4 pallys 1 druid

[nodoze]

The thing is that the holy palys would stay in the back to cast their heals, right? I mean, it wouldn't make much sense that they follow the warriors into melee range.
I'm not sure how good a team that is split in two groups, the backline healers and the warriors in the front, can be controlled in PvP.
Smart opponents will either ignore the warriors and slaughter the backline healers or they chain CC the holy palys with aoe fear and kill the warrs in mean time.
Is Intervene available in Classic? I guess that ability would be important so when the opponents decide to go for the backline healers the warrs are able to intervene back to their healers to protect them.

If you are facing a group then likely you should be in a group as well. It may well be hard to ignore 3 Warriors with +60% move speed who are immune to CC and Focusing on Targets. Paladins would be on the far side of the Warriors so you would have to get past the Warriors first. If you get past them the Warriors have intercept/charge, stuns and hamstrings and the 3 Warriors can take turns chaining them on you.

Even if you get to the Paladins, in Classic Paladins are pretty hardy in plate and shield and between divine-shield/divine-protection/BlessingOfProtection/LayOnHands you essentially have to kill them 2 or 3 times while you are "ignoring the warriors"... Remember also that there are two Paladins who can cleanse/heal each other they can take turns chaining their bubbles and the one protected can cleanse/heal the other non-protected one and vice-versa... They are hard to kill to begin with and very hard if the have a dedicated healer...

Not saying it is insurmountable by any means but I think you are giving the team composition short shrift... A single Warrior with a single Paladin is one of the strongest duos in Classic WoW & 3+2 is only stronger.

[Apatheist]

Having two stacks is actually helpful in PvP. It makes it harder to cleave you. More like 3 "stacks" since your warriors would be stacked chasing targets and I tab between the two paladins, positioning them between heals or kiting when one starts taking damage. No matter what your group composition is, if you pick a fight with 20 players you're going to lose but warriors and paladins have more survivability and ways to avoid CC than most.

In large scale fights you just have to play conservatively. Pick off players that get separated and protect your clothies from rogues, etc. Once the enemy starts getting pushed back you can charge in and go ham.

[Gala]

What spec would the warriors have for PvP purpose?
From what I have read so far Arms is the superior spec in PvP. Fury has high sustain dmg while Arms has more burst and burst is all that we need as a melee boxer in pvp.
The default dmg rotation of a arms warrior requires stance dancing. Battle stance for mortal strike, overpower, sweeping strike and Berserker stance for whirlwind. I'm curious if it's even possible to manage a flawless dmg rotation on multiple warriors when keeping the rng factor of rage in mind and the necessity to stance dance for default dmg abilitys.

It seems to me like a flawless dmg rota would be only with fury warriors manageable. Maybe two hand fury warriors for pvp. Isn't that a suboptimal spec compared to Arms?

[nodoze]

What spec would the warriors have for PvP purpose?
From what I have read so far Arms is the superior spec in PvP. Fury has high sustain dmg while Arms has more burst and burst is all that we need as a melee boxer in pvp.
The default dmg rotation of a arms warrior requires stance dancing. Battle stance for mortal strike, overpower, sweeping strike and Berserker stance for whirlwind. I'm curious if it's even possible to manage a flawless dmg rotation on multiple warriors when keeping the rng factor of rage in mind and the necessity to stance dance for default dmg abilitys.

It seems to me like a flawless dmg rota would be only with fury warriors possible. Maybe two hand fury warriors for pvp. Isn't that a suboptimal spec compared to Arms?

Honestly at this point I don't know as I am not an expert on Warriors as I mainly prefer to play Paladins and Druids (and I liked Shaman as well when BC came out). At this point the only spec I have is the one I think is for grinding BiS gear:

https://classicdb.ch/?talent#LZVVzA0xoVoxfzox

I don't know if that spec should be changed to be more PVP focused once BiS gear grinding is done.

With 3 un-CCable Warriors attacking a single target I suspect the rotation will not need to be optimal as most targets/classes will just melt regardless.

[xandorz]

Is Intervene available in Classic?

Intervene is a TBC ability.

I don't know how people intend to play their warriors but I assume you want to stay in berserker stance since you can't activate Berserker rage or intercept when needed otherwise. I think Pummel is also berserker stance.
Rage generation is very RNG (based on damage done, absorb = no rage, crit = more rage) so most likely losing a lot of rage when stance dancing and abilities not hitting at the same time because of different amount of rage.

I assume that fury is probably the best multiboxing spec. I think fury have a lot better dps and it gets shorter intercept cd and death wish to stay on target and nuke harder.
I read someone say that you get less rage in berserker stance and very little in defensive stance (when not taking damage), I am not sure if that is true. Possible that someone just made that up.

Not having Mortal Strike might be really bad though.
If opponent have 2 healer and mortal strike and you don't, then they will heal twice as fast as you and likely also using interrupts and silence on your healers while you have no way to interrupt them except with warriors which might not be able to reach the opponents healer because of kiting / running out of range of your own healers who gets slowed/cced far behind.

