Throwdown: 4-shamans and a tank versus Mixed group

[Bigfish]

Trash is arguably about how efficiently you can run it, and DPS plays a role in that. Not the end all be all, but I use it as an indicator of who is or isn't pulling their weight.

The Bigfish Army is my guild on Shadow Council US if you want to take a look at it. The 80s are what I run with.

[Souca]

While I like recount for quick numbers, I combat log everything. If I really want to see what is going on I'll run a parse with WoWWebStats or one of the other sites to drill down and look for things.

There are some good points in this thread so far. I agree with Hachoo in that theoretical dps and actual dps are often quite different. While it would interesting to see how close you can get to hitting the limit with clever macros and bindings, it does leave us with a difficult problem. Theoretical dps is easy to compare. You have forumlas and numbers and in the end you go with the number that is higher. Realized or actual dps is harder though since it relies heavily on the skill of the boxer, the quality of their macros, and the different encounters in which they record data.

If we work from theory only, some will argue that it's pointless since it's unlikely that a boxer can hit those numbers. If we work from realized numbers, some will argue that a different comp woudl be better if only a boxer played it better. So how do we aproach this? I'm not saying we have to pick one method and stick to that only, but I do think we need to all understand that the numbers might be different, but they are both valid.

I'm personally interested in both kinds of results. I like theorycrafting and math is solid and defendable. That said, I'm more likely to play a group that I can realize a acceptable potential from than one that is theoretical best but unplayable with my fat fingers. Now the trick is that acceptable potential is a very personal thing and what I consider acceptable might not match with others. I'm going to try and work from theory and numbers and leave if people think they can milk the group for enough up to the reader.

This sound like a plan?

- Souca -

[Perrigrin]

Numbers aside:

I am running a 1 pally - 3 elemental - 1 resto combination, and it works great for clearing instances (Heroics) - However, I'm looking at potentially swapping in a mage, druid and priest.

The main reason for that is that, until more 5 man content is available, it gives me something to do - And then it will eventually give me greater flexibility in building the team I want in the future + If I ever were to go back to raiding, I could have a bigger choice in classes for my main

From a pure class mix perspective, I do find the dedicated healer + chain heal combo a bit lacking for group heals - And I'm curious what a priest would bring here - Basically if I take group damage today, more than 1 character has to start healing for it to be a fast group heal, which drops my dps (granted, right now I'm healing with all 4 to "group heal" and I guess I could reduce that a bit to make it smarter).

[Rin]

Numbers aside:

I am running a 1 pally - 3 elemental - 1 resto combination, and it works great for clearing instances (Heroics) - However, I'm looking at potentially swapping in a mage, druid and priest.

The main reason for that is that, until more 5 man content is available, it gives me something to do - And then it will eventually give me greater flexibility in building the team I want in the future + If I ever were to go back to raiding, I could have a bigger choice in classes for my main

From a pure class mix perspective, I do find the dedicated healer + chain heal combo a bit lacking for group heals - And I'm curious what a priest would bring here - Basically if I take group damage today, more than 1 character has to start healing for it to be a fast group heal, which drops my dps (granted, right now I'm healing with all 4 to "group heal" and I guess I could reduce that a bit to make it smarter).

If we're going to compare the Priest with the Resto Shaman, we need to look at a few things:

Holy spec'd Priests bring Circle of Healing (though, the 6 second cooldown has really killed this spell at the moment), Fortitude (+STA for your group), larger heals (G.Heal, etc, but with a cast time), Renew (HoT), and a healing prayer for your entire group.

Resto shaman bring the Totem farm (as described by Bigfish), Earth Shield, and Typhoon (6 sec. cooldown, single heal). The main forms of group healing come from the Healing Stream totem and the Chain Heal spell.

Is it worth losing the totem farm and Earth Shield for the healing abilities of a priest? I would argue that it's not, as you're going to receive much less utility in your current group composition from the Priest rather than from the Shaman. Circle of Healing + Prayer of Healing combo will only gross you so much health (CoH gives you around 756 health, Prayer of Healing gives you 2209 base health. You're going to be losing about 936 health (base/talents)/minute just with the loss of the healing stream totem. On bosses, this will mean that you're going to be healing more with the Priest simply because you've lost that extra 936 health/all group members.

