I've always been interested in min-maxing the raid set-up, so I'm also really interested in seeing other people's opinions on what would be the perfect raid set-up for most high-end encounters, basicly focussing on putting a combination of classes in one group to have the maximum benefit from group-buffs, while of course maintaining the needed x amount of tanks and x amount of healers. If a similar topic has been made before I failed to find it, then again with changes to many specific specs (retri paladins for example) a post-2.3 discussion should still be interesting.

Also I'd like to know why you've chosen not to take a specific class/spec - some value MS warriors, elemental shamans or enhancement shamans, for example, not be viable raiding specs.

Group 1
- Prot warrior
- Prot warrior
- MMS Hunter (in my personal experience, even though BM hunters are theoretically better they are too reliant of the pet which tends to... die or otherwise requires too much attention with heals from the hunter, the raid, withdrawing it, etc)
- Resto shaman (agi/SoE totems)
- Feral druid (OT, although many prefer feral druids with the rogue-group, putting him here will make everyone in this group benefit from the agility-totem and the 5% crit is best on MMS hunters and, a nice TPS boost for the tanks)
Group 2
- Rogue
- Rogue
- Rogue
- Fury warrior (imp battle shout, and if needed a 4th tank for certain encounters)
- Resto shaman (wf/SoE)
Group 3
- Mage
- Mage
- Mage
- Shadow Priest
- Elemental Shaman (although my personal experience with a good high-end elemental shaman is limited, I think their totems & bloodlust are more than welcome. Also from what I've read their self dps isn't as gimped as other "buffing"-classes, an other thing I liked is a good ranged spell-interruptibility on a short cooldown)
Group 4
- Holy Paladin (blessing #1, conc aura)
- Holy Paladin (blessing #2)
- Resto druid
- Warlock (warlocks not scaling that insanely well with groupbuffs is my reason to put them on imp-duty in low-hp-groups)
- Shadow priest
Group 5
- Holy Paladin (blessing #3, conc aura)
- Resto druid (3 combat resses is in my experience a life-saver, literally and figuratively)
- Holy priest
- Shadow priest
- Warlock (imp)

Going with this you have 3 paladins, 1 priest, 2 shamans, 2 druids (total: 8) as healers. Allowing you to keep 3 blessings, and a good balance in possible MT- and raid-healers.

I didn't pick the following classes/specs on purpose, if any class/specs aren't in this list there just wasn't any room for them.
- Enhancement shamans; feels to me the boost they give to the melee group, compared to a "normal shaman", and also compared to their damage:threat ratio just isn't good enough. Also abilities such as CoS/Evasion (rogues) or shield wall/intervene to avoid AoE/aggro-damage is something they lack.
- Retribution paladins; I think this quote says it all; "Paladin DPS is like the female orgasm. Some claim it is a myth, many try to make it happen but don't know how and most movies about it are fake."

Swap group 3's mages with destro warlocks. Bring one mage for water duty.

Get a survival hunter instead; 3 rogues, a fury warrior and a feral druid all get dps bonuses from Expose Weakness, regardless of the group, and the prot warriors gain additional threat. The GOA totem and LotP make group one perfect for it.

I'd call that not so perfect...I see lots of issues. I'll just mention a few...

First of all. Marksman hunter? You'd get much higher raid DPS with a good survivalist hunter if you want to maximise raid DPS. Also MM is mana dependant which could be solved with paladins micromanaging by keeping JoW up but I'd still prefer BM or Surv over MM.

Your resto shaman in the tank group drops GoA? He should be dropping WF to increase the threat cap and allow higher DPS. GoA would be ok if the hunter was Survival but I'd still prefer WF to get the extra threat.

Resto shaman in the melee group. I'd say that's a second best option at best...to really get a perfect setup I'd switch him with an enhancement shaman right off...

Warlocks...to use an imp they would have to be affliction and affliction doesn't do as much damage in late raid content as destruction warlocks do. Give them some group buffs.

etc etc...

Only one hunter in your raid and a MM spec ?

I lol'd so much.

I have actually finished the game and I am first dps on each fight with a groupe like this :

Hunt BM (me)
Hunt BM
Hunt survival
Feral druid
SP or something else (depends)

Do not say that i am first because of my grp, coz even without a opti grp I am in the top 3 each time.
Since Burning Crusade hunters are a very good dps classe if it is played well, in addition you have 3 misdirection and the fact that fd is so ubber for aggro (i know you are a fury, feel sry about that).

