what is the best all around group to do horics with

[Dinazzo]

cheers everyone
i am currently 5 boxing shamans and a paladin and 5 dks dks are 76 others are 80
i struggling with the instances with shamans+paladin group

i just want to know what people think about druids team paladin team or even a mixed team
i just want to set up to do horics with out having to bang my head after a wipe

my team are getting better as i get better gear for them
thanks you all for your advice and comments
cheers
dinazzo

[Stealthy]

Need to know a bit more info about your pally / sham setup before I can comment:
Armory links & spec?
Rotations & totem deployment?
Which buffs you're running?
When you say you're struggling do you mean:
- Tank dies too fast?
- Shams run out of mana?
- Tank can't hold agro?

etc etc...

I can tell you that the pally / sham combo is definitely viable for all current heroics, so I would say there's a good chance you're doing something wrong, or something that can be improved...

Cheers,
S.

[Dinazzo]

hmm well at one point my tank was dying to fast but now it works out good

my gear is not the best i am working on the gear part 2 out of 5 are able to do horics the rest needs better gear so gear is one thing

right now i can't get the frost badges except on two of my toons and i can do up to 9 normal instances the lowest to the highest 9 that is

i just finish Halls of lightning and Inoar or however you spell it boss wipe me like 5 times the spider sparks hurt but i got pass it

the last boss was well easy for me

i guess i want to be able to do better at it and do it easier the nexus and low lvl instances are fairly easy for me now and they use to be really hard lol

as for the armory link i don't know how but
here are my chars names
5 shamans
dinazzo
fonda
fonde
fondo
fondi
paladin
ieceaf

and i am sure its the gear but i done some of those instances over and over and well i don't see really anything better yet that has dropped

cheers thanks

[Stealthy]

Ok I had a quick look through your armory and I noticed a few things that might help.

Your ele spec is missing Booming Echoes and Elemental Oath, and I noticed a few of your toons missing glyphs - I'd recommend spec'ing and glyphing something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hiI0qbdItGf0Ao0gxco:sMkcM0
Note - you'll need to spec one of your toons with Totem of Wrath - take a point from Convection to do it. You can sub in the Lightning Bolt glyph instead of Healing Stream if you're looking for more DPS.

Your shams are still using a relic from BC - try replacing them with this: Venture Co. Lightning Rod
It only costs 30 venture coins, which can be obtained in about 15 mins by doing just 3 dailes in the Grizzly Hills.

Regarding your gear, I'd try to upgrade your greens ASAP - you can get decent blues from either crafting or as rep rewards. If titansteel is cheap on your server, it might be worth investing in Titansteel Guardian for your shams.

In any case, for ele shams you should be going for this priority when looking at stats:
Spell power -> Haste -> Crit
Note - this is for heroics only, if raiding +hit becomes the number one stat until hit capped.

Don't worry about MP5 (its a resto sham stat) and don't get spirit (useless for shams).

If you're struggling for mana in instances, you can sub in a mana totem instead of a healing stream totem. Also you can use Thunderstorm out of combat as a mini mana pot.

For Ionar - nature resist totem makes this fight a lot easier. :)

I'd suggest hitting some of the 'easier' heroics first (Gundrak, Drak'Tharon, Utgarde Keep) and using them to grind out badges until you can purchase a few pieces of T9.

Hope this helps!

[Coltimar]

Stealthy is spot on with his assessment. If you don't do well with pally + 4 shaman you will struggle is any combo, most likely. I have several mixed teams at or near 80 and this combo is the easiest. Pay close attention to what totems you are dropping also. Some help more than others and some are great but situational.

[Slats]

Alot of people start out with Paladin - 4x Shaman because its by far the most simple, the easiest to macro and very powerful with passive buffs/wipe recovery/aoe healing and great burst damage.

Personally I've grown quite bored of it and adding in a Destruction lock really spiced things up. I'm now swapping out a third Shaman for a Mage for food/water in Cataclysm and Portals and just for something different to macro amd play around with.


