How many teams have you tried out?

I think i may worry too much about optimization and trying to min/max too much, but I think finally found what feels like the ideal team composition that has the play style and fun factor that I enjoy. I think I must have gone through leveling about a dozen different teams into their 20s to 40s while checking out the feel of different servers to finally get there.

Did most of you already know before you even started up on Classic what your team was going to be and you stuck with it? How many tries did it take you to get set on the right one for you?

I knew I was going to run 4 warriors and a priest, I briefly toyed with 4 mages and a priest. I chose priest because I thought leveling up, PvP would be far more prevalent than it turned out to be, and I wanted fear ward (I was alliance), rather than a paladin. In retrospect, I'd choose Paladin over priest all day every day for this group. I jumped in, and went full rere, with about 7-8 hours of sleep the first week, and not much more the 2nd week before I hit a wall and went full casual mode, logging in for 2-3 hours a day. I felt like I was too committed to back out, so I just kept plugging. Ended up being, I think, the first warrior group to 60 on these forums, but it was slow and arduous.

I honestly think that, Mages, Locks, Hunters, Shadow Priests, and Warriors (depending on how much work you're willing to put in regarding pug raiding) are probably going to be the most enjoyable and effective. Oh and Shamans.

I think Shadow Priests would work, either with a dedicated tank, a dedicated healer, or completely stand alone. We gotta remember that this is almost peak Shadow Priest from Classic. Where a single Shadow Priest could cock block entire raid groups in AV. They are not all that wanted in raids, but for farming out dungeons they'd work pretty well I think, and for world PvP they would be absolutely brutal.

Hunters I think could be a sleeper group, and I'd really like to see someone try to make a macro in ISboxer to approximate jump kiting. I'm not sure if it mechanically can work, whether or not a character will IWT while in the air from jumping, but if they do, then it should be possible to make an ISboxer macro to jump shoot. First step jump, second step IWT, third step follow. In theory it should allow it. Otherwise, I think this is probably one of the most dungeon plowy groups around, with or without a dedicated tank (I'd def take a dedicated healer through, Shaman or Paladin).

Locks are going to be, IMO, the go to open world PvP team. They have fragability with shadowbolt, and they have instant pressure/creeping death from dots. Soul Link makes them absolutely brutal to deal with. Death coil, fear, succubus, with good micro you're going to be absolutely brutal to deal with in group PvP, and in dungeons, we already know Void Walkers can be used to tank everything. Even without a healer this group works, and with a healer, PvE or PvP, even better.

Not much more needs to be said about mages. They are just good, if not the gold standard for face rolling regular mobs in instances, and with a little bit of planning, they seem to be able to blow through dungeon bosses as well with raw DPS.

Shamans are the OG 5 box. They were my first 5 box back at the end of original vanilla, I felt like a raid boss in open world PvP. Cheal is just the most efficient way to heal a 5 man group, and chain lightning is just such an efficient way to DPS in PvP. In PvE, they are perhaps a little bit behind warlocks and mages due to efficiency, but still, very workable. Grounding totem and tremor totem are just god tier levels of utility, and completely nullify many of the issues multiboxers face in PvP, not to mention PvE.

Warriors are fickle I think, in that, this is a group that REALLY requires gear in ways the other groups do not. However, if you have the setup/guild/determination to go out and farm your group raid gear, your group is going to be an absolute terror in PvP if properly supported, and in PvE, you might not blow up groups as large as mages can, but you will blow through 6 groups in the time it takes mages to blow up 1 (bigger) group and drink. This is a group, I think, where you really need to decide what your focus is going to be. Dungeon farming, or PvP. This is going to make a big difference in how the group is setup. If you are running it for PvP, you should REALLY consider running 2 healers. For alliance, 2 paladins are kind of a no brainer. For horde, at least 1 shaman. Unlike most groups we're talking about here, I think that warriors are the group where priests are possibly the worst healer for the team. Paladins are clearly the best healer for alliance, and for Horde, due to windfury, Shaman are clearly the best healer in that 5th slot, unless you're carrying an enhance shaman with 3 warriors.

I'll say this, I wouldn't recommend warriors as a first team. It's a very slow team to level, especially alliance side. I think boosting warriors up with a mage is a better choice.

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Originally Posted by SonyEQ

I think i may worry too much about optimization and trying to min/max too much, but I think finally found what feels like the ideal team composition that has the play style and fun factor that I enjoy. I think I must have gone through leveling about a dozen different teams into their 20s to 40s while checking out the feel of different servers to finally get there.

Did most of you already know before you even started up on Classic what your team was going to be and you stuck with it? How many tries did it take you to get set on the right one for you?

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really? you're just gonna leave us hangin and not tell us what you ended with? lol

Me i started alliance and i'm not an alliance player. I wanted 5 paladin, but alliance zones and cities and races just... i dunno how to explain it other than to say horde feels like home. I got them to 50 and a few other class teams to the 20's, and then had some retail friends/guildies make the switch to classic. From there i moved servers and factions and have been leveling several teams on as much rested exp as possible. I have 4War1S sitting at 52 maxing rest exp, i'm bouncing between lvl 40 5priests and level 28 5locks. I wasted so much time leveling on alliance... I really liked my pally team too.

