Bye-bye elites

[Blokus]

The game just feels odd to me now that many of the Elites are gone from the old world.

[Heenan]

I thought this was going to be a "5-box-decimating-elites" thread. I haven't gotten any other of my alts up to 20 yet to experience the changes. I would figure that the quests revolving around the old elites (Mosh'ogg Ogres for one) would be much easier.

[Blokus]

Mainly its just that the challenge of some of the low level questing is no longer there now that a lot of mobs have lost elite status. On the other hand, as multiboxers, we pretty much had already removed that challenge anyway.

Not a big deal, just a momentary lament of "how the mighty have fallen" sort of thing.

[Ziran]

Having 5 boxed through the game at the start and now just recently re-started with a new team for 2.3 I can with all certainty tell that the game is significantly better off for having 2.3 changes.

Before I would constantly run out of quests and the progress was slow (which also meant I did all the arsine collection quests x5). Right now I pick and choose quests. I usually just look up which quest (lines) have rewards I want and if there are any kill quests in the area I run into that are "on the way" I pick those up as well. I try to pick up all the dungeon quests and try to do every dungeon at least once or twice and that has taken me speedily up to level 38 so far.

I have enjoyed myself far more this time I must admit. The leveling pace is brisk. I never run out of stuff (I want) to do. I do not grind.

And perhaps best of all the instance loot is now worthwhile and I am doing 5 boxing for group content (i.e instances). World quests are more enjoyable solo because there is more challenge. Nonelite world quests are total pushover with 5. The instances are really the main reason I 5 box.

The only thing is that I have found instances MUCH easier this time through. This is for a couple reasons (in this order I think):

1) Paladin tank now instead of warrior
2) Experience in game.
3) Better loot and party/talent choices.
4) Since most instances were lowered in level I sometimes come too high level especially if I wait till I can get the quests (i.e. must be 39 to get RFD boss kill quest where the boss is 37 and mobs are 34)

I cannot put into words how much more enjoyable the game is for me with a paladin tank versus a warrior. For a warrior anything more then single target is serious work to keep agro on. Anything more then 2 is a real pain. With a paladin I do not even bother to CC anymore (and I have 3 mages).

I have no problems holding agro on 5-7 elite mobs with a paladin tank (and paladin healer) and I do not even keep Salvation on healer. The only time I do CC is when the mobs have some annoying/dangerous special ability. Example Dark Iron Dwarves in gnomeregan that plant mines that do about 60-70% aoe damage to my mages. I just did not want to deal with mines from 3 dwarves so I CC'd the extras.

I have picked two paladins and three mages for my group and I am very happy with my choice. Although I can now say that two paladins and three warlocks would probably work just as well (you would loose cure curse though and those -75% heal long term curses are a pain).

Substituting the paladin healer for any other would almost certainly work too. The weakness of paladin healer is lack of AoE heals. All my toons are Dranei so I have 5x Gift of Naruu. I have it hotkeyed to either have everyone cast it on themselves (one powerful AoE heal over 15 sec every 3 min) or have them all cast it on any 1 character (they stack). But no doubt lack of AoE heals is a weakness. As a bonus I get +1% hit to both melee and spells for everyone with this draenei party (coupled with the +3% hit fire/ice talent, +4% for arcane talent and +3% melee/spell paladin prot talent I am set for +hit no need to itemize it for non-raid bosses for all toons)

The paladin tank I picked for aoe threat. He will also function as a backup healer for aoe situations where the mage will be tanking. The paladin healer I choose well because I wanted a real backup tank (there are some fights where not having a backup tank is a real pain like any fight involving fear). Paladins also have the lowest healing threat and that is important when tanking multiple mobs.

Two paladins stack wonderfully with no overlap. Additionally paladin have the BEST (by far) cure in game (one click insta cure for magic, poison, disease). This way I have at least two characters that can cure everything no matter how disabling.

I also have two target-able bubbles on 3 min cooldown and two aoe taunts. I can keep my tank immune to stun or snare (with two improved BoFs) indefinitely (or any other toon for that matter)

In AoE situations I will have two judgement of wisdom on two separate mobs at start for mana. Since the procrate is 50% statistically everyone will get a proc every damage tic (1.5 sec). With flamestrike aoe dot and pbaoe overlapping it will be even more.

With two paladins I can keep blessing of Kings on everyone and have second blessing (two blessings per toon)

My healadin keeps (talent improved) devotion aura (+armor) on everyone. Tank keeps retribution aura unless I am doing AoE then he switches to improved concentration aura. Tank has enough from Holy tree to have 100% uninterruptible heals with imp conc aura if he needs to backup heal himself or another (AoE).

Typical AoE setup goes like this (I do not have all the talents at 38 yet of course but this works just dandy already with no talents ;))

Mages put Frost armor (+armor +mob slow)
Healdin puts up improved devotion aura (this will like double mages armor)
Tankadin puts up improved conc aura (-50% spell interrupt, -30% duration to silences)
Everyone gets blessing of kings (+10% all stats)
Both paladins put improved Righteous fury (+90% threat from holy. I want paladins hit whenever possible not mages. They have 100% damage uninterruptible heals)
Paladins and one mage will get Blessing of Sanctuary (decreases melee damage)
The other two mages get blessing of salvation (-30% threat so I insure that the one mage with sanctuary is getting hit)

Paladins start with consecration (very good AoE damage and threat over 8 seconds) and mages AoE bombing.

If I know the fight will be really hard I will put 5x Gift of Naruu on the dedicated agro mage just before mobs arrive (that is about 3 complete heals extra for free over next 15 seconds).

Since I know which mage will get agro (the one without salvation) I stagger my big heals (land every 1.75 sec) without waiting to see health bar drop. I have two lay-on-hands and two bubbles and two aoe taunts (all insta cast) in case things get out of hand. If stuns are a problem I will throw BoF instead of kings on the mage to make him immune to stun. Improved conc aura decreases silences by 30% but if you are facing aoe silence you should not aoe, just a bad idea (unless it is just one mob that silences in which case I have two 6s duration stuns to fix that. If I switch to arcane I will also have three 4 sec duration complete silences to weave in every 2 AOE casts to keep mob from silencing)

The real key to making the AoE group work is to not let the AoErs die. That is what makes AoE fail (your mages die one by one). If you notice in WoW all the classes with real AoE ability have piss poor natural defenses. You want to mitigate that as much as possible but I found two healers to be mandatory. One healer just isn't enough to offset elite damage on cloth from multiple mobs with reliability.

Right now I am fire specced on mages because the last time I played through as arcane. Fire is definitely better as leveling spec since you get alot of +damage early on. All the good +damage in arcane is at the the bottom of talent tree. There is alot to be said for being able to stand at 40yards from the mob and still be able to nuke it and heal the tank too. Most mob aoe badness does not reach that far. Arcane is definitely better for AoE though =)

I do not expect to be aoeing heroics but one of the most important aims of this group is to eventually be able to beat at least some of heroics. With ample CC, good agro, healing and damage this should work. We will see though.

My biggest bane (as is probably all multiboxers) are the fights that require (precise) movements by all the characters. With my previous party the fire chick in mechanar was the absolute worst. I do not expect this party to do much better. If any 5 boxer ever beat this without using the pull her far out of the room trick (which I do not think works anymore) I would really like to know how -)

Ziran