Throwdown: 4-shamans and a tank versus Mixed group

[Bigfish]

Given that we've derailed 2 threads on this topic so far, I figure we may as well have a thread actually discussing the issue than spinning off from existing threads.

First things first, I think its best to describe where we're coming from. I have 1 of each class, and I've extensively experimented with them to determine optimal output. The only roles I haven't specifically written macros for are feral druids, holy pally, ret pally, enhancement shaman, arcane mage, and prot warrior, and of those, I don't expect any to be any more complicated than what I've already done for the other classes.

The conclusion I reached through all this observation and experimentation is that the more dynamic your group gets, the more unwieldy it becomes. However, this also comes from my perspective of optimizing every class, with the ultimate goal of making every class play as close to as it would if an individual were controlling it.

Example: You can toss a fire or frost mage in to a group with the intent of gaining the +10% crit chance. This works on the level that you can get the buff fairly easily, but it becomes a good deal more complex as you dig deeper in to maximizing their potential. When classes are balanced by Blizz, they are done so with the perspective that said class is being played by one person who is capable of managing the various cool downs, DoTs, and procs. Their ideal damage is thus based on the difficulty of the rotation as it would be run by a normal player. Now, you can toss a fire mage in to a group and get your two scorches up fairly quickly, but ideal damage suggests that you should also have living bomb and be taking advantage of hot streak procs. Now you CAN spam Frostfire Bolt and keep these other spells out of rotation, but you won't be getting optimal damage.

Some may view this as a challenge, some may view it as an unnecesary overcomplication.

Expound on this situation with multiple DPS classes. If you are looking for a quick way to up your damage, macro-fiddling tends to work fairly well, and requires little initial investment. However, when you're talking 5 different classes, that investment of time and research starts stacking up. In the case of the 4 shaman groups, Fiddling with your dps macro affects all 4 characters, providing a larger buff to group DPS than you get by improving just one character.

Now in the case of everything being pre-set up and if your macros are running as efficiently as you need them, this becomes a moot point. If you're clearing content and achieving goals, optimization and external opinions be damned. If you hit a wall though, there are a larger number of potential factors to be considered in how to breach said wall if you have a multi-class group than a simple tank-4 shamans.

My position is that running a multi-class group is more difficult, and only slightly more rewarding than the simpler but largely just as effective set up of shamans. That said, when people ask for opinions on the subject, I feel it necesary to put forth both the advantages and disadvantages of the respective set ups. The answer isn't as simple as one or the other, but should be tailored to what the inquisitor's goals, aspirations, and values are.

Its not simply a matter of Synergy versus Simplicity, but how much you value either. Cross class groups gain synergy at the cost of simplicity, and core class groups do the opposite. The two aspects are not mutually exclusive, but vary depending on a number of factors.

[shaeman]

I hope I'm not derailing the thread here, but your initial post got me thinking.
Your key issue is that it is difficult to maximise the damage, to work in procs on different characters.
I can understand this - it's how i've always felt about things when i first considered multiboxing 3 70's I already had when I first started.

A lot of that is related to everything being driven from a main and not being able to micromanage watching the alt screens for these procs,
whilst healing and tanking and spamming the dps key.

What if we could come up with a way to make the handling of these damage enhancing procs much easier.
I'm thinking of perhaps the creation of an addon that you can configure on your main that alerts you to a specific proc on a specific alt.

Using your own example - hot streak procs on your mage - a message appears on your main alerting you to this, perhaps even with a distinct audio) and you hit a key that is only mapped for the mage to trigger the correct spell cast (perhaps even configurable so that it tells you what key to hit).

Is this even possible with the blizzard api - I dont know, My gut feel is that it may be possible. Perhaps I could even research how to do this.

It would require knowing when the proc occurs (may be possible as some things alert you to buffs running out)
It would require relaying that from the alt to the main
It would require the main to display that to the user.

Sorry - bit of a brain dump, something that's been sitting in the back of my mind for ages.

[Ken]

The conclusion I reached through all this observation and experimentation is that the more dynamic your group gets, the more unwieldy it becomes. However, this also comes from my perspective of optimizing every class, with the ultimate goal of making every class play as close to as it would if an individual were controlling it.
I agree that a group gets more complex to manage when adding more different classes, but this is not a difficult problem to overcome and it basically just requires some effort to solve.
So yes, it could be a problem, but it's not a permanent one. Especially because abilities can easily be grouped into categories like: long-term buffs, short-term buffs, single target dps, multi-target dps(perhaps with separate ones for PvP/PvE), etc.
When your keybinds are grouped like this, it becomes relatively easy to fit any character into your setup. The only thing left is to find the correct cast sequences, but they can be easily found online or figured out by yourself.


Example: You can toss a fire or frost mage in to a group with the intent of gaining the +10% crit chance. This works on the level that you can get the buff fairly easily, but it becomes a good deal more complex as you dig deeper in to maximizing their potential.
Yes, it requires more work to maximize the potential of your group('cause you have to do it for each class), but this is only a 1-time issue and depending on whether you like to macro or not, it might just as be a positive argument as a negative one.


