Warriors have always leveled by just equipping a shield in 'PUGs' while leveling. Running around with 2500 hp, prot talents and a shield is a waste when enemy mobs hit you for 30-40 damage/hit. This is my last reply on this one, because it is a pointless discussion if you ignore numbers from 3.5 months of stress- and betatests.
Last edited by Vipeax : 08-16-2019 at 12:05 PM
If you are saying that at least 1 Warrior will be Sword & Board (S&B) then we may not be that far apart on what we are saying. I don't believe most of are saying a DPS warrior is running S&B and/or in Defensive stance regularly...Originally Posted by Vipeax
From memory I am pretty sure in the 4+1 config the recommendations were having just 1 Warrior more defaulted to Sword & Board (S&B) giving taunts and pushing aggro and the other 3 defaulted to 2-Handing initially and later dual-weilding. The designated S&B tank may go deeper in Prot than the others but still has some DPS talents and can switch to 2H/dual-wield on trivial stuff but for bosses and harder content he is keybound, practiced, & designated to pull in S&B & push aggro while the other 3 come in as 2H (or dual-wield) not pushing aggro...
In the 3+2 all warriors are pushing DPS with 2 handers/dual-weilding and no one is pushing aggro and the higher incoming damage is less of a concern as you have 2 healers flashing & the aggro should be ping-ponging spreading it out more... If you try to run a 4+1 that way (all 4 DPS with no shield defaulted and no one controlling aggro) the concern is that either the spike damage will be too much for a single healer or the single healer may go Out of Mana (or both).
The gear and specs can be fairly close for all the warriors to cap though if you are designating one to push aggro his spec will be more defensive & you could tilt his gear more defensive and tilt the DPS warrior's gear more offensive... That isn't saying your Tank has to be one big meat marshmallow and cant also focus on DPS from time to time.
Last edited by nodoze : 08-16-2019 at 12:53 PM
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?
You're underestimating the irrational dislike for boxers many people have. Just mentioning you're boxing will get you kicked out of many PUG's. Or they wait until after the boss is dead and try to pull the, "you only get to roll on one drop playing two characters" or some such nonsense. I've found it's better to just not mention it. As long as you pull your weight, it's not an issue.
Raiding with a guild is obviously a different story. If you're in a guild for a while people will notice you boxing whether you tell them or not.
All dungeons on private servers can be cleared using a tank in DPS spec/gear so the same should be true on retail considering private server dungeons mobs are significantly overtuned. There may be a few situations where having a macro to swap to a shield and defensive stance will be useful. For example, to pop retaliation, AE taunt and then BoP. In general though, as long as you're pulling sensibly you don't need a shield equipped or defense gear. In fact, you don't want defense gear because it reduces your enrage uptime.
Something to consider is that, since all of your warriors will act as both tank and DPS, it will impact your preraid BiS choices. You don't want too much leather/mail gear on a character that will be taking damage regularly. In classic all you really need to tank is effective health and threat.
Last edited by Apatheist : 08-16-2019 at 06:51 PM
Question on group comp:
I am intending to 5 box with two main goals, in order of priority:
1) Being able to 5 box for attunments and gear and cash at 60
2) Being able to level in instances (as I find this more fun than questing)
My original intent was a warrior+3 mage+priest comp - With one of the mages being my raiding main (I do not intend to box anything raid related).
But, due to various reasons I am now considering a shaman main.
How do I fit that in with the 2 above goals?
1) Shaman swapped in for healer in place of the priest - I think that might hurt at least the leveling process, as I'm not sure the shaman can heal AE situations
2) Shaman swapped for 1 of the mages - Not sure if the mages will be strong enough to do AE in instances - And, if feels like the boxing setup will be wonky (think shaman would be elemental in this scenario)
3) Warrior swapped to shaman tank - Might work ok, but thinking that from princess and onward, this will be hard (and not sure what this would do to my raid spec at 60, granted I can probably raid as enhance)
4) Change group to 4x warrior + shaman - But have no experience with the melee groups (at all) - So not sure how this would meet my two goals? Also, no mage for water and travel will impact gold income, as well as convenience of ports
5) Mixed group - Thinking war,shaman (elemental or resto), mag, lock, priest - But this would be harder to execute, and reduce AE potential vs pretty much all of the scenarios
6) 5x shaman - easy to setup, but how would it meet the goals?
Long post, but really looking for input and advice - Thanks!
5 boxing on Chamber of Aspects, EU (Horde) and Soon on Classic.
Retired blog:
http://thegrins.blogspot.com/
Perrigin,
For 1) the 4 Warrior+Shaman in a melee-cleave would likely be the most efficient at cap assuming a single shaman would be fine healing that group to cap, at cap, and from a single spec that allows you to do all the other content besides dungeons (if any) you want your Shaman to do at cap. From 40+ the Shaman has Rank 1-3 Chain Heals which should be very nice AoE-ish heals for the party (downranking for efficiency when appropriate). That is all assuming the Shaman can do all of that without going OOM. Unfortunately I didn't play Shaman in Vanilla and have never played on private servers so hopefully others can chime in. That group should only ever need Water for the Shaman so it shouldn't be too costly and the gold from 4 Warriors cleaving though dungeons with WindFury should more than cover that!
Since frequent repecing can get very costly one key will be finding a spec which can do the role(s) you want for the content you want at cap.
What content do you want to use your Shaman Main in besides dungeons, if any (WPVP,BattleGrounds,Raids,etc)?
For each type of content, what role(s) do you want your Shaman Main to be able to do effectively without respecing between content?
Once you answer those questions the key will be specing into a single spec that meets those goals yet still allows you to heal your melee-cleave team. Most likely that will put you in some kind of Elemental-Resto spec and hopefully someone with more experience can chime in with recommendations once we have more context.
