[Classic] Good farming team?

[pobdoq]

I've been thinking about multiboxing in classic wow. Multibox leveling and gold farming is pretty fun. I just can't decide what I'd like to play.

In draenor I played 5 feral druids, which was awesome for ganking and it made farming mobs really fun, easy, and fast. So I'd like to play a melee team again. (assuming they don't disable interact with target on classic servers)

I'm thinking of:

5 enhance shamans
5 combat rogues

Enhance because I guess that's the easiest to multibox (for farming at least). Just spam shocks and stormstrike.
Rogue because I heard it's the best melee dps (maybe after fury war?). But I don't know if that's also the case when multiboxing. And I won't bother getting great gear either.

Feral doesn't excite me that much, already did it in draenor. Didn't give warrior too much thought, cause I don't know anything about it. Don't want paladin, cause I'm rolling horde.

So what do you guys think is the best or easiest melee class for multibox farming?

[theemus]

If you do decide on the 5 rogue comp you may be better off dropping one of the rogues and using a resto shaman in his place. Your groups DPS with 4 rogues having Windfury and Strength of earth will be almost as high if not higher then 5 rogues without it. You'll be able to pretty much chain pull once you get some gear on your shaman as he wont have to drink often.

[cmeche]

I have limited vanilla experience. So this is just my uneducated opinion.........But I would think switching a druid in for 1 of the rogues would be ideal. 4 rogues are going to tear stuff up, but they have no healing. Warlocks with 1 priest, or warriors with a HPally sounds fun as im thinking about it.

[pobdoq]

Damn.. Now I'm even more unsure of what I want to play. The 4 rogues + 1 resto shaman idea sounds really nice. I could just have the resto shaman as my main char that I control, and use all the rogues as pets. Sending them off to kill mobs with interact with target.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'd go do some research on how things worked in Classic. Lots of things were not just "spammable" like they are today. Things like, if you spam cast you'd interrupt your spellcasts in some cases (see: spell queues), hunters had to stand still to shoot and had very few instants, casters had very limited mana even if you used their efficient spells, etc. I'm starting to remember some things when I see someone mention them but it's been over a decade. :P It's gonna be interesting (assuming they don't screw it up) to have to re-learn a bunch of class mechanics.

Enhancement Shaman was definitely a pretty straightforward class to play, though I don't recall them being complete EZ-mode as they were pretty squishy, as the Un'Goro Tyrannosaurs can testify.

[Acidburning]

I've been thinking about multiboxing in classic wow. Multibox leveling and gold farming is pretty fun. I just can't decide what I'd like to play.



I can't decide either, lol.

Can you expand on what you mean by gold farming? Where do you plan on gold farming?

[pobdoq]

Can you expand on what you mean by gold farming? Where do you plan on gold farming?
I have no idea yet where I'd farm gold. Can't remember much from vanilla. Using tyr's hand as a point of reference, when I'm trying to decide what team would be best.

[Acidburning]

I have no idea yet where I'd farm gold. Can't remember much from vanilla. Using tyr's hand as a point of reference, when I'm trying to decide what team would be best.

so open world gold farming and not instance farming?

5 enh shammys would shred through Tyr's Hand.
If you go rogues, should add a healer and one that can rez. Shaman or Priest.
4 rogues and a unique ehn shaman that can melee and throw out some chain heals + windfury. You will be cruising.

[Kojiiko]

I thought pallies were always good in vanilla? Im sure at 60 I was soloing SM. coz I rememeber farming that, I got enough gold to buy my faster mount in the new expansion.

[Uhnknown]

If you're going to be farming open world, you'd be better off doing 4x Warlock + Priest i should think. Or even 4x Mage + Priest, spamming Arcane Explosion + Holy Nova worked quite well back then, not to mention(not sure if it'll be a thing still) you can use lower spell ranks across all Casters to reduce mana costs and kill faster.

Also keep in mind it's entirely possible we won't even have IWT on the Classic server(s), so boxing melee is going to be like it was back then where you had to run your main through the mob and then turn so the others are directly behind it.

[pobdoq]

Also keep in mind it's entirely possible we won't even have IWT on the Classic server(s), so boxing melee is going to be like it was back then where you had to run your main through the mob and then turn so the others are directly behind it.
I actually assumed IWT wouldn't be there, until I saw mirai's video off the classic demo. It still being in the demo gave me some hope that they won't disable it at all on classic servers.

If they do disable it, I'll go with a full range team. Probably 5x mage.

[Apatheist]

If you want to farm the place to do it is dungeons and raid trash. You get the best drop rates on everything, more stuff to DE and in some cases chances for some pretty nice BoE gear (ZG trash, Dire Maul.) One of the primary benefits of boxing is being able to farm content by yourself that is usually only accessible to groups. It doesn't make sense to farm locations that can be done solo as a boxer.

With that in mind, optimal "farming" teams will be the same as the dungeon teams. I would think any tank with sound AE threat (paladin or druid) any healer and a combination of mages and warlocks.

You can reach the same conclusion through a process of elimination.

1. Hunters could work but are too micro intensive to box effectively, are heavily limited by their dead zone and have limited AE. The upside is that hunter pets actually make good dungeon tanks. An owl with max rank screech generates reasonable AE threat.
2. Melee classes are heavily gear dependent and subject to the availability of IWT.
3. Shadow priests, druids and elemental shamans are all low DPS, lack AE damage and run out of mana very quickly.

If you're going for optimal efficacy, mages and warlocks are really the only choice IMO.

Something like:
druid, shaman, mage, mage, warlock.
paladin, priest, mage, mage, warlock.
etc.

