Two healers, two damage dealers, one tank

[wonz]

Hi,

i thought about another general pve group composition for cataclysm.

Healers lose lots of their power come cataclysm, and it probably would help to change the historic model from 3 dd, 1 tank, 1 healer to two healers, two damage dealers and one tank.

I think i will go with two resto shamans or, better, druids, two ele shamans and a warrior tank.

I would also add the healers to damage rotations until the tank takes a lot of damage.

Any concerns?

[Khatovar]

I really don't think Blizzard would exacerbate the healer problem by designing 5man content that requires 2 healers. From everything I've read the key is negating damage by CC, not by sacrificing damage and trying to outheal. In the long run, I imagine the loss of DPS will make things worse on survivability than better.

[Powerwar]

That's the way I did my first heroics when my team hit lvl 80.

Instead of buying gear and stuff like that I just made 2 resto shamans, 2 ele shamans and a protadin tank.
With green gear and 17k HP fully buffed tank I was able to down practically all the heroics without problem. The extra healing and absolutely no mana problems (2 x resto shaman mana totems) did excelent work.

Then I switched to a tank, a healer and 3 elementals. Have bind a LHW --> tank on the elementals and when the healer needed some backup the 3 extra LHW did the work.

Then after the tank got properly geared I started running around with 4 elementals and rarely needed a 4 x LHW in heroics, even on boss fights. 3 x healing totems + 1 x mana totem + judgement of light were enough passive heleaing for my tank.

Not sure how will that work in 4.x patch because I have stopped playing since before the patch, but I guess you will find the same mechanic and progression because Blizzard cannot change that much the usual way instances are done.

[Mooni]

Survivability is always good. Would you consider maybe adding a shadow priest to your present healer? Then you get some passive healing to kinda top everyone off.

[Ualaa]

I think it's a decent idea to experiment with.

I would probably go with a hybrid DPS/Healer spec on one of the healers.
Or potentially on both.
So you have the option to heal with either or both, and can still do some DPS with them too.

I'd personally rather have multiple healing classes then the same.
If you want two healers, consider Resto Shaman (Earth Shield) + Resto Druid or Disc Priest.

Or just stick with the model: 1x Tank, 1x Heals, 3x DPS.
But pick DPS toons who have healing capability or buff the healer in some way (Innervate, Mana Spring, Replenishment, etc).

[BrothelMeister]

As it is now, 4 Ele Shaman can already pump out INSANE heals compared to any single healer, while still Obviously being able to deal INSANE damage, and burst, compared to a 3 DPS team.

[Mooni]

So while I was frolicking about with my new 80 mage on the team (who already out-DPSs my hunter) I thought about your potential set-up here.
Everyone's saying that Crowd Control is some kind of big deal in cataclysm. The other thing we've heard from the dev side is that there's no more huge AoE pulls, that you'll be fighting no more than 3-4 enemies per group.
What does it all meeeeeeean?

Two scenarios come to mind.
1: Those hellish caster-pulls in Forge of Souls.
2: Those Commander pulls in Ruby Sanctum.

1) Why would these demand crowd control? Well you've got 4 casters spread out in a huge X. They're probably at 10.1 yards so you can't hit all of them with a single consecration or thunderstomp or whatever. You can hope to silence one with an avenger's shield pull, then another you can run up and punch, after cooking one in consecration, but by now you're healing and the 4th one is going to start targetting your healer(s).
2) If you've never been, there's these commanders that absolutely need to be crowd controlled. They do some kind of crazy buff to their underlings. Luckily they're dragonkin so you have a couple of options; I forget what those are, but druids can hibernate dragonkin. So you have a druid hibernate and use their super-scamper kittyhamster power, and you use Righteous Defense to taunt the 3 chasing dragons off of them.
I mention this because there is another way, if for some reason in your group of 10 people you have no one who can control a dragonkin: You just need someone to tank the commander 30+ yards away.

TL; DR: Off-tanking is also a legit form of crowd control, and if you go double healers I might go double tanks. (I kinda do already with the BM hunter)

[Mooni]

There is a third possibility too, as to why they say "Crowd control is kind of a big deal":
What if THEY start crowd-controlling US? I wouldn't mind having a second healer in that kind of situation, like when Anub'arak gets a Pound in on your new tank, or Bronjahm sends your healer screaming at 380% runspeed out of the fight area.
I think I want a full hybrid team now! Like a druid tank with 4 ret pallies, or something.

[Ualaa]

A dedicated healer, ie Resto Druid/Shaman or Holy Priest/Paladin receives the extra decurse on a friendly target, which the DPS specs do not get.

Not sure how important the removal of magical effects (Resto Druid, Resto Shaman and Holy Pally) or poison (Holy Priest) will be, and if you'll miss this ability without the dedicated healer type.

My PvE team has been: 1x Prot. Pally, 1x Demo. Warlock, 3x Elem. Shaman. While three shammies has not had an issues healing all 5-man content to date, they will miss out on a decurse effect which a resto would not.

[Zub]

I'm happy with my mixed team, all dual specced.

in 'normal' mode, paly tank, shaman, druid, mage as caster dps, and priest heals
If I need 2 healers, the shaman can help the priest
if i need 2 tanks, the druid can help the paladin
if i need 4 dps, the priest can go pewpew
The mage.. well the mage just pewpews and makes food.

I've already used all the above combinations in wrath and i know they work depending on the encounter.
Not too worried about Cata, that team has lots of CC (pretty much all mob types)

[Mooni]

Solid plan, Zub. Mine is similar, except I'm... Impatience-specced!
So same team as yours but added a hunter and bumped the druid. The concept is: Crusader Aura, Aspect of the Pack, Heroism, Portals, and I forget what the priest does (although her speed-boosting bubbles (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=64129)are pretty cool)

[Zub]

Solid plan, Zub. Mine is similar, except I'm... Impatience-specced!
So same team as yours but added a hunter and bumped the druid. The concept is: Crusader Aura, Aspect of the Pack, Heroism, Portals, and I forget what the priest does (although her speed-boosting bubbles (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=64129)are pretty cool)
heh i'm leveling my hunter as we speak (73atm) but i think i'll keep the druid. The cast sequence now is very easy (thanks Mercurio) and i like having Hurricane, Blizzard and Earthquake on top of each other :-)
Plus possibility of tanking/healing, Brez, innervate, stam buff (allowing the pally might) and the crit buff, it's just too much to pass on it

[Sbrowne55]

I was running 2 healers when I was undergeared for heroics. It def works better. It will probably help a great deal for some of the harder heroics in cata. As long as it's not some sort of gauntlet type part like HOR.