Which melee team to go with?

[Ualaa]

I'm really thinking of a melee team.
The focus for this will be PvP.

I'd arena, as a means to gear for battlegrounds.
Preferring rated battlegrounds, once that comes into play.

I'll be playing all five toons myself.

I already have druids in the lower 70's now.
Was originally going Balance, for battleground PvP.
Have not actually switched them yet, but the lack of burst is a strong consideration.

So my choices are:
a) DK + 4x Ret.
b) 5x Rogue.
c) 5x Feral.

Which would you do, and why?

[Boylston]

Here are some thoughts...

DK+4xRet:
It's popular right now for a reason. It looks to be a very strong combo in arena and BGs. Nice survivability and a load of passive healing mean that you could go on some real BG rampages without stopping. Huge fringe benefit of being able to run PvE content to level, get badges, etc.

5xRogues:
This feels too specialized for me, and probably a better approach for arena. (Not trying to spark a debate between rogues and DK+pallies in 5s!) It's probably a hard comp for BGs because you don't have any heals, passive heals, or resurrection capability. Lack of rez would seal the deal for me, if my focus was BGs. Drop a druid in there and that might be improved. 5xRogues has this amazing alpha strike burst, but I think it's a one-trick pony after that. Very little overlapping buff synergy compared to 3 pallies and a blood/frost DK.

5xFeral:
Lack of burst doesn't concern me a ton, not for BGs. I think you could have a blast my running 5xBears... Talk about a durable pile of 5xSwipe Spam goodness. You get some passive healing out of LotP, a nice self-heal from Frenzied Regen, and just a ton of durability. I think cat would be preferred for most of your romps, though. It's got the same rogue-ish feel as rogues but with rez capability. You trade off some massive burst, but that's probably OK for BGs. Team can also PvE well, obviously, and you really could convert them to boomkins to mix it up if you wanted.

Long story short, I like DK+4xRet, then 5xFeral, with 5xRogues dead last. A lot is going to depend on your playstyle though. If you want to be a blast of WTFDPS!!1! from the shadows, rogues will do that. I like Rez too much for BGs to ever play without it, though.

[remanz]

I can only talk about what I know. Don't know squat about rogues and druids. But I think if you are playing all 5, then 5 rogues wouldn't work. No healing and as rogues, I don't see this suicide team would get too far in BGs.

Been playing DK + rets for a while now. Talking about arena, no purge, no healing debuff, rets burst are not that amazing. Not to mention we all run around the target like headless chickens (might delay skills, white melee swings, coming out). Losing some burst there.

If my target got hots, priest, paladin shields on, it is totally healable. The strength comes from CCs. Interrupt, CC healers are the only way (BE AOE slience is mandatory). With that said, divine shield + divine sacrifice makes the team. Not the bursts. Being able to bubble individually and negate the other team's burst is crucial.

Rather than beat on the warlock or the elemental shaman everytime, I switched my strategy to slience, stun, and beat on the priest to start. The results got better. If the other team don't try to constantly CC me, I can win. Kiting is still a problem, and a major one. Frost mage, Hunter, Elemental shaman.

So I am considering switching to an enhancement shaman lead.

So all in all, I would rank DK/shaman + 4 rets as the top melee group.

edit:
I can't emphasis on this burst problem enough. To take down a target while letting the healers running free, I need to at least output 3000 dps on all 4 paladins and 2000 dps on the DK. All this in 2-3 seconds, no more than 2 GCDs. and 3000 dps in PVP is not that easy to achieve. 12000 + 6000 + some white dmg (roughly 10k) = 28000 damage (this is really just minimum here). In details, Crusader strike => 1 GCD => Judgement => 1 GCD => Divine Storm. by this time if he is not dead, he is back to full. This is the time to bubble and sacrifice. And the CC game starts on me. Against good wizard cleave, it is pretty much over.

Also on druids, Feral druids do have a ramp up time in burst (just like DK). The burst doesn't kick in until you have 5 combo points ferocious bites. So if paladins' frontal burst can't do it, druids frontal burst certainly can't. But once you get 5 combo points, I am sure you can tear the target apart with 5 druids.