Covers all the decurse options (curse, magic, disease, poison) and gives you most of the useful buffs.

[Kojiiko]

If you're going to be farming open world, you'd be better off doing 4x Warlock + Priest i should think. Or even 4x Mage + Priest, spamming Arcane Explosion + Holy Nova worked quite well back then, not to mention(not sure if it'll be a thing still) you can use lower spell ranks across all Casters to reduce mana costs and kill faster.

Also keep in mind it's entirely possible we won't even have IWT on the Classic server(s), so boxing melee is going to be like it was back then where you had to run your main through the mob and then turn so the others are directly behind it.

Back on the old was Arcane Explosion not so bad ?
coz now its burns so much mana

[pobdoq]

If you want to farm the place to do it is dungeons and raid trash. You get the best drop rates on everything, more stuff to DE and in some cases chances for some pretty nice BoE gear (ZG trash, Dire Maul.) One of the primary benefits of boxing is being able to farm content by yourself that is usually only accessible to groups. It doesn't make sense to farm locations that can be done solo as a boxer.
I was thinking of open world farming with an easy to use team, because I like brainless farming with music on or while watching series on a 2nd monitor after I get home from work. Though farming instances is also tempting, because it will probably result in more gold.



Something like:
druid, shaman, mage, mage, warlock.
paladin, priest, mage, mage, warlock.
etc.

Why not 3 mages? Don't they have the best aoe dmg in the game?

[ebony]

If you're going to be farming open world, you'd be better off doing 4x Warlock + Priest i should think. Or even 4x Mage + Priest, spamming Arcane Explosion + Holy Nova worked quite well back then, not to mention(not sure if it'll be a thing still) you can use lower spell ranks across all Casters to reduce mana costs and kill faster.

Also keep in mind it's entirely possible we won't even have IWT on the Classic server(s), so boxing melee is going to be like it was back then where you had to run your main through the mob and then turn so the others are directly behind it.

We had iwt on the demo i defo think it be somthing we keep,

Saying that its single loot in classic so only one toon will beable to loot as well there be no toys like the loot a rang pr hunters loot they came in wotlk. Dungeons used to be the best way to farm hoobs framing dungons in one pull.

[Fat Tire]

If I was to pick one class it would be mages with combat rogues coming in second. Melee were so gear dependent in vanilla, that if you had a top geared warrior you were a killing machine. Even prot warriors were insane, but combat rogues with stun maces and no stun dr had alot of fun. Combat rogues were the class the Chinese 24/7 sweat shop farmers used grinding scarlet mobs in western plaguelands. I think it was western, my memory fades.

However, when it came down to dps,aoe,food,portability and cc, mages were the best and were not as gear dependent. Also, tailoring went really well with farming runecloth and making cloth resistance gear.

Warlocks were ok, but fear pathing was horrible and I remember having to use seduce.

[Uhnknown]

Yeah, open world farming might not be your best bet for farming gold - Xzin farmed his gold back in the day by doing Stratholme Baron runs in ~30mins with his Priest + 4 Mages, and he had done more than a few raids with them.

[Fat Tire]

Yeah, open world farming might not be your best bet for farming gold - Xzin farmed his gold back in the day by doing Stratholme Baron runs in ~30mins with his Priest + 4 Mages, and he had done more than a few raids with them.

Winters chill , it really made multiple mages amazing in mc and blackwing and I am sure 5 mans. I dont know what spec Xzin used though. AP/arcane/holy nova? no idea

[Apatheist]

I was thinking of open world farming with an easy to use team, because I like brainless farming with music on or while watching series on a 2nd monitor after I get home from work. Though farming instances is also tempting, because it will probably result in more gold.

Why not 3 mages? Don't they have the best aoe dmg in the game?

Dungeon farming will earn you more gold per hour than farming world mobs. You get a lot more drops, more silver per mob and a higher chance of getting lucky with BoE's blues/epics.

Adding a warlock gives you a lot of party utility from HP aura to curse of the elements that increases your mage DPS a lot. Hellfire and rain of fire synchronize well with arcane explosion and blizzard. Adding a warlock to a farming group will also give you the ability to recall your looter (by leaving your group while inside a dungeon so that you're automatically teleported back to your bind location. Ie. no hearthstone cooldown) sell junk and then summon yourself back.

Meeting stones outside dungeons in classic are just there to assist you finding group members. They can't summon players. Hearthstones have a 1 hour cooldown in classic and travelling is a huge timesink.

[Uhnknown]

Winters chill , it really made multiple mages amazing in mc and blackwing and I am sure 5 mans. I dont know what spec Xzin used though. AP/arcane/holy nova? no idea

In PvP he ran Arcane / Fire for PoM + Pyroblast, but yeah he also used Holy Nova a lot on his Priest from what i remember and have seen.

[Fat Tire]

In PvP he ran Arcane / Fire for PoM + Pyroblast, but yeah he also used Holy Nova a lot on his Priest from what i remember and have seen.


Gotcha thanks, that makes sense.

I suggest everyone stay clear of hunters. I cant imagine having to deal with ammo again, along with the dead zone and pull trapping.

If blizzard is going to eventually release Burning Crusade then ele shamans are the way to go once that is out.

[Uhnknown]

Gotcha thanks, that makes sense.

I suggest everyone stay clear of hunters. I cant imagine having to deal with ammo again, along with the dead zone and pull trapping.

If blizzard is going to eventually release Burning Crusade then ele shamans are the way to go once that is out.

Oof, yeah - Hunter's, imho, would be very very sketchy in Vanilla, that inbetween spot where they're stuck not being able to shoot would be a pain to get around at a times if you weren't 100% on top of aggro, and i can't remember when they made it so you could actually shoot while moving. Not to mention the ammo situation, lol.

