New 10 man, trying to decide what group setup for PvE

[Mokoi]

OK, So I have decided to take the plunge, and at least try 10 mans with some toons that I have and if needed lvling new toons on my shiny new 5 RAF accounts.

I have the following toons:

Tanks:
Paladin - 5.5k GS
DK - 4.3k GS
Druid - 4.1k GS

Healers:
Priest - 4.8k GS
Druid - 4.8k GS
Shaman - 5.4k GS (mostly PvP unfortunately, but can be fixed)

DPS:

Shamans
Boomkins
DKs
Paladins
Priests
Locks
Hunters

I want to make the team now, and get practiced up for Cata, so when I am 85, I can jump into current content at least with a sporting chance of getting some success.

The problem is, i have no Mages or Rogues, which seem to make up a large percentage of CC these days, on top of their ridiculous DPS, and they plan to make CC non-optional or, at least more important in Cata, which I have to keep in mind. I also only have hunters at lvl 70, which I think I need at least a hunter or rogue for mis-direct to be moderatly successful? or at least for the buffer threat to ensure my healers don't get bounced?

The team I had planned out is:

Pally Tank
DK / Bear tank

Priest Healer
Druid Healer

Ele Shaman - Offspec resto
Ele shaman
Lock
Lock
Boomkin
Hunter


all ranged DPS and healers save for the tanks.

Has anyone had any luck 10-boxing melee in raids? would that be ridiculously impossible? probable? good? anyone have any clues? I have more melee DPS than I do ranged, but it seems much safer to go ranged.

If anyone asks, the reason i don't try both out, is that I would have to xfer more toons from the first 5 to the second 5 accounts, and I am trying to limit how outrageously expensive this gets, much to its inevitable expensiveness.

Also, bear or DK tank? Who can tell me about this and which they figure would be easier to macro and manage?

[Kedash00]

there are some good videos of people doing random 10 man raids in the PVE section on the forums.

I was wondering when bliz would make CC a "needed" factor again, sucks cause i got used to running in and aoeing the shit outta everything, seems to be much easier the way it is now for us.

I guess it's time to pull out those old macros and round robin again :(

[Mokoi]

yeah, I was more interested in seeing what people thought about, the people with the videos included, based on their experience. I have seen the videos, thanks :P

[Ualaa]

I would think a bear tank would be easier then a deathknight tank, at least looking at warcraft from the perspective of the current expansion. But a click castsequence certainly works for a DK.

You already have a druid healer in your proposed groups, so the buffs are already present.

I like the idea of essentially two five man groups: Tank, Healer and 3x DPS. And one of your DPS can dual-spec to be the 3rd healer.

From a loot perspective:
- Plate: Pally Tank, possible DK Tank.
- Mail: Shaman x2, Hunter.
- Leather: Possible Bear, Druid Healer, Druid Boomkin.
- Cloth: Priest, Warlock x2

The composition is predominantly caster based, I don't see a huge difference between a Bear and a DK. If you go with the DK, you end up with 2x Plate and 2x Leather users. But the Bear would be the only user of melee leather anyway.

Possibly change one of the Warlocks to a Mage, for Arcane Intellect and an easier CC option. Plus portals and summoned food.

[Theradin]

When I started 10-boxing I used a DK tank and paladin tank. I discarded the DK tank and have never regretted it - the tanking style is just too proactive and not very macro friendly. Plus you won't need two tanks for every situation, DK's only offer a melee off-spec, and that may be an added liability. I have no experience with druid tanks, but on the surface they seem viable depending on how well rage works with a macro, not to mention they can be used for either healing or ranged DPS when not tanking. As I have no experience with them as tanks, I can't make any statement on whether or not their threat cycle is macroable.

For healing, you'll want two main healers and an optional third healer. I find it best if the third healer can work off of a macro that you can forget about, something that focuses on the main tank, but that's just my preferred style. I like the idea of matched healers for the two main healers - for example a pair of priests for their excellent AoE healing capabilities. I see no immediate problem with shamans and paladins as multibox raid healers, but I don't have experience with them in that capacity. Druids would be my last choice for healers. Much like DKs for tanking, druid healing seems more proactive in nature and that additional level of management is something to avoid.

