Extra class to Melee Cleave Group

[goro]

Hi all,

After closing in on 60 with my Warrior, 2xMage, Warlock, Priest group I'm looking into starting a melee based group for a different experience with less downtime between pulls. I have of course looked through the main thread concerning the end game instances, and generally have a feel for how to get interact with target to work including the hack to ensure that they characters down run wild.

Since I already have a warrior, I'm thinking that I'd like to level with 3x warrior and 1x shaman and then perhaps third class. I'm not quite sure what to add, as I see pros and cons of the different options, and I'd like to seek som advice in picking the last man. Do note that I plan on getting two of the characters on new accounts so I will have 7 available for UBRS at a later stage (running on all new accounts will be a bit too steep price-wise). My thoughts are as follows:

Mage:
Since I plan on having very little downtime, mage is definitely not an option, though it would slot in well with the other group for UBRS. Water and food is already easy to obtain with the ones I have, and I can always get my mages to port the team around.

Warlock:
Provides good utility in form of soul stone, imp buff and summoning. Will also slot in nicely with my other group, but I see myself using too much mana and synergy with the shaman is not really there. I can already use my other warlock to summon if needed.

Priest:
Another healer is nice, but priest is not the best to run with the warrior team. A shadow priest could be self-reliant but it will require me to get last hits on it, and thats difficult to manage. Also has no real synergies with the team except for a nice buff, but that buff is already there for my 7-man team.

Rogue:
Great synergy with wind fury and provides unlocking services. Hard to manage combo points, but might be okay with some vFX overlays, and no real gear competition. Will definitely not be played to full effect unless I am driving from the rogue, but I'd rather drive from a ranged class.

Hunter:
Provides decent group utiltiy, a pet that can charge in with the warriors or act as off tank if needed. Will provide useful aspects for the team and can be a semi-decent variant of a soul stone with feign death and engineering, in particular as he will be standing away from battle. Will also be a new class to add to my 7-man team. I also believe that the hunter will be fairly fine in relation to continued pulls without stopping to drink, but have no real experience here. There is not a lot of gear competition with my shaman. I think this is a strong bet, but might be annoying to have tagging around the shaman.


Druid:
Provides a great buff and overall utility. Faerie Fire will stack with sunder armor and will be nice for single targets and also the general encounts with the warriors. If my shaman dies I have another resurrection that works either in or out of combat.

Can slot into two roles. I see it fine as a healer if I let my shaman go melee with the warriors, while I drive from the druid. I will need to downrank heals to keep them efficient, but generally I find them not too efficient for erratic damage that the warriors will take. I can also run it as a bear and do a bit of swipe damage, though I somehow need to ensure that it does not pull aggro from the warriors so they are rage starved. Perhaps giving them thorns in between some pulls will help with that? I like the idea of utilizing the mana between pulls to keep the momentum, feral faerie fire for single targets. .Later on the damage will surely be sub-par, and running it as a cat will introduce same issues as the rogue.

Warrior:
Another warrior will of course also be an option and we all know that they can work fine. It wont add anything new to my 7-man team though, but that can be okay.

Shaman:
A dedicated enhancement shaman might also work. Gear competition will be present, but not overly so. Another ankh is very nice, but Im not quite sure that synergies will be present as I already have the windfury totem.

What are your thoughts? Sorry for the long piece of rambling, but it is quite hard to wrap my head around all of it.

Kind regards,
goro