My voyage to 60 and lessons learned

[Fuzzyboy]

Writing this post to share my experiences and hopefully help someone who is about to start the same or a similar journey.

My goals

I rolled horde on a non-PVP server, since for me, the cons of world PVP doesn't outweigh the pros. I started my multiboxing team for the following reasons:

- I wanted to get my main to level 60
- I wanted to level in instances on my own
- I wanted a team to help support the pre-raid BIS process for my main, so I wouldn't have to rely on PUGs
- I wanted a "team" to support my main char, once I got to level 60 (at which time I was planning to start raiding, but just with my main) with ports, summons, gold farming options etc.

The team

I decided to go with the setup of:

- Warrior tank
- Holy priest healer
- Mage + Mage + Warlock for DPS

This worked well for instance levelling, since they could go the standard one-pack-at-the-time route and the AE route.

Knowing what I do today, I would have probably gone alliance with the setup:

- Druid tank
- Paladin healer
- Mage + mage + warlock for DPS

Reasoning behind this is that:

- Druid does more DPS in feral tank form than a prot warrior, is easier to gear, easier to manage and can supply both thorns (for AoE grinding), MoTW and an extra res
- Paladin can supply retribution aura for AE pulls
- Paladin can supply blessing of salvation making holding threat easier

End-game instances

Doing the end-game instances is a lot harder than I anticipated. I wipe more frequently than expected (although my gear is still pretty sucky) and I have to pay attention at all times. That being said, it's both challenging and fun - and sometimes slightly frustrating ;-)

I'm very happy that I have two sheep available - having just one would definitely make things harder. Can't imaging having none for the 4-5 ogre pulls in Dire Maul especially.

I hadn't played a warrior before and it requires more attention than I expected. Current setup works well for end-game instances, but I often find myself wishing I had gone the druid route :-)

Going in, I imagined pre-raid BIS gearing the whole team, but it turns out to be quite a big effort - more so than levelling. I'm tempted to just focus on my main since I won't be using the team for anything but farming anyway. At least you get decent gold returns while pre-raid BIS farming :-)

I think that's it - hope it helps someone :-)

[method98]

Which one was the main? I assume either the mage or lock since you were willing to swap healer and tank classes

[Fuzzyboy]

Which one was the main? I assume either the mage or lock since you were willing to swap healer and tank classes

Correct - it was the mage :)

[method98]

Same reason i started a multibox team then aswell. I have a 60 lock but got tired of running scholo and nobody wanting to kill Vectus for my bis neck, also only had 40g because I had a hard time farming mara solo. So I'm working on my WMMMP (lv 17 atm) to get bis and gold for my lock

[nodoze]

Thanks for sharing. I take it from the above that you prefer to main either a Mage or Warlock as you are considering swapping out the others.

In hindsight do you feel the Warlock benefits outweigh a 3rd Mage (including at cap when your main heads off to Raid)?

[Apatheist]

I don't think fiery shield stacks with thorns(?) and warriors are much better tanks than druids.

Only thing I'd change about your comp if I were to make a trinity comp for PvE is swapping the priest for a paladin.

[Fuzzyboy]

Thanks for sharing. I take it from the above that you prefer to main either a Mage or Warlock as you are considering swapping out the others.

In hindsight do you feel the Warlock benefits outweigh a 3rd Mage (including at cap when your main heads off to Raid)?

To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit torn about that. I'm not a big fan of my warlock - primarily because I cannot count the amount of wipes I've had due to the imp fireballing some random target. On the other hand, he does provide some much needed utility in the ability to summon, soulstone, stamina buff and thorns buff.

Overall I think I might replace him with a mage if I had had a druid as tank. Downside being that with druid/paladin you won't have any stamina buffs. From a stat-perspective, I think he earns his place, but I could go either way since I just find him and his imp annoying to manage.

