Paladin and 4 x Mages

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PALADIN + 4 MAGES
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I have really enjoyed this group composition for a year and a half. Lots of explosions, plenty of one shooting. My first love is running instances and is primarly why I box. So I've taken this type of group through many difficult situations and a lot of success. But I wonder if I'm missing something? A little extra healing would be very nice, but not at the expense of a lot of DPS.

Could my play style be too primative? Are fights supposed to last longer and so require a healer? Are longer fights better than shorter? Normally my group can burn down a group of elites, especially with sheeping, in 30 seconds or less.

Should my Pali be spending more time building agro, gettiing healed by a healer of some sort and mages casualy buring down the mobs one by one that way? That sounds like it would work and be more "sophisticated".

Here is a summary of what I like about this composition:

Paladin healer/tank
Most would say I need a healer, but in SFK my healer was being killed first thing. In WC my healer didn't seem to help a lot. And most often the healer is just taking up space because the paladin does a great job staying alive.

Mage AOE
I love the raw firepower my four mages bring to the table along with massive AOE damage, that can in itself bring down elites when desperate.

Mage crowd control
Very nice to sheep four at once and then burn them down at me leisure.

DPS
I can often bring an elite down before it gets to the group. With normal content I can one shot a good part of the time.

So what am I missing out on without a dedicated healer? If I started again I would go with a PALADIN + 3 MAGES + REST SHAMAN. The extra healing and rezing could be very nice in instances.


PALADIN + 3 ELE SHAMAN + 1 REST SHAMAN?
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I have considered running a Paladin + 4 Shaman.
But I'm concerned that I don't have crowd control and the AOEs stink. But perhaps this is made up for by being able to take a beating? I have even taken a starting group for a test run and did enjoy it alot. While in the starting area one shaman did die! Crazy, must have not being paying attention, my fault for sure.

I've read everything I could find on running this type of group. This composition is so popular that I'm considering spending time leveling a new group from scratch. I suppose fights will last a bit longer than I'm used to but the overall strategy might replace sheeping for doing more tanking. They could pound on my pali all day long while I mash the heal button while buring down the mobs one by one. I can't wait to try.

With a paly and 4 shamans you do not need CC. When you spec your tank right ( not a healing/prot spec.) and he has the gear, you can take on many mobs at once and just burn them all down. There is no "better" team make up than this, as far as "ease" and full flexibility go. ANY team with a tank+3dps+healer works. Shaman do have some lite CC though later on, Rooting totems and hex, I NEVER use them in PvE though.

I have 4 shammys at 80 and I have never cast hex on any of them, not even to try it. As Lyonheart says, CC isnt needed these days as all the instances are a joke. Also your healer shouldnt be dying because he shouldnt be getting hit, thats what the tank is for after all. A lot of people play with 4 ele shammys and 1 pala tank. Personally I use 3 dps, 1 tank and 1 healer. Its all a matter of playstyle preference.

I dont know what level you are at now, but I am pretty sure heroics are going to be a massive problem for you without a healer when you first start. Most of the trash packs should be ok, but I doubt you will be able to tank any bosses with no healer. Mages can put out more dps than shammys in top end gear, but we are talking about gear that is only obtainable from doing high end raids.

My advice would be to drop 1 mage for a shaman and dual spec him resto/ele. Then you have the best of both worlds. The shaman will boost your mages dps considerably with totems and heroism and can heal when needed also. If you are still around sfk level which I guess you are as that is an instance you mentioned, then it wouldnt take long at all to level a shammy solo to catch him up with the others.

Yeah if we are talking about PVE in the world, the elites are usually cakewalk. A tank plus any combination of dps is good enough to take on any elite outside of instances with exception to a few world bosses. Inside of instances things hit harder and faster and crowd control you so you definately need some type of heals.

The shamans bring lots of utility to the table along with a little extra armor. They can take a little more of a beating but it's ultimately their totems that make them so viable. Couple them with a paladin and you have resistances for almost every type of damage out there with the exception of holy and tons of buffs.

Sounds like it could be a fun group PVP wise but I don't know much when it comes to PVP.

