There's more then 1 way to do it and I'm sure not all guilds set up groups the same but how does your guild do it? I'm mainly wondering about EJ but feel free to chime in for any other horde out there. :)

I know they'll vary for each fight but in this thread I'm talking more about what you generally do.

I didn't search these forums much, so sorry if there is a real good thread about this that I missed. Anyway this is a very good debate topic, as I'm sure some of you will agree. :)

See you could set groups up to optimize melee/hunter DPS, when possible (not worrying about where healers are placed for the most part.) Or you could be more controlled and try to set healers in each group and have their main responsibility their tanks or their group.

Then of course tanks might need shaman/locks in some fights. There's also healers/casters who benefit from tide, spring and tranq air.

As horde, I'm a big fan of not doing groups by healing but by optimizing shaman and to a lesser extent locks. Which is a bit less controled but I feel with ct raid assist and EM healers should have no problem keeping everyone alive. My reasoning is that as horde we should try to take advantage of our shaman's best qualities since we don't have BoK and what not =p. It does make healing assignments and healing in general a bit more difficult I guess but nothing too over-whelming.

I like to maximize DPS but that is me personally and of course there are exceptions. This is coming from an ex-priest btw, I now play a warrior (C'thun killing guild.)

I'm bored and haven't seen a good topic about this in a while and as horde there is alot more science, if you will, to this aspect of raiding then alliance has. So, how do YOU do groups. Do you mainly favor melee/hunter DPS? Give tanks shaman/locks for agro help/mitigation? Give healers shaman for tide and what not? Give mages/locks shaman for regen/agro reduction? Or set groups according to healing?

Been browsing these forums for a while, so thought i'd make my first.

I've been leading the raids of my guild for the most part for nearly a year now, and we're up to c'thun atm.

To answer your question, I'd normally go with lock/war/war/war/sham for tank group. I personally think it's worth it, and i always rotate shamans for tide mid-fight, whether it be to a healing group or a caster group.

Other than that the best way i've found is war/rogue/rogue/rogue/shaman - windfury is a great boost, and boosts dps far greater than a mana spring/tranq. Hunter/hunter/hunter/hunter/shaman is also a nice boost to dps, but not as much as the w/r/r/r/s combo if every said party knows what they're doing.

If i were to use a balance raid group as an example, i'd do something like:

1x warlock/warrior/warrior/warrior/shaman
1x warrior/rogue/rogue/rogue/shaman
1x warrior/rogue/rogue/hunter(ts)/shaman
1x druid/priest/priest/priest/shaman
1x hunter/hunter/hunter/hunter/shaman

There can be many differences on certain fights however, so there isn't really a great "base" to go by when setting groups. I found this to be effective and this is what i'd use for the most part.

There are quite a lot of fights around that require pretty large changes to the groups though, especially in AQ. I think it's best not to let it get overly complicated because it simply doesn't matter a great deal, but if you can handle it go for it.

I can offer examples of fights where the setup would differ if you'd like, but i'm afraid i have no in-game experience of the ouro/viscidus fights, or c'thun stage 2 as of now, although i've got a decent idea of what i'd use for them already.

Bring 8 shamans.

My personal philosophy is a hybrid of spreading healers and optimizing the use of shamans to enhance DPS. This is a typical group setup I'll aim for on ordinary fights:


(Note that we were melee-heavy that day and low on hunters, but the general point holds regardless.)

Gurg, do you ever double up shaman in an MT group for Grace and WF?

No

There are 14 healers in that group, it's not too DPS heavy, we usually have 14-16 healers in a given raid, never more than 16 except for special cases (some Viscidus fights).

Here's the class spread of our most recent AQ marathon clear:

5 druids
5 hunters
5 mages
5 priests
5 shamans
6 rogues
3 warlocks
6 warriors

The screen Gurg posted is most likely from MC which has been on "speed farm run" status for a while now. (I'm guessing this because my wife is on the raid - we both fight for the "good" PC - and I'm not.) But yeah, there's no need to stack raids heavily with healers when 15 or so can easily get the job done.

-edit-
No, that's definitely a BWL raid. Point still stands though since BWL isn't anything special either.

7 Wars 7 Rogues =z

What type of fights do you have issues with? You are still rocking 14 healers so it decently balanced but 14 melee dps seems a bit much, ive cut my guilds melee dps down from like 14~15 to 12-13.

I realize your guild is set in for the most part and thats how you are going to approach stuff, but theoratically would you rather have 5 of each class or just be tilted like so?

EDIT*

Damn you kaubel......

Next, why no love for the warlocks, only 3! My guild started rocking 5 up to raids and its amazing how well they do on DPS meters on a bunch of the encounters in AQ, Including C'thun.

