Published on June 20, 2008 
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20 Comments One way to maximize a raid’s output and chances of success is to look carefully at how groups are organized. Many classes have buffs of some sort that they offer exclusively to their particular party, and for every group buff, some classes benefit from the buff more than others. Intelligently organizing groups is a way to increase your raid’s potential.
A challenge with organizing groups is that everyone tends to want to be in the group where they feel they receive the most benefit, and the job of the raid leader is to create balanced groups that most benefit the raid. I’m going to go over some of the basic benefits offered by various classes and who are obvious beneficiaries; this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive word on the subject, but if you’re in a guild that doesn’t organize their groups on raids, this should be enough to get you started.
As this topic has a lot to cover, I’ll be giving this information in two pieces. Today, I’ll discuss the classes that wear plate and mail; next week, I will follow up with a post discussing the leather and cloth wearing classes and what they offer.
One quick disclaimer before I begin: The goal of this post is to only enumerate and explain benefactors and beneficiaries for own-group buffs. I’m not covering group buffs that can be cast on every group in the raid (think Prayer of Fortitude or Blessing of Kings), nor am I covering raid wide buffs (think Expose Weakness). That isn’t to say that these aren’t valuable or worth knowing about, but they don’t contribute to group organization, which is the point of the post.
Warriors
Warriors have two group buffs:
- Battle Shout is an increase to melee attack power. Rogues, enhancement shaman, feral druids, and other arms/fury warriors are most poised to gain from Battle Shout, and the Arms tree has an improved version of this buff. Hunters can also benefit, but tend to be out of range (20 yards) of the shout when it’s cast (which is normally after combat has started, since it costs 10 rage).
- Commanding Shout increases raw hit points (distinct from stamina), increasing the survivability of tank groups.
Warriors are key beneficiaries of quite a few buffs:
- Protection warriors (tanks) are good targets for a paladin’s Devotion Aura (additional armor), a warlock’s Blood Pact (additional stamina), and a tree druid’s increased healing. Protection warriors are also good targets for Vampiric Embrace from a shadow priest in areas where healing is an issue, although their lack of a mana bar decreases their value here somewhat.
- If a mob fears, a Tremor Totem in the tank group is often extremely valuable.
- DPS warriors are good targets for a shaman’s Windfury Totem, a paladin’s Sanctity Aura, a druid’s Leader of the Pack, and a hunter’s Trueshot Aura.
Paladins
Paladins have an array of nice auras they can offer to various classes:
- Devotion Aura increases the armor of everyone in the party. This is valuable for anyone, but is generally best suited for tanks. It’s worth noting that holy paladins will generally be out of aura range (30 yards) if they don’t have the Aura Mastery talent. Protection paladins may have an improved version of this buff.
- Retribution Aura does a small bit of holy damage to any attacker who strikes a target in the party. This is a passive, group-wide equivalent to Thorns. This is valuable for tanks, especially in a situation where they’re tanking a large number of mobs at once. Because healer threat in particular is divided equally among all mobs currently in combat with the healer, Retribution Aura can significantly increase a tank’s ability to hold a large group.
- Concentration Aura gives casters in the group a chance to not be interrupted if they’re hit while casting. This is a 35% resist, although protection paladins may have an improved version (50%). It stacks multiplicative with other talent or gear-based interrupt resists (such as Healing Focus). This benefits casters; it generally makes sense, if you want this buff, to put a holy paladin with the casters, as a protection or retribution paladin will be out of range.
- Sanctity Aura, which is a 21 point retribution talent, increases holy damage done. More importantly, however, Improved Sanctity Aura increases all damage done by the party by 2%. This is the retribution paladin aura. It’s primary beneficiaries are other melee DPS players, due to casters’ being out of range.
- Resistance Auras (fire, frost, and shadow) provide 70 resistance of that school of magic to all party members. This is obviously used situationally, and does not stack with equivalent shaman totems or Prayer of Shadow Protection.
Paladins are good beneficiaries for quite a few buffs:
- Holy paladins benefit from a druid’s Moonkin Aura, as their healing and mana return is based on their ability to land crits. Holy paladins also benefit from a shadow priest’s Vampiric Touch, although they often get passed over for this in favor of other classes.
- Protection paladins benefit from a shaman’s Wrath of Air or Totem of Wrath, in addition to traditional tank buffs such as a warlock imp’s Blood Pact, or a restoration druid’s healing buff. Additionally, a protection paladin is a surprisingly decent target for a shadow priest’s Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch, as the healing and mana return on mana-sapped tankadins often proves invaluable, although generally healers have a priority on that.