Finally, for DPS, I'd try to cover all major buffs. Stick entirely to ranged else you'll be dealing with added mechanics in many fights and that will be ...annoying. All classes are viable to some degree, but my opinion is that hunters and shadow priests come with the most severe limitations. Shadow priests are disadvantageous because their DPS cycle has an overly lengthy ramp up time and one of their core abilities ( mind flay ) will consistently break auto-follow and change your character's orientation. Hunters are a bit worse - in addition to a pet, which will potentially soak up healing and die alot, hunters also consistently break auto-follow and change character orientation. They have proactive threat management, and a limitation on the range of their attack. They also don't have a very synergetic relationship with other ranged DPS given their damage is physical.

All of the DPS classes also come with limitations, but with the experience I've had, the two classes above are the only two that make me want to avoid them at all costs. As an added caveat, I can only relate what I've actually tried, experiences may vary. What works for me may not work well for other people, I'm far from an expert on multibox group composition. I wouldn't have thought a melee group was viable for 5-boxing, but people have proven me wrong many times over.

With the group you've planned out, I might suggest dropping a druid, taking one of your DPS priests and converting it to healing. Drop the hunter and replace it with either another warlock, moonkin or shaman. If you don't mind leveling another character, I'd replace the druid tank with another paladin for the additional blessing and aura offered.

[Mokoi]

Hmm, thanks a bunch for your ideas, I understand!

About the priests, you think that 2 priests would be superior to a priest and Paladin, or priest and shaman main healer?

2 Paladins may be much better, and the double Pally buff does sound nice.. maybe I will convert one of my rets into a ret / tank.

I understand the Druid healer problem, and that sounds like a good thing to drop. So maybe I will go Priest / Shaman for main healers and add a second shaman when required, or even a Tree for 3 healing, just rotating between hots on tank and WG on raid on clique press.

The reason I am unsure about 2 priest healers as main healers, is that Synergy in priests is only really on aoe heals, and that's fine but bubble doesn't stack, and the only other spell which would be useful would be PoM which already bounces. Seems like a Resto shaman for the Chain bounce on 2 tanks and the set it and forget it earth shield, plus mana tide totem would be really nice.

So, a plan to change raid as such:

Tanks:
Pally
Pally (with a DPS on same acoount to swap in for single-tank encounters)

Healers:
Priest
Shaman

DPS:
Shaman
Shaman
Boomkin (offspec Healer)
Boomkin
Lock
Lock
Mage

[Theradin]

Hmm, thanks a bunch for your ideas, I understand!

About the priests, you think that 2 priests would be superior to a priest and Paladin, or priest and shaman main healer?


I like it, I wouldn't want to try without, but I could just be being resistant to change. I'm not sure I can answer your question because it's something that may come down to personal playstyle.

For me, the #1 challenge to overcome in 10-boxing has been keeping the raid itself alive and healthy. The bulk of my attention goes into healing - I'd say 70% attention there and 30% everywhere else. Most of my wipes occur when I fail at healing, usually due to being too distracted to pay enough attention to it or getting overwhelmed, so keeping the complexity down has been a priority for me. But again, this could just be me; the playstyle I've become accustomed to is one that puts heavy weight on the healers and it may not be best. My motto has kind of been "why use finesse when you can just heal through it". Other ten boxers might be able to give you better advice.

Second opinion, any other 10-boxers?

[Darm]

The bulk of my attention goes into healing - I'd say 70% attention there and 30% everywhere elseI think this is true, and it might even be 80/20.

DPS is just about assisting and keeping a nice steady rhythm on your DPS macro. Tanking is practically the same thing, and I'd argue it's smart to have the DPS and tank macros all combined into one macro/keypress. The tank might have to do some repositioning every now and then.

But, yeah, I agree that most of my attention is spent on healing. A 10boxer's most precious resource is his attention, and healing takes up a lot of it. I think it makes sense that "smart heals" should really pay off. Shaman and priests are probably at the top of this list.

I'm not sure how far paladins and druids fall behind. WIld Growth is just an awesome spell, in my 25 man raids when I play solo on my resto druid, I spam Wild Growth every time it is off cooldown. On the other hand, puttin rejuv on raid targets in a 10man box environmen consumes quite abit of the 10boxer's attention.

