Powerwar
10-10-2008, 01:29 PM
Hi there.
I am running 4 elemental shamans on Skullcrusher EU server. Have been playing WoW since beta with one toon, so I have had pretty much time to train myself in single playing and learn other classes weakness and strengths.
My server has more hordes than alliance (I play alliance) and it's into the Cyclone battle group (one of the most competitive battle groups, if not the most competitive). It's also one of the oldest servers, so most people there know how to play.
You can find horde groups questing in practically all the areas on the server. In some cases you can enter an area and have 20 hordes questing vs 4 alliances (my group) at low levels. In outlands horde superiority is much more patent and you can quest in a given zone finding horde / alliance ratios near 10 / 1
I am lvl 65 and I can handle without much problems 2 or 3 S2 or S3 geared lvl 70s.
The problem is that I DON'T want to live in instances, and like more world questing and fun. Even that I'm a multiboxer, it's a social game and I enjoy doing quests with other people... so world pvp and ganking is something I have to deal with.
What I see is that practically all setups exposed in this forum rely on heavy and fast pew pew, and if that fails, it's a group corpse run. Also the current setups rely only on one casting bar and lots of crazy and complicated macros that are 100% guarantee of corpse run if you get jumped by 2 or 3 capable players.
I use the default Blizzard UI + Tomtom and the idemise leveling guide on the main char and the default blizzard UI on the companions.
From the settings menu I have made all the button bars to be shown. I use all of them.
Normal Bar (Left down) --> Keyed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ' ¡ (Spanish keyboard)
Left Upper Bar --> Keyed CTRL+ 1 2 3 ....
Right Bar --> Keyed ALT + 1 2 3 .....
I have the following 3 macros setup on the º button (the one under ESC and on left of 1).
º --> Follow focus
CTRL + º --> set focus = Party 1 target
ALT + º --> Accept quest, res, release spirit, trade, etc...
Also have the macros as buttons showing on the second right vertical bar in case I need to switch screens in mid fight, but it's only needed in very rare pve cases... by the time I do the screen switch in PvP I'm dead, so I use other way.
The cast bars contain the following (note the correspondences between the crtl and alt bars):
Normal Bar (Left down):
1 --> Melee
2 --> Lightning Bolt
3 --> Chain lightning
4 --> Multishock (2 x frost shock + 1 Flame shock + 1 Earth shock) (stops and silences casters, prevents rogues from vanishing, slows everyone)
5 --> Earth shock
6 --> Flame shock
7 --> Chain heal
8 --> Lesser heal
9 --> Great heal (or whatever it's shaman name is)
0 --> Purge
' --> Drink water for mana recovery
¡ --> Gift of the naaru (Draenei mana independent HoT heal)
Left Upper Bar (CTRL + something)
1 --> Stoneclaw totem
2 --> Multitotem (stoneclaw + stoneskin + agility totem + attack power totem)
3 --> Searinh totem
4 --> Earthbind totem
5 --> Tremor totem
6 --> Healing totem
7 --> Magma totem
8 --> Fire nova totem
9 --> Grounding totem
0 --> Next spell has 100% crit chance
' --> + spell damage trinket
¡ --> Free for nature swiftness
Right Bar (ALT + something)
1 --> Rockriber weapon (will become frostband + flametongue weapon soon)
2 --> Flametongue weapon (will become fire elemental soon)
3 --> Frostband weapon (will become earth elemental soon)
4 --> Water shield
5 --> Resistance totems
6 --> Multiheal (3 x healing totem + 1 mana totem)
7 --> Mana totem
8 --> Poison cleansing totem
9 --> Lightning shield
0 --> Ghost wolf (combat mount speed for not losing time when running around making quests in PvE)
' --> Mount
¡ --> Astral recall
The right vertical bars have only keybound the 3 macros for focus, follow and accept quests. They also have the following buttons that I usually click from my main unless it's dead.
+ Spell damage totem
Windwall totem (the one that stops ranged damage)
Resurrect
Sentry totem (spy totem as I call it)
Hearhstone (sometimes astral recall is on cooldown)
Far sight
Other shaman skills that are rarely used
My main in addition has pots and enachanting + tailoring buttons. Tialoring is very handy if you level it to 300 because of the netherweave net... no one runs away with that one.
As you may see, the needed pvp totems can be deployed with just ctrl + 5, 9 , 6 , 3/7/8.
Having a totem rotation macro is a bad idea against decent PvP opponent in the open world. The totem sequences according class are the following
Warrior --> Tremor totem, fire nova totem, magma totem
Rogue --> Magma totem, earthbind totem, stoneskin totem
Mage --> Grounding totem, healing totem (specially if you see a water elemental)
Warlock --> Tremor totem, grounding totem
Hunter --> Windwall totem, Healing totem, searing totem
Paladin --> Healing totem, searing totem or fire nova.
