How to go Super Saiyan (Final Isboxer Guide)
This is my final Isboxer guide for Everquest which is going to teach you all that's left of setting up your interface and getting you ready to tackle almost any challenge like a pro! As you can see, I have named this guide 'How to go Super Saiyan' which hopefully you'll understand the reference even if you're not a Dragon Ball Z fan.
I did this for two reasons, first cause I thought it was a cute tongue in cheek joke. Second is because it's a metaphor for our situation. Goku fought many many battles before he became a Super Saiyan, he even died a few times. You can draw a similar comparison to really any Shounen anime or even an RPG type of game if that's your thing.
Before you finish setting up your interface, you're going to want to have fought many battles and have much more experience boxing than you did when we first started this guide. There's no comparison for actual hands on experience with this stuff - you'll get better each and every day that you keep boxing, training yourself to become a Super Saiyan!
As always, before continuing with this guide you'll want to be able to check the following things off our list:
1. You have read ALL previous guides in my Isboxer series.
2. You have sufficient experience boxing that you feel comfortable playing your team/feel that your basic setup is getting too simplistic.
3. You have went into your Isboxer Settings and created an additional 10 - 20 Key Maps which you'll want to use for Boxing Hotkeys. Use my Almar's Interface Guide for some Keybind ideas.
Once you're ready, let's take on our final challenge, setting up the rest of our interface and learning the ins and outs of using it and learning more about Everquest in general. Half the battle with boxing is learning every classes abilities, what abilities to use, what AAs to use, how to gear the class and even how to play the class.
As a boxer you have to do this for multiple classes which as you could imagine is a rather difficult thing to do. Most people have trouble just playing one character and we're trying to play 6 at once! We're going to start this guide with talking a little bit about Everquest in general, not boxing.
If you are someone who doesn't really know much about all the different Heroic Stats and what they do I highly recommend you take a look at my Heroic Stats Guide. It'll tell you what to focus on for each class and why - it'll also break down each Heroic Stat and tell you what it does. If you have a bunch of casters on your team and you focus on Spell Damage or think that's a good stat - you're doing it wrong!
Spell Damage is greatly misleading in its value and I actually don't recommend you focus on it or go out of your way to get it at all. If you'd like to learn more about Spell Damage in general and why I don't recommend you focus on it head over to my Spell Damage & why it isn't that good guide.
Learning the Ins and Outs of Everquest is going to be an extremely time consuming process. Add in the fact that Daybreak's always changing some minor aspect of the game - it's going to be an ongoing process as long as you play the game. Knowing each class and what makes you good at that class will greatly increase your capabilities as a boxer.
Speaking of boxing, let's take a look at some of the macros that I think you should add to your box team.
These macros are going to be two of the most important ones that I teach you how to add with this guide - they're also going to be the macros that require some of the most research on your end. I've listed a lot of the burns that I include into my burn macros on those pages for you to copy if you don't have the time to do the research yourself.
Keep in mind though, my information may be out of date. Daybreak might have consolidated an ability or two or even added a new one. I can only decrease the amount of research you'll need to do for each class - not eliminate it.
As for the Burn Macros - they're going to be the best macros you have for 'oh shit' situations. Short Burns are going to be more or less used for every day play while the regular burn macros that pop all your cooldowns are what you'll use when it's time to go all out. Fighting a named? Pop burn macros. Pulled 20+ enemies and want to blow them all up? Pop tank cooldowns and burn macros and heal like crazy!
Burns are a major part of Everquest. They can allow you to push through almost any difficult situation you face as a boxer. With these harder macros out of the way let's move on to a few more simple binds that I recommend.
Cauldron of Countless Goods Keybind
The following keybinds aren't even really macros that you'll be making - all you need to do is slap the ability in the spot where you made the Keybind and that's it! No need to spend time making macros for each spot since they're just single abilities.
All my Casters/Clerics get Invis/IVU placed in the location of that keybind. Every Wizard/Druid or class that has the Exodus AA has that placed in the location of the Succor/Evac Keybind. Finally any Mage that I play I usually place Cauldron of Countless Goods on a keybind as well since it summons food with Heroic Stats.
These are two of my main transportation hotkeys. I have them bound on Ctrl F8 and Ctrl F9. They're pretty out of the way since I don't have to hit them in a pinch. It's up to you whether or not you'd like to bind stuff like this - I would definitely recommend at least doing the Fellowship Insignia. Sometimes you'll need to fellowship back to your location quick and all at once.
