Best 5-man group for Classic

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
2

Wesley is in for a rough time…

Just kidding. The best comp is pretty simple: Warrior MT, priest, mage, rogue, hunter. Warrior MT is self explanatory. Holy priests aren’t necessarily the best in every situation, but they’re always good. Mage is necessary for AI for the priest, water and food, portals, poly, AoE, great dps, etc. Rogues are great for high dps, stealth tricks, and picking up leather loot. Finally, hunters are a great 5th because they use mail, so no loot competition, they are good for pulling and kiting, the pet can off tank, and they do good dps with minimal good gear.

Paladins are good but you don’t want to compete for plate dps drops. Shaman are fine, but priests are generally better healers and hunters are better dps. Warlocks compete with mages for gear, and mage is better utility for a 5 man group. Druids are also good but priests are better healers, rogues are better dps, and warriors are better tanks. However, if nobody wants to play rogue, you could fill that spot with a druid, since brez and switching to resto when the priest can’t play could be useful.

Good luck!

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Several of my friends and I plan on doing the same thing. We will return to the game with a full dungeon group to level together and tackle the Classic dungeons as a team.

We are probably looking at something like - Druid, Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Hunter. Ideally, we could get a priest in there somewhere, but we will have to see what everyone else decides come release day.

Warrior tank, Resto Druid, Shadow Priest, Rogue, Mage if our warrior wants to tank. Feral Druid tank, Holy Priest, Fury Warrior, Rogue, Mage if our priest wants to heal. Or we could have some other combination of these.

Honestly, who knows what our dungeon group will end up looking like, but it is fun to theorycraft and think about what we will all be doing come Classic.

One thing is certain - I will be re-rolling my druid. I’ve mained a druid since the release of Vanilla WoW, and do not plan on veering from that path now.

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it doesnt hurt to have 2 of same class as long as specs are different. like 2 druids, one feral and one resto. or two mages, one fire and one frost (depending on content… like both mages would need to be frost for raiding mc). or two priests, one holy and one shadow. or two shaman, one enhance and one resto. or two pallies, one ret and one holy.

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Warrior Tank
Priest / Paladin healer
Mage (portals for group is nice, so is food)
Warlock (To soulstone healer to prevent GY runs)
5th spot either hunter or rogue

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Depends, are you planning on all leveling in a 5 man group or just running dungeons? If you are just running dungeons id say Priest Warrior Hunter Mage Rogue. If you are leveling up together and knocking out dungeons in a 5 man group then Id say Warrior Druid Priest Mage Paladin/Shaman since you get to funnel gear to each class relatively easily and it will be fast for leveling, you can have either the paladin or Druid go healing but your group has a res so you aren’t shafted if more than 1 person in your group dies. Also a resto druid while leveling can be a godsend since they move fast and can heal you if you are getting ganked.

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War tank
Pali/Sham healer depending on faction.
Mage (water is king, great CC)
Rogue (best dps tied with fury wars)
Last dps is really filler. I’d want a hunter to get the mail dps drops (mail healing goes to pali/sham).

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In order from best to worst (for dungeons)…

Tank:
Feral Druid - Best choice. Least gear dependent. Best AoE DPS/Threat, and best single target DPS (but not threat; Sunder Armor OP). Very good for soloing when not with your group. Can also DPS with the same gear, or heal with another set of +Healing gear. Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to respec to Restoration once you start raiding, as few raid groups will have use for a Feral Druid until AQ.

Fury Warrior - More DPS than Prot. Protection talents not really useful until raiding. No debuff limitations in a 5-man, so Deep Wounds helps with threat. Better for soloing that Protection. Very gear dependent.

Protection Paladin - Pretty garbage. No taunt. Really good DPS/threat against Undead, otherwise pretty bad. Gear forces you to choose between mana or Defense, both of which are necessary for Paladins to tank, so you’ll always be lacking something.

Healer:
Shadow Priest - Yes, Shadow. Holy talents offer little extra healing, but much less damage. Can solo, and has more efficient damaging spells for boss fights. Lower cooldown on CC, and extra spell: Silence. Can still cast Resurrect. You might get into a raid group as Shadow, but you’ll probably have to respec to Holy at 60.

Protection Paladin/Enhancement Shaman - Depends on faction, but both serve the same function. These will be the specs you level solo in. Can heal just fine with a set of +Healing gear. Decent heals, great buffs. You’ll have to respec to Holy or Restoration once you start raiding, though. Several needed in raids.

Some Horde groups bring Enhancement Shamans equipped with Nightfall to maintain high up-time on the debuff, so you might get to stay Enhancement.

Feral Druid - Same as Shadow Priest, basically, except you don’t get an extra CC, Silence, and you can’t cast Resurrection.

DPS:
Warlock - Oddly one of the most useful and most powerful DPS classes, yet one of the least populated. Can summon. Has a pet for off-tanking. Can CC. Soulstone. Basically totally self-sufficient; no need for heals. Great soloing. Lots of Warlocks needed in raids.

Mage - Great DPS. CC. Vending machine. Portals. Decent soloing. Lots of Mages needed in raids.

Rogue - Consistent DPS. Fairly weak CC, but lots of it. REALLY rough time soloing, though, so only pick this if you plan to mostly be in groups. There will be TONS of rogues, so it might be hard to find a spot in a raid.

