New 10 man, trying to decide what group setup for PvE

[TheFailTrain]

I am currently 10 boxing and I would have to agree with TheRadin that priest healers are very powerful. They have PoM and CoH for fire and forget group healing. Also if your raid is all casters then they will most likely all be piled up on each other which makes holy nova x2 very powerful.

Another reason to go with matching tanks and healers is from a management perspective. When you jump to 10 boxing the amount of time you spend researching specs / gear and setting characters up is incredible. LOL looking back is sort of wish that I went with 2 pallys, 2 priests, and six shammys just so it didn't take hours making changes to my team after every patch.

[Mokoi]

haha true.

I'm not too worried about Cata, as I have so many 80's it is easy to pick and gear the toons I want at lvl 85, for now I am only interested in Wotlk raids, and using the time left in Wrath to practice for raiding in Cata, and as we all know the dynamics of the game will change a lot, I have made sure I have one of almost every major class I am interested in at 80.

Holy Nova x 2 is a great idea, and while I like the idea of a resto shaman for the shield and chain heals, I think you may be right with the priests, easy to macro the tank heals, and for single tank encounters, a disc priest and a holy priest would be pretty nice. 2x PoM is pretty Op too I guess hehe.

OK, I am still thinking about 3 healing most of my first encounters, so I can see how my shaman keeps up with the priests.

Thanks for the input guys! Keep it incoming, lets hear from the guy with the paladin healer, what does he think? I have a lot of paladins, and I could easily get 2 pally tanks and a pally healer as well.. although they don't bring near the same tools that a priest brings...

So, maybe I will go with 2 Pally Tanks, 2 Priest Healers, 3 Locks, 2 Shamans and a Boomkin.

Oh, also.. I hate mages, anyone else have a healthy hatred of this terrible class? XD haha i don't know why I hate them.. i just do.. yuck!

[zenga]

Oh, also.. I hate mages, anyone else have a healthy hatred of this terrible class? XD haha i don't know why I hate them.. i just do.. yuck!

not as much as rogues, but i feel you

[TheFailTrain]

Thanks for the input guys! Keep it incoming, lets hear from the guy with the paladin healer, what does he think? I have a lot of paladins, and I could easily get 2 pally tanks and a pally healer as well.. although they don't bring near the same tools that a priest brings...

The only healer that I have ever used has been a priest. I don't think that any of the current 10 boxers are using pallys as healers. That being said you should give it a try if you want. You have tons of time until Cata comes out and since you have so many level 80s it might be worth giving it a shot. I know that if I had more than 10 level 80s I would be mixing and matching to try and find the comp that works best for me.

I think that your group comp looks good even without a mage lol.

[Mokoi]

yeah, I think I don't need a mage right now, and if I do in cata, ill just lvl one.

I hate mages though, id rather bring a pug mage than own one of my own (apart from my going to destroy BGs mage team of 10 mages... of course XD hahaha)

[Mercurio]

I have three 10-box teams up and running ATM. Last week they all downed VoA10 and Marrowgar

Their class make-ups are as follows:
Team Mag: 2 prot pallies, 1 holy priest, 1 resto shaman, 2 locks, 2 ele shammies, 1 hunter, 1 boomkin
Team Pant: 2 prot pallies, 1 holy priest, 1 resto shaman, 1 lock, 2 ele shammies, 1 hunter, 1 boomkin, 1 mage
Team Merc: 1 prot pally, 1holy priest, 1 resto shaman, 2 locks, 2 ele shammies, 1 hunter, 1 boomkin, 1 prot warrior

As you can see, I've moved toons around a bit to be hitting close to the same composition with each.

As Cata approaches, my goals are:
1) to continue to push into more bosses in ICC (at least through Rotface)
2) complete some professions for the 5-6 toons above that don't have professions maxxed
3) level up another team of 5 from 70 to 80 to give myself options for team tweaks

In regards to 3), I'm going to level up a team of 1 prot pally, 2 holy priests, and 2 mages. You can guess who the prot pally may replace , the priests might be replacements for a couple of the resto shammies (at least I want the option of doing so), and the mages may replace the boomkins or possibly hunters depending on how Cata comes out.