I don't think i'd consider anything other than Priest + 4x Mage or 4x Warlock, and maybe 5 Shamans.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Oof, yeah - Hunter's, imho, would be very very sketchy in Vanilla, that inbetween spot where they're stuck not being able to shoot would be a pain to get around at a times if you weren't 100% on top of aggro, and i can't remember when they made it so you could actually shoot while moving. Not to mention the ammo situation, lol.

I don't think i'd consider anything other than Priest + 4x Mage or 4x Warlock, and maybe 5 Shamans.
I think the hunter movement largely came along with the talent redesign (read: dumbassification) with the possible exception of Aimed Shot. I don't recall having any of that in the 30/21 build days. Which is why Feign Death resists were so annoying. [edit] Old talent calc shows Arcane shot as instant, but I recall that being a mana hog as BM.

FYI, the old patch notes up through 1.12.x are here if y'all are interesting in some historical reading. http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Patches/1.x

[edit2] The more I look at this, I wonder if 4-5x shadow priests would be worthwhile due to Vampiric Embrace healing for 30% of damage output. I seem to remember that working somewhat but I do know I never made it to max level with them and my memories from vanilla are...chaotic and admittedly somewhat rose-tinted. ;)

[Uhnknown]

I remembered seeing some videos of 4-5x Spriests from back in Vanilla and the self healing alone was pretty crazy, so i went and checked what the % on Vampiric Embrace was back then(on Classicdb.ch). It seems to be 20% with the option to put 2 talents into Improved Vampiric Embrace for another 10% total. So yeah, i think the self healing alone would be pretty good.

Also lol Feign Death resists, i remember going afk while FD in Ironforge once and came back to my Hunter actually dead, fun times.

[Apatheist]

Hunters for PvE can actually quite be pretty solid. An owl with screech provides spamable AE threat and traps are the only long duration CC that works on any mob type. Problem is the dead zone is a pain for PvP and you have no way outside of trinkets to remove AE fears.

Shadow priests run out of mana very fast, have no AE damage spells (unless you take holy nova which is extremely expensive to cast) and are very squishy despite the 15% reduced physical damage from shadow form. Vampiric embrace has a 10 second cooldown so you can only generally cast it on 1-2 targets most fights and if you're focusing damage on that target enough to produce significant healing, it's going to die first leaving you without healing. It works reasonably well on single target fights but for AE grinding or dungeon trash it's pretty slow.

Warlocks are better in every way IMO. If you're willing to forgo the convenience of a mage for portals and free water a healer +4 warlocks will be one of the stronger all-round PvE/PvP teams for many reasons.

[Uhnknown]

Also, not to mention Warlocks and Paladins get free mounts iirc. That'll help save on gold.

[Kayley]

I had so much fun playing 5 warlocks in vanilla when farming; only open world. I was not a very good player back then so instance runs (apart from SM) were out of the question.

[nodoze]

Dungeon farming will earn you more ...

... Adding a warlock to a farming group will also give you the ability to recall your looter (by leaving your group while inside a dungeon so that you're automatically teleported back to your bind location. Ie. no hearthstone cooldown) sell junk and then summon yourself back.

... Hearthstones have a 1 hour cooldown in classic and travelling is a huge timesink.This sounds really smart.

Are you summoning the person that left the group back into where you are deep into a dungeon or does your group have to leave the dungeon and summon from just outside the dungeon entrance?

The reason I ask is because I am wondering if a similar benefit could be achieved without actually having a Lock in my main 5 man party?

If I leveled up 5 level 20+ Warlock alts on the same accounts and parked them at up to 5 main Dungeons/locations that I care about could I not get essentially the same benefit for up to 5 dungeons/locations?

If that is true then my though was then maybe to limit it to 4 locations and keep the 5th Warlock as a floater for double summons...

By also parking two level 1 alts with the 4 parked Warlocks I should then be able to use those 4 parked Warlocks to move the entire party between the 4 sites by summoning 2+ party members and the 5th Floater Warlock and then using the 5th Warlock to summon the rest of the party...

If that works then that would be kinda like having 4 direct mage ports to the locations I care most about... If I wanted more I could maybe level another party of alt warlocks to level 20...

If Classic Wow servers do allow Free to Play accounts to level up to 20 like they do on live then maybe this could be done simpler with some extra F2P accounts ;-)

[Peregrine]

Overall, I think 4x mage 1x disc will be also insane due to several facts.

Frost ring that gives 1% to stun and 23 frost dmg that has no dr on stun effect. Pair that with 4x characters, that is 8x 1% to get 5 sec stun.
Undead plus priest buffs give you nice dmg ressitance on shadow, and of course 20% extra dmg on 3 min cd. Frost fire setup for longer mana consumption.
Tailoring chest gives you 600 mana back+gem so you're looking at 2k mana back swiftly plus mana pots, you can easily get near 3k mana.

Both arcane explosion and blizzard have no cap so you can theoretically pull an entire dungeon with a single mage (where mount allows) and then kite it back to other 3 mages and just anhilate shit witth 4x imp blizzard. (we'er taking 50 + mobs and they still die ultra fast).

single target dmg is insane with fireblast and ingnte (4x)
https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/AcACPQEFON_TjSk

This is the calculator for mage. Basically, mana reduction talents with spell penetration for world pvp. Ignite with extra added range, pyroblast for pulling bosses. 4/5 Winter's chill (5 is not needed) and hit talents. Pair that up with priest holy nova for some quick heals, priest stun. added spirit buff/sp/ you're looking at same really good thing. (given that follow is available)

[Apatheist]

4 parked Warlocks to move the entire party between the 4 sites

You have to summon outside the dungeon entrance but I generally sell junk and repair after I've completed a run and I'm going out to reset anyway so that's not an issue. Several dungeons have convenient repair NPC's already.

