Viable 5 man melee setups for PvP

[Peregrine]

You mean that the warriors hold the line for me and then just randomly 1 shotting 10 people ? haha

[Apatheist]

How would you compare a Druid+2 Warrior+2 Paladin team to a 3 Warrior+2 Paladins in PVE & PVP?

Warrior/paladin is definitely a stronger team all around.

You wouldn't play the druids the same way though. Druids would just be for stealthing around enemy cities ganking people while they're dueling and stuff like that. Picking off stragglers that are running around in zergs and then running away in travel form. Could be a lot of fun.

[Apatheist]

spam arcane explosion

Engineering seems like it would make more sense. Run in with invisibility pots, pop goblin sapper charges, frost nova and arcane explosion and you could probably wipe a raid if they were stacked and not paying attention. 8 GSC's is like 4,000 instant damage by itself.

4 Mages/4 Priests is kind of an awkward number though. Why 8 characters instead of 10? I'd probably swap one of the priests for a druid. Rejuvenation stacks with renew and having a druid would allow you to farm dungeons for preraid BiS.

[nodoze]

Warrior/paladin is definitely a stronger team all around.

You wouldn't play the druids the same way though. Druids would just be for stealthing around enemy cities ganking people while they're dueling and stuff like that. Picking off stragglers that are running around in zergs and then running away in travel form. Could be a lot of fun.

Sorry for mixing various ideas and in-artfully switching gears from the 5 Druid discussion (sorry I am kinda all-over-the-board right now thinking through various options)...

I was trying to ask how much would your effectiveness suffer in PVE and PVP if you swapped a single Druid for one Warrior in a 3 Warrior + 2 Paladin group.

I ask because I know for sure that at end game I would like to have at least one Druid flag runner once WSG is released so I was trying to get an idea how much weaker my group would be for Phase 2 World PVP ranking with 1 Druid +2 Warriors +2 Paladins instead of 3 Warriors +2 Paladins. Also want to understand how much efficiency I would lose on PVE dungeon grinding for BiS gear for Phase 1+.

I was trying to get a feel for trade-offs so maybe I wouldn't need to level a druid later.

[Peregrine]

I am struggling with bfa gold as it is, that's the main thing.

[sethlan]

What's the worse for the boxer. Fear, I think going undead is pretty neat. eat the body to gain health, and forsaken. Plus use pvp trinket. I'd love to play 5 shamans, but I think 5X warlocks can do some serious damage, dott anything that tries to get away....or kite you.

I'm thinking that 4x warlocks and 1 mage can be fun... If we change to 3x warlocks, 1 priest, 1 mage. Can be interesting, stamina buff, intellect, do to all the buffs and fast travel, dispells, mage can slow the target down that anything starts to charge you... also get some heals from the priest as disc.

[nodoze]

What's the worse for the boxer. Fear, I think going undead is pretty neat. eat the body to gain health, and forsaken. Plus use pvp trinket. I'd love to play 5 shamans, but I think 5X warlocks can do some serious damage, dott anything that tries to get away....or kite you.

I'm thinking that 4x warlocks and 1 mage can be fun... If we change to 3x warlocks, 1 priest, 1 mage. Can be interesting, stamina buff, intellect, do to all the buffs and fast travel, dispells, mage can slow the target down that anything starts to charge you... also get some heals from the priest as disc.

Your effectiveness in PVP somewhat depends on your efficiency in PVE grinding and you have no true PVE Tank option and I would have concerns relying on pets if no /focus solution is found before Classic goes live... Assuming you have the gear PVP performance-wise that sounds consistent with & temporarily countered by:

It really depends on the situation. If you charge into a raid with 4 warriors you're probably going to die. If you're part of a zerg vs zerg fight though where you're not the only target, you can definitely do some work with warriors if you're patient and dive at the right time. Especially as alliance with paladin healers. Preemptively pop freedom, death wish and skull [of impending doom] and your warriors are effectively immune to all CC for the next 10-30 seconds with a 60% run speed buff. You will just chainsaw through people as fast as you can get on them.

However, if the enemy is smart and just focuses you you will still die fast. SL Warlocks just mashing DoT's on everything from range would probably contribute more to a PvP raid and stay alive longer. ...

While undead are very nice I will main a Paladin thus have to go Alliance. If I recall correctly Alliance Dwarf Priests also have Fear Ward to preemptively protect themselves or an Alliance party/raid member and the Horde doesn't have a Fear Ward option.

[Apatheist]

1 Druid +2 Warriors +2 Paladins

Ah I misread your question. Swapping a warrior for a druid would reduce your overall damage a little in PvE but you'd still be able to clear fine. In PvP 2 warriors with freedom will still wreck casters pretty quick. It'd be a bit more to think about like putting a shapeshift macro on the same hotkey as your freedoms so the druid can shift out of CC, etc. but it'd still work fine I think.

I'd probably go full feral in that case for the 3% crit buff for the warriors. At least while you're mostly focused on dungeon farming for preraid gear. 3% Crit is pretty huge.

[nodoze]

Ah I misread your question. Swapping a warrior for a druid would reduce your overall damage a little in PvE but you'd still be able to clear fine. In PvP 2 warriors with freedom will still wreck casters pretty quick. It'd be a bit more to think about like putting a shapeshift macro on the same hotkey as your freedoms so the druid can shift out of CC, etc. but it'd still work fine I think.

I'd probably go full feral in that case for the 3% crit buff for the warriors. At least while you're mostly focused on dungeon farming for preraid gear. 3% Crit is pretty huge.

Likely I will avoid PVP as much as possible in Phase 1 and focus on instances until at least one Paladin & one Warrior have full sets of Pre-Raid BiS gear and the others have at least decent gear on all slots.

What Druid spec would you recommend for full Feral for grinding instead of 0/31/21?

[Apatheist]

Just a full feral tank spec. Something like: https://classicdb.ch/?talent#0zLVcoZxxxscMdtL

People often overlook improved thorns in vanilla. It's actually pretty solid threat builder as a tank. You deal 130% threat with all damage in bear form, including auras, so between ret aura and thorns it'd be something like 50 damage and 65 threat every time a mob hits you.

You can also get a few items like the cloth helm from the last boss in Gnomeragen (forget what it's called) and the ring from the golem boss in BRD that has armor and does damage whenever struck. Gift of arthas is a cheap consumable that applies a debuff to everything that hits you that causes threat, crystals from Un'Goro, etc.

Then just spam swipe/maul.