When classes are balanced by Blizz, they are done so with the perspective that said class is being played by one person who is capable of managing the various cool downs, DoTs, and procs. Their ideal damage is thus based on the difficulty of the rotation as it would be run by a normal player. Now, you can toss a fire mage in to a group and get your two scorches up fairly quickly, but ideal damage suggests that you should also have living bomb and be taking advantage of hot streak procs. Now you CAN spam Frostfire Bolt and keep these other spells out of rotation, but you won't be getting optimal damage.
I agree that you can't get optimal damage with cast sequences, but that goes for all classes, not only for multiclass usage.
Even shamans with lavaburst have this problem: when constantly casting onto 1 and the same target it's not an issue, but when you have a situation with cast interruptions and multiple targets, lava burst and flame shock will have to be micromanaged just as well.


Some may view this as a challenge, some may view it as an unnecesary overcomplication.

Expound on this situation with multiple DPS classes. If you are looking for a quick way to up your damage, macro-fiddling tends to work fairly well, and requires little initial investment. However, when you're talking 5 different classes, that investment of time and research starts stacking up. In the case of the 4 shaman groups, Fiddling with your dps macro affects all 4 characters, providing a larger buff to group DPS than you get by improving just one character.
At one side you're right, but at the other side: you only gain a minimal set of new abilities each time you gain a level, so it's rocket science to figure out an enhancement for your macros. It is indeed more work, but it's also just a temporary issue.


Now in the case of everything being pre-set up and if your macros are running as efficiently as you need them, this becomes a moot point. If you're clearing content and achieving goals, optimization and external opinions be damned. If you hit a wall though, there are a larger number of potential factors to be considered in how to breach said wall if you have a multi-class group than a simple tank-4 shamans.

My position is that running a multi-class group is more difficult, and only slightly more rewarding than the simpler but largely just as effective set up of shamans.
Agreed.


That said, when people ask for opinions on the subject, I feel it necesary to put forth both the advantages and disadvantages of the respective set ups. The answer isn't as simple as one or the other, but should be tailored to what the inquisitor's goals, aspirations, and values are.

Its not simply a matter of Synergy versus Simplicity, but how much you value either. Cross class groups gain synergy at the cost of simplicity, and core class groups do the opposite. The two aspects are not mutually exclusive, but vary depending on a number of factors.

So, what I think should be considered is:

Multiclass benefits:
- more buffs (direct or indirect through procs and/or talent tree)
- easier to gear when classes are chosen carefully
(- more macro work (can also be disadvantage))

Single class benefits:
- easier to configure
- less work to put into macros

So overall if you are just learning to multibox, it's probably better to start with less different classes. However, I think the additional buffs that a diversified group brings can be a benefit overall.

Maybe we should make a list of benefits/disadvantages in the topic start?

[Bigfish]

Multiclass benefits:
- more buffs (direct or indirect through procs and/or talent tree)
- easier to gear when classes are chosen carefully
(- more macro work (can also be disadvantage))

Single class benefits:
- easier to configure
- less work to put into macros

So overall if you are just learning to multibox, it's probably better to start with less different classes. However, I think the additional buffs that a diversified group brings can be a benefit overall.

Maybe we should make a list of benefits/disadvantages in the topic start?

First off, any of the shaman boxers out there have a concise list of their totem farms? I haven't looked at them in some time, and patches being what they are, I'd rather not cite old or innacurate information.

As far as specific advantages and disadvantages go, I'm kind of hesitant to put a list down in stone (er, electrons) as different people value different aspects. Macro writing and gearing may well be an advantage or disadvantage depending on how you approach it. Where I'm curious is what the differentiating factors in between people who run all shamans and multi-class teams.

As a basic and quick run down of marginal benefit, lets assume a 5 shaman group on relevant contents. You get your full range of totem farms, but no tanking power, so the group faces potentially deadly incoming fire. So take out a shaman, and add in a tank. The tank adds their synergy (kings/wisdom, ebon plague, whatever), greatly increases survivablity. At this point, you face the question of 4 shamans DPS/spothealing versus 3 straight DPS shamans and a Resto. You lose some DPS, but maintain the totem farm. Switch the resto out for a dedicated healer, and you get their associated buffs at the cost of their share of the totem farm.

Now at this point, I feel it necesary to point out just how much of the totem farm we're losing: a potential fire elemental on difficult fights, a magma totem on trash, a grounding totem against casters, etc, so I don't think its fair to simply dismiss the totem aspects we're losing to gain buffs. It may still be better to have a healer of another class, but we need to keep in mind what is being lost.

Back to the group, we're now at 3 shamans, a healer, and a tank. At this point, there is a virtual cornucopia of prospective switches you can add for caster DPS buffs, but the totem farm keeps getting thinner and thinner. Is the trade off of various buffs worth it? Yes and no, depending on who you ask.

I'm starting to wonder how much class balance actually figures in to most of this, versus the resources to allocate to make it successful. A question to anyone reading this thread: Do you get your groups to cap and then play with their composition, or decide on a composition before hand and stick with what you level?

