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

[valkry]

I'd level 4 warriors with a resto sham, drop windfury totem, beast down any mob. If you want to level up another class later to fit your 7 man just pay someone to boost through dungeons while you watch TV or read.

[goro]

I'd level 4 warriors with a resto sham, drop windfury totem, beast down any mob. If you want to level up another class later to fit your 7 man just pay someone to boost through dungeons while you watch TV or read.

Thanks for your answer. Do you think it would be a much better solution, or hardly noticeably? I don't need it to be absolutely best and would rather skip leveling another character even through boosts.

[Kaige]

On the shaman thing: Not sure on the gear competition because they'd have different loot, wouldn't they? Sure its both mail, but your resto shaman would be seeking out healing gear, even downgrading to leather or cloth if necessary, while the stat differences would mean an enhancement shaman would get the opposite.

Also, wouldn't the totems compliment each other? Grace of Air + Windfury, Strength of Earth + Stoneskin, etc

[goro]

I believe you are right, and Grace of Air would surely be a very nice addition to the team. A shaman in melee of course will also benefit from windfury. An extra Ankh is really damn nice to have. What I'm slightly afraid of compated to e.g. a druid is that I will have to wait for mana for the shaman to be effective.

Would you think that killing speed will be severely hampered with that combination compared to a warrior? I do really like the extra utility.

[Apatheist]

If you already have a 60 mage on one of your accounts why not just create 3 warriors and a shaman and use the mage to boost them in dungeons?

[Tazeon]

as I understand your goal is todoay UBRS with 7 charakters, with a melee team WWWWS.
I dont think Drakkisath will be possible with an further player who kite drakkisath.
Beast should be doable with decent gear.

Mixing a melee team with mana dd cancel the advantage of less downtime for drinking.

x) I would add a Feral Tank and a Healpriest.

group1: Feral Tank - W - W - W - S
group2: W - P

one healer till rend is enough, after rend a 2nd healer is useful
for rend event you can let your shaman spam lightning bolt if you need further damage

x) another option if you only want play with one healer, then I would add a Feral Tank and Enhance Shaman or Rogue.

Enhance Shaman - emergency heals, all get totems, totems are a little stronger,
Rogue - more damage, poison (slow for runners or casting speed)

x) a further option would be not playing melee cleave, then I would add 2 more mages to your current setup.
3 mages spam firebolt, 1 mage spam scorch, pulling with 4 pyroblast

[goro]

If you already have a 60 mage on one of your accounts why not just create 3 warriors and a shaman and use the mage to boost them in dungeons?

This was something I had also considered, but I effectively used my current warrior to boost my current time, I wanted to try to level from the start. That choice I might later regret though. If I do that I can also just rotate in the last character if I keep the mage account free. Do you think it would be much faster than just leveling in the instances?

as I understand your goal is todoay UBRS with 7 charakters, with a melee team WWWWS.

Almost correct. My immediate goal is try a new leveling experience with a melee-based team. Instead of stressing with large pulls and AOE I would like to try a more continued and steady approach where I don't stop to drink constantly. Could this team then help me out, in any combination, with my current characters in pursuing e.g. UBRS I'd be very happy and thus of course I would like to try to factor that into the decision.

From seeing videos of e.g. Quiding with his melee team, I really like the concept of "sending in the units" while I handle loot and regen mana from the shaman. Since I already have a 60 warrior, I think it would be nice with more utility from a different class, but I am not sure if that will break the key concept of the group and not perform adequately without too much micro management or - even worse - downtime.

I do like having the option of using my current mage to boost the team every now and then when the grind gets tedious, but I don't think I will be planning on boosting them all the way, hence I'd like that fourth option.

Perhaps it all makes more sense now?

I definitely plan on having AT LEAST two healers for UBRS. One hybrid class, e.g. shaman or druid would be nice extra utility. Whats the minimal composition you figure Drakkisath would be doable with? I definitely could keep up another account for such purposes and close it down during the leveling of my new team.

Thanks for the replies so far.

[Tazeon]

Thanks for your improved goal discription.
I would again recommend following teamsetup.

Feral Tank
4x Warrior
1x Shaman Resto
1x Priest heal


for drakkisath you need 1 kiter:
you kite drakkisath.
Hunter is your best option, because of run speed and feign death.
pull can be a littble bit tricky .
hunter pull with aimed shot. you move hunter so you can start autorun across the bridge.
shortly after aimed shot, you must pull the 2 adds. faerie fire and frost shock is your best ranged option.

you need enough damage for the 2 adds and good healers.
conflagration, mortal strike, cleave and flamestrike (if I remember correctly) will need a lot of healing and good position and reposition.