I'd drop another Shaman for a priest but I cant be bothered levelling it 70-80 and redoing tradeskills so I'll just have one resto and one ele shaman and enjoy the totems that benefit all my casters. :D

You need to glyph and talent properly. If you want a good paladin spec for heroics check my tanks offspec - the one with seal of command and aoe/mana return glyphs. My primary spec is geared at raiding.

You want to drop at least the following totems:

Wrath of Air (Spell Haste)
Cleansing Totem (Passive Posion/Disease Removal)
Totem of Wrath
Tremor Totem
Nature Resist is great for quite a number of heroics (Gundrak is trivialized by this totem).

Remember you can have an 'AoE Totem Set' and a 'PvE Totem Set' and a 'PvP Totem Set' using the built in totem bars. :)

[Khatovar]

Best is subjective on a lot of counts. Some people love paladin+4 sham teams. Others can't live without their druid or priest in the healer spot. Some can't get enough pets and opt for warlocks or hunters. And others prefer the challenge of multiclass teams. Yet others love to do 5 of the same class. And on and on.

I went through a lot of combinations before I was totally happy with my setup. Personally, I could not stand my elemental shamans, and it wasn't so long ago that people said melee DPS was a waste of time. But I've been playing my current team for a while now and I wouldn't give any of them up, even if I could get better DPS or synergy from a more standard team {though I do wish teams were 6 so I could put a cat druid in there, too...*drool*}. I enjoy playing them and figuring out how to make it work, and that matters more to me than how many tries it takes to down something new.

Any team is going to leave you banging your head on wipes until you have the gear, knowledge and skill to manage them properly. You just learn to analyze where you went wrong and think of ways to work through or around it. Figure out what you like to play and start there. You simply aren't going to stick with something you don't like, but a team you love, you are more apt to stick with it and figure out ways around things that give you trouble, making the win so much more exciting.

[Dinazzo]

OK i will work on all these points
thanks everyone that posted
gave me alot to think about and work on as well pointed out alot things that I didn't think about

thank you all for your help

cheers

[Ualaa]

For me, the best set up is:

Paladin tank
Destruction warlock.
3x Elemental Shaman.

It gets me enough healing for any encounter.
I usually go Warlocks/Shaman (Kings), Paladin (Sanctuary).
Drop 3x Healing Stream totems as part of my totem stomp macro (or can go with Cleansing Totems on a key).
Earth is staggered Tremors (staggering Call of Elements/Call of Spirit, not individual totems).
Fire is Totem of Wrath x3, Air is Grounding x2 + Wrath of Air x1.
I also have a resist set, where Fire Resist, Cold Resist and Nature Resist are available.
I use Runescrolls for Fortitude and Drums for Mark of the Wild.
If mana were an issue, you could use Drums for Kings and then bless Wisdom on the other toons.

Pally is a simple 96969 macro.
Shammies and Lock are a basic "click".
On bosses I have the lock do Curse of the Elements (by moving that into the clicked buttons).
On AoE, move CotE out and drag my Seed of Corruption in.
On trash, its basically neither.. Immolate, Conflagrate, Chaos Bolt, Incinerate sequence.
Or sometimes the CotE is still there. It's usually CotE or SoC as the first click.
Shammies are FlameSh, Lava, Chain L, L.Bolt.

DPS is one click.
Tanking is the same click.
Heals are by clicking on the repeater region (IS Boxer).

Pretty easy to execute.
Quite a strong composition.

One thing that helped enormously when starting.
I ran dailies with the team.
And spent the gold on my tank, to gear up a bit.
Going from 21k to 27k took many heroics from very hard to a breeze.
I'm sitting closer to 38k now on the tank, but that's a mix of badge upgrades added in.
The tank is the key, for just about everything.

