Paralysis by analysis (TBC decisions)

I never boxed in TBC so I'm trying to figure out what to do. I am still running 5 but with OpenBox (so much thanks for this!)

That said, I'm struggling to figure out what to do. There's not much action on the board right now it seems, but I'm hoping that some of the pros here may look at my setup and help sort out options. For what it's worth, I will level a Paladin (Horde) upon prepatch release and it can go into any of the slots.

Here's what I have:

Account 1: 60 Shaman 60 Druid 60 Mage
Account 2: 60 Warrior 60 Rogue 60 Hunter 60 Mage
Account 3: 60 Warrior 60 Warlock 60 Mage
Account 4: 60 Rogue 60 Priest
Account 5: 60 Warrior 60 Mage


If you had this stable what would you do?

One other option could be to boost 4x Shaman to 58 to join up with the Pally and have a PSSSS group which seemed to be very strong back in the day.

My preference is to have the warlock be a part of the group since that's what I want to "main," but it's not essential.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

If I play Classic TBC I likely will first take my Paladin+3Warlock+Priest team to cap. I also have a 60 Mage and a 2nd 60 Paladin so I may then take one or both of them to cap (my mage is on my 6th account so works well to give free food/water/ports to team as well as easy resets for dungeons). Alternatively I could level the Mage with the 5box team by swapping out the 3 warlocks one at a time to get them all to cap in Dungeons roughly together (they will lag slightly but shouldn't be too bad).

After that, especially if I can't clear dungeons efficiently with my Paladin+3Warlocks+Priest team, I may level (maybe boost) 5 Shaman (unless I want a Draneai Paladin to have one Paladin of each race and then I may instead do 1Paladin+4Shaman).

The proto-typical team for 5man Dungeons in TBC was Paladin+4Shaman so you likely can't go wrong with that team.

If you really want to main a Warlock and really just want a 5box team for the most efficient farming of gold and mats for your main I would likely do the following:

Level (maybe boost) Paladin+4Shaman and I would do the Paladin on Account1 that already has a 60 Shaman so you end up having a 5 Shaman option for farming content that benefits less from a Paladin than a 5th Shaman. I am not an expert on Horde races/class combos but, unless someone gives a better option, I likely would do all Troll Shaman with Beserking and Leatherworking for Drums for speed-farming.

I would likely level the Warlock main separately from the team or alternatively rotate him with the Shaman on his account to level both in dungeons with the team (they will lag behind level-wise but should both get to cap after the rest of the team).

Good luck and let us know what you decide to do.

Edit: The following is the resulting overall main party composition options that I see from your current stable and leveling up Paladin+4S:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1230258843

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Originally Posted by nodoze

If I play Classic TBC I likely will first take my Paladin+3Warlock+Priest team to cap. I also have a 60 Mage and a 2nd 60 Paladin so I may then take one or both of them to cap (my mage is on my 6th account so works well to give free food/water/ports to team as well as easy resets for dungeons). Alternatively I could level the Mage with the 5box team by swapping out the 3 warlocks one at a time to get them all to cap in Dungeons roughly together (they will lag slightly but shouldn't be too bad).

After that, especially if I can't clear dungeons efficiently with my Paladin+3Warlocks+Priest team, I may level (maybe boost) 5 Shaman (unless I want a Draneai Paladin to have one Paladin of each race and then I may instead do 1Paladin+4Shaman).

The proto-typical team for 5man Dungeons in TBC was Paladin+4Shaman so you likely can't go wrong with that team.

If you really want to main a Warlock and really just want a 5box team for the most efficient farming of gold and mats for your main I would likely do the following:

Level (maybe boost) Paladin+4Shaman and I would do the Paladin on Account1 that already has a 60 Shaman so you end up having a 5 Shaman option for farming content that benefits less from a Paladin than a 5th Shaman. I am not an expert on Horde races/class combos but, unless someone gives a better option, I likely would do all Troll Shaman with Beserking and Leatherworking for Drums for speed-farming.