Placing a couple of warlocks at key flight paths on different continents could be useful. Flying to Menethil/Theramore and waiting for a boat is often what takes the most time. Having a summon to Chillwind Camp would be nice. I farmed Scholomance a LOT on my warlocks trying to get the robe pattern and SM is my default location to boost alts for a pretty broad level range -- like 21-43 or something. The run with low level characters to get from Stormwind to SM is a pain.

[nodoze]

... Placing a couple of warlocks at key flight paths on different continents could be useful. ... Having a summon to Chillwind Camp would be nice. I farmed Scholomance a LOT on my warlocks trying to get the robe pattern and SM is my default location to boost alts for a pretty broad level range -- like 21-43 or something. The run with low level characters to get from Stormwind to SM is a pain.Historically in early WoW my buddies and I mainly did Battle Grounds and they mainly played various builds of Paladins and Warriors in mostly Tanky DPS specs. Since they all only wanted to play Tanky DPS roles I usually ended up playing a full or Hybrid Healer which started off as mainly Paladins and Druids and then later included various Shamans when Alliance got Shamans. To get a better understanding of each class I did at least 1 character of every class to cap though some of those I just did barely enough battle grounds to get a solid feel for them and their strengths/weaknesses and better understanding of how they try to mess with me as the main party (often solo) healer. When not being the main or only healer (or just wanting to cause mayhem) I also enjoyed playing a terrorizing fearing/dotting Warlock for payback :mad: or playing an Elemental Shaman who mega-chain lighting'ed groups of enemies (but could still heal/chain-heal :p) and being a stealth Hybrid druid enhancing a group of rogues :cool: .

Thanks in large part to your posts I am thinking my first main group to cap will be 3 Warriors & 2 Paladins mainly leveling through instances. When I can swap from 2 Healers I likely will make one Paladin Tank, seal, & maybe off-heal for the group with 3 DPS Warriors having only one Paladin as full Healer.

With the above in mind I am thinking that I will get all 5 toons Thrash Blades via the quest and then pretty much live in BRD to get everyone the Hand of Justice and as many IronFoe's for the group as I can.

Priority-wise the first Ironfoe drop will be to a Warrior but the second one may actually be to a Paladin... I say that because I hope to get my brother (& best buddy) to play and enjoy in both open world and battle grounds a Warrior with Ironfoe+ThrashBlade+HandofJustice+CrusaderEnchantX 2 with me as a duo Paladin making him the Energizer Bunny ;) . Unfortunately though he is stubborn and may end up saying he instead only wants to play Protection Paladin regardless of how much I try to convince him that an Energizer Bunny Warrior is better... Though a Warrior+Paladin duo is likely the best overall one of the funniest things we ever did was be a duo of max geared and max Engineering Protection Paladins each with bags full of multiple Force Reactive Disks and every gadget and bomb and lead the charge into the Horde in Alterac Valley... With ideally dedicated healers (and off-healing/protecting each other as needed) it was utter mayhem :eek: and maybe the most fun I ever had in WoW and even frankly any game to date.

TLDR : All that being said, my most important Parked Warlocks will first be at the BRD entrance and then likely at key locations for queuing Battle-grounds & receiving Battle-ground rewards and/or for World PVP/objectives. Likely also will park Warlocks at a few other key dungeons but I am thinking BRD will be my main focus for quite awhile...

[Apatheist]

3 Warriors & 2 Paladins

This will be my main group also. I'll just use a paladin to boost 3 warlocks later on so I can swap between warriors/warlocks (assuming somebody figures out a /focus substitute.) I can't think of any reason I'd want to change healers so the 2 paladins will be the core of pretty much all of my alliance groups.

Kind of hard to beat warriors that can't be slowed or rooted for 16 seconds out of every 20 with imp. freedom.

[Syclone]

If you want to farm the place to do it is dungeons and raid trash. You get the best drop rates on everything, more stuff to DE and in some cases chances for some pretty nice BoE gear (ZG trash, Dire Maul.) One of the primary benefits of boxing is being able to farm content by yourself that is usually only accessible to groups. It doesn't make sense to farm locations that can be done solo as a boxer.

With that in mind, optimal "farming" teams will be the same as the dungeon teams. I would think any tank with sound AE threat (paladin or druid) any healer and a combination of mages and warlocks.

You can reach the same conclusion through a process of elimination.

1. Hunters could work but are too micro intensive to box effectively, are heavily limited by their dead zone and have limited AE. The upside is that hunter pets actually make good dungeon tanks. An owl with max rank screech generates reasonable AE threat.
2. Melee classes are heavily gear dependent and subject to the availability of IWT.
3. Shadow priests, druids and elemental shamans are all low DPS, lack AE damage and run out of mana very quickly.

If you're going for optimal efficacy, mages and warlocks are really the only choice IMO.

Something like:
druid, shaman, mage, mage, warlock.
paladin, priest, mage, mage, warlock.
etc.

Covers all the decurse options (curse, magic, disease, poison) and gives you most of the useful buffs.



Out of curiosity why Druid/Shaman and not Warrior/Shaman? Windfury totem doesn't work for druids right?

[nodoze]

Out of curiosity why Druid/Shaman and not Warrior/Shaman? Windfury totem doesn't work for druids right?I suspect it is because he said "any tank with sound AE threat (paladin or druid)".

