Your worst group?

[kandrathe]

Pet Peeve: people care about group composition too much.  Everyone wants a "better" group than they have.  I think it's time for the Variant Scum to come up with some interesting party compositions to help prove people wrong about groups.

A well-structured group (filling Healer, Tank, AoE, crowd control roles) has one thing over other groups: stability.  The tank tries to get aggro on everything, while everyone else tries to avoid it (ignoring offtanks).  That's oversimplying things, but it's the general premise.

My typical group is Hunter/Hunter/Rogue/Priest/Priest.  If we're not MCing (for instance, at the 5-dwarf area of BRD), that leaves at best one Sap and Freeze Trap for CC.  For groups mixed elite and regular, the bears split to offtank, the hunters focus on a single elite, and I wipe out all the non-elites.  One of our priests is shadow-specced, so it's not like we get no damage out of the Priests.  At the next point targets are decided by experience, by what goes down first, and if a priest gets aggro.  I am amazes sometimes at how I stay alive, because I work hard to get aggro if I see a priest snag it.

If you haven't experienced it yet, it looks like complete chaos.  But the party always knows what's going on, we pay attention to what others are doing, and we know how to handle different situations.

Yesterday we had a group with Flyndar and Yuen in Stratholme, but it didn't work out quite as well.  Priest/Priest/Rogue/Rogue/Hunter.  The problem wasn't in group dynamic as much as it was we weren't used to each other or the instance.  Anytime we bit it hard, we had a way around it.  Adds were the problem of the day, and that's more a problem of learning an instance.  The Respawn Monster came eventually, causing us to forget going any further.  Each of us learned our lessons, and I'm pretty sure my normal group will handle it as long as we don't make mistakes that cause adds.

So far as I've seen, the only role that is 100% necessary all the time is healer.  No tanks and no pets I haven't tried yet, so I'd like to hear stories of how that goes.  Any other composition that I see is probably viable.  It may be hard, it may not be predictable, but groups can get by if they try deviating from the norm.
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I think the warrior is the best damage sponge, and does the very best at being able to hold aggro on mobs. Pets are ok, but they lack the armor to absorb as much punishment as a warrior or a paladin. The paladin is good tank, but without a good way for cause hate he has trouble keeping the mobs off the squishies. Using pets works if the priests can keep them healed, but again thinking of mana efficiency, it would be better for damage to be reduced by high armor. The advantage of using hunters is that they can deliver high DPS, and provide a tank. How are your priests spec'd, do they also participate in DPS?

All in all, my observation is that with good communication, experience and sanity, adequate tanking, adequate healing, and patience most dungeons are conquerable and enjoyable. But, one idiot can spoil it for all.