Which melee team to go with?

[Ualaa]

I'm really thinking of a melee team.
The focus for this will be PvP.

I'd arena, as a means to gear for battlegrounds.
Preferring rated battlegrounds, once that comes into play.

I'll be playing all five toons myself.

I already have druids in the lower 70's now.
Was originally going Balance, for battleground PvP.
Have not actually switched them yet, but the lack of burst is a strong consideration.

So my choices are:
a) DK + 4x Ret.
b) 5x Rogue.
c) 5x Feral.

Which would you do, and why?

[Boylston]

Here are some thoughts...

DK+4xRet:
It's popular right now for a reason. It looks to be a very strong combo in arena and BGs. Nice survivability and a load of passive healing mean that you could go on some real BG rampages without stopping. Huge fringe benefit of being able to run PvE content to level, get badges, etc.

5xRogues:
This feels too specialized for me, and probably a better approach for arena. (Not trying to spark a debate between rogues and DK+pallies in 5s!) It's probably a hard comp for BGs because you don't have any heals, passive heals, or resurrection capability. Lack of rez would seal the deal for me, if my focus was BGs. Drop a druid in there and that might be improved. 5xRogues has this amazing alpha strike burst, but I think it's a one-trick pony after that. Very little overlapping buff synergy compared to 3 pallies and a blood/frost DK.

5xFeral:
Lack of burst doesn't concern me a ton, not for BGs. I think you could have a blast my running 5xBears... Talk about a durable pile of 5xSwipe Spam goodness. You get some passive healing out of LotP, a nice self-heal from Frenzied Regen, and just a ton of durability. I think cat would be preferred for most of your romps, though. It's got the same rogue-ish feel as rogues but with rez capability. You trade off some massive burst, but that's probably OK for BGs. Team can also PvE well, obviously, and you really could convert them to boomkins to mix it up if you wanted.

Long story short, I like DK+4xRet, then 5xFeral, with 5xRogues dead last. A lot is going to depend on your playstyle though. If you want to be a blast of WTFDPS!!1! from the shadows, rogues will do that. I like Rez too much for BGs to ever play without it, though.

[remanz]

I can only talk about what I know. Don't know squat about rogues and druids. But I think if you are playing all 5, then 5 rogues wouldn't work. No healing and as rogues, I don't see this suicide team would get too far in BGs.

Been playing DK + rets for a while now. Talking about arena, no purge, no healing debuff, rets burst are not that amazing. Not to mention we all run around the target like headless chickens (might delay skills, white melee swings, coming out). Losing some burst there.

If my target got hots, priest, paladin shields on, it is totally healable. The strength comes from CCs. Interrupt, CC healers are the only way (BE AOE slience is mandatory). With that said, divine shield + divine sacrifice makes the team. Not the bursts. Being able to bubble individually and negate the other team's burst is crucial.

Rather than beat on the warlock or the elemental shaman everytime, I switched my strategy to slience, stun, and beat on the priest to start. The results got better. If the other team don't try to constantly CC me, I can win. Kiting is still a problem, and a major one. Frost mage, Hunter, Elemental shaman.

So I am considering switching to an enhancement shaman lead.

So all in all, I would rank DK/shaman + 4 rets as the top melee group.

edit:
I can't emphasis on this burst problem enough. To take down a target while letting the healers running free, I need to at least output 3000 dps on all 4 paladins and 2000 dps on the DK. All this in 2-3 seconds, no more than 2 GCDs. and 3000 dps in PVP is not that easy to achieve. 12000 + 6000 + some white dmg (roughly 10k) = 28000 damage (this is really just minimum here). In details, Crusader strike => 1 GCD => Judgement => 1 GCD => Divine Storm. by this time if he is not dead, he is back to full. This is the time to bubble and sacrifice. And the CC game starts on me. Against good wizard cleave, it is pretty much over.

Also on druids, Feral druids do have a ramp up time in burst (just like DK). The burst doesn't kick in until you have 5 combo points ferocious bites. So if paladins' frontal burst can't do it, druids frontal burst certainly can't. But once you get 5 combo points, I am sure you can tear the target apart with 5 druids.

[Fat Tire]

Well Ualaa, they will still flag you afk even if you are a melee team.;)

To be honest you could pick any combo and do well in BGs. The X factor are your other team members that usually affect the results the most.