My understanding is that while Warriors are superior Raid Boss Tanks, Druids and Paladins make better Area of Effect (AoE or AE) Threat tanks for Dungeon farming and Raid Trash farming.

[Apatheist]

You could swap the druid for a warrior if you prefer warriors. Druids have better AE threat generation -- at least until (if) Blizzard fixes battle shout.

However, I'd revise that statement now that we're reasonably certain IWT will be available. Melee teams all the way. Casters are just mediocre until AQ40/Naxx gear.

[Syclone]

You could swap the druid for a warrior if you prefer warriors. Druids have better AE threat generation -- at least until (if) Blizzard fixes battle shout.

However, I'd revise that statement now that we're reasonably certain IWT will be available. Melee teams all the way. Casters are just mediocre until AQ40/Naxx gear.

Ah I see. Whats the issue with battle shout currently? Not generating threat per team member affected? From what I read druid's swipe/maul rotation is simpler/easier to do to hold AE threat compared to warrior toggling which could help those of us trying to manage multiple characters at once.

I am a bit surprised by your comment about melee > casters thanks to IWT. I assume IWT allows them to path to and start attacking a target. Isn't it true however that warriors and melee in general are more gear dependent? I would have expected a Druid/Shaman/3 Mage group to be better than lets say 4 Warrior/Shaman. Especially if your 5 man group isn't expected to get raid gear (only having them to farm dungeons and maybe raid trash besides a main).

[Apatheist]

Ah I see. Whats the issue with battle shout currently? Not generating threat per team member affected? From what I read druid's swipe/maul rotation is simpler/easier to do to hold AE threat compared to warrior toggling which could help those of us trying to manage multiple characters at once.

I am a bit surprised by your comment about melee > casters thanks to IWT. I assume IWT allows them to path to and start attacking a target. Isn't it true however that warriors and melee in general are more gear dependent? I would have expected a Druid/Shaman/3 Mage group to be better than lets say 4 Warrior/Shaman. Especially if your 5 man group isn't expected to get raid gear (only having them to farm dungeons and maybe raid trash besides a main).

Last I heard battle shout isn't generating any threat on beta. I don't know if that's something Blizzard will fix.

Preraid BiS for melee classes is significantly stronger than for casters. There are multiple epics available for warriors (lionheart helm, ironfoe, felstriker, cloudkeeper legplates), tons of hit rating and hand of justice is BiS trinket for warrior/rogue until well into phase 5. Feral druids have a similar power spike but they don't scale as well as warriors and rogues later on. Also, the crusader enchant is light years beyond anything casters have available to them.

Warlocks and mages don't start to get really strong in PvE until after AQ. In PvP they're much more dependent on CC/cooldowns to stay alive and susceptible to interrupts/LoS. Warriors just run at things, do a ton of damage and are naturally tanky and difficult to stop with a freedom. You don't have to try to kite or worry about being circle strafed or any of the issues casters have. That's not to say caster teams can't do well. They just require more effort.

I wouldn't even try to play a melee team without IWT. I know some people have done it but it's super slow and clunky IMO.

[Syclone]

Last I heard battle shout isn't generating any threat on beta. I don't know if that's something Blizzard will fix.

Preraid BiS for melee classes is significantly stronger than for casters. There are multiple epics available for warriors (lionheart helm, ironfoe, felstriker, cloudkeeper legplates), tons of hit rating and hand of justice is BiS trinket for warrior/rogue until well into phase 5. Feral druids have a similar power spike but they don't scale as well as warriors and rogues later on. Also, the crusader enchant is light years beyond anything casters have available to them.

Warlocks and mages don't start to get really strong in PvE until after AQ. In PvP they're much more dependent on CC/cooldowns to stay alive and susceptible to interrupts/LoS. Warriors just run at things, do a ton of damage and are naturally tanky and difficult to stop with a freedom. You don't have to try to kite or worry about being circle strafed or any of the issues casters have. That's not to say caster teams can't do well. They just require more effort.

I wouldn't even try to play a melee team without IWT. I know some people have done it but it's super slow and clunky IMO.

Does this remain true for preraid dungeon farming? My goal is to run 5 mans/maybe raid trash for farming, not for PvP. Would a caster group with significant AoE be a better choice in your opinion then?

So with IWT and a melee group. You essentially have them IWT + Click to Move to path to the target and attack. Then you keep spamming that to ensure they remain on the target combined with pressing keys to trigger skills? Is that the jist of it? I would imagine if you did something like 3 War/2Pal that you would control the 3 wars manually with identical input and the 2 pals with forwarding key presses? (or vice versa)

Edit: Doh sorry you did mention Mages/Warlocks not getting really strong in PvE until after AQ. So I guess you do mean that a melee group would farm dungeons better preraid as well. What would such a group look like on horde? 4 Warriors 1 Shaman maybe? Control shaman and forward presses to warrior or control all 4 warriors identically and forward heals/totems to shaman?

[Apatheist]

AoE?

Warriors have stronger AE on standard mob packs (4-6) with cleave/whilrlwind. Mages and warlocks have stronger AE on larger packs because their AE skills have no cap. However, you only really utilize large scale AE farming in dungeons that are significantly lower level than you. If you pull more than two packs in any on-level dungeon you'll die. There are clips from the beta of groups doing large AE pulls in SM but that would be pretty sketchy as a boxer. You don't have the control to micro iceblock, CC, heals, kiting and tanking the way 5 individual players do. The lower level dungeons are also much easier. At 55+ when you're farming end-game dungeons all of the mobs have silences, stuns, armor debuffs, AE damage/knockbacks, etc. that will kill you if you pull too many.