[Dinazzo]

hmm post not showing up i down lonar and loken in 1 minute 30 secs after i respec'd and got the glthy like the spec you showed Halls of lightning seems easy now compare to what it use to be

my tank is running out of mana thu goin to have to fix that lol

cheers and thanks
dinazzo

P.S
well after i posted this my other posts showed up sorry for the double post

[Ghallo]

Pally tanks should never have mana issues. Make sure you have Divine Plea up. It's great!

Oh, and why not Improved Devotion Aura? 6% more heals on everyone in your party is just too good to pass up. I mean, really.

A lot of people don't have it because they only remember when it was for Devo Aura only - but remember all friendlies, regardless of aura, get 6% more healing...

[Dinazzo]

hmm i have to check that and yes i do have and use divine plea

[zenga]

Pally tanks should never have mana issues. Make sure you have Divine Plea up. It's great!.

Well i used to never run out of mana ... until i geared up. Now i'm forced to use seal of wisdom for the trash, and still have to drink a lot.

[Stealthy]

Your tank spec is ok, so you shouldn't be running out of mana. Divine Plea will give you mana back, and becuase you have 2 points in Guarded By The Light, it will be refreshed each time you hit an enemy. Basically you should be popping it just before you go into combat.

It does have a 1 minute cool down however - so if the combat finishes mid way through the cooldown, you can either jump onto the next mob (if you can reach it within 15 secs - the duration of Divine Plea) or just wait until the cool down finishes before pulling your next mob.

Bottom line: Divine Plea should never drop off while in combat.

For additional mana you can also try judging Wisdom instead of Light, or subbing in a mana spring totem instead of a healing stream totem.

I would recommend changing the glyphs on your Pally however:
- drop the Holy Light glyph, you're tank should NEVER be healing (you can't dodge, parry or block while casting any spell thats not instant).
- drop the Judgement glyph - Prot paladin judgements don't do enough damage to make the Judgement glyph worthwhile.
- pick up Glyph of Divine Plea - 3% reduction in damage while Divine Plea is active makes it one of the best tanking glyphs
- replace Hammer of Justice glyph with Hammer of the Righteous glyph - having HoR hitting one extra is very handy for doing group pulls (i.e. most heroic trash).
-pick up either Seal of Vengeance or Seal of Command Glyphs - if you're not expertise capped, the 10 expertise gain from SoV will improve DPS since it lowers dodge/parry of mobs (benefits HotR and white melee damage). Alternatively the SoComm glyph gives back a nice chunk of mana with each judgement - if you're having mana problems this might be a safer bet.

Note about Seals -
Use Seal of Command on trash pulls - the cleave damage helps a lot here. Use Seal of Vengeance on bosses and any single target where combat will last longer than 20 secs. Once SoV reaches 5 stacks, it becomes the best DPS seal.

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
S

[pinotnoir]

If I make a new group I think it will be
Pally Tank
Mage
Warlock
Shaman
Priest

[Dinazzo]

yes that will help i will switch those out tomorrow my shamans seems like do twice the damage now which is great i not have 3 toons ready for heroics so i just got 2 more to gear up i have a lw so i using him to make gear and i see where it goes from there

thank you all for you help and time
cheers
Dinazzo

[Dinazzo]

hmm with me as a group it says all my toons needs better gear but if i disband 3 of my toons can do heroics
guess i need to craft higher gear

[Slats]

Arrrgh dont talk about the priest. Its so tempting to drop my blacksmith/engi ele shaman for a Priest and re-do the tradeskills. :(

Thats going to be ALOT of gold to drop tho :( Bah!

[Pallarfo]

My group combo is prot pala, holy priest, mm hunter, arcane mage and a destro lock.
Can clear almost every HC, still struggling with some movement issues.

[coldheartid]

Protection Warrior, Holy priest, Arcane Mage, Elemental Shaman and Affliction Lock, I've started doing herioc's and actually getting them cleared once I got the /click macros and complimenting specs between all these toons worked out. I have found that 5 of any class will run into a limitation problem somewhere, so I prefer the mixed group, very challenging to get setup right though.