In WoW: Burning Crusade Classic, the class composition of your raid is much more important than it was in WoW Classic. In this guide, we’ll not only tell you why this is the case, we’ll also give you specific setup recommendations for your first visits to Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, and Magtheridon’s Chamber.
In WoW Classic, it’s pretty easy to set up a decent raid setup for the various raid challenges. Many specializations are not well playable in the Classic era anyway. In-group buffs hardly matter aside from shaman totems. The biggest challenge is getting 40 players together for each date while having enough tanks and healers at the start.
In WoW: Burning Crusade Classic, the situation turns around. Instead of 40 and 20 players respectively, you only have to find 25 and 10 players for the TBC raids. In return, there are now many more raid-wide, as well as intragroup buffs and debuffs that have a noticeable positive effect on damage, healing, threat generated, and survivability (and which we actually get to use thanks to the increase in the debuff cap).
- You can find more information here: WoW: TBC Classic – Overview of the most important buffs and debuffs.
Less space, a larger number of important buffs and debuffs – both in combination naturally increase the urgency to optimally fill the available raid slots. In addition, TBC’s various raid challenges often place special demands on the setup. Sometimes you need a certain class that slips into the tank role. Sometimes a boss is very melee-unfriendly or you need more tanks or healers than is normally the case.
We already gave you a first preview of the requirements of the first 25-player raids and suggested possible squad compositions. Since we now know that most of the bosses will arrive on the live servers in their pre-nerf version and which raid instances are part of the first phase of TBC Classic, we would like to provide you with a setup update for Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Chamber.
TBC Classic: Optimal raid setup for Karazhan
You probably want to write in the comments section that Karazhan will be very easy and you won’t need an optimal setup for the 10-player raid: Yup, you guys are right about that. However, the raid does make some demands on the raid that you should keep in mind when planning your squad or when distributing the players to the different Karazhan groups.
- Some bosses can be mastered with one tank, but many will require a second tank.
- Back in the day, raids would boot into Karazhan with up to four healers on their first runs. In TBC Classic, three healers should be enough for progression. Later on, most guilds will probably go down to two healers.
- You will need at least one player who can remove curses (Mage or Druid) and one player who can purify magic (Priest, Paladin).
- In Karazhan, undead always need to be controlled. Capturing undead of a priest is best for this. A second priest can further simplify fights like the one against Moroes. Paladins can also dispel undead in a pinch. Or you can pull Adds into the ice trap of a hunter.
- For a battle of the theater event (Wizard of Oz) you need a class that deals fire damage. You also need to control the lion with fear effects. A warlock can do both. However, there are also alternatives such as the fire spells of mages and wild animal scare of hunters. Furthermore, it helps if you can cover the Tin Man with frost attacks from a mage or shaman.
- For the fight against Romulo and Julianne you should have a class at the start that can cleanse (shaman, priest) or steal (mage) the buff Devotion.
- Again and again, dangerous or healing spells of the opponents have to be interrupted – in the fight against Aran, for example. The most reliable way to do this job are melee fighters like rogues or warriors.
- A warlock will make the fight against Terestian Siechhuf much easier, keyword: Seed of Corruption. Warlocks can also banish or reliably strike fear into the elementals at Aran.
- Some bosses in Karazhan can be noticeably more difficult if you have too many melee fighters with you. At the same time, you don’t want to completely abandon frontline soldiers. Firstly, because there are completely magic-immune trash opponents in the form of the Manashlingers. On the other hand, the Horror of the Night could end up on the live servers in its most difficult version. In that case, the skeletons only take damage from physical attacks and Holy spells.
If we lump all of this together, there are a whole lot of setup possibilities. Below you will find a strong squad for Karazhan:
Group 1
- Wildness Druid
- Protection Warrior
- Battle Rogue
- Affliction Warlock
- Restoration Shaman
Explanation: the Protection Warrior is your main tank, his defensive cooldowns are worth their weight in gold at the start. The Fierceness Druid does damage as a cat when he doesn’t need to tank. Both benefit from the Affliction Warlock’s Imp and the Shaman’s Totems. The rogue provides kick, stuns, physical damage, and armor debuffs if desired.
Group 2
- Saint/Discipline Priest
- Holy-Paladin
- Fire Mage
- Shadow-Priest
- Elemental Shaman
Strong totems from the Ele, the increased mana regeneration from the Shadow Priest: your mage and both healers will love this group. In addition, you have all the important dispell types and lots of control options (also thanks to the Warlock in group 1) at the start.
Optimal Raid Setup for Gruul and Magtheridon
Of course, the bosses of the first 25-player instances from Phase 1 also have special features that you should keep in mind when setting them up. At the same time, both instances are so small that most guilds will complete them in one go. Your raid squad for the evening should be able to handle both raid dungeons.
