Yet Another Mixed Team Thread #69

[JackBurton]

ok its 2am and I've exhausted myself over the last two days researching my next team. I found some really great nuggets of information but not all the information im looking for. I already have a priest + DK team that I really enjoy but heroics have been too challenging with melee's so I'd like to try a ranged team. I'm interested what you think of my two considerations for teams and reasons why. As always I appreciate your time and effort.



Team Got Milk -

tank pally
heals shaman
dps1 shaman
dps2 shaman
dps3 shaman

KISS concept
boxer friendly
combat rez
survivability
all Tauren for 10 seconds of aoe stun
great AOE
backup heals

Team Pez Dispenser

tank pally Tauren
heals shaman Tauren
dps1 shaman Tauren
dps2 mage Blood Elf
dps3 warlock Blood Elf

able to cc humaniod, critter, demon, elemental, animal (http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/01/13/wow-rookie-effective-crowd-control-basics/)
each member can contribute buffs
combat rez
time and money saved on transportation, food and water
decursives

Would a DK be a more useful tank? no huh? ok just thought i'd ask.

[d0z3rr]

imo mixed teams are way more fun. pally tanks are great. taurens are annoying and stupid, they're way too big, i hated my 4x tauren hunters.

[JackBurton]

thanks for replying d0z3rr. a third of the community checks this out but only one person stops to help. Soooo Blood Elf sounds like another alternative for the pally and i would assume the steal mana racial would benefit somewhat. HOWEVER I believe war stomp plus inherent pally stuns would be pretty overpowering. with mana totems i realy shouldn't have that much of a problem with mana. War stomp would be detrimental to both casters and melee when blood elf racial is only anti caster. In my humble opinion that is.....

[Ughmahedhurtz]

a third of the community checks this out but only one person stops to help.
You expect a lot within 45 minutes of your OP?

Anyway, the good thing about mixed caster DPS types (nature, shadow, etc.) is you always have two of 3 able to DPS well as most mobs only have one high resist. I usually prefer to have a hunter in there as physical DPS can damage through magic shields and magic-immune adds and such.

If I'm not mistaken, you won't get 10 seconds of stun out of taurens due to DR.

With the 4 shaman group, you get 4x healing stream totems, which is nice passive healing to help with incoming random/AoE damage.

Pally/DK are both effective -- from anecdotal evidence, pally is easier/more forgiving until you gear up.

[Ualaa]

My personal top PvE team was:
- Pally (Tank).
- Demo Warlock (DPS, +SP Buff).
- 3x Elem. Shaman (DPS & Heals).

One of the shammies was dual-spec'd to Resto.
But I almost never needed the extra heals.

I like having a dual-spec healer.
Because when you don't need the healing, they can go damage spec and help you clear things faster.
3x Shaman, can heal as effectively as 1x Healer in a Healing spec... but they put out a lot more DPS to clear trash faster too.

A dedicated healer now gets you a Magic removal, from Holy/Resto tree, that DPS casters do not get.

More classes, get you additional crowd control options.
Mages can Polymorph.
Priests can Shackle Undead.
Warlocks can Banish Demons/Elementals.

The Paladin and the Druid... are much easier to macro, and tank without a lot of your attention.
A Warrior or DK can tank as effectively, but will take a much larger portion of your attention to do so.

Druids and Priests are very mobile healers.
Shamans slightly less so, and Paladins are very much a stand still healer.

Additional classes is more buffs.
Not everything stacks, but some things are exclusive.
Paladin/Druid brings King/MotW, Paladin also brings Might.
Priest brings Fortitude.
Warlock brings Imp stamina or Felhound intellect.
Mage brings Brilliance.

Not every buff is a cast, with an icon.
A boomkin adds +spell power to their team through straight DPS.
A warlock does the same, via a curse.

A mixed team means... you're more likely to be able to use every drop.
But an enchanter on the team means things that aren't useful to you, at least get you maximum value (vendor price or enchanting mats price).

[JackBurton]

DR (http://www.wowwiki.com/Diminishing_returns)

Ok I stand corrected. For PVE vs casters I just need the half a sec cast interrupt. I can duck dodge and dive all around those limitations. with isboxer i can hold next step round robin it around the DR dynamics. stun > silence > fear/snare rinse wash. repeat as desired.