[Ken]

So, to prove that a well-chosen multiclass group is easier to gear than a 4shaman+paladin group, this is a set of calculations that check how much chance there is to get a useful drop for an item for the first drop.

Considerations:
Here are some reasonable assumptions to make the calculations easier. Feel free to comment for corrections.

1) Drops in heroics drop this kind of gear:
- tanking plate(has def/dodge/etc)
- tanking leather(has def/dodge)
- pure melee leather (AP-related)
- pure melee mail (AP-related)
- pure melee plate (AP-related)
- melee leather with int (has AP-related stats with int)
- melee mail with int (has AP-related stats with int)
- melee plate with int (has AP-related stats with int)
- cast cloth
- cast leather
- cast mail
- cast plate
We assume that cast gear is useful for both DPS and healing.
Total: 12 types of gear.
2) When an item drops (world drop and boss drop), any item category has equally much chance to drop. So when an item drops there's 8.33% chance (1/12) that it belongs to ANY specific category.
3) Each class is assumed to have 1 specific role and we assume that healing gear can also be used for cast dps gear and vice versa.

Calculations:
1) 4 shamans + 1 paladin tank:
- Shamans can wear cloth, mail and leather, which covers 3 gear types out of the 12 that drop.
- This leads to the chance P for shaman gear: P(shamangear) = 3/12 = 0.25 (25%)
- A paladin tank is assumed to wear plate with defense stats, so his gear only is covered by 1 gear type out of 12
- This leads to the chance P for paladin gear: P(paladingear) = 1/12 = 0.08333 (8.3%)
- shamangear and paladingear don't share elements, so mathematically this becomes: P(shamangear or paladingear) = P(shamangear) + P(paladingear) = 0.3333% =~ 33%
Conclusion: The first item that drops for a 1paladin-4shaman group has 33% chance to be of use to that group.

2) 1 paladin healer, 1 hunter, 1 mage, 1shaman and 1 druid tank:
Since some classes share gear, I will list the useable gear first:
- pure melee leather (AP-related) -> useable for hunter
- pure melee mail (AP-related) -> useable for hunter
- melee leather with int (has AP-related stats with int) -> useable for hunter
- melee mail with int (has AP-related stats with int) -> useable for hunter
- tanking leather
- cast cloth -> useable for mage/shaman/paladin
- cast leather -> useable for mage/shaman/paladin
- cast mail -> useable for mage/shaman/paladin
- cast plate -> paladin
This totals 9 usable gear drops.
So the chance of a useful drop becomes 9/12 = 75% chance to get a useful item on the first drop.

Conclusion:
The first item drop for a 4shaman+1paladin team has a 33% chance of being useful, while the first item drop for the mixed group has 75% of being useful.

Appendix:
On following drops, the calculation becomes a lot more complex, because you have to consider for each class that the gear slot might be taken and you have to consider how many classes that can use the newly dropped gear.
For the shamans this means that consecutive cast gear drops are useful right until the 4th drop of any specific slot-related drop.
For the multiclass group this becomes a lot more complex to calculate.

I'll add more calculations later in relation to consecutive drops.

[edit] Multiclass listing

[Dorffo]

First off, any of the shaman boxers out there have a concise list of their totem farms? I haven't looked at them in some time, and patches being what they are, I'd rather not cite old or innacurate information.


Default (staggered in this order usually):
heal heal heal heal (not glyphed = 187 x 4 a pulse)
wrath of air, windfury, grounding, grounding
str of earth, armor, earthbind, earthbind
tot of wrath, searing searing searing (or ToW + 3 magma)

Gundrak -
adds poison cleansing totem and nature resist

Culling of Strath -
more groundings less windfury
Magmas to deal with wee skellys

Pvp:
heal heal cure poison cure disease
tremor tremor tremor grounding
Wrath of Air, grounding, grounding, grounding
Tot of Wrath, searing, searing, searing (unless dropping magmas in a clump of folks)


Mostly use the default farm with modifications being - tremors for Dred in DTK, resists as needed (fire/cold resist in the mage fight for nexus etc).

[Hachoo]

I think most people here know that I am very "for" same-class groups, as far as maximizing realistic potential. IMO, part of this is because cast sequences are just a drain on DPS, it will net you a much higher DPS to manually cast spells than using castrandom or cast sequence. Doing this for even 2 separate DPS classes is nearly impossible, for 4 there is no way it could be done efficiently - you'd have to rely on castsequences or castrandoms for sure, which will lower your potential DPS.

Personally I think most people can agree that you should multibox whatever is the most fun. That being said I will say this: Regardless of the fact that having 4 different "synergistic" classes seems to have higher potential, realistically I doubt anyone will ever get as much real performance out of a group of separate classes than people are getting with 4 shamans or 4 druids, etc. Proving this is very difficult, but there are a lot of shaman or druid boxers out there, and a lot of mixed class boxers out there, and if you look at self performance people are quoting, I mostly see DPS for mixed class groups in the 1500-2200 range, and there are a lot of all shaman and all druid dps groups doing >4000 dps (or even if you remove bloodlust > 2900 dps).