Note that most of the above is centered on PVE boxing dungeon efficiency... If you do plan to do WPVP with your group may want to look at swapping in a 2nd Healer and/or even switch to a different group if doing WPVP (with your full group and not just your main) is a big priority.
Last edited by nodoze : 08-18-2019 at 05:00 PM
@nodoze - thanks - I should have mentioned, on a PVE realm and will only PVP in BGs (and then not boxing).
And to expand my question - Do you think the 4x DPS warrior + Heal Shaman would clear 60 instances better/easier/faster than a 3x mage, war, priest setup? I know that wasn't my original question :P
5 boxing on Chamber of Aspects, EU (Horde) and Soon on Classic.
Retired blog:
http://thegrins.blogspot.com/
Yes that is my understanding and that is big part of the reason many people are running with "Melee-Cleave" setups over "Spell-Cleave" setups. There are great videos on youtube showing both in action and contrasting and comparing pros/cons.
For motivation purposes you can read the following regarding some relative bench marks which among other things compares the DPS of Warriors vs Mages:
https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...l=1#post420038
The thing I like about the melee-cleave approach is that it is based on an endless resource (Rage) instead of Mana and the DPS scales to good size mob packs (ideally max of 6 or so if my memory is correct?) so you can just be a buzz saw and keep running (as long as the healer(s) keep up). Paladin healer(s) make a great complement with melee cleave as they are the most mana efficient healers in the game with the right talents. At first glance a single Paladin is a little scary with no active AoE (or even AoE-ish) heal but this can be offset by the Warriors running with Crusader Enchants using BloodThirst on targets judged with Seal of Light giving lots of healing on Warrior hits helping soften healing spikes (especially when they work up to dual-wielding!). If incoming damage still seems too high even with all that you could swap a DPS boosting Blessing for 'Blessing of Light' on the Warriors until the gear improves. Personally if I was on a PVE server, with no other goals except dungeon grinding efficiency & feeding my Paladin gold/drops, I would try to go with 4 Warriors and likely tilt one Warrior toward being more Tanky & push Aggro on him (in gear/talents/stance/etc) and let the others go full out ham on whatever gear/spec/etc is best for DPS (though all would be doing as much DPS as the Paladin could handle). With that in mind were I to be running a Shaman instead of Paladin on a PVE server, provided my assumptions in my previous post are valid, I would still run 4 Melee-Cleave Warriors with Crusader and instead focus on totems that boost & maybe heal the warriors (including WindFury) & trying to get away with rank 1 Chain Heals (the most mana Efficient) and see if i can mix in mana totem without sacrificing warrior efficiency. In the end if you have to sacrifice a totem &/or talent that would otherwise boost your Warriors but instead use it to regen your Shaman's mana and that keeps you from stopping to drink you may find you prefer that more and the sacrifice is worth it.
The above being said, I am on a PVP server and want 2 Healers for PVP, which pushes me toward 3 Warriors+2 Paladins and while that will certainly drop DPS for the group and I will likely have more spiky damage (as I run all 3 tilted DPS) both will be partially offset with 2 Flash Heals & 2 Blessings/Auras/Judgements & running both Paladins up with the melee and attacking as well. After 5boxing & 10boxing Shaman in BC+ in many ways I would prefer WPVP with 4+ Shaman with Turret style Chain Lightnings, Chain Heals, and instant Ghost Wolfs but since my disabled bother's and my focus are historically tanky Duos in BattleGrounds (traditionally duo Paladins) I really have to go multiple Paladins & at least 1 Warrior to support that.
Since you confirmed you are on a PVE server the remaining questions that come to mind are what roles (DPS, Heals, or both) do you want to push in BGs, WPVP (main only), & in Raids?
Once that is known you hopefully can get a good single spec that does what you want to do on your main at cap in the desired content yet still allows you to efficiently support your dungeon grinding (non PVP) Warriors.
Since I only boxed Shaman on the Alliance-side in BC & WoTLK I found the following Guide to be interesting and likely would be a good starting point for you:
https://classic.wowhead.com/guides/s...ds-classic-wow
If you were solely focused on dungeon grinding and gold making efficiency with a Melee-Cleave group you may want to look into the something around the 'PVE Deep Restoration (tank / melee / Hunter group)' spec.
Since you want to also do PVP, if you want to be the best healer you can be in PVP, I would think you would want to look more at something based on the 'PVP Deep Restoration' spec.
Alternatively for PVP, if you want to be more Hybrid with good damage yet still have good heals, you may want to look at something based off of the 'PVP Hybrid' spec.
Note that while I liked that above guide I linked I don't feel qualified to evaluate those builds so hopefully others will chime in and indicate whether they agree with those builds or not and/or offer some alternative builds.
Personally I like the playstyle of big front liners face-tanking over frost kiting &/or sheeping before pulls when multiboxing so I would personally choose the melee-cleave approach over spell-cleave approach (plus the only thing I hate more than having to stop to CC prior is having to stop to drink after)... In the end I don't have a choice with my goals factored in as my brother will only play a tanky melee with me so I am just glad that the combo that meets our goals happens to be very efficient.
Last edited by nodoze : 08-19-2019 at 08:56 AM
I haven't tested it myself, but I'd imagine 4 warriors with crusader enchants plus a shaman would destroy pretty much anything in their path. Even if the shaman gets aggro, they are beefy enough to stay alive until one of the warriors picks up the aggro (I tanked every dungeon in vanilla with my guild as an enhance shaman).
Dropping WF totem with 4 warriors each equipped with the hand of justice just sounds hilarious to me.
Yeah I was wanting to try Crusader Enchants on both an Ironfoe mainhand with Thrashblade offhand & hand of justice and windfury.
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