Are All Ranged DPS Created Equal?

[crowdx]

I ran with a resto shammy with a 5200gs last night and he was very effective healing, we actually did Nexus in less than 20 minutes, jsut chain pulled through the place and made sure everyone kept up, the second boss only got to do her split phase once, was a really fast run which was very much helped by the great resto heals.

[jjflanigan]

I'd say the easiest team to start with would be:
- (Prot) Paladin tank.
- 3x or 4x Elemental Shaman (dps)
- If you go 3x Shaman, go 1x Boomkin or 1x Warlock for the 13% spell power buff (warlock is better, in that there is no Eclipse to manage).

3x Shaman can handle healing for all 5-man content.



However, if you want your first team to be able to both PvE and PvP well.

Swap out the Paladin for a Druid.
Feral is almost as good of a tank as a Pally, a little harder to macro but still very strong.
And then dual-spec the Druid to Boomkin, and run with all casters in battlegrounds.

Out of curiosity, why would you say the feral tank would be harder to macro than the paladin? I see the majority of teams being pally tank + what-ever (4x shaman, or what-have-you). Currently I'm running a bear tank with my shaman and I have 4 total abilities to keep track of with the bear. In all honesty, if you get a nice weapon, you can toss out a faerie fire, and then just spam swipe all day and not have to use a single other ability on the tank.

My bear is currently running at about 5500 gearscore, and I just spam swipe in combat (single target, or AoE). This let me put my shaman spells onto my numpad rather than using a click macro and I got their single target DPS up to around 4k on each of them in heroics. Being able to fully control the use of wind shear, flame shock, lava burst, LB and Chain made a HUGE difference in the dps they put out (went from 2100 or so using the click macros to right at 4k using numpad sequencing).

Granted, I may not understand paladins well enough to understand the major reasons to use them as a 5-box tank, but, for me at least, bear tank is amazingly easy.

[jimbobobb]

Out of curiosity, why would you say the feral tank would be harder to macro than the paladin? I see the majority of teams being pally tank + what-ever (4x shaman, or what-have-you). Currently I'm running a bear tank with my shaman and I have 4 total abilities to keep track of with the bear. In all honesty, if you get a nice weapon, you can toss out a faerie fire, and then just spam swipe all day and not have to use a single other ability on the tank.

My bear is currently running at about 5500 gearscore, and I just spam swipe in combat (single target, or AoE). This let me put my shaman spells onto my numpad rather than using a click macro and I got their single target DPS up to around 4k on each of them in heroics. Being able to fully control the use of wind shear, flame shock, lava burst, LB and Chain made a HUGE difference in the dps they put out (went from 2100 or so using the click macros to right at 4k using numpad sequencing).

Granted, I may not understand paladins well enough t o understand the major reasons to use them as a 5-box tank, but, for me at least, bear tank is amazingly easy.

Paladins bring avengers shield, stuns that are better than bears, a simple, no-nonsense, no-thinking tank macro. It's basically just ease of use. Paladins have only one button, and threat is ridiculously easy on a paladin regardless of the content, and it can all be macro'd perfectly.

Sure you can use just swipe in heroics, but try that in a raid, or if you're undergeared vs. your dps, and you will lose aggro. My paladin uses the same button for heroics as he does for icc25, and he never loses aggro on anything, and it's just easier to put all that into a macro for a paladin than it is for a druid.

Everyone recommends paladin because ANYONE can figure out consecrate, holy shield, shield of righteousness, hammer of righteousness, smashy smashy

WIth bears keeping lacerates up, faerie firing (which I hate putting in macros), keeping mangle up, etc etc, it's just more complicated to play the class optimally threatwise

Which is a better tank? Meh go argue that on EJ

Which is an EASIER tank to play well? Paladin

So yes, newwbies, we all think you are wearing helmets and riding the short bus to work, so we recommend the 'there's no WAY you can screw THIS one up' -type tank

[jjflanigan]

Gotcha, so it DOES come down to my just not understanding Paladins

I have a bear tank and a DK tank, but, prior to boxing, I almost always played healer classes, so my knowledge of the tanking aspect was very limited. I've tanked up through the first wing of ICC on my bear tank and thought it was stupidly easy (with the exception of ranged interrupts). I may have to go level up my paladin now though to give it a shot.

Thank you (and sorry about the thread hijack)

[crowdx]

My two cents. I have a pally tank and now I have a bear tank. The pally, does avengers shield and consecrate and he has aggro for multiple mobs, the bear does Faerie Fire to pull (or Growl) and then once the multiple mobs come to him he has to spam swipe a couple of times to establish aggro. After that both are very similar, a bear can really just spam swipe and hold aggro in heroics (as long as the group are hitting the target you are on).
Of the two tanks, bear scores more points with me for chain pulling, they can run through mobs swiping as they go and pull aggro, paladins have to drop consecrate or avengers shield which have cooldowns that make it slower for them.
Overall I think both are VERY easy to tank with, now if you want harder then look at a DK or Warrior, much more micro management involved in their rotations to keep threat.
Have fun

[Mercurio]

I run 6 different mixed teams, 5 of them level 80 and one team is still level 71. The only classes not represented are DKs and rogues and none of my teams have less than four classes represented.

Having recently spent a while thinking about what I like the best, I would definitely go with:
1) Pally tank
2) Resto shammy or Holy priest healer (both are great, though tank heals are slightly easier with the shammy while party heals slightly easier with the priest)
3) Ele shammy (best off-healer, and for some of the hardest content when your gear is low, a 2nd toon doing a bit of healing is vital)
4) Warlock (best DPS I've found from any class, tons of flexibility)

The last DPS is up for debate, but I'd recommend:
- a hunter for good DPS and much easier gearing up (won't compete for drops with priests, locks, or shammies), or
- a mage for easy DPS, easier AOE, portals

Either the hunter (survival) or mage (frost) give replinishment as well.

One other option you could consider: replace the lock with a druid (maintaining the uber +13% spell damage buff) for the awesome +hit buff boomkins give, but that only helps if you are raiding with your team and the boomkin would do substantially less DPS than the lock.

I would highly encourage you to level mixed classes. With /click macros they are very easy to manage, are tons easier to gear up, give you more buffs, and give you lots of flexibility when you hit 80.

Much better than
"Yo guys, starting up a raid, wanna bring something?"
"Sure, I've got a pally... or shaman"
"Hmm... don't need a tank and already have 4 shammies, need a hunter, mage, lock, druid, or priest"
"Crap, I knew I should have leveled up a mixed group! Well, have fun raiding over the next month while I level up another set of toons"