[nodoze]

To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit torn about that. I'm not a big fan of my warlock - primarily because I cannot count the amount of wipes I've had due to the imp fireballing some random target. On the other hand, he does provide some much needed utility in the ability to summon, soulstone, stamina buff and thorns buff.

Overall I think I might replace him with a mage if I had had a druid as tank. Downside being that with druid/paladin you won't have any stamina buffs. From a stat-perspective, I think he earns his place, but I could go either way since I just find him and his imp annoying to manage.Can you just have the imp give the stam and "thorns" buff and otherwise fade?

I am considering having at least 1 Warlock on my group for utility and especially for summoning at cap. I suspect I will be regularly be leaving my other 4 grinding team for raiding and/or grouping with guild mates & this will likely only be exacerbated once the battlegrounds are released.
I don't think fiery shield stacks with thorns(?) and warriors are much better tanks than druids.

Only thing I'd change about your comp if I were to make a trinity comp for PvE is swapping the priest for a paladin.I love Druids (& Paladins) but my thoughts were/are similar to yours. If you were to drop the Warlock for a 3rd Mage (thus losing redundant thorns) and were committed to standard crawling of regular size pulls then I can see Druid being possibly slightly better for grinding regular packs but with less "oh-shit" options. Similarly I think Paladin Tank has some pros with some better salability due to block and better AoE Threat on unlimited numbers of mobs (with better "oh-shit" options than druid) but a Warrior Tank (with a Paladin Healer) likely gives the best overall scale-ability for the largest pulls.

That being said I hope to have all 3 Tanks at cap and do some personal contrast/compare in Classic... I think Paladin Tank gives the best balance allowing good enough scale-ability with lots of utility and likely will be my normal route. I may end up with Paladin Tank & Paladin Healer just for easy mode for my regular grinding (with the Paladin Healer giving Greater Blessing of Salvation (GBoSalvation) to Mages & the Tank Paladin spamming a GBoKings "shouts" on the Mages if threat is ever an issue).

[Fuzzyboy]

I don't think fiery shield stacks with thorns(?) and warriors are much better tanks than druids.

You are correct about fiery shield and thorns, in the first iteration of my initial post, I had changed the warlock for a mage in my ideal setup, which is probably the explanation for the wording.

Not sure what you mean about warriors being much better tanks though? When we're talking 5-man instances, I don't really see much of an advantage?


Can you just have the imp give the stam and "thorns" buff and otherwise fade?

Yes, I could. I've considered that often, but he does account for a good deal of the DPS of the warlock though :-/

[Apatheist]

Not sure what you mean about warriors being much better tanks though? When we're talking 5-man instances, I don't really see much of an advantage?

I think you're underestimating how much damage reduction warriors receive from defensive stance, block and parry. Druids have a higher health pool and more armor but they take significantly more damage than warriors. On dungeon bosses warriors and druids will perform roughly equivalently but on those big pulls while you're level grinding or farming warriors will survive where a druid would have died. Not to mention the bears have no tanking cooldowns and you can't use consumables in form. No healthstones, no armor potions or engineering gadgets, etc.

Your AE threat as a warrior also ends up being better than a druids since there are a bunch of items like shield spikes, razor gauntlets, etc. If you can get your hands on a couple of https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=22797/force-reactive-disk they are incredible for AE threat. Or an item like https://classic.wowhead.com/item=13243/argent-defender. 50% Block for 10 seconds on big pulls would put you up to like 75-80% chance to block, each block reducing the incoming hit by 70-100ish damage multiplied by 10-15 mobs? It really adds up.

[nodoze]

You are correct about fiery shield and thorns, in the first iteration of my initial post, I had changed the warlock for a mage in my ideal setup, which is probably the explanation for the wording.

Not sure what you mean about warriors being much better tanks though? When we're talking 5-man instances, I don't really see much of an advantage?

Yes, I could. I've considered that often, but he does account for a good deal of the DPS of the warlock though :-/Thanks for doing this thread and the lessons learned. I fleshed out my above post while you were responding as to why I agree with Apathiest that Warrior may be better than either Druid & Paladin Tanks for some teams depending on the goals.

