Yargh. Think I may have to reroll a toon in my team... advice please. =/

[Poolboy]

Well... I am slowly coming to the realization that it might be best if I reroll my Hunter slot into a more compatible DPS with my pair of Mages.

Here's the layout as it stands currently:

62 Paladin - he seems to be progressing well enough gear wise etc, he's got essentially full Hellfire/Zangarmarsh quest loot, Sporeggar shield and Light Touched Breastplate from ramps so far.
68 Priest - She's poor-average geared atm. Will begin working on her as my others catch up. Will likely sit down and power her Tailoring to get a quality healing set ASAP.
62 x 2 Mages - Same situation as Paladin, doing fine just rolling along and gearing up through quests.
64 Hunter - Average loot I suppose. BM spec is still very forgiving of newbie gear I find.

Thing is, I am seriosuly considering dropping the Huntard for a 3rd Mage, or possibly a Warlock. He adds VERY little at the moment, likely do to my not using him properly I'm sure. But I honestly can't see me radically changing my strategies any time soon for his sake. He has absolutely no shot rotation to speak of. My DPS mashing favourse the Mages, and he essentially just spams Steady Shot. I haven't parsed it or anything but I am prolly clipping his shots like MAD, and he is no doubt being wasted/gimped.

Simply, he adds nothing a 3rd Mage can't do in my situation.

Do I go ahead now... before level 70, roll it back a little, go back down to boring old Azeroth and try to boost the living hell out of a new Mage? Do I carry on with the team until 70, then do it? 62-70... that's like 2 weeks of questing real time I figure with my play times.

All of the awesome boosting threads/discussions for using Mages or Pallies always revolve around a level 70 toon. Think a 62 Paladin or Mage can own SM and all that stuff, similarly? Am I spinning my wheels?

Lastly, if I choose to plunge into a new reroll... any thoughts on what a Warlock might bring instead of a 3rd Mage? His attacks would probably slide in beside the Arcane Mages castsequences a LOT easier than a Hunter for sure. I suppose I'd get another bit of wipe insurance, another form of CC, Summons, and still have some DPS no?

I guess I need someone to kick my ass into gear, it's just kind of a drag to have to go back and switch out when I was just getting into the fun stuff lol.

[Poolboy]

Just to throw another monkey-wrench into the discussion...

I just realized there's a lvl 42 Shadow Priest on the Hunter's account. (too many scattered midlevel random toons to count rofl. Bad case of alt-itis)

S-Priest has fine dps/utility. Easy enough to castsequence his dps with a Mage I'm sure... is 2 priests overkill though, even if one is offensive?

[Teq]

To make full use of a hunters dps potetntial, you will need to be able to weave some realy tight shot rotations trough your already demanding healing/tanking/other dps routine. If you already have a priest at 40 ish, i would swap them without much thought

[Poolboy]

Yeah, I've read that thread (even posted on it a few days ago backing you up after someone was rude to you...), but as I see it that turned into more of a discussion on how good a Priest in general was. I already use a Priest healer.

A quick wiki/google search will give anyone interested in playing Hunter a little more efficiently a few great Hunter shot rotation macros... the problem is that I don't feel they're really suited for boxing. The one I used as a solo BM hunter involved setting rotation macro to mousewheel and literally spamscrolling in combat... lol. Works amazing. I also am getting annoyed by the fact he requires minor positioning considerations. Obviously on big pulls/bosses etc everyone gets positioned, but on trash/questing... I typically just roll up and pewpew. With my hunter, 50% of the time he's in gay melee range.

Call it lazy or whatever, the fact is I am finding a 'groove' so to speak with all the other toons and I just don't think I want to be flexible for the Hunter's sake. In fact, he's only in the team because he was the best dps/suited for boosting char I had on this realm... and he sorta stuck with us. I'm 99% sure I'm dropping him regardless.

So, hopefully I can get some insight/advice from folks on:

The time vs effort vs the fact that my boosters would be only 62 to roll brand new?
Would brand new be best suited as 3rd Mage or new Warlock?
Should I stop looking any further and welcome this 42 Shadow Priest I have with open arms?

[Gadaí]

Currently levelling pair of mages to complete my PvE team - intending on 3 x Frost spec mages + Resto Shaman and Palatank for the squad. Tested so far with 1 x Mage, 1 x Shaman, 1 x Paladin and it seems like a very 'easy-mode' setup with Iceblocks for emergencies, plenty of AoE and CC (use focus macros and sheep macros), AoE tanking from the paladin and group healing (chain heal) and powerful single target healing from the shaman.

In conclusion - very similar setup to your own and I'd imagine that is for similar, practical, considerations

[Kel]

I wouldn't necessarily give up on your hunter just yet. I don't think it would be that diffcult to get it working with the rest of the group.

If you get your mian dps macro, which I'm assuming looks something like this (sticking the targetting part in, so apologies if it's in the wrong place):

/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=2 !Auto Shot, Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command

(some macros use /castrandom for kill command, but I'm not sure why)

Put that on an actionbutton which you are likely to press and then make a /click <whichever action button you put your SS macro on> macro and put that anywhere else you're likely to press during combat. In theory this should be spamming your SS macro while you do whatever is needed on the other toons. As a disclaimer though, I have no idea if that works

If you make your hunter follow one of your other alts, rather than your main, then it should be a bit further back from your group and so less likely to run into range issues. Put points in improving range if it ends up too far back, and also try and find a weapon with 2.7-2.8 speed for minimal clipping.

Then you just need a couple of macros for petattack, hunter's mark and misdirection and you should be good to go.

If you're set on changing toon, then aswell as priest/mage/lock you might want to consider an elemental shaman for the totem buffs. That would also give you the option to switch between a shaman or priest healer if you felt like changing things around at a later point.

[Poolboy]

I wont have a chance to play today for a while, but...

Is it possible with Keyclone for me to bind all my clone's DPS button to mousewheel up/down? Will mousewheel pass to clone clients? This is probably a VERY newbie question I realize, but I have honestly only ever scratched the surface of what Keyclone is capable of I'm sure. (And I still feel like that alone is a whole lot rofl).

If I can in fact do the mousewheel thing then I think I might just be able to have each clone use a well thought out castsequence'd DPS button which I will then just SPAM in the biggest way, by having my pally calling their dps with mousewheel when I'm ready to unleash some pain?

Just a thought. Suggestions?

[Poolboy]

Yeah, i'd bind hotbar button 6 to mousewheel, and macro a big dps button on there, for each client, that's what I was thinking... I just don't know if Mousewheel itself is passed to all clients with keyclone? I am an 'options' newb with keyclone admittedly and i thought there was a limited amount you can do with the mouse is all?

[Jaws5]

when you start slave pens and underbog you will want the hunter for the nature resists. Also the hunter has great cc is used correctly. Hunter can also off tank. Hunter is great pulling if used correctly. Hunter at 70 can solo ramparts on normal (great for dragging next grp through).

I would lvl all present grp to 70 then reroll new grp with 3 locks 1 shadow priest and 1 mage. you will then have it all.

[Toned]

If you did reroll a toon I'd power lvl up a warlock... 2x fire mages + 1 destro lock = sick ^^ Before I started my 5x shaman on durotan I used to box: War,Priest,Priest,Lock, Hunter to powerlvl my hunter up, and it worked great. Then I moved into using Druid, Hunter, Paladin, Mage, Priest. If you use your hunter right they add a lot of utility to your group.