I would likely level the Warlock main separately from the team or alternatively rotate him with the Shaman on his account to level both in dungeons with the team (they will lag behind level-wise but should both get to cap after the rest of the team).

Good luck and let us know what you decide to do.

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Thanks a bunch, Nodoze!

I specifically like the idea of making the pally on the current 60 shaman account so that I have the flexibility of PSSSS or SSSSS. That thought hadn't crossed my mind as I was trying to decide where to put the pally.

Leveling the lock separate from the 5man is attractive as well. As you said, maybe sub out one shaman for the lock from time to time to get gear in dungeon, finish quests, etc.

Love the insight and the advice!

You mentioned "if" you play classic tbc. Hopefully you will choose to do so!

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Originally Posted by Murdertrain

Thanks a bunch, Nodoze!

I specifically like the idea of making the pally on the current 60 shaman account so that I have the flexibility of PSSSS or SSSSS. That thought hadn't crossed my mind as I was trying to decide where to put the pally.

Leveling the lock separate from the 5man is attractive as well. As you said, maybe sub out one shaman for the lock from time to time to get gear in dungeon, finish quests, etc.

Love the insight and the advice!

You mentioned "if" you play classic tbc. Hopefully you will choose to do so!

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I personally don't like TBC for many reasons (it is the start of WoW not being an MMO for one thing). However I might give it a go with 5-man.

If you go PSSSS don't you miss a lot of utility? No priest buff, mage water, portals, summons. (Plus I hate playing shamans :)

Wouldn't PWWWPr be top dungeon clears with felguard/seed spam/priest buffs?

Summons, since no more world buffs, I could probably do without, but no portals/water in team would be rough.

I have a horde WMMMPr and ally WLMMPr so I guess I would be pretty flexible with char boots. There should be no difference between horde and ally anymore, so I am thinking ally for the aesthetics (horde models/skins are terrible compared to ally :) and human spirit regen/rep gains.

I do not think any other group comp beats Paladin + 4 Shamans or 5x Shamans when it comes to normal and heroic dungeon runs.

Pally + 4 Shamans is less DPS (the DPS difference between 4 Shamans and 1 is quite noticeable) but it's a lot more forgivable earlier on, once 5x Shamans get decent gear then it just doesn't matter due to everything getting killed way too fast, even in heroics. And this is all without taking into consideration min-maxing pre-raid BiS, consumables, using Drums, etc. Once you add that to either group then it's hands down better to run either, compared to other comps.

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Originally Posted by Uhnknown

I do not think any other group comp beats Paladin + 4 Shamans or 5x Shamans when it comes to normal and heroic dungeon runs.

Pally + 4 Shamans is less DPS (the DPS difference between 4 Shamans and 1 is quite noticeable) but it's a lot more forgivable earlier on, once 5x Shamans get decent gear then it just doesn't matter due to everything getting killed way too fast, even in heroics. And this is all without taking into consideration min-maxing pre-raid BiS, consumables, using Drums, etc. Once you add that to either group then it's hands down better to run either, compared to other comps.

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Do you have an example of a Shaman talent build? I was reading through the old TBC forums and didn't really see a guide on how to play 5 shamans. Any tips or a guide?

If I go the easy route and boost Horde it looks like probably Orc would be the best choice for blood frenzy, right? I would much rather go Space Goat but don't know if I want to take the time to level them.

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Originally Posted by Torgo

Do you have an example of a Shaman talent build? I was reading through the old TBC forums and didn't really see a guide on how to play 5 shamans. Any tips or a guide?

If I go the easy route and boost Horde it looks like probably Orc would be the best choice for blood frenzy, right? I would much rather go Space Goat but don't know if I want to take the time to level them.

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If you're going Horde then i'd suggest either Troll or Orc, depending on what content you were focusing on doing. Personally i'll be doing a healthy mix of Wpvp, 5s arenas and a lot of dungeon grinding with heroics included so my Shamans will be Orc. In terms of talents i'll be doing a standard 41/0/20 build at 70, but 60-70 i'll probably do something like https://legacy-wow.com/tbc-talents/s...00000000000000 - I haven't fully decided though.