Part of the reason for this is that, to get the numbers above with an all shaman group at least, you really have to do your casts manually. A castsequence or castrandom will just not net those numbers compared to manually hitting FS, manually hitting LVB, spamming LB for awhile, then manually LvB, manual FS, etc, repeat. Doing something like this for 2, 3, or 4 different classes would be impossible - for one there wouldn't even be enough buttons on a keyboard but even if there were you couldn't hit that many at a time in the right sequence without breaking something or messing up :)

So, I still say for min-maxing, 4 shamans or 4 druids is the way to go (I'm partial to shamans), but again, play whatever is fun.

For gear - for me thats been a non issue - there is only maybe 2 pieces of gear I have on my shamans that I got from instance drops, and getting 4 of each piece happened way faster than getting my 60 badges for my t7 gloves. Most "good" gear for multiboxers without raiding is either crafted or from badges, so heroic drops isn't really a big deal at all.

This is just my 2 cents of course.

[Bigfish]

I mostly see DPS for mixed class groups in the 1500-2200 range, and there are a lot of all shaman and all druid dps groups doing >4000 dps (or even if you remove bloodlust > 2900 dps).

Idealized numbers pulled from DPS peaks aside, I can pull 2900 on several of my classes. It's largely a matter of gearing and warm up time. Not to mention I suspect that magma totems play a significant role in long term DPS statistics for 4 shaman groups to the point I question how much they boost dps. A tick every 2 seconds on 3+ mobs will boost your dps significantly, which isn't to say I want to discount them from DPS statistics, but if the shamans themsevles are only putting out 2300-2400 DPS and Totem of broken AOE (seriosuly, almost every other AOE requires channeling or GCD spamming) is picking up the rest, it says something about the validity of your argument that sequencing macros are and always will be shit.

[Ken]

I think for the sake of argument you shouldn't calculate the 1/12 range. I think you should base it on if "x role" gear drops, % of chance its useable"
If you actually follow the calculation and read what I say, then you would have seen that the 1/12 range is only the first step and only concerns the item drop rate, unrelated to the class it can belong to. Further down in the calculation you will see that shaman casters has a chance of (1/12)+(1/12)+(1/12) chance of getting a useable item since they can wear cloth/leather/mail caster gear.
It's in the text!


I suggest this because its a RNG thing on the drops. You can't say 1 out of 12 times you'll get "x" item - because in the real world - I've seen the same damn item drop 10 times in a row on consecutive boss kills.
You're only talking about boss drops. My calculations were based on world drops + boss drops together. I actually stated that.
Further more: The fact that you have had the same item drop for 10 times in a row, does not mean that the drop isn't random. Especially considering that a boss drops only a very small amount of items.

Further more: "because in the real world - I've seen the same damn item drop 10 times in a row on consecutive boss kills" is the same kind of logic as stating that the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists, because you asked for rain and the next day it rained outside.


So your % of chance an item can be used is invalid, because the item that drops is based on RNG. However the "x role" can use "y" item is not random - you either can or cannot use it.
I don't think you understood what I wrote down.

The drop % and RNG isn't a factor.
Let me put this simple: No.

[Ken]

[...]
Switch the resto out for a dedicated healer, and you get their associated buffs at the cost of their share of the totem farm.

Now at this point, I feel it necesary to point out just how much of the totem farm we're losing: a potential fire elemental on difficult fights, a magma totem on trash, a grounding totem against casters, etc, so I don't think its fair to simply dismiss the totem aspects we're losing to gain buffs. It may still be better to have a healer of another class, but we need to keep in mind what is being lost.
You don't need to keep in mind what is lost, you need to compare what is lost with what is gained. Big difference.


Back to the group, we're now at 3 shamans, a healer, and a tank. At this point, there is a virtual cornucopia of prospective switches you can add for caster DPS buffs, but the totem farm keeps getting thinner and thinner. Is the trade off of various buffs worth it? Yes and no, depending on who you ask.
Yes or no depending on what the calculations say. In the end, what people 'feel' is irrelevant, but calculating it is difficult, because some talent builds are more effective in specific combat situation (e.g. single target versus multi-target).


I'm starting to wonder how much class balance actually figures in to most of this, versus the resources to allocate to make it successful. A question to anyone reading this thread: Do you get your groups to cap and then play with their composition, or decide on a composition before hand and stick with what you level?
Overall, I'm confident that classes are more or less balanced DPS-wise. Where you lose DPS from losing an elemental, you gain DPS from another skill, perhaps even in another form. (or the same form, cause mages can have a pet too).

When levelling a new group, I chose skills and abilities that I need and then start forming a composition based on what each character adds.

[Hachoo]

I mostly see DPS for mixed class groups in the 1500-2200 range, and there are a lot of all shaman and all druid dps groups doing >4000 dps (or even if you remove bloodlust > 2900 dps).