Next up we have Pet Macros. If you're someone who uses a pet - macro it! Another option is to include these into your Buff macros (although you wouldn't want to summon a new pet each time you buff, which is why Pets get their own macros for me). Those of you without a pet can just skip on by this one.
Auto Inventory is a nifty little macro that I like making on each character which will help you inventory quest items as they're given to you or anything else that this game likes to drop on your cursor (a lot of things). It saves a lot of time just macroing it rather than turning on Key Broadcasting and typing /autoi each time.
Second we have the Lag Reduction Macros which is something I use when I am farming a certain area on my box team. Every 15 - 20 minutes I usually spam this since it hides all NPC corpses in the area. An alternative would be to use /hidecorpse always but in that case you have to turn hidecorpse off each time you want to drag anyone's body.
Finally, Mod Rod Summoning is for Mages only.
These next two kind of go hand in hand which is why I decided to put the two together. Forceful Rejuv is like Invisibility which we already covered - you just slap it on your bars in the same slot on every character and call it a day. As for the Restore Mana macro, well, that's a bit more complicated and will change depending on your classes/setup.
Why I have these two together is simple. 99% of the time that I use Forceful Rejuv it's immediately after I've used my Restore Mana macro and I would like to use it again.
Lesson of the Devoted is a pretty simple macro for you to make once your account has 1 year /played time on it. It's a nice daily EXP boost! The other macro mentioned, About to Pull won't be useful to everyone. It's mostly for players with Shamans, Clerics, Druids or even two of those classes once.
If you're reading this and you're one of the rare people who boxes more than 6 - that's when the 'About to Pull' macro really started to shine. I mostly use this macro on my raid team when I want to fully raid buff my tank with all of the abilities you give a tank just before they pull the raid boss. That's what this macro is for.
Resurrection Macros (Clerics Only)
This next macro is one of my more important macros and it's an entirely unique creation. I made it because I couldn't figure out an easy way to rez my character's without using Macroquest 2. That was back in the day when MQ2 could get you in trouble though. The Rez macro is still useful if you want maximum control over your characters and I still use it to this day though.
Finally the last macro I recommend you add to your box team is my beloved Buff Macro. These are a set of macros which hand out every single buff that's useful on that specific class. I have 4 buff macros in total and by the time I finish hitting them all my entire box team is raid buffed! It's fantastic!
There you have it! That's basically my entire setup broken down for you. I give all of this information to you in two different ways, Almar's Interface & List of Macros has all of this information in a much more trimmed down fashion for those who don't need any hand holding. Then you have the Isboxer and Macroquest 2 Setting Up Your Interface (Advanced). Which has alternative information that you would find useful as well as most of what we talked about here.
I've also written some guides on how to play a few different classes in EQ. These guides are written with boxing in mind and they tell you the rotation you want to use, the cooldowns that you want to use and how to setup that character properly for your box team. I may add more class guides at a later time but they're a pain in the butt to write since Daybreak constantly changes things.
How to Play a Wizard Class Guide
How to Play a Warrior Class Guide
How to Play a Cleric Class Guide
How to Play a Mage Class Guide
How to Play an Enchanter Class Guide
This might be the end of the Isboxer Guide but this isn't the end of your boxing journey! From here on out everything you do is going to be a learning experience with boxing. Whether it be new challenges you face in Everquest or changes you need to make to Isboxer or other third party programs. At this point in time too I feel the need to bring up MacroQuest 2.
I've done a good job leaving it out of the Isboxer guide that way anyone who feels very strongly about MQ2 doesn't have it shoved in their face every 2 paragraphs. That aside though, anyone who would like to learn more about boxing is going to have to continue ahead with my combined Isboxer and Macroquest 2 boxing guide.
If you currently use Isboxer and haven't really considered MacroQuest 2 before - you should. This program is just another way to improve the way you play the game. You don't even need to use it to help you box. All you need to use Mq2 for is the utility that it offers you. Instantly accepting rezs, being able to navigate to your tank, improved follow... All of these things will universally make you a better player and the game more enjoyable. Also, if you've ever wanted to box melee you totally can with MQ2.
If you'd like to learn more about what MQ2 has to offer and even get a discount on signing up at Redguides you should check out my 'What's So Good About MQ2?' page.
To continue learning about Boxing Check out my Isboxer & MacroQuest 2 Guides