PVE group

[BoxinGuru1989]

I am beginning to start multiboxing again and planning on a team of 5 this time. My group combination considerations are;

#1
Tank - Paladin
DPS - 2 SPriest
Heals - 2 Disc Priest

#2
Tank - Paladin
DPS - Warlocks or Arcane Mages
Heals - Resto Druid

I am leaning toward #1 but would like any input. Maybe some suggestions on other combos that work and are not too difficult.

Thank you

[rfarris]

Unless you need some extra heals at max level you sure don't need two heals while leveling. I like your #2, with any combination of 'locks and Arcane Mages. Either an rdruid or a disc priest would be plenty heals. I like the disc priest because they can do a lot of dps.

[MiRai]

As rfarris said, running two healers is going to just lower your DPS overall and you won't need them unless you plan to just crawl through heroics at a slow pace.

For PvE teams, I always recommend trying to maximize the amount of buffs that classes can give, but the less "mixed" your team is, the easier it will be to multibox.

[BoxinGuru1989]

Thanks for the replies. I see your point on not having 2 healers. I was thinking and this might work better;

Tank - Paladin
DPS - Warlock, SPriest, Mage
Heals - RDruid

I think this gives me a good variety of buffs. Only problem I foresee is managing all different classes at once.

[Ualaa]

For content that is above your gearing level, two heals is an advantage provided there is no enrage timer.
The mana efficiency of only having to cast every other heal and having both healers regen mana at once.
Plus the bonus of having two heals at once, if you really need it.

That said, for one-group content...
You'll generally not need more than a single healer at a time.

And once you out-gear the content, you'll frequently not even need a dedicated healer, provided your DPS can heal in their DPS forms/specs.



My top PvE team was:
- Tank: Prot Paladin
- DPS: Destro Warlock
- DPS: Elemental Shaman
- DPS: Elemental Shaman
- DPS/Heals: Elemental/Resto Shaman

For most content, 3x Elemental was sufficient heals.
For harder stuff, one of them could spec Resto... and if things were really above my level, two could have gone Resto.
A Priest would have brought a better buff, than a Resto Shaman (given 2 Elemental Shaman already on the team), but 3x Shaman was both simple and easy.
A Druid for heals would have been an option too, and Balance had the same spell damage buff that Warlocks brought... but Warlocks just needed to apply a curse, while Druids needed to actually DPS... with their more complicated rotation; plus if the Druid went Resto, that would remove the 13% spell damage buff.



I'd probably go:
- 1x Tank.
- 2x Pure DPS.
- 2x Caster DPS with Heal Specs.

That could overlap, some.
But give yourself the option of healing when you need it.
And give yourself the option of additional DPS, when you don't need the heals.




Your DPS is mostly going to be one or two button spam.
You might have one key for AoE and another for Single-Target stuff.

You'll have a hotkey for buffing.
And a hotkey for a few important specials.

Maybe hotkeys for crowd control.
- Warlock Banish/Fear/Seduce
- Priest Mind Control/Shackle
- Mage Sheep
(Probably set up an FTL assist system, then use /focus (and raid marker symbols) and /cast [@focus] Polymorph type things)

There won't be a lot to manage.
A single-target rotation is going to be a single target rotation, whatever the spell sequence.
The mage will receive, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1; as will the Warlock, S.Priest, and Druid (when you spec Balance).
It doesn't matter if the mage has (on hotkey 1):
/castsequence Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles
While the Warlock has (also on hotkey 1):
/castsequence Immolation, Incinerate, Incinerate, Incinerate...

Having the option of a Disc Priest, Holy Priest or Resto Druid...
That's flexibility.
You have the option of 2x DPS, 2x Heals or 1x DPS & 1x Heals -- whatever works best for your current situation.

[BoxinGuru1989]

@Ualaa

Great information, thank you. I think I will do some trial and error before I decide my exact team. Might go with something easy until I get the hang of things again.

[heyaz]

One thing I can say is definitely go ranged with your DPS in this expansion. It's not melee friendly at all. When I finally got around to doing heroic dungeons (440ilvl requirement!) at 515 ilvl I could not believe how many anti-melee mechanics there were. There is shit all over the ground everywhere. You either wipe or spend so much time move your toons around that your DPS is garbage. Eventually I get fed up and ran the entire team in tank spec and just stood in everything. Took longer to kill but the effort to do content like that 50-100 ilvls above its requirement as melee was just ridiculous.

Raids are generally the same. Not very melee friendly on a lot of bosses. Some of the SoO bosses are decent though and can be done with all melee but for 5 mans, god, even at 535-540 ilvl the crap all over the ground, the aoes, the frontal cones, etc. will still wipe you. And challenge modes will absolutely annihilate all melee groups. The trash alone destroys 4x tanks + healer. Bosses are worse.

