Multiclass PVE group - really seem to be bulldozing the instances.

[lacitpo]

Wanted to make a quick post on my PVE group.

Setup: Paladin ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Tajoren') (tank), Druid ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Dajoren') (healer), Priest ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Pajoren') (shadow) , Warlock ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Wajoren') (mostly destruction), Hunter ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Xajoren') (beast mastery)

Macro setup on all my toons took me some time but was really worth it. I saw major DPS increases when I spent some time reworking macros.

Anyways, I have been doing some small updates to the wiki to note my experiences in certain instances. Judging from the remarks already there, it seems I've been clearing instances 1-3 levels earlier than most teams. Thing is that my runs have been quite smooth. My team synergizes well. Friend has been suggesting replacing my hunter with a shaman, but my hunter has saved my ass tons of times. All my casters blow their mana and my hunter just keeps DPSing. Not to mention having an offtank I don't have to control makes things easy on certain fights (Shade of Erakanus).

Any of you other guys running a multiclass team and think things are running well for you? Lots of people seems to be scared or just turned off by the idea of multi-class multiboxing but my experience has been that it's not that bad. There is extra setup time. You have to work out good macros for each class, but it isn't like there arn't already 100 examples to be found on these forums as a starting point. Guess I'm saying that the positive totally outwieghs any negative as far as my current experience goes.

[thinus]

Wait till you face AoE fearing.

[puppychow]

pre-TBC instances have been pretty much tank'n'spank, with little fear, movement, aggro resets, etc. Its in the TBC instances where they really upped it a notch, and heroics, and probably WOTLK. TBH i had no real issues with any instance in any comp until auchenei crypts (OMG i hate that first boss), last boss of hellfire ramparts (extremely easy mode with shamans, tear-your-hair-out-ridiculous with other classes), black morass (the timer just make things frantic), shadow lab (2nd boss especially, and even murmur) and magisters terrace.

Its really heroics where things will get nuts, any mob that gets off the tank will 1 shot anyone else in your party. Some heroics are fairly easy, some are very difficult.

But definitely interested in hearing how you tackle that stuff, its great practice for WOTLK instancing.

[lacitpo]

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to BC instances, and of course wrath.

One note. Instance grinding has I think made the RAF gear problem a lot less severe for me. Not to say it's totally fixed it, but I feel the hurt way less than I think I might be otherwise. Most of my gear on all my guys is good blues with the exception of a piece or two here and there.

[Bigfish]

The hardest part of multiclass boxing instances I found pre-BC was being able to clear the trash, but hitting a wall with the boss because he was the magic 6 levels over my guys, where everything is mis mis mis resist resist resist. BC instances get FUN though.

[Wari]

Im Currently running a muti-class setup(prot pally,holy priest,ele shaman,fire mage, and boomkin). So far it's been a breeze as far as instancing goes. My biggest problem is probably either getting into a tunnel vision of only healing(too much burst) or a tunnel vision of dpsing. I suppose after awhile I'll get use to healing/dpsing/tanking all at once.

[lacitpo]

Took me quite a while to really get into a rhythm. Did my first runs in BRD tonight. I always have a few minor issues the first time I head into an instance. ZF got me the first time with the Hexing. Mauradon got me the first time with the patrols. In BRD tonight I had issues with casters for a bit till I got my pulls right. But overall, yeah, breeze.

LVL 53 now. Should finish BRD next time through. Really looking forward to outlands, should be there pretty soon and I'll have to get back used to questing again since I've been instancing sincle lvl 20.

[Griznah]

You can see my team from my signature, and I won't ever go back to singeclass team. I started with pala+shadow priests, but since they are changing vampiric touch, I wanted a synergyteam for WotLK and ended up with my current lineup.
EDIT: oh, I've cleared Ramps, BF, SP, UB already. I think mana tombs will bring some headaches.

[shaeman]

Setup: Paladin ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Tajoren') (tank), Druid ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Dajoren') (healer), Priest ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Pajoren') (shadow) , Warlock ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Wajoren') (mostly destruction), Hunter ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Xajoren') (beast mastery)


I've just rolled a new 3 man team of a Priest, Warlock and hunter with the intention of levelling them up to join a Paladin and a druid.

(I was going to do 1 pally, 4 shammy - but I have that already on the horde side, or a 5 druid team for stealth runs, but worried about the nerf bat when you have so many of the same class). Whilst I chose this group primarily to have a number of different classes to fulfill any role within my small but incredibly friendly guild it's good to know that they have viability PVE wise.

I got them to level 8 yesterday in about 1 hour 20 minutes without buying any new spells whatsoever.

My final team composition will probably be different to yours (but that may change after real experience).

Pally Tank, Priest healer, moonkin druid, warlock affliction, hunter beast mastery.

I'd love to know what spells you've grouped together across the characters.

[lacitpo]

I do all my paladin tanking by mouse clicks. I tried macroing it and using a big button but I found clicking made my tanking WAYYYYY better. Not to mention it cut down on downtime because I could keep from consecrating on single mob pulls and make intelligent decisions.

I have Taunt, Feign Death/Disengage, Fade all bound to the same key

I have my 3 DPS running with a single big button DPS macro for each. My Hunter consistently leads on DPS but is slowly losing out. I'll be trying out a new castsequence tonight to try and fix this but I'm really looking forward to lvl 62 for steadyshot. Yuck at all the autoshot clipping I'll be doing but such is life.

