LF Suggestions on 10 boxing comp

[Iceorbz]

So yeah -- I have no idea what I really want for characters in this but I want to give it a better shot soon I hope.

Available Characters at 80 (currently)
4 Shaman, 1 Warlock, 1 Druid, 2 Priests, 5 Paladins, 1 DK, 1 Mage,

What I'm currently unsure about is what is in the brackets, I know the ones w/o brackets are certain. I'm just trying to figure this out because I may have to move some accounts around while im doing these server transfers and want to get the most opinions and thoughts i can before i invest.

1. Tank - Paladin
2. (Tank / DPS)- (Paladin - DK - War) Here is the one im really not as sure about. Two paladins brings a good range of the seals and judgements, a paladin is also easy mode tanking. Ret isn't to bad for dps if I needed to switch either. I have a DK on an account, but i'm not sure how easy they are to manage. A warrior brings the good shouts, and when fury or arms pretty decent rotations, i think they may be less efficient in boxing compaired to a paladin. This does open the option of class gear though instead of a 2nd paladin. Something my paladin may not want, might be good for my warrior.

3. (Heal)- Disc / Holy Spec priest *certain*
4. (Heal)- If I don't use a paladin for #2, I could bring a holy paladin giving me blessings + beacon for MT healing. I would then obviously make the priest holy to handle raid heals with CoH. I just don't know how hard it would be to heal with a paladin. I can also put a druid, shaman, or another holy priest. Two holy priests covers alot of AE heals, but not as much main tank healing. The shaman can bust lots of chain heals / mt heal while helping toss some spot heals on other dps. Which is usually good since multiboxers tend to bunch up.

5. (DPS / Heal)- This is where my head begins to hurt. I have the option of whatever I don't use in slot four for healing. I wouldn't want to use the paladin as I like using casters over melee dps. So I would be left with the choice of shaman, druid, or priest. It would most likely be shaman that way I can continue to divide up buffs better.

6. (DPS)- Boomkin (or shaman, maybe as enhancement?)
7. (DPS)- Shaman
8. (DPS)- Warlock
9. (DPS)- Mage
10. (DPS)- Priest

Please give me some suggestions ! =)

[Mercurio]

Orbz,

You can see the comps I use to raid in my sig. I've soloed lower spire ICC about 40 times now. Here are some thoughts on your plan:

1. Tank - Paladin Absolutely!
2. (Tank / DPS)- (Paladin - DK - War) Here is the one im really not as sure about. Two paladins brings a good range of the seals and judgements, a paladin is also easy mode tanking. Ret isn't to bad for dps if I needed to switch either. I have a DK on an account, but i'm not sure how easy they are to manage. A warrior brings the good shouts, and when fury or arms pretty decent rotations, i think they may be less efficient in boxing compaired to a paladin. This does open the option of class gear though instead of a 2nd paladin. Something my paladin may not want, might be good for my warrior.
I've gotten my prot warr up to 5600+ GS and he still stinks compared to any of my pallies. I held out, thinking they would buff them in Cat, but was very dissapointed in the info they've released so far for warriors. When 10-boxing, your mental bandwidth is the only limiting factor. Tanking on a warrior takes way too much of that bandwidth. So I'll be retiring my warrior when Cat comes out. Also, never used my pally as ret, but there are a lot of times I've used one as a healer. I've found that converting healers into ranged DPS when only one tank is needed works out much better than trying to get DPS out of a melee. Pallies and druids are the only classes that can tank and heal, and I'm partial to the pally. And thus far, very few drops I've seen are good for warrs/DKs and not for pallies (you'd have competition anyway). So 2nd pally is definitely what I'd recommend.
3. (Heal)- Disc / Holy Spec priest *certain* Great - priests work wonderfully.
4. (Heal)- If I don't use a paladin for #2, I could bring a holy paladin giving me blessings + beacon for MT healing. I would then obviously make the priest holy to handle raid heals with CoH. I just don't know how hard it would be to heal with a paladin. I can also put a druid, shaman, or another holy priest. Two holy priests covers alot of AE heals, but not as much main tank healing. The shaman can bust lots of chain heals / mt heal while helping toss some spot heals on other dps. Which is usually good since multiboxers tend to bunch up. Another priest for dual CoH/PoH is fabulous. Resto shammies are also very nice with earth shield, the ancestral spirit (I think that's the name of the talent) thing that heals low HP toons no matter which toon you heal, and chain heal. Resto shammies also offer totems and more survivability than priests. Can't go wrong with priest/priest or priest shammy. I wouldn't recommend druids or pallies as main healers.
5. (DPS / Heal)- This is where my head begins to hurt. I have the option of whatever I don't use in slot four for healing. I wouldn't want to use the paladin as I like using casters over melee dps. So I would be left with the choice of shaman, druid, or priest. It would most likely be shaman that way I can continue to divide up buffs better. I respec my ele shaman as resto when I need three healers. Works great.
6. (DPS)- Boomkin (or shaman, maybe as enhancement?) Boomkins used to be great for MoTW and the +hit buff. Both are being removed in Cat, though the eclispe buff should be easier to manage. Just not mandatory to optimize anymore.
7. (DPS)- Shaman Three shaman aren't bad, but can be overkill. I'd suggest a hunter to soak up all that +agility gear that drops for hunters and rogues.
8. (DPS)- Warlock For sure, fabulous for summoning stones, great DPS.
9. (DPS)- Mage For sure - great DPS, simple macros.
10. (DPS)- Priest I have had no luck with shadow priest damage, even when they have good gear. Maybe it will be better in Cat. I typically run another mage or lock since their damage is so much better.

