Invincible PVE Group (A New Twist on a Classic)

[gunsun]

Invincible PVE Group (A New Twist on a Classic)

This has been my pre-cata project and I think it’s ready to share with everyone.

Disclaimers:

• I only use DBM, GS, and Recount, so no addons are necessary
• I only broadcast keys with ISBoxer, no steps or click broadcasting or auto assists. So, this should work with hardware boxing or other broadcasting software.
• I had 20 level 80s to choose from, so I could avoid shaman stacking, but this works better.

Goals for group:

• This will be my first 85 team
• Dedicated farm team for drops, justice points, boa gear, etc, etc
• Almost impossible to kill
• Minimum, if any, downtime
• Almost no micro-management of characters
• Quick recovery from wipes
• No squishy characters (I love locks, mages and priests, but they seem to die more than shaman and druids because damage avoidance is more micro-managed).
• I want the simplest interface and key-bindings possible

First, my bizarre class/spec combo:

• Pally tank
• elem shaman
• Boomkin
• resto shaman
• resto shaman

My two resto shaman, in dps gear, pull 8-10% dps each, so I basically have the equivalent of 3 dps (albeit a weaker third dps) without needing any healer micro management. I like that I can keep them in dps gear too, much simpler to gear.

The resto-shaman macro is mainly dps but spams earthshield and riptide on the tank, which takes care of 95% of the healing. Riptide is only 412 mana, so I spam it every 6 seconds when the CD is up. Riptide x2 is overpowered. Group heals are also stronger and instant with nature’s swiftness + chain heal x2.

I considered a mage, but I park my mage in a city and use it to port (it’s on a sixth account). I don’t need Int buffs or water because mana-regen is a non-issue (innervate, and 2 mana tide totems). Also, the passive heals of the elem shaman, plus the fire elemental and the extra reincarnate is more hands-off.

The boomkin brings innervate, tranquility, battle rez, and the dru buff. Even if the tank drops, you can use 3 earth elementals and a battle rez to recover. Because of the buff the Pally can Might for mana-regen and the 3 shaman can all use healing stream totems. With 2 resto shamans it’s equivalent to 4 shamans with 4 healing stream totems. At 80, I get around 1400 healing per tick.

With this setup, and the macros below, I’ve run the ICC heroics with almost no micro management of characters or roles. I spam my one tank/dps/heal button. The only time I do more is if the tank loses agro (hasn’t happened, but might), there’s serious aoe (can ignore most minor aoe) or I have to dance on a boss. And, a random mob breaking from the group to hit a dps or healer isn’t a big deal.

The elem shaman is only dps and drops a healing stream totem, no chain heals or healing surges. So you have 2 dedicated dps at all times. But chain heal is an option if you really need it for a boss, as is tranquility.

This one-button design allows me to focus my attention on “events” that requires dancing, clicking something, etc, etc. I’ve run a lot of bosses only spamming my one button. The 3 dps setup brings about 10-15% more dps on one character, but requires a lot more effort to play.

I’m focused on stupid-easy game play because things are supposedly harder in Cata. It makes selecting one character and moving trivial. If one healer is cc’d I can wait it out. I’m assuming more cc means players get cc’d more too. My macros free-up focus for 3 hexes, so CC is trivial.

Group Comparisons:
Pally and 4 elem shaman is great but dps stops to heal and I’m not sure 4 dps will be viable in Cata-Heroics. If you are healing a lot then the mana is going to heals and nothing is taking damage. The group also lacks insta-heals, mana-tide totems, battle rez and buffs.

Micro-management isn’t as bad if you run 3 elem and 1 resto shaman, but the druid brings more to the group. 2 elem shaman and a resto shaman, in my experience, don’t fare as well if the resto shaman goes down. Also, having a staff/leather class makes farming gear less annoying.

Driving from the Pally I can cleanse and tank with no problems.

The rest (reincarnates, bubbles, heroism, 5 rezzers, etc ) is nothing new and self explanatory.

If anyone cares, I have the following tradeskills on the group:
Blacksmith
Jewel Crafter
Skinning
Engineer (With Jeeves
Enchanter
Miner
3 Alchemists (I have 14 total with alts) Oh, if you haven’t stacked alchemists it is awesome-free-money unless Cata changes transmute cool-downs.

