Your ideal 25-man raid group

[Klaus]

I feel heavily discussed. :)(For SR folks, my main is a shadow priest, and when GG talks about "the shadow priest" in the Terenas raids, he's almost always talking about me)

I'm glad to see that brain power is being expended on the issue. It drives me nuts when I'm in a group (in a raid) that doesn't really benefit from the VE. When someone is actually getting something out of it, I'm much happier.

In BWL, I've been put into the hunter group (which as GG has mentioned helps pets out on the trash pulls) and I've been put into a mage group (and got some "thank you"s from mages because it offset the various incidental damage they take), either of which is fine with me. Seeing party-chat comments or getting whispers thanking me for the heals makes me feel much more appreciated. :)

With VT and VE, it gets less obvious who would get the most benefit. I would think that moving me around for different situations would probably be the best thing, but the edge gained might not be worth the effort all the time.

[TheDragoon]

Honestly, I would have rather had Shadow Mending than Vampiric Touch just for the utility in group play as well as the obvious PvP uses. However, Vampiric Touch does seem like it will be a good ability if you use it carefully.

Something I would add to this discussion is that when the expansion comes out, there's going to be a lot more focus on 5 and 10-man groups rather than 40-man groups. Therefore, you won't have quite as much to choose from as far as group building toward specialization. :)

However, the place that I imagine a shadow priest would be often be best might be in a main tank group that is arranged to take advantage of the healing of vampiric embrace as well as the mana generation of vampiric touch. Something like the following would probably work out well:

1. Shadow Priest
2. Main Tank (VE healing should usually be effective and would act as an extra HoT on the MT)
3. Warlock (gives the MT blood pact, warlocks always benefit from both VE and VT)
4. Paladin (gives the MT an aura and benefits primarily from VT. Also, due to the ability that gives back mana when someone else heals you, VE could also help a Paladin's mana bar if it is taking some damage)
5. Shaman (gives the MT totems and benefits primarily from VT. VE would also help if the Shaman is going for melee and there is periodic damage in the encounter)

I think a really interesting thing would be to take this group into a 5-man. Use the Warlock's pet as an OT (who also gets VE healing), either the Pally or Shaman as the main healer and the other as DPS and you've got a very, very durable group for any 5-man encounter. :)

[Tuftears]

Shh, we're minimaxing.:)

That's all it boils down to, the closer to maximum you are, the greater the effort you have to put forward to do more. I once managed a Hakkar fight with two priests (back when it was all about the life drains and raid DPS on Hakkar was wasted effort) by swapping priests between parties so they could POH different people on each cycle.

[Kevin]

Honestly, I would have rather had Shadow Mending than Vampiric Touch just for the utility in group play as well as the obvious PvP uses. However, Vampiric Touch does seem like it will be a good ability if you use it carefully.

Something I would add to this discussion is that when the expansion comes out, there's going to be a lot more focus on 5 and 10-man groups rather than 40-man groups. Therefore, you won't have quite as much to choose from as far as group building toward specialization. :)

However, the place that I imagine a shadow priest would be often be best might be in a main tank group that is arranged to take advantage of the healing of vampiric embrace as well as the mana generation of vampiric touch. Something like the following would probably work out well:

1. Shadow Priest
2. Main Tank (VE healing should usually be effective and would act as an extra HoT on the MT)
3. Warlock (gives the MT blood pact, warlocks always benefit from both VE and VT)
4. Paladin (gives the MT an aura and benefits primarily from VT. Also, due to the ability that gives back mana when someone else heals you, VE could also help a Paladin's mana bar if it is taking some damage)
5. Shaman (gives the MT totems and benefits primarily from VT. VE would also help if the Shaman is going for melee and there is periodic damage in the encounter)

I think a really interesting thing would be to take this group into a 5-man. Use the Warlock's pet as an OT (who also gets VE healing), either the Pally or Shaman as the main healer and the other as DPS and you've got a very, very durable group for any 5-man encounter. :)

Yeah that works well too. I always like having VE on the MT.

And that group would destroy a 5 man. Just like it does now. One of the best ways to do a 45 minute run is a to take a shadow priest as well because they cover most of the healing needs freeing the other people with heal spells for DPS and the occasional heal. Of course it's very likely the shaman would be the one freed up for DPS not the paladin. The paladin would have to be ret spec and the shaman would have to be resto spec for the paladin to be able to do more damage. The "inate" DPS of the shaman is just better than that of the paladin. Resto shammies should still be able to out DPS Holy or protection paladins. I don't see that getting any better in TBC.

[oldmandennis]

And that group would destroy a 5 man.

The group with a paladin and a shaman totally crushes current 5 mans :whistling:

[Warlock]

Magic DPS group alternative: 5 Shadow priests in pure +damage gear. Five VT's should return more mana than each uses...

[Brista]

I'm discussing with some friends about the concept of a heal-class only guild

- paladins, druids, shamans, priests only
- everyone will take a turn at healing at some point
- all are expected to gear up for multiple roles.

A 25 man raid would look something like this:

Group 1 (Tank group) 2 bears, 2 prot pallies, priest (for Prayer of healing)
Group 2 (melee dps) 2 shammies, 2 cats, retri pally
Group 3 (ranged dps) 2 shadow priest, moonkin, 2 elemental shammies
Group 4 (healing) 2 holy priests, resto shammy, holy pally, tree druid
Group 5 (flexible role) whoever's left with some tanking healing and dps gear, ready to be given different tasks as we need more tanks, more healers or more dps

Our obstacle will be convincing enough people on our server to try us if we decide to go ahead but I certainly dont think that lacking the other 5 classes will be any obstacle

[TheDragoon]

I ran across an interesting calculator someone had put together to compare Meditation to Vampiric Touch in preparation for the new patch (when shadow priests can't have both). I haven't verified that it works out, but it is an interesting data point. :)

http://www.worldofming.com/calc/vtvsmed.php