[Fat Tire]

Well Ualaa, they will still flag you afk even if you are a melee team.

To be honest you could pick any combo and do well in BGs. The X factor are your other team members that usually affect the results the most.

[Ualaa]

On the horde, will be running Disc Priest + 4x Affliction Warlocks.

Alliance side, was planning on 5x Balance Druids, but keep hearing there is not enough burst with balance.
And I do want a melee team, could also be the pvp team.

[heyaz]

I can't emphasis on this burst problem enough. To take down a target while letting the healers running free, I need to at least output 3000 dps on all 4 paladins and 2000 dps on the DK. All this in 2-3 seconds, no more than 2 GCDs. and 3000 dps in PVP is not that easy to achieve. 12000 + 6000 + some white dmg (roughly 10k) = 28000 damage (this is really just minimum here). In details, Crusader strike => 1 GCD => Judgement => 1 GCD => Divine Storm. by this time if he is not dead, he is back to full. This is the time to bubble and sacrifice. And the CC game starts on me. Against good wizard cleave, it is pretty much over.
.

You put a healer on focus and strangulate/repentance during your kill sequence right? If you let them free heal you won't kill anything without MS

[zenga]

I can only talk about my experience in AV. I have currently a 5x rogue team in their early 60s. And i'm having a blast in AV. The stealth + stun can drive people insane. I can do things that are impossible with my pally/4 shaman team. But it's a totally different kind of AV i play with the rogues. Whereas i usually kill balinda, def stoneheart, defend icewing and then move forward with my main team (and thus decide for a good part about the outcome) , i play more out of the blue with the rogues, deciding on the moment what i'm gonna do. But no healing can be a pain.

So lately i've been using a lvl 60 shaman (ele specced for now)., only to have some healing. With spirit wolf i can park him somewhere under a brick so he stays unnoticed. while i fight with my rogues. So far i don't really need healing during a fight, so not sure if i'll spec the shammy resto, might go enhancement as well. And that's probably what i enjoy most about the rogues: i pick the targets instead of them deciding to target me, i.e. the possibility to avoid combat makes up for the lack of healing.

While i have lots of fun, i use them as a break away team. I don't see myself doing anything else than BG's with them.

On a sidenote: i'm also leveling (though very slowly) 5x pally team, all protection specced. With those i see myself doing arena one day. The 2 lives each pally has combined with a shitload of hp and plate/shield is very attractive imo.

[Mokoi]

I have both druids and the DK+pally team

There is no question, my Druids are useless and my DK+Paladin team is a rockstar.. rogues? i dunno, I can't imagine them being staeady for as long as a BG lasts. good for camping bases in AV and stuff, stealthing at bosses and killing tanks / healers, maybe rampaging around until you all die, but honestly i dunno, id rather have hunters for a kamikaze class :P

[ncmc]

i cant help but imagine a 5 rogue team. the lead rogue doing a stunlock and the slaves doing a cast sequence of muti muti evis muti muti evis. on the other hand a trinket aoe fear could royally screw u over.

rogues have a lot of tools that can get you out of allmost any situation but its sometimes hard to keep track of all these abilities on a single rogue, let alone 5.

lol i just thought of something else. 5 combat rogues. adrenaline rush and fan of knives. do that around a group of opponents and it would be like throwing them all in a blender. lol.

realisticly i think you would have a lot of fun ganking single targets, or multiple targets with quick bursts but...

firstly, this can mostly be achieved with a single rogue, just not as fast and maybe not quite on a WTFimamassive5manblender scale.

Secondly there are far to many abilities that a rogue must use in order to pvp well and keeping track of these would be a nightmare. who has blind on CD? which rogue can blind who? Damnn i just sprinted away and left some behind, which rogue are they targeting so i must use his CloS without wasting it on the rest.

5 druids will be fun as they are so flexible so if something isnt working u can respec a few of them.

DK and rets, judjung by the amount of ppl running it is obviously very playable

[Naysayer]

have some fun and go with ferals.