Mixed Class 5-man groups? What's best for buffs and stacking?

[moog]

As someone who has never strayed from the 4x + tank makeups it would appear overwhelmingly complex to coordinate 5 unique class cast sequences / etc. Am I over-reacting
and things synergize effectively? Any advice from someone who has played both varieties to 80?

Go for it... it's so satisfying once you get it working well

My mixed team is Pally Tank, Priest Healer, Mage / Hunter / Warlock DPS and it definitely takes some time/effort to control them properly but I enjoy playing them far more than the 5xShammies now.

Pally Tank - great AOE tanking with great party buffs, emergency healing and ressing.
Priest Healer - HoTs, group heals, fade, shield, fear ward, shackle
Mage - drinks, portals, sheep and great DPS with an arcane build
Hunter - awesome DPS with a Marksmanship build and a pet thrown in, too
Warlock - summons,

The way I play is to choose my next target, stop the 4 following, run in/pull with the Pally, consecrate, and then I manually click on my various paladin tanking type actions - I don't have a paladin macro, I much prefer doing it manually, and doing most of it with the mouse leaves the hotkeys to trigger off the rest of the party with DPS / heals... this works really well for me.

The Priest heals with a variety of ALT-keys. They heal the paladin or the paladin's target if it's friendly and alive.
Alt 1 - renew
Alt 2 - flash heal
Alt 3 - greater heal
Alt 4 - prayer of healing, targetted on the paladin as you now have to target this spell
Alt 5 - circle of healing
Alt 6 - guardian spirit
Alt 7 - divine hymn

Unless we're in Heroics, I rarely need more than a few renews and occasional prayer to top the group up.

The mage casts slow on the target when I trigger my initial consecrate with the paladin and after that has a main DPS macro...

/castsequence reset=combat/target Scorch, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage

I use PowerAura to monitor for the Missile Barrage buff, when I manually trigger an arcane missiles.
I also trigger a PoM/Pyro macro whenever it's available and I remember

The Hunter misdirects onto the paladin when I trigger my initial consecrate with the paladin and after that has a main DPS macro...

/castsequence reset=15/target serpent sting, chimera shot, arcane shot, aimed shot, steady shot, steady shot

and I manually trigger Rapid Fire, Kill Shot etc.

My Warlock has one big DPS macro...

/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat/target Curse of the Elements, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap(Rank 1), Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt

the logic behind that is I slap on CoE to benefit the whole group and then cast the cheapest Life Tap which still gives me the whole +SP boost from http://www.wowwiki.com/Glyph_of_Life_Tap and I then cast 7 shadow bolts before the lifetap buff drops.
CoE stays up for 5m, so I have a number of LifeTap/ShadowBolt 'loops' to avoid wasting DPS time with a recast of CoE.
You will need to be using Macaroon or a.n.other addon which supports huge macros to use the above
Again, with the Warlock, I use PowerAura to monitor for the Decimation buff which means I have 10s to cast a very quick Soulfire with no shard cost, which I trigger with another key.

The whole team also does very nice AoE.
For that, I use the 9 key and everyone casts their AoE... pally / consecrate, mage / arcane explosion, priest / holy nova, hunter / explosive trap, warlock / hellfire.
Whilst spamming the 9 key, I manually move my mouse over to the hunter in order to cast Volley and target it.
Works really well, with the priest's holy nova healing up the warlock's self-inflicted hellfire damage

My mixed team is made up of my 4 original solo chars, moved to other accounts, and a Warlock I dragged up.
It was always a pally tank and priest healer but the mage used to be fire, hunter was beastmaster and the warlock was demonology.
Back then, the Warlock was top DPS and I was very close to dropping the hunter.
With a bunch of research, respeccing and macro tweaking, the hunter is now top DPS

I've only covered the basics above... for instance, I have a set of macros for CC (sheep/shackle/freezingtrap/banish) which use /focus to allow me to re-CC very easily.

Hope that helps