Mixed Class 5-man groups? What's best for buffs and stacking?

[bulvi47]

So if one were so inclined to make a mixed 5 man group and did not care about class compulation what mixed 5 man group would bring the most to the table as far as buffs, auras, and what not stacking. I know that mixed classed are harder to roll, but I've got a good week or so to research up on spell times and spec's to harmonize the group as best I can. I plan on having a Pally tank since I already know the class from having one as a main. With the goal of doing Heriocs on my on with a full group what would you guys suggest as far as a healer and DPS combos? I know some of you run mixed groups with much success so what are you rolling and what made you choose your make up?

[Enndo]

My newest team is DK tank, hunter,lock,balance druid,holy priest and I love it, I would recomend it. It takes alot of tweaking though with cast times and macro sequences but well worth it.

[Kang]

My group is DK tank, boomkin, fire mage, ele shammy, and destro lock. I wanted different classes and figured I could do serious fire damage with the improved scortch buff and destro fire buffs. To be honest I haven't really looked at how well it is stacking (if at all) but the group is fun to play and has lots of utility (teleport, summoning, water, totems, replenishment and stat buffs). I don't have a dedicated healer, but that might change. So far it hasn't been an issue if the druid and shamm heal the tank at the same time.

[Coltimar]

Enndoh, I am leveling a Hunter and Boomkin to switch into my main team and head up my second team (DK tank, rogue and resto shaman). Can you share some of your macro tricks and such for your group? Specifically the hunter. I found some nice macros here for the druid using /click and multiple /castsequence macros, but I am interested in what you are using. My hunter is MM atm because I can't get a good survival rotation. Also, any rogue suggestions would be good.

You can PM me if you want so we aren't hijacking the OPs post :/

[Enndo]

Im using basic cast sequence macros, im at work so i wont have exact info on it for like 8 more hours lol. I have a great job with alot of down time so i get to surf the forums pretty much all day, too bad my boss isnt a little more chill or id be playing wow all day from work lol.

[Ogloo]

5 class mix going on.. this is what i think..

Shaman (you need the totems)
Druid (gives you the increased crit and all that.. maybe some quick heals.. mana regen
Paladin I would go with because of the high survivablilty as a tank
Mage (increase intelllect.. slow things down. and food and water.. you would waste soooo much money making water for 5 guys 1-80 doing instances
Shaman again.. (i think the increased shaman for more totems.. most of the stack, and the double chain heal helps alot.. ) also switching on and off reincarnation with 2 guys helps :0..
(to replace the shaman).. make the druid and shaman dps ele.. and have a priest heal.. This helps because priests have a ton of buffs. especially the mana regen. and the shields, and increased stam

[pearldrake999]

Well you could try this team out.
Prot pala (BoK, aura,}
Balance Druid (13% extra damage, treants, spell haste)
Elemental shaman (totems, wrath totem, the oath talent doesn't stack with moonkin aura I heard. But im not sure)
frost Mage (Replenishment, Arcane int, Food, Portals)
Holy priest (Fort, Spirit, Fear ward)

[Ogloo]

yep it seems the
ele shaman
mage
paladin
priest
druid

is the best comp!

[Smoooth]

Similar buffs don't really stack so I chose my team by trying to get all of the caster type buffs and by having all the best utility.

buff list by type ('http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=14214.0')

I agree with what most people say here but I'm a huge supporter of the resto shaman for the dedicated healer. I use my priest as shadow. Mind sear is an awesome TARGETABLE aoe. Any trash group over 3 mobs and he does nice dps.

[Vecter]

As always http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/ is your friend.That is really cool. :thumbup:

I am planning druid, sham, pal, priest and warlock or mage. The druid/sham/warlock combo is fun to play so far.

[Ualaa]

When building a multiple class set up, you have a few considerations:

a) Which buffs do they bring to the table. There are both combat procs and static castable buffs.
b) How compatible are they, as far as setting the castsequences, castrandom etc.
c) How diverse are their loot interests? Cloth/Leather/Mail x2/Plate has less waste then Leather/Cloth x4.
d) Where will you play them.. will they be able to do heroics or arena?
e) How do they recover.. Soul Stones, Ankh's etc. How many can rez?