I posted the thread at almost 4am on the 13th. Not 45 minutes ago. I see what the timestamp says but its friggin wrong k Again,... I dunt want you people to think that I want other people to do my homework for me. I copied and pasted into a text file all the team data that looked useful. Sorry if I cant give props to the origonal posters though. but Ualaa had alot of great reading. and you had some input on mages too if i remember correctly ughmahedhurtz. In my experiance when you have a task to do its allreayd done. Well 85 percent of the job anyways. You just need to do the last 10-15% to make it work for you.

Bottom line it would be nice to see a matrix/exel comparison chart for team compositions. something that shows at at quick glance all the capabilities, and strengths classes and clumps of classes can bring to a team. Perhaps with more and more folks pioneering past the 5 man teams we will see more innovative ways to discover cross class synergies and at what point does multiples of the same class give diminishing returns.

Anyways here is the data i mined over the last few days regarding ranged team composition, class perks and synergy tips condensed for PVE, heroics, and older raids. Alot of these classes I've never played before so if any of this data is outdated wrong or whatnot just dont say anything. no no!! i mean spend a minute or two to leave a comment.

***
combo points, holy power, avoid those if you can for easier management, they don't do more damage anyway, why add complexity. Enhance, DK, and Warrior rule melee PVE boxing with 1 button smash: first come first serve attack sequence.

PALADIN:
- Plate Armor, Shield... with Resilience this is 80% physical mitigation.
- Beacon of Light and Protector of the Innocent provides substantial passive healing, while healing someone else.
- Divine Protection offers 20% mitigation, basically half the time.
- Resistance Aura is substantial protection against Frost, Fire and Shadow damage.
- The "Big Button" is a massive boost, all off of the GCD (Aura Mastery, Divine Favor, Divine Protection, Guardian of Ancient Kings)
- Aura Mastery + Concentration Aura = guaranteed heals without interruption.
- Kings = Resist Everything + 5% extra Stamina.
- Hammer to Stun/Interrupt something

Priest:
-2 disc priest can Smite spam passively healing whoever is hurt the most just by DPSing.
-Shadow/holy or disc dual spec to raid with them, as a non-healer or do 5-man instances.
- A Priest is a very mobile healer and is probably the best AoE healer possible.
- Fortitude and Fear Ward.
- CC humainoid and undead
- choice between Holy (big heals) or Discipline (mitigating damage), which essentially ends up being about the same.
- when paired with shamans, can dual spec to trade healing, dpsing responsibilties


Mages:
- Portals for faster/easier travel.
- Frost... replenishment for casters.
- Summoned Food (+Health) & Water (+Mana).
- Sheep vs humanoids/beasts.
- Heroism/Bloodlust equivalent: Temporal Acceleration?
- Easy to macro, strong caster DPS.
-mages tank for 30 secs so no mage takes any damage except for cleave or magic damage. Mages are expensive in that you NEED to have flasks and use volcanic potions on every boss until your gear gets really good and then you can probably drop the flasks.

Warlocks:
- Summoning toons, to anywhere.
- Destro... replenishment for casters.
- Healthstone/Soulstones.
- Seduce vs humanoids, Banish vs demons/elementals, Fear.
- Variable pet buffs.
- Water Breathing, Curse of the Elements (spell power).
- Ranged AoE stun (Destro).
- Easy to macro, strong caster DPS.
- +SP via a curse
- Underwater Breathing for PvE


Shamans:
- dual-spec Elemental/Resto, dedicated healer for harder stuff, but 3x DPS (who can heal) for easier stuff.
- Three Elemental, can (or at least could) heal any five-man content as well as an equally geared 1x healer could.
- fine healer, with Earth Shield and Riptide.
- if you don't have another Shaman on the team, Heroism/Bloodlust can be a major factor in their favor.
- most of the totems with be covered with 3 shamans on the team
- when paired with Priests, can dual spec to trade healing, dpsing responsibilties
- Grounding Totem vs a nasty spell.
- Chain Armor, Shield; 2nd best passively against melee.
- Wind Shear as an extra interrupt.
- Underwater Breathing for PvE
- Healing Stream provides the equivalent of Resistance Aura, except vs Fire/Frost/Nature instead of Fire/Frost/Shadow.
- Tremor Totem is the equivalent of a single extra trinket (vs Fear/Charm/Sleep) that is raid-wide, so hitting the entire group even if you're in different groups in a BG.
- Earthbind as a snare.
-mana spring and kings are on the same buff catagory so you can only use one or the other, so dont waste one water totem on mana, just use all healing. And it will free up your healer for those little annoying heals you have to do to top people off.
- which totems stack and the optimal totem drops for the three shaman - healing stream X searing or magma X3 (magma for aoe), wrath of air, 2X grounding totems, Strength of earth, earthbind, stone claw
- If you have lots of passive healing (e.g.: shammy totems or DK self-heals, etc.) most trash/farm mobs become stupidly easy.
-Ele shaman x3 + resto can kill everything. The dps is very good, and the fire elemental has a constant up time once you acquire 2p T12. That is like 20-25k extra dps you have. It's not worth it to go 4x ele + tank since self healing blows.

