Thoughts on Switching from Boxing to Botting?

[Bishop97]

I am looking for some thoughts on ISXEQ2 before I spend the time setting it up. I currently box a 6 man group – paly, wiz, warlock, illy, troub, warden, using ISBoxer. I have a templar, guardian, and another wiz I can switch in as well (have done some 9 man raids in WOE, PR, and SH). Everyone is level 90. My setup uses autofollow, a Nostromo keypad and the key repeater mostly. As such, my toons just go through a set casting order that never varies. If I need to cure or mez, etc. in a fight to get through a script, I have to switch to the toon with the required ability – usually after the tank establishes agro. My toons are not well geared: the paly is in the fabled BG stuff, the troub in t4 raid armor from TSO, and everyone else in the master crafted bg stuff. Only the troub has the mythical. Everyone has the fabled epic, full t2 void shard armor and some WOE pieces (the BG stuff seems to work better for me than the shard armor). Everyone does have 100% + crit. Generally, my parses are in the low to mid 30ks, depending on the encounter. I’m clearing the 5th encounter in Cella (the one before the Queen) with 42k dps parses. I can't finish the Queen encounter.

The above as background, what sort of improvements will I see if I implement ISXEQ2 and switch from boxing to botting? I assume I’ll be using the EQ2BotCommander script on the tank. I have no scripting ability, so I’ll be using established scripts (at least until I get up to speed). I can see significant benefits in having cures, debuffs, etc. happen automatically as opposed to just as they pop up in the casting order, etc. But, have people who have switched from boxing to botting noticed any significant improvement in dps? Is this worth the effort to set up?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Kannkor]

hehe.. It's a whole different world.
Probably the biggest reason to switch, is it's more enjoyable. I can remember doing Kurns tower (heroic version), not getting cure cursed and being feared off the edge. Having to tab over and try to cure that was super annoying. Now, the bot cures it automatically. Some of the "annoying" encounters that piss people off, now all of a sudden aren't all that bad.

Heal improvements - Having a healer with half a brain, and VERY fast reaction time is incredible. Curing, prewarding, heals etc.

DPS gain - You will (should?) see a DPS gain. Wiz/Warlock should be using Cata/(other ability I've forgot the name of) on their big nukes only, which will add a good size increase there. Warlock needs to cast DA when ever possible (guess you could have it doing that with a key repeater). Troub/Dirge - Use of RO/VC.

Encounter DPS gain - Smart use of encounter nukes when you are fighting encounters. This is a HUGE dps increase.

AE DPS gain - Smart use of PBAEs (blue nukes) when fighting multiple mobs. Again, HUGE increase in DPS.

Movement - Scouts need to be behind - that's all taken care of!

Joust - Being able to have people "joust out" to a safe location until an AE has went off, then return back in.

This isn't a fair comparison because of gear differences.. but I ran cella today. My group is a Zerk, defiler, templar, warlock, troubador, and coercer (yes, I run 2 priests) and my ZW in cella was 120k. All 6 of them botted (I manually move the tank and pull, but all CAs are done by the bot).

Last but not least, depending on the person, if you enjoy scripting, or pick it up that can be enjoyable for some (a headache for others).

One thing I should add, is there are more than 1 bot that uses ISXEQ2 out there. The most common one is EQ2bot (with the add-on of EQ2botcommander as you mentioned). The above list is generally common features to most of the bots, but I use OgreBot and can't comment on what the other bots do and do not have.

 

[osoteq]

Joust

kankor, I was interested in the benefit you listed of being able to have the bots joust out when a big aoe is coming. I've been using isxeq2 for about 3 months now and I haven't figured out how to do this. I have the bots on auto follow even during combat but when I run away from an aoe they don't follow me even though that's on. It appears they want to finish casting whatever is queued up. If there is a way to force them to follow when I follow or a joust setting I would love to know about it. It would make several encounters a lot easier. Thanks!

 

[Kannkor]

kankor, I was interested in the benefit you listed of being able to have the bots joust out when a big aoe is coming. I've been using isxeq2 for about 3 months now and I haven't figured out how to do this. I have the bots on auto follow even during combat but when I run away from an aoe they don't follow me even though that's on. It appears they want to finish casting whatever is queued up. If there is a way to force them to follow when I follow or a joust setting I would love to know about it. It would make several encounters a lot easier. Thanks!

In short, I have a button (Joust out) on my OgreMCP (Equal to EQ2botcommander, but for OgreBot). When I press it, people move to their Safe location (known as a camp spot) and come hell or high water, they will not move from that spot. Because it is a separate thread (casting doesn't interfere), it has instant reaction time on things such as knockbacks etc.