I'm bored waiting for lazy paladins to finish buffing between emp attempts, so I thought I'd pick up the tangent from the DPS warrior and feral druid threads, and compose my "ideal" 40-man setup for beating every single raid encounter in the game, if you could bring the same 40 people from green level 60s to full AQ farming without respecs. It would be interesting to see the horde perspective on it. I'll assume 1.10 priest talents.

Feel free to disagree, the discussion is half the fun.

6 warriors
2 Defiance/Flurry warriors
2 MS warriors
2 Prot warriors

This allows for varied tanking, depending on wether it's a output heavy boss mob (ragnaros, magmadar, golemagg) or aggro sensitive mob (Vael, BWL drakes). The MS warriors provide offtanking, dps and obviously MS for the healer bosses.

6 priests
1 Shadow PvE damage spec
3 Disc/Holy Maximum Throughput/Endurance spec (GHeal)
2 Disc/Holy Inspiration spec (FHeal)
At least 3 of them dwarves, obviously.

The shadow priest allows for one of the priests to go dps for race encounters and quick clears, as well as boost the damage of the warlocks. Keep in mind this crew will be doing everything from MC to AQ without respecs, so multirole specs like shadow and feral actually have some merit.

5 paladins
Healing specced, with variations allowing for all the blessings

5 druids
1 31F/20R feral druid
3 11+F/31+R resto druids
1 tonofR resto druid
This gives you the option of having LotP for dps race encounters or a druid tank, and leaves you with powerful healing all around. The amount of healers in this raid can vary between 14 and 16 depending on need.

5 rogues
PvE damage specced, obviously

5 mages
Probably arcane/frost all around, perhaps one for fire.

4 warlocks
Demon/Dest specced of some variation, leaving you with at least 2 soul link warlocks, and preferrably most have MD.

4 hunters
MM plz thx.

This damage crew will have AE options, and high damage output for those threat sensitive encounters through rogues and hunters.

Prior to 1.10, I'd probably go as low as 3 or 4 priests in favor of paladins.

6 Warriors-
4 Full Prot,
2 Fury with GM weapons

6 Preists-
All healing spec (w/e the hell they want to, as long as they press the heal button)

5 Druids-
5(4) Innvevates
(1) LoTP for some random reason.

5 Pally-
Healing spec, with a mix of kings / imp blessings.

6 Rogues-
Dps Go.

5 Mages-
AP Frost / Full Frost prefered.

3 Warlocks-
Elements/Shadows/Recklessness bitches.

4 Hunters-
Dunno.

5/5/5/5/5/5/6/4 (6 warriors, 4 warlocks, 5 of all else)

Warriors:
1 prot warrior
3 31/5/15 variants
2 31/20 DPS builds

Rogues:
PvE combat

Mages:
Frost/Arcane or Arcane/Frost, mostly PvE DPS builds, with 1-2 with snare talents

Warlocks:
No huge spec preference. MD/Ruin or SM/Ruin with 1-2 Soul Link thrown in I suppose.

Hunters:
Marks/Survival or Survival/Marks, not much variety here

Druids:
As above.

Priests:
All Holy/Disc or Disc/Holy variants, hard to go wrong in 1.10 (no PvE shadow -- it isn't viable for Horde due to mana)

Shamans:
No requirements except that they have NS and Imp LHW. A mix of 0/21/30, 30/0/21, and 0/30/21 builds.

How about 5 Warriors of varying specs, 10 Priests and Druids of varying specs and 25 Hunters?

Heh.

Edit- Swap out 5 Hunters for 5 Paladins/Shaman. :ph34r:

PvE shadow may become viable at some point. In 1.10 shadow priests can get meditation while they previously couldn't. Plus with oracle set you have a set that actually has a good amount of spirit and mana/5 in addition to lots of damage. Maybe if mana spring totem wasn't so ass they'd be viable, so maybe after shaman review.

I wish fire mages brought more to the table in pve. They can do great damage, and there are times where you want good fire damage, but ice block is too fucking good for raiding to give up.

Random thought: Mages should get a talent that lets their critical strikes cause no threat. That would put an interesting spin on things.

