8 comps
Warrior / Holy Paladin
The beginner-friendly powerhouse. Blessing of Freedom turns the warrior into an un-kiteable Mortal Strike machine, and the paladin is nearly unkillable. If you want a high floor, start here.
5s Caster Cleave
The ranged-control 5s archetype: stacked casters (mage + lock + shadow priest) layering Poly, Fear, and Cyclone behind a healer core. Kites melee cleave and kills through control — high ceiling, high coordination.
5s Melee Cleave
The default competitive 5s archetype: stacked melee burst (warrior + rogue) behind two or three healers. 5s in TBC is less rigid than 2s/3s — think in team archetypes, and melee cleave is the highest-floor one.
Rogue / Holy Paladin
Ride the tankiest healer in the bracket. The paladin's Freedom and Blessing of Protection keep the rogue glued to a target while the paladin simply refuses to die. Strong into cleaves, weaker into Mana Burn.
Warlock / Holy Paladin
Fear control plus the tankiest healer alive. You almost never lose your healer, and DoT pressure eventually wins — but without Mana Burn your kills are slow, so patience is the whole game.
5s Double-Healer Control
The attrition archetype: a healer-heavy core with a warrior + mage for pressure and CC. You almost never lose a teammate first and grind the enemy out — but you need a real kill condition to close, not just survive.
PHP (Paladin / Hunter / Priest)
A burst-and-control 3s: Ret + Hunter stack a big damage window while the priest and hunter traps lock the enemy healer. Freedom keeps the Ret on target. Strong burst, beatable by patient control.
Ret Paladin / Holy Paladin
'Ret/Holy.' All-in burst with unmatched melee uptime — Freedom and Blessing of Protection mean the Ret never gets kited or trained off. Ceiling is capped by no CC, but the floor is very high.