5-box with many armour types?

[Destahd]

Looking to upgrade from 2->5

I'm not keen on leaving so much loot to rot due to being the wrong classes, or having to farm repeatedly to gear the same class (is this really an issue, or am I psyching myself out over nothing?)

I'm looking at an all Blood Elf group to boot, as I don't like the greens or the furries. ;)

Any specific problems I'd encounter with the following:

Warrior/Paladin
Priest
Mage
Mage
Warlock

Any suggestions on diversity? This is quite a bit cloth-heavy, which sort of defeats my own idea, but seems like a reasonably viable group if I drive the warrior (meaning the others are reasonably macroable.)

If I suck it up and do race mixing, I could do something like:

Warrior/Paladin
Priest
Shaman
Druid
Mage

That'd give me the gear diversity I like, but I'd have to go green to do it.

Thoughts/suggestions on possible issues I'd/ll encounter?

Thanks

[Khatovar]

Loot never rots if you have someone to DE it. At least that's my philosophy. DE > Sell Mats > Buy gear I can use.

Really, gear is rarely a problem. If you go with the first group, make a tailor who can supply everyone with bits and pieces while you're waiting for drops, or in place of drops since a lot of the crafted gear can be really nice.

If you go with a mixed group, you might have better chances for gear drops, but you also might have to spend more time trying to farm different places to get gear. You'll certainly have to spend time farming up various reps to get things like head enchants. And if you do want some crafted gear, you'll have to either increase the number of crafters you bring up {LW, BS, Tailor} or pay someone else's prices for it.

But like I said, gearing is the least of my concerns when deciding on a team. You're going to have crap loot sometimes no matter what the team is.

[thefunk]

Loot never rots if you have someone to DE it. At least that's my philosophy. DE > Sell Mats > Buy gear I can use.

Really, gear is rarely a problem. If you go with the first group, make a tailor who can supply everyone with bits and pieces while you're waiting for drops, or in place of drops since a lot of the crafted gear can be really nice.

If you go with a mixed group, you might have better chances for gear drops, but you also might have to spend more time trying to farm different places to get gear. You'll certainly have to spend time farming up various reps to get things like head enchants. And if you do want some crafted gear, you'll have to either increase the number of crafters you bring up {LW, BS, Tailor} or pay someone else's prices for it.

But like I said, gearing is the least of my concerns when deciding on a team. You're going to have crap loot sometimes no matter what the team is.


I agree with this post. I have pally/shammy/lock/mage/druid and if you have enchanter, bs and LW you're sorted. In any case mixed groups are more complex to run than groups with the same class.

[traedoril]

I actually prefer the class diferences.

My main team is Prot pally, Resto druid, Hunter, Mage, Rogue.

My secondary team is Prot warrior, Disc Priest, Warlock, Ele Sham, Mage

The cast sequence macro's are pretty simple to setup and with ISBoxer's 2 step abilities I can handle procs without switching toons.

[confusedtx5]

With the new RAF groups I'm in the process of leveling (inc a 4x shammy team), I'm actually finding that the majority of my gear is coming from the quests at the start of the instances. since you get the same stuff to choose from for each toon, armor types doesn't seem to be an issue.
Though, if u run 4x shammys then u can always wear leather/cloth. The damage difference isn't noticeable much until around lv80 or above.

[smalltanker]

Another good option blending your original one and maintaining ranged is:

Warrior (tank)
Paladin
Priest
Mage
Hunter

So you still have 4 of 5 ranged (I like shockadins) but you can as an option go with a ret for some 2H action. Two plates, two cloth and a leather/mail wearer.

[Kel]

I'm currently leveling Warrior, Priest, Mage, Lock and Shaman so I've got a little more variety. Other than most of the caster stuff in the range I'm at (68-74) having spirit on (there's even a quest that rewards a choice of two caster rings, both with spirit) I've not had trouble keeping my clothies at a reasonable gear level. This might become more of an issue at max level, but most upgrades will be coming from J/VP anyway so I don't think shared loot is such a problem. Even if you have a mixed gear group, once you've had the item drop once it is no longer useful (e.g. I keep getting the same mail gloves from the first boss in Nexus). I've got an enchanter in my group so even at max level any unusable items will still serve a purpose.

If I didn't have two already I'd be tempted to switch my Lock for a Moonkin, but that's more about buffs and the Lock's poor dps than sharing loot around.

I'd switch a mage (mine does nice dps though) or the lock for a hunter or shaman to provide more buffs to your group. Hunters are pretty versatile with their different pets and you could keep to Belfs. I've got one in my low level group (40ish) and she does pretty decent dps when I remember to keep her at range, my solo max level hunter also performs well.

[Destahd]

I ended up going with:

Paladin
Warlock
Mage
Priest
Hunter

As that was what the blood elves could come up with.

I am finding it quite tough, to be honest and am seriously considering sucking it up and making an all-orc, Warrior+4 Shamans, or blood elf paladin+4 Shamans (or 3 Shamans and a Druid.)

