Maximum buff vs minimum diversity

Cata really has me thinking about trying to 10-box, though I hope I resist.

However...

Please let me know your 10-man composition that balances ease of playing (minimal diversity in classes/specs) with strength of team.

For example, 1 pally tank and 9 shamans would likely be "easy" but they're missing so many buffs that other classes can give it would make them a relatively weak 10-man team. Not to mention no off tank.

My current thoughts:

1 pally tank
1 feral/balance druid
1 mage
1 lock
2 priest
4 shamans

Not a hell of a lot of thought has gone into my initial group, and personally I would like to use 5 druids instead of 1, but I'm curious to hear others thoughts.

Looks like this was recently discussed:

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=30008

My personal plan was:

2 Paladins (prot)
2 Priests (holy)
2 Shamans (ele, with resto spec)
1 Druid (balance)
1 Lock (afflic or demon)
1 Mage (arcane)
1 Hunter (surv)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EaTCarbS

My personal plan was:

2 Paladins (prot)
2 Priests (holy)
2 Shamans (ele, with resto spec)
1 Druid (balance)
1 Lock (afflic or demon)
1 Mage (arcane)
1 Hunter (surv)

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This is my group, except the Hunter and Mage are 2 other warlocks.

This provides great buffs and the Hunter is the only exception, adding nothing of great value to the group other than melee DPS which is not buffed.

I don't have any 80 mages, but if I did I would replace one warlock with it, to see how its DPS compares, and for the extra buffs, water ports etc.

In cata.. stacking druids may work well, because of their good DPS and the change to Eclipse which will make it useful again. The only thing about stacking one class is the buffs, you will miss them. But with stacking Druids, you have lots of innervates, you could literally spam Prayer of Healing on your priests for as long as you want and never have mana problems :P

i like the idea of synergy vs diversity. Simplicity works well, if i were to ten box i'd have to have some mix of ranged and melee. ie:
pally tank
dk or druid tank
1 mage
2 elemental shammy
1 enhance shammy
2 ret pally
2 holy priest

this would be the makeup i'd go for strictly for the easy self preservation and dmg output available. Tanks would be a lil tricky, part of me would rather say go with dk and druid to maximize and diversify.

i'd also change it up and go with a simplistic group makeup of pally tank druid tank 4 ret pallys and 4 elem shammys (swapping one of each 4 group to resto if needed)

A druid healer and DK tank is a bad combination, and the reason is both are pro-active at their respective jobs, and since you are already far over-taxed when it comes to your attention as it is when it comes to raiding, I would suggest you look at reactive healers like shamans, priests and paladins instead. Paladins and Bears probably make better reactive tanks, too.

the problem with ret pallies, is that you are trading slots which could buff dmg, with slots that do not. Apart from the 3% increased dmg, stacking ret pallies does nothing. 2 prot pallies would do the same job and with far less worries, imo.

Melee are also notorious for being liabilities in raids and not benefits. I couldnt imagine boxing melee in `0 mans.. what a pain in the ......


Ghono you also need to remember buffs. You have no commanding shout, no health buffs and very little synergy in the group for buffs and debuffs. id be worried about the sheer drop in DPS even not considering having 4 melee and 4 ranged DPS to worry about.

Would the team change if it were a MM hunter with Tru Shot aura? Might be same as other buff.

This is what I use, the group 3 and 4 slots are the off specs, the only real need for flipping specs is with the shaman and the paladin flipping. My Kil'jaeden team will be my second setup using this configuration.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HPAVC

This is what I use, the group 3 and 4 slots are the off specs, the only real need for flipping specs is with the shaman and the paladin flipping. My Kil'jaeden team will be my second setup using this configuration.

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I that supposed to be a holy paladin offspec in the last group? looks like a priest to me.

My 10 box grp that is currently on hold: (Gotta find the time to finish and finish leveling grp2).

Prot Pal x2
Holy Priest x2
Ele Sham x3 - 1 offspec'd resto for 3 healer fights
Destro Lock
Boonkin
Arcane Mage

I've been wanting to try out 10-man boxing for a long time, but since i love raiding with my current guild (including alt raids), having a job and some sort of "life", i really don't see point paying for 10 accounts at this time.