[bradleyb]

You've gotten a lot of good feedback here.

My team is similar to your last version with a couple of variations.

- prot pally tank
- disc priest healer
- arcane mage
- destruction warlock
- elemental shaman

There's a lot of synergy here. And if you set up your spam macro correctly you can get some damn good value out of this setup. I'm currently in the middle of posting details on every aspect of my team, so you can see what's what:

http://www.bradleyb.net/hobbies/world-of-warcraft/patch-5.4/

[Khatovar]

One thing I can say is definitely go ranged with your DPS in this expansion. It's not melee friendly at all. When I finally got around to doing heroic dungeons (440ilvl requirement!) at 515 ilvl I could not believe how many anti-melee mechanics there were. There is shit all over the ground everywhere. You either wipe or spend so much time move your toons around that your DPS is garbage.

I can't speak to raids or challenge modes, but I was very, very happy with my melee team this expansion. Especially after Cata. There were 2 bosses that gave me "trouble" and I probably would have had the same amount of trouble with a ranged team. But I'll agree that ranged doesn't usually have nearly as many issues as melee and is usually a better choice for most people.

[BoxinGuru1989]

@bradleyb (http://www.dual-boxing.com/members/56725-bradleyb)
That team is actually what I switched mine to. It has been good so far. When you tank do you stop following your team and stay a distance away from them?

[Ringko]

[...] I'm currently in the middle of posting details on every aspect of my team, so you can see what's what:

http://www.bradleyb.net/hobbies/world-of-warcraft/patch-5.4/

This is awesome, definitely going to keep up with that write up.

I have considered setting up a team like this also - only with a Guardian Druid instead of the Protection Paladin, because of the gained ability to reduce enemy armor, but the net result is probably neglible, with only one character (the tank) benefiting from it. Likely to go with a Paladin instead, also with them being inherently more awesome and being able to see actual armor is a plus.

[bradleyb]

Yes, I stop my team from following me and let them sit back. That's the benefit of an all ranged team (except for the tank). In fact, I usually set the team up to do LOS pulls. I run the tank in with a priest shield up, grab aggro and run the mobs back into the kill zone of my team. It's all very controlled...

[bradleyb]

I have a druid and have used him for tanking before. I definitely prefer the Paladin tank when it comes to boxing though. They just have soooo much more utility and survivability. And thanks for your note on my site/writeups. I've added some more details to the main 5.4 section and finished the writeup on my mage (inlcuding the macros I use). http://www.bradleyb.net/hobbies/world-of-warcraft/patch-5.4/

[Damons]

What do you think of a DK tank, compared to a paladin for 5 boxing? I have no preference for any one tank class, but am wondering which is easier to manage. Already ruled out the druid, just not my cup of tea.

[bradleyb]

What do you think of a DK tank, compared to a paladin for 5 boxing? I have no preference for any one tank class, but am wondering which is easier to manage. Already ruled out the druid, just not my cup of tea.

Well - I tried using my DK during WoTLK as my main tank. It really didn't work too well. A lot has changed since then though... This qoute from Icy-Veins says a lot "Compared to the other tanking classes, Blood Death Knights bring few useful raid buffs or cooldowns, and we feel that they take a lot more precision and skill to play to their maximum potential. The reason for this is that a large part of tanking as a Death Knight is done "manually", by the player, who has to constantly make game-influencing decisions regarding which abilities to use." That's a pretty tough pill to swallow when you're talking about multiboxing.

Observationally, DK buffs don't really add anything too significant for a caster party - whereas +5% intellect pally buff across the board is a huge bonus. Pally heals can also be applied across the team and not just on the pally - plus you have the 'hands' you can use in a pinch. Honestly though - I deleted my DK a while back and am not all that familiar with its current toolbox. Lot's of people DO use them for multi-boxing. I just find the pally stands up better with my caster team...

[Runamuck]

I am going

1x Prot Paladin for the face roll tanking
3x BM Hunter Will fill out buffs with pets. I like hunters
1x Healer Priest/shaman most likely shaman for reincarnation. Like the chain healing aspect also.

[Runamuck]

What do you think of a DK tank, compared to a paladin for 5 boxing? I have no preference for any one tank class, but am wondering which is easier to manage. Already ruled out the druid, just not my cup of tea.

Paladin by far is the easiest, can do a DK but they take a lot more micro management.

[Andreauk]

I just got raf and heirlooms on Horde this time went for Ele shaman (queues as healer) rsto druid (queues as tank) and x3 destro locks.. it's very awesome lvl 65 since yesterday just spamming instances

[Bigfish]

I haven't had a problem with my DK tank. It functions on par with my paladin. There's a little more work involved in cooldowns, but that usually isn't an issue if you drive with your tank.