Paladins naturally are a single target healers, but I'm wondering if the two-for-1 effect you can get with beacon of light makes them worth considering. If you remember to put Beacon on the tank every 90 seconds, then you might be ok with it.

I'm running a druid + resto shaman as part of my two man team, but I'm having second thoughts about this. I suspect that perhaps the most ready "out of the box" healer configuration for a 10 man team would be some combination of shaman or priest. That's assuming only two healers. If going with three healers there are probably a lot of configurations that might work, but it might be kinda complicated and if you select three different healing classes one of them might end up being underutilized.

[Ualaa]

Blues have posted, Beacon will likely only work with the fast/expensive Flash of Light heal, in Cataclysm. Two for One healing will be too strong with efficient heals.

I know you can macro Rejuvenation, to hit the entire party. I'd imagine it wouldn't be overly difficult to set up macros which HOT the entire raid. Not sure on the boxing side, but a lot of PvE one-box raids have so many healers on the tank and the rest on the raid. It might be an idea to go with one raid healer and one tank healer, and perhaps a third healer option for when a second tank is required. This is of course speculation, as I don't 10-box.

Two Paladins will have sufficient buffs to hit everyone with blessings. But I don't think only two pallies could cover all of the auras, although two should be plenty for most encounters. Healing options are: Druid, Paladin, Priest and Shaman. All of these bring a decent DPS spec, although the Paladin has to be melee if they're not a healer. Having the option of dual-spec for some of your toons is a decent idea. Most of the time, you'll need two tanks, two healers and six DPS, but sometimes more healing or less tanking.

Overall, I would try to balance so you have all the raid type buffs between your toons. After that, ideally you would have an even number of toons using each type of drop.

[Mosg2]

Based off of all their statements regarding class changes in Cata I *really* think you should wait about a month before you start looking at what exact setup you'd like. Yes, right now Priests make great 10 box healers and Paladins make great tanks... But everything they've announced indicates that *every* healing class is going to function for the most part similarly. Same with tanks. They don't want tanks that just spam 6/9/6/9 and they don't want healers just tab-hotting.

That having been said, I agree that a ranged team is going to be about 5x easier to handle than a caster team :)

[TheFailTrain]

I am currently 10 boxing and I would have to agree with TheRadin that priest healers are very powerful. They have PoM and CoH for fire and forget group healing. Also if your raid is all casters then they will most likely all be piled up on each other which makes holy nova x2 very powerful.

Another reason to go with matching tanks and healers is from a management perspective. When you jump to 10 boxing the amount of time you spend researching specs / gear and setting characters up is incredible. LOL looking back is sort of wish that I went with 2 pallys, 2 priests, and six shammys just so it didn't take hours making changes to my team after every patch.

[Mokoi]

haha true.

I'm not too worried about Cata, as I have so many 80's it is easy to pick and gear the toons I want at lvl 85, for now I am only interested in Wotlk raids, and using the time left in Wrath to practice for raiding in Cata, and as we all know the dynamics of the game will change a lot, I have made sure I have one of almost every major class I am interested in at 80.

Holy Nova x 2 is a great idea, and while I like the idea of a resto shaman for the shield and chain heals, I think you may be right with the priests, easy to macro the tank heals, and for single tank encounters, a disc priest and a holy priest would be pretty nice. 2x PoM is pretty Op too I guess hehe.

OK, I am still thinking about 3 healing most of my first encounters, so I can see how my shaman keeps up with the priests.

Thanks for the input guys! Keep it incoming, lets hear from the guy with the paladin healer, what does he think? I have a lot of paladins, and I could easily get 2 pally tanks and a pally healer as well.. although they don't bring near the same tools that a priest brings...

So, maybe I will go with 2 Pally Tanks, 2 Priest Healers, 3 Locks, 2 Shamans and a Boomkin.

Oh, also.. I hate mages, anyone else have a healthy hatred of this terrible class? XD haha i don't know why I hate them.. i just do.. yuck!