Idealized numbers pulled from DPS peaks aside, I can pull 2900 on several of my classes. It's largely a matter of gearing and warm up time. Not to mention I suspect that magma totems play a significant role in long term DPS statistics for 4 shaman groups to the point I question how much they boost dps. A tick every 2 seconds on 3+ mobs will boost your dps significantly, which isn't to say I want to discount them from DPS statistics, but if the shamans themsevles are only putting out 2300-2400 DPS and Totem of broken AOE (seriosuly, almost every other AOE requires channeling or GCD spamming) is picking up the rest, it says something about the validity of your argument that sequencing macros are and always will be shit.Magma totems aren't a factor in my DPS - the only time I ever use them is for the zombies in CoS and a couple aoe pulls in a couple other dungeons - never on boss fights or when im actually looking at my DPS meter.

[Bigfish]

You don't need to keep in mind what is lost, you need to compare what is lost with what is gained. Big difference.

Yes or no depending on what the calculations say. In the end, what people 'feel' is irrelevant, but calculating it is difficult, because some talent builds are more effective in specific combat situation (e.g. single target versus multi-target).

Overall, I'm confident that classes are more or less balanced DPS-wise. Where you lose DPS from losing an elemental, you gain DPS from another skill, perhaps even in another form. (or the same form, cause mages can have a pet too).

When levelling a new group, I chose skills and abilities that I need and then start forming a composition based on what each character adds.

1. The fact that I was espousing a marginal benefit analysis includes the notion that costs and benefits are weighed. That particular statement was a reminder that a 4th shaman isn't just a redundant healer that offers nothing you don't already have.

2. What people value is a key factor in how they behave. It isn't a matter of how they "feel", but where their individual playstyle, goals, and target activities are. If there were only a single, absolute answer, there would be no variation in behavior.

3. Different skills offer different utility based on situation. You may see a larger loss in DPS because the "form" some other skill took doesn't apply as much as the skill of a different class.

[Bigfish]

Magma totems aren't a factor in my DPS - the only time I ever use them is for the zombies in CoS and a couple aoe pulls in a couple other dungeons - never on boss fights or when im actually looking at my DPS meter.

See, that right there has me curious about your methodology for gathering DPS numbers. I'm left with this impression that you're cherry picking your numbers, which is fine if we're comparing e-peens, but since we're comparing over all performance, we need to understand what we're looking at big picture.

Now, I'll be the first to say that when it comes to front loaded, burn-em-down fights, Shamans reign supreme. Elemental Mastery, Oath, Bloodlust, Fire Elementals, and the fact you start with a flameshock and lava burst means you end fights quicker and thus rely less on healing and sustained DPS. Which is fine. (While I'm thinking about it, Elemental Mastery and bloodlust stacking, you're going to see some 70% increase in DPS right there. Ouch)

The point is, Shamans are built to be able to do that, so drawing on that in a straight comparison to the DPS of other classes means there should at least be a note explaining why.

Does this mean anything in our discussion of shamans versus mixers? Certainly. In fact, its a pretty big reason why Shaman groups excel: Ridiculous opening DPS finishes fights before they've really begun.

That said, all shaman teams get hit even harder when the nerf bat lands, as I'm sure many will attest to pre-3.08. Right now, they work wonderfully, but there is always that chance that said nerf bat hits, and you're left waiting months for the pendulum to swing back.

But this is assuming DPS and fast 5-man bosses are the only area we are discussing. This list of things to consider goes on and on.

[Hachoo]

Magma totems aren't a factor in my DPS - the only time I ever use them is for the zombies in CoS and a couple aoe pulls in a couple other dungeons - never on boss fights or when im actually looking at my DPS meter.

See, that right there has me curious about your methodology for gathering DPS numbers. I'm left with this impression that you're cherry picking your numbers, which is fine if we're comparing e-peens, but since we're comparing over all performance, we need to understand what we're looking at big picture.

Now, I'll be the first to say that when it comes to front loaded, burn-em-down fights, Shamans reign supreme. Elemental Mastery, Oath, Bloodlust, Fire Elementals, and the fact you start with a flameshock and lava burst means you end fights quicker and thus rely less on healing and sustained DPS. Which is fine. (While I'm thinking about it, Elemental Mastery and bloodlust stacking, you're going to see some 70% increase in DPS right there. Ouch)

The point is, Shamans are built to be able to do that, so drawing on that in a straight comparison to the DPS of other classes means there should at least be a note explaining why.

Does this mean anything in our discussion of shamans versus mixers? Certainly. In fact, its a pretty big reason why Shaman groups excel: Ridiculous opening DPS finishes fights before they've really begun.

That said, all shaman teams get hit even harder when the nerf bat lands, as I'm sure many will attest to pre-3.08. Right now, they work wonderfully, but there is always that chance that said nerf bat hits, and you're left waiting months for the pendulum to swing back.

But this is assuming DPS and fast 5-man bosses are the only area we are discussing. This list of things to consider goes on and on.I'm really going off the main thing that matters for DPS numbers - boss fights. In most cases, DPS doesn't matter at all - certainly it doesn't matter on trash other than to flash e-peens, etc. On most bosses it doesn't matter either. When it does matter is when you are trying to get certain achievements (like consumption junction) or when a boss gets consistently harder the less DPS you do (Examples would be trollgore, novos, King Ymiron, etc). So, all of my numbers are directly from recount from boss fights. I rarely pay attention to my DPS on anything other than boss fights, and I really only post numbers for boss fights I don't have to heal on, because obviously my DPS will drop severely on fights where I'm using all 4 of my shamans to heal. This doesn't mean that shaman DPS is lower, it means that instead of losing 1 shaman to healing and having the other 3 shamans still kick out XXXX dps, I'm losing say 1000 dps off the top of each shaman but having all 4 shamans DPSing.