Well, yes and no. Before, the advantage fire had on encounters where they could use it was raw power. However, the new spellbooks in AQ20 make both Fireball and Frostbolt level 62 equivalent spells, and basically removes the DPS advantage that fire had. That, combined with the fact they're being made significantly more debuff limit unfriendly in 1.10 and the fact that the mana efficiency just isn't there on longer fights, makes me very sad for the future of fire mages.

:angry:

The difference between 31/5/15 and 31/20 warriors is too small, certainly in utility, to bother making a distinction. Bring two fury warriors instead. More DPS and you'll still get all the Mortal Strike a boy could need.

Also that means there are two more people to ninja all the Rogue shit and that's always a plus.

:angry: That's what feral druids are for, isn't it?

Oh, poor Crauch. Loved by his raid leader and yet scorned by his heart.

Also I really wonder about shadow priests in 1.10. Being able to reach that 30% mark and make use of mana oils has got to bring them closer to being raid viable hordeside.

we got 70% firemages in aq40 and it's working out greeeeat. lose a little (yes little) in endurance, gain a bit in burst. gain another aoe snare.

the debuff nerf in 1.10 is not good news though.

I don't think 15% chance of increased dirt nap is anything our warlocks need.

We have on rare occasions enjoyed a briefly shadow-specced priest along to weave for us. As Rambar says, it does tend to lead to quicker deaths on some mobs. Wyrmguards especially.

Raiding with a shadow priest is like an always-open buffet of sweet sweet cocaine. So good, so easy to OD and die.

I agree with this.

Initially everything is nice. DPS is very good, big numbers are fun.

Then a crit and you say to yourself...ehh, not so bad.

Then another crit with a modifier, and you start getting blood in your eyes and a vicous smile, jabbing the shadow bolt button harder and harder as if breaking the keyboard is somehow going to make it instacast.

Next hit isn't a crit. Not even close.

Now you're pissed. How dare the game deny you 1.3k base shadowbolts

You hit the The Button.

...

You spend the next five minutes oogling the spirit hottie as pissed healers refuse to rez you until all buffs are done.

The problem with trying to raid on a shadow spec now, is that having Inner Focus and Med don't make up for not having Mental Agility and Mental Strength.
Without those talents, shadow priests have small mana pools, and to heal the same amount as a holy priest, they'll usually have to use rank 6...whereas a holy priest in 1.10 will probably be safe with rank 4 flash heal. Shadow Priests' mana literally vanishes in long fights. (They would be WORTHLESS in the emps fight.)

Shadow Spec is a strong 1v1 pvp spec, and not really anything else. They really strengthened it, but they also added a competing pvp spec in PI Holy, which is a build that can probably still adequately raid.

While Shadow Weaving is nice, the only place where a shadow priest can really keep up in 1.9 is in MC (I was able to put shadow weaving 5 stacks on every mob we engaged, but had to drink after almost every fight, used roughly 130 crystal waters.)
...in 1.10, with the increased cost of shadow spells due to Mental Agility being out of reach, and the shrunk mana pool...I doubt I could repeat.
Anyway, a shadow priest's raid damage is only comparable to a mage and warlock's raid dps if the shadow priest is allotted the same priority on +damage gear..which I'm doubting any successful raiding guild allows.

A lot of Alliance raiding guilds have one official shadow priest, who takes a mage slot on raids and isn't considered a healer at all, and gets equal access to stuff like Mantle of the Blackwing Cabal, Ebony Flame, etc.

But yeah, it just isn't happening without JoW/BoW.

The difference between 31/5/15 and 31/20 is one can tank nefarian without a lifegiving gem, the other cannot. 15 points will net you 1.) last stand 2.) 1/3 improved shield block and 3.) some points in defiance (all the points if you tank the 31/3/17 build). So, the difference, and probably the reason so many raiding warriors on pvp servers use this build, is that it essentially allows you to have your cake and eat it too.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear, I meant that the difference in DPS is too small, not the tanking ability. I'd take 2 Fury warriors for DPS rather than two 31/20 and either way, three 31/5/15.

31/20 and 20/31 are interchangeable in my book. I just meant "two pure DPS builds." As Chocula and others have noted, for Horde with Windfury, Fury's superiority is not quite so apparent. That will change over time though due to the way AP scales better when you wield two weapons vs. wielding one.

I hear protection warriors do DPS