[Ualaa]

On the horde, will be running Disc Priest + 4x Affliction Warlocks.

Alliance side, was planning on 5x Balance Druids, but keep hearing there is not enough burst with balance.
And I do want a melee team, could also be the pvp team.

[heyaz]

I can't emphasis on this burst problem enough. To take down a target while letting the healers running free, I need to at least output 3000 dps on all 4 paladins and 2000 dps on the DK. All this in 2-3 seconds, no more than 2 GCDs. and 3000 dps in PVP is not that easy to achieve. 12000 + 6000 + some white dmg (roughly 10k) = 28000 damage (this is really just minimum here). In details, Crusader strike => 1 GCD => Judgement => 1 GCD => Divine Storm. by this time if he is not dead, he is back to full. This is the time to bubble and sacrifice. And the CC game starts on me. Against good wizard cleave, it is pretty much over.
.

You put a healer on focus and strangulate/repentance during your kill sequence right? If you let them free heal you won't kill anything without MS

[zenga]

I can only talk about my experience in AV. I have currently a 5x rogue team in their early 60s. And i'm having a blast in AV. The stealth + stun can drive people insane. I can do things that are impossible with my pally/4 shaman team. But it's a totally different kind of AV i play with the rogues. Whereas i usually kill balinda, def stoneheart, defend icewing and then move forward with my main team (and thus decide for a good part about the outcome) , i play more out of the blue with the rogues, deciding on the moment what i'm gonna do. But no healing can be a pain.

So lately i've been using a lvl 60 shaman (ele specced for now)., only to have some healing. With spirit wolf i can park him somewhere under a brick so he stays unnoticed. while i fight with my rogues. So far i don't really need healing during a fight, so not sure if i'll spec the shammy resto, might go enhancement as well. And that's probably what i enjoy most about the rogues: i pick the targets instead of them deciding to target me, i.e. the possibility to avoid combat makes up for the lack of healing.

While i have lots of fun, i use them as a break away team. I don't see myself doing anything else than BG's with them.

On a sidenote: i'm also leveling (though very slowly) 5x pally team, all protection specced. With those i see myself doing arena one day. The 2 lives each pally has combined with a shitload of hp and plate/shield is very attractive imo.

[Mokoi]

I have both druids and the DK+pally team

There is no question, my Druids are useless and my DK+Paladin team is a rockstar.. rogues? i dunno, I can't imagine them being staeady for as long as a BG lasts. good for camping bases in AV and stuff, stealthing at bosses and killing tanks / healers, maybe rampaging around until you all die, but honestly i dunno, id rather have hunters for a kamikaze class :P

[ncmc]

i cant help but imagine a 5 rogue team. the lead rogue doing a stunlock and the slaves doing a cast sequence of muti muti evis muti muti evis. on the other hand a trinket aoe fear could royally screw u over.

rogues have a lot of tools that can get you out of allmost any situation but its sometimes hard to keep track of all these abilities on a single rogue, let alone 5.

lol i just thought of something else. 5 combat rogues. adrenaline rush and fan of knives. do that around a group of opponents and it would be like throwing them all in a blender. lol.

realisticly i think you would have a lot of fun ganking single targets, or multiple targets with quick bursts but...

firstly, this can mostly be achieved with a single rogue, just not as fast and maybe not quite on a WTFimamassive5manblender scale.

Secondly there are far to many abilities that a rogue must use in order to pvp well and keeping track of these would be a nightmare. who has blind on CD? which rogue can blind who? Damnn i just sprinted away and left some behind, which rogue are they targeting so i must use his CloS without wasting it on the rest.

5 druids will be fun as they are so flexible so if something isnt working u can respec a few of them.

DK and rets, judjung by the amount of ppl running it is obviously very playable

[Naysayer]

have some fun and go with ferals.

[remanz]

You put a healer on focus and strangulate/repentance during your kill sequence right? If you let them free heal you won't kill anything without MS

That's the plan. I only get 1 try per match.

I was originally hoping to global people though. Just like what they did us huh. A couple paladins, warriors turning red, next thing I know half of my shaman team is dead. They didn't need MS. There was no healing that was that fast.

Now it is my turn to global them, sadly, it is not the case.

[heyaz]

That's the plan. I only get 1 try per match.

