What is the Ideal Raid Composition?

[Rizak]

I'm interested in what people consider to be the most effective raid composition. I understand that the exact numbers are going to be different for each raid group, but what should guilds be aiming for?

My guilds typical raid comp is 5-6 Mages, 3-4 Warlocks, 9-11 healers (6 Priests, 4 Paladins, 1 Druid), 6 Rogues, 2-3 Hunters, 6 Warriors (3 Tanks, 3 DPS), 1 Ret Paladin, 1 Moonkin, 1 Cat, 1 Shadow Priest. We have had MC and Ony on farm for the past 2 and a half months usually clearing in about 90 minutes or so.

With BWL coming up the decision has been made that we need to have 6 Hunters, 9 Mages, 5 Warlocks, 4 Tanks (leaving only 2 Fury Warriors), and either 1 more Cat or Resto Druid in addition to our usual composition. This does not seem ideal to me.

After some research it seems to me that we should be relying on Fury Warriors and Frost Mages for DPS, limiting our healers to 8 maybe 9, drastically reducing our Hunters, and removing any so called "meme specs" even though I hate that term.

Any on thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

[Jazzhands]

I'm interested in what people consider to be the most effective raid composition. I understand that the exact numbers are going to be different for each raid group, but what should guilds be aiming for?

My guilds typical raid comp is 5-6 Mages, 3-4 Warlocks, 9-11 healers (6 Priests, 4 Paladins, 1 Druid), 6 Rogues, 2-3 Hunters, 6 Warriors (3 Tanks, 3 DPS), 1 Ret Paladin, 1 Moonkin, 1 Cat, 1 Shadow Priest. We have had MC and Ony on farm for the past 2 and a half months usually clearing in about 90 minutes or so.

With BWL coming up the decision has been made that we need to have 6 Hunters, 9 Mages, 5 Warlocks, 4 Tanks (leaving only 2 Fury Warriors), and either 1 more Cat or Resto Druid in addition to our usual composition. This does not seem ideal to me.

After some research it seems to me that we should be relying on Fury Warriors and Frost Mages for DPS, limiting our healers to 8 maybe 9, drastically reducing our Hunters, and removing any so called "meme specs" even though I hate that term.

Any on thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

You could clear Naxx with your comp, "meme" specs and all. And you'll probably have more fun doing it because people won't be forced to reroll or lose spots. Vanilla isn't very difficult, any numbers wall that use to exist is easily destroyed with our current knowledge of BiS and talents.

If you wanna meta-mongo it, then yeah, lose all the hunters, warlocks, rogues, or any DPS that's not a fury warrior, have your tanks DW fury tank, and run 5 priests/5 paladins/1 Resto druid and you'll literally kill any boss in under a minute.

[Sting]

Why would you need 4 tanks? We have 2 and a flexible feral druid.

As for dps spots, it doesn't matter much as long as they're good players.

[garicasha]

The link in my sig goes in to it.

[Heathy]

I don't think it really matters. each boss has its own nuance that favours either ranged or melee. so that will affect the balance. just stacking melee on a boss isn't going to be the best comp if ranged are better on that particular boss. for example, stacking 30 dps warriors for bwl, probably won't go so smooth. but even if you had a raid like that, it'll take forever to gear everyone up. so you might blow through the content but gearing up a 30 man warrior raid is going to take months and most of the gear will get DE.

you have a mixed raid so that any gear that drops can be used by someone.

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/rep...3&difficulty=0

this was our run last week, we did it in 54 mins or so. we had a wipe on shazz because we left a pack of mobs alive to the right and they ass pulled as he died. that slowed it down and wasted about 5mins. we also had 36 ppl 2 were trials and one guy was an unguilded friend of a guildie. so 33 ppl who were geared.

you want a mixed comp for various reasons, loot spread, utility. all of the utility is spread out in classic amongst all the classes rather than anyone being good at anything. everyone brings something. the best raid comp is a mixed raid comp because that raid comp has a better chance at getting gear with minimal competition. at a certain point power gain is all in the gear so its not about the class but about the gear that they have.

you want ample healers but its slightly different between horde and alliance, palas and priests can dispell magic, shamans can't. so the horde likely benefit from having more priests to dispell, where the alliance can get away with having palas do that. this sort of thing is similar with hunters and aq40, horde need less hunters because they have shamans with nature resist totem. and conversely, the alliance have no earthbind, so they rely on hunter slow traps.