[zenga]

Oh, also.. I hate mages, anyone else have a healthy hatred of this terrible class? XD haha i don't know why I hate them.. i just do.. yuck!

not as much as rogues, but i feel you

[TheFailTrain]

Thanks for the input guys! Keep it incoming, lets hear from the guy with the paladin healer, what does he think? I have a lot of paladins, and I could easily get 2 pally tanks and a pally healer as well.. although they don't bring near the same tools that a priest brings...

The only healer that I have ever used has been a priest. I don't think that any of the current 10 boxers are using pallys as healers. That being said you should give it a try if you want. You have tons of time until Cata comes out and since you have so many level 80s it might be worth giving it a shot. I know that if I had more than 10 level 80s I would be mixing and matching to try and find the comp that works best for me.

I think that your group comp looks good even without a mage lol.

[Mokoi]

yeah, I think I don't need a mage right now, and if I do in cata, ill just lvl one.

I hate mages though, id rather bring a pug mage than own one of my own (apart from my going to destroy BGs mage team of 10 mages... of course XD hahaha)

[Mercurio]

I have three 10-box teams up and running ATM. Last week they all downed VoA10 and Marrowgar :D

Their class make-ups are as follows:
Team Mag: 2 prot pallies, 1 holy priest, 1 resto shaman, 2 locks, 2 ele shammies, 1 hunter, 1 boomkin
Team Pant: 2 prot pallies, 1 holy priest, 1 resto shaman, 1 lock, 2 ele shammies, 1 hunter, 1 boomkin, 1 mage
Team Merc: 1 prot pally, 1holy priest, 1 resto shaman, 2 locks, 2 ele shammies, 1 hunter, 1 boomkin, 1 prot warrior

As you can see, I've moved toons around a bit to be hitting close to the same composition with each.

As Cata approaches, my goals are:
1) to continue to push into more bosses in ICC (at least through Rotface)
2) complete some professions for the 5-6 toons above that don't have professions maxxed
3) level up another team of 5 from 70 to 80 to give myself options for team tweaks

In regards to 3), I'm going to level up a team of 1 prot pally, 2 holy priests, and 2 mages. You can guess who the prot pally may replace :p, the priests might be replacements for a couple of the resto shammies (at least I want the option of doing so), and the mages may replace the boomkins or possibly hunters depending on how Cata comes out.

I like my healing setup now too - for healing-intense fights like Marrowgar I convert one ele shammy to resto, then just have one resto shammy healing each tank and cover raid heals with the priest. However, healing is sooo important that I want options if healing rain turns out to suck or something.

As for DPS, my mage and warlocks are consistently my top DPS. An equally geared mage may even edge the locks, and arcane mage rotations are stupid simple, hence the mages as options.

Hope that helps you as you think things through.

BTW, misdirect from the hunters is the way I start all my fights, then I can just go balls to the wall from the beginning.

[Mokoi]

Awesome, thanks for your advice, Merc =)

I like the idea of having good DPS from mages, but I really just don't want to play one, so I am going to use locks, I think. Also, hunters don't appeal to me, and don't seem to sync up with the raid, how is your hunters damage?

What spec do you run your warlocks? and can you link or explain your rotations on your locks and boomkins?

thanks for everyones help. I have my team setup as follows for now, until my other locks hit 80:

2 prot pallies, 2 holy priests, 3 elemental shaman (one resto for now until my priests gear gets much better), 2 boomkins and one lock. My plan is to replace one boomkin and one shaman with 2 more locks, but they aren't 80 yet so I have to wait on that.

[Mercurio]

Sounds like a very solid team.

I spec my locks Destruction. You can check out the spec by looking up Vampirah on US Kil'Jaeden. My locks have two destro specs - one for more damage and +hit and one for replinishment. The rotation is a bit complex, but not too bad.

My hunters' DPS is very solid, though the macros are the most complex of any I've written. Some fights they end up at the top of the charts. That's running them Survival, so replinishment is automatic with that spec. Lack of gear competition, misdirect, and one more fun class to try to optimize are the main reasons I like having one in each group.

