New boxer,Prot pala+Shadowpriests, can "we" solo instances?

[Griznah]

Heya!
Currently I'm only tri-boxing, but now that I've had it set up and everything is looking nice, I was concidering going for a full group.
I have a protpala and shadowpriests, would that setup be doable for me doing instances on my own?
The shadowpriests can supply some healing,manareturns(at later levels) and also good DPS.
Any input?

[JonnyB]

Heya!
Currently I'm only tri-boxing, but now that I've had it set up and everything is looking nice, I was concidering going for a full group.
I have a protpala and shadowpriests, would that setup be doable for me doing instances on my own?
The shadowpriests can supply some healing,manareturns(at later levels) and also good DPS.
Any input?
I know there are others out there. I started the same group on the weekend. Only up to 33/34 with them. I've never had a pally past 15 before so I'm actually doing a lot of questing rather than powerlevelling to get a good feel for things. With a priest being my main for years I'm pretty confident this may work very well. I'm not sure if VE off 4 priests will be enough at 60 or 70, so I'm thinking prot pally + 3 shdaow + 1 holy would be fine in most situations. Heroics would be interesting for sure. Having done many heroics on my resto shaman / holy priest with a prot pally essentially being the cc, the attention required to keep them up might make it problematic with all the management of the 3 different roles.

Hopefully I'll be in Outland by the weekend. (i tried multiboxing my 70 priest/shaman/warrior/mage and found it extremely difficult. Even 2 different classes seems to be a good challenge, which i guess is why 5 x 1 class groups are so popular. )

[mickske]

I run this setup aswell.

4x shadowpriest + VE is enough to keep your tank up pre-60 instances, imo. Toss in a couple of renews now & then (but say goodbye to shadowform) and you'll have no trouble at all. In Outlands (I have only done Ramparts)
this didn't really work. I specced 1 priest to Holy as the main healer and everything works great now. I feel like I have somewhat slow dps though, this due to the fact that Mindflay cannot crit, I don't know..

Vampiric Touch will be a disappointment when you hit 50, but it gets better in Outland as you get more spelldamage.

[Tonuss]

Caster classes have it a bit rough at first in Outland. Unless you were running raid instances for gear before hitting Outland, you probably have very little spell damage. But as you work your way through the Outland quests and instances your spell damage starts to increase pretty fast.

Paladin + holy priest + 3 DPS seems to be a good setup. Paladin can keep aggro on several mobs rather nicely, and as the DPS gear up they're able to burn stuff down faster and faster. My paladin/priest/hunter/mage/warlock team did well on the first two Ramparts bosses, but managing three separate DPS classes was a bit inefficient. I'm leveling up a paladn, priest, and three hunters now.

[Sanctume]

I was 3-boxing before using Paladin, SPriest, and Holy Shock Pally and I did not like the SPriest.

The SPriest took much more micro-management to drop the cast sequence and dps rotation.
Later, I switch to a Smite Priest build and it was ok--but still felt slow dps--and longer down time as I needed to drink up to get mana after pulls.

I was doing Shadow Labs first room at the time too.

[Griznah]

Thanks for the replies.
I've started with another 2 priests and settled with the idea that I need to have 1 as a healer.
so, protpala+3shadow+1disc/holy as of now.

[neux]

I want to bring up the same question, well almost same, but this time for 3.1
and with DK tank?

in other words I want to know if 4xSProests+DK or 3xSPriests+DK will work?
or I better stick with tested and proven 4xEle+DK or 3Ele+DK? << 5th one would be a friend.

I never run more then tri-box, usually dualbox, and had alot of fun with Boomking and demolock,
but now I want to make at least quadbox and have a friend run with me for 5th spot or make a full group.

in any ways, spriest sounds kinda interesting, but I dont know if it is worth it...

[Catamer]

try all pallys, everyone can take a beating, everyone can do dps, everyone can rez the fallen, everyone can heal.... and ret pallys are very simple to play ( concecrates,judgements and melee swings ).
finished uldaman at 38
I'm 5 boxing but i've done every instance except the one in inside of the horde city ( i'm alliance ) well within the range normally acceptable for the instance, I'm heading to Zul'Farrak now at level 42-43, just need to get a few more quests.

