Guide: Trinity Comp (Tank/3x BM Hunter/Healer

[Ellay]

Thanks for those references to the links Nodoze, will be checking their ranking systems. I have seen some of Yumytv's content as well and would recommend.

Also to note the monk passive for 5% physical has gotten nerfed to 3% as well as the Demon Hunter magical also being 3%. So it's still good just not as strong.

War Scrolls are also leaving, and the Priest/ Warrior / Mage buff has gone from 10% to 5%.

[nodoze]

You all rock. Such great info for pre-planning and thinking about some ShadowLands fun. Be aware that I haven't really played much retail since WoTLK so things like stagger and monks are still foreign to me (pun intended). I did like Legion somewhat and did DemonHunters to cap but not much else. That being said BrewMaster sounds interesting and I am willing to learn the various options and work to catch up so maybe that will be an option for me...

Would Druid Tank have any advantages with 3Hunters and any healer (RDruid or other healer that favors Guardian Tank+Hunters) over other tank options?

I am aware that Druid Tanks are currently expected to be lower tier in ShadowLands but didn't know if Druid Tanks somehow put the hunters/pets on turbo (like Leader of the Pack used to) or the spirit pet healing helps overcome their expected deficiencies. I think one change is that instead of the current BFA self healing Druid Tanks move to have more healing received bonus so maybe that would actually play well with regular HoTs from 3 spirit pets and heals from a Healer.

[Ellay]

I'm unfamiliar with the movement healing - will have to research that.
There isn't a whole lot of benefit for the Druid tank besides that they are pretty sturdy but still take chunky damage.
They need their defensive ability rolling (Iron Fur) and it settles in, but prior to that they can get spiked for damage. Their rotation is also very simplistic.

The reason they are used in our comps is to just make it 5x Druids and much more simplistic for other side advantages such as the entire team can then go cat form and stealth/skip certain packs of mobs. Hypothetically it also provides a brez, but it's risky since your tank would need to shift out of bear to get it off.
If it wasn't for the sake of having 5x of the same class. I wouldn't be on Guardian Druid. Instead I'd go.. I'm not sure but not druid

[Feint90]

One of the biggest problems with druids is actually that they add very little to your party other then Brez (Also I am fairly sure that Bear can cast Brez from bear form but correct me if I am wrong here) and the added benefit they do bring is best covered by a resto druid because of how strong their healing is. This is also the reason why Feral is considered a bad pick in solo play, even though DPS wise they are slightly above average, boomies just bring slightly more to the party so they generally get picked (and don't take up a melee slot).

So no, bears don't actually add very much to your comp unless you are running 5 druids like Elay said.

The change to the frenzied regen for bear is a slight nerf if your focus is DPS but I don't see that being an issue at the start anyway since you most likely won't get much DPS in on your healer. Problems with bears is that they nerfed rage generation so they get fewer Iron Fur's rolling in comparison to now (even if you exclude stat stacking). Even more so with the lower haste we have at the start of the expansion but I still think bear is middle of the pact (above warriors and for multiboxers, also above DH).

For trinity I think Paladin, DK and Monk will be top picks. Warriors are just in a very bad place, bears don't give you any benefit other then bRez (which you can get elsewhere) and DH have too big of a gap in their defensive skillset to make them stable tanks (which like I mentioned may not be a problem as a solo player, but a multiboxer faces different issues). The actual choice for tank will depend partially on your healer and of course whatever you like playing.

I was not aware they also nerfed the DH/Monk debuffs (I checked wowhead but they still showed 5%). This does make a minor change though because of how much dmg a paladin can currently push out, you have to offset the damage if you want to optimize (is 9% hunter dmg vs difference paladin > whatever you want to pick).

Ofcourse this will be very minor in throughput so pick whatever you enjoy most considering most people drive from their tank.

[boxblizzard]

I have a hunter setup like this in classic that seriously delivers the all-moving damage and on demand burst with ae, it’s a powerful setup but my problem is PvP and had to abandon the team only because of IWT fading target problems.

if someone has a solution with camera angles snapping into facing assist etc that would be nice? I would go back to this team immediately as I know the team is solid and a strong pve+ I hope PvP if they IWT issue is resolved,

[nodoze]

Great info. My head is swimming (in a good way) trying to think through all the options.

...5x Druids and ... the entire team can then go cat form and stealth/skip certain packs of mobs. ...

This part in particular triggered some Night Elf Hunter memories...

In BFA if your 3 Hunters are Night Elves can you still alternate ShadowMeld and Camouflage to essentially have perma stealth on your Hunters and thus bypass packs or what not?

Not saying that niche case would necessarily compel me to have a Druid be my primary 5box tank but if I was already running as my raiding Main a Druid Healer + 3 NE Hunters + Monk/DK/Paladin it could maybe be worth it to have an alternate Druid Tank in the stable for any content where stealth bypasses really helps.

[Feint90]

Great info. My head is swimming (in a good way) trying to think through all the options.This part in particular triggered some Night Elf Hunter memories...

In BFA if your 3 Hunters are Night Elves can you still alternate ShadowMeld and Camouflage to essentially have perma stealth on your Hunters and thus bypass packs or what not?

Not saying that niche case would necessarily compel me to have a Druid be my primary 5box tank but if I was already running as my raiding Main a Druid Healer + 3 NE Hunters + Monk/DK/Paladin it could maybe be worth it to have an alternate Druid Tank in the stable for any content where stealth bypasses really helps.