My boomkins are very hit-and-miss DPS-wise. This is because of the weird Eclipse proc, which I ignore. Basically just /castsequence Wrath, Wrath, Starfire besides the Insect Swarm and Moonfire attacks. One button spam for my tanks and all my DPS is all I use - way too much going on as a 10-boxer to try to manage Eclipse procs. So most of the time the Boomies are at the bottom of my DPS, though sometimes they get lucky and end up at the top. I really like having one boomkin for each of my 10-man teams since they give the +3% hit buff to the whole team. That's a TON of extra DPS I can get for instead of hit. However, Blizz has stated that this is going away in Cataclysm, hence my thought of possibly dropping my boomies for mages. One bright note is that Blizz also stated that they believe the Eclipse proc is responsible for way too much of their damage ATM and plan to reduce the effect of Eclipse timing in Cataclysm.

I'm in San Diego this week for work, so don't have access to WoW or macros. if you'd like me to send you my rotations, just hit me up next week.

[Mokoi]

Thanks, I'm sure ill see you in-game too we can chat more =)

[TheFailTrain]

I have 3 warlocks one of each spec. In my experience the affliction lock does the most over all damage but the damage is slow to ramp up so in short fights he is pretty much useless. Destro does comparable damage to affliction but the damage falls off a lot when you have a lot of movement. Destro also brings replenishment so if you don't have any other toons that can bring it Destro is the way to go. Now the real only benefit for speccing demo is the Spell damage buff you get. In order to put up dps numbers like afflic/destro you will need to manage when to use Meta and also soul fires after 25%.

As for Boomkin VS mage.... Hands down the mage wins on dps every time because of the way eclipse works. Also you can't beat how easy it is to macro a frost mage. /click icey veins, /click mirror image, /cast frostbolt... win.

Also if you have any questions I am on kil'jaeden as well so feel free to send me a whisper.

My guild name is <Mouth Breathers> and my 2 tanks (the best toons to send whispers and get a response) are prtiqul and saaphyri.

[Mokoi]

Yeah, I am looking at replacing my second Boomkin with another class, and I still haven't decided between Mage and another lock, but I think I would like a mage for the AI buff, extra CC and the extreme DPS.

[Mokoi]

Has anyone tried to run their priests or one priest as a disc bubble spammer? I read on many forums about the disc priests who use their GCD bubble to spam on raids and keep raid dmg in check

This may prove to be a good source of healing if the bubbles get used enough while up.. what do you guys think?

[Mokoi]

Has anyone tried to run their priests or one priest as a disc bubble spammer? I read on many forums about the disc priests who use their GCD bubble to spam on raids and keep raid dmg in check

This may prove to be a good source of healing if the bubbles get used enough while up.. what do you guys think?


hey, I tested this on Saphhrion this week, with one of my priests solely doing a simple nmacro for making sure everyone is bubbled:


/targetraid
/cast Power Word: Shield

I ignored all the tank healing (since I have 3 healers) and didn't even bother with anything but holy nova and prayer of healing matching my other priests aoe party healing.

It worked very well, I still didn't kill Saph (because I wasn't really making a serious attempt, just having a good test) and the raid dmg was considerably lower, and barely did anyone ever take any damage at all except the tank and of course when the ice blocks would decimate my ranged crew lol. But overall, a good test of Disc priest no-brainer spamming bubbles on everyone without the weakened soul debuff.

[Stabface]

I can't see bringing more than 1 Shaman in an all-caster raid, to be honest. They bring these buffs:
Bloodlust/Heroism, no replacement (yet)
Wrath of Air Totem, no replacement (yet)
Elemental Oath = Boomkin Aura
Mana Spring = Blessing of Wisdom
Totem of Wrath surpassed by Demonic Pact + Heart of the Crusader
Ancestral Healing = Inspiration

Everything else is pretty much of minor use (Strength of Earth, helps tanks dodge I guess). Really it's that Ele DPS is sub-par

I am thinking about this group comp:

Prot/Holy Paladin
Prot/Ret Paladin
Holy/Disc Priest
Holy/Shadow Priest
Resto/Ele Shaman
Boomkin/Tree
Demo/Afflic Lock
Destro/Afflic Lock
Arcane/Frost Mage
Arcane/Fire Mage


Still contemplating the what exact mix of ele/boomkin/mage/lock and how many of each... it's hard to limit class/spec and still get all the buffs.

[Mokoi]

Yeah, I am still going with 1 Elemental shaman and one Resto / Ele off spec at least until my toons get enough Gear I can switch one healer to DPS most of the time.