I like my healing setup now too - for healing-intense fights like Marrowgar I convert one ele shammy to resto, then just have one resto shammy healing each tank and cover raid heals with the priest. However, healing is sooo important that I want options if healing rain turns out to suck or something.

As for DPS, my mage and warlocks are consistently my top DPS. An equally geared mage may even edge the locks, and arcane mage rotations are stupid simple, hence the mages as options.

Hope that helps you as you think things through.

BTW, misdirect from the hunters is the way I start all my fights, then I can just go balls to the wall from the beginning.

[Mokoi]

Awesome, thanks for your advice, Merc =)

I like the idea of having good DPS from mages, but I really just don't want to play one, so I am going to use locks, I think. Also, hunters don't appeal to me, and don't seem to sync up with the raid, how is your hunters damage?

What spec do you run your warlocks? and can you link or explain your rotations on your locks and boomkins?

thanks for everyones help. I have my team setup as follows for now, until my other locks hit 80:

2 prot pallies, 2 holy priests, 3 elemental shaman (one resto for now until my priests gear gets much better), 2 boomkins and one lock. My plan is to replace one boomkin and one shaman with 2 more locks, but they aren't 80 yet so I have to wait on that.

[Mercurio]

Sounds like a very solid team.

I spec my locks Destruction. You can check out the spec by looking up Vampirah on US Kil'Jaeden. My locks have two destro specs - one for more damage and +hit and one for replinishment. The rotation is a bit complex, but not too bad.

My hunters' DPS is very solid, though the macros are the most complex of any I've written. Some fights they end up at the top of the charts. That's running them Survival, so replinishment is automatic with that spec. Lack of gear competition, misdirect, and one more fun class to try to optimize are the main reasons I like having one in each group.

My boomkins are very hit-and-miss DPS-wise. This is because of the weird Eclipse proc, which I ignore. Basically just /castsequence Wrath, Wrath, Starfire besides the Insect Swarm and Moonfire attacks. One button spam for my tanks and all my DPS is all I use - way too much going on as a 10-boxer to try to manage Eclipse procs. So most of the time the Boomies are at the bottom of my DPS, though sometimes they get lucky and end up at the top. I really like having one boomkin for each of my 10-man teams since they give the +3% hit buff to the whole team. That's a TON of extra DPS I can get for instead of hit. However, Blizz has stated that this is going away in Cataclysm, hence my thought of possibly dropping my boomies for mages. One bright note is that Blizz also stated that they believe the Eclipse proc is responsible for way too much of their damage ATM and plan to reduce the effect of Eclipse timing in Cataclysm.

I'm in San Diego this week for work, so don't have access to WoW or macros. if you'd like me to send you my rotations, just hit me up next week.

[Mokoi]

Thanks, I'm sure ill see you in-game too we can chat more =)

[TheFailTrain]

I have 3 warlocks one of each spec. In my experience the affliction lock does the most over all damage but the damage is slow to ramp up so in short fights he is pretty much useless. Destro does comparable damage to affliction but the damage falls off a lot when you have a lot of movement. Destro also brings replenishment so if you don't have any other toons that can bring it Destro is the way to go. Now the real only benefit for speccing demo is the Spell damage buff you get. In order to put up dps numbers like afflic/destro you will need to manage when to use Meta and also soul fires after 25%.

As for Boomkin VS mage.... Hands down the mage wins on dps every time because of the way eclipse works. Also you can't beat how easy it is to macro a frost mage. /click icey veins, /click mirror image, /cast frostbolt... win.

Also if you have any questions I am on kil'jaeden as well so feel free to send me a whisper.

My guild name is <Mouth Breathers> and my 2 tanks (the best toons to send whispers and get a response) are prtiqul and saaphyri.