Comparison of squads for 5 man dungeons

[nodoze]

One issue that's just occurred to me is that warriors are often expected to tank in raids. Even as DPS, you'll be asked to off tank quite often. That's one reason why warriors receive so many raid slots. Might cause issues if you're boxing warriors and aren't prepared to tank. Paladins are generally assigned a tank to heal anyway so dual boxing 1 warrior and 1 paladin and healing yourself should be familiar enough to manage.

A decent raid will have 4 paladins (for 4 blessings) and all will be holy. There's really no reason to bring a ret paladin to raids. Where your paladin positions depends on the raid encounter and raid comp. Sometimes you'll be stacked with the melee depending how many ranged characters are in the raid. In heavy melee cleave raids (MC speed runs, etc) you'll be spread out at range to minimize the number of boss mechanics that target the melee stack.

All great points. I like the idea of starting with just my Paladin main and getting the feel of things and maybe from the beginning try to get the raid leader assigning me to be up with the melee group and ideally focused on those that typically stay with the melee core. Then once pretty comfortable & on an easier raid where we are short a Warrior maybe step up to also bring a single Warrior (duoing with the Paladin) and work up from there if things go well. If you are well known to the raid leader and show consistency and are clear up front with each other on the things we can safely do then things should have a good chance to go well. Until I got much more comfortable I would want to try to stay away from either main tanking or off-tanking while multi-boxing at first. Maybe I am over worried about that as off-tanking with a duo Warrior+Paladin may well be easier than running a full 5man team in a dungeon where you are doing all the DPS in addition to Tanking and Healing...

[Apatheist]

If you don't name all of your characters really obvious goofy names like bobone, bobtwo, etc. and just bring one healer and one DPS the raid probably won't even notice you're boxing. Play your main until you're comfortable enough with the raid and then just try to get your "friend" invited.

[nodoze]

If you don't name all of your characters really obvious goofy names like bobone, bobtwo, etc. and just bring one healer and one DPS the raid probably won't even notice you're boxing. Play your main until you're comfortable enough with the raid and then just try to get your "friend" invited.

Good point. Yeah my brother and I have very distinct names for our mains as they are our original character names from back in our D&D/AD&D days growing up. The other 3 characters also have distinct names that mean something to us from years past as well. Odds are we both may be coming to raids some but with his health issues he likely can't be as consistent as me (plus he only wants to PVP and he is not one to grind or repeat stuff too many times so he maybe would do a progression raid until we conquered something new and then a few more times but likely he wouldn't want to keep coming back). I thus likely can do it for both of us pretty seamlessly when he can't/won't. I probably could work in a natural transition where they were used to my brother and I and then I could start by just taking over here and there and would just likely whisper to the raid leader something like "my brother had to go AFK so I am multi-boxing his character for now so please keep my Paladin and his Warrior together on the same team"... Over time that may allow it to naturally become the norm with my brother just showing up for the new raids and PVP...

[waddles]

If you don't name all of your characters really obvious goofy names like bobone, bobtwo, etc. and just bring one healer and one DPS the raid probably won't even notice you're boxing. Play your main until you're comfortable enough with the raid and then just try to get your "friend" invited.

I don't think lying to your raid, especially if the raid is all other members of your guild, is a smart long-term strategy. You'd be much better off being honest with the raid/guild leader. If they need bodies and you can bring two that you can play competently, I don't think they'd care if you are playing both. If they find out you've been lying to them, to the whole raid/guild on an ongoing basis, well I don't think you'd get invited back.

[Nessimon]

I am having a really hard time deciding on the 5th member of my dungeon group. It's a horde melee cleave, so 3 warriors + shaman is a given, but the last spot is giving me trouble.

Considering 4th Warrior, but worried if the shammy will be enough as a solo healer.
The Bad: Shammy has no backup rezz except for ankh, no spirit regen in combat. One more warrior to get the same gear as the other 3.
The Good: Chain heal is great. Significant increase in cleave damage and simple to control thanks to 4+1 setup.

Priest. Not very impressed with adding a priest atm.
The Good: Great healer. Dispell magic, Fade. Possibly Spirit Tap, but imo that's overrated.
The Bad: Doesn't bring much except the healing.

