Best dungeon grinding comp (non-aoe): 2 Fury + Ret + Feral + Specced Healer

[Shalaator]

There are lots of druids, non-holy paladins and non-tank warriors looking for dungeon groups.

Right now you have to be the following to get an invite (without effort): Mage, Prot Paladin, Hpriest.


Even though I'm an Hpriest, I can't always find an immediate invite to a group, so I decided to form my own groups, and I found the following comp the best
for casual play:

2 fury warriors, 1 ret, 1 feral; OR; 1 Fury + 1 Rogue + Ret + Feral

Yes, there is no tank.

ST clear time was 80 minutes (all floors).

Advantages: No down time (if you can heal efficiently as I do, you wont be drinking much).

Innervate
Brez
Pack
Mark

LoH
DI
Blessings
Auras

If you opt for a rogue instead of 2nd fury warrior, it brings rogue benefits. I prefer two fury since they can cleave and tank better for my own mana efficiency.

4 potential tanks if things go wrong (shield swaps), 3 taunts (growl + bear counts). Some pallies have consecrate. Always ask your paladin if he has it, since he can equip a shield and tank packs of non-elite mobs (ie whelps in ST) and save healer mana (two consecrates is enough) and then swap back to 2H afterwards.


Easy to blow through/recover/ignore mistakes and errors (double/triple pulls, pulls with oom healer, dead tank, dead heals to aggro, etc).


Also the feral can easily Main Tank for exceptional bosses, notably (from my current experience) Eranikus, Princess, Bael'gar.

I'll let you know know how it goes in scholo/strath/LBRS (I'm level 53 atm).


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This isn't meant to be the "absolute best dungeon farm comp." It's a "safe comp" that can clear dungeons quickly without much effort. Don't need to CC.

You can't doulbe/triple pull (without cd's), but you can quickly go from one pack of trash to the next. Each packs dies so fast that an Hpriest shouldn't use more then 30% of mana per pull. Hpriest can usually continue drinking during start of pull for 2-3 ticks.


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Although I don't recommend this for most healers, if you tanked in vanilla, and your group is not experienced, inform your group that you will be LoS pulling with you wand in order to avoid any wipes. Since your 4 dps players aren't tanks and probably never tanked, your prior tanking experience should make your wand pulls a safer run.

Try to pull each pack/mob when the last 1-2 mobs are at 50% hp (unless you need to drink) so your group of 4 dps don't encroach on your forward position for the wands pulls. If you're good at pulling, (around corner in particular), you should be able to cause all mobs to clump into the 4 melee dps grinder. This constant state of combat stops rage deterioration and generally increases the overall speed (and safety) of the run. Remember to Fade once mob pack is on top of melee dps.

Good luck!

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For Hpriest talents, focus on all the mana regen/mana reduction talents and keep highest rank renew rolling on warriors and third high rank renew rolling on paladin and feral (downranked renew). Take 2/2 healing focus and 3/3 improved renew for this comp as well and keep your inner fire up, it's not uncommon for a mob to hit you 2-3 times (when fade is on cd) with no dedicated tank before one of the melee can pull it off you. A single shield + renew will keep you alive and top you off, while Healing Focus talents always to continue casting heals onto the melee dps.

Spirit of Redemption is also a good 5 man talent with this comp (since there is brez in group).

Only cast prayer of healing with inner focus (save mana). If you ahve desperate prayer, use it on CD to also save mana (self heal). Buy a bunch of cheap mana pots for 50 silver a stack too (greater mana potions), a 2-3 superior mana pots and 1 Major Mana pot.

Although you won't have to use superior mana pots/major mana pots, they can often save the group from a time consuming wipe if a major error occurs.
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Times:
SM Armory: 12-18 minutes
SM Cath: 16-20 minutes.
Uldaman: 48 minutes (full clear)
ZF: 55 minutes (with malllet) + scarabs, 40 minutes (no mallet), no scarabs),
Mara (unknown sinnce no group ever runs it the same way)
ST: 80 minutes
BRD: Full clear (excluding Lyceum and Emp), 110 minutes (skipping as much trash as possible). Estimated full clear (with shadowforge key and skipping low level area): 130-140 minutes (I haven't full cleared BRD yet, but based on what I've seen, I'd expectly slightly more than two hours to full clear BRD with this comp if you exclude the entry/low level region of BRD)

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I don't know how well Hpals and Resto druids will do with this comp.

I'm pretty sure Ench Shaman can replace Ret in this setup with similar results and utility (horde).

[Millyraynge]

we are doing lbrs and scholo with 2 rogues and 2 hunters, no heal, no tank

[Shalaator]

we are doing lbrs and scholo with 2 rogues and 2 hunters, no heal, no tank

Cool.

99% aren't even level 60, nor skilled enough to handle that even if they were.

You do you.

Congrats.

