5 Palys? 4 Arms/Fury warriors and a Holy Paly? dumb idea or hmm...

[Tdog]

I'll jump in here and relate a bit of my experience 5-boxing DW melee shammies up through 49.

Good things:

• Zero downtime unless fighting multi-elite pulls. Whirlwind+ Cleave+ Sweeping Strikes
• Don't have to move to loot.
• No pets or other junk to worry about.
• Can still autoattack for good dmg when OOM. Rage > Mana
• Eat casters for lunch. Dit-freaking-to !!!
• Eat rogues for lunch, clean teeth with tiny daggers and wipe mouth when done with used Cloak of Shadows.
• Did I mention killing rogues with this group is fun? It is. No really.
• Self-rez + regular rez + heals means even when things go bad, they never go THAT bad. Lucky bastard Although having my one shaman does help.

Bad things:

• Repair costs.
• Melee means you can't burn down those really hard-hitting elites before they get to you.
• No real tank (and even if you had one they'd have a hard time keeping aggro) Meh... you can work around that
• Mobs that move around a lot can be frustrating. The satyr boss in Maraudon Purple side is a prime example. Yea they can but with a bit of practice it's not too bad. Fortunately there are only a few mobs that REALLY move around alot.
• You can be kited by mobs and players pretty easily. Intercept/hamstring helps a bit but yea it can be a pain with my warriors too.
• Your DPS is directly related to how good your weapons (primary) and other gear (secondary) are. Main Hand wep is the most important dps increasing for melee classes. Even with a great set of gear if you have a crappy MH you'll severely lack on DPS.
• Very little CC available.
• If your melee dmg isn't enough, you usually can't burst with instants enough to make up the difference on elites or players where it would matter.

Overall, though, I'm highly impressed with their ability to run most instances and quest like no tomorrow. The princess in Maraudon was the only thing that's given me trouble so far aside from the occasional bored 70.

@OP, While this is a POV from specifically 5x Enhancement Shamans there is quite a few good things to consider in Ugh's post no matter what team make-up you go with.

[Shaitan256]

The only seal I normally use is wisdom... prot pallies have horrible mana problems.

QFT, But never got aggro Problems either.

Regarding threat generation on pallies, consider that windfury scales with gear/spelldamage/talents on the pally, where flametongue does not.

That's true, but you could start with FT then get WF, asked one of my Ex-Guildies, he means they were doing it with him as shaman and a Warrior, and that, better so the DD's can begin earlier, don't know if it counts so much but if it works, then you can begin totem twisting. FT is eventually better for Heavy armored enemies? ok when they are not fire resistent

[ImaHealer]

I am almost tempted to toss a shaman into the mix to see
how this works out.

[Shaitan256]

I'm currently running this but don't have a Windfury totem yet, 3 Pally + 1 Shaman, I guess i should get a 5th, maybe Rogue(would be heavy to get at it when I'm doing damage with the Pallys-.- or Enhancementshaman would be easier I guess, only Totems and 2 /3 extra buttons, I have already a shaman could do Totems on same Buttons, so no really Problems there)

Wowwiki says WF has only GCD, can be Procced with Stormstrike (if dualwielding) twice at once. (only for Shaman Weapon Enchant not totems)

So Totems only affect Mainhand and has no Cooldown for WF Totem.

The shaman would be the Best choice to complete a Melee grp, are you going to specc one of your pallies to Tankadin? I'm between 1 Tankadin and 2 Ret or 3 Rets, When WotLK starts I'm adding a Tankknight if it won't work then he's going to be DD

[Ughmahedhurtz]

FT is eventually better for Heavy armored enemies? ok when they are not fire resistent

For paladins, no. Paladin threat is mostly generated through holy damage, which won't be affected by armor anyway, and since WF procs can trigger seals/judgements... (except in some rare circumstance I've managed to overlook)

[Shaitan256]

For paladins, no. Paladin threat is mostly generated through holy damage, which won't be affected by armor anyway, and since WF procs can trigger seals/judgements... (except in some rare circumstance I've managed to overlook)

Ah forgot about the seals. If this Theorycrafting is getting too deep, then I'm going to forget some things or putting them aside.

[Tdog]

You will be dropping the WF anyways for your 3 ret paladins. Don't really need to theorycraft this all out.

[Shaitan256]

Even if I make 1 to tankadin? Could get some Problems with tanking, If the Retris (sounds a bit weird if you say rets) going to be able to do enough Dmg, gonna test it. Hope soon enough. But the synergy is enormous I guess, and with a second Shaman, hell yeah ^^

And this wasn't only for me, Imahealer could get some clues out of it too, and every other who wants to try it as well

[Tdog]

Even if I make 1 to tankadin? Could get some Problems with tanking, If the Retris (sounds a bit weird if you say rets) going to be able to do enough Dmg, gonna test it. Hope soon enough. But the synergy is enormous I guess, and with a second Shaman, hell yeah ^^

And this wasn't only for me, Imahealer could get some clues out of it too, and every other who wants to try it as well

I wouldn't be worried about your prot pally holding aggro. I raided for the last 6 months prior to multiboxing as a ret paladin in a Illidan farming guild. Even w/o the prot pallies having a constant WF and Sanct aura on them and me having them both, being as I was in the melee group, they still held aggro off me just fine. In this scenario your prot pally will have a constant Sanct aura and a constant WF. He shouldn't have any issues whatsoever. But that's my personal experience anyways. /shurg

[voodoogriff]

Yeah between +12% Damage from Sanctity Aura and WF (which do proc Seals mmmm tasty) you could take 1h Weapon Specialization and get another 5% damage or get Reckoning (lolReckbomb)

A nice thing about having a Prot Paladin and 3 Ret Paladins, you really only need to have an assist macro and then you can bind your Seal/Judgement keys to the same keys on your tank and clones (no real need for macros with melee). Add in Bless of Sanctuary, Retribution Aura and a Shield spike, your tank is probably going to have quite an easy time with aggro.

And with a shaman in the party, you're also going to have Mana Spring totem which is nice for Prot Pallies.

BTW...this thread has caused me to add a 4 Paladin + 1 Resto Shaman group to my list (Belf for the Arcane Torrent for casters) of groups to try out.

Now that I think about it, you could tie in alot of things using 4 paladins.

Seals, Judgements, Crusaders Strike with either Holy Shield or Consecrate (you'd lose 2 seconds on CruStrike but meh).