PALADIN + 4 MAGES

When Pally heals = 0 Block, 0 Dodge & 0 Parry

You'll just be frustrated without a healer as you level

PVE
Vanilla Dungeons = Few low level dungeons
Outland Dungeons = Not possible
Northrend Dungeons = Oh hell no

PVP
WG - Possible
Arena - Tough
BGs - Possible

You all have some really great points.

I am attracted to having a healer and maybe even a priest. But then I might as well have a warrior in place of my paladin while I'm at it.

I did try leveling with healer but the healer seemed to be sitting around not doing much, before level 20. A Rest Shaman could at least help out with the DPS. It was not till BRD that healing became a major issue. All instances before that were very doable by my group.

One thing for sure, from all of your comments, I've been missing out not having a dedicated healer. I have leveled to 60 with my Paladin+Mage group and the Paladin has really taken a beating trying to hear during fights. A dedicated healer would certainly allow the fights to be longer in my favor and I definitely will go that way. I'm leaning towards the 3 x Ele Shaman and 1 Rest Shaman as a dedicator healer who can still contribute to DPS.

And yes, once I hit Black Rock Depths, I soon realized something was wrong. Those level 51 dwarves where killing my group at 56 when taking on two or more. Apparently a Paladin+Mage group can not do heroics lacking the healing component. I guess there's a reason groups have dedicated healers. Took me this long to realize. And it won't come to anyone's surprise what happened when my 56 and later 60 group tried out Stratholme, lots of graveyard visits.

I think the PALADIN+3 ELEM SHAMAN + REST SHAMAN is probably the best choice for me. Being able to resist fear, being able to take damage cloth+leather+mail, being able to rez, having some dedicated healing all make a lot of sense for me.

No PVP for me I'm afraid. I have been running all five on one machine without a problem. Linux with five desktops which saves some video card power. But only keyclone works and can be a little buggy. Sound only works for one of the accounts and not the rest. So I'll try out windows XP.

OK
Anyone have more to say about RET PALADIN+3 ELEM SHAMAN + REST SHAMAN composition?

Since this combination is widely covered, I will not start a thread about this choice.

Now I understand why NOBODY is talking about a PALADIN+ 4 MAGES.

THANKS EVERYONE!!!!

I didn't mean to imply that I was doing BRD heroics. Just in case someone noticed that.

paladin is a much much easier tank to manage.

OK Now I'm being lazy and not doing the research on Paladin versus Warrior for tank.

I've only played a Prot/Holy Paladin and looks like I'll be running with a ret pali in my next group. Very fun! Am I missing out on anything with a warrior? And I mean by fun. Since my tank will not be healing anymore and rezing will happen via the shaman(s), might a warrior be more interesting to play? I understand warriors are very dependent on the healers which must mean there are advantages in other ways.

What do you mean by manage? If I played a warrior it would be my main, so I would be directly playing it anyways. From what I read, pali's are much simpler to run as tanks. Might enjoy pressing a couple of extra button with a warrior during fights? Maybe develop more interesting strategies?

You would be fine with Pala, 3 mage, 1 shammy. The reason you havent heard people talking about that combo is because its probably not that good for pvp, with mages being too squishy and requiring kiting and micro management of spells to do good in pvp.

I dont know much about warriors but I know that Id be sad to lose all the buffs that a pala brings with blessings and auras and 900 panic buttons to press if anything goes wrong.

warriors are fun for spell reflect, charge, intercept and stuns (lots of stuns.) Paladins bring nice buffs and some very nice resistance auras. Really its up to you which you would think is more fun. Both work fine, but to a beginner I always recommend paladin for tanking. It's a wee bit easier. Once you get boxing down and feel pretty confident at that point I would recommend warrior.

Since my last post I did lookup Paladin versus Warrior. And CC seems to be lacking which I assume to be the two taunt buttons I've gotten to know so well. Plus I'm used to bubble and heal when things get crazy.

Yes, from experience mages get cut down like paper dolls if an elite gets ahold of them, even with mana shield up. I've spent many a time rezing my mages. I seem to lose one or two if I make a mistake during a fight.

I really like the rezing abilities of a shaman, along with healing, durability and resist to things like fear. Many a time my pali dies with four mages, that's it, wait for the palli to run all the way back in, hoping the group doesn't get attacked. Otherwise the group totally wipes just because the pali died.