- Retribution paladins benefit from a hunter’s Trueshot Aura, a warrior’s Battle Shout, a feral druid’s Leader of the Pack, and a shaman’s Windfury Totem.
Shaman
Shaman have far too many totems for me to completely cover all of them. However, here’s an overview of the highlights:
- Windfury Totem gives every weapon swing a 20% chance to get an additional swing that itself has additional attack power. This is by far the best weapon buff in the game. It’s primary beneficiaries are sword rogues and warriors, with retribution paladins and rogues of other specs being secondary beneficiaries. This buff does not stack with and will take a back-burner to rogue poisons and any sort of weapon oil or sharpening stone, so if windfury totem is in use, make sure the group knows not to use those items on their main hand weapons.
- Grace of Air increases agility, and is the most useful totem if the group comprises primarily rogues that are not specced into sword specialization as well as hunters.
- Totem of Wrath, the 41 point elemental shaman talent, increases spell hit and crit chance by 3%. This is an amazing totem for casters (mages, warlocks, shadow priests, balance druids) and secondarily for protection paladins.
- Wrath of Air is a generally-available totem that increases spell damage and healing by 101. Excellent for casters, healers, and protection paladins.
- Termor Totem pulses once very four seconds and breaks fear, charm, and sleep effects. This is situationally extremely valuable. Often, putting a shaman in the main tank group can ease certain fights (High King Maulgar and Nightbane are both good examples of this), especially when the tank in question is not a warrior.
- Mana Tide Totem is in the restoration tree, and restores a significant chunk of mana to the entire party. Additionally, Mana Spring Totem is available to all shaman and amounts to 50 mana per 5 seconds.
- Resistance totems (fire, frost, nature) offer 70 resistance to the given school. These are slightly more cludgy to use than paladin auras, and don’t stack with them (nor do they stack with a hunter’s Mark of the Wild); however, they are also not locked to the paladin’s location and therefore can be more valuable in some cases.
- Enhancement shaman get a group buff that increases attack power every time they land a critical strike. Obvious beneficiaries for this are other melee classes.
Shaman are good beneficiaries for:
- Restoration shaman benefit from a shadow priest’s Vampiric Touch, as well as a paladin’s Concentration Aura.
- Enhancement shaman are excellent targets for Trueshot Aura from hunters, Battle Shout from warriors, Sanctity Aura from paladins, and Leader of the Pack from druids. Remember that enhancement shaman give off a group wide buff (as well as their own self-buff, Flurry) when they land a critical strike, so the increased critical strike chance from Leader of the Pack is exceptionally valuable on an enhancement shaman.
- Elemental shaman are excellent recipients for a balance druid’s Moonkin Aura; the additional spell critical strike chance is invaluable to them. They also won’t complain if given a shadow priest for Vampiric Touch, although generally mana-dependent healers get priority on that.
Hunters
Hunters, depending on spec, have a couple very important group-specific buffs:
- Marksman hunters have an aura called Trueshot Aura, which increases physical attack power for their group. Key beneficiaries for this are melees and other hunters. Secondary beneficiaries are warrior and druid tanks.
- Beast Mastery hunters give their group a buff that increases their damage done by 3%. Therefore, they are excellent assets to other damage classes.
- Aspect of the Wild is a nature resistance aura, worth 70 nature resistance. This is situationally useful and works exactly like a paladin aura.
Hunters are good beneficiaries for:
- A shaman’s Grace of Air totem, which increases agility, is exceptionally valuable on a hunter.
- Leader of the Pack is exceptionally valuable on hunters. As its range is 45 yards, hunters are generally in range to get this, and a 5% increase to their critical strike chance is significant.
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Just a minor correction, “Mark of the Wild” should be called “Aspect of the Wild” in this case. The Mark is a druid buff.
Thanks for the insight on this, Lass. Raid organization and the sheer number of buffs are beyond me, so it’s nice to know if, say, a shaman in an instance asks if people want Windfury or something else, or if a paladin is asking what blessings people want.
A few corrections on Shaman/Paladin (since I play both of those):
Most protection paladins won’t have improved Devotion aura or improved Concentration Aura. It’s actually more common for holy paladins to take these talents, as protection paladins tend to spend a large number of talent points on the tanking talents in that tree.