Finally, here are some macros. Nothing special about any of these, but they’ll run in the standard ui without addons:

Heal tank (passive) and dps (x2 resto shaman). This setup frees focus for Hexing, but you could @focustarget and focus the tank instead if you want. I’m currently only Earthshielding the Tank, but changing the @Tank to a character name will Earthshield a healer or whatever. The multiple target specification is necessary because the resto-shamans target will change throughout the macro. I lead with a shock so the CD allows the riptide to cast and the CD on both spells works out well.

#show earth shield
/target Tank
/castsequence [@targettarget, exists] flame shock, lightning bolt, lightning bolt
/castsequence [@Tank] reset=combat earth shield, null
/cast [@Tank] riptide

Heal tank (x2 resto shaman, just in case there’s a damage spike on the tank. You could use bigger heals or a castsequence if needed, but 2x resto healing surge is powerful and mana efficient)

/cast [@Tank] healing surge

Heal group (x2 resto shaman, I tossed in riptide to make sure healers stay up)

/cast nature's swiftness
/castsequence [@player] reset=5 chain heal, riptide, chain heal, chain heal, chain heal

Pally tanking (I have avenger’s shield and avenging wrath on macro’d to pull, the avenger’s shield here is for procs.)

#show hammer of the righteous
/click MultiBarRightButton1
/cast avenger's shield
/cast Hammer of Wrath
/use 13
/use 14

MultiBarRightButton1 (rotation with self heals)

AOE sequence
/castsequence reset=combat hammer of the righteous, judgement, crusader strike, holy wrath, hammer of the righteous, shield of the righteous, crusader strike, judgement, hammer of the righteous, word of glory

SINGLE sequence
/castsequence reset=combat crusader strike, judgement, crusader strike, crusader strike, shield of the righteous, word of glory

Pally cleansing
/cast cleanse
/targetlasttarget

Pally cooldowns (shares a keybinding with the Heal the Tank macros. I put all the cds in one macro based on refresh times so my big mess button is progressive). If you’ve never played blue-goats, the naaru thing is a racial skill.

#show divine protection
/cast gift of the naaru
/castsequence [combat] reset=5 divine protection, ardent defender, lay on hands

Druid dps (without IsBoxer steps, and a stop macro so I can use tranquility)

#show wrath
/assist Tank
/stopmacro [channeling]
/cast [nostance:5] Moonkin Form
/click MultiBarRightButton1
/use 13
/use 14

MultiBarButton1 (Don't spec Sunfire, it's breaks this)
/castsequence Moonfire,Insect Swarm,Wrath,Wrath,Wrath,Wrath,Wrath,Wrath,Wrath,Wr ath,Wrath,Moonfire,Insect Swarm, Wrath,Wrath,Wrath,Starfire,Starfire,Starfire,Moonf ire,Insect Swarm,Starfire,Starfire,Starfire,Starfire,Starfire ,Starfire
/cast starsurge

Hexing (just to be complete)
/cast [@focus] hex

Elem Shaman DPS, no chain lightning to avoid breaking hex
#show
/assist Tank
/cast elemental mastery
/use 13
/use 14
/castsequence reset=combat flame shock, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, Earth Shock, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt
/cast lava burst




That's most of it, other macros would be situation specific or common ones on the boards. Let me know if you see any areas for improvement. At the moment I'm sold on the trade-off in dps because I can always off-spec 4 dps.

[Kalros]

Wow, thats alot to wrap my mind around! Sounds very unique though. Keep us informed as to how it is going!

[Owltoid]

I love the idea, and always want to encourage new groups and thinking out of the box, but my ego is telling me I have to say this: a team with 4 disc priests is more "invincible" than what you have Their survivability is insane.... INSANE I tell ya!

[gunsun]

Hmm, I had thought I had tried most combos but I've never tried that. Now i'm thinking my title is melodramatic

[Littleburst]

I love the idea, and always want to encourage new groups and thinking out of the box, but my ego is telling me I have to say this: a team with 4 disc priests is more "invincible" than what you have Their survivability is insane.... INSANE I tell ya!

4x Atonement http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81749
When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low health friendly party or raid target within 15 yards from the enemy target equal to 100% of the damage dealt.

Will be quite sick

I just spam smite with my disc priest and that covers like 40% of the healing done. That's in normals though, not geared for HC's yet. (like below 180, so can't queue)

[HPAVC]

4x Atonement http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81749
When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low health friendly party or raid target within 15 yards from the enemy target equal to 100% of the damage dealt.