So, as I've said before, I am using numbers from boss fights like Trollgore, Eck, Gal'Darah, and other fights where I do not have to heal. The best example I like to use is trollgore - the last 4 times I ran this instance my DPS was always above 4600 on him, and 2 of the fights >5000.

Realistically no one is going to be able to post exact details of "you will definitely get XXXX dps" without running the same exact fight 1000 times and averaging everything, and I have no desire to waste hours trying to prove a DPS number, I am simply listing numbers that I've consistently hit as I run the same bosses over and over again.

Edit: wanted to add that yes, frontload dps shamans reign surpreme, and yes it will level out for sure over a greater period of time, but almost every single boss fight (non-raid) right now can be completed before bloodlust even wears off if you have decent gear, so its kind of useless unless you're raiding to be discounting it :)

[Hachoo]

Yes - if I drop 4x mana springs and have water shield up I can spam LB forever (literally).

[Bigfish]

And that's fine. The thing is, not everyone, myself included there, run DPS Meters under those same circumstances, which leads to someone like me keeping their DPS Meter running the whole time to someone like you running it on boss fights where you don't have to heal. Neither method is "correct", but it leads to key differences in drawing comparisons to either, where I see you as chery picking your numbers and you see me as a scrub with piss poor DPS. (Not that you said that or I'm trying to put words in your mouth, you and me are unrelated 3rd party pronouns I'm using for the exampe.)

[Hachoo]

And that's fine. The thing is, not everyone, myself included there, run DPS Meters under those same circumstances, which leads to someone like me keeping their DPS Meter running the whole time to someone like you running it on boss fights where you don't have to heal. Neither method is "correct", but it leads to key differences in drawing comparisons to either, where I see you as chery picking your numbers and you see me as a scrub with piss poor DPS. (Not that you said that or I'm trying to put words in your mouth, you and me are unrelated 3rd party pronouns I'm using for the exampe.)I agree - this is why results will never be 100% accurate which is why they shouldn't be treated as such. I do leave my DPS meters running the entire instance, I just reset them before bosses generally. I tend to average about 2200 dps per shaman on trash - this is with a standard castrandom macro, and of course I have to heal more on trash than bosses so that leaches my DPS down quite a bit, but that still makes my "average non-boss full-party DPS" to be around 10k (1200 for DK, 2200 per shaman) which is still pretty awesome, and could be higher if I was less lazy :)

The only point I'm trying to make from the entire thread is that, while it is theoretically possible to have a higher overall dps with a mixed group than with a group of say 4 shamans or 4 druids, the chances of that happening are pretty slim IMO, and many of the other benefits that a mixed group provides (like blessings, power word fort, arcane int, imp, etc) are ok when you're undergeared but aren't really that big of a deal after you get some practice running heroics. Of course they're a bigger deal in raids but honestly how many multiboxers on this site even get a chance to multibox while they raid? Very few.

Just want to reiterate my original post though - play what you have the most fun with, but my opinion is that if you want to min/max then 4 shamans is the way to go.

[Hachoo]

Recount has an option to view only the "current fight" and can pull data from the last 6 fights individually..... just incase you guys didn't know - because it sounds like you don't.I did know that, I have just never dug into the options to figure out how to actually do that - a single boxer I run with occasionally will post just boss fight data, then overall data, etc, so I know its possible but just don't know how to do it ;)

[Bigfish]

I know its there, I just rarely use it. Tends to bug out on me anyway, dropping the fight at odd times. Like I said, I'm more interested in end of the day DPS anyway. And to an extant, total damage done, since several characters will have similar DPS but vastly different total damage done, usually because of melee run times.

[Dominian]

Bosses is the thing, what dps you can pull at trash doesnt matter.. Most trash can be cc and is to short to make your healer run oom anyway.

There are also certain specs that NEVER will preform good on trash due to the length, like aff locks who needs dots start ticking to deal real damage.

What is your setup now Bigfish and the names?

Would be intresting to see your setup.

[Bigfish]

Trash is arguably about how efficiently you can run it, and DPS plays a role in that. Not the end all be all, but I use it as an indicator of who is or isn't pulling their weight.

The Bigfish Army is my guild on Shadow Council US if you want to take a look at it. The 80s are what I run with.

[Souca]

While I like recount for quick numbers, I combat log everything. If I really want to see what is going on I'll run a parse with WoWWebStats or one of the other sites to drill down and look for things.

There are some good points in this thread so far. I agree with Hachoo in that theoretical dps and actual dps are often quite different. While it would interesting to see how close you can get to hitting the limit with clever macros and bindings, it does leave us with a difficult problem. Theoretical dps is easy to compare. You have forumlas and numbers and in the end you go with the number that is higher. Realized or actual dps is harder though since it relies heavily on the skill of the boxer, the quality of their macros, and the different encounters in which they record data.