Pretty sure that is possible. For dungeons/M+ though you will rarely need to be in stealth for more then 1 min since you still need to kill packs for percentage for dungeon completion. One bonus with the this is that you can cast traps from camo so if a pack is potentially not skippable, you could throw a trap at it to reduce pull range and walk by them then, druids can't do that.

Shadowmeld is just OP and is used to do skips by MDI players on a lot of team comps.

I have a hunter setup like this in classic that seriously delivers the all-moving damage and on demand burst with ae, it’s a powerful setup but my problem is PvP and had to abandon the team only because of IWT fading target problems.

if someone has a solution with camera angles snapping into facing assist etc that would be nice? I would go back to this team immediately as I know the team is solid and a strong pve+ I hope PvP if they IWT issue is resolved,

I don't really understand the problem you are describing here. IWT Fading targets? As in, they get out of range of your view settings so they disengage? Because that is normal and I think upping your view settings can increase that. You can snap your camera, Elay has a video on it explaining how he uses it for herbing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZBLAHJYPTk

[nodoze]

Thanks for those references to the links Nodoze, will be checking their ranking systems. I have seen some of Yumytv's content as well and would recommend. ...

Heads up just in case you haven't been able to keep fully up that Blizzard did some balancing to try to tweaks Tanks and Healers some.

Here is Yumytv's overview of the most recent Tank & Healer balance changes.

Sounds like the nerfbat hit Disc Priests, Vengeance, & Brewmasters the most but if I understood correctly Brewmaster may still be in the top tier with stagger (especially with 3 spirit pets continuously helping him).

From the options that I was thinking about healer-wise it sounds like Shaman got a slight lift and Druids were maybe surprising not nerfed so still on top.

Sounds like the both the previously lowest tier Tanks (Warriors & Druids) got some lifts and Warrior is better than it was and maybe niche OP for some encounter mechanics but Druid Tanks maybe didn't get enough and still aren't where they would need to be.

DK wasn't mentioned (at least I don't remember hearing about it) so I guess it remains in the top tier mix but maybe more importantly it sounds like Paladin got some good tweaks and is much less of a "glass canon" which was music to my ears (since Vanilla my mains have been typically Paladins with Druids alts and always a Hunter for solo stuff)...

My head is still swimming with everyone's great input (my brain trying to think though all the permutations of pros/cons and playstyles) and I am kinda thinking of taking Feint90's advice to heart and consider playing "whatever you like playing" and not try to chase any "metas".

I don't know much about Brewmasters and never played DKs as true PVE tanks so I don't know if I will like them (or not)... I will try to make some time to do some class trials and maybe create a brewmaster and DK to test some... Otherwise if I don't get any testing time I am thinking at this point for me that these balancing changes (and this great discussion) are helping me to likely go:

• -3 NE Hunters: My original main back in Classic and beyond for soloing and BGs;
• -RDruid: will be my raid healer that then comes and heals my 5box Mythic team;
• -Prot Paladin Tank: Dedicated tank for 5box Mythic team (Paladin Healers were my traditional raid healing main but I don't like the idea of having to be heal from melee range so for now I am going druid healer in raids... Maybe will try Holy Paladin in melee in raids at some point but fine if he remains just Prod (My Holy Paladin healers were always dual-spec'ed for Protection paladin role from Vanilla->WotLK).

Since I am a fan of Hybrids and my main PVE team was Paladin+4Shaman I would be happy to try Shaman Healers also (fall back healer now after Druid).

Anyway I would love to hear what changes you all make in your plans (if any) and of course any feedback you have from your own testing/theory-crafting.

Thanks again for starting this thread for all the great info and recent BFA experience shared as my retail knowledge is so very dated...

[Tin]

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment..._rankings_for/

[nodoze]

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment..._rankings_for/

Thanks that was an interesting read!

I think there have been multiple tweaks for balancing and what not and likely there will be more so anything considered "meta" Tank &/or Healer option-wise may well change multiple times between now and Launch (or even after) so chasing the meta may be an exercise in frustration...

I am planning to keep following the advice to "play what you enjoy playing" keeping in mind rough pros/cons of each option that I find palatable.

Paladin and Druids have always been my first choices for mains (usually like having both dual spec'ed for Healer and Tank roles) and glad both are considered top tier or at least good for at least one of those roles the expansion (Druid considered best healers & Paladin Tanks in the top tiers) though obviously that may change some. A little sad that both are also in the bottom tier or have moved to a play-style that I am wary of (Druid tanks are considered meh and Paladin Healers will need to be in melee range) but I will watch both of those and maybe experiment with both during the expansion.

The above being said I am still planning on Paladin Tank & mobile Druid healer with my 3 Night Elf Beast Master Hunters for my primary team for ShadowLands. After this team is in a groove I may well level up a DK, BrewMaster, and 2nd Druid to contrast/compare Tank options and least a Shaman healer to compare to Druid healer... My intuition is that DK may actually be the better tank for me when boxing but I really like Paladins so I am starting with Paladin...

One thing I heard is that Mythic+ teams will likely want to have at least 1 of each of the 4 Covenants on their team to max buffs during dungeon runs and I was curious what you all thought about that... With that in mind, after consulting the spreadsheet, my initial guess would be something like this:

Slot : Class : Covenant;
Tank : Paladin : Kyrian? (Divine Toll for Mythic+);
Healer : Druid : Night Fae? ;
DPS1 : Hunter : Necrolord? ;
DPS2 : Hunter : Necrolord? ;
DPS3 : Hunter : Venthyr? (just to have at least 1 of each of the 4) ;

Thoughts?