At 23 the holy priest struggles to keep the group alive. Single target damage/heals are easy enough, but zero aoe healing at this stage sucks. This might get better at higher levels, but I'll be behind on gear for awhile.

I'll keep going on this group for awhile longer, at least long enough to get the priest to smite spam heal and see how that works out instead...

[traedoril]

I ended up going with:

Paladin
Warlock
Mage
Priest
Hunter

As that was what the blood elves could come up with.

I am finding it quite tough, to be honest and am seriously considering sucking it up and making an all-orc, Warrior+4 Shamans, or blood elf paladin+4 Shamans (or 3 Shamans and a Druid.)

At 23 the holy priest struggles to keep the group alive. Single target damage/heals are easy enough, but zero aoe healing at this stage sucks. This might get better at higher levels, but I'll be behind on gear for awhile.

I'll keep going on this group for awhile longer, at least long enough to get the priest to smite spam heal and see how that works out instead...

Go disc at lvl 30 spec into attonement. Win.

[luxlunae]

Go disc at lvl 30 spec into attonement. Win.

A thousand times this:

If you 2 step spam 12 on all characters disc priest:

1: /castsequence [@focus] Power Word: Shield, Renew
2: /castsequence reset=5 Holy Fire, Smite, Smite, Smite

Win. That will get you to level 50 by itself.

I'm not sure at 23 why your dps are taking damage at all?

[luxlunae]

Also I wouldn't recommend trying to mix in a pet class on your first team. Just too many aggravating things go wrong with a pet class, even when single boxing!

[Destahd]

A thousand times this:

If you 2 step spam 12 on all characters disc priest:

1: /castsequence [@focus] Power Word: Shield, Renew
2: /castsequence reset=5 Holy Fire, Smite, Smite, Smite

Win. That will get you to level 50 by itself.

I'm not sure at 23 why your dps are taking damage at all?

Thanks for the macro, I'll be trying that in a few more levels. :)

As for why the DPS take damage...

Some boss fights have summoned adds and turns out Avenger's Shield isn't enough aoe aggro. ;)

SFK in particular, Baron Silverlaine was quite tough due to the summoned adds and any fight with adds, is a pain. Even just bunches of enemies can suck, although this is relative to size of group and proximity. If AS can hit them on entry (and I can sheep one) it can be ok. Usually, trash/single target is ok.

When I get Hammer of the Righteous the issue should go away, I hope! (it should get much better at 29 all around, I think. How on the Paladin and Atonement on the Priest.)


Also I wouldn't recommend trying to mix in a pet class on your first team. Just too many aggravating things go wrong with a pet class, even when single boxing!

Yeah, this is pretty universal across games I think. :) Lesson learned here, but I'm stubburn and will stick with this team awhile longer.

One might say I can now see the value of 1 Paladin and 4 Shamans. K.I.S.S.

[Destahd]

Just as an update to this...

The mixed team is at level 51 now. It does work alright, but I have to say the warlock is massively underwhelming. This might be due to my macro-fu failing, but still...

Priest has been smite spamming for healing since level 29, it did work better, but it is also tapering off now and I find myself click-healing via video-fx more and more.

So far, all RDF dungeons have been doable up to this point, but I found out the hard way that if a toon dies and the rest of your group kills the final boss, the dead toon does't get experience and gets left one whole level behind... Silly/small stuff and I corrected it with quests later, but it was annoying to have them that far off one another.

I'll take this team to 80-81 then start a all-orc warrior+4shamans. Or maybe it'll be time to get the DKs started. :)

[traedoril]

Priest has been smite spamming for healing since level 29, it did work better, but it is also tapering off now and I find myself click-healing via video-fx more and more.

:)

That is most likely a gear issue. I still smite heal on my priest at 85, get the divine accuracy glyph and the smite glyph and maybe a little green gear from the AH an you will be healing with just smite again in no time.

[Destahd]

At 70, the disc priest just stopped working. Doing Utgarde Keep and he just couldn't keep up...

Switched priest to Holy, now stuck on Ingvar. Got him down to 10% (phase 2) but just can't get better than that...

Hunter suddenly dropped to 4th in the dps stats...

Paladin > Mage > Warlock > Hunter

Hunter used to be above mage much earlier on... (granted mage has been getting some decent upgrades lately...

EDIT: Ingvar down. :) All at level 71 now.

[traedoril]

Are you in BoA gear or just random blue/green gear from questing/dungeons. I leveled three disc priests in seperate teams (with BoA's) and I had no problem smite spamming my way to 85.

[Destahd]

Priest is in a mix of dungeon/tailored gear.

What macros were you using for disc to 85?

Ingvar's still hard at 71. :)

[Destahd]

Keristrasza down at level 72.

Had to ask my wife to click the strafe-slave keys for me. :)

[traedoril]

Priest is in a mix of dungeon/tailored gear.

