Caster "Group of Death"
 

Hey, I am pretty new to these forums but I was just wondering if anyone had tried something similar to this before with any successful results, or if there is any glaringly obvious reason for why it would not work. I decided against against doing the math until I had some feedback on whether others thought it could be viable or not. My idea was to build a caster group stacked towards providing as much damage modifiers as possible:

• Elemental Shaman - Provides 3% Hit and 3% Crit from Totem of Wrath, 1% Hit from Racial, and 100+ Spell Damage
• Moonkin - 5% Crit Aura
• Shadow Priest - Provide mana regen to the two above mana users to keep their dps sustainable
• Arcane/Frost Mage - Using a 40/0/21 build in order to provide as much crit damage modififers and to gain the extra spell damage from Mind Mastery. Yes the mages in my guild are all frost or arcane/frost atm.
• Arcane/Frost Mage - Same as above

In addition to this there would be a full frost mage in the raid provididing the Winters Chill debuff. This would result in a huge +18% crit in buffs and debuffs for the two mages, and with the 150% extra crit damage bonus the synergy doesn't need to be stated. This would result in the mages having around 43%-46% crit percentage, and with the crit damage modifiers and each mage stacking around 900-1050 spell damage a huge damage gain. This is ofc could also work for fire mages depending on what ou have to work with. Another tidbit is that Heroism could be used in Conjunction with Arcane Power, a trinket, and a destruction potion if one is handy for some good burst. Mana regen wouldn't even be an issue being arcane/frost and having a Shadow Priest. And as I understand from reading other topics on the forum here, Moonkins and Elemental Shamans can do good competitive sustainable damage in conjunction with a Shadow Priest.

Any comments?

Doubt the shadowpriest can sustain without another shadow in the grp for longer than 4 minutes.
If i plug my kinda gimped shadowpriest twink with 700 +dmg into Eitrigg's DPS Spreadsheet i get a solo sustainability with pots and shadowfiend of roughly 2:30 .
If i add an equally geared shadowpriest to the group, the mana regain added will last me through more than 15 minutes.

If your shadow priest was well-geared (tailoring epics and level 70 blues/kara gear), you should be able to push 900 damage, which is a huge difference for sustainability.

In all reality, if you wanted to max DPS, replace the Moonkin with another shadow priest and bump the mages up to 40 Arcane 21 Fire (1 point in Playing with Fire lol) for Arcane Blast spam. Situational, but you would potentially see over 1500 DPS from the mages.

Frost is next to worthless from everything I've read and seen, 3 frost mages vs 3 fire mages put fire ahead by 100 DPS each on gruul, spreadsheet says it's over 300 difference ... AB Spam is spreadsheeted at 200 above fire.

i would have to go with two shadow priests, one affliction warlock, and two arcane mages. Huge mana return, curse of shadows, all specs that are easier to hitcap than anything else. 2/3 classes don't depend on crit so the mages can itemize themselves for it while the rest of the group gives them extra damage and infinite mana.

Personally, as a shadow priest with 900 unbuffed spelldamage, I hardly need anything more than a shadowfiend per 8 minute encounter, assuming I do a spell rotation of Keeping DoT's up and Mind Flaying in between (until 20% where I add MB+SW:Death) so mana isn't really an issue with a decently geared shadow priest.

That aside, I'd love to have:

Affliction Warlock
Shadow Priest
Destro Lock
and 2 Fire Mages.

I think a good question would be how many shadow priests in a group does it take to sustain a tier 5 mage spamming arcane blast with its 20% boost set bonus?

Could two shadow priests give enough longevity, or would you need 4?

Arcane Blast costs about 2100 mana per 5 seconds (2500 with the bonus). Four Shadow priests should do the trick . . . assuming you know four Shadow priests who can sustain 2500 dps.

Geared shadow priests with tailoring should push 1100 +shadow.

I wouldn't put a warlock in a group, it's a complete waste. Only excuses would be maybe a felguard lock (esp with 2 piece t5) or destro. But we have lifetap and mages don't.