From a buffs point of view...
- Priest (Fortitude, Spirit).
- Paladin (Aura, Kings).
- Druid (MotW, Battle Rez)
- Shammy (Totems, Heroism, possibly Earth Shield depending on spec)
- Mage (Intellect, Amplify/Dampen Magic)

[Stabface]

My vote also for Druid/Mage/Shaman/Priest/Paladin. Boomkin + Frost + Elemental for DPS, Holy/Disc heals, Prot tank. Easymode... except Boomkin is a bit more difficult to macro the DPS on.

[Slayde]

For my new team (level 14), I opted to go with a prot paladin, boomkin, elem shaman, marks hunter, priest. This group will give me plenty of buffs, survivability and dps while taking advantage of more drops.

[Effex]

to all those putting a mage in a mixed group heres some feedback from somone that has already done it.

though mages seems like a great addition to a mixed group from my experiance I reallly would not suggest one. my mixed team has the following

Prot Paladin
Boomkin
Shaman
Disc Priest
Frost Mage.

the issues I have with the mage are:
Out of the 3 specs you will almost forced to go frost, otherwise youl have to drink every few pulls just becuase the mage is OOM and the rest of the team are at 90% mana
Frost is the worst DPS spec
Int buff is probably the worsed buff in game
5% crit debuff as frost takes a while to accumulate
even as frost my mage is no where near as mana effecient as the rest of the team.
seriosly low survivability. both shaman and boomkin are designed to take a few hits, mages are designed to manouver to never get hit, not somthing you can do easily as a MBer


what the mage brings to the team:
Int buff - wouldnt notice is i never had it tbh
5% crit debuff - pretty much only for bosses as it takes 5 FB's to stack to get it
drinks - If I didnt have a mana hungry mage in group I doubt I would ever drink anyway!
portals - use them maybe once a day.


If you take my advice and replace your mage in group personaly Id suggest either another boomkin or shaman or as Im doing which i think is the best route is a hunter. hunters bring replenishment(a huge bonus for heroics youl never need that free mage water) strong DPS that never rooms OOM, an off tank that can eat the "2nd on agro list" random type hits / fears etc. and what sounds small but to me is a huge deal. fully automated CC, just drop a trap at the start of each pull, hell even have it stuck in his dps macro and youve automaticaly CCed any mob that goes for your dps/healer without having to even target him. plus it saves DEing all that attack power gear :)

[Diwa]

If you're thinking of DPS, I think this is a good basis

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/dps/7/0/3/310

[Smoooth]

You must be doing something wrong with your mage if you are having that much of a problem with mana. My arcane mage never runs out of mana. I get replenishment from my shadow priest. Also an arcane mage gives +3% spell crit chance to one other and himself.

[Effex]

Enndoh, I am leveling a Hunter and Boomkin to switch into my main team and head up my second team (DK tank, rogue and resto shaman). Can you share some of your macro tricks and such for your group? Specifically the hunter. I found some nice macros here for the druid using /click and multiple /castsequence macros, but I am interested in what you are using. My hunter is MM atm because I can't get a good survival rotation. Also, any rogue suggestions would be good.

i recently posted what i belive to be one of the best hunter dps macros going here...

Hunter - Surv spec all in one /click macro for you guys :) ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=23082')

[Effex]

You must be doing something wrong with your mage if you are having that much of a problem with mana. My arcane mage never runs out of mana. I get replenishment from my shadow priest. Also an arcane mage gives +3% spell crit chance to one other and himself.

I'd love to know your cast rotation and more specifics mate, i tried arcane doing 3xMB then missiles and went oom in lesss than 1 minute of spamming

[d0z3rr]

Pally tank - blessings, aura, rezzing
Balance druid - motw, boomkin aura, rezzing
Lock - stamina, curses, soulstones
Priest - fort, spirit, rezzing
Mage - intellect, porting, conjuring

[Holmeser]

i have a dilema, atm im thinking of Pally Tank, Boomkin, Shammy, priest heals and was thinking of putting in a mage but with all the bad feedback i've got about mages, i was thinking of putting a lock in instead, what do you think?

[Ualaa]

Neither class is terribly mana efficient.

The mage has evocation, and will want some of the arcane talents for mana efficiency.
I've go with a frost mage, over a fire. More control at the cost of a little less burst.
But you get a lot of talents which reduce the cost of spells.

