Class cooperation tricks players may not have thought of
by David Bowers 
Jul 8th 2007 at 11:05AM
Recently, we took another look at the best and worst class combinations you can make with your friends, and you all had many insights on how to choose classes that match each other well. It occurred to me that there are some special tricks that two classes can pull off in pairs or small groups that would be impossible to do on their own, and that this might be an interesting thing to try if the trick strikes your fancy.The most obvious one may be that rogues and druids can sneak around together as a stealthy mini-party all of their own, and that's the sort of thing that many people know about. But for me, I remember being very surprised to learn from a friend how powerful a mage and a priest can be together when leveling through PvP content. I saw the mage gather up many enemies together and use arcane explosions on them while the priest healed and shielded her. They completed quests faster than anyone I'd ever seen before. Later they invited me to level new triplet alts together with them -- two mages and one priest. She taught me how she and I could gather up many monsters and kill them all without getting hurt by alternating our frost nova and blizzard spells, while at the same time having the priest's healing for tricky spots, mistakes, and emergencies.
This is a fast way to level cooperatively that I never would have thought of on my own, and it took my friend's ingenuity and research to make it happen. Have any of you found similar class-cooperation tricks that you think many people might not have heard of?
[Exciting fan art by Sara Forlenza]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Krick Jul 8th 2007 11:24AM
I've heard of parties of just druids and rogues making stealth runs in the level 70 instances so they could farm a specific boss for Primal Nethers.
I'm guessing that when they get to a boss, one or more druids tank, and one or more druids heal, while the rogues dps.
amorphous86 Jul 8th 2007 11:52AM
A nice trick is having a party of all Warlocks and Hunters because in essesance if you have 3 ppl you have 6 team members, 4 ppl = 8 team, and so on in that fashon. You can also be very tricky about it. If you get hunters with stealth cats and locks with all sucubus's the enemy may see only 5 ppl till the last moment when 5 more just pop out of know where. It is a great trick tactic.
Tikipiki Jul 8th 2007 12:23PM
destro lock and holy paladin - Run around hellfiring everything with conc aura. I've cleared out entire camps of level 70 mobs in minutes with a friend of mine this way.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Jul 8th 2007 7:04PM
One of the Brothers Grim standard tactics is the Warrior/Priest/DPS Fear crowd control.
Essentially, you're facing a group of more mobs than you could handle normally. That's 5-6 Elites, in our case.
Warrior pulls everything, raid markers one of them to kill. Pulls them way back from other mobs toward the Priest, who Psychic Screams. DPS and Warrior hit the one that's marked, and beat it down. As soon as the Feared mobs return (10 sec plus), Warrior hits Intimidating Shout. Off they go again. Kill the first one if you haven't already, start on the second. The mobs return. By now Psychic Scream has cooled down, and off they go again.
You can normally take out 1-2 mobs this way without any danger at all, reducing a previously unkillable group to a merely alarming one.
Philondra Jul 8th 2007 1:39PM
As an enhancement shaman, I have often resorted to ingenuity in heroic instances when running with my regular group, which usually consists of (among others) a paladin healer. Sometimes we are CC light, which can become an issue when doing CC-heavy heroics such as pre-nerf Shattered Halls or Shadow Labs. Inevitably the paladin pulls healing aggro when there are too many mobs for the warrior to handle, so we would play "aggro ping pong" with three unlikely abilities: earthbind/frost shock and righteous defense from the pally healer!
MechaKingGhidra Jul 8th 2007 2:37PM
The best little trick I like having in store for my current level is when I'm playing my padadin, someone else has a mage which freezes all the mobs around me in place while I Consecrate, all the while having my aura activated......the name of which escapes me at the moment......Retribution Aura, I believe?
Anyway, it's probably not the most efficient thing to do, but hey.......it's fun. =)
Geoffrey Jul 8th 2007 2:44PM
@ 1
I play rogue, and I must say that doing that makes life so much easier on us, there were many time me and a druid buddy were like "I need to get this out of here" no LFG needed we just find what we came in there for and get it.
my greatest momwnt though was when me and a druid killed socrethar by ourselves
Sylythn Jul 8th 2007 2:46PM
Some friends of mine used to do all-druid runs. When the healing druid ran out of mana, the tank would drop back and heal, the dps would tank and the healer would switch to dps...keep the rotation going infinitely.
Alex Jul 8th 2007 3:08PM
I, Myself have a 70 mage, and used that technique to essentially level from 30-60 Deal is, like he said - priests are for mistakes.. if you're good enough to reduce mistakes for the minimum, you can do it alone and get all the XP for yourself. Heh heh heh.
Xixikoozu Jul 8th 2007 5:18PM
Small cute thing.. but I love how you can proc Ice Lance off of a Hunter Ice trap.
So in instances when a currently dpsed mob is about to be killed... the Frost Mage can do a Frostbolt/Ice Lance combo on the next target and do a crapton of damage... then tank easily taunts it back and starts off with a bunch of aggro.
Wee.
Anna Jul 8th 2007 8:33PM
Paladin + Paladin. Hybrid class ftw! My prot spec leveling partner tanks and I burst damage mobs and then stop for healing. Of course we can do it alone, but pali is so slow! But if he is tanking I don't use mana so much for a whole fight damage so I don't drink often. If I am healing he doesn't have to think to do it. So we can play faster for longer.
Depherios Jul 10th 2007 4:02PM
Just hit 70 doing a Druid/Paladin combo
I specced Prot, Druid specced Balance. Druid could heal me through AoE pulls (consecration and hurricane) then the moonkin could single target DPS situations that needed that.
Wasn't the fastest, but we were pretty much invincible. Only times we died were when we'd get cocky and pull half a zone.
curveball2004 Jul 9th 2007 12:45AM
Me and 2 other pallies do the most insane AoE grinding ever, i, being prot, pull about 30-40 mobs, and they both spam heal me with holy light/flsah of light. The mobs die quite fast, and since i have figurine of the colossus, i can be invincible for about 20 seconds if i want. Regardless, in about 1 min or so, they'er all dead, and 3 people get loot from 40 mobs lol
Heraclea Jul 9th 2007 12:39PM
DW Enhancement Shaman + DW Fury Warrior. A great combination in PvE.
The shaman's job here is essentially to set up a square with four totems, including Windfury and Strength of Earth, and a water and fire totem of your choice. Then you pull a spawn, and the shaman stands back and keeps the warrior standing while the warrior chews through the mobs like a buzzsaw. When it seems clear enough that you are going to kill them all, the shaman steps up and adds DPS.
In certain environments, the shaman's totems that auto-purge diseases and poisons are excellent. You can grind Argent Dawn rep all day.
Jellodyne Jul 9th 2007 3:19PM
As a Holy Paly, I can heal our Mage while he melts group face, and often I'll use my Blessing of Sacrifice to 'feel his pain' to smooth out some of his damage for a while while I flash spam him. And if he's taking too big a beating I can BoP a bubble on him, which usually pulls agro to me while he finishes blasting.