Bear Tank/Healadin/Spriest/Boomkin/Hunter Thoughts?

[Aradar]

I've been considering making a second team and have for some time had an interest in both a bear tank and spriest. From there, I don't really have a desire for other toons but figured I'd might as well level 3 more and make a team out of it. With that in mind, I decided to try to optimize the use of drops I may get. Obviously the bear covers a subset of leather and the priest could use pretty much all the cloth drops. Therefore, to eliminate competition, I was left with the other subsets of leather (boomkin), mail (hunter) and plate (pally).

So my question, having not played these other classes much other than healadin (vanilla wow though), any logistical reasons why this is a bad idea or won't work? Keep in mind, 1) I prefer to keep my dps to one or two buttons, preferably one with modifiers, and 2) I don't really care if this team can clear all heroics or any of them for that matter as I can plug and play with my other team if and when I decide I want to gear out one of these particular toons. However, I would like to be able to level in instances so making it functionally work in a group environment is important.

Thanks for any possible feedback.

[puppychow]

imo its 10x easier leveling a single toon from 70-80 than it is taking a team. I'm currently leveling my DK to 80 (71 right now) and i am having a blast spending 2 hours a day questing in a zone. I have 2 of my 80 shamans follow me and blast everything. I only pick up quests on the DK, and so collection quests and the like are a breeze. I'm actually having fun leveling and reading all the quests and such. I did run nexus yesterday and was able to 3 man it no problem, but for the most part i am skipping instances and just doing quests (going to go back and do heroics at 80 with full team).

In contrast I really did not enjoy at all leveling my team 70-80, even though I mixed in instancing/questing, the collection quests for 2+ people really become a huge drag on fun, and a ton of time wasting as you spend time chasing windows around.

After my DK is 80 and pretty geared I'll probably level a priest next, and again go manual 60-80. I wouldn't go hardcore into leveling multiple teams w/ RAF from 1-60, since I'd guess the next expansion introduces another race/class that starts at 55 or 65. RAF instance leveling from 1-60 though is definitely a good idea, its boring but only takes 24-48 hours and is a nice fast way to have a team at 60 ready to solo level.

[Aradar]

Yeah, I hear ya on the 70 to 80 boxing. I didn't enjoy it all that much myself and the lack of rep gains in instances didn't help.

As for RAF, I unfortunately won't be going that route. I can't justify buying 4 more accounts especially when this team will probably just be something I play when I need a break, not something I am going to hardcore level to 80. Otherwise I'd probably just boost the two toons I'm interested in but having never boosted a toon, I don't think I could handle the boredom.

As for the the instances being boring, that is definately true as well but I'm hoping learning these new classes and how they interact along the way will help. I already had a level 70 pally and shaman when I started boxing so leveling them came naturally to me and didn't involve much of a learning curve other than the actual boxing of them.

On a side note and kind of more to the topic, I'm probably most iffy about the hunter.

[elsegundo]

the hunter should be fine. hunters mark and trueshot aura. this helps your tank moreso than the others.
misdirect, scattershot, wyvern sting, freeze trap... depending on build, all give some kind of emergency cc for those times the healer gets aggro. concussive shots on runners.
pets with some aoe (thunderstom, screech) only help your tank do more dps or take less damage.

spriest = mana regen and dps. looks like a keeper.

moonkin has spell crit aura, dots like the spriest, and casted spells. you can match this up pretty easily with the spriest.

i think your dps is fine and your hunter would add plenty of benefit to the team, especially the tank.

[Owltoid]

I'm currently running with 5 druids and although the bear is fun, it's definitely not as easy as a pally tank. Plus, a bear really doesn't give any buff to casters. I see that you have a hunter, so at least they'll get the leader of the pack buff, but otherwise your moonkin can give all the druid buffs you need and the bear is really just there for fun.

[elsegundo]

I'm currently running with 5 druids and although the bear is fun, it's definitely not as easy as a pally tank. Plus, a bear really doesn't give any buff to casters. I see that you have a hunter, so at least they'll get the leader of the pack buff, but otherwise your moonkin can give all the druid buffs you need and the bear is really just there for fun.

also improved leader of the pack. returns health after a crit. so with the extra 5% crit, both either moonkin or bear, with bear, party members will get health back. not completely omg must have, but still helps a lot if people are getting managable damage from various sources.

[Owltoid]

I'm currently running with 5 druids and although the bear is fun, it's definitely not as easy as a pally tank. Plus, a bear really doesn't give any buff to casters. I see that you have a hunter, so at least they'll get the leader of the pack buff, but otherwise your moonkin can give all the druid buffs you need and the bear is really just there for fun.

also improved leader of the pack. returns health after a crit. so with the extra 5% crit, both either moonkin or bear, with bear, party members will get health back. not completely omg must have, but still helps a lot if people are getting managable damage from various sources.

I could be wrong here, but I thought you only get health back if you crit with a melee or ranged attack, not a magical one.

I think a bear tank would be awesome in a druid, DKx3, shaman group, but in a caster group I don't really see the point... I say that even though I currently use a bear tank because I don't want to focus on more than 5 toons and I will dual spec moonkin/bear for PvP/PvE.

[elsegundo]

I could be wrong here, but I thought you only get health back if you crit with a melee or ranged attack, not a magical one.

you know you could be right. lol.

in any case, i dont see too much of a problem with his group. i know the hunter/feral mix would help each other out and the magic casters will help each other out pretty well.

[Smoooth]

I would switch out the hunter with a mage. Sure you lose out on certain mail gear but you get free food/water, int buffs, ports, polymorph, and a char with +3% crit with 10 pts into arcane.

[daviddoran]

I say keep the pally ret, unless you plan on doing lots of instances. At least until 70+, it's be easier to just kill stuff faster than bother healing. It can get tricky managing a second melee, but once you get used to it it becomes second nature. Plus adding a ret pally gives you more chances to proc Replenishment, which is always nice

And Having played shadowpriests, they are kinda nice, have some nice utility, but are tough to keep the DPS up. Holy priest makes a great healer too, so at least you have that as an option in the future.

I was leveling a RAF duo of druids, and brought along some random extra toons, and brought a BM hunter, and even with just autoshot, he does pretty decent damage, and you can get some nice pet buff/debuffs, so I think a hunter is a good choice.

Bear tanks are fun! A few self healing options helps cause you aren't always looking at the healers screen.

Moonkin. I think leader of the pack and boomkin aura cancel a bit of each other out, but not entirely. Still a good choice. You might want to swap for a lock or a mage. Summons or portals might be of more use to you.