I've been reading these forums for months, and I've seen the countless discussions on new off-specs (possibly) being desired in a raid setting in the future. I don't really want to know 100 more opinions on why a certain offspec should be justified in a raid setting, but rather how would you go about arranging them, and everyone else in a raid for maximum performance.

For example, my standard melee DPS group right now consists of : Rogue, Rogue, Warrior, Hunter, Paladin.

That gives 3 melee dps BS and TSA, as well as auras for some additional mitigation (Devo, FR) and a spot healer for the group. I had opted against a feral druid previously due to TSA being a better DPS return than the 3% crit version of LoTP, and prevent the headache of trying to find more druids. I thought this was a pretty easy breakdown.

With TBC you open up into more possibilities. You can replace the Paladin with a Shaman for totems/spot healing, but do you want him Enhancement specced for Unleashed Rage or Resto Specced for Earth Shield? Would you prefer a Feral Druid for Imp LotP and do you think that will cover enough of the spot-healing needs for the group? Are there even going to be enough warriors to have them in DPS groups to give the Rogues Battleshout? Is TSA outclassed by Imp LotP/Totems?

Not only DPS, but healing as well, how much do you clump the healers, do you want the shamans with them for Mana Tide, or were they better served with the melee DPS. What about the mana returns from a potential Shadow Priest?

I was able to come up with a dozen or so different, seemingly viable group makeups for 25 raiders that didn't involve having more than 4 of any one class, and no less than 2 of any one class. But they were always giving up something for each group, I'm wondering what everyone else thinks will become some "standard" raid setups for 25 man raids in TBC.

I'm not sure there will be any "standard" group as such. There will be optimal groups based on the combination of classes and specs you have available to you. If you have a shadow priest, you'll stick them in a group full of casters. If you have an enhancement shaman, they go in a melee group. Most of the choices will be fairly clear-cut. I can say that LotP druid, Enhancement shaman, Fury warrior, and 2x rogue seems like the optimal melee group if you've got people of appropriate specs. Lots and lots of synergy.

Now, if you want to talk "optimal 25-man class/spec makeup" then that's a bit too abstract to really discuss, and has been a subject of multiple heaped threads in the past.

No AE heal for the melee group is bad, bad news on TBC content.

Woddy, which encounters are you thinking of?

That group is pretty snarking good for melee damage though.

Shadow Labs was the one that sprang immediately to mind(the one with the 50% whammie), but I've seen Snore complaining about mass AE damage on a fairly regular basis.

But yes, if you could get away with that healing the raw damage that could crank out is nuts. Imp. LotP is ridiculous.

Imp LotP!

PoH isn't really a tool I see priests using very often in melee groups in ordinary raid settings. Chain heal is ridiculously good now with talent changes, and can cover melee DPS in general very well regardless of group. Obviously if it's a fight like Sapphiron or Viscidus or something, you wouldn't set up a group like that.

In general I anticipate a lot less need for group-based healing except where you specifically need to set up groups to take advantage of things like PoH, if only because 25 people are a lot easier to keep track of than 40. But we shall see, of course.

Seems that tanking/melee groups are going to get REAL crowded in the Xpac. Tree druids, LotP druids, enh shaman, pallys, rogues, warriors, TSA hunters, locks for bloodpact, hell maybe even shadow priests for vampiric embrace: all classes I'd love to throw into a melee group.

I think it will be just like raid groups in WoW classic. There are many ideal groups which have alot of off specs and vary from encounter to encounter. However, unless your one of those very rare guilds where you have a shadow priest, LotP druid, enhancement shaman, etc etc waiting to swap in/out for a boss fight most times you wont ever get that 'ideal group' but its just something to aim for.

JoL will probably heal for more on average from what I've seen, especially with Imp Sanctity Aura. (Assuming you don't already have JoL from a Paladin in a different group).

Since you won't have every spec of every class available, you simply have to make a list of "party-only abilities" and compose your groups based on that(and the mechanics of the fight, where applicable.) It's pretty easy to determine which group abilities have the greatest impact, though sometimes it's difficult to remember everything every spec of every class has.

For an MT group, which I would construct first:
1. Warlock with Blood Pact is still king.
2. Paladin with Imp. Sanct Aura for +6% healing.
3. Paladin with Devotion Aura (Imp. preferred).
4. ToL druid for +25% spirit healing.
(if one of the above is not available)
5. Shaman for Windfury, SoE totems.
6. Feral Druid for Imp. LoTP.

The last two become more important if aggro is of more concern than mitigation for the encounter.

Next I would construct a Caster group.

Caster DPS Group:
1. Moonkin (stack with fire mages > other mages > warlocks).
2. Ele. Shaman for totem of wrath, wrath of air (could the names get more confusing?).
3. Shadow priest (More important for warlocks, less for mages).
4. Other shaman for Tranquil Air.

For a Melee DPS Group:
1. Enh. Shaman for Unleashed Rage, totems, spot heals.
2. Feral druid Imp. LotP.
3. Warrior for battleshout.
4. Hunter for TSA, Furious Howl, Feriocious Inspiration, what have you.
5. Another Shaman for tranquil air(more important with more warriors, irrelevant with more hunters, pick and choose).

Healer group:
1. Resto shaman for Mana tide.
2. Shadow Priest for Vampiric Touch.
3. Imp. Conc. Paladin.

The biggest commodity for party wide buffs will still be shaman; I'd stack them with your "heavy-hitters" on non-trivial content to ensure the most return on investment.

EDIT: Shadow priests.

All of them? Harder to think of a fight without AE damage.