ROFL im blind. I could have swore i counted 12. Do druids exist? :P

Back when I lead ZG runs I would sometimes put enough Shaman in my group to give me WF, Grace, Windwall, and Tranquil Air just to spite the casters.

No you were right, none of those druids are healers.

We used to be a healer heavy guild. However, I am really starting to appreciate heavy dps. We even ended up doing huhuran with 10 healers, and it went well. Though we got up to 13 for emps. It still seems really hard to do emps with less than 13 healers. But for us, 13 is ideal for emps.

I have been setting up groups to have warrior, rogue/warrior, rogue, hunter, druid/paladin. Or mage, mage, mage, warlock, priest. Or tank, tank, paladin, druid, priest.

So two tank groups and 6 dps groups. Usually two of which are caster heavy and the rest hunter/melee heavy. I put extra healers in with the mage groups or the groups with two warriors. I could set up the tank groups quite a bit different but I have actually been trying to eliminate alot of crosshealing that goes on. It usually results in distracted healers and a lot of overheal.

At first I was worried about putting the mages all in one group as they tend to be rather fragile and I was worried that they would drop while their priest was healing another mage in the group. I am beginning to think it is best though. It isn't that often that more than one or two mages need serious healing. ANd if you put a priest in their group they are more ready to react right away to when a mage does need healing.

I am surprised you have a druid over a priest in one of the ranged groups though. It sees to me that druids and paladins make really bad mage healers. So far, having two healers in mage groups means that priest can get off the fast shield and the other healer can follow up with a heal. And in the mean time the extra healer in the caster groups can focus on cross healing.

Of course there is no hard rule. Most fights in AQ have vastly different group setups. Huhuran, fankriss, sartura, emps, ouro, and cthun are all heavily customized. But in MC and BWL I will usually only have to move a few people around during the entire clear.

The way I usually do groups look almost identical except I do the MT and OT groups as such

groups 1 & 2
Tank
Lock
Shaman
Priest
Druid

Then DPS groups look as such:
Warrior
Rogue
Rogue
Hunter
Shaman

Basically the same just small variations.

Our normal raid makeup we try to go with 6 rogues/warriors and 4 Druids/Locks but it fluctuates, some times we get more mages then hunters or locks then mages, it just really depends on the night.

Yes, I usually put a priest with the mages/locks for the reasons you said. That was just an oversight, but I didn't have many screenshots of preformed raid groups onhand, so I just went with what I had as an example. I'd definitely swap the group 7 druid with one of the priests in 3 or 4.

Go away tim >:O

;)

It's always been my opinion that unless it's an aggro limited fight (drakes in BWL for example), they shouldn't need it due to subtlety talents and just watching their aggro in general. The melee-enhancing buffs that totems provide are a lot more worthwhile to raid DPS than tranquil air.

This might all change after the mage review, however, since our mages have been doing some insane damage on test.

Not horde so I cannot comment on the shamans...I can however reccomend two very helpful addons.

RaidTemplate by Xiven
http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/a...dtemplate.html

Does exactly what you'd think it does; makes setting up groups much faster.

Healing Groups Suck by The_Groove
http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/a...-suck-v13.html

Makes job assignments in channels much simpler. You could probably adapt HGS to be a generic job assignment tool, atm it's set for healers.


As a side comment, Huhuran with 10-13 healers and more dps seems much easier than 14-16 healers. Hurrah for shadow priests.

I would agree with you about emps 13 seems correct although going to 11 might be doable with swiftmend and some running. 5 on each side, 3 on the incidental stuff seems the minimums to avoid stupid malfunction wipes atm. If a swiftmend druid can run with vekni ports, you might be able to cut down to 3 on each side with 2 runners Meh, you play the raid you're dealt. Luckily we have our share of pure dps specced healers, so we don't have to "heal it to death" if we don't require the number of attending healers.

Apart from broodlord the only totem i've really used for caster groups is a quick switch of a melee shaman to give them mana tide, then switching back after the 12 seconds really, but that's due to the fact that every shaman in my guild specced mana tide. I haven't seen any need for tranq air since broodlord, and even then it's only for the mages.

Being raidleader myself I would set groups up pretty much exactly like Gurg a very good balance for getting the most out of the raid.

Will you be my guildleader? :(

I need agi totem for hunter groups! :)

Anyway, we do it mostly like that, sometime put a hunter with aura in a melee group for extra damage. Switch random rogue with low damage for a hunter with aura. :)

We also switch around a lot for manatide in manaintensive fights. Usually have one healer group though, come to think of it.

I would recommend swapping out the highest damage rogue with a hunter. The highest dps rogue probably doesn't go all out balls to the wall, or he'll pull aggro. By moving him out, you spread out the dps, and thus the aggro.