax, Sylver, and nodoze for your great work on Neverwinter configs and scripts. ...
Thanks though my thanks goes to those early programmers (especially to Norrin & gnetchem) who figured out all the behind the scenes stuff that allowed us to do the boxing in the first place and Sylver was especially committed to getting Neverboxer 1.0+ setup off the ground using Lax's great software... I try to be a good guinea-pig/beta-tester and overall researcher & historian...
Your two monitor 5 man setup sounds really cool. I also have a 2 monitor setup but typically run the game clients on the 32" and use the 17" laptop screen for wiki research/updates, isboxer-tweaks, vent, taskmgr/open-hardware-monitor and to see emails and alerts from work without switching back and forth.
Regarding multi-boxing in Neverwinter I think the general adage of "no harm"->"no-foul" parleys to "no complaints" -> "no-ban" in Neverwinter... I have never seen anything official posted against multi-boxing in Neverwinter but I do know of one multi-boxer who reported getting banned in Neverwinter for using it in PVP. Many of us have been Multi-boxing since Beta (12 months plus) with no issues and the general recommendations we came up with are:
- - Don't Multi-Box (MB) Neverwinter in PVP;
- - Minimize MBing in Neverwinter Public Zones. If you don't need to run as a group then don't;
- - Don't join random Pick-up Groups (PuGs) and only group with Guild-mates who know what is going and are supportive/fine with MBing; I duo-box when we are short a man on guild runs all the time (as long as everyone in the party agrees) and the guild appreciates it because otherwise we wouldn't have a full 5-man on those runs. I also used to duo in PuG skirmishes but stopped doing that after hearing of the first ban.
- - If possible stick to Foundry Quests (personally my 5man team sits at the entrance/exit and I re-Q from there without running around as a group) while leveling except where important to do quest line stuff in public zones; The only quest line stuff that I do with 5man teams has been for the free Bags so far and I plan to keep it to that...
- - Always be respectful around others and don't use MB in away that makes them jealous or gives them reason to construe you have unfair advantage (hopefully "no harm"->"no-foul" parleys to "no complaints" -> "no-ban".
Personally I ran & still run my duo GF+DC though out the entire game and never have had a single comment or concern voiced. I guess people regularly see Clerics following others and healing them so no 'wow factor' there. While 2 people following/running/riding (duo-boxing) doesn't seem that abnormal, 5 people (1 lead with 4 mirrors) does really stand out... It may also help that my characters are different classes and do different actions with different positioning so no mirror/slaves to worry about... I have run my full 5 man team periodically across Protector's Enclave to do maintenance together and did receive a few curious tells (which I am used to after MBing in many games) which never seemed to matter until I heard about the first confirmed ban. After seeing that post I have totally stopped doing things like that with my 5man team and now only run 2 at a time across the public zones to be extra safe.
Like lemartes99, I have 4 kids (actually I have 5) so I go back and forth between boxing and various kids playing the other toons and never had a problem.
Regarding teams, I think the most successful team to date had the Control Wizard in the foreground for overall CC of the game and had two Clerics which make total sense to me but surprisingly he also had 2 melee (a GF + TR). I think the key to his success was that he first played the CW by itself through all the dungeons with real 5 man teams and knew the strategies for the fights and learned the class and especially got the CC role down to a science... With his high gear score and tuned build his single CW could essentially chain-cast Arcane Singularity and lock down all adds except the boss. From what I have seen & heard I think that any successful 5man MB team needs at least 2 DCs and one CW though 2 CWs may be needed for most teams to be able to chain-cast (we use 2 CWs in guild runs to chain-cast AS in guild runs as neither CW by himself seems to be able to keep AS up close to 100% of the time). My GF is actually a DPS-team-buff Hybrid build (gives the party +60% Power) and even with them getting the buff he is usually 2-3 in DPS in the guild runs plus he can AOE taunt strays into the AS and Boss Taunt the boss away from the party while pets can't (they can taunt but not position so the party has to move back) so I personally think a GF can bring something to a party.
Regarding pets, I believe Striker (DPS) companions are still pointless (even after the buffs to their damage) and agree that Defender (Tank) companions are the way to go... I don't remember seeing if Lemartes ever confirmed whether the Helmite Ghost Paladin's buffs stacked or not but mixing in at least one Leader (Healer) Paladin companion may have merits also. Personally I actually have a "buffer" pet IOUN Stone on both my GF & DC as they can't die and push my GF's gear score over 15000.
Lastly, I will add your team to the OP summary for this thread and try to keep it updated if you or others post your teams progress/accomplishments in the thread...