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Despite the basics of a good group being mainly common sense many people will jump into an instance with a tank, healer and three DPS.  Lets face it this isnt that surprising since the great majority of World of Warcraft players roll DPS it makes quests easier, soloing much more fun and you can compare your damage stats with other players much like the people in the gym compare their muscles. Finding DPS for your group is never much of a problem, finding DPS'rs with good agro control is a little harder, hunters and mages with icebock are a  good start, as this and feign death  will remove all agro on them.

There are quite a  lot of 5 man instances available between 61-70, moreso when you take into account heroic keys, which spawn the instances with harder mobs, but also better loot, to get into a heroic you generally need a key, this can be obtained by getting:

The Escape from Durnholde (Level 66–68)
Opening the Dark Portal (Level 70)
Hellfire Ramparts (Level 60-62, Heroic - Flamewrought Key)
The Blood Furnace (Level 61-63, Heroic - Flamewrought Key)
The Shattered Halls (Level 70, Heroic - Flamewrought Key)
The Slave Pens (Level 62-65, Heroic - Requires Steamvault Key)
The Underbog (Level 63-65, Heroic - Requires Steamvault Key)
The Steamvault (Level 70, Heroic - Requires Steamvault Key)
Mana Tombs (Level 64-66, Heroic - Requires Auchenai Key)
Auchenai Crypts (Level 65-67, Heroic - Requires Auchenai Key)
Sethekk Halls (Level 67-69, Heroic - Requires Auchenai Key)
Shadow Labyrinth (Level 70, Heroic - Requires Auchenai Key)

The Mechanar (Level 70, Heroic - Requires Warpforged Key)
The Botanica (Level 70, Heroic - Requires Warpforged Key)
The Arcatraz (Level 70, Heroic - Requires Warpforged Key)

Firstly, lets discuss the basic group perfection layout, this group should be able to deal with any situation that arises in an instance, with good crowd control strong healing and tanking DPS is not a factor untill you get to the bosses, many of which have aspects that require fast DPS, it is especially usefull to have a destruction warlock or mage available for these situations, as they can usually fire out a  huge amount of DPS in a short time.

Main Tank – Protection Warrior

Main Healer – Holy/Disc Priest

Off DPS, Off Healer and Off Tank – Druid, Paladin or Shaman

2xDPS + joint Crowd Control (CC)

Many people have disagreed with these layouts stating their various reasons.  This will hopefully explain why groups with paladins, shamans or druids as main healers or tanks have a much greater wiping rate. 

Main Tank (MT)

The main tank is one of the key people in your group.  Not only will he have to take huge amounts of damage, he will have to keep agro on numerous mobs all being attacked by different people. 

Druids have recently come into the picture as a MT, I however hate any instance with a druid as a main tank for one pure and simple reason, Agro Control.  Druids cause much less agro than a protection specced warrior, and though they can sometimes have more hp and armour this is little consolation when your healer and DPS are getting destroyed by additional mobs that the MT couldn’t control.

A good protection warrior can absorb a huge amount of damage, and I believe his talents alone such as sunder and its multipliers will more than make up for a bear form druids armour increase, if used correctly of course.

 Main Healer (MH)

Since the burning crusade came out Druids, Shamans and Paladins have all been fighting for the role of MH in 5 mans, most worryingly without any backup healer.

While Paladins and Shamans both have powerful heals they are only really effective for spamming one or two targets.  Druids have some incredibly powerful heal over time (HoT) spells along with arguably the most powerful single heal spell.  They do unfortunately have a regular tendency to run out of mana on bosses.

Shamans tend to be more DPS and Tanking than healing, while they can be an effective off healer if geared for it they are more useful as DPS and tanking due to their high powered offensive spells and melee damage mixed with strong armour.

Paladins are the most mana efficient healers, being able to spam heal themselves and others for 15 minutes straight without a break.  Unfortunately while they can keep one person alive indefinitely their ability to keep a group alive is severely lacking.  Its also important to note that after patch 2.1.0 is released paladins mana efficiency will be drastically reduced, as it is currently considered ‘broken’ by the developers.