I was originally hoping to global people though. Just like what they did us huh. A couple paladins, warriors turning red, next thing I know half of my shaman team is dead. They didn't need MS. There was no healing that was that fast.

Now it is my turn to global them, sadly, it is not the case.

Doesn't make sense really. A single shaman on the other team would damn near global one of mine, yet 4x firepower on him and he'd survive. Healing, and especially passive healing effects are out of control this expansion. I would imagine disc priests are hard to kill even with all 5 melee on them without chain silence. Penance is practically lay on hands... not to mention everything else

[David]

I`m kinda in the same spot. Been running singlebox for a few weeks now and the multiboxing starts to itch again.

I`m totally done with 1pal,4sham team and 1dk,4ret isn`t to my liking due the dk. I`m either thinking of making an enhancement shaman main and then run with 4 rets who are at 80 or try my rogues again who are 62. Rogues were great fun and I was facerolling people at 60 in the lower bracket bg(wearing 2 green items and 2 dagger heirblooms, rest no gear) but now that I`m a lowbie in my bracket my stealth doesn`t work to well.

Running the enhancement + rets setup would work good for me since one paladin has good tankgear and the shaman could go resto. So gearing the my team world be possbile.

Both teams gave me a LOT of fun. Not sure what I like more :D

[Ualaa]

I'm going to try the 5x Feral route.

The lack of fear protection, is going to suck.
But the team is quite fun so far.
Even undergeared (basically in mostly Boomkin gear), I took out a 78 mage with my five 67's, doing the Terrokar Spirit Towers; the fight lasted 2 seconds... Hit my Mangle key, they ran to the mage, and it was over.

Similar to Boomkins, in that they have a ton of toys.

Will still have Rebirth on round-robin. Possibly with the glyph for a full health ressurrection, which will be fun in BG's.
I realize Rebirth cannot be used in Arena, and the team will definitely Arena... but the focus will be BG's.

Once you get rating in battlegrounds, chances are they won't arena much.







I'm in the process of trying to get a bunch of things working.

I've gone with two "Interact With Target" mapped keys.

One has a hotkey, affects all toons, and applies to all character sets.
This gets me a non-spam IWT, as desired.

The other has no hotkey, and is built into my FTL DPS mapped keys.
Press the key, get auto FTL assist + whatever DPS is on that key + IWT.

But have a toggle mapped key.
To enable/disable the integrated melee IWT.
When it is enabled, spamming DPS (I do spam) will result in the crazy target circling melee swarming.
When it is disabled, I still spam the DPS keys but there is no IWT.

I've put a Follow command onto a mouse button, which greatly alleviates the problem of melee taking off when the target dies and I am spamming an IWT/Melee DPS key.




The druids start in an ATG (Action Target Group), called Cat.
My IS Boxer repeater region heals, broadcast to "all of Cat".

I have a hotkey for /cast [nostance:3] Cat Form (which also moves all toons into the Cat group).
Similarly, have a key for all to Bear Form (taking everyone out of the Cat group).
This will be for PvE healing; can use Repeater Regions, where any toon can be a Bear... or any toon can off-tank as necessary, and the others will heal when necessary.
Might just go with a dedicated healer, but will try this route first.

Each has a hotkey for individual stance shifts, in case the toon is focused. The key adds or removes them from the Cat ATG.



I'm trying to make hotkeys work for both PvE and PvP.
The majority of PvP, will be 5x Cats.
And PvE will likely be 4x Cat, 1x Bear.
Anyway, want the keys to be logical, so I can mash "1" and have everyone DPS in a coordinated fashion.



Ferals have a 20% chance per combo point, that when they do a finishing move, the next Nature spell is instant cast.

I'd like this to work somewhat like a Retribution Paladin has Art of War procs, for instant heals or exorcism. The big downside, a Ret Pally can cast in their DPS form, but a Feral needs to return to caster form.

I'm thinking have a "toggle" mapped key, which controls the state of another mapped key. Something similar to my Eclipse toggle. Having the same input key, "0" for now. The toggle key activates one mapped key (using 0 for the activation) and disables the other (also using 0 for activation). The two mapped keys are slightly different.

One will cast the heal on [target=player]. I'm going for a /stopcasting, in the macro -- so it will function like the Art of War macro. IE, cast if it is instant, but end immediately if it is not.