What macros were you using for disc to 85?

Ingvar's still hard at 71. :)

/castsequence reset=5 Holy Fire, Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite

/castsequence reset=15 Power Word: Shield, Renew, Prayer of Mending, Flash Heal, Flash Heal, Flash Heal (I pretty much do this before the pull to prehot/bubble tank.

/nochanneling
/cast Prayer of Healing

FYI for keristraza you don't need to strafe just mass dispel with the priest and press ctrl + space to make the slaves jump

Also if you have a pally tank a really good thing you can do if your healing is lacking is change your castsequence macro to cast Word of Glory on your tank and run with Seal of Insight. The seal will heal you for alot at lower levels so I would start just with that. If your still behind then definately use WoG in your castsequence macro. Everytime you over heal with your pally you "bubble" your self for the over heal meaning you get a free no heal.

[Destahd]

Yeah, I use WoG quite a bit. :)

On Kirstrasza, the mass dispell would have been good, but I just found it easier to have someone else handle the strafe/jump than having to pay attention to every single aspect myself. Worked very well, she just looked at the screen and strafed in between heals.

At level 76 now, just finished Drak'Tharon Keep.

Happy with the group so far.

I will give your Smite spam a try, but I am quite happy with my Holy spam now. :)

[traedoril]

You gotta be disc for the smite spam to work FYI talented attonement with the divine accuracy glyph and smite glyphs

[Destahd]

You gotta be disc for the smite spam to work FYI talented attonement with the divine accuracy glyph and smite glyphs

Yeah, I have the priest dual-specced, holy/disc.

I give, using a slight variation of the macro you pasted, Disc is doing very well right now.

Team at 78, Gundrak and Violet Hold both down. :)

Current setup is:

Protection Paladin
Discipline Priest
Destruction Warlock
Survival Hunter
Arcane Mage

The mage is the best DPS now, followed by the paladin and depending on length of fight, the hunter or the warlock.

I had considered ditching the warlock, but I'll probably keep him.

At some point, I am considering switching the hunter for a shaman though, it doesn't happen often at all, but sometimes the hunter pet goes off on his own and 'helps' me out by pulling a whole load of mobs for me.

[Destahd]

This team at 80 now.

3d23h21m21s in /played

Obviously there are faster ways to 80, but I learned a heck of a lot and had a lot of fun with this team.

Warrior plus 4 Shamans next.

I do have a sort of historical record of macros, I mostly kept older versions intact by level. I'll post them shortly.

EDIT: Attached the SDM files for my macros.

There are some extraneous macros in there, but generally macros across various level ranges for the group in the previous post.

Addons:

Chinchilla: enabled - Better map
HealBot: enabled - Heals
InterGuildLink: enabled - Zerg guilds ftw!
ISBoxer: enabled - ...
Jamba: enabled - ...
Jamba-DisplayTeam: enabled
Jamba-Follow: enabled
Jamba-ItemUse: enabled
Jamba-Proc: enabled
Jamba-Purchase: enabled
Jamba-Quest: enabled
Jamba-Sell: enabled
Jamba-Talk: enabled
Jamba-Target: enabled
Jamba-Taxi: enabled
Jamba-Toon: enabled
Jamba-Trade: enabled
Mapster: enabled - Better map
Prat-3.0: enabled - Chat
Prat-3.0_HighCPUUsageModules: enabled
Prat-3.0_Libraries: enabled
Recount: enabled - DPS meter
ShadowedUF_Options: enabled
ShadowedUnitFrames: enabled - Unit Frames ;)
SmartBuff: enabled - Buff management
SuperDuperMacro: enabled - Extended macros
BasicMinimap: enabled - Clean minimap
Dominos: enabled - Customized bars
Dominos_Cast: enabled
Dominos_Config: enabled
Dominos_XP: enabled
EavesDrop: enabled - I don't actually use this anymore, but it was helpful to test things out as I went along
Raven: enabled - Buff/Debuff bars, I love this now...
Raven_Options: enabled

[Sajuuk]

I have one thing to say.

Blood elves are gross. That is all.

At least with night elves you can 'stealth'.

[Pazgaz]

Why do everyone use Divine Protection in their prot pally "proc" macro?

[shadewalker]

Better to use it every time it's off CD rather than not at all. Plus you have GoAK and lay on hands for defensive CDs. Just depends how much you want to micro manage I guess.

[Destahd]

Update of exploits...

5-Goblin team
Warrior+4 Shamans

Goblin starting zone sucks. With RAF I got out after 11h30m in /played and at level 16 having done all quests I could find (by the end, most are low-level and give little to no exp...)

This time I am keeping macros for level ranges with history and will post those when appropriate.

EDIT: Obviously not news to most of you, but tank+4 shamans is Easy Mode.

Good fun!

I would like an add-on that actually manages totems for me, like smartbuff, for totems. Using castsequences is just so, old... ;) That said, biggest drawback is remembering to actually drop totems.

Level 17 now.