Druid --> Grounding totem, magma totem, earthbind totem.
Shaman --> Grounding totem, searing or magma totem, stoneskin if he is enhancement.
Windwall totem does miracles against hunters.
The magma totem and the arthbind against rogues are just to prevent them from vanish fleing... if someone jumps on me I want him dead.
That's also the reason of the multishock. When facing rogues and druids it's a must. Flame shock will prevent them from vanishing and running away, so they can only sprint. If they sprint, my tailor crafted netherveave net makes sure that they can only go to the graveyard.
In instances the multitomem stagering goes that way... Main has the stoneskin totem on his bar, so he can even drop it in pvp by clicking... With multitotem, one stoneclaw totem drops from one of the companions. After that the main just clicks the stoneclaw totem button on his bar, then CTRL + 1 and the companions drop 2 new stoneclaw totems... that's usually more than enough time to kill all the mobs.
The movement keybinds are wasd on the main. Q and E for turning on the main and companions. Up and Down arrows for making each toon run in a different direction.
When engaged in PvP vs several oponents at the same time healing goes via chain heal, so I don't have to care much about targeting the toon that is taking damage. Usually they are 2 or 3 of them taking damage at the same time, so chain heal does great work.
What happens if the main dies in PvP?
There is no time to switch screens and wait for maximizer to adjust the resolution, so I only need to target something from the main and command the companions to shot whatever they have. I have found practically no problems if the main dies except that the companions cannot move but only turn left and right. This is not a big problem anywaysbecause when the main dies I tend them to spam multishocks and searing totems and run around each one in one different direction pressing randomly Q and E to make them turn while running around, so they just make the enemy go crazy avoiding AoE damage meanwhile. With some practice the results are hilarious.
The main advantage of this setup is that all the skills are present on the button bars, so I don't need cast sequences macros nor have to deal with the "Oh shit, I wish I had a button for XYZ totem or skill". I can refresh a given totem clicking it from any of my toons bars while the others are quietly casting a lightning bolt or chain lightning.
The main cast bar is all macros except the gift of the naaru skill. All the toons have the same kind of macro:
/target = focus target
/cast whatever spell comes here.
The other bars don't need macros because the skills present on them can be cast without having a target.
This also allows me to use my lvl 70 warlock, warrior or whatever else toon I have without having to remacro all the rest of my toons. It's also key cloning application independent, so I can switch between my hardware KVM or keyclone depending of how much video processing work have my video processing workstations to do.
I am running 4 elemental shamans on Skullcrusher EU server. Have been playing WoW since beta with one toon, so I have had pretty much time to train myself in single playing and learn other classes weakness and strengths.
My server has more hordes than alliance (I play alliance) and it's into the Cyclone battle group (one of the most competitive battle groups, if not the most competitive). It's also one of the oldest servers, so most people there know how to play.
You can find horde groups questing in practically all the areas on the server. In some cases you can enter an area and have 20 hordes questing vs 4 alliances (my group) at low levels. In outlands horde superiority is much more patent and you can quest in a given zone finding horde / alliance ratios near 10 / 1
I am lvl 65 and I can handle without much problems 2 or 3 S2 or S3 geared lvl 70s.
The problem is that I DON'T want to live in instances, and like more world questing and fun. Even that I'm a multiboxer, it's a social game and I enjoy doing quests with other people... so world pvp and ganking is something I have to deal with.
What I see is that practically all setups exposed in this forum rely on heavy and fast pew pew, and if that fails, it's a group corpse run. Also the current setups rely only on one casting bar and lots of crazy and complicated macros that are 100% guarantee of corpse run if you get jumped by 2 or 3 capable players.
I use the default Blizzard UI + Tomtom and the idemise leveling guide on the main char and the default blizzard UI on the companions.
From the settings menu I have made all the button bars to be shown. I use all of them.
Normal Bar (Left down) --> Keyed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ' ¡ (Spanish keyboard)
Left Upper Bar --> Keyed CTRL+ 1 2 3 ....
Right Bar --> Keyed ALT + 1 2 3 .....
I have the following 3 macros setup on the º button (the one under ESC and on left of 1).
º --> Follow focus
CTRL + º --> set focus = Party 1 target
ALT + º --> Accept quest, res, release spirit, trade, etc...
Also have the macros as buttons showing on the second right vertical bar in case I need to switch screens in mid fight, but it's only needed in very rare pve cases... by the time I do the screen switch in PvP I'm dead, so I use other way.