One will be some form of directed heal. Not sure on targeting yet. Target=TargetTarget is dependent on the toon I am focusing to be targeting the toon who needs the heal. I'd like to have the toggle send this heal to the toon who is taking damage. The ideal would be the toon not in the Cat (ATG), but not sure how to build that mapped key yet; or if it can be done.

Probably include the [nostance:3] Cat Form in there, so spamming the key will have an instant heal, and immediately put the toon back into cat form. Chances are, the bear won't have a heal on this bind, since a bear is either the tank (PvE) or the toon being focused.

Could go with three steps on the mapped key.
Step 1 - Instant Heal.
Step 2 - Resume Cat Form.
Step 3 - Do Nothing.
With Step 3, not advancing (resetting to Step 1) until "x" seconds have passed.
And have the entire mapped key reset to Step 1, "x" seconds after the first press.

If there is macro logic, to cast based on a minimum number of combo points, this could be a rather strong option.



I'll probably do a full write up of the team, mapped keys and macros, once they are finished.
The same as I did for Team Pestilence (horde side BG/PvP team).
Not sure on a team name yet, but these will be alliance side.

[Naysayer]

I'm going to try the 5x Feral route.

I'm doing the same until cata. It's fun as hell and they're so fast.

[shaeman]

I'm going to try the 5x Feral route.

The lack of fear protection, is going to suck.


If you suspect you are going to be AOE feared - e.g you see a priest, aff lock or warrior running towards you, you could have a macro to have your guys switch to bear and hit berserk. Then mangle like mad while it lasts. 5 times bear mangle is going to hurt still. There is a glyph to extend the duration of berserk by 5 seconds i think.

Downside is that berserk may not be available when you are in kitty form as a result , but given AOE fear bombs are such a pain it just might be worth it.

[Ualaa]

I've got Berserk glyphed on all toons, which adds 5 seconds to the effect.

It is usable in both Bear and Cat, breaks Fear and makes the toon immune to it.
The duration is 20 seconds.
Not sure on the refresh.

But will have Berserk vs one.
And Trinket vs another.
With diminishing returns on Fear.
And a long IWT range, to recover from a fear too.

[shaeman]

Damn - For some reason I thought the Fear immune effect was only available in the bear form version,
hence the reason I suggested swapping to bear. Re-reading the tooltip now I see the fear break/immunity
is available in kitty form too.

I'm now picturing a fear bomb followed by 5 berserk kittys feral charging through the air to rain insane dps
on the poor enemy. Lovely!!!!

[Ualaa]

Thinking about it...
The first toon/group to try fear or a fear bomb.
Won't get what they expect.

The second group/opponent...
Depends on if either trinket of Berserk is on cooldown or not.

Fear might not be much of an issue.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

IMO, what makes the DK+rets shine is that their ability cycles are predictable. As long as you have mana, just /faceroll your "DIEPLZ" macro for 90%+ effectiveness versus solo. Rogues and Druids are much more dependent on streaky combo points and crits, which means you either A) can't make a macro to optimize combo point use so you're constantly out of sync among toons due to crit streaks causing combo points to vary wildly, or B) you make a macro assuming you'll always do 2-point eviscerates/cheap shots or 3-point Ferocious Bites/Rips which causes a wide variation in damage/utility.

Just my opinion after playing my 5-druid team up through level 80 dungeons as feral. I could never get past about 70% effectiveness of the kitty builds as they relied so much on crit for achieving heroic-entry-level DPS.

[Ualaa]

Was looking for some macros, to do actions based on the number of combo points on the target.
Found a few, which was nice.

Unfortunately, CastSpellByName is a protected function now.
So cannot run:
/run C=CastSpellByName;if (GetComboPoints()>=5) then C("Eviscerate") else C("Sinister Strike");end

It would have been nice to Ferocious Bite at 5 combo points, but otherwise Mangle.

It seems the best will be either two buttons; a combo builder and a combo use button. Or to approximate how many combo points the target has, via a castsequence.

[Dorffo]

wow that /run line took me back to early days and the oddity that was the OneHitWonder addon (Sarf wrote it I think?)

[heyaz]

I don't see how that setup will have any viability at all other than a quick gimmick. That can be fun, don't get me wrong, and so can 5x mages casting blizzard in an AV, but hardly worth the time to level and gear up in my opinion.