Warlocks scale at least as good as Mages with Group Buffs. Just put one Affliction Lock ( with Malediction ) in Group 1 for imp-duty and the remaining destruction warlocks in a group with at least a shadow priest and preferably a shaman for extra spell damage and MP5. It is a big mistake not to at least give your destruction warlocks a shadow priest, we have a huge mana consumption ( I am bone dry in under a minute into the fight ! ) and a warlock forced to lifetap every 45 seconds is a warlock not nearly doing the dps that he could be doing.
You might also consider exchanging one DPS caster with a moonkin. The crit aura is flat out amazing for destruction warlocks via increased ISB uptime due to 5% additional crit benefits every shadow-based dps caster and to a lesser extent every member that has a shadow priest in his group due to the increased mana return. The moonkin itself does considerable damage and with a shadow priest and maybe even a shaman in his group ours never runs out of mana anymore and can do considerable DPS. The moonkin's innervate usually goes to the shadow priest in his group.
But I guess in the end the perfect raid-setup is the one that works best for your guild.

For most high-hitting bosses (Archimonde, Illidan, Mother to name a few) our MT usually gets a group like

Affliction lock for imp
Paladin for Devotion Aura
Resto-Shaman für Agi/WF
Shadow Priest to give mana to the above
Tank

The rest of our groups is also a bit unusual I guess... we raid with ~14 melees (1 MS-Warrior, 2 Fury, 1 Enh-Shaman, 3 Rogues, 3 Hunters + 2 Prot Warriors + 2 Ferals) and 1 Mage and 1-2 Warlocks .
Also our healing includes 3 Holy Priests .

The other 4 groups look like:
3 Hunters, 1 Feral, 1 Shadow
3 Rogues, Fury-Warrion, Enh-Shaman
4 Healers + 1 Shadow
some combination of Shadow Priest, Shaman and Warriors getting Windfury of casters getting WoA

In BT and Hyjal this worked quite well, IMO melee = king in both of them .

Anything you don't hugely outgear requires a lock in the tank group I would have thought, plus as much mitigation as possible (shaman/paladin).

Also 3 paladin healers? I feel having too many paladins results in too much of the same direct only type of healing, 2 is probably all you want. Thus given you normally want to give devo or a resist aura to the MT you need a paladin. A prot paladin for the extra blessing and devo is probably ideal for that.

We can all understand no ret paladins in a perfect raid at this stage... but no consideration for enh shaman and prot paladin seems a bit narrow minded and stuck in the past given both are very effective as far as I have seen.

http://elitistjerks.com/266125-post2.html is from 12/26/06 and pretty much covers this.

While I'm at it, you're wrong about both Hunters and Enhance Shamans and completely disregard the fact that different fights suggest or necessitate different group composition, thus meaning no one setup is "perfect."

A survival hunter instead of a MMS sounds like a good switch indeed.

As for only bringing 1 hunter, this is basicly because the 2 hunters I've raided with haven't proven to be anywhere near top-5 dps, except on certain encounters (for example Azgalor).

As for windfury > GoA, me personally playing a prot warrior, wf allows for more rage-gain and in most encounters the extra crit/armour from GoA and the allowance of having a druid/hunter in your group without them whining about totems, really isn't that much of a trade-off. Also having tanked all bosses in game so far (since people seem to like spraying their epeen), I really personally haven't had any problems with maintaining aggro - maybe only on Bloodboil.

As for enhancement shaman <> resto shaman in group 2, the point in the bottem of my post regarding enhancement shamans still stands. Also, if you wish to bring an enhancement shaman that means you have to leave 1 other dps out to trade for a healer, right?

Protection paladins have proven to be quite usefull, but only in some encounters/instances and even though they're the absolute king of Mount Hyjal-trash I really don't feel them *that* good to take them over a prot warrior or a feral druid.

About the other comments, feel free to post your own perfect groupsetup, please. It will always include making some trade-offs between certain combo's. And thus, as pointed out, a perfect-perfect raid set-up is nothing but fiction, this doesn't mean that striving for one isn't a good thing

Pretty much correct not alot has changed since dec 06, boomkins and ret paladins still aren't effective enough however prot paladin's, enh shaman, ele shaman are stronger imo.

Take what you feel you need for a given encounter.

What a fun topic!