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A healer will simply speed things up as well. What would your 2 rogues +2 hunters gain from NOT having a clothie Hpriest? Seems like you're wasting time kiting/eating. Even a farm run would yield more gold/hour with a healer from the time saved.

[Firefall]

I mean, tanking with Fury warriors isn't exactly new. It is pretty much optimal in 2019 where players are much better+the retail mentality of "gogogogogogo-dontevenwaitforthetanktopull" has carried over. Isn't that basically all this is, plus a Druid for the obvious useful utility and buffs?

[Millyraynge]

Cool.

99% aren't even level 60, nor skilled enough to handle that even if they were.

You do you.

Congrats.

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A healer will simply speed things up as well. What would your 2 rogues +2 hunters gain from NOT having a clothie Hpriest? Seems like you're wasting time kiting/eating. Even a farm run would yield more gold/hour with a healer from the time saved.

We don't do it all the time, but it's actually faster than most groups with tank and healer. We chain pull, we destroying targets, we require less time for recover than a healer does. Most targets, even bosses, are stunable. Vanish and Cheat death makes it easy to trade aggro.

[Kralljin]

The best Non AoE comp is obviously 4 Warriors and a Resto Shaman.

Damage should split between warriors and they tear any pack with 2-4 mobs utterly apart thanks to WF.

[Shalaator]

The best Non AoE comp is obviously 4 Warriors and a Resto Shaman.

Damage should split between warriors and they tear any pack with 2-4 mobs utterly apart thanks to WF.

Unlikely 4 warriors would agree to be in the same group. Alliance doesn't have shamans. A bear tank is more reliable for high damage bosses than fury.

If the goal is clear as fast as possible, then may as well run with 3 mages and a prot paladin.

- - - Updated - - -

We don't do it all the time, but it's actually faster than most groups with tank and healer. We chain pull, we destroying targets, we require less time for recover than a healer does. Most targets, even bosses, are stunable. Vanish and Cheat death makes it easy to trade aggro.

It will certainly be faster than a tank + healer. I agree with that. But a fifth player (healer) with 4 dps (rogues/hunters) would go faster than just 4 dps (no healer). But if you can't find a healer, why not? lol

[Senko]

Seems there's some alliance bias here, horde has plenty of 4 warrior / 1 shaman groups going in SM cath/armory atm.

[Shalaator]

Seems there's some alliance bias here, horde has plenty of 4 warrior / 1 shaman groups going in SM cath/armory atm.

Alliance has shamans? Who knew!

[lummiuster]

"I'm pretty sure Ench Shaman can replace Ret in this setup with similar results and utility (horde)"
hahaha man. Enhance shaman would make your group clear the dungeons 30% faster with those windfury totems. If you like melee cleave, you have no clue what you re missing on

[phattsao]

Best SM Cathedral group I was in was 3 wars, a ret pally, and a priest (me). We decimated that place, way faster than the times I did it with 3 mages. The pally was doing that thing where the mobs can't run away, and they just slaughtered everything in the melee blender.
But say that on reddit, and it's "NO NOOB, RET PALLIES SUCK ONLY MAGES CAN DPS YOU MORON".

[Kralljin]

Unlikely 4 warriors would agree to be in the same group.

If clearing an instance only takes like half of the time than a regular group, i think most people will take it.

On top of that, instances like Armory can be easily run multiple times without issue if you're within that level range, meaning that there's a decent chance for an item anyway.

That aside, going by the title of this thread and the fact we're talking about "clearing an instance as fast as possible" i would assume that most people look for XP/h efficiency rather than items.

Also, in your "perfect comp", you have two Warriors and a Ret, who will surely fight over any Item besides two-Handed weapons.
And i believe that Fury is far worse for dungeon grinding than Arms, the cleave coming from Sweeping strikes is insane and Whirlwind does more damage as Arms than Fury, as the ability only scales with your MH weapon, not OH.

Also, getting a single decent 2H weapon is easier than getting two good 1h.

A bear tank is more reliable for high damage bosses than fury.

Unless the boss crits, that's not an issue because the Shaman just spams Healing wave on the tank that has aggro.
On top of that, other Warriors can just taunt if the one who has aggro is about to die.

With 4 Warriors that have WF, any Boss just melts.

Playing with just a Dps Warrior as Tank w/o Shield is totally legit until you hit 50+, even then it still works most of the time if your healer is actually heal specced and remotely competent.

Alliance doesn't have shamans.

And Horde doesn't have Paladins, yet that didn't stop you from presenting a comp with a Prot Paladin.
Please be more specific and make it clear that you are talking about an Alliance comp next time.

"NO NOOB, RET PALLIES SUCK ONLY MAGES CAN DPS YOU MORON".

You could also have the Paladin just heal and judge Justice on any mobs that are running away, justice is not Ret only.
Like, that's the issue of hybrids in Classic, they're generally worse dps and their entire utility toolkit is also brought by the heal spec.

Sure, something like Enhance has slightly better totems, but having another full fledged dps is generally better than those slightly better totems.