Currently leveling up a 20 man ZG/AQ farming team - What do you all think?

[dustofoblivion]

I'm currently leveling up my characters using lvl 60 Mages to farm XP by spamming dungeons and doing kill quests quickly, this is what I'm planning for my lvl 60 raid:


Team composition:
1 Protection Warrior, 7 Fury Warriors
4 Arcane/Frost Mages
2 Resto Shamans, 1 Enhancement Shaman
2 DS/Ruin Warlocks
1 Disc/Holy Priest
1 Druid (Haven't decided on spec yet)
1 Marksmanship Hunter

Team composition by group:
Group 1:
Protection Warrior
Priest
Druid
Hunter
Enhancement Shaman

Group 2:
4 Mages
1 Warlock

Group 3:
3 Fury Warriors
1 Warlock
1 Resto Shaman

Group 4:
4 Fury Warriors
1 Resto Shaman


Debuff Slots:
7 Bleed dots from Deep Wounds
1 Warrior Taunt
1 Sunder
1 Hunter's Mark
1 Faerie Fire
1 Curse of Recklessness
1 Curse of the Elements
1 Winter's Chill
1 Annihilator/Nightfall Debuff (single target)/ 1 Frost Nova Debuff (AoE)
1 Gift of Arthas Debuff (single target)/ 1 Cone of Cold Debuff (AOE)

The strategy:
Against bosses, I'm focusing on physical damage burst with high armor reduction and Fury Warrior cooldowns like Death Wish, Recklessness and Diamond Flask. The 4 Mages are to use Sheep against ZG trash and for AoE damage. Each warrior party has a Shaman for Windfury and other melee totems. The Tank Warrior party also has a Hunter with Trueshot Aura for extra threat generation. The Warlocks are for Cursing and utility (health/soul stones). The Priest and Druid are for buffs, utility and healing.

What do you all think? Open to any feedback, criticism, advice, etc.

[Tazeon]

I think you need more healers and a 2nd tank.
I would go with less support. (hunter, enhancement)
I think ranged are better in aq20 for certain bosses
For ZG and AQ Mages should be fire, more damage and better aoe.


1 Warrior Tank
1 Feral Tank
1 Warrior Tank (fury prot, switching depends on boss hakkar, tigerboss, mandokir)

4 Warrior DD

3 Shaman Resto
2 Priest Healing
1 Druid Resto

2 Warlocks
5 Mages Fire

-----------
Groups

1 Warrior Tank
2 Feral Tank
3 Warrior Fury Prot
4 Resto Shaman
5 Warlock (imp)

6 Resto Shaman
7 Warrior DD
8 Warrior DD
9 Warrior DD
10 Warrior DD

11 Warlock (imp)
12 Mage
13 Mage
14 Mage
15 Mage

16 Priest
17 Priest
18 Druid
19 Mage
20 Resto Shaman


Another option which I would like even more, would be to go full caster team and replace the 4 warrior and 1 warlock with 5 mages.
Rolling Ignite

[Weepy]

I have atm.

4x Warrior
Shaman

8x Mage
Warlock
Priest

About to start boosting 4 more. But cant decide what classes i'm short on healers ;<

[nodoze]

I'm currently leveling up my characters using lvl 60 Mages to farm XP by spamming dungeons and doing kill quests quickly, this is what I'm planning for my lvl 60 raid:

[20 man]Team composition:
1 Protection Warrior, 7 Fury Warriors
4 Arcane/Frost Mages
2 Resto Shamans, 1 Enhancement Shaman
2 DS/Ruin Warlocks
1 Disc/Holy Priest
1 Druid (Haven't decided on spec yet)
1 Marksmanship Hunter

Team composition by group:
...
Group 3:
3 Fury Warriors
1 Warlock
1 Resto Shaman

Group 4:
4 Fury Warriors
1 Resto Shaman


Debuff Slots:
7 Bleed dots from Deep Wounds
...
1 Curse of Recklessness
1 Curse of the Elements
...
1 Annihilator/Nightfall Debuff (single target)...
1 Gift of Arthas Debuff (single target)/...