More on this later.

Cheers.

[Rin]

Here's another question

For those of you running disc priests, how do they compare to Holy in a MutliBoxing-type setup? My Priest is at 80, and shes always been Holy

[Ken]

For those of you running disc priests, how do they compare to Holy in a MutliBoxing-type setup? My Priest is at 80, and shes always b

I have run a Holy priest for about several months up to level 80, now I have used it as discipline priest for about 2 months. Basically, discipline saves me more mana and is faster. In my opinion, holy is mostly useful for raids(because of the extra group heal spells you get), but when the other healers are slacking or undergeared, you go out of mana in no-time with a holy priest.
I really love Penance, as it almost doesn't cost any mana and it's comparable to a greater heal ... only it's semi-instant.

So overall, I find holy too slow and mana-consuming.

[puppychow]

imo the arguement is like asking whats the best Superbowl team. Any team can theoretically win, but from year to year some are just going to be better stats wise in the game than others.

For clearing WOTLK heroics the best team right now, by a small margin, is DK + 4 shamans. Pally + 4 shamans comes a pretty darn close second, just DKs bring more group damage and better boss mitigation than pallys. This is not opinion or personal biases (I don't even run this comp), its simply the fact that the fastest and most heroics have been cleared by these times and the people with the Glory of the Hero achieves run these teams. This could get destroyed in patch 3.1 depending on how they deal with mana/heal totem stacking.

Almost any reasonable team can clear every heroic in game, there is nothing to stop a warlock+mage+feral druid+holy pally+rogue from doing it. It will just take a lot longer and you will probably wipe a lot more. Has any multicomp single-player controlled team (only 1 shaman) actually cleared every heroic in the game? There's at least a dozen 3+ shaman teams that have as far as I know, but I can't really think of any that have only 0-1 shaman - or at least none that have posted.

Its also important to recognize that it will only take 1-4 months for you to "finish" WOTLK as a single team multiboxer. Within that time you will have every piece of heroic badge gear you can get and every item you can equip from heroics. A multicomp team will be much more fun to play imo after every heroic is down, since you can play each individually in raids (the focus of patch 3.1 - ulduar is HUGE!!) and learn how to min/max each class. Having 4 shamans is just boring once every heroic is done.

[SmackedMeat]

Its also important to recognize that it will only take 1-4 months for you to "finish" WOTLK as a single team multiboxer. Within that time you will have every piece of heroic badge gear you can get and every item you can equip from heroics. A multicomp team will be much more fun to play imo after every heroic is down, since you can play each individually in raids (the focus of patch 3.1 - ulduar is HUGE!!) and learn how to min/max each class. Having 4 shamans is just boring once every heroic is done.

I think you hit it here. All the benefits of the 3+ shaman team are obvious. However, there is a big difference between trying to trash the content and play your toons. I am personally going to try to enjoy my conquest of all the 5 man instances with a mixed group. However, I can see the pleasure in totally trashing 5 mans and running over everything in your path. That and I have no desire to go through the Shaman totem quests again. =)

[KvdM]

Almost any reasonable team can clear every heroic in game, there is nothing to stop a warlock+mage+feral druid+holy pally+rogue from doing it. It will just take a lot longer and you will probably wipe a lot more. Has any multicomp single-player controlled team (only 1 shaman) actually cleared every heroic in the game? There's at least a dozen 3+ shaman teams that have as far as I know, but I can't really think of any that have only 0-1 shaman - or at least none that have posted.

You've just described part of the problem. There's not much info being posted about mixed groups and thus people assume that these groups can't perform as well as a shaman group. Seems to me that there are more shaman then mixed groups on this forum. Perhaps we should first start a poll to find out how many shaman groups and how many mixed groups there are on this forum.

[Bigfish]

I've run... 1/2 of UP with a multi-class group, but truth be told, I'm more focused on finishing my questing and getting fully decked out in craftables before I really wanted to start farming badges, and even then, I'm focusing more on learning to 10-box Naxx than grinding heroics.