A holy disc priest with a good talent build (Usually 21/40 or 20/40 in disc/holy) will always be the most versatile healer to keep your whole group alive, with HoT , Area of Effect (AoE), good dispels and powerful single heals the priest is by far the most competent and well equipped class to keep a group alive. 

Off Healer, Off Tank and Off DPS

This is one role that can only be filled by a druid, paladin or shaman.  The character who plays this must know his role incredibly well, and as in the title must be ready to move into one of the three areas in an instant.

Off Healing

When off healing the druid, paladin or shaman will normally focus on the tank, spamming large heals to keep him alive.  Druids can also send around a few HoT spells to save the priests mana, both druids and shamans should however keep at least 1/3rd of their mana for emergencies.  An off healer is pretty much required in outlands instances as some of the mobs in them do huge amounts of damage, at insanely quick speeds!

Off Tank (OT)

Many off tanks mistakenly think it is their job to jump into the fray with the warrior, unfortunately this not only makes it hard for the warrior to maintain control but also means the healer has to focus on two people taking major damage from the start.

When off tanking the OT should DPS or heal until either the priest or DPSers get a large amount of agro and the warrior cannot easily take control again.  In my experience druids have some fantastic agro gain abilities, beaten only by a warrior.  Paladins can take a lot of beating from mobs before going down, they can also pull up a bubble and heal themselves, unfortunately they lose all agro when they do this, it does mean they can go back to being an off healer without having to worry about mobs interrupting their spells.

The important thing for off tanks to remember is that they should only get enough agro to take a mob off the DPSers the tank should try to reclaim agro as soon as possible so the off tank can go back to off healing.

Off DPS

This is not usually specified as a role of an off tank/healer and should be the least of your worries, there are occasions, usually on new outlands bosses, where the boss will spawn adds that will grow in strength as time passes, in mana tombs last boss the prince will repeatedly spawn ethereal clouds, that while not having much DPS or hp to begin with will transform into formidable elites if left for too long. In these situations extra DPS is not only a nice to have, it is a necessity. Its sometimes important to remind this class that they should not be grabbing too much agro though, as they may need to heal in an emergency

So which class is best for this?

All in all druids may come out of this looking the best, with better agro control and the spell inneverate to keep your priests mana up, not to mention Combat Heal (A fantastic ability allowing a druid to res a healer or tank that gets taken down during battle).  Their HoT spells do come in useful and they tend to be rather well rounded even if they are fully specced for feral or healing.  A druids weakness is that they only have a large amount of health/armour while in a feral form, when they come out of this their stats are drastically decreased so they may find it difficult to do anything other than instant cast heals while they have agro (I.e. if they were off tanking before hand)

Paladins are similar to shamans, their healing ability is more focused on keeping a single main tank healed, they do however have a heal similar to flash heal which restores a small amount of health very quickly. The great thing about a paladin off healing is their ability to keep the tank alive even when being attacked, their armour and shield can keep them alive while they heal other group members.  A paladin has several ‘auras’ and buffs that come in useful during an instance.  Auras tend to be resistance to types of spell damage, helping to reduce damage caused.  Their buffs also help to restore mana, increase stats and dps or even reduce your threat rating.

Shamans do have an ace up their sleeves though.  Totems are a fantastic addition to any battle, each shaman can drop several totems, and they can do anything from summon fire elementals to restoring a player’s health and mana.  A totem to draw agro can be a lifesaver in certain situations, and one is usually dropped in front of casters/healers as a last line of defence.

Whether as shaman, paladin or druid they have to remember that their role could involve going from healing to tanking in a very short time, Shamans pull this off with an earth-bind totem or a taunting one, slowing the enemy down or distracting them completely.  Druids on the other hand can use a stun affect, whether in cat or bear form to give them time to cast

Damage per Second (DPS) (2 Slots)

All classes have some form of DPS spec, which is best for your raiding group is always dependant on what kind of instance you are doing and what crowd control you need.

Warrior (Fury/Arms)

Warriors can be formidable for DPS.  Their high armour and incredible strength allow them to do massive amounts of damage and do a bit of backup off tanking.  They are useful when a lot of trash mobs are involved, but rarely taken as there are better options available and your off tanks really should be able to handle any extra mobs.