Another note in pvp is that 1 mage behind your paladins can use counterspell on 1 paladin and then polymorph on the other, to prevent any healing for 10 seconds. (unless the polymorphed paladin uses divine shield)

[Gala]

Not having Mortal Strike might be really bad though.
If opponent have 2 healer and mortal strike and you don't, then they will heal twice as fast as you and likely also using interrupts and silence on your healers while you have no way to interrupt them except with warriors which might not be able to reach the opponents healer because of kiting / running out of range of your own healers who gets slowed/cced far behind.

I'm thinking the same. Mortal strike seems mandatory in PvP. Not only because of the heal reduction but also because it deals a shit load of dmg.
The thing with fury is that it has lots of talents that increase your sustain dmg such as flurry. Sustain dmg is not really what we need as melee boxer in pvp.

Another note in pvp is that 1 mage behind your paladins can use counterspell on 1 paladin and then polymorph on the other, to prevent any healing for 10 seconds. (unless the polymorphed paladin uses divine shield)

Or just a priest who runs on his mount to the palys to aoe fear them. They will be forced to waist their trinket or bubble on that fear.

[nodoze]

...Another note in pvp is that 1 mage behind your paladins can use counterspell on 1 paladin and then polymorph on the other, to prevent any healing for 10 seconds. (unless the polymorphed paladin uses divine shield)

... Or just a priest who runs on his mount to the palys to aoe fear them. They will be forced to waist their trinket or bubble on that fear.

CounterSpell in 1.12 is indeed OP and thankfully it has a 25-30 second cooldown. At least Paladins are one of the few classes with a native 15% chance to resist a CounterSpell due to Improved Concentration Aura which makes it semi-unreliable against Paladins. Thankfully the 3 CC immune Warriors can indefinitely "Counterspell" the Mage by chaining their 3 Pummels (which lockdown for 4 seconds each with no diminishing returns) so that is essentially 12 seconds of lockout with only a 10 second cool-down...

If I recall correctly in PVP Polymorph only lasts 8 seconds, is subject to diminishing returns, and can be cleansed by the other Paladin (if not also CCed). A Paladin can chain Skull of Impending doom (SID) with their PVP trinket to clear Polymorph and get 10 seconds of Polymorph immunity. If they chain the SID with bubble it should be 18 seconds of Polymorph immunity... If the other Paladin then chains that could be 36 seconds of Polymorph immunity between the duo. That is a long time for 3 CC Immune Warriors with +60% run speed and intercepts to be swarming the Mage...

Note that smart Paladins won't sit right next to each other (their cleanses have 30 yard range & heals are 40 yard range) and their cleanses are instants with no cool-down so you have to CC both at essentially the same time... In a boxing scenario a combat spread macro should give the Paladins enough separation to not be a group target (so AoE fears will NOT work) and if the Paladins get more than 30 yards apart, any attempt to cleanse the other Paladin by either Paladin with IWT should cause them to automatically close within 30 yards of each other...

Fear should also be semi-unreliable to land on Paladins in PVP as a Healing Paladin should have a flat 10% resistance to fear due to Unyielding Faith before their base Shadow resistance of 104+ kicks in (from Judgement Helm (10), 3 Lawbringer pieces (24), GMI(10), and Shadow Aura (60) ). That 104 Shadow Resistance is only with 4 pieces of armor & 1 Trinket slot and thus could be increased and that is before any consumables/enchants/buffs/etc...

If a Fear does land on only 1 Paladin it isn't a big deal as the other can instantaneously cleanse it.

If Fear does land on both Paladins each Paladin has 2 Reactive Fear self-breakers (Trinket & Bubble) & either can use one to essentially free both so you would need to simultaneously get both 5 times to lock them down and even then the Paladins would be in severe diminishing returns territory if not fully immune at that point anyway...

Each Paladin should also have 30 seconds of Proactive Fear self-immunity (from Glimmering Mithril Insignia) so if their 4 Reactives are all going on cool-down they could go Proactive on the 4th Reactive pop and chain to essentially then give the duo 1 minute of Fear immunity... Alternatively they could be Proactive from the beginning of the fight when they see a threat getting close and save their Reactives till the 2nd+ minutes of the fight at which point you have to CC both simultaneously 5 times to get past all reactive cool-downs...

All of the above is assuming the duo Paladins are just sitting there taking it with no help from their 3 Warriors nor anyone else in their World PVP faction...

Offensively the 3 Warriors CAN AoE Chain Fear you (6 seconds each, subject to diminishing returns) and their Fear can NOT be cleansed from you... The 2 Paladins can also preemptively chain stun you (6 seconds each, subject to diminishing returns), etc.. There are likely other options as well (3 Tidal Charms from the Warriors, Engineering items, other skills, etc)...