My group's main goal is run instances. In fact, to level as much as possible within instances. I'm not a PVP player.

I'm mainly an instance runner. Love them instances!! I haven't gotten into PVP at all and am planning on a PVE server. My setup doesn't allow for the quick responses needed for PVP, from what I read.

Yep, I looked it up and people seem to prefer a paladin over a warrior. Do warriors have a place anymore? Or does everyone use DK and Pallis now?

My only experience is with a felguard my warlock had. I remember the stun and running up really fast. Closest I've gotten to warrior. I have boxed for some time now and am very comfortable do it. I made my computer with boxing in mind two years ago.

I finally saw multibocks post and am intrigued. I'm looking for a little more anyways and a warrior could be a lot of fun.

A paladin is a much better tank, for boxing, then any other.
Other tanks can work too, but the 96969 macro is so much easier to mash.

I've gone with Paladin and 4x Shaman on my first team.
One of the shammies has dual spec, and can be resto.
90% of more of the time, I run 4x Elemental.
But sometimes the 1x Resto is a nice option.

With Paladin Consecrate and 4x Magma Totems, that's a lot of AoE power.
While this is happening, you retain single target burning power via 96969 macro and FS-LvB-CL-LB spam.
4x Elemental is fairly decent healing, and you typically have 1x mana spring and 3x healing stream.
For content challenging for your gear level, 1x Resto on dedicated heals and 3x Elemental who never need to stop DPS is easy mode.

Not saying you cannot go with other compositions.
Just that a Paladin tank is by far the easiest.
And at least the option for one of your dps to be a healer makes challenging content much easier.
4x dps is preferable to anything you kill easily, its faster to clear the easy content this way.

Ualaa that's some great stuff!! A very strong recommendation for Pali as tank. I'm sold. Especially since I'm used to running a paladin anyways.

I know nothing about shaman, but that's was starting the group from nothing is for.

It's nice to pass group composition past really experienced players for a change. Wish I had done this last year with my Palladin-4 x Mage combo.

I'll be leveling with an eye towards conquering BRD, the first really hard instance I had encountered after running virtually all the lower level instances. Hopefully the Prot Paladin, Rest Shaman, 3 Elem Shamn group will be an easier run.

I never wanted a dedicated healer till Trial of Crusader heroic, I never needed it. Just using LHW spam I was able to keep my tank up all the time.

I thinking of a Resto Druid from the start because I'll need that extra healing later on. Might as well get used to working with a resto shaman from the very start to get good. Only after hitting BRD did I realize how important healing was.

Depending on your composition, you might or might not want a dedicated healer.

If your dps is 4x Shaman, or 3x Shaman + either Boomkin or Warlock for the spell power buff.
You have a lot of healing power with the team.
The same goes for Boomkins who can heal as needed.

If your dps is mages, warlocks, hunters, etc.
Then your dps cannot simply stop dps for 2-3 seconds and cast fast heals.
And a dedicated healer becomes much more essential.

With wild growth and the ability to pre-cast/stack HoT's, a druid is a superb healer - and probably the most mobile too.
A resto shaman is probably my top healer pick, if the team doesn't have another shaman.
If the team has at least 1 other shaman, a disc priest is my top pick over anything as far as heals go.

I understand the shape shifting is a serious drawback to boxing a group of Druids. Is this really a major problem?

I just want to see what all the fuss is about in using four shaman and a paladin. Boxers seem to love that combination so might as well try it out. After going o 60 with four mages and a paladin it should be a better experience. I will miss the heavy fire power of four mages and blast wave is cool with four mages doing it at once.

I'm not starting this group, Paladin+4xShaman, right away.

When I first hit 70 on all 5 toons, I was running pally priest and 3 mages. Having a healer means every encounter can be done the "proper" way, or at least the way it was designed. Fights go smoother, if slower, but overall you will have a more even experience. I personally wouldn't run without a healing class. When I run pally with 4 shaman, i dont heal often, but when I need to, the shammys are right there.

If you want to go PvP, the paladin as holy will be a great healer for your mages.

I can talk a bit about the druids in a team.

I run 5x druids. I originally choose this as I was a bit uncertain about which group composition I should pickup. And people generally said druids was okey for Instances. And they are. Im not in heroics or anything, just focussing on leveling atm.

