4 pallys 1 druid

[nodoze]

I'm also planning on doing a 5 man dungeon crawl setup. I'm conflcited between three comps:

-1 Warrior 3 Paladins 1 Druid,
-2 Warrior 2 Paladins 1 Druid, and
-3 Warriors 2 Paladins.

I'm leaning first setup for all the extra buffs (thorns, MotW, Leader of the Pack, wisdom, might and kings from the pallies).

Thoughts?

I am a huge fan of Hybrid Druids and Paladins (even Shaman) and would love option 1 in theory but unfortunately in 1.12 the following are key considerations:

Druids and paladins are two of the lowest DPS classes in the game. If IWT is working you could probably manage dungeons fine but it'll be slow, you'll have no real AoE damage or any way to CC mobs and you'll need to drink often. 1.5 gold per stack of level 45 water really adds up multiplied by [4 or] 5 characters over time. You might use 2 stacks of water over an our or two in a level 55+ dungeon if you're conservative -- that's 15 gold worth of water out of whatever profit you're making farming dungeons (30-50g per run, usually.) ...

If you are wondering how much slower? How much less DPS? Relatively:

Paladins are excellent healers in both PvP and PvE in classic. It's not the healing that's the problem, it's the damage. A paladin will do around 1/3 of the damage of an equivalently geared warrior on a single target. On trash where you can cleave and whirlwind the gap is even worse.

This is the fury/prot build I use for leveling https://classicdb.ch/?talent#LZVVzA0xoVoxfzox

You sit in defensive stance and basically spam sunder, revenge and blooodthirst with a 2H weapon, or switch to 1H/Shield if you feel like you're taking too much damage. [With a Warrior] You'll do twice as much damage as an equal level mage.

...
I've done this with a single warrior/paladin and it works really well. The warrior was out DPSing my casters consistently from 20-60 while tanking. 3-4 Warriors with IWT would be ridiculous.

Some other similar comments regarding relative DPS from different group composition options:

... No idea the exact numbers but I imagine most preraid BiS warrior will do around 400-500DPS anywhere up to 700+ depending if there are adds to cleave. An enhance shaman will be more like 150-200DPS. ...

Warriors have stronger AE [damage] on standard mob packs (4-6) with cleave/whilrlwind. Mages and warlocks have stronger AE [damage] on larger packs because their AE skills have no cap. However, you only really utilize large scale AE farming in dungeons that are significantly lower level than you. ...

In the later phases the balance does shift toward casters due to AQ40 and Naxx gear but you have to be able to raid on all your character to get that gear on every character and regardless those phases are likely way off in the future relatively...

With all the above in mind, of the options you posed, I would generally recommend for most people your option 3 (3 Warriors+2 Paladins).

That being said, if you like Druids and want to have a Druid option for stealth scouting, Flag Running, etc I would recommend strongly considering option 2 (1 Druid+2 Warriors+2 Paladin);

Personally I was originally going with 3 Warriors+2 Paladins but now am strongly leaning toward swapping 1 Warrior for a Druid (1 Druid+2 Warriors+2 Paladin)...