Thinking out loud about the set-up I'm currently building

First, hi all .. long time reader.


Background:
I don't have hardware or software problems... my concerns are more game play related. I have played priest and rogue to 60 pre-TBC, Mage to 70, countless other alts to 30-50, Then a rogue from 1-70 and through SSC and TK(different from the 60) and after retiring the rogue i thought back on what part of the game was the most fun for me. It was without a doubt the solo gearing I did on the rogue. The idea that if i wanted something i went and tried to get it. That led to me multiboxing a couple of mages more in a testing capacity but enough to give me the bug a few months back. I would say the largest part of my experience is split between soloing and endgame raiding with very little proper level 5 man instancing. So now I want to see it.


Restrictions:
What I know at this point. I can maintain 3 copies of wow at the same time, One on my main machine and Two split on another machine. I am hesitant to do more than this for a few reasons.

• Subscription cost - I know there are a ton of 5-10 boxers here but 45 bucks per month is about where i give out for this sort of thing.
• Playing with friends- or friend rather... the only regular one left is a 72 shammy/ 70 Druid. I would want to leave a spot for him. He could help on request with either.
• Machine budget - I can justify a new computer but would like to avoid it if i can (that is to say 3 mans are handled fine right now... a 5 man would need another machine)
  

So coming from blank slate as far as char go.. i want to experience the instances. After crunching the numbers and reading every related post I could find on here and other places.. I am leaning towards three hunters. Ive got ideas about specs and synergies and wanted to say them out loud to get hopefully some people telling me it rocks or that I'm a fool for trying.


Ideas:
I'm looking at designing this group specifically to run 5 man content (except with 3). I'm not against rolling any race, but if it isn't horde I would lose the help of the friend mentioned above.


3 Hunters 1 full BM with minor MM, 1 split BM MM, the other Survival minor BM.
Pets would be adaptable. For races I see either Orc for the pet damage bonus or Dranei for the HoT. I would also lean towards herbalism for all three for the HoT. Pet damage makes pets stickier though. With mend pet being a HoT, feign death to dump aggro (and reset if needed though i know its wonky) and Combat res for pets this really seems to have the longivity need.

Other advantages i can think of

• Bestial wrath through fear (even beast within if you need to get a heal on the only pet that isnt feared)
  
• Mana regen through viper
• Later levels the pet talents really pick up... avoidance, stat buffs etc.
• Don't have to repair pets
• Don't have to farm shards... gah.
  

Of course experiences with this are welcome.

I'm running five sessions on a single computer. It's not that expensive to do, either. Main concerns are a Q6600 and as much memory as you can handle (8GB is nice). Could probably build it for $1k or so, $2k tops. What are your specs?

When you start in with tri-boxing or whatever, it REALLY helps if at least one guy on the team can heal/res. This is part of why shamans are so popular - they just work. Less important for two, very important for five...probably significantly important for three. Full-DPS is a good tactic, but runs into trouble easily. High-DPS with some healing and some tactical tricks tends to run into much less trouble.

I'm not after hardware advice but thank you. Hardware is not holding me back... even if i had the machines for free my other issues would still stand (playing with friend... 150 bucks for a subscription to a game) I'm not speaking poorly of people who can afford it and i could.. but i don't want to.

Basically, I'm looking for some sort of rough estimate about how far a 3 man could go as opposed to a 5 or opposed to different classes. If it seems they are extremely limited then i might consider 5.

So I'm more curious about what I would need (class and numbers wise) to run the most 5 man content.

well to speak about tbc contents, pre wotlk i saw a photo of a boxer who 3 man shattered halls HC, 1 warrior 1 resto shaman and 1 ele shaman i just forgot his name :(
edit: there you go Heroic Shattered Halls [2x shaman 1x warrior]
on a side note i wonder if fastway is still among us.

but iirc he had exceptional gear to run those contents

as an answer of how far can u go as 3 man, i belive if u have those exceptional gear i think u can run most 5 man contents but keep in mind that clearing those contents will require some serious effort, so u might consider a build of 1 tank, 1 healer, and one dps in ur case mage might be a good choice due to CC

Wanted to comment briefly on your mention of playing with a friend. I just started 5 boxing a month or two back so I would be able to experience all the dungeon content in WOTLK (missed a lot in TBC)... I am in a guild with my brother and some other friends. Ive worked hard to make my setup leaderless and not dependent on any one character so that if my brother is on when I am going to do an instance and he wants to go, I can just drop one of my 5 and get him in the group and run from there. Anyways, if you dont want to do more than 3, not pressuring you, just pointing out that you can downsize your group if you set it up right... anyways, if you dont want to do it I guess thats irrelevant =P

As for the 3 man in a 5 man, I guess I dont really understand your question. Unless you outgear/outlevel the instance I dont think a 3 man of any class set up is probably going to do super well in an instance. (Correct me if im wrong somebody). Im not saying you cant have some success but if your friends arent on then you might be SOL.

I run a 5 shaman team currently at 74 and a 5man mixed group consisting of all my other "old solo characters" (DK, druid, lock, mage, warrior) that im just running to level them up...I have zero intention of playing them as a team at 80 but may swap out a shaman or two for one/two of them later on if I get bored, etc...anyway ive run alot of instances with both teams and here are my thoughts:

5dps 5man groups are easy for a 5boxer but likely more difficult and/or far more tedius to manage if your dealing with multiple players as your success here depends mostly on coordination on abilities to work. Likewise, your standard tank+healer+dps teams are probably the opposite....the more real players you add, the easier/less tedius it becomes. The 5shaman team has a bit of a learning/gear issue to contend with in order to beat some bosses but once a 5man instance becomes old hat with 5shaman team, yeah, the speed that you can roll through it is pretty unreal....on the other hand a standard group with a tank/healer in my experience will usually have an easy time with all 5man content but instance clears are always going to take a good bit longer

I would think that if you don't care about PVP, and you just want to run 5mans with a 3box team mabey consider a tank+healer+mage setup. My mixed team actually levelling 60-70 as a 3box (currently 66) (DK+mage+druid) as my other 2 characters (lock, warrior) are already at 70. Anyway, yeah, controlling the tank+healer+CCer means you can pretty much fill in the other 2 spots with random REREs and run anything, I was just grabbing 2 random DKs (nothing but DKs in outland atm) to join my runs and never had any problems, the runs were easy. So with this setup, you can roll with your 1/2 buddies and fill in with a random pug at will if needed whenever. my 02