The warlock has lifetap going for her.
I believe this class is the least efficient from a mana perspective.
Lifetap is extremely powerful, and you'll have passive healing from the party/totems.
Still Lifetap when you cannot otherwise cast, or you'll kill your dps.

I'd say go with whichever class you enjoy more.
In the end, it will work out.
Your party will have some form of replenishment.
You have passive mana regen either from Mana Spring or Blessing of Wisdom.
You can stack some mp5 gear if you want.
Both classes bring things to the table, and no matter what you pick now, Blizzard changes the game.
They've specifically made class balance threads recently, so we can expect changes are coming.

[Mercurio]

I'd take a lock over a mage any day. I have regularly taken both into Naxx in the same group. Lock have better DPS (my experience with equally geared toons), soulstones, summoning, eternal mana, curse of elements... way too much to pass up.

[Klesh]

For Maximizing Buffs/Debuffs I would choose....

Prot Paladin
Resto Shaman
Elemental Shaman
Balance Druid
Shadow Priest

The Elemental Shaman could be swapped for an Affliction Warlock or Mage I suppose - but I like totems better.

As always http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/ is your friend.
That's the group setup I've been running for quite some time.
The shadow priest didn't cut it in the long run though. At the end her damage done (not just the DPS, the overall damage done) was 25 to 40% below the druid/shaman ones. Priests seem to need to cast dots for reasonable DPS, but that's just not worth it on trash, cause mobs die way too fast. Either this, or am too stupid to run shadowpriests.

Long story short, I've leveled another team from 60 to 80 just to replace that priest with another shaman. Am happy with my setup now, running prot paladin, balance druid and 2 elemental shamans, with my wife filling the resto shaman role.

[moog]

As someone who has never strayed from the 4x + tank makeups it would appear overwhelmingly complex to coordinate 5 unique class cast sequences / etc. Am I over-reacting
and things synergize effectively? Any advice from someone who has played both varieties to 80?Go for it... it's so satisfying once you get it working well :)

My mixed team is Pally Tank, Priest Healer, Mage / Hunter / Warlock DPS and it definitely takes some time/effort to control them properly but I enjoy playing them far more than the 5xShammies now.

Pally Tank - great AOE tanking with great party buffs, emergency healing and ressing.
Priest Healer - HoTs, group heals, fade, shield, fear ward, shackle
Mage - drinks, portals, sheep and great DPS with an arcane build
Hunter - awesome DPS with a Marksmanship build and a pet thrown in, too
Warlock - summons,

The way I play is to choose my next target, stop the 4 following, run in/pull with the Pally, consecrate, and then I manually click on my various paladin tanking type actions - I don't have a paladin macro, I much prefer doing it manually, and doing most of it with the mouse leaves the hotkeys to trigger off the rest of the party with DPS / heals... this works really well for me.

The Priest heals with a variety of ALT-keys. They heal the paladin or the paladin's target if it's friendly and alive.
Alt 1 - renew
Alt 2 - flash heal
Alt 3 - greater heal
Alt 4 - prayer of healing, targetted on the paladin as you now have to target this spell
Alt 5 - circle of healing
Alt 6 - guardian spirit
Alt 7 - divine hymn

Unless we're in Heroics, I rarely need more than a few renews and occasional prayer to top the group up.

The mage casts slow on the target when I trigger my initial consecrate with the paladin and after that has a main DPS macro...

/castsequence reset=combat/target Scorch, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage
I use PowerAura to monitor for the Missile Barrage buff, when I manually trigger an arcane missiles.
I also trigger a PoM/Pyro macro whenever it's available and I remember :)

The Hunter misdirects onto the paladin when I trigger my initial consecrate with the paladin and after that has a main DPS macro...

/castsequence reset=15/target serpent sting, chimera shot, arcane shot, aimed shot, steady shot, steady shot
and I manually trigger Rapid Fire, Kill Shot etc.

My Warlock has one big DPS macro...

/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat/target Curse of the Elements, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt
the logic behind that is I slap on CoE to benefit the whole group and then cast the cheapest Life Tap which still gives me the whole +SP boost from http://www.wowwiki.com/Glyph_of_Life_Tap and I then cast 7 shadow bolts before the lifetap buff drops.
CoE stays up for 5m, so I have a number of LifeTap/ShadowBolt 'loops' to avoid wasting DPS time with a recast of CoE.
You will need to be using Macaroon or a.n.other addon which supports huge macros to use the above :)
Again, with the Warlock, I use PowerAura to monitor for the Decimation buff which means I have 10s to cast a very quick Soulfire with no shard cost, which I trigger with another key.