Totem of Wrath, while nice for the crit and spell hit, is mostly-wasted on a protection paladin. Similarly, if a protection paladin is tanking a boss which hits hard enough to require more than one healer assigned, then they probably won’t need Vampiric Touch to regen their mana pool.
Elemental Shamans benefit greatly from Moonkin Aura, which increases their crit chance and ensures that their clearcasting buff is up almost continuously.
Of the three Hunter classes, Marksman hunters are the only ones which don’t have a group/raid buff based on crit. For that reason, if you can only give Aspect of the Pack to one hunter, make sure it’s a Survival or Beast Mastery hunter. (BM does more damage, but Survival provides a raid-wide debuff lowering armor)
Loronar — I didn’t write this.
(Checking “Posted By” or the accompanying post avatar FTW!)
Andris — Aspect of the Pack is the hunter group run-speed buff.
Hushai,
Great write up! I am looking forward to part 2.
I guess since you are only covering group buffs (since this is group make up after all) if why you left off Survival’s Expose Weakness and the (de)buff, and it’s improved version, from which this blog takes it’s name
Skar (5/5 IHM) and Co.
Expose weakness is raid wide, kinda like faerie fire, so it doesn’t effect group placement :p
Zepp
And, with 45%+ crit chance raid buffed and ~900 Agi, Expose Weakness has constant up-time and is actually better than Trueshot Aura. No wonder Survival is the new Marksmanship.
HI ZEPP!
@Loronar: Good call. It is, indeed, Aspect of the Wild. I’ll correct this momentarily (if Lass hasn’t already).
@Andris: It’s correct that protection paladins don’t normally have those talents (I play one and skipped both); however, they’re in the protection tree. I didn’t do a very good job of distinguishing this. Actually, I don’t think anyone really takes improved Conc Aura because it’s so badly placed.
Regarding Vampiric Touch…I agree that this is the case for bosses that hit hard, but it’s not the case for when you’re on par or slightly better gear for the zone. And, in the case that the boss hits like a truck, then you want Vampiric Embrace instead, so it’s somewhat of a wash.
Good catch also on elemental shaman and Moonkin Aura. I missed that one.
@Skarlarth: Yes, Expose Weakness was deliberately skipped because it’s not a self-group buff. It’s a valuable thing to have, but it doesn’t affect group placement.
Heh. I somehow missed elemental shaman’s recipient segment completely. D’oh.
Regarding Vampiric Touch and Vampiric Embrace: the two are not mutually exclusive. Which is to say, they’re both part of a normal Shadow Priest spell rotation, so it’s not a “one or the other” kind of deal, so much as a “more often than not, both” kind of deal.
@ Larrisa
Yep, at high agility levels, Expose Weakness is great for the melee DPS. However, in a 25 man raiding situation, you only need one SV hunter and the rest are asked to be BM/MM for FI buffs to thier party. Both of which are better raid buffs than TSA because they improve with gear and TSA don’t help the mages or locks that may be in your party in a 5-man instances.
@ Luke,
My alt is a level 70 resto shaman. Don’t forget that Feral Druids get a nice buff out of Grace of Air totem as well as hunters and rogues.
@Lassirra – That teaches me to pay attention more.
Taconite — It’s Lassirra, not Larrisa.
Also, while, yes, it’s more prudent to only have one SV hunter, few casual guilds will tell people how to spec (which is as it should be). You bring what you have available to you.
D’OH! On the name, sorry! My dyslexia got the better of me there.
Yeah, I agree with spec for non-hardcore raiding guilds; however, a guild that we are currently working with is pretty hard core and toward the top of Thrall’s progression list. I am currently MM/SV for trapping in five mans if I am not running with guildies and will be asked to CC. Silencing Shot, Scatter Shot and improved traps FTW. With the BRK BM/MM spec, I have had a much harder time trapping heroics.
My guild has a (IMPO anyway) great SV hunter. When I know that I am running with her in Kara, and for 25 man content with our allies, I am happy to respec BM/MM. In those cases, I know that will not need to trap a lot, the party buff from FI is better than TSA, as well as my own DPS and my cat’s are better. I love seeing that FI buff being reset every couple of seconds and knowing that my party is doing more DPS because of me and then turning my pet into a big red killing machine every couple of minutes for a nice burst of damage.
I see I have rambled enough, sorry again about the name.