Hope this helps!

Oh, and if you ever want to see all this in action feel free to let me know and I'll bring one of your toons on my ICC runs.

[Coltimar]

My $.02 but I won't do much beyond echo what Mercurio says. Much of what I have learned I gleaned from watching him. Two pallies are the way to go. I used a paladin and a DK but found it difficult to match up their abilities of like kind (i.e. taunts, consecrate and DND). It worked and the DK was fun but I just switched to my noob, 3500 GS, pally tank for my second and it's much better. I also agree that dual speccing tank 2 as a 3rd (or 4th) healer is the better way to go. Movement and position with just one, part time, melee dps is tiresome.

Healers, I'm still undecided. I use a disc priest (tank healing) and a holy priest (AoE healing), but my best geared healer is a resto shaman. I love shammy healing. I may got with holy x2 just for the synergy. One thing I have learned from 10 boxing is simpler is better.

I am using my boomkin for his buffs until Cata but I'll be replacing him with a second mage.

I may have 3 elemental shaman in my raid, but now I have just two.

Double warlocks are nice! I'm even tempted to make one affliction but they are both destruction now.

I don't agree with the hunter thing only because I can't make it work. Regardless of spec my hunter barely out dps's my tank and constantly does stupid things to wipe my raids. If I could make him work I would keep him but I can't.

Another opinion, paladin healers are kind of tough to box. If he is only spamming heals on the tank it could work but two priests or priest/shaman have worked much better for me (my 2nd tank was a healer).

Same with Shadow Priests for me. They bring Misery to a raid, in more ways than one . . . Low dps, mana troubles and no synergy with my group makeup.

I am a permanoob at 10 boxing but I've been plugging at it for a while. Let me know if I can help :/

P.S. Mercurio, did you post your setup somewhere? You mentioned that you might do it sometime but I haven't seen it.

[zenga]

No one to give you better advice than mercurio obviously. But have you considered dual-specs to
a) make better use of loot drops
b) give you flexibility depending on the encounter.

I'm thinking about
- ele / resto shaman
- pallie as 2nd tank with healing for 'static fights'
- druid tank + boomkin (cover leather drops) + eventually a 3rd spec as resto (mobility ..)

[Iceorbz]

Orbz,

You can see the comps I use to raid in my sig. I've soloed lower spire ICC about 40 times now. Here are some thoughts on your plan:

1. Tank - Paladin Absolutely!
2. (Tank / DPS)- (Paladin - DK - War) Here is the one im really not as sure about. Two paladins brings a good range of the seals and judgements, a paladin is also easy mode tanking. Ret isn't to bad for dps if I needed to switch either. I have a DK on an account, but i'm not sure how easy they are to manage. A warrior brings the good shouts, and when fury or arms pretty decent rotations, i think they may be less efficient in boxing compaired to a paladin. This does open the option of class gear though instead of a 2nd paladin. Something my paladin may not want, might be good for my warrior.
I've gotten my prot warr up to 5600+ GS and he still stinks compared to any of my pallies. I held out, thinking they would buff them in Cat, but was very dissapointed in the info they've released so far for warriors. When 10-boxing, your mental bandwidth is the only limiting factor. Tanking on a warrior takes way too much of that bandwidth. So I'll be retiring my warrior when Cat comes out. Also, never used my pally as ret, but there are a lot of times I've used one as a healer. I've found that converting healers into ranged DPS when only one tank is needed works out much better than trying to get DPS out of a melee. Pallies and druids are the only classes that can tank and heal, and I'm partial to the pally. And thus far, very few drops I've seen are good for warrs/DKs and not for pallies (you'd have competition anyway). So 2nd pally is definitely what I'd recommend.
3. (Heal)- Disc / Holy Spec priest *certain* Great - priests work wonderfully.
4. (Heal)- If I don't use a paladin for #2, I could bring a holy paladin giving me blessings + beacon for MT healing. I would then obviously make the priest holy to handle raid heals with CoH. I just don't know how hard it would be to heal with a paladin. I can also put a druid, shaman, or another holy priest. Two holy priests covers alot of AE heals, but not as much main tank healing. The shaman can bust lots of chain heals / mt heal while helping toss some spot heals on other dps. Which is usually good since multiboxers tend to bunch up. Another priest for dual CoH/PoH is fabulous. Resto shammies are also very nice with earth shield, the ancestral spirit (I think that's the name of the talent) thing that heals low HP toons no matter which toon you heal, and chain heal. Resto shammies also offer totems and more survivability than priests. Can't go wrong with priest/priest or priest shammy. I wouldn't recommend druids or pallies as main healers.
5. (DPS / Heal)- This is where my head begins to hurt. I have the option of whatever I don't use in slot four for healing. I wouldn't want to use the paladin as I like using casters over melee dps. So I would be left with the choice of shaman, druid, or priest. It would most likely be shaman that way I can continue to divide up buffs better. I respec my ele shaman as resto when I need three healers. Works great.
6. (DPS)- Boomkin (or shaman, maybe as enhancement?) Boomkins used to be great for MoTW and the +hit buff. Both are being removed in Cat, though the eclispe buff should be easier to manage. Just not mandatory to optimize anymore.
7. (DPS)- Shaman Three shaman aren't bad, but can be overkill. I'd suggest a hunter to soak up all that +agility gear that drops for hunters and rogues.
8. (DPS)- Warlock For sure, fabulous for summoning stones, great DPS.
9. (DPS)- Mage For sure - great DPS, simple macros.
10. (DPS)- Priest I have had no luck with shadow priest damage, even when they have good gear. Maybe it will be better in Cat. I typically run another mage or lock since their damage is so much better.

Hope this helps!

Oh, and if you ever want to see all this in action feel free to let me know and I'll bring one of your toons on my ICC runs.

Merc, I would kill to go along with you. I really would =p. Lemme know when you normally run it man so we can do that.

[Iceorbz]

Alright so what ive come down to is

1. Paladin (tank only)
2. Paladin (tank - *Holy or Ret*)
3. Disc / Holy Priest
4. Restoration Shaman
5. Priest (shadow / Holy)
6. Shaman (Elemental)
7. Boomkin
8. Shaman (Elemental)
9. Mage
10. Warlock

I wouldn't mind doing dual priest healers, and im considering it. That means my warlock has to be destruction to provide replenishment. That's one of the big things im looking at is getting the max amount of buffs I can to, using the imp would also give more group hp's.

[Maxion]

Alright so what ive come down to is

1. Paladin (tank only)
2. Paladin (tank - *Holy or Ret*)
3. Disc / Holy Priest
4. Restoration Shaman
5. Priest (shadow / Holy)
6. Shaman (Elemental)
7. Boomkin
8. Shaman (Elemental)
9. Mage
10. Warlock

I wouldn't mind doing dual priest healers, and im considering it. That means my warlock has to be destruction to provide replenishment. That's one of the big things im looking at is getting the max amount of buffs I can to, using the imp would also give more group hp's.

Mage could go frost for replenishment, but yes, the warlock going destruction would be better, and is the easiest of the warlock specs to macro efficiently if you are using /click.