The strategy:
Against bosses, I'm focusing on physical damage burst with high armor reduction and Fury Warrior cooldowns like Death Wish, Recklessness and Diamond Flask. The 4 Mages are to use Sheep against ZG trash and for AoE damage. Each warrior party has a Shaman for Windfury and other melee totems. The Tank Warrior party also has a Hunter with Trueshot Aura for extra threat generation. The Warlocks are for Cursing and utility (health/soul stones). The Priest and Druid are for buffs, utility and healing.

What do you all think? Open to any feedback, criticism, advice, etc.

I like all the thought you have put into it.

I am curious why is 1 melee party 4warriors+shaman and the other 3warriors+warlock+shaman instead of another 4warriors+shaman?

Is that because with the 2 curses and other debuffs you can only fit 7 bleeds before you hit the 16 debuff limit?

Personally my initial thoughts of doing a multi-box raiding team was trying to do a raid of only healers+tanks+ranged damage would be idea and most-manageable (mainly leveraging ignite) but after seeing the diamond flask videos I see the the benefits of going melee heavy. My thoughts then were either go all one way or the other (all ranged damage where possible or all melee where possible and try not to mix/match the DPS like you have). Sure CC is nice but instead of CCing couldn't a melee-heavy group put a tanky melee pushing threat on each mob and then focus fire them one at a time (with some AoE splash from SS/WW/etc) until they are down? Anyway those are just my initial thoughts that I wanted to throw out there (and I do so with some caution as I have not thought about multiboxing a raid anywhere as much as you or others)...

I like what I saw with the mostly warrior+shaman multibox (diamond-flask bursting though mechanics) and interested in a max ignite raid as well (if possible may have to be rolling to keep aggro from being too high on any 1 mage).

I would love to see the theory crafts of an mostly Melee raid vs a mostly mage mage raid including debuffs and party break-outs and what not for contrast/comparison to the raid you proposed.

[dustofoblivion]

I like all the thought you have put into it.

I am curious why is 1 melee party 4warriors+shaman and the other 3warriors+warlock+shaman instead of another 4warriors+shaman?

Is that because with the 2 curses and other debuffs you can only fit 7 bleeds before you hit the 16 debuff limit?

Personally my initial thoughts of doing a multi-box raiding team was trying to do a raid of only healers+tanks+ranged damage would be idea and most-manageable (mainly leveraging ignite) but after seeing the diamond flask videos I see the the benefits of going melee heavy. My thoughts then were either go all one way or the other (all ranged damage where possible or all melee where possible and try not to mix/match the DPS like you have). Sure CC is nice but instead of CCing couldn't a melee-heavy group put a tanky melee pushing threat on each mob and then focus fire them one at a time (with some AoE splash from SS/WW/etc) until they are down? Anyway those are just my initial thoughts that I wanted to throw out there (and I do so with some caution as I have not thought about multiboxing a raid anywhere as much as you or others)...

I like what I saw with the mostly warrior+shaman multibox (diamond-flask bursting though mechanics) and interested in a max ignite raid as well (if possible may have to be rolling to keep aggro from being too high on any 1 mage).

I would love to see the theory crafts of an mostly Melee raid vs a mostly mage mage raid including debuffs and party break-outs and what not for contrast/comparison to the raid you proposed.

Hey there,

That second party doesn't have 4 warriors because I didn't have enough space and I want extra utility. I want to have 2 Curses. I want to have an extra mana burner character (in this case, drain mana) for that optional AQ boss in the future. Having an extra warlock saves a lot of time if I want to make healthstones for my entire raid. Also, more importantly, in the future, I can use my druid as a tank and put it in the 3-warrior group for extra melee physical crit chance, and instead have the warlock in my main tank party for Blood Pact. Or, inversely, I could have the tank druid in my main tank party and instead have the hunter in that 3-warrior group (Trueshot Aura might be better for Fury Warriors than the increased crit chance, since they already crit a lot with Recklessness).

