Pala + 4 x shammie vs. mixed team - comparison

[Fuzzyboy]

Since I just recently switched to gearing up my shammies from a mixed team, I thought I'd share my perspectives for those of you who may be considering choosing one of the two comps.

Paladin + shaman

Overall I'd say this is the team I enjoy playing most so far, not to say that means they're actually more efficient. I like to optimize my setup as much as possible and reading elitist jerks for the class specific details. Keeping track of the shaman is simply a lot less of a fuss. It's not that they're less complicated, it's just that somehow I feel more "attached" to the shaman, because it's for the most part like playing 2 characters (tank + shaman) rather than playing five.

If they're mostly PvE get a death knight for the spell damage percent taken debuff, for mostly PvP, go with pala or druid as tank for backup healing.

Pros:
- Arena viable
- Grounding totem extravaganza
- All team members can heal
- All team members can resurrect
- Totem versatility - so much can be done when you have four sets to combine
- Synchronized burst
- No targeted AE spells (HKN can handle this easily, but all things being equal, no mouse targeting is less hassle)

Mixed team

My mixed team consists of paladin (my preferred tank), frost mage (ports, PBAE, food, replenish, int buff), druid (spell dmg taken debuff, GotW, offtank with dual spec), shaman (tremor, ToW, cleansing, grounding), holy priest (amazing heals - PoM, PoH, holy nova, sta buff).

The mixed team is amazing in terms of buff synergy and utility. I'm amazed at how well the priest heals - I think he's the most easily managed multibox healer. Mage is frost since optimal dps is easy to macro (frostbolt spam). Druid is nice and high dps but requires some micromanagement with eclipse procs for optimal dps.

Overall I'm pretty sure the mixed team can handle everything - in terms of PvE they have no weaknesses. The primary reason for my choice of shaman + paladin over the mixed team is that I like the feel of playing just two chars - same race, same class etc

Pros:
- Buff synergy
- Utility
- Potential

Cons:
- Lots of EJ-theory to keep track of
- Not Arena viable

[Fuzzyboy]

Ret. Paladin, 3x Elemental Shaman, and Resto Druid. I would consider this mixed.

I'm doing it. It works in BGs at least. Arena, most likely not. But BGs it works.

I think every combination of 5 classes will work in BG :-) Anyway, I'll specify Arena just for the sake of completeness

[TheBigBB]

I love my two mixed teams. It's not harder to use them once you get them all set up with good talent specs and castsequence macros. The extra buffs are significant when you add up all the stats and little damage bonuses you can get. They're also less impacted by various class buffs and nerfs from patches. A shaman nerf won't matter because it'll likely be combined with a buff to someone else on my team.

Surprisingly to me, my team of pally, warlock, druid, shaman and priest is performing almost just as well as the one with a mage instead of a warlock despite slightly worse gear. I thought that not being able to micromanage the warlock would hurt their output a bit more than it's hurt a frostbolt mage, but both teams got the Anub'Arak in under 4 minutes in the same day based on my skill with the encounter.

[daviddoran]

I am in a very similar spot. My shaman are mostly PvP, but i have run heroics with 4 ele and 1 prot, and it's quite different than 3 dps 1 healer 1 tank mixed. My mixed team is much better geared (for PvE at least, shamans are packed with stam and resil, which does help in some situations in PvE) so they do more dps, despite being down a DPS (well my holy priest spams smite when im not needing heals, she does like 1.4k dps lol)

I have more fun in PvE with a mixed team, as it's the only thing that gives me a challenge (and im not going for the heroic achievements much, its just too time consuming)

I have been pondering dual speccing some of my other toons and trying out PvP. I was thinking, Holy priest (maybe kill my shadow offspec that i never use for Disc?) and a combination of locks and mages. I originally leveled a holy priest and 4 mages and it was fun in WSG at 19 but havent been back since, and i ditched one mage at 70 for a pally.

I also am going with my 5 boomkin team for future PvP and PvE shenanigans

[Fuzzyboy]

I love my two mixed teams. It's not harder to use them once you get them all set up with good talent specs and castsequence macros. The extra buffs are significant when you add up all the stats and little damage bonuses you can get. They're also less impacted by various class buffs and nerfs from patches. A shaman nerf won't matter because it'll likely be combined with a buff to someone else on my team.

Surprisingly to me, my team of pally, warlock, druid, shaman and priest is performing almost just as well as the one with a mage instead of a warlock despite slightly worse gear. I thought that not being able to micromanage the warlock would hurt their output a bit more than it's hurt a frostbolt mage, but both teams got the Anub'Arak in under 4 minutes in the same day based on my skill with the encounter.

I agree - it's not harder to use them once you get them set up properly. In fact, for the purposes of heroics, it may even be easier to use them, since theres a lot less totem management involved. My DPS is roughly the same with my well geared PvE team (3 dps + healer + tank in valor/conquest/HToC gear) as my future PvP team (4 dps + tank), although the latter is a lot worse geared. On the other hand, having a dedicated healer makes some encounters a lot easier, but in most encounters he's just spamming smites and overhealing, which is a bit of a waste.

Anyway, I maintain my conclusion that both teams are very viable for heroics (I imagine sharing the love will be tricky with no offspec tank though), but for a pure PvE team I'd go with DK for tank.