[Tezze]

Pshhh, I prebought a TON of BoE sorcerer, invoker, etc gear so that when my guys hit th 57-58 range they already had decent gear. They go for like 4-7g per piece on the AH so its not a big deal. Ijust started a warrior, 3 priest group thats going pretty well but w/o a dedicated healer you basically just give up shadowform.

[neux]

I see...

then it seems that 20% commutative healing from total damage is no go, regardless of angle you look at it :( ;(


PS: I am really sleepy here, cuz I am setting up 3 shamys (already have forth at 56) so I think my grammar and logik is majorly sukzor :P

[aboron]

I started my main 5man group as a warrior and 4 spriests back before 3.0 and i noticed the warrior was a little hard to keep agro with on groups, but the VE return was great for healing.

3.0 hit just as my RaF was ending and I grabbed myself a DK tank and popped him up front and that was very good for me - plus it was new and interesting, but he was nearly impossible to keep up in same level instances with 4 shadow-only priests in junky gear so I just quested my way through to 68.

At 68/69 I caught up with my main who was a sometimes-raiding pally healer with a nearly full set of decent kara-level purples, so i dropped out one of the spriests and slotted him in. I still was having a hard time when I got to the new northrend instances, but now it wasn't for lack of healing power, just lack of mitigation on the tank really.

Currently at about 77 for the group, the tank has 505 defense and i am finally able to go back an start plowing out the old quests for nexus, UK, Drak, etc. that i'd passed by - plus i figure i'm learning the easy mode versions of some fights for later heroic use.

I do kinda feel like i'm carrying the pally tough, since he rarely has to do too much healing out in the world, and spec'd as healer he's no dps star. So I may go back and bring up one of my druids or shaman to replace him, but not likely really soon - it's no short haul from 60->80 and the pally healer isn't that hard to use.

From a pure DPS standpoint, the 3 remaining spreists don't feel like they are slowing me down. I primarily use a 3.5 button main attack set. The first button unmodified just lands icy touch, with shift it does d&d, and then with ctrl it does a cast sequence on the priests and pally to land VE,VT,SW: P, and the judgment of choice. Then I nail button 3 for mind blast and a big DK attack. and shift it or ctrl-shift it to start big/small heals. And mainly fill with button 2 for mind flay and such.

After I hit 80 and get the dual talent tree ability, I may swap around the DK to DPS and the pally up front as tank just to see how that feels, but I suspect that to run instances I'd need some dedicated healing power and having the DK tagging along in melee would be annoying from a movement perspective.

Benefits of the spriests:
I have a round-robin shield that doesn't reduce agro on the tank in cases where popping ice fortitude or lichbourne doesn't look like enough.
I have a 1 button all-renew the tank button that really heals a lot - and the next 2 hits on the mind flay button get them back in shadowform
Holy Nova is good for panic dps AND panic healing - esp. since it also consecrates on the pally(in my setup) - so the plate guy attracts the loose agro until the tank can help.
I also have prayer of healing on round robin - and another button for all 3 to do it (really panic, everyone is dying, but the boss is almost dead, just, need, one, more, minute, of life...)
The VE healing is kinda like the shaman having the healing streams up - it's good for keeping members other than the tank topped off from normal splash damage or the occasional intentional (but hopefully short lived) targeting

Drawbacks:
Really squishy - make sure you know where your fade and self-shield buttons are at all times
Need to stay in shadowform as much as possible for dps not to sufffer a lot, so quick panic heals and holy novas will drag out the fight, if they saved you (and it's not a low mana ability)
No skill based/free/charity mounts like some other classes (my DK came with a free epic mount, and the pally didn't have a very hard time getting his since i'm a packrat and have plenty of items just lying around in my 5 guilld banks)


PS- this is all from my PvE perspective, I have never really done PvP.

[neux]

Thank you very much aboron ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=13024') for very detailed and insightful post, it just what I needed to know :thumbsup: