Comp discussion for Warlords

[MadMilitia]

So some background on my current setup:

I'm a 5 boxer who is on and off due to real life obligations but looking to make a concerted effort to do well in Warlords.

My current 5 man team is a bit polymorphic as the classes change from time to time. I switch between warriors and dks mostly for my melee.

The team currently is:

Healer: Resto shaman
Melee #1 : Arms Warrior
Melee #2 : Frost Deathknight - doubles as blood tank.
Range #1 : BM Hunter
Range #2 : BM Hunter


The goal was and still is to have a well rounded 5s that I could run dungeons with, do PvP with and raid with. I do this with the above team but I'm feeling like this team comp is harder than some others so I'm looking for alternatives!

I've wanted to do something DoT based, like locks, spriest, dk but I don't know if that would be an improvement. Primarily the situation seems to be if DPS rotations involve something like ground clicking this is NOT ideal for multiboxing. So DKs are basically out of the question. I could probably handle the occasional D&D as a tank but I'm open to switching all my DKs out for others. The hunters I'm also considering replacing seeing traps are so pivotal to doing well.

I'm shooting for a very low maintenance group. Something I can play pretty braindead as I'm going to be focusing more on what is going on around me than what my team should or is doing.

Any thoughts on team comp for Warlords? Has anyone given this any serious thought yet?

[dougie700]

Whats wrong with the timeless classic of shamen, of all the classes i have "played" around with these still seem to be the best all round option, you can have ranged dps, heals and melee dps.

Just my thoughts :P

[TheOlz]

This is going to be a bit of a rambling post, but you asked for thoughts, so here goes thoughts!!

Note that I can really only comment on 5 man PVE, I haven't taken any teams into larger group content yet and I don't do any PVP at all at the moment, and have given PVP no consideration at all in any of my teams/builds.

I have only very recently (and still currently) been playing around with many different team combinations. I tend to think DOT based classes (unless you're driving from that character) are going to be tough to manage. The rotation macro's require time to allow DOT's to tick, else you're wasting a lot of mana. This also sort of applies to classes that require close management of proc's, that need you to switch your normal rotation, such as a Boomkin lunar/solar phases, which I just couldn't get figured out right. Not that I've entirely given up, but I've parked the idea for now. It also kind of applies to Demo Warlock (how to nicely macro Metamorphosis is something I haven't got right yet either), though I am quite determined to make that work, just because it looks so damn cool!

Tanks:
If you drive from your tank (which is how I play), then a Blood DK is fine and it's easy enough to ground target a D&D. Personally though, I prefer a Paladin or Warrior tank, not sure I know exactly why, just feels more comfortable to me. I also have a soft spot for Monks, given that I run a 5 Monk team quite a bit. A BrM Monk is a very capable tank. I never really clicked with a Guardian Druid, again not entirely sure why, but it felt more awkward than the other tank classes.

Healing:
I have had quite a bit of success with a Disc. Priests as healers as they allow you to passive heal through Atonement when you don't need dedicated target healing, and that has seen me through up to early MoP dungeons pretty easily, with only the occasional direct heal, though I have a huge target of target macro for troublesome boss fights with things like bubbles, pain suppression, archangel, renew, etc. mixed in with a little DPS. But, for just healing through DPS it's like 3 spells, easily macro'd.

A Druid makes a good healer too, as they have a good AOE heal is not ground targeted, and they do have a little passive healing with the talent and wrath spam when damage is not intense. Though that passive healing is nothing compared to the Disc Priest, or even a FistWeaving Monk.

Shaman healer, too, much like a Druid has good AOE heal with Chain Heal, though of course Healing Rain (if that's the right name) is ground targeted. I played entirely as though I didn't have it, never used it and had reasonable success.

DPS:
For ranged DPS it is hard to go past the simplicity of 3 Ele Shaman, clearcasting procs are great and require nothing but continued spam of DPS and you get your pet totems, healing totems and/or mana totems to assist your healer, and the other totems for certain circumstances as required, and of course heroism/bloodlust (though that is redundant on more than 1). Also, if you decide to mix it up making 1 or 2 Enhancement spec is nice too, but will of course require closer management of both procs. and melee positioning.

I quite enjoyed both BM and Survival Hunters, but I only laid traps at my feet as more of an "oh shit" plan if my range pulled agro, a freezing trap gives a nice bit of a chance to get agro back on the tank with hopefully minimal damage to your range, if they are grouped up. This gimps their DPS a little, but I found it a more "safe" way to run. I would be hard pressed to pick a favourite of those 2 Hunter classes, but I'd maybe give the edge to Survival, but BM is probably easier to manage. Marks didn't click with me, and from some reading I've done around the place seems to rate a bit lower overall for PVE than the other 2 specs.

I fell out of love with Mages pretty quickly, in both Frost and Fire spec and I've never tried Arcane, I don't know why but I felt like Mages weren't achieving what they should DPS wise when I wasn't managing them closely.

I think generally for low maintenance you're going to want all range DPS.
Though, my 5 Monk team is all melee with 2 FistWeavers and I very much brute force/passive healed through everything in current 5 man heroic content, without a lot of challenge. Whether this will continue to hold up though I don't know, and in all honesty while I really like that team, I'm not entirely comfortable running 2 healers, even if they are DPS healers.

So, there's my thoughts, but obviously a lot will come down to your play style, which may be nothing like mine.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts too, once you have a chance to test some different combinations out, as I am not finished experimenting either.

Also, just realised this should probably be in the Group Composition forum, rather than general. Hopefully an admin will move it over.

[MadMilitia]

Hi Olz,

I currently drive from my healer, so the shaman healing rain ground click is not a big deal.

The hunters rotate a misdirect on the tank and the tank charges in, AEs on the third or second global and pretty much maintains AE aggro after that with misdirects cycling in rotation from the hunters. This actually works fantastic and can be quite headless which is preferable from the healing perspective.

Now here's the tricky part. The AE damage from the hunters is not fantastic. One of them is at 532 ilvl and probably does 150kish in AE damage. That simply isn't very good. The arms warrior is usually around 250k when doing AE damage, much higher when bladestorm is up.

I attribute this to traps being part of the hunter rotation. I had the same problem with my unholy DKs. Or maybe unholy is just in a terrible place for multiboxing now.

Taking the hunters out would complicate tanking in a big way that may offset whatever rotation gains I get from another DPS class. So not sure there yet.

I have recently taken the DK out of the picture, replaced with another hunter and made the arms warrior prot. I haven't done much with it yet so will take some time. I do recall however running three hunters in heroic end time and it was at times tricky having all ranged.


I'm less keen on changing the healing class as the resto shaman seems already quite low maintenance. Maybe someone who can actually compare would have better insight. I will say however that the shaman being trained in PvP sucks. Nothing new there. Maybe I should be playing a sturdier healer

[suicidesspyder]

I jumped on this earlier i actually have three groups i do most of my stuff with and sometimes might change them out for another class.

My world farming group believe it or not is 10 blood dks. Why self heal can pull tons and can stay alive. If i see imma need something different ill add in my disc priests if i want to help dps. Otherwise i bring in resto druids three and just let them heal only.

World pvp/bg will always be my 10 rogues. Its insane in one gcd you can normally drop 2-3 other people. Plus if your going after a group with multi healers, you burn one vanish burn the other premed and vanish. Wod will be nice with backstab no facing req's.

Then its my 5 man team for instances. This group i rarely switch out ever. I use a pally tank and 4 disc priests. I can pull alot of mobs at once pop a bubble 4 renews and just let my dps do the healing. I know after wod there will be a nerf to attonement buuuuuutttt who cares. Right now its 90% damage done goes to healing, i am always way overhealing. After wod it goes to 50% which i might see a tad in the midst of target healing now and then but i doubt it.

Like i said sometimes i switch a tank for instances but never my priests. Pvp its always rogues its more fun. Three man scenerios is whatever i feel like. Havent got a good grasp on the setup for that.

[TheOlz]

MadMilitia,
Do you think your tank would have trouble holding agro without the misdirects? You are working at a bit higher ilvl than I am so I'm actually quite curious if dps pulling agro starts to become an issue at some point, as I have not had a lot of problems with that except when I've made a tanking mistake (missed an add, or not rotated tanking targets when AOEing)

Your last post has also a confused me a little, you've pretty much said you don't want to change healers, (understandably Shammy's rock), and you need the 3 hunters for their misdirect rotation, so the only spot that's up for grabs is your tank? I understand that you're still working on it and looking for ideas, but that is kind of how I interpreted what you've said there. Or am I misunderstanding? Is it that you want to keep at least 1 hunter for the misdirects and want to swap out the other 2 for better/more manageable dps?

Sorry my thoughts weren't of much use to you, but I am actually quite interested in your set up now, as I'm only a few months into multiboxing, so you're working at this from more experience than I am, and it kind of feels like I am personally aiming to be at about where you are now.

Sorry, another quick thought, but if maintaining agro on your tank is an issue what about Destro Locks? Do they still have a threat drop ability? Soul Shatter, I think. Would that help replace a hunters misdirect, rather than increasing tanks threat, lowering the dps's threat?