Bottom line is that I never, ever, met a single player in literally hundreds (if not thousands) of PVP fights who could consistently CC my brother and I simultaneously when we were both on our Paladins when we ran together (him more Prot and me more Holy) as we kept cleansing each other near instantaneously and had multiple options to fall back on in the rare occasions we both did get caught. I learned to instinctively keep myself between 20-28 yards from my brother at all times with me keeping him between the enemies and I when I could & we made cleansing each other a priority.

Many times the two of us made it through 2-6 enemies in WSG with him carrying the flag with them going "WTF just happened?" as they could not stop us between chaining blessing of Freedoms, Free Action Potions, and dual instant cleanses and heals (with skulls &/or dual lay-on-hands as extreme backups)... Didn't always work but certainly worked more often than not... Even when we did both get briefly CC'ed my brother was so damn tanky that it was hard to kill him and if they attacked him and broke his CC he would cleanse me and we were off to the races again...

Regardless you both have made lots of good points and as said previously I think the most optimal approach in zerg vs zerg will be playing smart and focusing on targets of opportunity as per this quote:

It really depends on the situation. If you charge into a raid with 4 warriors you're probably going to die. If you're part of a zerg vs zerg fight though where you're not the only target, you can definitely do some work with warriors if you're patient and dive at the right time. Especially as alliance with paladin healers. Preemptively pop freedom, death wish and skull [of impending doom] and your warriors are effectively immune to all CC for the next 10-30 seconds with a 60% run speed buff. You will just chainsaw through people as fast as you can get on them.

However, if the enemy is smart and just focuses you you will still die fast. SL Warlocks just mashing DoT's on everything from range would probably contribute more to a PvP raid and stay alive longer. ...

See also the above section in bold where it was already mentioned that a group of caster types could indeed be more optimal for PVP... No one ever said the Warriors+Paladins were the optimal group for PVP so I don't know why people are trying to argue that they aren't (because it was already said they weren't)...

Bottom line for me is that my primary goal never was optimal 5boxing in World PVP anyway. My goal is to end up with 2 end-game Raid & PVP capable Paladins and one Warrior with anything extra being a bonus (a Druid would be great).

I only PVPed in Classic on my main Paladin Healer with my brother on his Paladin main (as Prot or Ret) and and that will be fine with me if that is all we get out of this PVP wise (though I would like to also have a druid option for WSG Flag Running and joining all stealth parties from time to time).

Since my brother really played his Paladin like a Warrior my hope is that he is willing to try (and then will fall in love with) the best geared Warrior of our 5man team but if not then the 2nd Paladin will be there for him.

TLDR: It really isn't as easy to CC 2+ Paladins as you think... Regardless I really only care about at most duoing (with real people behind both characters) and the only classes that matter for that duo with my brother are really Paladins (though I really hope he likes the warrior more since he plays his Paladin like a warrior). I already know from experience that duo Paladins was fun enough for both of us... Everything else is gravy... I do plan to try 5boxing in World PVP and try to do it smartly but it isn't a big deal to me if it isn't that successful.

[Apatheist]

If you're exclusively interested in PvP and don't care about anything else the strongest overall 5man is probably just 5 elemental shamans. They do a ton of burst and have massive survivability through high armor, grounding/tremor totems.

My issue has always been I just really dislike shamans in PvE. Though, if the dungeons continue being as easy as they are on beta enhance tanking with magma totems may be decent enough clear to try. Have to watch some streams of some of the higher level dungeons.

[nodoze]

If you're exclusively interested in PvP and don't care about anything else the strongest overall 5man is probably just 5 elemental shamans. They do a ton of burst and have massive survivability through high armor, grounding/tremor totems.

My issue has always been I just really dislike shamans in PvE. Though, if the dungeons continue being as easy as they are on beta enhance tanking with magma totems may be decent enough clear to try. Have to watch some streams of some of the higher level dungeons.

Can't they also do good healing?

[Gala]

No one ever said the Warriors+Paladins were the optimal group for PVP so I don't know why people are trying to argue that they aren't (because it was already said they weren't)...

Well, arguing about the PvP/PvE viability of different setups is a good thing.
Keep in mind that it will take A LOT of time to level to 60 as a multiboxer. I rather want to make the right decision and level the overall most viable comb than realising on max lvl that the setup is suboptimal.

That beeing said I don't think that the warriors are bad. When it comes to 5 man dungeons 3-4 warriors with 1-2 healer seem like the best setup to me. Its a hard decision if its resto shami or holy paly that would fit better to that comb. WF totem sounds powerful but blessing of freedom as well. Maybe the lack of blessing of freedom could be compensated with free action potions when it comes to PvP.

When it's only about pvp then I guess that something like 3 locks 2 rshamis or 3 ele shamis 2 resto shamis would work overall better than the warriors but it's questionable if it's worth to roll such a setup when follow in BGs doesn't even work. Both setups sound kinda sucky in PvE compared to the warriors.