Melee-Cleave Boxing End Game Dungeons

[Orkus]

On Discord someone named 'swydi' posted a LBRS trash run with 4 Warriors and 1 Shaman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rftVA_Ymydk&t=6s

Problem is, 4x warrior sham are dead in pvp. Mages are not. Once you get rooted in world pvp, it's nasty. I mean really nasty. 2 mages can solo your entire team roughly.

True although to be fair this thread was about End Game Dungeon PvE. Although there can be a lot of PVP on the way to those dungeon instance portals

That is why some folk are doing 3Warriors+2Paladins as between Blessing of Freedom, cleanses, & Free Action that team is harder to root. That being said, even with Blessing of Freedom generally Warrior based groups don't play as well in large scale WPVP but can be effective in smaller to mid scale.

Yea and when BG's roll around those geared Warriors in organized Battleground groups will really shine but will have to play solo. Otherwise it's definitely an uphill battle in open world, or without proper support

[nodoze]

On Discord someone named 'swydi' posted a LBRS trash run with 4 Warriors and 1 Shaman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rftVA_Ymydk&t=6s
...
True although to be fair this thread was about End Game Dungeon PvE. ...
...
Yea and when BG's roll around those geared Warriors in organized Battleground groups will really shine but will have to play solo. Otherwise it's definitely an uphill battle in open world, or without proper support

THANKS !

Thanks for those reminding us to keep this thread on topic which is PVE dungeon clearing by boxed melee-cleave teams...

I updated the initial post in this thread with this first and ONLY video example so far.

Please lets get some more videos posted so folk can see this play-style in action more...

[Purpleflavor]

On Discord someone named 'swydi' posted a LBRS trash run with 4 Warriors and 1 Shaman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rftVA_Ymydk&t=6s

Any reason why he didnt cast a single chain heal?

[Swydi]

I have 4WS team at 60. 1 warrior is fury and has all the best gear you can buy, cloudkeeper, arcanite reaper, lionshearth helm. Then I have the other 3 which are average dungeon geared and arms specced. Anyway... I often have a look on the overall damage meters and usually the 2 arms warriors with axes (they are all orcs) are top damage, then come the other 2. Last arms warrior is using a sword and has sword spec talents. Even at equal level dungeons the weapon skill seems to matter.

That LBRS clear video is mine, you can suggest me if you want to see somwthing specific. I need quite a few items from strat UD and I plan to do it this week and after that start farming either DM W or DM N tribute. I've also been doing UBRS, my 4 warriors and shaman + another healer, one tank and some dps. We have needed to kite drakk so rogue/mage/hunter is best.

[Apatheist]

Even at equal level dungeons the weapon skill seems to matter.

Weapon skill in classic is hugely important. There's a reason an item like edgemaster's is BiS until Naxx level gear. +5 Weapon skill is the equivalent of 1% crit, 2% hit and reduces your glancing blow damage reduction significantly.

Target at +3 levels, +5 weapon skill (13.86% crit chance, n=1677)

• Hit: 61.78% ±2.37% (1036)
• Crit (Overall): 7.33% ±1.27% (123)
• Crit (Two-roll): 10.12% ±1.73% (123)
• Miss: 6.50% ±1.20% (109)
• Parry: 14.91% ±1.74% (250)
• Dodge: 6.08% ±1.17% (102)
• Block: 4.29% ±0.99% (72)

[nodoze]

I have 4WS team at 60. 1 warrior is fury and has all the best gear you can buy, cloudkeeper, arcanite reaper, lionshearth helm. Then I have the other 3 which are average dungeon geared and arms specced. Anyway... I often have a look on the overall damage meters and usually the 2 arms warriors with axes (they are all orcs) are top damage, then come the other 2. Last arms warrior is using a sword and has sword spec talents. Even at equal level dungeons the weapon skill seems to matter.

That LBRS clear video is mine, you can suggest me if you want to see somwthing specific. I need quite a few items from strat UD and I plan to do it this week and after that start farming either DM W or DM N tribute. I've also been doing UBRS, my 4 warriors and shaman + another healer, one tank and some dps. We have needed to kite drakk so rogue/mage/hunter is best.

If you can please try to have your single Fury Warrior charge in first and immediately shout & then have the arms charge in just slightly after and report back what your damage meters look like. On clumped groups of 5+ mobs there should be mobs that the Fury warrior does not hit and the Arms Warriors should at least peel them off (if not more/other mobs due to Sweeping Strikes). If your results are consistent with other's testing the Fury Warrior should be at least on par with the Arms warriors (or likely higher) with all of them putting out solid damage on clumps.

For testing purposes, to not have any fancy action target groups or what not, you could have only the Fury warrior charge on 1 key-press and then put the Fury warrior's shout and the other 3 Arms warrior's charge on the 2nd button. That would slightly stagger the charge with minimal affect to your rotations. If any of your warriors also shout right at the charge you could try to put a macro that does both on those warriors... Personally my Fury Warrior does both types of shouts for my team & the Arms focus on DPS...

Please also put links to videos of your team in other at cap dungeons like BRD, DM, Scholo, Strat, UBRS, etc. Lots of people would benefit from seeing them!

Edit: I updated the initial post in this thread to denote where/who each video came from.

Please keep this thread focused on PVE dungeon clearing by boxed melee-cleave teams...

Please everyone lets get some additional boxed melee-cleave videos posted... Would like to list some videos with different healers than Shaman and/or with dual-healers as well.

Please everyone also post your Warrior and Healer specs to this thread and I will put them in the initial post (citing credit like I did for Quiding's Shaman build).

