So I'm highly debating a new team when Cata comes....

[Tim]

... and I'm totally swamped and have no idea what I want the team to be.

I'm thinking 3 mages?

or 10 mages?

Or 10 warlocks? Or 3 warlocks?

I've no idea, but I think it will highly depend on what sort of battlegrounds are coming up for Cataclysm as I would really love to do the majority of my leveling in a BG.

I really like being in a BG and just spamming an AOE, so that part would be fun. I would really like protection from fear as well. Pets are fun for sure, too.

[Ualaa]

Well... five gets you a full team, should you also want to PvE with the team.

But 3 or 4 toons (your entire team) all in one place, is less of a handicap in smaller battlegrounds then 5 toons in one area.

Five toons is not much of a dent, when there are twenty five toons in the BG (AV). But that is half of a WSG, which can make it hard to win.

Until your toons pull as much weight as an equal number of solo players, the fewer you run (while still easily killing solo enemies), the easier the team as a whole has to win a given battleground.

Winning a battleground is roughly triple the experience of losing in the same battleground, with objectives achieved worth quite a bit too. You'll want to run a number of toons, which give your team a good shot at both achieving objectives and at winning the battleground, for maximum experience per hour.

As far as class composition, there are a lot of potentially good combinations. Blizzard is not totally happy with the current damage numbers. They've posted that Ret Paladins, Feral Cats, Arms Warriors and Fury Warriors are not putting out the damage they wish, and all will be substantially buffed. Similarly all Mages (slightly), and Fire Mages in particular, are putting out too much damage as are Shadow Priests; so we can expect slight nerfs to Arcane/Frost Mages and Shadow Priests, with a larger nerf to Fire Mages.

Classes will be balanced upwards or downwards, until they're fairly close to each other. Unfortunately, they have to balance both vs PvE raids and PvP play, so even when "balanced" some will be better then others at PvP.

As always, from a boxing point of view, we need to look for effects which stack as we add more toons to the mix. Or go with classes that have stronger synergy.

Later on, if you want to play the team competitively in arena or rated battlegrounds, gear will be less of an issue than it is currently.

It looks like there will be a cap on the maximum rated points you can gain in a week. You cannot lose points for losing a rated battleground, so the good players might cap after 45 minutes of arena or ten rated battlegrounds run in the week. The less skilled players will cap at twenty rated battlegrounds, but get just as many points as the top players per week, which means gear comes at the same pace for everyone.

So, down the road, skill will be the determining factor for equal number combats. We'll still have an edge, when it is five toons on one... but I'd expect five one-boxers to also beat a solo one-boxer.

[pinki104]

Will justice points and honour points be wiped for when cata comes out?

[Ualaa]

Doubt it.

But we still have the cap of 4,000 Justice Points.
Once you reach that level, anything beyond that which would have been earnt is lost.

[pinki104]

Have they announced how many points high end vendor gear will cost

[Smithnweson]

Points over the current caps will be wiped in 4.0.3 then the hard cap stays in place and will not be touched any further.

====
Gnome punting FTW

[ebony]

Originally Posted by pinki104

Have they announced how many points high end vendor gear will cost

its on beta ^^ what you like to know pvp or pve

beta its down atm same as live in the EU i was looking today you get about 2 blue itams as you can not get the high end points yet

[Zub]

how about a mixed team for a bit of a challenge?

[orianthi]

I’m on the same boat as you Tim, i made 4 five-boxed teams (blackrock of course) and in their mid-60s atm. I am 99% leveling in dungeons that i’m losing interest on them (the dungeons). My thinking is I may be able to get the best gear out of a 5-man but i will not most likely raid 10/25 man so there is really no use for all the gear.

PvP however is a different story, i took a lot of short breaks to keep my sanity from the grind and leveling. I just came back around patch 4.0.1, I am playing around with 3-boxing, BG and world PvP. I just made a hunter, druid & priest in Korgath, the idea is to fool the enemy with the druid as my pet and of course stealth (and shadowmeld). I’m having a lot of fun, it’s nice to explore the world again and took gathering with all my teams, Archaelogy should be a lot of fun with this kind of play.

I considered 3 druids (stealth) but I’d prefer a mix team. The problem that i see with 3 locks/mages is the lack of survivability (healing and rez). I’d like to have a very durable team in cata since i heard healing cost more. I’m still undecided and will be trying different compositions before cata is live, i may even do 4-box so i can do dungeons when i feel doing some PvE.

[ebony]

av weekend! level as many as you can to 80 in a few days

if its like my locks get pwned at 80, might try some huters or priests they seem unkillble atm