I think with a full raid we can probably do molten core in 40 mins, today we're doing a full clear again for trash drops so maybe next week we'll try another speed clear. personally I don't care much for speed runs, the only thing that matters to me is bosses dying and ppl getting loot, the time this takes has no baring on anything. it really doesn't matter if you clear molten core in 30mins or 2 hours. what matters is that the bosses died and ppl got loot. the only reason fast clears matter is so that you have to raid less days, the ideal scenario is clearing ony/mc and bwl in one 4hr raid. the only reason why you will want to speed run molten core is so that you can spend more time in bwl. speed running increases the chance for failures and mistakes. sorta like a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Caperfin]

I'm interested in what people consider to be the most effective raid composition. I understand that the exact numbers are going to be different for each raid group, but what should guilds be aiming for?

My guilds typical raid comp is 5-6 Mages, 3-4 Warlocks, 9-11 healers (6 Priests, 4 Paladins, 1 Druid), 6 Rogues, 2-3 Hunters, 6 Warriors (3 Tanks, 3 DPS), 1 Ret Paladin, 1 Moonkin, 1 Cat, 1 Shadow Priest. We have had MC and Ony on farm for the past 2 and a half months usually clearing in about 90 minutes or so.

With BWL coming up the decision has been made that we need to have 6 Hunters, 9 Mages, 5 Warlocks, 4 Tanks (leaving only 2 Fury Warriors), and either 1 more Cat or Resto Druid in addition to our usual composition. This does not seem ideal to me.

After some research it seems to me that we should be relying on Fury Warriors and Frost Mages for DPS, limiting our healers to 8 maybe 9, drastically reducing our Hunters, and removing any so called "meme specs" even though I hate that term.

Any on thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

No need, this 100% class elitism is usually pushed by people who think the game is very hard and they need as much working for them as possible because they are abysmally bad at the game. If you cant clear a boss because a few people went non-traditional specs, there are bigger problems at hand...

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Many warriors and shamans.

[facefist]

Like others have said, you don't need to min-max like this because if you have decent players those raids will be a walk in the park.

However, if you really want to min-max, drop most hunters, most locks, meme specs and most rogues. Replace those with mages and fury warrs. Apart from when a class is needed for certain task on a boss, have only mages or warriors as dps. Maybe half of your raid should consist of fury warrs and mages if you can gear them up.

[Akasha64]

Why would you need 4 tanks? We have 2 and a flexible feral druid.

As for dps spots, it doesn't matter much as long as they're good players.

Better start gearing up some extra tanks though. You'll defo need them for Naxx40 if you want it on farm.

[clevin]

Retailer comes to wow classic, wants to min/max raid comp.

OP - it's just not needed. Don't make your raider's lives annoying. Just ask them to show up and play well whatever the spec.

- - - Updated - - -

Like others have said, you don't need to min-max like this because if you have decent players those raids will be a walk in the park.

However, if you really want to min-max, drop most hunters, most locks, meme specs and most rogues. Replace those with mages and fury warrs. Apart from when a class is needed for certain task on a boss, have only mages or warriors as dps. Maybe half of your raid should consist of fury warrs and mages if you can gear them up.

And watch your guild implode.

[MHMabrito]

Why would you need 4 tanks? We have 2 and a flexible feral druid.

As for dps spots, it doesn't matter much as long as they're good players.

For a meta comp it 100% does matter what dps you bring. A 1k dps fury warrior is more valuable than 3x 400dps Warlocks due to ramp up time.