IWT moves your melee characters to their target. I usually create target action groups with a hotkey to toggle different characters IWT on or off. There are times you don't want to mindlessly spam IWT or you'll end up in some lava or getting cleaved since IWT has weird behavior and sometimes circles around the target.

3Warrior, 2Shaman or 4/1. Either would work fine. I always prefer having two healers just because I PvP a lot and a single healer can be interrupted/CC'd much more easily. If you're only interested in doing dungeons and not PvP, 4/1 will be plenty of healing. Especially once you get some decent +healing gear. Downranked chain heal is pretty efficient.

For raid trash farming casters are definitely superior. Raid trash in vanilla is too strong to tank with 5 characters, you have to kite it.

[Syclone]

Warriors have stronger AE on standard mob packs (4-6) with cleave/whilrlwind. Mages and warlocks have stronger AE on larger packs because their AE skills have no cap. However, you only really utilize large scale AE farming in dungeons that are significantly lower level than you. If you pull more than two packs in any on-level dungeon you'll die. There are clips from the beta of groups doing large AE pulls in SM but that would be pretty sketchy as a boxer. You don't have the control to micro iceblock, CC, heals, kiting and tanking the way 5 individual players do. The lower level dungeons are also much easier. At 55+ when you're farming end-game dungeons all of the mobs have silences, stuns, armor debuffs, AE damage/knockbacks, etc. that will kill you if you pull too many.

IWT moves your melee characters to their target. I usually create target action groups with a hotkey to toggle different characters IWT on or off. There are times you don't want to mindlessly spam IWT or you'll end up in some lava or getting cleaved since IWT has weird behavior and sometimes circles around the target.

3Warrior, 2Shaman or 4/1. Either would work fine. I always prefer having two healers just because I PvP a lot and a single healer can be interrupted/CC'd much more easily. If you're only interested in doing dungeons and not PvP, 4/1 will be plenty of healing. Especially once you get some decent +healing gear. Downranked chain heal is pretty efficient.

For raid trash farming casters are definitely superior. Raid trash in vanilla is too strong to tank with 5 characters, you have to kite it.

First, thanks so much for your input. It has been invaluable. I took some time to plan out what I think would work for me as well as trying out a setup that I could on a private server. Of course IWT isnt in the 1.12 client so testing a melee group with it isnt viable.

You mentioned you plan to do 3 War / 3 Pal. What does that look like for you? 1 Pal tank, 1 Pal healer and 3 arms/fury wars for dungeon leveling? What would you drive from, the tank?

If I did 4 War / 1 Sham would I need one of those wars to go prot? I am thinking so. Then I suppose I would drive from the prot tank for dungeon leveling as well?

I tested a Prot War/Resto Shaman/2 Mage/ Warlock in RFC on a private server. My biggest issue was keeping aggro as the prot warrior. I know practice will really help. I need to not have my dps macros assist the tank since the tank is tab targeting each mob to grab aggro. This did make me wonder though if perhaps Druid with swipe/maul would be easier. Druid/3War/Shaman?

Although 4 war/shaman might still be ideal, but I am just concerned about no cc and holding aggro. Perhaps holding aggro isn't as big of a deal if the dps are warriors and can take a hit.

Any advice with this would help greatly. I essentially would like to end up with an optimal 5 man farming group that includes my main (shaman), and possibly at some point have a 4 shaman/1 priest pvp group.

[nodoze]

First, thanks so much for your input. It has been invaluable. ...

You mentioned you plan to do 3 War / 3 Pal. What does that look like for you? 1 Pal tank, 1 Pal healer and 3 arms/fury wars for dungeon leveling? What would you drive from, the tank?

If I did 4 War / 1 Sham would I need one of those wars to go prot? I am thinking so. Then I suppose I would drive from the prot tank for dungeon leveling as well?

I tested a Prot War/Resto Shaman/2 Mage/ Warlock in RFC on a private server. My biggest issue was keeping aggro as the prot warrior. I know practice will really help. I need to not have my dps macros assist the tank since the tank is tab targeting each mob to grab aggro. This did make me wonder though if perhaps Druid with swipe/maul would be easier. Druid/3War/Shaman?

Although 4 war/shaman might still be ideal, but I am just concerned about no cc and holding aggro. Perhaps holding aggro isn't as big of a deal if the dps are warriors and can take a hit.

Any advice with this would help greatly. I essentially would like to end up with an optimal 5 man farming group that includes my main (shaman), and possibly at some point have a 4 shaman/1 priest pvp group.Agreed Apatheist provides great info.

I am pretty sure he plans 3 DPS warriors and 2 Healing Paladins often in melee range sealing the main target & I plan on doing a similar configuration. If the content really requires a true Tank I think he would convert one of the warriors although one of the Paladins could be a mana heavy Tank option as well. Maybe he will chime in on this as well as how he plans to drive them.

PVEwise Druid/3War/Shaman would give you a Tank option that could convert to a Healer when Tanking isn't needed. It could also open up some stealth options for you and a give you a battleground flag runner option.

[Apatheist]

My plan at the moment is to level the paladins as holy and the warriors as 2H fury until I get enough hit rating to DW. Whenever necessary you can switch to a 1H/shield and go defensive stance on any of the warriors but most of the time there's no reason to go full protection unless you're raid tanking.

It doesn't really matter which character you drive from. Whichever way is more comfortable for you will work best. Generally with melee teams I prefer to control from the healer since it's easier to manage positioning while your melee IWT.

The DPS from 3-4 warriors will be more than enough to keep agro off your healer, but even if one gets past every now and then both shamans and paladins are tanky enough to take a few hits until you can regain control.