[JackBurton]

Ualaa
A dedicated healer now gets you a Magic removal, from Holy/Resto tree, that DPS casters do not get.

I believe Warlock can do it too. But cant effectively decurse the whole group due to Felhound Devour Magic is on 15 sec cooldown (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/26280#4#4).


Ualaa
Mages can Polymorph.

One of the best CC classes in the game. Poly can be cast from 35 feet, has no cooldown, and can CC three differnt mob catagories. one more than anyone else. plus most of their frost abilties root mobs giving another cc ability.

Ualaa
A Warrior or DK can tank as effectively, but will take a much larger portion of your attention to do so.

I know this firsthand. I only have expercance tanking with DK. I was hardpressed to juggle effective heals and handle aggro when unexpectant situations occured like long fights with lots of non cc'ed mobs or surprize adds.


Ualaa
Warlock brings Imp stamina or Felhound intellect.

Felhound can also interupt at 30 feet: Spell Lock - 24 cooldown (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/26280#4#4)

[JohnGabriel]

You dont really need cc anymore, I'd keep that in mind comparing a team with shaman dps vs mage or boomkin.

[JackBurton]

You dont really need cc anymore, I'd keep that in mind comparing a team with shaman dps vs mage or boomkin.

cool name Gabriel. Thats my sons name as well. I half agree with you.
Mobs in world/quest content die too fast to be a concern.
It can be quite fun to just AoE or plow through content.
But in Raids and Dungeons cc may be a manditory precaution
One or more of the mobs in a pull has an ability that is dangerous if you fail to slay them fast enough.
I also use CC as a sort of preemptive interrupt vs casters i cant kill right away.
cc is also nice to position ranged mobs that dont like to get close enough for AoE or Taunting.

[dancook]

My first 5-boxing team was Paladin, Holy Priest, Shadow Priest, Warlock and Mage.

It was BC days and dungeons were tough.. I haven't tried a completely mixed group again since. I have mixed up my paladin, shaman, mages, dks and priests for boosting and JP gains - but it was all trivial content - geared level 85s and an 81 taking on Blackrock Caverns.

I wouldn't mind giving it another go, but I'll need the heirlooms :) and that can take some time.

[confusedtx5]

I'm in the middle of a RAF at the moment, and while the teams aren't max level (2 teams @ 68 atm), I have decided that in the future (85-90), I want a 4x shammy and tank team to lfg with.
My multiclass team at 85 was slow to level from 80-85 due to the clickcastsequence loss.

RAF team 1 consisting of a bear, resto sham, and 3x ele shams was very enjoyable. Once the shammys got chain lightning, trash just doesn't stand a chance. Actually, the bear has a hard time keeping aggro on some pulls. The chain lightning x3 of team 1 also has the advantage of not needing to worry about mouse broadcasting the floor target, they just bounce around still stuff is dead. 4x healing stream totems keeps health topped up (don't need mana atm) and 4x fire eles is just lol worthy. (If only enh was a tank spec, I could make it 5)

RAF team 2 consists of a protadin, disc priest, ele sham, and 2 fire mages. Took the sham to gain the 5% haste and crit buffs for the mages, and kinda started regretting it. CL is still good it trash pulls, but the trash stays alive longer and the ele becomes in danger of ooming. I'd prefer a 3rd mage, giving me 3x scorches (no fly time, short cast 'finisher') and 3x blast waves. 2 make short work of low level trash, but 3 would be usable on larger pulls of tougher npcs. Thankfully I already have a fire mage at 85 that I can swap in when the time comes. Honestly haven't used the mage food or ports.

Planning to do a 3rd RAF team consisting of protadin, resto sham, and 3x ele shams.

My current opinion is that having the dps classes/specs the same means you're maximizing damage output in those areas that that spec works the best. Rather than having a jack-of-all-trades kind of deal going on. Having multiclass in my opinion just adds complexity for a minimal gain.

sidenote, I'm gifting levels in such a way I'll be able to try 3x spriest and 3x warlock at 85 by mixing in that original mixed class team. I'll have at least 3 of every caster class at 80 or above.