3 mages or 2 mages 1 priest for dps team

[nodoze]

Thanks for your knowledge. Less than 2 weeks to and I absolutely cannot wait. We're almost there.

The pally, priest, 2x mages, Warlock group you pitched sounds good. My only concern is if anything will be too overcomplicated because I like things simple. I only run HotKeyNet and I keep all my scripts and macro's simple.

For the paladin and warlock, I would rather have as human. Is there a specific reason your picking them as dwarves instead?

I don't know much about HotKeyNet but I suspect the Paladin-Tank+Priest+2Mage+Warlock is one of most straight forward party compositions to run regardless of what tools you are using... Maybe some other folk with more experience can give feedback as well...

Sorry for any confusion. Unlike many other games where racial differences are mainly cosmetic, in Classic WoW Races can provide significant advantages (if not be downright imbalanced for certain classes/roles/content)...

For Alliance side Warlocks and Mages the very strong recommendation is for Gnomes because:

• -SMALLER HIT BOX: Gnomes are the only race which has a smaller hit box and thus is actually harder for Melee to hit. Even Dwarves don't get the smaller hit box like Gnomes do...
• -Smaller stature: Tiny Gnomes are most likely to get lost in the "fog of war" & thus most likely to not get focused. Plus even when people do notice them they are so cute people often don't feel as threatened by them as compared the other, bigger, folk with the scarier pixels (until it is too late).
• -Expansive Mind: 5% higher Primary stat that scales with gear and levels is Over Powered (OP) as it gives more mana and more crit chance;
• -Engineering Specialization: Engineering is the most powerful profession in the game. +15 Engineering means that while all other puny races are capped at 300 skill, Gomes are capped at 315 Engineering skills. This means Gnome Battle pets are summoned at level 63 (315/5) instead of 60 (300/5) which is OP and at level 63 they give level 60 players/mobs miss chance/etc and hit lowly level 60s harder.
• -Escape Artist: Gnomes can remove any movement speed reduction or immobilization effect once per minute and this is used re-actively.
• -Arcane Resistance: +10 Arcane Resistance;

Priests are a special case as they have special class abilities granted by Race on top of the standard racial abilities. Of all the races on Horde and Alliance, Dwarves are considered by most people to be the strongest Priests because they get:

• -Fear Ward: Protect party/raid member from next fear affect for 10 minutes (with only 30 second cool-down) which is great for both PVE and PVP;
• -Desperate Prayer: Instant self heal that costs NO mana (10 minute cool-down); Note that Humans also get this but they don't get Fear Ward...

Only Dwarf Priests get the above skill combo but all Dwarves (including Dwarf Priests) also get:

• -StoneForm: Grants 8 seconds of immunity to all Poisons, Bleeds, & Disease affects +10% armor (on a 3 minute cooldown). It is very OP and allows you to self remove the disorient effect from blind to regain control of your character and ignore all poisons, bleeds, & diseases during that time. This can be used BOTH pro-actively and re-actively...
• -Find Treasure: Allows the dwarf to see chests/treasure on the mini-map so great to have at least 1 Dwarf in the party...
• -Frost Resistance: +10 Frost resistance;

The above being said, Humans aren't bad, as Human Priests get:

• Desperate Prayer: Nice instant no mana cost self heal (10 min cooldown);
• Feedback: For 15 seconds any spell cast against you will burn a little bit of the attackers mana & cause minor damage (3 minute cooldown). Kinda "meh" though...

Only Human Priests get the above skill combo but all Humans also get:

• The Human Spirit: +5% Spirit which has synergy with a Priest's Spiritual guidance for extra mana regen;
• Perception: 20 seconds of increased stealth detection (3 minute cooldown) that typically needs to be used proactively to be useful.
• Diplomacy: +10% reputation gain. Very nice but if you even have just 1 non-human in your party you will still need to have to grind the extra +10% anyway to get everyone to a given reputation goal. It is a great skill but also eventually becomes a dead skill once all your desired reputation levels are gained...
• Sword & Mace Specialization: AWESOME for melee for PVE. Not really helpful for PVP (except when attacking a Gnome's level 63 Battle Pet which an Alliance character would only be doing in a duel). But 4/5 of your party are casters and even your Paladin in Tank mode sadly really isn't much of a melee...

While Gnomes are clearly "best" for Alliance Warlocks & Mages and Dwarves are clearly "best" for all Priests, Paladins can be argued either way depending on your goals... Human Paladins could arguably be better for PVE if you are regularly hitting on level 63 bosses and/or in a hurry to get some Reputation rewards for only your PVE Tank.

Bottom line is that in the end you should play what you want to play (others aren't paying for your subscriptions!). Ultimately it comes down to how much you focus on PVP and whether you care about min/maxing for PVP... It can also come down to ascetics and personal preference. For example, if having to look at short & squat characters all the time is going to want you to play less (or stop playing) then by all means pick something more appealing as we would rather have you play then not...

TLDR: I recommend you play what you want as long as you understand and are OK with the trade-offs (fore-warned is fore-armed). Unfortunately to understand all the trade-offs you should read the above ;-)