After that I don't have a lot of grouping but this is partially out of macro and addon lazyness. I know I can figure out a system for pet feeding/summoning/managment but I do it manually. I am completely not using healthstones even though I know I totally should be. I find I have enough potions from drops in instances that I don't need them and I run out of soulshards all the time anyways. I have rez macros all on the same key (except druid for obviouse reasons) and of couse drink/eat buttons all on the same key.

I have an emergency key that I rarely use that utilizes natures swiftness/big heal and priest shield but I almost never need/use it. When I need it, I'm too low on mana for it to be usefull and when I use it, it's normally on accident because the key is right next to my normal healing key. Looking forward to lvl 64 for lifebloom. I'll switch to a key/modifier setup with a hot rotation and swiftmend casting when I use the modifier. That or some variation similar.

I tried overlaying abilities for a while but I never could find a setup I was really satisfied with. Each of the following spells are spell I feel need intelligent use and I just don't feel comfortable tieing them to another ability and not being able to use them independently.

Ice Trap Distracting Shot Innervate Fear Psychic Scream Death CoilI also have had trouble getting myself to talent into Warlock conflagerate. In the event that my Immolate spell is resisted, or my DPS wains and my immolate ticks out, my walock will hang in his castsequence which is a big no-no.

Hope these random thoughts help you out on your team. BTW, the hunter will save your ass over and over when all your other guys are OOM.

[thinus]

5x Shaman = 5x DPS
Mixed group = 1x tank, 1x healer, 3x DPS

With mixed groups things just die much slower. 5x Shaman do not need any finesse, they just brute force blow shit up. My mixed group had 3 cloth, 1 leather and 1 plate, cloth dies *extremely* easily.

[lacitpo]

Yeah, I prefer the finess over the brute force. More my style of gameplay. As for cloth vs leather vs, mail vs. plate. I wanted to have at least one of each so that while I was instancing , at least most drops would not go to waste. Not to say I don't disenchant a ton of shit, but the only thing I "Can't" use is caster mail. Everything else at least can be put to use by my guys.

[DgtlSorcrs]

I run a 70 prot pally and 70 holy priest combo (and am currently leveling a druid and mage for kicks). With proper macro setup (I agree 100% about it being very important to get the macros just right), I can dual tank/heal for any non-heroic instances with my guildies (who are very casual players and are almost all DPS classes).

I've seen folks with multiple identical toons, but that was never for me... glad to hear I'm not the only one :)

[Simulacra]

I have 1xpally, 2xmage,1xLock,1xpriest - all 70s and am really really pissed off that I wasted so much time on this team. I now run 1xPally (70),4xshaman (62) - not having to micromanage actually makes instances fun again - 4xdps and 5xheals is just too powerful, I took my 62 shammies to ramps last night with my 70 pally just taking a back seat, cleared the instance no probs. I'll keep my lock for PvP, but the mages and priest? no idea what to do with them now.

[lacitpo]

My original goals were to use Multiboxing to level up 5 different classes so that I could do a little bit of casual raiding and single play with friends when the expac hits. I enjoy the micro management and view it as a challenge rather than an annoyance. I can see that I may have trouble moving back to playing a single toon. Thats a sentiment that I've seen expressed often on these forums. I'm wondering what the reception of a pug group will be for going something like 3 of my DPS and 2 pug slots for an instance. Will be interesting.

So far I can't down Nazan. Really frustrates me but the fight mechanic works against me in some ways, along with my semi-poor micro management skills.

[Tanntyn]

BTW, the hunter will save your ass over and over when all your other guys are OOM.I found when raiding in my guild, that even as a last resort, a judgment of wisdom and a wand in a finger wiggler's hand is a great way to get mana back, and still do damage.

[lacitpo]

I have a laundry list of things I need to get buttons assigned to.

-Wanding when OOM.
-My 3 Oh-shit buttons (Divine Intervention, Rebirth, Soulstone)
-Barkskin, Self Heal, Bear Form when my druid gets super agro.

I've been getting by well without them, or frantically switching screens up till now but I would do better if I instituted them. Been almost a full week since I've used my group. Tuesday was a nightmare with patchday so I've been waiting for addons insanity to die down before I go through the nonsense of updating my ui and learning how to use all my new abilities. I'm also lost on how to big button my hunters DPS.

[Griznah]

My team don't oom :D BoW + mana spring + Replenishment ftw.
After the patch I'm kicking so much ass with my team, it's just insane! Synergy ftw!

[MrHepp]

My multiboxing goal was first to level up one character of each class to solo raid and PvP with. I thought a mixed team would be a pain to play, but it worked out far better than I had feared.

At the moment I play a paladin (protection), warrior (arms), paladin (retribution), mage (fire) and shaman (restoration) team. Five different classes (OK then, four different classes but five different specs) with two melee DPS isn't the easiest group composition, but it's perfectly doable once you've got the hang of it.

The group is level 65-68 now. I have cleared all instances up to Mana Tombs where I still wipe on the last boss. A warrior with bladestorm, a paladin with divine storm and a windfury totem really is the shit! And repentance is a great CC spell (even better than polymorph since it's an instant cast and has a longer duration for PvE).

I also have a warlock, another mage, a feral druid and a rogue that I sometimes throw into the mix, but they have fallen behind level-wise (they are only level 60-61).

[lacitpo]

Just to update. Never went back to do NAzan. Currently 64/65 and thinking about doing it just for the hell of it.

Slave Pens cleared, Underbog Cleared, Mana-Tombs cleared. All without problems which is pretty nice. Pre-patch goodies have been a huge help.