Druid. Feels like a versatile choice.
The Bad: Not the most efficient healer. Only AoE heal on a long CD. No regular rezz.
The Good: Brings Mark, Thorns, Innervate, Faerie fire, Decurse, Combat rezz. Can switch to tank at 60 for +3% crit aura, or anytime the healing from a shammy shows to be enough.

2nd Shaman.
The Good: Can supply more totems (most likely not useful anywhere but bosses or some big areas), easier to control thanks to 3+2. Having two alternating healing allows one of them to regen (and mana spring and tide become viable).
The Bad: Similar drawbacks as the 4th Warrior, but having two lessens some of the issues.


Atm I am leaning towards druid, mainly because of all the various stuff he brings. With the shaman throwing a chain heal here or there, healing shouldn't be an issue. Ability to switch to bear and start swiping seems to be handy pre-36 and at 60 especially. Second choice are the two shammies, mainly because of the simpler piloting and so I can balance their specs/gear depending on how much I need healing.

Am I missing some important Pros or Cons of any of these variations? Any input appreciated

[gormless]

I noticed a blue post that impacted my choice of DPS for ranged.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...e-shout/249633

I'm running Warrior, Priest, Lock, Lock, Mage. It probably won't have much real impact but I settled on a second lock just to get a 7th target of battle shout to help with warrior AoE threat. I imagine hunter pets benefit too?

[nodoze]

Nessimon,

Ultimately it comes down to your goals. Do you plan to take your team into World PVP (WPVP)?

If yes you really should consider 2 Healers as it is much easier to focus 1 healer down and then wipe a healer + 4 Warrior group than it is to kill 2 healers and then wipe the +3 Warriors...

There are discussions of this elsewhere but a 4Warrior+Healer can work in dungeon clears but you really need to run warrior as a Tank and the other 3 DPS.

With 2 Healers the 3 Warriors can all focus on DPS and a given warrior can switch to be more defensive in situations where the incoming damage gets too high.

Both should be viable and somewhat comparable for PVE but the 3+2 should be more surviable for PVP...

If I recall correctly Druid Healers are interesting in that their single main heal actually varies significantly in cast time. That variability allows the same heal to be like a flash heal when you down rank it and like a deep heal at the higher ranks and the mana costs scale (plus you have some HOTs and what not). With Druid you could go bear or get heals, ranged DPS, or some stealth options, or a PVP Flag Carrier depending on what gear you equip (and all fairly decently from a single spec).

2 Shaman may actually not be bad. If I recall correctly 2 sets of totems can stack pretty well and they can cure each other plus their totems can help cure well. It is also nice that both are semi-tanky in mail+shield & they can both chain heal and chain lighting.

If PVP is a focus, one thing you may want to consider is what debuffs your two healers can clear and a cheat sheet is HERE. 2 Shaman can cure poison & disease on each other or the warriors but have no counter for Curses or Magic debuffs... Adding a Druid allows you to also remove curses & adding a Priest allows you to also remove Magic debuffs but that assumes the shaman are not CCed... On the Horde-side it is kinda a 'whack-a-mole' catch-22 scenario which is part of the reason duo-Paladin in PVP is OP as BOTH can remove 3 types of debuffs...

Hopefully some Horde folk can chime in. My Shaman experience was mainly BC+ so others can likely give you their thoughts on 4+1 and 3+2 (or 3+1+1) in both PVP & PVE...

[Vipeax]

N
There are discussions of this elsewhere but a 4Warrior+Healer can work in dungeon clears but you really need to run warrior as a Tank and the other 3 DPS.

No, you run all 4 as DPS.

[nodoze]

No, you run all 4 as DPS.

It depends on your gear and level.

What is the highest dungeon that has actually been cleared in Classic WoW so far with 4+1 with no warriors in defensive stance with shield?

[Vipeax]

It depends on your gear and level.

How come? You shouldn't do orange dungeons and after that you're wasting a slot. The damage in classic is insanely low.



Most people running warriors will run a shaman so they get Stoneskin totem like shown at the start of this video. 15 damage/hit means this tank needs 71 hits with 0 healing to die. A tank is a wasted slot.