My point was this: a person’s decision to respec is (or at least should be) their own. The fact that you respec every time you raid with a specific person is your own choice, and by no means what I would recommend as the norm for others. It makes very little sense to respec every time you raid with one specific person. Not only are the respec fees costly, but not all gear is appropriate for each of the three specs, so you’re either carrying around 2-3 sets of gear, or constantly re-gemming/enchanting the same pieces over and over to get the most utility out of what you’ve got–which is also costly, and not very efficient.
While, yes, I will grant that having more than one SV hunter in a raid is probably excessive, particularly if one of them is able to maintain an EW buff 100% of the time (which, raid-buffed, an SV hunter should be able to do), to have someone constantly respeccing is likely just as imprudent.
These are just a few of the reasons why, when asked, I will tell people: find a spec you enjoy playing, and stick with it. Respec only if that’s truly what you would enjoy doing the most, because you no longer enjoy the spec you currently play.
Awesome post Luke. This is THE area I wanted to improve. Your post was avidly read. I eagerly await the next one.
One correction:
“This buff does not stack with and will take a back-burner to rogue poisons and any sort of weapon oil or sharpening stone [...]”
It was my understanding that WF was superior to oils and sharpening stones. This seems to be the point you are trying to make, but the first part of your sentence reads otherwise.
Ignore me if i’m wrong, hehe. (And let me know in Vent, too)
I should have made it explicit that it is my own decision to respec for raiding. Nobody in my guild or alliance has said: “Taco, you need to do X or Y for raiding”. I look at the group’s make up and decide myself what I am going to do based on what I feel like will be best for the guild/raid. (Which is why I leveled a resto shaman to 70 too) Our guild uses a sign up sheet for our raiding, so it is not that hard to look at the sheet in advance and see if I feel like I want respec or not.
You mentioned the respec fee; while 50G is a lot, I can easily grind that much gold in less than a hour while I am doing the fishing and cooking quests for food or a couple of SSO dailies.
I like playing around with various specs in instances and raids, as I have learned some of the various strengths and weaknesses of the specs, which IMPO is helpful to know your class better. My experience from raiding Kara with the SV hunter I mentioned before is that BM/MM synergizes better than MM/SV spec. Like I posted before, if I need to CC, I love the MM/SV spec; if I don’t, then I love to run as a BM/MM and just DPS stuff happily spamming my shot macro.
You mentioned enchants for the various hunter trees. IMPO, the geming and enchanting for a hunter, based on spec, is much more similar to each other than for say switching between the specs of other classes like Shaman or Priests; + Agility (which I prefer, though I take AP when I cannot get it), + Hit (up to the cap based on surefooted or not), and + Stamina, while it can be argued are slightly better for one hunter spec are generally the choice another hunter spec would make too.
Taconite —
That much was readily apparent, and I said as much in my reply. It was simply worth mentioning that your case is more the exception to the rule than anything that should be suggested to others.
As to the respec fees, while 50 gold may be easy for you to acquire, for others (like myself), it may not be, and bears mentioning as well. Also, it seems unlikely that all hunters follow the same gemming policies and preferences, so again, what works for you may not for others.
Regardless, while the conversation was interesting, it wasn’t on-topic for this particular post, so I won’t be saying any more on the subject.
@Rykk: Windfury is significantly better. However, if a rogue has poisons or a warrior has sharpening stones up, then those will be the effect that they actually get. In other words, if Windfury Totem is being dropped, it’s important that other weapon buffs/oils/stones **not** be applied.
The “back-burner” comment is supposed to be explaining what will actually happen (as far as game mechanics are concerned) if both are present, not what is most beneficial.
Just looking over the comments again — Wrath of Air is a good buff for Holy Paladins as well (+101 healing, untalented), as is a shaman’s Mana Spring (and Mana Tide) totems.
You also missed the other, super-duper-major group (but not raid) buff that all three shaman specs supply – Bloodlust/Heroism. 30% haste (all effects 30% faster) for 40 seconds. This is on a 10-minute cooldown, and depending on the group, is often saved for “Execute range” on a boss if there is a fire mage, subtlety rogue, or warrior in the group. (Each of which has special talents/abilities which only work when a target is below a certain percentage.)
Some raids will actually swap a shaman into a DPS group so that they can pop Heroism, then put them back into the old group.
[...] especially for classes/specs I’m not very familiar with. The Hunter’s Mark has a primer on Group Organization which suggests which classes do well in groups with particular other classes. It reminds of that [...]
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