If we work from theory only, some will argue that it's pointless since it's unlikely that a boxer can hit those numbers. If we work from realized numbers, some will argue that a different comp woudl be better if only a boxer played it better. So how do we aproach this? I'm not saying we have to pick one method and stick to that only, but I do think we need to all understand that the numbers might be different, but they are both valid.

I'm personally interested in both kinds of results. I like theorycrafting and math is solid and defendable. That said, I'm more likely to play a group that I can realize a acceptable potential from than one that is theoretical best but unplayable with my fat fingers. Now the trick is that acceptable potential is a very personal thing and what I consider acceptable might not match with others. I'm going to try and work from theory and numbers and leave if people think they can milk the group for enough up to the reader.

This sound like a plan?

- Souca -

[Perrigrin]

Numbers aside:

I am running a 1 pally - 3 elemental - 1 resto combination, and it works great for clearing instances (Heroics) - However, I'm looking at potentially swapping in a mage, druid and priest.

The main reason for that is that, until more 5 man content is available, it gives me something to do - And then it will eventually give me greater flexibility in building the team I want in the future + If I ever were to go back to raiding, I could have a bigger choice in classes for my main ;)

From a pure class mix perspective, I do find the dedicated healer + chain heal combo a bit lacking for group heals - And I'm curious what a priest would bring here - Basically if I take group damage today, more than 1 character has to start healing for it to be a fast group heal, which drops my dps (granted, right now I'm healing with all 4 to "group heal" and I guess I could reduce that a bit to make it smarter).

[Rin]

Numbers aside:

I am running a 1 pally - 3 elemental - 1 resto combination, and it works great for clearing instances (Heroics) - However, I'm looking at potentially swapping in a mage, druid and priest.

The main reason for that is that, until more 5 man content is available, it gives me something to do - And then it will eventually give me greater flexibility in building the team I want in the future + If I ever were to go back to raiding, I could have a bigger choice in classes for my main ;)

From a pure class mix perspective, I do find the dedicated healer + chain heal combo a bit lacking for group heals - And I'm curious what a priest would bring here - Basically if I take group damage today, more than 1 character has to start healing for it to be a fast group heal, which drops my dps (granted, right now I'm healing with all 4 to "group heal" and I guess I could reduce that a bit to make it smarter).

If we're going to compare the Priest with the Resto Shaman, we need to look at a few things:

Holy spec'd Priests bring Circle of Healing (though, the 6 second cooldown has really killed this spell at the moment), Fortitude (+STA for your group), larger heals (G.Heal, etc, but with a cast time), Renew (HoT), and a healing prayer for your entire group.

Resto shaman bring the Totem farm (as described by Bigfish), Earth Shield, and Typhoon (6 sec. cooldown, single heal). The main forms of group healing come from the Healing Stream totem and the Chain Heal spell.

Is it worth losing the totem farm and Earth Shield for the healing abilities of a priest? I would argue that it's not, as you're going to receive much less utility in your current group composition from the Priest rather than from the Shaman. Circle of Healing + Prayer of Healing combo will only gross you so much health (CoH gives you around 756 health, Prayer of Healing gives you 2209 base health. You're going to be losing about 936 health (base/talents)/minute just with the loss of the healing stream totem. On bosses, this will mean that you're going to be healing more with the Priest simply because you've lost that extra 936 health/all group members.

More on this later.

Cheers.

[Rin]

Here's another question

For those of you running disc priests, how do they compare to Holy in a MutliBoxing-type setup? My Priest is at 80, and shes always been Holy

[Ken]

For those of you running disc priests, how do they compare to Holy in a MutliBoxing-type setup? My Priest is at 80, and shes always b

I have run a Holy priest for about several months up to level 80, now I have used it as discipline priest for about 2 months. Basically, discipline saves me more mana and is faster. In my opinion, holy is mostly useful for raids(because of the extra group heal spells you get), but when the other healers are slacking or undergeared, you go out of mana in no-time with a holy priest.
I really love Penance, as it almost doesn't cost any mana and it's comparable to a greater heal ... only it's semi-instant.

So overall, I find holy too slow and mana-consuming.

[puppychow]

imo the arguement is like asking whats the best Superbowl team. Any team can theoretically win, but from year to year some are just going to be better stats wise in the game than others.

For clearing WOTLK heroics the best team right now, by a small margin, is DK + 4 shamans. Pally + 4 shamans comes a pretty darn close second, just DKs bring more group damage and better boss mitigation than pallys. This is not opinion or personal biases (I don't even run this comp), its simply the fact that the fastest and most heroics have been cleared by these times and the people with the Glory of the Hero achieves run these teams. This could get destroyed in patch 3.1 depending on how they deal with mana/heal totem stacking.