[VigilantRose]

Some general principles:
1. Divide the loot. While you can talk about 'ideal compositions' from the standpoint of trying to top meters, ultimately most guilds just want to beat the content. This means you want a relatively balanced raid so you don't get bottlenecked on loot. The primary issue here is dps loot. You want to divide your dps somewhat equally between melee/ranged and between equivalent classes within those categories. A good rule of thumb is that you take the same number of Mages, Warlocks, Rogues and DPS Warriors. Hunters are a bit of a special category. From a dps standpoint, they can't be justified over one of the four previously mentioned classes. However, they're 'free loot' in the sense that their unique loot demands mean they normally take loot no one else wants (or gets minimal benefit from).

2. Healer/Buffer structure. Count Priests/Shaman as a full healer and Paladins/Druids as 75% of a healer. When you add it all together, you probably want 8 - 10 "healer's worth" of healing. Beyond that, you want to ensure you get the buffs from each class. Excess members of such classes should normally run in an off-spec. Your first choice is a Priest taking Shadow Weaving, followed by Druids in dps specs. Paladins/Shaman are rarely worthwhile to run in dps specs unless you still have too many healers.

3. Tanking. Currently, Feral Druids are arguably better tanks than Warriors. However, this will not persist (due to both content and gearing concerns), so you should probably just go with Warriors as main tanks. Your DPS Warriors should also be collecting mitigation gear and leaning towards plate-based dps gear for when they need to off-tank.

[Kalmah]

For a meta comp it 100% does matter what dps you bring. A 1k dps fury warrior is more valuable than 3x 400dps Warlocks due to ramp up time.

Matters for what ? Speed runs maybe. For clearing content it really doesn't matter.

[123youshowme]

Retailer comes to wow classic, wants to min/max raid comp.

OP - it's just not needed. Don't make your raider's lives annoying. Just ask them to show up and play well whatever the spec.

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And watch your guild implode.

You don't have to min max comp on retail, though

derp.

[Jazzhands]

Matters for what ? Speed runs maybe. For clearing content it really doesn't matter.

You do know what "meta" means in this situation, right?

[demonyaa]

You could clear Naxx with your comp, "meme" specs and all. And you'll probably have more fun doing it because people won't be forced to reroll or lose spots. Vanilla isn't very difficult, any numbers wall that use to exist is easily destroyed with our current knowledge of BiS and talents.

If you wanna meta-mongo it, then yeah, lose all the hunters, warlocks, rogues, or any DPS that's not a fury warrior, have your tanks DW fury tank, and run 5 priests/5 paladins/1 Resto druid and you'll literally kill any boss in under a minute.

Actually bringing in 1 warlock and 1 boomkin is optimal to maximize the dps of a super melee oriented raid comp.

[Jazzhands]

Actually bringing in 1 warlock and 1 boomkin is optimal to maximize the dps of a super melee oriented raid comp.

I'm aware, that part was sarcasm.

[StayTuned]

Wtf are you all doing, taking so many healers with you?

I'm my guild's main healer, as a discipline priest. I can usually single heal most MC bosses on the MT. Then we have a maximum of 5 more healers for the rest of the raid.

So 6 healers is the most we're taking with us.

What do you need 8 to 12 heales for?!

[demonyaa]

Wtf are you all doing, taking so many healers with you?

I'm my guild's main healer, as a discipline priest. I can usually single heal most MC bosses on the MT. Then we have a maximum of 5 more healers for the rest of the raid.

So 6 healers is the most we're taking with us.

What do you need 8 to 12 heales for?!

Do you guys AOE everything on Domo?

For us it's about keeping a balanced roster. You won't be able to clear all of classic's content with 6 healers.

[StayTuned]

Do you guys AOE everything on Domo?

For us it's about keeping a balanced roster. You won't be able to clear all of classic's content with 6 healers.

Not really but I do have to admit, I abuse our druids to the maximum regarding innervate. Lots of pots, too.
But it's also more fun to be honest. With 12 healers I'd literally fall asleep on pretty much every boss.