But, if i was to multibox 10-man raid, i would probably go with:

TANKS:
Paladin (block/evasion)
Druid (stamina)

HEALERS:
- TANK HEALING:
Paladin (holy, beacon healing for both tanks)
- RAID HEALING (depending on fight):
Druid (resto/boom, roll rejuvs on raid)
Priest (disc/shadow, throw bubbles on raid)
Shaman (resto/ele, effective spot healing)

DPS:
Shaman (ele)
Wlock (destro)
Mage (arcane)
Hunter (survival)

Hunter is mainly there for Misdirection and diversity on loots, occasional off-tank. I'm sure i could get little bit more dps out of other classes.

What do you guys thing about this setup? I think it has almost all you need for raiding (except for melee dps ;)).
i already have experience macroing druid(feral tank/resto/boom), pala (holy/retri), priest (disc/shadow), shaman (resto/ele), wlock (destro), mage (arcane), hunter (survi) with my 5-man setups.

The advantage for having a couple of shammies & druids in your raid comp is that you can off spec them melee. You never know if there is gonna be any type of fight with some gimmick that only melee can do.

On top of that i really like to have at least 2 pallies in the group for the buffs and aura's, prot and holy MThealer is for me the way to go.

I'd like to only have a pally MT and not worry about having an extra melee I don't need during the single tanking bosses or a healer that can't AoE as well as a mage/druid, but it would be really nice to have that extra buff!

Who knows, this is all theorycrafting for me anyway. I may move into 10 man if I can prove to myself I can be very successful with 5boxing, and that won't hapeen until expansion anyway.

If I was looking to 10 box my selection would probably be the following

Pally (Prot / Ret)
Druid (Feral / Balance)
Lock (Destro)
Lock (Destro)
Priest (Disc or Holy?)
Mage (Arcane)
Hunter (MM or Survival?)
Shaman (Ele)
Shaman (Resto / Ele)
Druid (Resto / Balance)

Given the lack of physical DPS in that list, which minimises the value of the 10% AP buff, what's your thinking behind including a Hunter? Is it solely for replenishment (i.e. SV)?

If it's solely for the provision of physical damage then I think a third shaman or a rogue might bring better utility.

In addition, I'd go Disc over Holy for the priest. Penance & PW:S are ungodly.

Misdirection for easier starts.

Keep in mind the hunter pet changes in cataclysm. Wind Serpents will increase spell damage (but it probably won't stack with other spell damage increasing abilities).

Maybe misdirection will be more useful in Cata, but it completely not needed in WotlK as far as i can tell. My paladins can pull more threat, and if my MT disconnects, he still stays #1 on aggro for a good 30 seconds until I get him back lol.

I like misdirection - I have pulled off my pally tanks early in fights.

But that's not the main reason for adding a hunter. BY FAR the best thing about a hunter is not having to shard all those +attack power drops. There are tons of them out there and my hunters get geared up much more quickly than any of my spell-based toons.

Great DPS that opens up ~30% of all loot tables as useful drops? Yes please.

Great point, Mercurio. Assuming you had all your toons geared, would you drop the hunter? I can see that the hunter gets geared so quickly that he holds his own, but in the end the synergy would be wasted.

I think a Destro lock or a mage would do more DPS though, with the lack of buff synergy.. no?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mokoi

Maybe misdirection will be more useful in Cata, but it completely not needed in WotlK as far as i can tell. My paladins can pull more threat, and if my MT disconnects, he still stays #1 on aggro for a good 30 seconds until I get him back lol.

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It seems that is going to.So far they said that it should give a temp initial agro which fades over time. Be sides that agro will most likely fade away as well so constant activity is required to hold agro. Eventually the boss will visit the shaman for a ES tick when your tank DC`s.

Besides that. I`m planning a 10box team as well tho I`m still fan of my pala + 4shamans so those should be in as well.
If I go the easyway, using 80`s that I allready have it`s going to be:

Tanks:
Pala
Pala

Healers:
Pala
Shaman
Shaman

DPS:
Shaman
Shaman
DK
Mage
Shaman/pala

If I can find time to level some 60+ chars:

Tanks:
Pala
Druid

Healers:
Priest
Shaman
Pala

DPS:
Shaman
Shaman
Shaman
Mage
Warrior

One thing is for sure, I DO want a paladin healer even tho people don`t like them for boxing. I`d say a 50k mana battary healer is great for MT healing + they get AOE healing in cata.