I see your note in the OP. Tranquil Air totem (also Blessing of Salv) have been removed in WotLK. You can take them off the list.

Shortly, I'll be making an update to my post with the changes people have suggested.

Update: Tranquil air Totem removed for the Original Post.

There are a few changes with the latest build of the patch that may affect peoples group make-up ideas...

Hunting Party now gives your critical shots a 20/30/40/50/60% chance to restore 2% mana, 10 energy, 4 rage, or 10 runic power to all member of your party. (Old version : 20/40/60/80/100% chance)

Spirit Link now also breaks if a shared damage would reduce a target's health below 20%.

Spirit link not being a party issue, but a raid makeup issue. (Also just added in to the main post). Currently the WoW head tooltips look like they're already updated. Either that or I'm slow and missed this beta update.

Unless I've gone completely blind you are missing BF and Trauma from Boss debuff desires.

BM Hunter's Ferocious Inspiration is 3% increase in damage. I would imagine any dps (not just melee) would benefit from this.

I added in Trauma, I changed the BM buff to be also a Ranged Physical and Caster Desire. Thank you.

Two questions...

1. I can't for the life of me figure out what 'BF' is. It's just not clicking and I tried to review the other Warrior abilitys and came up blank.

2. Does anyone foresee there becomming an issue with the buff cap being hit? I believe it's currently at 32 buffs, and with so many now become raid wide (Auras and Totems and Shouts, etc) will this impact reaching the cap? I personally am unable to (Guild issues) to progress into the much higher end content. I'd imagine for those that can, this seems like it will become an issue.

If you have 3 shamans, and their totems, 2-3 Paladins and their auras, class buffs, food buffs, etc...


I'm looking through the latest patch notes to see what I can update. The Warlocks Felhunter ability and a few others will be placed in sometime today.

BF stands for Blood Frenzy the warrior talent in the arms tree that increases physical damage by 4%.

not to mention the change to improved scorch, which is now 10% to arcane, frost and fire. A little DK synergy if they're tanking - some nice moonkin synergy aswell.

A slight point of correction, this is actually a hunter talent.
The rogue equivalent is called "Find weakness", and sadly only applies to the rogue's own attacks.

For Enemy De-buff Desires, shouldn't a shadow priest's shadow weaving and affliction warlock's frailty CoR be included?

The determination of NEED vs DESIRE for those who've never raided in Wrath of the Lich King is quite ambiguous. Perhaps you may want to reconsider the organization of your original listing of group vs. raid effects.

For my purposes (and I realize that this is just my opinion vs. your opinion):
Organizing buffs/debuffs by effect vs. intended class roles is something less likely to be influenced by incorrect interpretation.

To cite an example:
You list SpellSurge as a NEED. Personally my guild has gotten along fine with without it in sunwell, so it couldn't possibly be a NEED, just a desire for my guild. One might become lost in making one's groups, thinking that SpellSurge is absolutely required by one member of each healing group. Then we have a fight over whether SpellSurge is "NEED" or not, instead of whether it is a party only buff that restores mana.

For me, determing what character to invite to a group is easier when two lists exist:
a list of "raid vs. party/indiviual buffs"
a list of Class/spec that provide the buffs:

EFFECTS PARTY or INDIVIDUALS ONLY:
Damage increasing:
Ferocious Inspriation
etc.

Restoring:
Vampiric Touch
Drums of XYZ restoration
etc.

Utility
Aspect of the Pack
Mass Dispel (max of 10 targets)
Spirit Link (max of 3 targets)

AFFECTS RAID:
Damage increasing:
Expose Weakness
etc.
blah blah blah


CLASS - RESTRICTION - BUFF:
Hunter - BM - Ferocious Inspriation
Hunter - Srv - Expose Weakness
Hunter - Any - Aspect of the Pack

Priest - Shadow - Vampiric Touch
Priest - Any - Mass Dispel

Shaman - Rest - Spirit Link

Any - LWing - Drums of XYZ restoration


I realize that my post in terms of adding value via correcting a mistake is very limited. I hope that in terms of adding clarification to the original post, it could be somewhat useful. In terms of the spirit of EJ forums, the original post was in danger of being removed since it was mere conjecture on organizing a raid for raid bosses which are currently unknown. However, if you convert the post to a style of organizing raid/party/individual buffs it becomes a useful tool for any raid/5man group in determing best setup for their specific needs.

I liked your links and listing the class required for each buff.
However, you had an original question, "What would some ideal group combinations be for WoTLK?", but it's too early to answer that question since we don't fully know information like, combat swords rogue gets 24.8% more increase from ferocious inspiration than a retribution paladin.
But your list can help us understand things along the lines of ....

Hunters can provide 7 raid/party buffs (just a number not necessarily accurate).
Srv hunters provide 1 party buff, 2 raid buffs.
BM hunters provide 2 party buffs, 1 raid buffs.
MM hunter provides 1 raid buff.

Spellsurge confused me at first as well. however this list was originally pulled from the Think Tank document 'Building groups that make sense'. Contained in that thread is the response to why Spellsurge is listed. It was not a choice I made myself, though after reading the post, I can see why it's useful. That being said, pending more information on higher end WoTLK enchants, there may be better choices that are used instead.


I'm also unsure why you mentioned spliting up the post to reflect 'raid vs party' buffs. It's actually already split that way. I just have the original tags on there. They will be removed in the next major overhaul as they are now pointless. I will be looking into remove the seperation between 'Need' and 'Desire' as it is very subjective at this stage. I much rather look at it from the standpoint of 'What does this class do for this group? (Or 'this raid').

Shadow weaving and the various curses will be added later. The original intent was to update it from just a group aspect, it's since evolved a bit into me trying to help people keep track of all the new raid and group donation abilities. Again, it in no way should be taken as 'Take this class, it's cooler', just a list of what what group / raid synergies are lining up.

Focus Magic (Woh, sexy, how did I miss that one?), Shadow Weaving, Warlock Curses, and Expose weakness are being updated/corrected shortly.

If anyone has suggestions on a way to make it easier / smoother to read, feel free to mention something via PM, I'll get to it when I can.

Has anyone tested how Curse of the Elements interacts with Ebon Plaguebringer or Earth and Moon? I wondering if an un-maledicted CoE would still provide the spell resistance debuff if one of the other increased spell damage taken debuffs had already been applied.

I believe EW now only works for the SV Hunter's personal attacks as well, vice being a raid wide buff... Caligula commented on it on page 2, I believe the buff has changed. Can someone, hunter, verifiy?

yes, EW is only for the hunter now. The proposed Noxious Stings 3% dmg buff on target is only for the hunter as well. Only thing a survival hunter brings to the table raidwise is Hunting Party now. Oh and Improved Hunter's Mark no longer affects Melee AP anymore either.

Rogues now have a Blood Frenzy equivalent in deep combat tree (at least watching wowhead talent trees).
Blood Poisoning increase physical damage done to poisoned targets by 2%

Mutilate rogues also have Master Poisoner, which increases crit raid-wide by 3% on all poisoned targets.