Paladin

Paladins can do a fair amount of damage but generally are not brought in as pure DPS, more as an off tank/healer, they are ok at many little things and can help the group with their variety of auras and buffs.  You may want to consider bringing one of these on some occasions, as their buffs are stack with another paladins.

Shadow Priest

A Shadow priest is a healers best friend, helping to not only restore mana and health to the whole party (Removing the need for the main healer to deal with some of the small heals) they also do a huge amount of damage and can do cc such as mind control and shackle undead while allowing a healing priest to focus on healing.

Mage

Mages are always a welcome to any party, they have a great intellect buff on top of huge DPS, great crowd control. Sheep, Freeze, Ice (to trap them or slow them down) Blizzard and more. Depending on their spec they can use ice block (Removes all agro from them) summon a water elemental to aid DPS with frost spec and a range of high DPS spells with fire (these also carry a chance to stun mobs).  Combined all these spells can help tremendously with larger numbers of mobs.

Hunter

A hunter is a useful spec to have in an instance, though it requires good control of their pet.  Hunters have slowing spells, scatter shot (a mix of fear and stun) and ice traps, these can put a mob out of action while you clear the others.  Their DPS is also impressive, sometimes beating that of a rogue or mage.

Warlock

Warlocks are a great addition to a party, able to give out DPS close to a mage plus they can supply the party with health stones and soulstone the priest (Helps prevent or recover from a wipe when put on a priest.  Their crowd control is varied banish can stop an elemental or demon mob from attacking for a minute and curses can do anything from cause damage, make mobs cause less damage, make them take more shadow or elemental damage and even double the spell casting time of a mob. They also have a multitude of fear spells, which are useful when well controlled and disastrous when not.  Most warlocks avoid using fear in instances unless on a bosses adds or when they can guarantee a mob wont be feared into another group, pulling even more.

Warlocks pets do tend to be used a lot in an instance, a warlocks imp has a spell to increase the parties stamina, a succubus can charm a mob, allowing for even more crowd control, voidwalkers are good for an off tank and temporary shield if you wish to sacrifice them and a felhunter can cause damage, silence spellcasters and remove buffs from enemies and debuffs from your own team.  This is incredibly useful on later bosses where debuffs can do anything from stop your spell casting to increasing damage taken by 500%

Rogue

Rogues are always a bonus for a party, their most useful attribute of picking locks helps with many doors and locked chests.  The DPS of a good rogue can match that of a mages and they also have sap, a way of incapacitating a mob.  This is incredibly useful crowd control but can be a pain as the mob has to be sapped while out of combat.  A good rogue is a great addition to a party when managed correctly, but could do with a few more CC techniques.  Their high melee DPS mixed with a variety of stuns and spell interrupts makes them a valuable member on instance with spell casters.

Druid

While more suited to an off healer/tank status they also have an effective DPS form.  While it can sometimes be useful to have a third healer in a group, for if the off healer has heavy agro or similar, a druid is not always the best option as they lack crowd control abilities.

Shaman

Fairly similar to a druid, the totems can be useful but their lack of crowd control makes them a poor choice for a DPS role and more an off healer/tank role

Which DPS character should you take?

This is always a hard choice, the characters taken should always reflect on the instance itself. For an instance with lots of demons and spellcasters a good choice would be a warlock and rogue.  A warlock can banish, silence with felhunter and use curse of tongues to slow casting time.  In the meantime the rogue can sap while dealing large damage to the cloth wearers while kicking and stunning to interrupt spell casts.

If a boss has several adds which grow stronger over time more instantaneous DPS may be needed than what a warlock could provide by damage over time spells.  In those instances a rogue and a mage could be a good choice, the rogue saps, the mage sheeps and both can do large amounts of damage quickly, killing the mobs while they have lower HP.

Whichever you decide to take you should never have two DPSers of the same class as you lose a lot of your versatility to handle different situations.   The chart below shows the basic CC abilities of different classes, these are not always available since some require a certain talent to be learnt.