Good 5 man comps purely for pve / dungeon leveling

[zehedas]

You mentioned dungeon grinding and not raiding. This might not be common thought but you need a hunter in the mix.

Hunters are top notch dps pre-raid, just fall behind when you start getting geared up.
An owl pet with level 4 schreech is amazing AOE threat. When you lose a mob it turns to the pet not the healer or mages. No chasing it.
Easier gearing as its the only mail wearer if no shaman, easier gearing your clothies as well.
Pair with engineering and feign death gives you one less chance to have to run back from the graveyard after a wipe.

How do you deal with the dead zone when multiboxing hunters in a mixed melee-ranged group?

5 hunters or shamans (or shamans+hunters) sounds like it could be fun, too. Does anyone have experience with groups like that?

[JohnGabriel]

How do you deal with the dead zone when multiboxing hunters in a mixed melee-ranged group?

Its never been an issue. I stop follow then the tank runs in first, hunter stays with ranged. I have a PaDHMW team and its not a fast AOE mage farm team but its very well rounded and do anything. I only wish the druid healer was a priest or paladin.

[nodoze]

Its never been an issue. I stop follow then the tank runs in first, hunter stays with ranged. I have a PaDHMW team and its not a fast AOE mage farm team but its very well rounded and do anything. I only wish the druid healer was a priest or paladin.

Have you tried swapping your Paladin Tank to being Healer and your Druid Healer going Tank?

Do you think just 1 hunter is mandatory or do you think the more the merrier?

[JohnGabriel]

Do you think just 1 hunter is mandatory or do you think the more the merrier?

I would never want to give up the mage or warlock slot for a second hunter. Ones plenty. I do have a 5 hunter team around level 25ish, haven't attempted any dungeons.

[CokeZero]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've narrowed my choices to these two:
warrior / priest / 3 mages
paladin / priest 3 mages
(warlock would probably be great as well but I want 3 different classes at most to keep it simple)

How do they compare?

I run a bear tank, priest, warlock, and 2 mages. Mainly because I wanted to provide my team with every available buff

Mages, as far as DPS goes in a multiboxing setup, are far superior in almost every way. The AoE control is just so damn good and they don't go OOM in seconds like a warlock does. Warlocks you need to weave in a lifetap here and there to keep them casting.

That said, I do not regret putting a warlock in the team, and if I had to level a new team all over again a warlock would be a must for me. I love the utility they bring with healthstones, soulstones, more HP if you're running a tank with imp stamina, and if you're running a warrior tank the imp fire shield can help the tank hold aoe threat. The fire shield is useful on the bear as well when you are fighting nature immune mobs, since thorns is nature damage. I guess it's useful for a pally too, not sure if it stacks with whatever they may have, dunno, never played one.

And then of course the main reason I love my warlock, summoning! I love being able to ship a toon back to town to empty bags and sell, then summon him right back and keep on grinding/farming.

[Mordikai]

I have been working on an Alliance team now (novel for me, I always play Horde) and went PaPMML and I have to agree, I will always have one. The Warlock brings so much to the table. I exclusively am using the imp. I am specced full destruction right now so the mana is not as bad and I tap on the run with renews from the Priest to help keep up the pace. The Paladin has fire shield, retribution aura, blessing of sanctuary and a shield spike. He is a total reflect machine! I have a castsequence rotation that if the fight goes a little long he casts drain soul to keep the shards up so I always have health and soul stones. Curse of the Elements really helps the mage's damage as well. The best part though: Staying at dungeons for ever, sending the mages back to sell and then just summoning them back

[nodoze]

I have been working on an Alliance team now (novel for me, I always play Horde) and went PaPMML and I have to agree, I will always have one. The Warlock brings so much to the table. I exclusively am using the imp. I am specced full destruction right now so the mana is not as bad and I tap on the run with renews from the Priest to help keep up the pace. The Paladin has fire shield, retribution aura, blessing of sanctuary and a shield spike. He is a total reflect machine! I have a castsequence rotation that if the fight goes a little long he casts drain soul to keep the shards up so I always have health and soul stones. Curse of the Elements really helps the mage's damage as well. The best part though: Staying at dungeons for ever, sending the mages back to sell and then just summoning them back

I also really like my Warlock with my Paladin Tank and take the improved imp talents for the improved blood pact stamina boost and reflect damage from improved Fire Shield.

Regarding Soul Shards I like the SoulSort addon as it allows me to keep them topped off without filling my bags.

[Tazeon]

The above responses are really good. I would not recommend a melee team for your first team.

If you are only having one single group to cap I would do:

Tank+2Mages+Warlock+Healer

I fully agree with this suggestion:
No melee team as a new multiboxer.

tank + healer + 3 casters (2x mages + 1 wl or 3 mages)
have the most advantages

tank:
paladin - if you play alliance for easier aoe tanking and if want to play tbc
warrior - you can get very good tankgear in ZG or if you want to raid as a tank or dd in mc + bwl
druid - a little better aoe threat then warrior, but not as good as a paladin, motw,

healer:
shaman - if you play horde and your main farm is DME, improved chance to get a raidspot for shaman healer or if you want to play tbc
priest - sta buff and shield for casters, you can buy bis healing staff from another mc raid
paladin - if you play alliance and no paladin tank, kings or aggro reduce for caster
druid - not recommended because you have no ressurection (or you play with paladin tank)

caster:
2x mages + 1 wl - have more utility (port, soulstone, healthstone, + sta buff, fire shield or aoe tank if you play SL)
3x mages - more aoe and single target damage (especially if you play fire mages)

[Torgo]

IMO Hunters do not work at all in a dungeon grinding group due to the deadzone. I gave up on mine around 20 or so. Fun to play solo though.

Unless you want to main a warrior at 60, I would pick another tank since warriors don't really do anything in a farming group. For example, a pally tank would be much more valuable since you have a second rez and they can do aoe damage so will actually contribute to farming. I ran with a warrior since raiding as fury dps is awesome.

On the horde side, a lock doesn't really give you anything. On alliance side, as someone pointed out, SM would suck without summons. Horde has Brill to use as a base.

Overall, horde is much easier to level a 5 man than alliance due to SM and Gor'shak farming.

I am not sure why chinese bot farmers go with a druid for their tank. Anybody know?

[Gh0ztEye]

Hunters are fantastic dungeon grinders! The key to getting the most out of them is AOE pets like owls, carrion birds, and gorillas for screech and thunderstomp. 5x hunters can burst then just feign death to reset pulls. 4x hunt + shaman can just grind it out only having to wait for sham mana.

I tried various combos of pets and in the end what usually happened was the sham would get aggro from healing. I switched to 4 carrion birds and did a couple SM runs the issue seemed to be resolved. I also went out and got 4 gorillas and had pretty much the same outcome. I'm going to try a bird with the gorillas next and see how that goes.