5 Shaman

[Æbox]

Been boxing 5 shaman, been 70 for a few weeks now.

Vids/screens if anyone is interested on my little homepage

http://home.comcast.net/~xbx/xbox.htm



Everything was going awesome til the last patch and all the disconnect BS.. So annoying!

[wougoose]

Did you have any success as 5 shammies in the arena? I noticed you had 4 shammies + 1 pally in the arena videos on your page.

Also, mind sharing your hardware/software setup? Are you running all identical machines? Are you using vetras/synergy/multibox?

-goose

[Xzin]

Haha that is awesome. I have long speculated that 5 shammys would smash face in arenas or general PvP. Glad to see somebody going through with it. Any more details on your setup? Would love to know details.

LOL at some of those videos..... sooooooooooooooo many totems.

How the heck do you monitor hit points? I did not see any UI mod to monitor party health..... although heh your UI was a bit all over the place, no offense

Also - how do you deal with melee damage, a significant part of shammy DPS?

[Æbox]

I've gone in a few times solo, did ok, but it's definitely a challenge. Really have only done arenas a little each week to start getting some points up.

With practice, gear, and PVP talent build (been specd for PVE.. no NS, Eye of storm,etc) I'm sure things would go pretty well.

Biggest challenges have been-

2+ people AoE bombing me, with healers out of range spamming them.

Shaman can AoE back, but can't spam it. They have big fire nova, but its got a 15 sec cooldown, and that alone generally won't kill people especially if with enemy healers around doing their job.

AoE fear also hurts, obviously. Not so much for the scatter, as having so many tremor totems pretty much removes the fear instantly, but it disrupts casting/synchronization (reduces ability to focus fire).


That said though, 5 shaman can potentially drop 3 people instantly from 36 yards away


With 2 piece tidefury set bonus.. (reduces dmg drop per jump of chain lightning)


Chain Lightning + NS + EM, decent +dmg, etc

First Target 2800 x 5 = 14,000 dmg

Second Target 2324 x 5 = 11,620 dmg

Third Target 1929 x 5 = 9,645 dmg




If that lands on three players, most likely game over~



Lots that can mess it up though. Pets.. hits them instead. Grounding totem.. nullifies the entire volley. Pain suppression...

[Xzin]

Cloak of shadows.... shield.... etc.

Yeah but still.... what methods of keyboard / mouse input do you use? I did not see them all /following behind.... do you move them individually *cringe*?

AoE is not THAT bad... can you not spam the shammy heal target 1 + 2 +3 all at once and pretty much have a ghetto prayer of healing?

Still curious about how you do melee damage... can you do enough dmg with spells only to make it worthwhile / workable? Melee range SUCKS with 5 boxing. I tried 4 warriors 1 shammy on the PTR and quickly found it to be suboptimal compared to range classes like warlocks / mages.

[Æbox]

The arena videos were taken by Clorox. Yeah his UI is wacked

I was only boxing 4 shaman there, he was playing a paladin.





The screenshots below the videos show my UI. It's pretty simple really. Healing is done manually now. Back before burning crusade, in my mage/priest group I had complex macros that checked HP and healed as needed, I simply spammed a button, but that's broke now of course so i do it by my self.

Chain heal is pretty handy as it automatically jumps to whoever needs the most healing. In a pinch I can simply hit a key that has every shaman cast a chain heal targeted on himself, and it will patch up the group quite niceley.







Currently I'm using a couple of those Vetra keyboard splitters. Each computer is hooked up to one 'master' keyboard, as well as a second, single USB keyboard.

[wougoose]

Nice job, glad to see someone actually accomplish the 5 shammy combination .

I had another curious question about your hardware: are you running 4 identical boxes for the secondary comps or are they mix and match?

[Xzin]

The Vetra boxes work pretty well..... still not sure how you manage melee range with /follow. It is the one thing that kept one of my good friends from 5 boxing shamans. Sure, the totems are hot (not unbeatable) and immunity to fear and pretty much all dots and DDs is amazing... but can you do enough damage fast enough AND heal? That is my only concern about an all shammy group.

PvE and leveling must have been pretty easy though..... AoE totems... Ankhs.... 5 characters in mail.... chain heal.... windfury.... lol.

[wougoose]

Well, from what I can see....melee with 5x shammies shouldn't be an issue at 70 being all elemental builds. Hardly any damage comes from melee at 70 if spec'd elemental. The only problem I would see with melee is the fact that melee usually is the best option for leveling efficiency....and yes melee is difficult to multibox.

So, if one can level without melee or deal with the difficulty of melee...and then spec elemental at 70...it should be no problem.

In pvp and not having a lot of aoe options though besides fire nova totem....facing targets to chain lightning/shock/lightning bolt is going to be difficult once they are up on you.

[Kyosakana]

Wow, interesting stuff. Do any of the shaman buffs stack? I know 5 hunters can stack the percent bonus when their pets get a crit, but do heroisms stack, or Totem of Wrath? I've been thinking about 5-boxing shamans for a bit now, so any random tidbits of "That's interesting" info you have would be great.