5 locks vs 4 locks plus healer vs 4 locks

Assume BGs are the focus, which team would you recommend? The team will not be used in PvE.

Is the survivability greatly increased by using a healer or is the lost damage/burst too big? Can one healer really hope to make a big enough difference to lose the extra damage?

If you choose having a healer, then which one? I would think the healer who has the best survivability would win, but that must be balanced with AoE healing (not terribly worried about losing one slave if the overall battle is victorious and have time to Rez).

Finally, are five locks that much better than four to take up a spot in the BG? In the past I've felt more comfortable with four toons as I don't feel like the entire battle rests on my shoulders. I suppose three locks and a healer is also possible, though the burst damage is really going to be reduced.

Typing on iPhone at work. Sorry for typos

Play 4 locks and have a friend heal you?

If not then there is no real info on what will be the best healer in MoP yet. Druids are much better than in cata, and shaman will still be good. I'd say no to priest because of fear DR. Paladin has decent throughput and some nice cooldowns.

Its really up to how you wanna play your healer.

Assume I will also be controlling the healer.

Are you suggesting 4+1 instead of 5 locks?

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Originally Posted by Owltoid

Assume I will also be controlling the healer.

Are you suggesting 4+1 instead of 5 locks?

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Unless you plan on hiding in AV/IoC exclusively? Yes.

Cool, thanks to you both! At the moment considering switching from a priest healer to a pally. Since I plan on leading with my healer, and they're usually the ones focus fired, then something makes me feel better about having plate and a shield. However, I was really counting on easy AoE with the priest from spells like circle of healing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Owltoid

Cool, thanks to you both! At the moment considering switching from a priest healer to a pally. Since I plan on leading with my healer, and they're usually the ones focus fired, then something makes me feel better about having plate and a shield. However, I was really counting on easy AoE with the priest from spells like circle of healing.

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Your comfort doing this is all that matters. If you want to play priest... play priest =P

Priest healers are better for multiple targets like that (binding heal is OP for boxers if used correctly). I wouldn't suggest going holy for bg's though. Holy is sustained healing where disc is burst healing, PVE is sustained damage while PvP is burst damage. just food for thought

I actually settled (after *much* debate) on Warlocks to go with my DKs for my 10-box setup. I run 2 healer/8 dps with the option of doing 1 healer/4 dps for the smaller bg's and other stuff.

Why Warlocks?

They have solid ranged dps, good burst depending on spec, they have a nice selection of abilities in their talent trees and aesthetically they're the most pleasing to me. Their Tier 4 (I think) ability will also be insane--Prevent all damage done to you for 10 seconds, then after it fades over 20 seconds you take half the prevented damage. This is going to be insanely OP while boxing.

I would recommend 1 healer/4 Warlocks. You're giving up 1/5 of your DPS to gain a stupid amount of healing. It's the same reason I went with 2 healer/8 dps for my 10 box--I lose 1/9 of my DPS to double my healing.

Personally I have a Paladin and a Shaman. I prefer the Shaman as they have more versatility in healing than the Paladin. They *are* a little more squishy, but eh.

Shaman offers a lot to the group and adding this to my setup. Yes locks are very fun in beta and can not wait to get them to level 90. the lowend gear ones i have on beta are one the strongest classess so far in demo tank mode :D. Olny prob atm is the pet bug. they olny got 40k hp so

we do need a healer i end up life tapping my salf to death. the olny prob is the cass feels better on its own without any over class and you have a nice toolbox off tools to play with.

I have messed around with a druid healer on MoP and think that it is probably the best suited to lock healing. Locks are fairly resilient to start with so the dot style of healing works quite nicely with lifebloom for any focussed toon. Druids are getting some really nice defensive tricks back again as well as the ability to switch stacks of lifeblooms to compensate for lack of burst healing when targets are switched. On top of this, the druid currently gives one lock the ability to cast rejuv which will allow for some greater healing flexibility...

I am liking the look of locks in MoP also, esp. demo. The ability to switch into a tank form and stay there permanently if required whilst still doing some reasonable dps is nice. On top of that, if you have the improved imp, you get one of the best defensive dispel mechanics in the game... aoe (up to 5 targets) dispel every 10 seconds. The tooltip even mentions it can remove stuns although I have not actually tested it yet.

If you're going to be playing in Arena...

Your opposition will likely pick a single target to burn.
They may switch from one to another, but the damage will end up focused on whatever they want to kill.

The Paladin is good, because they wear plate, carry a shield and passively heal themselves (Protector of the Innocent) plus their Beacon target (often themselves), while putting out very impressive healing throughput on whatever is being focused down.
They also have an easy to macro (two macros alternating) healing of a focus target, which puts out a lot of healing... just change your focus to whatever they burn.
Plus some immunity effects, and the "big button" of several cooldowns available at once.





In a battleground environment, the healer will still likely be seen as the vulnerable point of the team.
Having survivability options is going to be a good thing.
Many will stupidly attack the target on them, while you heal your DPS... but some will have a brain and choose to use it.

In general, your opposition will be much less focused and coordinated, in assorted battlegrounds.

Every healer will be a decent choice.

Look at the strengths of the different choices and go with that.
A druid brings stealth to the table, and can use Symbiosis on one of the other Warlocks for whatever effect each gains.
The paladin has higher survival and strong single target healing.
The shaman has high survivability, and their totem buffs.
The priest has good aoe healing, and can Mass Dispel.

I don't think any healer is necessarily the wrong choice.
Each just has their own flavor and benefits.

I'm personally going to go with 5x druid and 5x lock for a 10 box BG setup, it will have GREAT DPS, as well as pets for some added "point and forget" DPS. With 5x moonkin, you can still get 10x rejuv on a single target, or roll up to 10 on every target for aoe healing. Imagine just hitting a healing button as many times as you need for aoe healing on your team. Taking a little bit of dmg? hit your rejuv macro once. more? hit it two or three, and with a good setup, you will stack the rejuvs up as long as you want. With the teams mobility of doing almost maximum DPS while moving, as well as healing... it will e a very difficult team to stop in BGs. Innervate as well as lifetap means you wont run out of mana as often.

I'm excited about it :)

-Mcwrathy