I really like this approach and was going to use something only slightly more vague myself when suggesting group makeups for a raid; however, I noticed that you had quite a few shaman in the groups that you're suggesting, making room for a shaman for ~just~ Tranquil Air on a couple of occasions--is there any reason for that? (Do you see Tranq Air being necessary on a fairly large scale, even with Blessing of Salvation?)

AE damage these days is either ridiculous or survivable. Usually in Karazhan I actually won't have any healers at all in one group. Crazy? Maybe.

Kody aka Snore complains about AE damage like on Sunday when we ran The Escape from Durnholde in the new Heroic difficulty.

When Lieutenant Drake whirlwinds, he really means it. The damage he puts out is literally, OVER NINE THOUSAND! (11k on cloth, to be precise).

Subsequently, when Skarloc decided to ruin our fun, he also decided to lay down consecrates that ticked for about 600 damage.

As far as AE damage goes though, I feel that the worst culprit by far though is the Arcane Discharge ability from Heroic-Chrono Lord Deja. I haven't really seen worse in either Karazhan or Gruuls lair at the moment.

Wasn't really trying to get a list of a 25 man raid setup, but more people's opinion on what you'd pick for a "standard" choice given the new options to some classes.

You want a Shadow priest with the Warlocks and Mages for self-sustainability of health and mana, but you also want the Warlocks with the tanks for Blood Pact. Which wins?

You want Feral Druids for Melee and Moonkins for casters, but again, which wins?

Do the Shamans go with the Hunters for GoA/Mana Tide and then focus on healing the MT, or like you said in the Melee DPS group Enchancement Specced for added melee DPS synergy and Chain Healing?

There are going to be different ideal groups for fights that require higher survivability, group-specific decursing, added DPS, positions in the room, etc. But in the past those are the fights that are the exception to the choice that you wanted as a raid spec, not the reason you had someone spec that way. I was hoping to go into TBC with a little more than the plan of "See what people are specced, see how it works together, and go from there."

I'm guessing that spriest will play quite a role in TBC 25man raiding because of the raidwide versatility he/she brings along.

Make a group of 2x ToL Druids, 2x Holy priests and a spriest and you'll be drowning into the amount of healing they can dish out. Or 2x mage, 2x warlock and spriest, and your casterdps is going trough the roof as all have shitton of mana to spend and very little need to rely on mana efficient dps-cycles. Or put spriest with 4 melee dudes and let him take care of AoE damage healing with VE.

Feral druids, ench shamans and paladins don't seem to offer as high utilities in offspecs.

I think that your last line should be your plan then. Your friend likes to DPS on his Shaman? Okay, throw him in the DPS slot.

It all comes down to situations. Does your tank need Blood Pact? Does your Warlock need the benefit from VT?

It's difficult and somewhat premature to ask what the "standard" group is, especially if you're not sure what you're working with.

Well, I more meant the list as a guideline of the importance of the various group buffs. I.e., you don't actually want a group with a shaman, feral druid, a warrior, a hunter, and another shaman. You'd probably want a shaman, 2 of your best rogues, a feral druid, and a fury warrior. The next group might have the hunter and a non-enh. shaman. I might have made things a little confusing with the tranquil air stuff, I just meant, in general, it could be considered the 5th best party buff for melee dps; but actually stacking the raid with 2 shamans in a group wastes far too many totems to be a good idea, unless for some reason the encounter demands it, or your raid has > 5 shamans. We once had a raid with 11 priest mains so I know firsthand balanced raid groups are not always what you have.

I think one reason people want to theorycraft this and establish generalized templates is for guild roster and recruiting purposes. Eventually, yes, you'll make your soup based on the ingredients you have on hand and what boss/zone/mobs the soup is for, but it helps to plan in advance at least an ideal situation so one can compose a shopping list.

Yes, and I think that kind of answers your question. (?)

I'm not sure why you'd benchmark any 'past' instances (aside from AQ/Naxx) when predicting future raid content. The way my current guild is formed is putting a primary emphasis on getting "good" players. In our case, that can run the gambit from the hardcore theorycrafter PvE whiz kids, to the excellent raid strategists, to the unstoppable PvP killing machines, to the undergeared rogue who defies all explanation and ruins people w/out even knowing other classes abilities. With a diverse group like that I simply can't see us ever saying "Sorry ____, we can't take you b/c of your spec, or b/c we already have our quota of your class" - it's going to be "who wants to go to ABC instance" and we make due. I would hope, with a certain level of skill, this approach will be feasible - and the way things are looking, I would expect it to be.

Tree aura now provides increased healing RECEIVED to the people with the aura, instead of healing dealt.

Really, you want one of everything. 1 Moonkin druid adds about as much as one feral, as far as anyone can reasonably approximate (it's kind of hard to calculate 5% melee crit and 4% heal on a crit vs. 5% moonkin crit aura and 3% hit). The one thing you know for sure is that most of these specs have some sort of raid dps buff, so you only want 1. You get 1 resto shaman so your healers get mana tide and your MT gets earth shield and 1 enh. so your best melee dps groups gets unleashed rage and bloodlust. 1 arms warrior for the debuff, 1 fury for BS and DPS, and 1 prot to MT. The goal of all the changes to the trees was clear: Blizzard was trying to make sure every spec has at least 1 spot in a raid and by and large they've succeeded.

As for your first question, I can't see any situation in non-trivial content where you wouldn't want your MT to have Blood Pact unless it's a balls to the wall dps race and you have room in the shadow priest's group.

I've been missreading that for few weeks already. Thanks