I will likely get my warriors to 60 and just solo raid on them hoping for a lucky weapon drop (Bone Reavers Edgex4 would be the dream). Not interested in farming on them until at least BWL is open or i get lucky with MC/onyxia drops soloing. I want to know if they are going to let us /follow in BG's, and if so i will only play my 5 priest team every day all day. If they kick us out of BG's i'm going to raid, farm/ wpvp on my warlocks substituting a priest in there.

I got the standard WMMMP team, its conservative and it works, got all the tools needed for farming dungeons efficiently. Its awkward in PvP and I get dismantled easily by 2 good coordinated players, pom pyro build would solve it somewhat, but I rather level up a dedicated team.

Got multiple lvl 20 teams that I alternate with, 5x hunters and 5x warlocks melt mobs so fast and efficiently and I can't wait to try it in PvP, would have loved 5x shamans too but alas not horde. 5 pally and 3 warrior / 2 pally are also in the works, but only one of them will see ZF farm and beyond I guess dependant on how I feel about them

I have a warrior/paladin team, priest/warlock and priest/mage.

I'm still not convinced about the mages but they're still only in their 30's so I'm going to keep leveling them. I figure even if I end up preferring my warlocks it will be useful having a mage on most of my accounts that I can summon for water and portals.

3 of us boxers were leveling Warrior based teams in an Alliance guild and I think all 3 of us got pretty burned out with the team composition (one quit in the 20s, one quit in the 30s, and I also almost quit the team entirely). At level 36+ I got Whirlwind and the WhirlWind Axe and started farming for Ravagers and the team was actually semi fun for a change... Unfortunately my brother and nephew couldn't stand the queues on the server so they went to a different server and with the other Alliance boxers quitting I was alone and not really having fun... Thankfully at that point I had friends offering to help me Power Level on a new server if I would move...

On the new server when help is on we are power-leveling my new Paladin to cap ASAP to join the others.

When not power leveling my Paladin with them I am leveling a Mage+3WarLocks+Priest team and actually enjoying it so far compared to my warriors. Once my Paladin gets to 60 I may use him to tank some for the new team to try to Power Level them the rest of the way to 60 (rotating the 5 to keep them all roughly the same level).

I have 10 accounts currently active (activated my initial 5 at Classic's launch which included my main account with all of my Collector's Editions for the Expansions) and before switching servers I used the Recruit-a-Friend (RAF) promotion to activate my 5 other inactive accounts (9 accounts had been inactive since WoTLK and I only activated 5 initially). Unless I decide to Power Level up another team and 10 box for Raids and LBRS/UBRS I may just keep 6 accounts active (my original account with the collector's editions + the 5 RAFed accounts)...

In the end I went with Mage+3Locks+Priest team so that I could end up with my own Mage on my 6th account for free Ports/Food/Water and so that I could do some testing/comparison of Power Leveling with a Mage verses a Paladin... Once all 6 characters are at/close to cap I plan to farm 5mans, after conjuring up a bunch of free Water/food, with the following as my main AoE team:

PaladinTank+3tankyWarlocks+3pets+Priest

From there I will decide what team to do next (if any) or just be happy with 6 Level 60s (including the Mage).

I finally got set on doing 3 warriors + 2 shaman. I like being durable and I hate downtime and drinking. I had tried out 1 Warrior + 4 shaman and 4 warriors + 1 shaman before that. I'm going to test out a hybrid enhance/resto build for both shaman putting about 25 points into each, have the shamans use 2 handed axes but then all their gear will be spirit/int style healing gear. IMO, a lot of their damage is tied into their windfury procs anyways so they should have a great mana pool for healing while at the same time then adding a decent little bit of extra dps.

I tried about every combination of casters imaginable, including even 10 boxing 10 shaman and then 8 mages + 2 priests at one point. It all ends up boiling down to World PvP being pointless and boring, which considering that you wont be able to box in battle grounds, world pvp is going to largely die once BGs open.

I have the most fun with warriors in PvE, the most satisfying thing to me in a MMO is watching the power of your class progress as you get gear and nothing is more gear dependent than a warrior. I pilot everything from my main warrior which I'll use to raid on and to run BGs on. I see that a few people run things from their healers PoV but its easier for me to play my warrior like a dps/tank and taunt as necessary while just using @target and @targetoftarget keybinds to heal with (which im used to doing anyways from years of playing everquest and piloting with my tanks there).

I tried 5 shaman and switched one of the shaman out with a warrior for instances. Also, trying a new team of MMMMP and having a lot more fun. I'll prob restart the 5 shaman later on.

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Originally Posted by shivy

I tried 5 shaman and switched one of the shaman out with a warrior for instances. Also, trying a new team of MMMMP and having a lot more fun. I'll prob restart the 5 shaman later on.

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Shivy,

Welcome and thanks for sharing. It seems like lots of teams have been having more fun on their 2nd teams based on characters with AoE (like Mages or Locks).

What level did you get your Warrior and 5 Shaman to and what level is your newer MMMMP team?

I did my reading - was skeptical of MMMMP. Kind of wish I had said screw it and gone with an extra mage instead of a tank, but I'm ultimately glad with my decision. At this point in time I don't plan on leveling additional teams. I don't plan on doing PvP - it's taken me so long to return to boxing because of the BG follow changes and I didn't want to deal with wPvP while leveling. I'm sure once I clear all the dungeon content and get to BiS pre-raid I'll probably stop playing classic.