Im a casual player and plays maybe 2 times a week, so its also easier for me to only have one class to manage and to read up on when changes arrive.

If you include a boomkin in your group you would need to manage the Eclipse Proc to maximize the dps on this toon. I don't know if the extra management is worth the efford of the buff.....

I have enjoyed playing with the druid team so far and I hope they will be good enough for the end game stuff when I reach it at some point in the far future lol :D

My first team: Paladin + 4x Shaman.
My second team: Disc Priest, Mage, Feral Druid, Elem. Shaman, Warlock.
My third team: 5x Boomkin.
My fourth team: 5x Warlocks.

The boomkin team is my favorite (most fun) so far.

I'm not sure if I'll run heroics with them, if I do will just need to dual-spec one to resto and another to feral.
The Moo's seem to have run everything on heroic, so 5x druids is definitely doable in heroics.
I really like his video's (see movie forum), because they are all very high quality.

I do plan to extensively BG with them, and arena for points (not a lot of controlled burst, so not likely to get a high ranking).
Stealth via cat form to anywhere.
Force of Nature, broadcast onto a healer.
Starfall and Hurricane, broadcast onto a group (very strong AoE potential).
Can 5x Rejuvenation, 5x Lifebloom, 5x Regrowth stack for serious HoT power.
Moonkin form is high armor vs melee.
Typhoon on round-robin will be fun to knock opponents back.
Battle Rez on round-robin will be useful.
Tranquility on round-robin at the back of a group, can add heal power too.

I have an example of how to manage Eclipse procs in my IS Boxer guide.

The Moo's videos is a real inspiration to me. I love them and have seen em many times.

I doubt ill ever be as skilled as him with the amount of time I spend on wow.

I have only once done some pvp on my mage, and I loved it. I think I was "okey" for a n00b. Ill defenitely going to try some 5xboomkin pvp at some point....

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I have an example of how to manage Eclipse procs in my IS Boxer guide.

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I have read it and its awesome. Haven't implementet it yet as im only running quests atm.

But im definetly going to implement it when I reach the lvl cap at some point.

If you make things dead, then you are doing it right.

Good point.
And if you have some cool explosions and pyrotechnics while you do it, so much the better!

Eventually if you plan to run heroics having some form of offheal is necessary even for geared tanks. You don't need a dedicated healer but heals coming in from somewhere no matter how small is better than your tank stopping what he is doing to heal himself.
Tank stopping to heal = no blocking meaning more damage is coming in anyways so your tank heals will probably be moot anyways. 4 ele shammies gives you healing totems for off healing power and then the shammies themselves can cast heals when needed using any number of them 2,3, or all 4.
Same with 5 pallies.. 4 ret pallies provided little off heals with divine storm and when needed you can macro any number of them to give you a boost in healing. This goes for any offspec that can heal.. 4 pure DPS classes will eventually be able to blow up the bosses when geared out without the need for heals, but getting to that point will not be easy in itself.

I got up to 60 with my four mages and paladin and could do every instance without too much trouble. But BRD was the roadblock and was in a different class than the previous instances I was in. A healer became critical at this point. And yes, a paladin healing herself during a fight can be frustrating, but at least the healing helped agro and I did alright. From what I've read four Shaman can be excellent DPSers. Hope I can get the same pyrotechnics out of them though.

I'm starting over with four Shaman and a paladin. I've never played Shaman and now I'll be playing four at once!

I'd build a click castsequence for the shammies.
I actually gave my roommate the same sequence my 80's use, and he's in the 50's.
Had to add more comma's, he spams a lot faster.

Even with spells missing (won't have Lava Burst) until 75th (or so).
The sequence cannot do anything on that press, so that entire castsequence does not impact you.
And when you visit the trainer and add a spell, its already built into your sequence.

For PvE, a click sequence is probably the best way to DPS.
For PvP, you'll want the control of manually casting everything.

I've found with Pally/Shammies, I micromanage my totems the most.
DPS or Tanking is mashing a sequence for both sets.
I have Call of the Elements (default), Call of the Ancestors (AoE) and Call of the Spirits (PvP) stomp macro's.
But also have several on round-robin: Earth Bind, Fire Elementals, Tremor and Thunderstorm.
And then several sets where they all drop: Cleansing, Grounding, Magma, Searing.
I have 3x Healing + 1x Mana on its own bind too.