[Swydi]

If you can please try to have your single Fury Warrior charge in first and immediately shout & then have the arms charge in just slightly after and report back what your damage meters look like.

My rotation is charge - (bloodrage) - sweeping strikes - berserker stance - mortal strike - whirlwind. I use battle shout usually at the end of the combat and there are only 2 pulls in LBRS where I use demo shout, none in stratholme.

Bloodrage generates 55 threat immediately on pull, when available, and I don't really ever have to swap target to get to hit all mobs or to get agro from my shaman. One exception again is the big packs of mobs in stratholme. But what I was getting at is that I doubt that having one of them charge and shout first makes a difference. There is a reason I made tgat specific warrior fury. He was always doing the most dps while leveling and I spread the gear equally, he is in slot 2, Idk if that makes the difference.

If that works one major advantage, and the only one imo, is that fury warrior has the best armor values so he would reduce incoming damage a bit. I need to redo my setup at some point so I can drive from the warriors too, I might try that then. At this moment I think there are couple other things to improve on and figure out that can increase clear speeds. For example more efficient execute and sunder armor management, weak auras to show SS/WW/MS/charge cooldowns, spreading the warriors around mobs rather than having them stacked

I just now realized that hamstring is useless. Rather than doing hamstring I think it is better doing sunder armor. And I think the same applies to HS/cleave too

[nodoze]

My rotation is charge - (bloodrage) - sweeping strikes - berserker stance - mortal strike - whirlwind. I use battle shout usually at the end of the combat and there are only 2 pulls in LBRS where I use demo shout, none in stratholme.

Bloodrage generates 55 threat immediately on pull, when available, and I don't really ever have to swap target to get to hit all mobs or to get agro from my shaman. One exception again is the big packs of mobs in stratholme. But what I was getting at is that I doubt that having one of them charge and shout first makes a difference. There is a reason I made tgat specific warrior fury. He was always doing the most dps while leveling and I spread the gear equally, he is in slot 2, Idk if that makes the difference.

If that works one major advantage, and the only one imo, is that fury warrior has the best armor values so he would reduce incoming damage a bit. I need to redo my setup at some point so I can drive from the warriors too, I might try that then. At this moment I think there are couple other things to improve on and figure out that can increase clear speeds. For example more efficient execute and sunder armor management, weak auras to show SS/WW/MS/charge cooldowns, spreading the warriors around mobs rather than having them stacked

I just now realized that hamstring is useless. Rather than doing hamstring I think it is better doing sunder armor. And I think the same applies to HS/cleave too

If ISboxer does the initial charge sequentially across slots 2-5, even though it appears simultaneous to the human eye, that might explain why your 2nd slot typically does the highest DPS over time (even with same spec/gear)... It could be that your slot 2 isn't getting initial sight aggro and initial hits from enemy mobs 100% of the time like with my approach but on average just enough to tip the balance to be statistically significant resulting in the higher numbers you were seeing on slot 2... So with that in mind you may actually have unintendingly been inconsistently doing what I am advocating trying to do intentionally and consistently to know for sure whether it make a difference... You actually geared the way I recommend (best gear/armor on the Fury Warrior)...

I think this may actually be even more drastic once your exception of bigger pulls becomes your norm... As your gear progresses it will be to your advantage to get bigger and bigger packs of mobs... If you start driving from your Fury warrior and are walking toward your inital pack of mobs from out of charge range you will actually exprence this whether you intend to or not as your lead warrior will be in range first and thus charge first and the follow warriors will be delayed by the few steps it take for them to get into range also... In the end it may not make a big difference but why not try it? It will naturally happen if you start driving from your Fury warrior but it would be fairly trivial to try even if you keep driving from your Shaman... With you reporting your observations on your slot 2 I think you may already be in part doing this but maybe just aren't doing it consistently...

Please everyone lets get some additional boxed melee-cleave videos posted... Would like to list some videos with different healers than Shaman and/or with dual-healers as well and want examples from all the end game dungeons...

Please everyone also post your Warrior and Healer specs to this thread and I will put them in the initial post (citing credit like I did for Quiding's Shaman build).

[Swydi]

I think this may actually be even more drastic once your exception of bigger pulls becomes your norm...

As your gear progresses it will be to your advantage to get bigger and bigger packs of mobs...

In the end it may not make a big difference but why not try it? ]

Sorry I don't know how to use quotes better.
Couple things I want to mention. Charge generates big chunk of rage and if you are using sweeping strike, charge is better way to preserve the momentum than chain or mass pulling and doing stance switches for sweeping strikes. This is due to 2 things. Warriors have very limited AoE abilities and you end up auto attacking bunch of mobs to not get agro on healer and slowing you down. The other one is that between small/average pulls the healer can drink whenever and the warriors can keep on going.

About the best geared warrior getting initial sight agro. It is good and bad, the less damage you take the less rage you gen and overall less enrage uptime, but also the less healer has to heal and thus drink. If I had the control to choose who gets agro, I would split it evenly between all warriors to maximize enrage uptime and reduce the chance any of my warriors are instantly killed due to multiple crits in a row.

I might upload stratholm UD video tonight and I'll edit this if I do.

I understand what you think but I disagree, but I may be wrong because I haven't seen or tested it in action.

[Swydi]

Everyone knows how good weapon skill is vs higher level mobs, but I was saying that it does seem to make a difference even against same or lower level mobs. But this is just personal, possibly biased opinion.

That attack table is for +3 level mobs too, unrelated to the quote.