Fury Warrior - Always use two-handers while leveling. You don’t have the +Hit gear to dual wield yet. Great DPS with gear, but arguably the absolutely worst solo leveling experience of any class and spec, and utter trash without gear.

Hunter - Pretty bad DPS, even though they’re a pure DPS class. Decent CC and kiting. Best soloing by a long shot (pun intended). Pet can off-tank. Multiple pets means multiple roles, so great utility. Can provide a unique buff with certain pets. Can run out of arrows, so prepare for your Hunter to say they need to go buy more, or start meleeing. EVERYTHING is a melee weapon, so prepare for the Hunter greed.

Anything Else - The rest are all equally pretty bad.

Just so the OP doesn’t get confused, and no offense to you, but this is silly. In vanilla, you wear the best gear for its stats, regardless of its armor type. Hunters didn’t exclusively use Mail, and in fact don’t use Mail at all until 40. Even then, lots of Leather gear, especially when leveling, is BiS.

This is true for every class, not just Hunters. Expect your healers, even Paladins, to roll need on Cloth gear if it has +Healing. Expect your melee DPS to roll on Leather because all Leather gear is seemingly over-budgeted with +Hit, +Crit, and Attack Power.

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Druids have Hibernate.

Dunno why, but people tend to forget that druid has a CC. Perhaps I am just aware of it, because we ran ST so much :smiley:

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I said they don’t get an extra CC like Shadow does. All Druids get Hibernate, not just Feral Druids.

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Oh, I thought you meant an extra CC, as for the group. My mistake then I guess. Just the wording had me think that way.

And I’m aware that all druids gets Hibernate.

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5 gnome warlocks is the best group.

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Trying to be concise in my wording since I’m covering every role and all the choices, basically, so I probably did word it poorly. Sorry.

Also, Shadow doesn’t really get an extra CC, either, just a reduced cooldown on theirs, and Silence, which is hardly a CC since the mob can just auto attack.

Feral also gets increased duration on Bash and Pounce, and Feral Charge, but since I listed Feral Druid as one of the healer options, I didn’t bother to include it, since that would be a waste of mana for a healer to swap to Bear or Cat form just to CC.

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Could you explain how a Druid will successfully serve as the only healer for a dedicated 5-man that does not include an off-tank? I have been mulling playing a Druid during classic, but worry that it will not be strong enough in anything. Also, I only recently tried a Druid at low levels in modern, without deleting before level 5. It feels strange setting up the bar with a semblance of logical grouping of abilities, but the utility and effects are appealing.

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Warlock and Hunter and their 2 pets for offtanking can be a wipe preventer.

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This is my opinion:

Druid Tank- less gear dependent while leveling and produces more aggro and more damage. Also mark of the wild buff, a combat rez, and a innervate.

Ret Paladin- Buffs, is very durable, has BoP to protect healer, Lay on Hands, and is good on undead dungeons

Mage- Mainly for food/water, AoE ability, and polymorph.

Disc Priest- Versatile healer for every situation. You can buff mage with power infusion build.

Hunter- Mainly because he is a mail user and won’t out-compete for armor. Otherwise i’d go for rogue.

If going horde-
I would switch the Ret pally with an enhancement shaman(Imp windfury), and hunter for Fury warrior(He’ll love the imp windfury). Horde side combo, I think actually is even better.

17

That’s hot. But it always ends badly. :sunglasses:

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Horde side I’d go warrior tank, shaman healer. For windfury totem. Add in a rogue to pick boxes, and then 2 of hunter/lock/mage.
Ally side I’d go druid tank, priest heals, tho a pally could work just fine too. Rogue to pick boxes and then 2 of hunter/lock/mage.

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This is what I would do also. It is a complete group with all forms of CC you’ll need, and nice utility like portals and summoning.

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My friends and I love classic dungeons so we will probably just spam them for the first week while we level up. We know it may not be efficient exp/hr, however with a launch economy, dungeons yield decent gold/hr at the same time as exp/hr (meaning easier time affording mounts and spells). We tried to pick classes that compliment each other in terms of buffs.

Current group composition for classic launch:

Feral Druid:

  • Main Tank
  • MotW buff
  • Innervate
  • Low gear dependance
  • Battle Rez

Holy Paladin

  • Main Healer
  • Good buffs
  • Efficient throughput
  • Judgements (Light/Wisdom)
  • DI for “Oh S&$#!” moments
  • Cleanse

Mage

  • Consistent Dps
  • Portals at later levels to get between dungeons and/or major cities for training/repairs
  • Free food and Water (this really adds up past lvl 20)
  • Excellent CC options
  • Good AoE
  • Interupt
  • Decurse
  • Slows

Warlock

  • Consistent Dps
  • Pet can be used as an OT if needed
  • Healthstones/Soulstones
  • Summons (lets players quickly repair and get back to dungeon)
  • Curses increase both mage and Warlock dps
  • Banish is often undervalued
  • Low downtime due to life tap
  • imp stam buff

Rogue

  • High dps
  • Lockpicking
  • interrupts
  • Sap and Blind
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It really depends how you want to run dungeons.

If you had 2 druids 3 rogues, you could probably stealth through a decent chunk of trash.

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