At first I wanted to go full Fury Warriors for maximum burst, but then I realized that my life would be a lot easier if I have some mages to CC raid trash mobs and kill them one at a time, and also to AoE-burst down adds summoned by certain bosses in ZG. Furthermore, while Sheep CC is optional in ZG, it's almost a necessity in AQ20.

[nodoze]

Hey there,

That second party doesn't have 4 warriors because I didn't have enough space and I want extra utility. I want to have 2 Curses. I want to have an extra mana burner character (in this case, drain mana) for that optional AQ boss in the future. Having an extra warlock saves a lot of time if I want to make healthstones for my entire raid. Also, more importantly, in the future, I can use my druid as a tank and put it in the 3-warrior group for extra melee physical crit chance, and instead have the warlock in my main tank party for Blood Pact. Or, inversely, I could have the tank druid in my main tank party and instead have the hunter in that 3-warrior group (Trueshot Aura might be better for Fury Warriors than the increased crit chance, since they already crit a lot with Recklessness).

At first I wanted to go full Fury Warriors for maximum burst, but then I realized that my life would be a lot easier if I have some mages to CC raid trash mobs and kill them one at a time, and also to AoE-burst down adds summoned by certain bosses in ZG. Furthermore, while Sheep CC is optional in ZG, it's almost a necessity in AQ20.

Thanks for the detailed response. Great info.

There is already at least one pretty much all warriors+shaman raid group out there and variety is good so I am glad to see a different approach.

It sounds like Weepy is potentially at the other end of the spectrum with 9+ ranged (8mages+1warlock so far) and only 4 warriors (all of which could be tanks if need be) and 1 Priest & 1 Shaman at this point. If Weepy on his remaining 5 slots goes something like Druid & a mix of healers & ranged (mainly mages) on his remaining 5 slots he could be as reasonably close to a "rolling ignite multibox raid" as possible to cover the other extreme...

So with both extremes potentially covered it would be great to see how your more balanced "middle-of-the road" approach goes.

The only other thing I can think of is to review Tazeon's comments closely and make sure you have tanks and healers covered.

Tank-wise I suspect you can be good as any of your current 7 Fury Warriors could either off-tank or be converted to a full Prot spec if need be and you already have both a Druid and a Warlock available/planned to press into at least specialized Tank service so I suspect you are good there.

Heale-rwise I am a little more concerned (especially if you convert the Druid to being a Tank) as you only have 1 Priest and 3 Shaman and I have always heard that Shaman were mana inefficient... My understanding of "conventional wisdom" is that only Priests and Holy Paladins are true full raid healers and Druids/Shaman are more niche due to "classic hybrid-tax" mana issues (but take that with "multiple grains of salt" as I always main Paladins so only played Shaman from BC->WotLK on and thus can't personally speak to Shaman in Vanilla/Classic). For built in AI assistance & mult-boxing simplicity it is hard to argue with chain-heal so hopefully shaman can get your healing done in Classic if needed (and that could free your Priest to focus on doing shields/HoTs)... I 5boxed Paladin+4Shaman & 10boxed Paladin+9Shaman (& various other combos) so I know they can get it done in BC->WotLK just can't speak to Classic...

[dustofoblivion]

Thanks for the detailed response. Great info.

There is already at least one pretty much all warriors+shaman raid group out there and variety is good so I am glad to see a different approach.

It sounds like Weepy is potentially at the other end of the spectrum with 9+ ranged (8mages+1warlock so far) and only 4 warriors (all of which could be tanks if need be) and 1 Priest & 1 Shaman at this point. If Weepy on his remaining 5 slots goes something like Druid & a mix of healers & ranged (mainly mages) on his remaining 5 slots he could be as reasonably close to a "rolling ignite multibox raid" as possible to cover the other extreme...