Almost any reasonable team can clear every heroic in game, there is nothing to stop a warlock+mage+feral druid+holy pally+rogue from doing it. It will just take a lot longer and you will probably wipe a lot more. Has any multicomp single-player controlled team (only 1 shaman) actually cleared every heroic in the game? There's at least a dozen 3+ shaman teams that have as far as I know, but I can't really think of any that have only 0-1 shaman - or at least none that have posted.

Its also important to recognize that it will only take 1-4 months for you to "finish" WOTLK as a single team multiboxer. Within that time you will have every piece of heroic badge gear you can get and every item you can equip from heroics. A multicomp team will be much more fun to play imo after every heroic is down, since you can play each individually in raids (the focus of patch 3.1 - ulduar is HUGE!!) and learn how to min/max each class. Having 4 shamans is just boring once every heroic is done.

[SmackedMeat]

Its also important to recognize that it will only take 1-4 months for you to "finish" WOTLK as a single team multiboxer. Within that time you will have every piece of heroic badge gear you can get and every item you can equip from heroics. A multicomp team will be much more fun to play imo after every heroic is down, since you can play each individually in raids (the focus of patch 3.1 - ulduar is HUGE!!) and learn how to min/max each class. Having 4 shamans is just boring once every heroic is done.

I think you hit it here. All the benefits of the 3+ shaman team are obvious. However, there is a big difference between trying to trash the content and play your toons. I am personally going to try to enjoy my conquest of all the 5 man instances with a mixed group. However, I can see the pleasure in totally trashing 5 mans and running over everything in your path. That and I have no desire to go through the Shaman totem quests again. =)

[KvdM]

Almost any reasonable team can clear every heroic in game, there is nothing to stop a warlock+mage+feral druid+holy pally+rogue from doing it. It will just take a lot longer and you will probably wipe a lot more. Has any multicomp single-player controlled team (only 1 shaman) actually cleared every heroic in the game? There's at least a dozen 3+ shaman teams that have as far as I know, but I can't really think of any that have only 0-1 shaman - or at least none that have posted.You've just described part of the problem. There's not much info being posted about mixed groups and thus people assume that these groups can't perform as well as a shaman group. Seems to me that there are more shaman then mixed groups on this forum. Perhaps we should first start a poll to find out how many shaman groups and how many mixed groups there are on this forum.

[Bigfish]

I've run... 1/2 of UP with a multi-class group, but truth be told, I'm more focused on finishing my questing and getting fully decked out in craftables before I really wanted to start farming badges, and even then, I'm focusing more on learning to 10-box Naxx than grinding heroics.

[pinotnoir]

Play what you enjoy. You can knock out heroics with any group make up. There are some stupid fights that cause problems. Once you gear up all the heroics are easy. Dont over think this game. You dont need 4000dps to clear the heroics.

I hope skadi doesnt wreck my 4 dk's once I eventually get to him.

[Greythan]

Bumping an old thread as its of great interest to me.

I'm about to be a freshly minted mixed 80 team. (See sig)

I had a tough decision to make when I embarked and we'll see how it plays out. My thinking was that I had really no direct familiarity with other classes (my main is the lock) and the challenge of the mixed team won me over.

Now, and you'll laugh here, my challenge will be I did enjoy PvP'ing with my lock. So, I've likely traded the "easier" learning curve of a shaman team in PvE AND the potential to PvP for the challenge of the mixed team AND the bonus of having 5 different classes at 80 to use in solo play. I'll be interested to see how I'm feeling about the decision in a few months once I've cut my teeth in the level-80 game.

[Memn]

I tend to run a team until I hit an obstacle then adjust. I've run ALOT of compositions, the only compositions i've run at level cap are:

Prot Paladin, Holy Priest, 3x Mage
Prot Paladin, Holy Priest, 2x Mage, Hunter
Prot Paladin, Holy Priest, 3x Shaman
Prot Paladin, Resto Shaman, 3x Shaman
5x Shaman
Prot Paladin, 4x Shaman

I am currently working on 4 Druids, a DK, and I am considering a Warlock to experiment with... My motivation to look into these compostions is the added synergy.

I think Shaman stacking (or Druid stacking) is powerful primarily due to how robust it is; not how simple it is..

An Elemenatal Shaman, or a Boomkin are equivalent to 1 DPS, and about 0.33 of a healer. (ok, this is debateable.... ts definately higher than 0.25 but lower than 0.5)

Running with four of them means you can have dps bursts equal to 4 dps, and healing bursts equal to 1.33 heals. If the fight is light on heals, you can dps it down all the faster, if its heavy on the heals, you can react achieve the required healing amount all the easier. But more importantly, if you lose a random team member, it is still much easier to recover. Losing a shaman drops you to 3 dps burst or 1 healer burst... In a specialized team your either going to be at 0.66 dps sustained, or 0 healing... (assuming no shamans no offhealer dpses)

Admittingly, 2 Elemenatl Shaman, and 2 Boomkins would have this same level of robustness with more synergy. But would be differentiated from a pure stack by the distinctions identified elsewhere in this thread (setup complexity, loot distribution)

In my case tho, I don't think my 4 shaman team has been more successful for me because it was simpler to setup, or because they have a dps advantage over any other class, but because they are just more robust.