2 Shadow Priests, 1 Shaman, 2 Mages.

Of course. The shadow priests usually end up with healers for the mana regen...

Back on topic, though, our "ideal caster" group is me, a Restoration shaman, and three deep Fire mages. With potions/tide/fiend and 1200 unbuffed +damage, I can keep my mana battery outputting the maximum for a very long time. Post patch, though, I think removing a mage for a second Shadow priest might be necessary - the hit we took to damage hurts our longevity a great deal, and being forced to spec Improved Mind Blast for high-damage rotations hurts it even more.

after testing a bit on Dr Boom with the tier 5 bonus and a 40arcane spec, i can confirm that it would be pretty silly :P

with a bit of latency, 760mp/1.65s is 2300mp/5... its alot :P

But so is the damage, with a flask(+70), oil(+42), tier5 4pieces (spamming AB, its almost always up), AI, BoK, MoTW, 4/5 tier 5, WoA and similar gear in the rest of the slots, we're talking of about 1300 arcane spell damage.

With CoS and Misery, we're looking at average hits of 2300. every 1.65s, with a 35% crit. DPS of 1760... fun stuff with AP too :)

Spellhit not being a concern, a resto shaman would most likely be much better than an elemental one, for mana tide and the higher mana spring (and to add ideal, a shaman with 2pieces ele(+20spelldmg), 2pieces tier 4 resto(+3mp/2) and 4pieces tier 3(+25% on mana spring totem) heh.)

Even then, factoring mana tide giving back 2400mp every 300s (40mp/5), mana spring of 57.5mp/5, BoW 49mp/5, JoW of 112mp/5, spirit regen of 115mp/5, that's still a deficit of 1925mp/5 to be filled by shadow priests... ginvite for a priest who can pull that much...
VT is 5% of the priest's dps... even 4 shadow priests doing 1200dps wouldnt be enough :/


Within reach of sustainability, 3 fire mage 1 elemental shaman 1 shadow priest would be way up there in my book. I dont think the itemization is quite there to make a moonkin viable, and most of all, his 5% aura to 3.5ppl(shadowpriests arent real ppl... when it comes to crit) + his dps vs the dps of a deep fire mage ? questionnable.

No one can sustain a mage doing full-out AB spam.

Our guild does a "caster group of death"

2 fire mages, 33/28 (me) and 11/47/3. 2 elemental shaman (double totem of wrath, tranq air + wrath of air). 1 shadow priest.

I can sustain 1k+ dps on a mag fight, no problem.

Now that we're having two more shadowpriests join the fray, we'll probably share the love and do two groups of:

1x shadowpriest 1x elemental + 3 casters (mages/locks)

And then give the third shadowpriest to extra paladins while SA+VT is still broken.

1 Fire Mage + Atiesh Aura
1 Fire Mage + Atiesh Aura
1 Elemental Shaman
1 Shadowpriest
1 Balance Druid

In Total, the group gets roughly:
+10.53% Spellcrit
+4% Spellhit
+~300mp5
+121 Spelldamage

((Assuming Alliance and Draenei Aura))

Got our first magtheradon kill today, was in a pretty hot group.

Ele Shammy - ToW, Tranquil Air, Tremor, FR Totem
Ele Shammy - ToW, WoA (+121), Tremor, Mana Spring
Boomkin - 5% crit
2x Fire Mages

It was pretty awsome, I was fully potted and flasked up and was at +1240 damage and 48% crit, we pull the channelers together 2 at a time, when my trinket was up i was doing 4k CL crits, double heroism is also very hot.

Ugh, it is always:

Spriest 1000+ dps
Ele Shaman
2x 10/3/44+ fire mages.
Oomkin to innervate other druids/priests

Giving Spriest 5% crit will increase his dps 2~%

Giving shaman 5% crit will increase dps by 5%
Same thing for two mages 5%

So crit aura gives roughly 175 dps, so all the moonkin needs to do is be 150 dps within a fire mage ( to account for imp scorch refreshing dps loss, buffing ai, making water ^^). As a side gain one gains an innervate on another priest/druid. Mana, of course, is not a problem.