The pally manually casts Avenger Shield, Divine Plea and Sacred Shield.
Forget the name of the other one, which is talented where the pally takes 40% of the group's damage.
Also have Hand of Protection and Divine something (50% dmg reduction) as a /cast [target=targettarget] type macro -- you can "taunt" even a taunt immune mob like this.

Shammies have Heroism on their own key, but that's way down the road.
Water Shield is used 95% of the time, Lightning Shield if I'm being AoE'd.

I have the weapon enchants for both classes on the same key.

You are using old content as a judging point for your team. The difference from BRD to BC instances is another huge jump. From BC to Northrend dungeons is an even bigger gap. All of azeroth was nerfed to allow faster leveling.
I am not trying to deter you by any means, just letting you know alot of teams are viable to start. Once you get further you will realize this.

I really like using four shaman who all can come back from the dead after a major wipe. I love instances and this is a big thing for me when things get tough. My main goal is to do five man instances all the way up and need a group that has a chance. Frankly I'm surprised I got away with a four mage one pali group up to sixty. Hearing that this group configuration has done heroics gives me hope.

I currently have 1xpally and 4xmage team. My first thought was maybe I could pvp arena, but 2 of them still need engineering up and honestly I feel a druid would be a better fit instead of the pally. They are extremely gimicky and require not only skill, but luck. If your into PVE however get a healer, you can still 3mage dps easy enough.;)

Yes, I've decided to pursue engineering instead of blacksmithing. Next to alchemy and maybe enchanting engineering can give a player a lot of cool tricks. I need to do some research on good professions for a five boxer. I want two engineers to cover both goblin and gnome engineering for sure.

If you have an arena focus, you'd want engineering on everyone.

If its more for general play, you have a lot of options.
You could go Inscription, which also means you don't need the faction for shoulder enchants (Hodir in WotLK).
You could have professions for transmutes.
The jewelcrafting daily is lucrative too.
It will be a good idea to have Enchanting on someone on the team, if you PvE instances; that way nothing is wasted.

The gathering skills are an amazing way to make gold, when you don't have much.

The production skills (buy mats) make you a lot more, particularly as you attain rare recipes, or even reputation recipes.

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

If you have an arena focus, you'd want engineering on everyone.

If its more for general play, you have a lot of options.
You could go Inscription, which also means you don't need the faction for shoulder enchants (Hodir in WotLK).
You could have professions for transmutes.
The jewelcrafting daily is lucrative too.
It will be a good idea to have Enchanting on someone on the team, if you PvE instances; that way nothing is wasted.

The gathering skills are an amazing way to make gold, when you don't have much.

The production skills (buy mats) make you a lot more, particularly as you attain rare recipes, or even reputation recipes.

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Combining JC + transmutes can equal almost 1000 gold a day or more per day just from professions alone... But it's expensive to start.

About 3-4k per powerleveled JC, and like 1k per alchemy

But still... farming primal fires for the cardinal ruby x-mute takes maybe an hour for a week's worth of x-mutes. Buying the blue gems is a small price to pay (30-50g) for the extra 100g profit. It also takes less time to do than leveling mining for titansteel CD

Don't spec your healer as resto/holy/disc while leveling, make him do dps like the rest. Respec him when u start doing nothrend dungeons. I lvl'd up 5 shaman's ( i already had my tank at 80 ) without a dedicated healer. I ditched one for the dk tank and respecced one to resto.

You could prolly do most northrend heroics with a paladin and 4 mages. My guess would be you would have to over gear the paladin like no tomorrow. Prolly take him and run a bunch of random heroics to get them down with other people and pick up 5/5 t9 gear. At that point seal of light, Judgment of Light, and a few spot heals and you should be good. I swear anytime you cast a spell like HoTR or SoTR it has a chance to proc. Combined with Reckoning to double swing. Ive seen some massive heal spam.

If you have a good mouse broadcasting system and can 4x blizzard pulls, mobs wont be alive long enough to do any damage anyway and you should be able to super burst any boss down in record time. The only ones that will give you trouble are the gimmick bosses.