[MadMilitia]

MadMilitia,
Do you think your tank would have trouble holding agro without the misdirects? You are working at a bit higher ilvl than I am so I'm actually quite curious if dps pulling agro starts to become an issue at some point, as I have not had a lot of problems with that except when I've made a tanking mistake (missed an add, or not rotated tanking targets when AOEing)

Your last post has also a confused me a little, you've pretty much said you don't want to change healers, (understandably Shammy's rock), and you need the 3 hunters for their misdirect rotation, so the only spot that's up for grabs is your tank? I understand that you're still working on it and looking for ideas, but that is kind of how I interpreted what you've said there. Or am I misunderstanding? Is it that you want to keep at least 1 hunter for the misdirects and want to swap out the other 2 for better/more manageable dps?

Sorry my thoughts weren't of much use to you, but I am actually quite interested in your set up now, as I'm only a few months into multiboxing, so you're working at this from more experience than I am, and it kind of feels like I am personally aiming to be at about where you are now.

Sorry, another quick thought, but if maintaining agro on your tank is an issue what about Destro Locks? Do they still have a threat drop ability? Soul Shatter, I think. Would that help replace a hunters misdirect, rather than increasing tanks threat, lowering the dps's threat?

Hey, no worries!

The ground clicks are what annoy me the most. DK tank while driving from the healer, hunter DPS while driving from the healer means I need to do a lot of ground clicking that I would otherwise not want to do.

So moving the warrior to prot and dumping the DK is the first thing that makes sense to me. The problem then becomes the hunters. I could swap out to a caster group but I don't have any casters right now to do a real comparison with. The hunters around 530ish ilvl can do respectable single target damage. The AE is the real problem. The other problem is CC tied to ground clicking ( to a degree ).

I may just have to start experimenting with other classes. Leveling is boring though =/ so I may drop some real cash to experiment.

[TheOlz]

On a slightly different topic, Suicidesspyder, how do you go about 10 boxing BG's?
Whilst I haven't multiboxed any PVP, it is something I've been trying to think my way through.
I have been trying to think of a number of ways to even make 5 viable. I'm pretty sure I could do 2 with a RAF mount, or 3 with the Tundra Mammoth. (or any similar combination, like the ridable travel form druid) And these methods limit you to outdoor area's only.
I've not had a chance to play with the interact-able pet, that I have totally blanked on the name of (the one who looks like a Consortium mob from Mana Tombs in BC) because it's price on the AH is a little high for just an experiment.
I saw a video of people using click-to-move and broadcasting to all windows, but that seemed extremely awkward and like it would fall apart very quickly once your team gets split up.

[TheOlz]

Are you absolutely tied to the idea of leading from your healer, too? I might be wrong, but the only real advantage I can think of is it let's you drop Healing Rain easily, though I may be missing something there (it's 5am, so I most likely am missing something obvious).

Some of the click through/repeater region stuff for healing I've seen demonstrated (for example in MiRai's Wrath Heroic vids) makes me wonder why you couldn't try to lead from a different character and still have pretty good heal control that way. Maybe you could even lead from a Hunter (if you were to use only one) seen as you're already used to not leading from the tank, to make use of the ground targeted AOE? The other thing that popped into my head, thinking of MiRai's vids, is the videofx layer he demonstrated for ground targeting, the idea is certainly there, but the viability in larger group and more intense situations would probably need considerable testing before committing to that type of change. Though for 5 man content it seems like it could be a great solution.

Again, just idea's for you to consider and curiosity for myself.

[MadMilitia]

Are you absolutely tied to the idea of leading from your healer, too? I might be wrong, but the only real advantage I can think of is it let's you drop Healing Rain easily, though I may be missing something there (it's 5am, so I most likely am missing something obvious).

Some of the click through/repeater region stuff for healing I've seen demonstrated (for example in MiRai's Wrath Heroic vids) makes me wonder why you couldn't try to lead from a different character and still have pretty good heal control that way. Maybe you could even lead from a Hunter (if you were to use only one) seen as you're already used to not leading from the tank, to make use of the ground targeted AOE? The other thing that popped into my head, thinking of MiRai's vids, is the videofx layer he demonstrated for ground targeting, the idea is certainly there, but the viability in larger group and more intense situations would probably need considerable testing before committing to that type of change. Though for 5 man content it seems like it could be a great solution.

Again, just idea's for you to consider and curiosity for myself.

I've done both perspectives. The hunters make it a breeze to play from the healer perspective as they can misdirect and spray luring everything to the tank. Part of the problem in not playing from the tank perspective is tank positioning. That can be trivialized with misdirect.

Last year I addressed one of the immediate difficulties for hunters being target facing. I wrote a macro that ties into my rotation that prefers a follow on the tank. It works for both PvE and PvP quite well. Sometimes I have to command them to back up but it's better than facing the wrong way.