Paladin, Druid, insert ranged dps classes of your choice.
Druid synergizes with Paladin slightly better than other healers because of thorns. Paladin will mindlessly get threat, and you really really want that when multiboxing, if you are gonna tank at all.
I’ve solo 3-Manned every classic dungeon except UD strat using Lock, Druid, Pala. And could probably pull that one off now that I have better gear.
I wouldn’t recommend using melee dps. Lots of unfriendly mechanics that will give you a headache.
So maybe a Mage for water and two of whatever floats your boat.
Thorns is pretty minor so if that’s the reason for using it over healers I would 100% rather just have bloodlust from shamans.
Paladin tank, shaman healer feels right. I just can’t lock down the best dps option and it’s a big commitment leveling all those to 70 and have regrets. Maybe I should go diverse with warlock/mage/hunter instead of stacking 3 of the same.
Ok, so I have done quite a bit of dualboxing in the past on both Live and Classic. On Classic it has been Rogue / Priest … cause rogues are awesome. On Live its usualy Bear / Healer eg insta Que LFG w/ Healer & Tank stuff locked down.
Now, you said you did quite a bit of dungeons in Classic … and that is commendable. But TBC is going to be a whole new ballgame and CC is a meta in and of itself.
Lots of people are saying Shammy for Blood Lust and Chain heal … but thats assuming you can pump on all 3 dps and hold threat. Further chain heal is primarily for mele zug fests where 2 or more of your dps are taking dmg all the time. In your case its just you … can you hold agro off yourself? If yes, there is only going to be 1 target consistently taking dmg outside of mechanics … and to that end druid hots and spriest bubble are going to be far far more effective.
For multiboxing I have found that its more of a battle of attrition … what doesn’t kill you gives you loot. And too that end, I would actually value a spriest to mana battery the group over a Shammy … cause going for speed isnt exactly your goal.
This is the load out I would personally go with:
Pally Tank
+ Brain Dead rotation
+ Hand of Prot
+ Rightious Fury Healz for AoE threat
+ Pull w/ Disk for solid agro on up to 3 mobs (might break CC)
+ Hard Rez
Druid Healz
+ Lots of semi passive healz eg Hot and forget for 10s
+ Tranquility for when it really really hits the fan and you dont have time to micro healz
+ Sleep / Roots
+ Battle REz
Warlock
+ Brain Dead rotation w/ solid Brain Dead AoE (seed)
+ 3x CC: Charm, Fear, Banish
+ Can tap for Pally to RF Heal
+ Fell Pup can Auto Dispell & Auto Kick
+ Health Stone
+ Soul Stone (On tank w/ Hard Rez)
+ Imp for More Stam
Hunter
+ Brain Dead rotation (1 button hunter macro)
+ Trap, Trap, Sleep, Fear Beast
+ Misdirect
+ Pig Pet for Pallys lack of charge & direct taunt
+ Can drop trap at Healers feet before pull
+ Depending on Spec, can sleep a target
Spriest
+ Mana Battery synergy w/ Pally
+ Bonus Shadow Dmg for Lock
+ Mass Dispell (target dispell will get old fast)
+ Fort
+ Mind Control
+ Prot Pally can Taunt off the mad threat generated by MC giving huge threat cap
+ Offheaz if needed
+ Hard Rez
Pally Tank
Shaman Healer
Then a mix of mages/warlocks
Shaman brings wrath of air boosting your pally’s threat + the entire group’s dps. Earth shield makes tank healing simple. Likely you’ll be using mana stream with a full caster group, but with enough +heal the healing stream can start doing an impressive 200-300 a tic of braindead healing.
It’s also because druid is the least focus needing one of the healers. You can toss some hots and most of the time go afk for a bit, gives you more focus on using your dps characters with the most effectiveness you can get.
And because druid is just an amazing class to have in TBC and later expacs. Flight form is huge quality of life. The only area Shaman really has an advantage over druid in, is being a totem/bloodlust bot in raids. It won’t do much for you in 5 man partying compared to the extra focus being able to hot and forget will give you on a druid. If you just personally happen to like Shaman, feel free. Do what you have fun with. But the Druid is pretty much the better character when it comes to versatility with regards to all the things you can do with it later.
Most of that utility is wasted in TBC … bind hearth to Shat and you have ports to all major cities, Summoning stones work at all Instance portals, Quing into a BG is almost a guarantee of a mage table … and you can /afk afterwards.
I don’t plan to do heroic with my set up but I’d hesitate to agree here. CC was very valuable in a lot of those heroics and you get almost none of it in this comp (entangle roots and banish/fear).
I did some of those heroics back in TBC and it was very difficult. Classes without reliable CC often got overlooked. If you were a warrior you better be a tank cause like no group wanted you. Mages and rogues were always in high demand. As a resto druid at the time I would have to keep a mob entangle rooted to get through some pulls otherwise the tank was not healable. Those mobs 2 shot most dps with thier 5k-8k melee and hit geared tanks quite hard. I recall I often marked my own root target with green triangle.