The cast bars contain the following (note the correspondences between the crtl and alt bars):
Normal Bar (Left down):
1 --> Melee
2 --> Lightning Bolt
3 --> Chain lightning
4 --> Multishock (2 x frost shock + 1 Flame shock + 1 Earth shock) (stops and silences casters, prevents rogues from vanishing, slows everyone)
5 --> Earth shock
6 --> Flame shock
7 --> Chain heal
8 --> Lesser heal
9 --> Great heal (or whatever it's shaman name is)
0 --> Purge
' --> Drink water for mana recovery
¡ --> Gift of the naaru (Draenei mana independent HoT heal)
Left Upper Bar (CTRL + something)
1 --> Stoneclaw totem
2 --> Multitotem (stoneclaw + stoneskin + agility totem + attack power totem)
3 --> Searinh totem
4 --> Earthbind totem
5 --> Tremor totem
6 --> Healing totem
7 --> Magma totem
8 --> Fire nova totem
9 --> Grounding totem
0 --> Next spell has 100% crit chance
' --> + spell damage trinket
¡ --> Free for nature swiftness
Right Bar (ALT + something)
1 --> Rockriber weapon (will become frostband + flametongue weapon soon)
2 --> Flametongue weapon (will become fire elemental soon)
3 --> Frostband weapon (will become earth elemental soon)
4 --> Water shield
5 --> Resistance totems
6 --> Multiheal (3 x healing totem + 1 mana totem)
7 --> Mana totem
8 --> Poison cleansing totem
9 --> Lightning shield
0 --> Ghost wolf (combat mount speed for not losing time when running around making quests in PvE)
' --> Mount
¡ --> Astral recall
The right vertical bars have only keybound the 3 macros for focus, follow and accept quests. They also have the following buttons that I usually click from my main unless it's dead.
+ Spell damage totem
Windwall totem (the one that stops ranged damage)
Resurrect
Sentry totem (spy totem as I call it)
Hearhstone (sometimes astral recall is on cooldown)
Far sight
Other shaman skills that are rarely used
My main in addition has pots and enachanting + tailoring buttons. Tialoring is very handy if you level it to 300 because of the netherweave net... no one runs away with that one.
As you may see, the needed pvp totems can be deployed with just ctrl + 5, 9 , 6 , 3/7/8.
Having a totem rotation macro is a bad idea against decent PvP opponent in the open world. The totem sequences according class are the following
Warrior --> Tremor totem, fire nova totem, magma totem
Rogue --> Magma totem, earthbind totem, stoneskin totem
Mage --> Grounding totem, healing totem (specially if you see a water elemental)
Warlock --> Tremor totem, grounding totem
Hunter --> Windwall totem, Healing totem, searing totem
Paladin --> Healing totem, searing totem or fire nova.
Druid --> Grounding totem, magma totem, earthbind totem.
Shaman --> Grounding totem, searing or magma totem, stoneskin if he is enhancement.
Windwall totem does miracles against hunters.
The magma totem and the arthbind against rogues are just to prevent them from vanish fleing... if someone jumps on me I want him dead.
That's also the reason of the multishock. When facing rogues and druids it's a must. Flame shock will prevent them from vanishing and running away, so they can only sprint. If they sprint, my tailor crafted netherveave net makes sure that they can only go to the graveyard.
In instances the multitomem stagering goes that way... Main has the stoneskin totem on his bar, so he can even drop it in pvp by clicking... With multitotem, one stoneclaw totem drops from one of the companions. After that the main just clicks the stoneclaw totem button on his bar, then CTRL + 1 and the companions drop 2 new stoneclaw totems... that's usually more than enough time to kill all the mobs.
The movement keybinds are wasd on the main. Q and E for turning on the main and companions. Up and Down arrows for making each toon run in a different direction.
When engaged in PvP vs several oponents at the same time healing goes via chain heal, so I don't have to care much about targeting the toon that is taking damage. Usually they are 2 or 3 of them taking damage at the same time, so chain heal does great work.
What happens if the main dies in PvP?
There is no time to switch screens and wait for maximizer to adjust the resolution, so I only need to target something from the main and command the companions to shot whatever they have. I have found practically no problems if the main dies except that the companions cannot move but only turn left and right. This is not a big problem anywaysbecause when the main dies I tend them to spam multishocks and searing totems and run around each one in one different direction pressing randomly Q and E to make them turn while running around, so they just make the enemy go crazy avoiding AoE damage meanwhile. With some practice the results are hilarious.
The main advantage of this setup is that all the skills are present on the button bars, so I don't need cast sequences macros nor have to deal with the "Oh shit, I wish I had a button for XYZ totem or skill". I can refresh a given totem clicking it from any of my toons bars while the others are quietly casting a lightning bolt or chain lightning.
The main cast bar is all macros except the gift of the naaru skill. All the toons have the same kind of macro:
/target = focus target
/cast whatever spell comes here.
The other bars don't need macros because the skills present on them can be cast without having a target.
This also allows me to use my lvl 70 warlock, warrior or whatever else toon I have without having to remacro all the rest of my toons. It's also key cloning application independent, so I can switch between my hardware KVM or keyclone depending of how much video processing work have my video processing workstations to do.