So with both extremes potentially covered it would be great to see how your more balanced "middle-of-the road" approach goes.

The only other thing I can think of is to review Tazeon's comments closely and make sure you have tanks and healers covered.

Tank-wise I suspect you can be good as any of your current 7 Fury Warriors could either off-tank or be converted to a full Prot spec if need be and you already have both a Druid and a Warlock available/planned to press into at least specialized Tank service so I suspect you are good there.

Heale-rwise I am a little more concerned (especially if you convert the Druid to being a Tank) as you only have 1 Priest and 3 Shaman and I have always heard that Shaman were mana inefficient... My understanding of "conventional wisdom" is that only Priests and Holy Paladins are true full raid healers and Druids/Shaman are more niche due to "classic hybrid-tax" mana issues (but take that with "multiple grains of salt" as I always main Paladins so only played Shaman from BC->WotLK on and thus can't personally speak to Shaman in Vanilla/Classic). For built in AI assistance & mult-boxing simplicity it is hard to argue with chain-heal so hopefully shaman can get your healing done in Classic if needed (and that could free your Priest to focus on doing shields/HoTs)... I 5boxed Paladin+4Shaman & 10boxed Paladin+9Shaman (& various other combos) so I know they can get it done in BC->WotLK just can't speak to Classic...

Thanks for the reply.

I am making note of the comments about a potential lack of healers and the mana-inefficiency of resto shaman. I hadn't thought about this.

I had a couple of reasons for wanting 3 Shamans. First reason being obviously the totem utility, which is a must for Fury Warriors and which is also just powerful in Classic in general. The second reason is that most of the time my characters will be clumped together in 2 parties, the caster/ranged/healer one, and the melee one. This makes Chain Heal a very attractive option. The third reason is the option to use one of the Shamans either as a Resto/Enhancement hybrid or as a full Enhancement shaman with Annihilator for the armor reduction debuff.

I'm hoping that with my high burst setup and with a stock of mana potions and with Mana Tide totem, I will be fine for raid bosses.

If mana sustain ends up becoming a clear problem, I will either replace one of my Fury Warriors with a second healer priest, or respec my druid tank to resto and convert one of my Fury Warriors to a full tank or a fury/prot off-tank. Do you think there's a clear winner between these two options here?

[nodoze]

Thanks for the reply.

I am making note of the comments about a potential lack of healers and the mana-inefficiency of resto shaman. I hadn't thought about this.

I had a couple of reasons for wanting 3 Shamans. First reason being obviously the totem utility, which is a must for Fury Warriors and which is also just powerful in Classic in general. The second reason is that most of the time my characters will be clumped together in 2 parties, the caster/ranged/healer one, and the melee one. This makes Chain Heal a very attractive option. The third reason is the option to use one of the Shamans either as a Resto/Enhancement hybrid or as a full Enhancement shaman with Annihilator for the armor reduction debuff.

I'm hoping that with my high burst setup and with a stock of mana potions and with Mana Tide totem, I will be fine for raid bosses.

If mana sustain ends up becoming a clear problem, I will either replace one of my Fury Warriors with a second healer priest, or respec my druid tank to resto and convert one of my Fury Warriors to a full tank or a fury/prot off-tank. Do you think there's a clear winner between these two options here?

I am a big fan of Hybrids with Shaman being my 2nd favorite class for PVE so I really hope it works out and their flexibility plays well for you (I know they should in BC+ and hope so now). I have heard good things from some 5boxers of Shaman that they can indeed sustain if built right so maybe one or more of them may chime in (I don't know the details of how they built to push sustain and then again you can always leverage consumables).

I would definitely watch the ZooBoxing ZG videos that Congau found (AWESOME FIND THANKS AGAIN !!!).

It sounds like he leveled four 4 man teams (each with a tank and healer and 3 DPS) and for the 20 man raid, like you are saying above, he also kinda breaks his team into 2 main 10 man groups (one ranged group and one melee group (with some ranged in it)). In the end between totems and Chain Heals I think you may actually be able to come out ahead in many ways.

