Min/maxing your raid setup.

Pine · 05/27/07, 5:59 PM

New to the EJ forums, so if i'm beating a dead horse you can delete this or link me to a helpful post

So, for a little while now i've been thinking about any of my guilds 1-5% boss wipes and just think "if we changed our raid setup a little bit, that wouldn't have happened".

First off, do any encounter at the moment need more than 7 healers? We usually have anywhere from 8-9 and it seems so overdone.

We usually have 3 prot warriors and a feral druid, also weems really overdone. You could probably get away with one prot warrior/one feral druid. This brought to mind the idea of an MS warrior for blood frenzy, worth it?

This would be my idea with a 2 warrior(1 prot, 1 ms), 2 druid(1 resto, 1 feral), 2 pallies (both holy), 5 priests (2 holy, 3 shadow), 4 shaman(2 resto, 1 enhance, 1 elemental), 3 warlocks(all UA, maybe 1 0/21/40), 2 rogues (combat sword/dagger), 4 mages (all 10/48/3), 1 beast mastery hunter.

Group one:
Main tank
Tree druid
Resto shaman
Imp lock
Holy pally

Group two:
Shadow priest
Holy priest (spellsurge)
Holy priest(spellsurge)
Holy pally (spellsurge)
Warlock, any spec

Group three:
Combat rogue
Combat rogue
MS warrior
Enhance shaman
Feral druid

Group four:
Shadow priest
Resto shaman (spellsurge)
Warlock, any spec
Fire mage
Fire mage

Group five:
Shadow priest
#1 Fire mage
#2 Fire mage
Beast mastery hunter
Elemental shaman

Ideas on how to improve this setup?

Floria · 05/27/07, 6:11 PM

You're gonna need in upwards of 4 tanks, as Hydross and Void Reaver demand it. 2 can (and should!) be Feral Druids.

Try sticking a Ret paladin into that melee group, between the revamped Improved Sanctity Aura, and Sanctified Crusader, you'll see fabulous results. Not to mention that you're looking at only taking 2 paladins so far, and most classes can easily benefit from a 3rd blessing. If you've glanced at the thread on these forums here, you'll know that they bring relatively competitive DPS as well, we're not just buffbots anymore.

Knock out 2 of those priests. Bringing 5 priests is a recruitment pipe-dream, and additionally will strain the loot system, as they roll against Warriors and Druids. You don't want that many people rolling on a 1/3 drop.

Zerix · 05/27/07, 6:36 PM

4 Warriors (3 prot, 1 fury)
2 Rogues (combat)
3 Paladins (3 holy, 1 with imp might)
4 Priests (3 shadow, 1 holy)
3 Shamans (3 resto)
1 Druids (feral)
3 Warlocks (affliction)
3 Mages (fire)
2 Hunters (bm, marks)

G1
Warlock
Prot Warrior 1
Prot Warrior 2
Prot Warrior 3
Paladin

G2
Resto shaman
Rogue
Rogue
Fury warrior w/ solarian trinket
Druid

G3
Shadow Priest
Mage
Mage
Resto Shaman
Warlock

G4
Shadow Priest
Mage
Hunter
Resto shaman
Hunter

G5
Shadow Priest
Paladin
Paladin
Warlock
Holy Priest

As much as I would personally love an enhancement shaman I havent seen a good one with decent gear in action, and until I do, a resto shaman seems more valuable in my eyes.

Pine · 05/27/07, 7:05 PM

to floria

i've killed both hydross and void reaver, and it's for certain you don't need 4 tanks for either of them, though we did have 4 it can be done with less, min/maxing :]

with the AOE strat on 2.1 hydross rogue can basically tank an add each, and you can do vr with 2 tanks..probably better with three though

i havn't read much math on ret pallies, but i guess they would be nice for keeping seals up..but groups only fit 5 people and i'm not sure who you would take out for a ret pally

to zerix

why bring 3 prot warriors and a feral? what encounter is honestly that demanding on threat that you need to have all 3 warriors be protection

not having a resto druid and only one holy priest is going to seriously gimp your hots..3 resto shamans is nice for chain heal though

Ragnor · 05/27/07, 7:08 PM

I'm biased but you really want 3 paladins for 25 man raids for 3 blessings and 3 auras, a 3rd blessing is a pretty huge buff to the raid...

Rogues: Might, Salv, Kings
Hunters: Kings, Wisdom, Might
Priests: Salv, Wisdom, Kings
Mages: Salv, Wisdom, Kings
Locks: Salv, Wisdom, Kings
Tanks: Kings, Light, Might
etc etc

Regarding ret paladins, well it doesn't need to be a full ret pally... imp might is only 5 points into "ret" but alot of people are experimenting with ret pallies post 2.1 buffs to see if it's worthwhile. The jury is still out imo.

There are clear benefits to having Judgements (Light, Wisdom, Crusader) up fulltime on a boss:

JoL = 115 hp healed per proc melee (~50% proc rate)
JoW = 71 mana gained roughly every 2nd spell/hit
Jotc = 3% crit for the raid

Judgements don't look much on paper and you often don't actively notice the affect of them but they have the the power to trivialize bosses (JoL on loatheb back in naxx, JoW on Nerfarion back in bwl). You will see hunter and shadow priest performance sky rocket with 100% JoW uptime.

Keeping judgements up as a holy paladin when you're supposed to be a primary healer is a pain, it consumes precious casting time and mana. It also means you have to hover near melee range to refresh them meaning you might take more short range aoe damage, get feared, aoe stunned etc. It also increases your threat (no range modifier).

There is quite a few encounters where 2-3 holy paladins can ensure maximum uptime of JoL/JoW but there are also several where it's not very practical and you actually gimp your healing performance by trying to keep judgements on the boss.

Iniliara · 05/27/07, 7:43 PM

I'm agreed with Ragnor; having three Paladins can be very nice. Unfortunately, that's not always as viable for Horde, so two has to do a lot of the time.

You probably also don't want any more than two Prot warriors. If you've got more warriors than that, it's worth having them as Fury most of the time, whilst keep a decent set of tanking gear and throwing them some gold each week for respecs. If you're looking to build the ideal raid setup from a smaller group, however, Feral druids will probably serve you better.

As far as healing goes, 7's plenty for most fights. There's the odd occasion where you may want to sub in an 8th, but they seem less frequent now. As far as the balance of classes for those healers go, you should have at least two paladins, one resto druid, and mix the rest of the heal spots up with resto shamans and holy priests. We typically run with three holy priests, two paladins, a resto druid and two shamans, which has yet to fail us as far as healing goes. Another paladin in place of a holy priest would be nice, but I don't feel our raid hurts overmuch because of it.

Osse · 05/27/07, 7:58 PM

Group five:
Shadow priest
Beast mastery hunter
Beast mastery hunter
Beast mastery hunter
feral druid / enchancement shaman

If the hunters are even half decent they'll outdamage the mages because of group synergy and hunter dps buffs in 2.1 patch.

Dothorio · 05/27/07, 8:54 PM

Originally Posted by Pine

4 mages (all 10/41/3),

Ideas on how to improve this setup?

best way to improve your raid is make sure that your mages use all 61 talent points.

Binkenstein · 05/28/07, 12:31 AM

I'd say that having group 1 as:

Prot Warrior
Prot Warrior/Feral Druid
Paladin
Warlock
Tree Druid

May be better than having a third tank in there. These two tanks would of course be the primary two tanks.

Also, healing wise, I would go with a group with a resto shaman and a shadow priest. VE/VT from the shadow priest, more damage/heal and regen from the shaman. BL can be useful in those major healing stages (like late gruul).

Meddler · 05/28/07, 12:50 AM

I'd have to argue in favour of a fair bit of flexibility myself. In the case of a tank group for example you're going to design it quite differently for a threat based fight (WF being damn valuable if using a warrior tank for example) than for an endurance fight. Similarly things like general shaman placement, shadow priests etc are going to vary depending on whether your dps or healing are being most strained by the encounter design and also to a fair degree simply by how well endowed your guild is with quality players/gear amongst the different classes.

Sort of examples outlined by others above generally look pretty reasonable to my eyes (and plenty of those posting probably have substantially more TBC raid experience than I do) but would very much caution about aiming for a one size fits all raid layout - it makes a good starting point but requirements and available resources will vary.

Alayne · 05/28/07, 12:30 PM

Speaking as a mage, I find Spellsurge proc vexing. When the buff is applied, it can drag a mage out of Invisibility -- the solution, of course, is to watch for the procs and pop Invis after it fades away, but it's just another thing to watch for.

Northerner · 05/28/07, 1:47 PM

For what it is worth (and it really is far more important to have good people) we run:

Group one:
Main tank (prot War)
Tree druid (low attendence but we love him, tree because he lost a bet)
Resto shaman
Imp lock (Deep Affliction w/SE)
Holy pally

Group two:
Shadow priest (out generally still #1 dps and utility that amazes)
#1 Fire mage (10/48/3, me)
#2 Fire mage (10/48/3, whoever is listening to me lately)
Beast mastery hunter (working on it!, presently a MM Hunter or another mage if they show)
Elemental shaman

Group three:
Rogue (daggers, combat)
Rogue (probably mutalate or hemo or something else to annoy me)
MS warrior (when he shows, more likely a feral p2)
Prot Paladin (grandfathered in and perfect attendence...)
Feral (or another warlock often)

Group four:
Disc/Holy
Resto shaman
Warlock, any spec
Warlock, any spec
Hunter (probably PvP spec for all we can tell)

Group five:

Shadow priest
Disc/Holy priest
Disc/Holy priest
Holy pally
Random Guildy

[/quote]

We have far too much variance in our raid makeup as it stands but that's what we generally put out. It is very obvious to those of us that track things that there are standouts and also those that kinda ride a bit but the major synergies are the spriests and the warlocks in my opinion. For what it's worth, the high (near-perfect) attendance is the officers: fire mage (me), hunter (soon BM if I can have my way, and GL), prot war, feral, Shaman and lock. We are trying to pick up another healing druid and another offtank/dps warrior at present but overall I'm pretty happy with our setup.

Sebudai · 05/28/07, 5:16 PM

Those are some whacky group setups. Your melee classes should report the raid leader for not giving them a shaman. Also, healers rarely need a shadow priest, and why would you put a BM hunter in a group with an elemental shaman, especially when you have another shadow priest available for him? I'd build a proper hunter group with the feral druid in there, and give the melee a shaman.

Shandara · 05/28/07, 5:29 PM

Originally Posted by Sebudai

Those are some whacky group setups. Your melee classes should report the raid leader for not giving them a shaman. Also, healers rarely need a shadow priest, and why would you put a BM hunter in a group with an elemental shaman, especially when you have another shadow priest available for him? I'd build a proper hunter group with the feral druid in there, and give the melee a shaman.

Pets scale very nicely with windfury and/or unleashed fury.

Edit: turning on brain I meant leader of the pack + unleashed fury

Lumi · 05/28/07, 5:33 PM

Group one with the tree druid is kinda weak considering you are going to toss your second tank in that group slot.