5 Shaman

[Æbox]

Totem of Wrath - Stacks.. +15% crit/hit to whole group. Very nice! With that, plus talents, plus gear, my lightning spells have a ~41% crit rate.

Wrath of Air - No

Healing Stream - Yes

Mana Totems - No

Tremor, Poison, Disease.. they all let out a pulse every few seconds, so in that sense they 'stack'. Drop 5 poison cure totems, and you're curing 5 poisons every 2 seconds. Not like that's very usefull though..

Tremor's own when they are cascaded.. ie, cast in a rotation so that ONE of them is pulsing every second. Normally they pulse every 4 secs I believe, so a single tremor isn't 100% reliable, it could take up to 4 seconds to clear a fear, and by then you may have run out of range. 5 of them cast in sequence one after another means you're getting a fear clear every <1 sec.




Stoneskin - no stack..


str/agility/windfury/resists - no


Grounding - Uber! I usually have 4 groundings and 1 wrath of air up. Lot of spell protection.. Stops all single target ranged spells pretty much. Warlock fear, poly, nukes, dots, it soaks it all up.



Heroism/Bloodlust, does't stack, but I have FIVE cooldowns.. It's up whenever I need a little extra ooomph



5 shamans can build up a fortress of totems pretty much..

Typical layout for me is:

3 healing
1 mana
1 poison cleanse
4 grounding
1 wrath of air
3 tremor
1 earthbind
1 stoneskin
5 totem of wrath


Stoneclaw Totem - Generally, pretty useless.. for a solo shaman. The way I play 5 shamans however, it's pretty nice in PVE actually, I even have the talent to give them some more HP heh. They aren't going to tank anything for very long, BUT, they can hold off 2, 3, 4 mobs for 2-3 rounds of combat.. which with 5 elemental shaman going all out burst, is enough time to do a ton of damage and drop a couple of em.

Earthbind - Has like a 15 second cooldown.. with multiple shaman, you can leave a trail of these behind you as you run, continuously. As long as I have a relatively straight path to run in, I can kite any number of mobs doing this. Chain lightning, run away, (droping snare totems the whole time), turn around chain lightning again when cooldown up, repeat until they're all dead.

If you arrange shaman in a formation spread out, and drop earthbinds you can setup a huge AoE snare, and potentially kite a train of mobs in a circle forever...



And don't forget earth and fire elementals. Each has a 20 minute cooldown, but the cooldowns are seperate, so you can pop an elemental x 5 every 10 minutes. Very very usefull..


oh and 5 reincarnations =


I can melee no problem. It's pointless though unless I'm OOM, don't do much damage with it, much better off nuking.







In PVP yeah the biggest weakness is not having a spammable AoE like mages have, and having to face targets to nuke them. When people zerg you and get up in your face, it can suck.

[Xzin]

Do 5 grounding totems soak up 5 spells or just 1? If I nuke 4x PoM/Pyro and there is 1 grounding up, it eats all 4.

[Æbox]

If I have 5 groundings up and you cast 5 spells at the same time, ONE totem will soak them all up. 4 will be left over.

If you cast 5 spells in sequence with a little delay between them, it will take out a totem one after the other.

[Xzin]

Gah thats so wrong. Plus it soaks up dots.

But it doesn't do anything for AoE damage

[wougoose]

Wow the totem of wrath stacking is insane...gg

I think I'll still end up going with 4 locks/1 priest just for the fact that I dont have to be facing targets. But the shammies are tempting.....hmm

[Xzin]

It *should* stack - 41 pt talent.

I'm torn really. Shammys were something I always expected were good but lol. Clearly these are cherry picked videos but still.

10 Boxing PvP

Zins + 5x Shammys = spell immunity, healing, TOTEMS...HEALING. I could stick Xzin in the Shammy group and move a shammy over to the Zins....

OR

Zins + Warlocks + Shadow(?) or Holy Priest.... = pets, dots, fears, soulstones, healthstones, insta cast nukes, summon/portal/water synergy... etc etc

OR

Zins + 5x (or 4x) Shadow Priests...4-5 silences, 4x counterspells, aoe healing synergy, insta cast dots + dds - oh lol and if I 4x Shadow Word Death, none will take damage as long as one of the 4 kills the target. GG a positive side effect from Grounding Totem "bug".

OR

Zins x 2 - 8x Mages, 2x Priests... a bit boring perhaps

Choices choices......

Warlock team seems like a solid bet though, even if the DD/DoT disparity is there. Atleast they are mostly all instant casts.

[Gallo]

from a PVE standpoint, having 4 or 5 shadowpriests in a group makes for some SERIOUS mana regeneration. Right when BC was annouced, some guy did the math and with 4 shadow priests you basically could do unlimited damage and healing without losing mana. I wonder if 3 shadow priests and 2 locks with tank pets could do instances.

[Xzin]

Does the shadow priest group heals also heal pets?

[Æbox]

I've always wondered about stacked up priests.


What if you focused on Holy damage..


Prot/Ret pally + 4 disc/holy priests

Having a pally in the group buffs everyones holy damage.. Sanctity aura, and judgement of the crusader. Having the lead characters in plate and able to bubble is always nice, as it's never a good thing when the main dies.

Holy nova = auto heal + dmg at same time.. and 0 agro. You could pull 20 mobs, paladin spam consecration, while priests go to town with Nova

For PVP.. well, 4 PBAOE fear timers. Powered up with infusion and pally auras, smite will hit damn hard.

Just an idea

[Kyosakana]

Holy nova has a ridiculous mana cost. Even 4 priests, you're probably not going to be be dropping many groups of elites, and if you do, it's going to be drinks ahoy afterwards. Would probably be better to spam Holy Fire and smites while throwing the occasional Renew x4 on the Pally.