It has a strong appeal, but a lot of talents add nothing to synergy for the team with four discipline. So many buffs don't stack or just overwrite so prematurely.

[Mercurio]

Nice thoughts here, Gunsun.

In Wrath I ensured that I have an ele shammy in every leveling team in addition to my specced healer (sometimes a resto shammy, sometimes a priest). It really helps to have more healing when needed - either ele healing or respeccing to resto when needed. This is certainly a philosophy I'm going to maintain in Cata. You have taken this a bit farther.

My caution is that WotLK heroics really are a complete joke right now. I don't believe they give much of an indication of what the Cata dungeons will be like. With my traditional 3 DPS teams my dedicated healers are pretty useless - they cast an acutal heal about 4-5 times a heroic run these days - Riptide or Renew takes care of the rest for me. I certainly don't expect that to be the case in Cata.

For you, I would guess that the kind of incoming tank damage in Cata dungeons will cause you to have to spend much of your resto time healing. Also, since Blizz seems to be wanting to put more stress on DPS lately I would guess that many of the fights will be based on having very solid DPS to survive. Stacking boss damage buffs or additional adds running in over time that will overwhelm low DPS groups will probably see quite a bit of use in Cata. I think back to running WotLK heroics in quest greens and how many special abilities I had to plan for when battling each of the bosses. Now I completely ignore everything because my DPS is so overpowered that I kill things before special abilities are an issue. In Cata a low DPS group may have a much harder time dealing with all the special tricks bosses throw at us.

Again, I love the thought, and running heroics now can definitely help you tweak your macros to optimize, but I think your group's performance will change significantly come Cata (as all groups will). I'm excited to see how you fare!

[lightstriker]

4x Atonement http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81749
When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low health friendly party or raid target within 15 yards from the enemy target equal to 100% of the damage dealt.

Will be quite sick

I just spam smite with my disc priest and that covers like 40% of the healing done. That's in normals though, not geared for HC's yet. (like below 180, so can't queue)

Dont forget Divine Ageis, it procs from Atonement. I want to level 3 more Disc, but Disc dont have AoE. This is the only thing lacking. Do you and Owltoid throw out Mind Sear for AoE? Is it weak on Disc?

Disc Priest
#showtooltips
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=target/combat Penance, Shadow Word: Pain, Smite, Holy Fire, Devouring Plague, Smite, Penance, Smite, Smite, Holy Fire, Smite, Smite,
/cast Archangel

My Disc and Boom never runs out of mana anymore. On Hall of Reflection run my 2 EleShammy run out faster now. Probably because of Chain Lightning and Earth Shock and heals.

My team is similar to GunSun's but i don't have one dedicated healer. I won't know what to do with 2.

[gunsun]

Thanks for the feedback, Mercurio. I've been thinking similar things and trying to stress test with pulls of 12-15 mobs in heroics.

I went into ICC10 and trash there is just like heroics. The passive heals are all you need and the restos still pull 8-12% dps each. Some fights the two of them out dps my Boomkin. Fights are long but danger free. No mana issues, no heal issues.

I've wiped on Marrowgar so many times that I swear he's laughing at me.

My best attempt I had him near 70%, which was a fluke because I'm lucky to get him to 85% most attempts. There's just no margin for error. A great 4 min attempt is ruined with a bad dance. Most wipes were from stupid things, like botching group placement on the pull. It's an unforgiving fight and most of the team is low 5k gs.

You can chain heal through bone storm, with almost no frost resist, so the survival build works. The shaman still pull 7-8% on a raid boss, which is nice. But killing bone spikes while healing the tank is a mess.

I think it's doable with 3-4 situational macros, depending on who is spiked (if I brought back the elem shaman I'd have four options for backup heals, nukes, etc depending on the spike).

But I'm tired of repair bills and respawns and typos in my macros.

[gunsun]

Does anyone have a link for Healing Stream Totem scaling? I've been searching and don't understand some of the stuff I'm reading. Is there a good site explaining the mechanics?

I just noticed that with the mage in the group their is a proc adding about 70hp per tick per totem. Not sure what is doing that, but with the mage they're comparable to 2 resto + 1 elem.

I've never spent much time trying to max healing totems