Multibox ZG (last character for team- input appreciated)

[nodoze]

Thanks for the thanks . For the remaining slot I was also leaning toward a Mage myself though a Warrior could be good (and I had forgot about a Hunter which is also a decent option).

Another advantage of the Locks is that you can soulstone all Priests such that if they go OOM & die they can go into crazy 'Spirit of Redemption' mode and then self-rez in combat via SoulStone and then pop potions/runes for mana. If you know you have a run-away mage with huge ignite damage you can Blessing of Protection him and SoulStone him before he dies (lots of options including Warriors who could self-rez, get quick heals, & taunt back into the fight)... Also a limited number of Locks can DoT to put max debuffs on bosses that aren't being FocusFired down and soften them up without stealing aggro from offTanks.

Edit: Another advantage of Locks is that with the PVP Gloves & a Paladin Concentration Aura a Soul-Linked Warlock can be a decent off Tank with no-push-back Searing Pains...

Regarding Paladins I both mained them and multi-boxed them in many different party/raid compositions from Vanilla through WoTLK so I tend to think of how to leverage them as multi-role Hybrids... I also have already done theory-crafting for my own Classic 10 to 20 box (see Paladin tabs and various "box" tabs on my spreadsheet) so I can easily grab some things for you to ponder upon...

Some baseline minimums to consider for Paladin roles (and there is some flexibility even in the minimums):

Minimal Paladin Holy Talents needed to be decent mana efficient healer 20/0/0 : 31 points free;
(obviously more is better)

Minimal Paladin Prot/Holy Talents needed to be decent AoE Threat Tank; 11/13/0 : 27 points free;
(especially if another Paladin in party/raid gives you Sanctuary);

Paladin with both Healing/Threat minimums met 20/13/0 : 18 points free;

For additional reference this is Matricus's Paladin 30/21/0 RaidHealer/5boxTank build which he runs to great effectiveness as both a Raid Healer and a Tank in his Pa3MP 5box.

If you are a single Paladin trying to do both roles 30/21/0 (lots of options in there) is pretty common but in your case your 3 Paladins are part of a 20box raid so you can be pretty creative if you think of them as "a hive" working together...

With a "Paladin hive approach" in mind and the need to tank 4 bosses in a pull you could consider something like the following for your Trio Paladins in Raid and your 4 Tank Party:

Tank Party Slots:
1): Warlock with improved Stamina buff+Fire_Sheilds;
2): Warrior 1;
3): Warrior 2;
4): Main Paladin Tank (11/31/9) Defense Capped w Improved Devotion Aura for Tank Group;
5): Paladin Healer-offTank1 (21/13/17) w Improved Retribution Aura for Tank group;

Paladin Healer-offTank2 (30/21/0) w Sanctuary & both Improved Devo & Concentration for caster group (you could choose one or neither);

Note that dual Sanctuary Blessings stack in Classic (Greater with regular) so I tried to work that in even though it isn't mandatory... The above could give you on all 4 Tanks and Warlock+pet in your Tank Party:

Kings
Blessing of Sanctuary;
Greater Blessing of Sanctuary;
Improved Retribution Aura;
Improved Devotion Aura;
Imp Stamina Buff;
Imp Fire Shield;

*Note: Swap Devo Aura for Resistance Aura if helpful for a given fight or Concentration Aura on demand if the Tanking Paladins need to supplement heals... My Main Tank has Concentration Aura on hot key for when he needs to switch to off-heals or heal the primary healer...


I may be missing something but my quick thoughts right before a pull with 4 bosses would be to have the 3 Paladins buff the Tank group & themselves as follows:

-Paladin Healer-offTank2: Bless Warlocks, Paladins, & Warriors with Greater Blessing of Sanctuary (GBoSanct);
-Paladin Healer-offTank1: Bless Warlocks & Paladins with GBoKings & Warriors improved GBoMight;
-Paladin Main Tank:
--- Bless Warriors with Greater Blessing of Kings;
--- Bless Warlocks & Paladins with Greater Blessing of Salvation;
--- replace Salvation with regular Sanctuary on self and offTank1;
--- If desired drink quickly and while drinking have Imp buff all tanks with FireShield and then pull;

Note: For Warriors you could instead have offTank1 do Kings and Main to regular Sanctuary...

Note that you can macro the last parts to do it all quickly right before pull...

At 3 mins into the fight you can use a macro to rebuff imp fire shield and regular Sanctuary on Maintank/offTank1;

Anyway there is lots of flexibility and since I already had most of the above on spreadsheets or in my head I figured I would share it with you...

[Multiboxforme]

@nodoze And just wow again. I was optimistic to get some good feedback on this forum, but your thoughts are more than I was hoping for. I really appreciate it sir. I'm sold on your suggested Paladin setup. You obviously know the class very well (much better than I do) and the suggested differences than my original plan of just holy gives me a ton of additional flexibility. So to recap here is the current plan with adding mage as final dps.

Group 1
1) Warrior tank 1
2) Warrior tank 2
3) Warlock improved imp
4) Prot pally 11/31/9
5) Hybrid pally 21/13/17

Group 2
1) Warlock
2) Hybrid pally 30/21
3) Resto druid
4) Holy priest
5) Fire mage

Group 3
1) Fire mage
2) Fire mage
3) Fire mage
4) Warlock
5) Holy priest

Group 4
1) Fire mage
2) Fire mage
3) Fire mage
4) Warlock
5) Holy priest

Once again probably a bit light on DPS but my hope is the abundance of fire mages with fire debuffs will somewhat make up for it.

I like the thoughts regarding buffs and just discovered Buff'o'mat a couple of weeks ago. Boy, that was life changing and has made buffing so much more seamless. I just have it hotkeyed on a single key and spam it until buffs are done across all characters.

I'm going to have to improve my current setup a LOT as I know there is just a ton of opportunity for improvement. Right now with the 9 60s I just have repeater regions setup for healing, buff'o'mat for buffing, and GSE for my damage rotation on the followers. I've seen some crazy good setups that have shown me I have a long ways to go and after I get the remaining toons to 60 I'm going to pause and really spend some time on optimizing my configuration before hitting the raid content.

When I give ZG a whirl I'll update here in case anyone wants to know how things worked. Thanks again Nodoze- this was really, really helpful.