There are quite a few comps that will work well in dungeons. I just prefer melee groups when IWT is available. You could probably even manage dungeons with 4 shamans and a priest if that's your end-goal anyway. Why level up classes you don't really want to play?

[Syclone]

You could probably even manage dungeons with 4 shamans and a priest if that's your end-goal anyway. Why level up classes you don't really want to play?

Both yours and nodoze's responses have been great, thank you. My thoughts on leveling up classes I dont want to play is to have a more efficient setup to farm with. I figure a more optimal 4 war 1 sham will clear much faster than 4 sham 1 priest. I also wasn't sure if I would even be able to do dungeons with 4 shamans 1 priest.

[nodoze]

In our case our dungeon farming team contains our mains that we plan to play at cap as I plan to raid as a Paladin Healer and I hope my brother will come raid as a DPS Warrior who can off Tank and maybe he will work into Main Tanking at some point (I plan on us getting him BiS gearsets for both roles).

One concern with 4 Shaman+Priest would be heavy water costs unless you have your own mage or a really good friend who is a mage and can be available. My other concern would be lack of a Tank option for any content that needs it.

In BC one of the teams I played was a Druid+3 Shaman+Priest team and between Chain Lighting and Chain Healing it was a nice fun flexible Hybrid group. Sometimes in PVP I would play the Druid as a BoomKin to be kinda like a 4th caster shaman and in dungeons I could make the Druid Tank if I needed to. If I recall correctly that was BC though when the level cap went to 70 and there were significant changes so I can't speak to how viable/fun they would be in clearing dungeons and in World PVP on classic WoW.

[Apatheist]

My other concern would be lack of a Tank option for any content that needs it.

You can tank on shamans with the right build. They actually have very high single target threat between earth shock and rockbiter weapon with windfury totem. They just can't hold agro on multiple mobs very well. The water cost is an issue but overall, the cost of leveling a second team just for farming would be higher. Finding a mage to summon you several stacks of water for a couple gold shouldn't be to difficult.

If I were going to make a team exclusively for farming dungeons I'd probably go paladin, priest, 3 mages. Consecration+Arcane explosion is easily the fastest way to clear large groups of trash and a prot paladin with a mage in the group for free water is pretty efficient.

[nodoze]

You can tank on shamans with the right build. They actually have very high single target threat between earth shock and rockbiter weapon with windfury totem. They just can't hold agro on multiple mobs very well. The water cost is an issue but overall, the cost of leveling a second team just for farming would be higher. Finding a mage to summon you several stacks of water for a couple gold shouldn't be to difficult.

If I were going to make a team exclusively for farming dungeons I'd probably go paladin, priest, 3 mages. Consecration+Arcane explosion is easily the fastest way to clear large groups of trash and a prot paladin with a mage in the group for free water is pretty efficient.I agree that is pretty much the same group I would do if I were making a group strictly for PVE farming and if I didn't want both a Paladin & Warrior main for PVP. The added benefit of a team like that is that theoretically you could later raid with 4+ of them in a ranged DPS group (at least on raids a guild has on farm). I am not sure the Paladin would fit unless maybe the Paladin speced differently for Raid Healing and improved concentration aura to bring all 5.

From a clearing perspective how close do you think Paladin, Priest, 2 Mages, & Warlock is to Paladin, Priest, & 3 Mages considering the synergy of Warlock with Mage? Personally I would like the utility of Warlock getting the group together and sending 1 character to town and back between clears and would maybe be willing to trade a little DPS for that.

[Apatheist]

Paladin, Priest, 2 Mages, & Warlock

Substituting arcane explosion for hellfire makes things a little bit more awkward but overall it's pretty much the same. Nice thing about arcane explosion is you can ignore knockbacks and interrupts. I had issues trying to hellfire in scholomance on my priest+4 warlock team because of all the knockbacks and you have to spend a lot of time in there to farm the epic robe pattern.

DPS-wise it's pretty much the same though and blood pact is nice to have for a little bit more health on your tank.

[Syclone]

Really been struggling to decide in terms of best for farming.

4 War/Sham
1 Druid/3War/Sham
1 Druid/3Mage/Sham or Priest

I wasn't too fond of macro'ing aggro control with a warrior with tabbing targets. Hence why I am considering a druid for ease of holding aggro. Its a shame windfury doesn't affect the druid though. Although 4 dps warriors may not even require a tank to hold aggro. Just would have to worry about the healer.

Also a shame that Leader of the Pack 3% crit wouldn't apply to the 3 mages' spell crit.

The idea of driving from the healer and sending off relatively tanky dps warriors seemed nice. No cc and gear dependent so a bit concerned about progressing through dungeons until gear is obtained.


If I were going to make a team exclusively for farming dungeons I'd probably go paladin, priest, 3 mages.

Apatheist, you left me a tad confused since you mentioned that you would revise your original Druid/Shaman/2 Mage/1 Warlock as an ideal group in favor of melee thanks to IWT being available. However here you mention a caster group for farming. I am assuming you were considering other aspects such as PvP previously.

Would a 1 Druid/3Mage/Healer setup farm faster/better than 4 War/Sham (or a druid tank in place of a warrior)?

[Apatheist]

Apatheist, you left me a tad confused since you mentioned that you would revise your original Druid/Shaman/2 Mage/1 Warlock as an ideal group in favor of melee thanks to IWT being available. However here you mention a caster group for farming. I am assuming you were considering other aspects such as PvP previously.

I had assumed previously that IWT wouldn't be available, since it wasn't in the original game, so casters would be the only viable option. With IWT available I much prefer melee. Casters are still fine though and provide a lot of utility and buffs. I will still roll a warlock group after DM releases because I think warlocks are also a strong all around pick for PvP/PvE.