If you are committed to regular crawling through dungeons (which is fine for many people) Druid may indeed be optimal for some people. Higher health (especially Tauren), higher innate base mitigation regardless of facing, and less buttons to press/time make a lot of sense for a boxer who already has enough to deal with... That being said other tanks, especially Warriors, can open up larger pull options with better party gear.


I think you're underestimating how much damage reduction warriors receive from defensive stance, block and parry. Druids have a higher health pool and more armor but they take significantly more damage than warriors. On dungeon bosses warriors and druids will perform roughly equivalently but on those big pulls while you're level grinding or farming warriors will survive where a druid would have died. Not to mention the bears have no tanking cooldowns and you can't use consumables in form. No healthstones, no armor potions or engineering gadgets, etc.

Your AE threat as a warrior also ends up being better than a druids since there are a bunch of items like shield spikes, razor gauntlets, etc. If you can get your hands on a couple of https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=22797/force-reactive-disk they are incredible for AE threat.Those shields are great but I ended up having 4 of them on my tank as they broke so damn much.

[Apatheist]

Those shields are great but I ended up having 4 of them on my tank as they broke so damn much.

True but the threat it provdes is amazing. You can swap between shields for different proc effects or on bosses where you don't really need the AE TPS. Warriors just have way more tricks than druids and are better itemized for tanking throughout classic.

One thing I want to test is how much threat piercing howl causes. I don't have a trinity group but if piercing howl causes similar threat to battle shout, which it should because it's just a standard debuff, being able to cause decent AE TPS while kiting and taking no damage is pretty OP.

[Moorea]

I solved most of my "damn pet pulls random next group" using this macro:
/stopmacro [noexists][noharm][dead]
/startattack
/petattack
/castsequence reset=target/15 Immolate, null
/castsequence reset=target/15 Corruption, null
/cast Shadow Bolt

the first line stops the macro unless the lock already has a target (is assisting), otherwise /startattack /petattack will pick the next nearby target


And about pally healer: I find my pally healer great for single target heals but having nothing fast nor any group heal is an issue so I am not sure you'd really want to swap your priest for a pally when you have mages that may get aoe aggro (or locks that are doing hellfire))

[Apatheist]

And about pally healer: I find my pally healer great for single target heals but having nothing fast nor any group heal is an issue

This stops being an issue when you get decent gear. With enough +healing paladin can spam downranked flash of light literally forever. Outside of rare circumstances where everybody in the party is below 50%, paladins are actually better at spot healing groups.

I have flash of light R1 bound to the same button as my single target DPS keymap set to heal mouseover if exists otherwise target of target. That way, it just autoheals whichever character the mob is attacking or my mouseover target. It's so cheap wasted casts don't even matter.

The only real advantage priest has is the inspiration buff.

[nodoze]

This stops being an issue when you get decent gear. With enough +healing paladin can spam downranked flash of light literally forever. Outside of rare circumstances where everybody in the party is below 50%, paladins are actually better at spot healing groups.

I have flash of light R1 bound to the same button as my single target DPS keymap set to heal mouseover if exists otherwise target of target. That way, it just autoheals whichever character the mob is attacking or my mouseover target. It's so cheap wasted casts don't even matter.

The only real advantage priest has is the inspiration buff.Paladin is especially awesome for Melee Cleave (in general great due to Seal of Light but go into turbo mode if they get a full T1 set).
... And about pally healer: I find my pally healer great for single target heals but having nothing fast nor any group heal is an issue [edit:] so I am not sure you'd really want to swap your priest for a pally when you have mages that may get aoe aggro (or locks that are doing hellfire))With Mages and Paladin reducing their threat this should rarely be an issue if you have a proper Tank. If running Warlocks I would think Priest should be better as they will damaging themselves plus you may also have pets.