The Burning Crusade Raid Composition Tool
That said, there is something to think about - Blizzard recently introduced a hotfix on an armor bug, which has impacted the damage output of melee damage dealers. This bug was also present during PTR testing, so there are still questions to be answered. Below are some viable raid comps to consider in the post-nerf Phase 1 raid environment.
Balanced Group
The group below is what you could consider a purely balanced raid comp, covering all of the bases for buffs and debuffs.
Balanced Raid Composition
The group above has 2 melee and 2 caster groups. The final group, Group 5, consists of a few healers and an Affliction Warlock for Shadow Embrace and Malediction. That same Warlock could also use their Imp pet to give a bit more health to the Paladin tank, too.
As for the other groups, the notable support classes and roles are the following:
Enhancement Shaman: Totem weave between Windfury Totem and Grace of Air Totem and provide Heroism/Bloodlust.
Retribution Paladin: Provide a Paladin Blessing along with Improved Seal of the Crusader, which increases the Critical Strike against the target it's applied to by 3%.
Arms Warrior: Blood Frenzy debuff, which increases all physical damage done to the target by 4% when Rend or Deep Wounds is applied.
Combat Rogue: Improved Expose Armor.
Survival Hunter: Expose Weakness debuff, which increases the attack power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your Agility for 7 sec.
Shadow Priest: Shadow Weaving debuff, which increases the Shadow damage dealt to your target by 2% and lasts 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times. Shadow Priests also provide Misery, which, with 5 talent points, causes the target to take 5% more spell damage.
Elemental Shaman: Totem of Wrath, which increases the chance to hit and critically strike with spells by 3% for all party members within 20 yards.
Balance Druid: Provide numerous buffs and debuffs, including Improved Faerie Fire, Insect Swarm, and Moonkin Form. Improved Faerie Fire increases the chance the target will be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 3%; Insect Swarm decreases chance to hit by 2%; Moonkin Form provides critical strike rating for casters in their group, which in this case includes the Elemental Shaman and three Destruction Warlocks.
As for the makeup of healers, it includes several types. The Holy Paladin is the "weakest" of the group due to a lack of AoE heals, but it does provide strong single-target tank healing and a third Blessing, which could allow for everyone in your group to have Kings, Wisdom/Might, and Salvation.
Now, the tanks. Some may wonder why there's no Protection Warrior. You could include one, but the two Feral Druids allow for each melee group to have Leader of the Pack, which increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%.
Also, having two Feral Druid tanks allows for one of them to go into cat form and provide more DPS. Sure, with Dual Specialization in the game, a Protection Warrior could have a Fury Warrior offspec and gear set. Again, though, you'd be missing out on the Leader of the Pack buff.
Finally, if you wanted, you could switch out the Combat Rogue for another Fury Warrior on the condition that the Warriors in your group understand they need to maintain Sunder Armor.
Dreamstate Druid Comp
Instead of bringing a Tree of Life Druid, you could opt for a bit more damage by bringing a Dreamstate Druid.
Dreamstate Raid Composition
However, this group won't be for every guild or situation. Prunes the Druid has an excellent breakdown of when to and when not to utilize this strategy with your Druid.
With this comp, you'll have your 4 main healers - the Holy Paladin, 2 Restoration Shamans, and your Holy Priest - while the Dreamstate Druid can offer some healing, too. That said, instead of 5 healers in this comp, it's closer to 4.5.
The goal with this comp is to have Improved Faerie Fire still, but without bringing a Balance Druid. In turn, this could allow you to bring another, higher DPS-output caster, such as an Arcane Mage or Destruction Warlock.
Arcane Mage may be slightly better only because, in the instance above, they're in a group with a Shadow Priest and Restoration Shaman, two sources for providing mana back to their party members, which Arcane Mages tend to rely on. There are also three Druids, so you could assign each of them an Arcane Mage innervate target.
Destruction Warlock is fine, too, but it won't be in a group with the Elemental Shaman.
No Holy Paladin Comp
Since Holy Paladins are viewed as the "weakest" healer, some comps may opt for ways to still achieve three Paladin Blessings without bringing a Holy Paladin.
Raid Composition Without Holy Paladin
There are two options:
Option A: Substitute the Combat Rogue/Fury Warrior and Holy Paladin for a Retribution Paladin and another healer (the current comp shows another Resto Shaman, but any other healer could work, including a Discipline Priest)
Option B: Run 4 healers, and move the Survival Hunter into Group 5 while keeping the Combat Rogue/Fury Warrior and bringing in another Retribution Paladin
With Option B, though, if you wanted to err on the side of caution, the other Retribution Paladin you bring could have a Holy offspec in the case where you need a fifth healer for a specific encounter, but for the most part, they would be primarily DPS.
With the armor bug fixed, this will likely lead to other group comps being created as more data comes in. Ultimately, though, the best raid comp is having 25 like-minded players with the same goals who allow your group to complete content.
What's your raid comp looking like heading into Phase 1? Let us know in the comments below!