Gruul’s Lair – High King Raufgar
- The main tank grabs Raufgar (a second tank stands by in phase 2 in case tank No. 1 gets the fear effect).
- An offtank grabs the priest that gets knocked down first.
- One mage tanks the mage add, thanks to spell steal and with some fire resistance.
- Two hunters tank the shaman add (balance druids are also possible).
- Two more tanks or one tank plus one taken over devil dog grab the warlock add.
- Warlocks take care of banishing/taking over the devil dogs.
- Due to Raufgar’s whirlwind and fear effect, melee fighters are at a slight disadvantage. However, you should have at least two melee fighters who can interrupt all heals from the priest.
Gruul’s Lair – Gruul, the Dragon Slayer
- You’ll need two tanks, one to tank Gruul, and one to help absorb the painful blow as the second in the aggro list.
- It is important that you are always spread out in space if possible. If there are too many melee fighters, this will be difficult. At the same time, you need to knock the boss down before his grow buff stacks too high. So you can’t afford to have frontline soldiers constantly out of striking range of the boss.
Magtheridon’s Chamber – Magtheridon
- With Magtheridon, you need enough tanks to bind the five Hellfire Channelers in Phase 1. By misdirecting fighters, you can quickly bring distant channelers to your tanks. Then, for example, the Protection Paladin as well as the second offtank each takes two adds.
- It’s also helpful to have three to four Warlocks to take care of the summoned Abyssal creatures via Banish or Fear. Alternatively, they can be ice-trapped by hunters.
- The Dark Mending, as well as the Channelers’ Shadow Bolt volleys, must be interrupted. If you park two of the adds at the Protection Paladin with enough distance to the raid, you can ignore their spells for now.
If we pack all that together and add that many raids will rely on six to seven healers in progress and due to the pre-nerf promise (with two Shadow Priests, six healers should be enough), then the following setup suggests itself.
Group 1 (Melee)
- Protection Warrior (Main Tank)
- Reinforcement Shaman
- Retribution Paladin
- Weapon Warrior
- Combat Rogue
Explanation: All players in this group benefit from the Totem of Wind Wrath. The Weapon Warrior increases melee damage and assists the Protection Warrior with Shouts and Thunderclaps. In addition, there are several melee warriors in this group at once who can take on “kick” tasks when needed.
Group 2 (Hunter Group)
- Animal dominion hunter No. 1
- Animal Domination Hunter No. 2
- Survival Hunter
- Wildness Druid (Off-Tank No. 2)
- Reinforcement or Restoration Shaman
Explanation: The Wildness Druid and the Hunters fully benefit from the Shaman’s mobility totem. The Beast Lords also buff each other and are only too happy to take the Druid’s crit buff. The damage from the huntsmen should be huge, even more so if you rotate in more shamans for Battle Rage/Heroism. Which Shaman specialization you use here depends on whether you want to go for six or seven healers.
Group 3 (strong caster group)
- Destruction Warlock No. 1
- Destruction Warlock – No. 2
- Fire Mage
- Elemental Shaman
- Balance Druid
Explanation: The second important DpS group. The Warlocks support each other with their Shadow Lightning and benefit enormously from the support of “Ele” and “Moonkin”. Of course, the latter also applies to the Mage, who also has to take on tanking duties with High King Raufgar and should then end up with the Affliction Warlock and Reconstruction Druid in the next group.
Group 4 (Caster/Prot-Pala Group)
- Protection Paladin (Off-Tank No. 1)
- Restoration Druid
- Affliction Warlock
- Shadow Priest
- Restoration Shaman
Explanation: The Shadow Priest, Affliction Wizard, Druid Treeform, and Restoration Shaman totems benefit the Protection Paladin much more than they ever would in Group 1. The Shadow Priest also ensures that the healers don’t run out of breath.
Group 5 (Healers)
- Discipline Priest
- Holy-Priest
- Holy Paladin
- Shadow Priest
- Restoration Shaman
Explanation: With the two healing Priest specializations and the Holy Paladin, the last medic types now land in the squad. The Shadow Priest provides the mana regeneration so that the doctoring quartet can really step on the gas.
With this setup, there are just three buffs/debuffs that are not available to you: Winter Cold from Frost Mages (which doesn’t matter since there are no Frost Mages in the raid), Bloodfall from Deception Rogues (which is negligible since it’s a weak debuff), and Aura of Marksmanship from Marksmanship Hunters (since Marksmanship performs significantly worse than Beast Mastery and Survival in PvE content, we have to live with it across all phases).
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access to WoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
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