Any thoughts on x4 lowbies & 1 60 lvl healer?

[nodoze]

Which level 60 healer are you considering using?

I am interested in what your findings are if you try it. I suspect a 60 Paladin with a high crit would be the most mana efficient for as close to non-stop across all the level ranges as you can get. Once you get to where the mobs are Level 48+ the Priest could be better if you can consistently give the Priest the killing blow and leverage Spirit Tap (the mobs have to be able to yield XP for that to proc).

Assuming you are leveling up 4 Warriors (I would stay away from multiple Rogues) I am not sure you will be able to pull that many more mobs at once as it doesn't matter how much healing you have if the warriors are insta-gibbed due to too much incoming damage. I could see doing somewhat larger pulls than with a same level healer and less stopping so you may indeed be clearing instances faster (though maybe not actually leveling faster).

The bottom line is that larger mob group size and less downtime (due to less drinking/wipes) will need to offset the penalty of having a level 60 in the party to make it faster overall to cap (and you end up with only 4 new 60s instead of 5 when done).

That being said being overall faster to cap isn't necessarily the only factor... Even with the XP penalty I really liked using my 60 Protection Paladin to gather up tons of lower level mobs and then AoE them down with the lower level 3 Warlocks+Priest boosting the Paladin's AoE... I don't know that it was necessarily faster than doing 4Warlocks+Priest or an all same level Tank+3DPS+Healer team but I did find it fun and certainly a lot less stressful than my previous melee team.