There are several things he could maybe do better (as is the case for all of us I suspect) but is very competent and works his raid pretty well (and we are seeing him in his early attempts at the various areas).

Some observations:

His rogue appears pretty useless and dies a ton. If he brought him for chests and/or lockboxes I would personally just use engineering charges (or just leave them) and replace the Rogue with something else.

He has 4 tanks (2 Warriors+2 Druids) with his Warrior as his main Tank and uses them like I was referencing above (instead of CC). His ZG Venoxis fight video shows them best with his main Warrior taking 2 adds and then the other Warrior taking one add and the 1st Druid tank taking one add and the 2nd druid taking the boss. According to his addon log that is his 2nd kill for that boss and he really starts well with all 4 tanks doing great jobs. Things go a little south when he loses a Druid tank on the boss but he recovers that well and picks up the boss quick on his main warrior and re-positions him. Then the Boss AoE kills the rogue fast and then the last 2 off-tanks (though if he had some action target groups to pause their assists they likely would have been fine (except maybe the rogue)). From that point forward he keeps deep healing the main tank (and only tank left) and focuses on burning the boss and gets the win (though the 4 focused healing barely kept the main tank alive)!

I would note that he does indeed have 4 main healers (2 Paladins & 2 Priests) and it looks like sometimes even with them going all out with heals and his main tank barely survives... I believe his 3rd Priest is a Shadow Priest buffing the Warlocks so he could increase his healing output without changing his composition if he needed to... I think he using Grid2 for healing and not sure how he breaks up the healing or if all 4 are just healing the same targets with downranks if/as needed or what... It may be that the healing just needs to be better optimized to make things easier (not sure) but bottom line he gets it done. It may well be that Chain Heals would be a huge help but if I saw correctly 3 of his 4 healers were pretty much OOM (which is saying alot considering Paladins are the most efficient healers) so that is something to watch for.

If I recall correctly he has at least 3 ZG boss videos and he does a lot of commentary on at least the ZG trash one (things started getting better and better as his gear improved and he mentioned that the bloodvine was really helping his team's DPS). Since I like Warlocks I was glad to hear him saying he liked his Warlocks' DPS. I am kinda in a hurry and plan to go back and watch the fights closer later but Warlock-wise I noticed in the Venoxis fight that the Warlocks were close to top tier until the final phases but ended up in the bottom tier and that looks to be because they went OOM (and not sure if they ever life tapped nor whether they started wanding when OOM etc)...

Bottom line is that all is pretty impressive and fun to watch. Perfect timing for you to review to make any adjustments now.

[Congau]

I recently found a multiboxer on YouTube called ZooBoxing that has recent videos of 20man ZG with a mixed team. Might be relevant Forgive me if you are here ZooBoxing.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpj...B1B1dxJPDIQisw

[nodoze]

I recently found a multiboxer on YouTube called ZooBoxing that has recent videos of 20man ZG with a mixed team. Might be relevant Forgive me if you are here ZooBoxing.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpj...B1B1dxJPDIQisw

THANKS for sharing.

Looks to be the first alliance 20+Boxer I have seen clear stuff so far as everyone seems to be going Horde due to better warrior burst racials/hardiness and leverage the AI of Chain Healing & Tremor Totems and what not...

If my initial review is correct he is current doing:

2 Warriors;
2 Druids;
2 Paladins;
3 Priests;
3 Warlocks;
5 Mages;
2 Hunters
1 Rogue;

His 20box raid has the potential for at least 5 main/full healers and possibly 7 if Druids can also get it done.

His 20box raid also has the potential for 2-6 Tanks if you count both the Druids & Paladins as possible main/off tanks (and he has Warlocks to be able to field upto 3 Warlock Tanks as well and with Paladins they can go pretty far). That being said (typed) each tank past 2 (not counting Warlocks) reduces potential healers...

Interesting composition and I look forward to watching the full videos.

Great find!