The whole team also does very nice AoE.
For that, I use the 9 key and everyone casts their AoE... pally / consecrate, mage / arcane explosion, priest / holy nova, hunter / explosive trap, warlock / hellfire.
Whilst spamming the 9 key, I manually move my mouse over to the hunter in order to cast Volley and target it.
Works really well, with the priest's holy nova healing up the warlock's self-inflicted hellfire damage :)

My mixed team is made up of my 4 original solo chars, moved to other accounts, and a Warlock I dragged up.
It was always a pally tank and priest healer but the mage used to be fire, hunter was beastmaster and the warlock was demonology.
Back then, the Warlock was top DPS and I was very close to dropping the hunter.
With a bunch of research, respeccing and macro tweaking, the hunter is now top DPS :)

I've only covered the basics above... for instance, I have a set of macros for CC (sheep/shackle/freezingtrap/banish) which use /focus to allow me to re-CC very easily.

Hope that helps :)

[DLoweinc]

i love my mixed team, people can say that intellect is a useless buff and that mages have poor mana regen but if you plan to raid, you will want the intellect buff. teleports are very nice and water is also very nice. some people are happy to buy tea to replenish mana and that is fine, but mages bring a lot to the table and as arcane my mage can top 4k dps often. yes he has mana issues but i have a key bound to use mana gem and one to use evocation. basically i bound the "use mana gem" key to also cast thunderstorm for the shaman and to the mana regen on my shadow priest as well.

i'm currently leveling up a lock to replace my prot/holy pali for times when the raid doesn't need 75% of a healer or an offtank, but for heroics you'll obviously need your own tank.

play what sounds fun to you, for me i wanted to maximize not only the buffs i cast on my group, but also the debuffs i could put on bosses.

[Mac]

I'm thinking Arcane mage is looking better for some after the buffs in 3.2.2 , better mana and dps now. What do you think?

I have Druid I tank I solo with, but considering making him boom for the group and rolling up a pali tank to take advantage of all the plate that drops, I also already have priest heals and arcane mage at 80.

The only question is the remaining dps spot. I have a shaman at 70 that would seem to be the no brainier to get to 80 and go ele for totems (loved tremor) and take the mail drops. But I love the sound of port anywhere with my mage, and summon anywhere utility of a lock because I recall it happening quite often where I wanted to go back to town for some reason and come back and the lock would make that trivial. The downside is I'd have three cloth class'.

[Greythan]

Arcane mage rotation is simple easy now. Stack 4 arcane blasts and then arcane missles. YOu have something like a 92% chance of missle barrage proc'ing after four casts of AB.

DPS on my mage is really solid. My shaman does more total damage (slightly lower DPS) but also is better geared.

[daviddoran]

My current comp is Prot pally, Holy Priest, Destro Lock, Frostfire Mage, Elemental Shaman. My shaman is practically a fresh 80, with mostly PvP gear from my AV power leveling, but still manages to keep up with my geared out lock and mage. Adding the shaman, with totem of wrath, and windfury boosted my lock and mages dps considerably. My mage is dual spec Arcane/Frostfire. Arcane is a mana hog, even with all the regen i have, i have to use evocation and mana gem every cooldown. As Frostfire, I have to manage hotstreak procs, but it's not that bad (comes in handy in direbrew, when it happend to proc right when the mole machine knocked the mage up in the air) As it is now, each of my toons fights for max damage and dps in shorter trash fights, but boss fights, the lock is usually on top, followed bye the mage, with the shaman not too far apart, considering his gear (PvP purples and quest greens)

Heroism is something that makes a lot of "quick dps race" heroic achievements possible. I just wasn't able to down trollgore fast enough before, and first run with the shaman and I got it. Plus, totem of wrath is like a 25% increase to my pallys spellpower, which I'm pretty sure boosts his dps a lot.

I havent tried swapping my mage back to arcane since 3.2.2, ill have to give it a go, but I think the scorch crit debuff is also helping my overall group's dps, and fire is much more mana efficient, at least it was when i first dual specced her.