With the availability of 16 debuff slots and 1.12 itemized gear from the start it seems likely casters will be in a better place DPS-wise in the early phases.

Mages AE clear larger groups of weaker enemies faster. BRD farming, for example. Warriors clear smaller groups (4-6) of stronger enemies faster such as the ogres in DM. Neither is really "better" than the other, they both have advantages. I think warriors are stronger in PvP but other people have played mages and had some success.

Largely comes down to preference. You'll be able to farm fine with either group. The convenience of having a mage for portals and being able to summon back your looter might tip the balance for you.

[nodoze]

Really been struggling to decide in terms of best for farming.

4 War/Sham
1 Druid/3War/Sham
1 Druid/3Mage/Sham or Priest

...If we are strictly talking what is the theoretical best 5 boxing dungeon clearing team for any/all circumstances I think the proto-typical design is:

-1 Tank;
-3 DPS;
-1 Healer;

With that in mind for strictly most efficient Dungeon clearing for those 3 roles I would recommend:

-1 Tank: Paladin (or Druid if Horde though Warrior may also be an option);
-3 DPS: Mages (though having at least 1 Warlock gives utility/buffs);
-1 Healer: Priest Dwarf/Undead (though Paladins & Shamans are good options with pros/cons);

The biggest thing I like about the above party composition is that it gives great Area of Effect (AoE) Threat, AoE Damage, and AoE healing options in addition to single target options and from a boxer perspective likely gives more simple & consistent timings, rotations, management, & positioning than other options.

I think the Alliance option is overall best because the Paladin tank seems the best for maintaining threat on the largest number of targets as well as being able to reduce the other party member's threat if that is an issue and the Paladin can self clear poison letting the Priest clear magic & disease and the Mages clear Curses.

I love druids and druids are probably my favorite overall class but, while they can be solid healers with a nice long cool-down combat rez, they lack a regular rez makes me hesitant to have them as the party's single healer. I guess they can be a good option if you have things fully on farm and rarely if ever wipe and/or if you can leverage another team member as a rezzer (like a Paladin).

Druids Tanks also have strong AoE threat but on fewer targets and also can't reduce the aggro of their teammates and while they they can theoretically self-clear both Poisons & Curses I believe they have to shift to do so which can be dangerous...

In the end there are lots of options and what is theoretically best may not necessarily be the best for your personal play-style, preferences, and/or skill level and/or the specific content you are targeting. If you want to consider various options you may want to review the following chart regarding who can clear which debuffs:

https://cwl-forums.s3.amazonaws.com/a95359cc-fa14-48f6-aaed-dc2fabb91c5c.png

TLDR:
From your options I think on the Horde side the most efficient overall 5-boxing option for clearing dungeons for the average person is:

-Druid/3Mage/Priest (or Paladin instead of Druid if Alliance);

Though personally I would at least substitute a Warlock for a Mage...

The above being said I have concerns you maybe asking the wrong question or at least not be considering all needs... If you are interested in how I would recommend deciding on what your main 5 box party composition should be I would read the following:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/entries/1117-Deciding-on-a-good-Main-5-box-team-for-Classic-WoW

[Syclone]

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.



https://www.dual-boxing.com/entries/1117-Deciding-on-a-good-Main-5-box-team-for-Classic-WoW

That link does not work for me("Invalid Blog specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator"), but I would love to read further.

[nodoze]

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

That link does not work for me("Invalid Blog specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator"), but I would love to read further.Appreciate the thanks and sorry the link isn't working. That is my first Blog post on this site and it may be because I checked things I shouldn't have (or didn't uncheck things I should have). That or maybe I posted the link wrong or there is an issue due to the length of the URL.

I changed a few check boxes on the Blog Post and took the link to the Tiny URL site for you:

The following URL:
https://www.dual-boxing.com/entries/1117-Deciding-on-a-good-Main-5-box-team-for-Classic-WoW
has a length of 91 characters and resulted in the following TinyURL which has a length of 28 characters: https://tinyurl.com/yyebh7da
[Open in new window (https://tinyurl.com/yyebh7da)]
Or, give your recipients confidence with a preview TinyURL: https://preview.tinyurl.com/yyebh7da
[Open in new window (https://preview.tinyurl.com/yyebh7da)]


Please retry the link in my previous post and if that doesn't work try the Tiny URL links above.

If none of those work then maybe someone like the Legendary MiRai can figure out what is wrong.

[Syclone]

Appreciate the thanks and sorry the link isn't working. That is my first Blog post on this site and it may be because I checked things I shouldn't have (or didn't uncheck things I should have). That or maybe I posted the link wrong or there is an issue due to the length of the URL.

I changed a few check boxes on the Blog Post and took the link to the Tiny URL site for you:

The following URL:
https://www.dual-boxing.com/entries/1117-Deciding-on-a-good-Main-5-box-team-for-Classic-WoW
has a length of 91 characters and resulted in the following TinyURL which has a length of 28 characters: https://tinyurl.com/yyebh7da
[Open in new window (https://tinyurl.com/yyebh7da)]
Or, give your recipients confidence with a preview TinyURL: https://preview.tinyurl.com/yyebh7da
[Open in new window (https://preview.tinyurl.com/yyebh7da)]


Please retry the link in my previous post and if that doesn't work try the Tiny URL links above.

If none of those work then maybe someone like the Legendary MiRai can figure out what is wrong.

Nope none of them. Have you tried visiting that link in incognito mode? You might be able to repro not being able to go to it that way.

[MiRai]

The above blog post is now available.

[nodoze]

The above blog post is now available.See. I told you the man, the myth, the legend would come. :cool: