5 man classic line-up

[nodoze]

Regarding most efficient party composition, Bruce Lee says "... Nothing trumps [4mage+disc] apart perhaps paladin/3mage/disc ..."

"... Last Thursday I made 4x mage disc and atm I am lv 53 ( last 2 days been chill mode). That should tell you the speed of leveling using that setup (5 days 4 hours played or similar atm). ..."

Warlocks can be substituted for Mages and have some pros/cons but will be somewhat slower as their AoE kicks in at later levels than Mages... I would do at least 1 Mage and 1 Warlock if this was my first team...

Personally I would go with Paladin/Priest/3ranged as it gives you a real dungeon tank for PVE if/when you need and still has good AoE as the AoE'ers avoid all push-back due to Paladin Concentration Aura. This party composition also gives you redundant healers for PVP.

I wouldn't worry about optimizing gear slots at all. Even with 5 characters all needing mail/plate I have never really had a big issue and once you get to cap are doing the same instances over and over you will at some point be getting rid of every drop anyway...