If i was going to be doing just PvE then i'd maybe consider Troll for Berserking just to have that extra haste when burning down bosses, but it's not really necessary, plus i much prefer the Orc Shaman look over Troll.

5 Shamans play pretty easy considering it's basically just drop totems and your basic rotation is Lightning Bolt x3 -> Chain Lightning, rinse repeat. By the time you're in the 800 - 1000 SP range you should have 0 problems with anything heroic related, everything dies really fast by that point.

If you're looking for how 5 Shamans play at 70 then there's a thread in the TBC section with a bunch of video links that still work from old posts in the Movies section.

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Originally Posted by Torgo

I personally don't like TBC for many reasons (it is the start of WoW not being an MMO for one thing). However I might give it a go with 5-man.

If you go PSSSS don't you miss a lot of utility? No priest buff, mage water, portals, summons. (Plus I hate playing shamans :)

Wouldn't PWWWPr be top dungeon clears with felguard/seed spam/priest buffs?

Summons, since no more world buffs, I could probably do without, but no portals/water in team would be rough.

I have a horde WMMMPr and ally WLMMPr so I guess I would be pretty flexible with char boots. There should be no difference between horde and ally anymore, so I am thinking ally for the aesthetics (horde models/skins are terrible compared to ally :) and human spirit regen/rep gains.

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I tried many teams in TBC including Pa3LPr as well as Pa4S and 5S and though I like like all 3 I found Pa4S the best overall balance for farming for me. 5S could be faster but often when farming I am semi-distracted and just find snap-agro taunt and Paladin mitigation & aggro-management nice to make things more forgivable. While Warlock pets can be nice in some scenarios Shaman have 2 Elementals to help in hard situations. Pa3LPr is fun but I just found everyone being able to DPS and everyone also able to Heal and the ability to have pets when I really wanted them to be better overall...

After I take Pa3LPr from current cap to new cap I will likely then level 5S and use the Warlocks to summon around give health stones. Having the Mage on the 6th accounts lets me portal the whole party at once even without a mage in the 5man group in addition to making it easy to pass out food/water/etc.

Note that when running Shaman you don't necessarily need to miss out on long lasting buffs depending on what else you have in your stable... For example, with a Mage on the 6th account, in addition to party-wide portals/water/food, I can give everyone in the party long lasting Mage buffs and the Priest can give long lasting Priest buffs on all but one Shaman as well. I guess having a priest on my 6th/mage account would allow me to also buff that last Shaman but likely I won't bother for that.

Edit: I haven't looked at TBC Talents for quite some time but likely for most of my Shaman I would do something like Unknown's above build or a standard 41/0/20 build. I like to take Healing Focus on all of my Shaman so that if things get chaotic/dicey I can switch to Concentration Aura on my Paladin and anyone/everyone can pump out healing with no push-back. I also like to initially make one Shaman at least 41 in Resto for Earth Shield until everything is on full farm and really easy from a survivability standpoint and then switch all to focus on DPS.

Thanks for the replies.

Looking at the videos, Shaman teams look like fun and maybe even easier to multi box than current classic teams. Now it is just a matter of what to level/boost first. I always thought the content in TBC was kind of crappy, but I bailed on TBC back in the day rather early. Hopefully I can get in the beta.

In doing some research it sounds like the level 58 boost limitations are such that they are usable only 1 time per account and can not be used on Draenei nor Blood Elves so they cannot be used to give Alliance quick/easy Shamans nor Horde quick/easy Paladins (source).

Also I noticed that we now have 'WoW Classic TBC' sub-forum so likely threads like this one should move here:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/67-WoW-Classic-TBC

Likely the intent is for this 'WoW Classic' sub-forum to remain separate and focused on 'Classic Era' realms which will remain static with only 1-60 Classic content (and maybe also for any "fresh start" Classic Era servers if there ever are any).