Best 5 man comp for endgame BiS gearing

[Compton]

I am going Warrior/Warrior/Warrior/BearTank + either a Pally or a Priest healer. I'm will be on a pvp server, but don't plan on playing a ton of WPVP. My goal is similar - dungeon cleave-grinding and BIS gathering for a main dps warrior. I want to be able to BRD farm comfortably.

I'm really struggling with the healer question. I like the tankiness/buffs from the pally, but worry a bit about healing throughput (i.e., am I going to have to have 50% of my brain act like a manual HoT by continually spamming FoL?). The shields/renew/AoE healing from the priest might allow me to dedicate more mental bandwidth to dps. But, then I think about Judgment of Light and the work it could do. I've been playing with talent trees and am 60/40 in favor of the priest. I'd love input on this question: say you're alliance doing melee cleave, not worried about WPVP, and only get one healer. What do you bring?

[nodoze]

I am going Warrior/Warrior/Warrior/BearTank + either a Pally or a Priest healer. I'm will be on a pvp server, but don't plan on playing a ton of WPVP. My goal is similar - dungeon cleave-grinding and BIS gathering for a main dps warrior. I want to be able to BRD farm comfortably.

I'm really struggling with the healer question. I like the tankiness/buffs from the pally, but worry a bit about healing throughput (i.e., am I going to have to have 50% of my brain act like a manual HoT by continually spamming FoL?). The shields/renew/AoE healing from the priest might allow me to dedicate more mental bandwidth to dps. But, then I think about Judgment of Light and the work it could do. I've been playing with talent trees and am 60/40 in favor of the priest. I'd love input on this question: say you're alliance doing melee cleave, not worried about WPVP, and only get one healer. What do you bring?

If I was PVE and maining a Warrior & not doing WPVP I would definitely try to go 4 Warrior + Healer. I main Paladins but find Shaman pretty darn compelling (I did them in BC+) and likely WindFury will give the most DPS and Chain Heals pretty easy healing. It would be non-stop buzz-sawing if you can get by without drinking with mainly Rank 1 Chain-Heals and mana totems. Maybe someone who has run that team makeup can chime in on how viable that should be for non-stop grinding in Classic WoW.

On the Alliance side Paladins are the most efficient healers mana-wise but your point is valid that it would be quite a bit of quick casts for healing... If it were me I would likely push aggro on 1 melee (Warrior or Bear) and go Paladin Healer (but that is at least in part because I am most comfortable with Paladins) and I would try to setup at least hot keys to heal the one pushing aggro (so no clicking the mouse). That being said Priests are considered the best overall healers in Classic Warcraft (though they are more squishy than Paladins if teamed up on in PVP). My only concern with a Priest is that whether you will need to stop often to drink due to not having Illumination nor Blessing of Wisdom nor Judgement/Seal of Wisdom but maybe there is a PVE Priest build heavy in Spirit that can keep from drinking often. If stopping to drink isn't a concern for you and/or someone who knows Classic Priests can chime in to indicate that there is a Classic Priest build that can keep 4 Warriors going without stopping to drink then Priest may indeed be better.

[Mercbeast]

Bear Druids are the best dungeon tank. They scale the best, they require less specific gearing, and some high tier end game raiders (skarmtank) are even starting to consider that the massive armor and health that bear druids get in can offset their ability to be crit/crushed, and they generate much higher threat then warrior tanks at all tiers. We might actually see early end game progression guilds using bear druids as their main tanks abusing crowd pummelers to outstrip what warriors can do in in pre BIS MC raiding.

If you are going to run a tank for your group, seriously, run a bear druid. It generates the most threat. You can literally throw any piece of garbage at level leather armor on it, and get enormous raw mitigation and hp. Since you don't need to worry about crushing blows in dungeons, the big draw back for druids post BIS MC raiding doesn't exist, so you have all the upside of enormous HP pool, superior damage and threat generation to a prot warrior, and superior raw armor mitigation.

I'm going to either run 4 fury warriors and a priest, or 1 druid 3 fury warriors and a priest. I'm undecided atm.

[nodoze]

Bear Druids are the best dungeon tank. They scale the best, they require less specific gearing, and some high tier end game raiders (skarmtank) are even starting to consider that the massive armor and health that bear druids get in can offset their ability to be crit/crushed, and they generate much higher threat then warrior tanks at all tiers. We might actually see early end game progression guilds using bear druids as their main tanks abusing crowd pummelers to outstrip what warriors can do in in pre BIS MC raiding.

If you are going to run a tank for your group, seriously, run a bear druid. It generates the most threat. You can literally throw any piece of garbage at level leather armor on it, and get enormous raw mitigation and hp. Since you don't need to worry about crushing blows in dungeons, the big draw back for druids post BIS MC raiding doesn't exist, so you have all the upside of enormous HP pool, superior damage and threat generation to a prot warrior, and superior raw armor mitigation.

I'm going to either run 4 fury warriors and a priest, or 1 druid 3 fury warriors and a priest. I'm undecided atm.

I love Hybrids & Druids in particular but I don't think it is as clear cut as that. Here are some detailed comparisons by Skarm with the pros/cons:

Man vs Bear! Comparing feral druid & fury/prot warrior tanking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNGo5SMeqgo

Main Tank Discussion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...nk_discussion/

I was considering going swapping a Druid for 1 Warrior in my Melee-Cleave team for dungeons as it seems like a conservative approach with the least amount of buttons/cool-downs for a boxer but my concern is that over the long run the Warrior is significantly better for faster clears due to having MOAR DPS. As your gear improves and you get to where you have the dungeons on farm & know all the fights a warrior can switch to dual wield more and more often and push more and more DPS for faster clears. He indicates that Warrior's have better burst threat and I don't want any delays... Also Druid's AoE threat starts to fall off on 4+ targets and I want to push more & more with a buzzsaw cleave approach. In the end I may want to be ping-ponging aggro once I am very comfortable and that pushes me toward Warriors.

At this point I am planning on dropping my Druid from my main/initial team and going to try to make a go of an all Warrior Cleave front line. Additionally I plan to try my group in WPVP and I want to be able to use full consumables and Engineering items without having to drop out of Bear form...

For Classic Warcraft optimal PVP is really 'World of Gadgets' with Engineering & Bears don't have thumbs...

[evilution]

How about something like..

Warrior / Priest (healer) / Shaman (Ele) / Mage / Warlock?

That was my comp for original release, of course without the MB aspect. Shaman was enhance back then but with MB i think ranged DPS will be easier to manage.

[nodoze]

How about something like..

Warrior / Priest (healer) / Shaman (Ele) / Mage / Warlock?

That was my comp for original release, of course without the MB aspect. Shaman was enhance back then but with MB i think ranged DPS will be easier to manage.

Pretty much any team built on a proper Trinity with 3 DPS should be able to clear the Classic instances. Some will be more optimal than others depending on what you deem most important. With that mind your team posted should be doable.

Any true Tank class (Warrior, Paladin, Bear) geared appropriately with proper specs should be viable for clearing all content.

Any true Healer class should be fine though generally speaking Priests are proto-typical (with Dwarfs having the best racials).

3 Mages are probably the best all around choice for the 3 DPS for most boxer's first trinity based team unless of course you have other overriding goals (like want to main a different class than your tank, healer, or mage). Adding in a Warlock can give some extra utility and an off tank. A shaman can also work but note that you are adding some complexity for each additional class instead of just focusing on optimizing 3 Mages so you should take that into consideration.

[evilution]

Pretty much any team built on a proper Trinity with 3 DPS should be able to clear the Classic instances. Some will be more optimal than others depending on what you deem most important. With that mind your team posted should be doable.

Any true Tank class (Warrior, Paladin, Bear) geared appropriately with proper specs should be viable for clearing all content.

Any true Healer class should be fine though generally speaking Priests are proto-typical (with Dwarfs having the best racials).

3 Mages are probably the best all around choice for the 3 DPS for most boxer's first trinity based team unless of course you have other overriding goals (like want to main a different class than your tank, healer, or mage). Adding in a Warlock can give some extra utility and an off tank. A shaman can also work but note that you are adding some complexity for each additional class instead of just focusing on optimizing 3 Mages so you should take that into consideration.

Thank you for the feedback! I realize the additional complexity that comes with having so many different classes. When I MB Anarchy Online (a much easier game by far since you can get 90% of effectiveness with 1 button DPSing) the setup/tweaking was the best part of the game for me Hoping it is something similar here since vanilla really was pretty vanilla.

[pinotnoir]

Curious was there a work around to the no follow in battlegrounds for multiboxers? I read someone talking about having a druid flag runner.

[nodoze]

Curious was there a work around to the no follow in battlegrounds for multiboxers? I read someone talking about having a druid flag runner.

That may have been me as having at least one Druid Flag Carrier is a priority for me for Phase 3 but it should be noted that I was/am under the assumption that I will not be boxing in BGs.

At launch, since I really only want the Druid in phase 3, instead starting with Druid+2 Warriors+2 Paladins to just go 3 Warriors+2Paladins for my first main team.

Since I did not include a Druid in my main group I may actually include 2 or even more if I level up a team for this goal.

[Skullmonkey]

Curious was there a work around to the no follow in battlegrounds for multiboxers?

I don't remember where I read it, but someone claims to use clock-to-move for BG's. I imagine it being difficult and cluky as heck. I also recall reading Blizzard kinda frowning upon it, but not banning/punishing it.