5-Box leveling speed

[KingOfSausages]

Hey all, I've been thinking recently of starting a 5 man trinity team in classic, maybe pally tank 3x Lock and pally or priest healer. Not really interested in pvp or anything, just enjoy running dungeons so would be planning to level primarily in instances. I've seen quite a few people frustrated at the speed of leveling through instances though and it's kinda turned me off the idea

Obviously leveling through instances is going to be slower than questing, but is it really as bad as i'm hearing? I seen some of you posting xp/hr but I guess it's tough for me to put that into perspective. Maybe a better metric (for my mind) would be - what percentage of a level do you usually get for a complete run of, say, SM:Armory? 10%? 20? 30?

Also, (sorry if this is a little off topic) but do you have any tips on the best way to overcome those initial levels before i can start running DM? Wondering if I should level them all together and just avoid collect quests, or level in pairs, or even just grind?

Thanks!

[smk]

I think the 2 pally and 3 warlocks is a solid choice, although I would probably suggest a priest for aoe healing if you are planning to aoe. I don't know if anyone else feels the paladin would be a better healer in this group or not. Either do quests or you could run the fedex route, but honestly I would just lvl and maybe switch from human to dwarf areas. Collections take the longest.

[Mercbeast]

I think the 2 pally and 3 warlocks is a solid choice, although I would probably suggest a priest for aoe healing if you are planning to aoe. I don't know if anyone else feels the paladin would be a better healer in this group or not. Either do quests or you could run the fedex route, but honestly I would just lvl and maybe switch from human to dwarf areas. Collections take the longest.

I did the fedex route on mages, and while it's probably quicker than straight questing. I think that grinding is probably faster. If you're alliance, the spider cave on Darnassus is probably a good place to do a good chunk of that early grinding. If you're horde, northgard keep maybe? Or any lower level hyper spawns you can find. The bristleback areas are good too. The big difference between horde and alliance is, you really need to be 15-18 as alliance to start doing deadmines for most group builds, and deadmines itself a terrible instance to grind. RFC on the other hand can be started at 12, maybe even 10 depending on the group. New team with good green gear might be able to start at 10 in RFC and do the trog area.

The big issue with questing are collection quests, so maybe just skip those unless they are easily accomplished, and allow you to grind quickly in the area.

[nodoze]

I think Pally+Priest+3Warlocks over 2Pally+3Warlocks for PVE though I can see benefits of duo Paladins for WPVP.

For Alliance I FedExed to 12 and then mainly ground the HyperSpawns to 18 (plus the Westfall quests). I also generally avoided the collection quests except for the Westfall Bandana ones as they were for a questline for DM and were easily completed while farming the HyperSpawn anyway. The Darnassus spider cave is close to a HyperSpawn so that could help as well.

Even though they are not Dungeons, I put links for the FedEx pathing and to HyperSpawns in Westfall as the 1st 3 lines on the Dungeons tab as I view them as "Alliance Dungeon Prereqs" to be able to go into DM (or at least to be able to farm & do the quests in the cave outside DM) around 18:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=566752830

[ExBox]

5 Man MB on German PvP Dragons Lair sporting Druid Tank, Priest, Warlock, Mage, Shaman here - lvl 40 currently with 3d 23h. Can't get over 35k XP/h but the group is very robust and fun to play, plus on 60 I'll have 5 different classes for variety. Had a Warrior tank at first, but the druid does WAY better with AoE Aggro.

Specs are Feral, Holy Nova, Full Destro, Arcane, Ele - I pull 1-2 groups and AoE them down with AE/HolyNova/Hellfire/Chain Lightning spam.

Thought about 4 Warri Shaman, but from what I've read its tedious.

[Drmanhattan]

Generally, I pull 2 packs of mobs and then arcane explsion them down. No holy nova, ST heals on mage (Flash heal plus shields and at end I usually don't have problems at all).

Also, using armor potions 1 hour to midigate as much dmg as possible.

Usually, insta drink after every pull, so I got downtime of 15 sec before pulling another trash. Last level (35) took 1 hour and 15 mins.

The usual scenario for this setup is :

level to 14 via quests>get buff from orgrimmar>rfc massive farms to 19>get to wailing caverns>aoe trash the raptors(initial circle area) to 22>swap to bfd>pull here to 28>quests till 30>gy>33>library>36>armory>38>cath>44>zf>50>brd>60 .

The reason I choose brd over ubrs is the fact that gauntlent in bael gaer has so many mobs and until 56, it will take you 1.5 hour to hit level up (mages).

Also, don't forget to use imp frost shield once you hit the full arcane (extra armor helps). and after that go for stun (ignore all bosses in game, will have plenty of time for that when i hit 60).

The only thing i really want to test is blizz specc in brd (pull 40 mobs) then aoe down. Would be omegalul efficient (typically 200k xp per hour).

WIll post more info as i go on. Focus on int and stam (no spell power, as arcane explosion only benefits 14% of your sp).

i must be playing my mages completely differently, because I usually pull 2 or more packs, aoe them all down, drink, and move on. This route has been a consistent 2.5 hours per level. My 5th character is a prot pally, and I gather with that, then stop and start self healing while the mages start casting on the gathered packs. For pulling more than 3 packs, I sometimes Frost nova the first packs in place so the pally can move freely

ive tried arcane, but found fire to have better burst aoe thru flame strike> blast wave> arcane explosion until clear ; the prot pally needs to pop flash heals on the mages after they start dealing damage

i don’t understand what I am doing wrong that you are managing to pull twice the exp per hour. My group handles bosses no problem, but even if they are bad exp, the fights are short. When clear I run out and reset.

Sm gy, lib, and armory were a solid 2.5 hr/ level, and cathedral was closer to 3h/ level, so I only ran enough to get the gear

Do you see what I am missing/ are you certain of your exp per hour?

[Anemo]

Interesting to hear. I wanted to use my existing druid in a future group comp like this but always assumed warriors would be way better at big aoe pulls since bear can only swipe 3 and aoe taunt every 10 min?

[nodoze]

Interesting to hear. I wanted to use my existing druid in a future group comp like this but always assumed warriors would be way better at big aoe pulls since bear can only swipe 3 and aoe taunt every 10 min?

My understanding is that Druids are superior on small numbers but do run into issues with large groups that Paladins and Warriors don't have.

[Fuzzyboy]

My understanding is that Druids are superior on small numbers but do run into issues with large groups that Paladins and Warriors don't have.

I'm running with a warrior in my trinity setup and for big AoE pulls, I think the warrior has the advantage, but for running end-game instances, where you do much less AEing, a druid probably works very well. You're less gear dependent, you have an extra rez, MotW, thorns. I've loved my team for levelling, but now where I'm grinding pre-raid BIS, I wish I had a druid / priest / mage / lock / shaman setup :-)

[smk]

First team took 11 days 17 hours to 60! 4x lock 1 x disc!

so far my 2nd team (and will be main) 4x mage disc,took 1 day 12 hours to 30. I expect to hit 60 in 5 or 6 days played.

I am curious what didn't yhou like about your lock team?