Warrior/Priest/3 Mages PvE team?

[agrikk]

I have a level 60 alliance warrior long abandoned on one of my account that I'm thinking about building a team around. He'd boost them from level 1, then be their tank.

I'm thinking about going the Warrior/Priest/3 Mages approach and it seems that every class combo has been done to death around here, but I can't seem to find any information on this kind of team.

Has anyone done this kind of team and what were their experiences with it?

Can a protection warrior hold tank and be kept alive by a holy priest long enough for three frost mages to heave DPS?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

There were a couple of folks that ran that comp for BC Heroics and apparently did very well. And that was back before Arcane DPS went to plaid.

[Ualaa]

Warrior works well, if you drive with the warrior.
There are a lot of reaction abilities, which are strong if you use them and make for a weak choice if you ignore them.

The priest has strong single and aoe heals.
I'd go with a Disc priest.
The healing is a bit weaker, but the mitigation of damage offsets this quite a bit.
Disc is probably the best healer for keeping a single target up.
And then you'll have Pain Suppression/PW: Shield vs upcoming damage.
Holy Nova takes forever to drain your mana, which will good for keeping the priest/mages up, or heals on the move.
Mass Dispel is virtually instant, and gets you some fear protection, especially in conjunction with Fear Ward.

Mages are very strong DPS, possibly the highest.
I would go 3x Arcane, as they output a lot more damage then other specs, at least as a boxer.
Frost is a large step back in damage, and Fire is proc dependent.
You might go with 1x Frost for the snare effects, but I wouldn't really consider this with a warrior... possibly with a Druid tank, because you can dual-spec to Boomkin and have a full caster team for things which don't require a tank.
With a full blown tank on the team, you don't really need the control/snare of frost, so I'd go with the higher dps.

Not sure that the team will pvp that well, in arena.
But it should rock battlegrounds - you'll have heals and rez capability, a warrior in the front to take the initial brunt of attacks, 3x sheep and a lot of firepower ranged. Plus the offensive mass dispel.

[agrikk]

So:

Protection Warrior - tank
Discipline Priest - tank healer
3x Arcane Mages - Ranged DPS

Hrm...

My tendency to go with the Holy Priest is because of their AoE heal ability since I'm still having a hard time with mob control with my teams. As I'm grabbing aggro with my tank, I tend to overlook the guy single trash mob that's been pounding on my caster for the last thirty seconds. AoE heals gives me the ability to splash healing all over when I screw up like that.

One of my favorite macros is "Heal The Guy Above You". Someone's being attacked that's not supposed to be? Quick! Everyone heal someone until I figure out what's going on!

Of course I could just get better at crowd control...

[Fursphere]

I'm currently playing with Warrior(prot)/Druid(resto)/Mage(arcane)/Priest(shadow)/Warlock(destro) in Wotlk heroics.

The priest and warlock could easily be replaced with 2x mages.

It works really good, but you gota watch the channeled spells - they'll cause your toons to "rotate" when the boss moves and screw up your party strafing.

[jimbobobb]

I run paladin, resto druid, 2 X arcane mage and 1X shaman. It's a very good setup, and arcane mages are the easiest to macro of all the classes for boxers, just set up a click macro that does 4 arcane blasts and then arcane missilles. Grats, you're basically optimized.

Agreed with what fur said about the rotating from missiles and such though - it can get annoying when you're strafing a lot (and you will strafe a lot) in some of the lich king encounters.

If I can, let me advocate dropping a single mage for some other class - my bias says shaman. But warlocks are great too. Simply because you'll love the new buffs/synergy/totems/whatever that another class brings to your group. Totems are amazing, and I always end up dropping one of my mages when I invite a friend to join my group for heroics or raids or whatever.

[ragawaga]

I don't have much experience with different groups, but based on what different classes can bring to the table...I'd suggest dropping one of the mages for:
- a warlock who'd bring healthstones (free pot), soulstones (wipe recovery), curse of elements (boost mage DPS), demon (either extra DPS or an OT in some situations)
- or a shaman strength/agility totem or armour totem for the tank, wrath totem to boost caster DPS, mana spring for the casters, haste for the casters.....fire elemental and earth elemental.......ANKH for wipe recovery....and the potential to assist in heals if things get hairy.

[Khatovar]

I agree with Ragawaga 100%. Running multiples of the same DPS may make things easier from a macro standpoint, but in my experience, adding a separate toon that brings utility like the lock or shaman will really make your whole team shine.

[alcattle]

There is always the drop usage issue. Having 4 classes allows most drops to be used. the Warrior/clothie leave over half the loot on the DE table. Just me, I pick and use everything I can.

[genocyde]

I have run priest | 3x mage | tank for the majority of this expansion. I have both a druid tank and paladin tank and have tried tanking as prot & ret pally and as bear & moonkin druid. It is a very strong PvE team any way you slice it.

I've healed with a priest since I solo raided when ZG came out in the 60 days. Always been my main toon and I think there is about 100 advantages priests have over other healing classes. That being said I currently have a 42 shaman I am leveling with the intention of having another healer option. Mainly for one reason, the most overpowered ability in the game - heroism. I ran a friends shaman through a heroic and on fights he used heroism I had no problem doing 10-12k DPS on my mages.

Sadly dropping 1 mage for a moonkin increases total group DPS even though anyone can tell you moonkin DPS sucks right now. That 13% spellpower buff is invaluable for the other two mages plus the druid gives you an extra buff, but is too hard to control. Sooo... I'm picking up a DK when my shaman hits 58 and I'm going to level it with the intent of having a 3rd tank option. The big thing I'm looking at with a DK tank is they can apply the 13% spell damage buff AoE. They are the only class that can do this. That means some serious AoE firepower. Plus combine 3 mages with a tank that can do 13% spellpower buff and I don't need the moonkin which is another few thousand DPS i'll gain.

My ultimate group will hopefully be 80 soon. DK tank | 3 arcane Mages | Resto Shaman. I'll be switching the shaman to elemental as soon as him and the DK are geared. With the 13% aoe spellpower buff and heroism / totems I look forward to one of the highest DPS heroic groups ever. I have no doubt I'll be pushing 40-45k DPS with this team on heroic bosses.