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.

[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.

[Æbox]

Yeah I ran some numbers though..

Base mana cost is 875 or so, reduced by 10% with a disc talent.

First one can be free with inner focus.

Paladin buffs the damage output on it with his aura..

Still not very efficient but it also spam heals the whole group at the same time. And with a prot pally tanking mobs, the speed of the fight can be slowed so that you only holy nova as he needs HP, allowing mana regen to kick in and stuff.

Plus, they'd be draenei, they get symbol of hope which is basically a mini manatide totem :)

[Xzin]

Second that about nova. Its nice but sucks.

Pallies have no place in any multiboxing setup, imho.

Show me some solid evidence and perhaps I can be proven wrong but to me they make so much less sense than a priest.

[Kyosakana]

If you're seriously PvPing, I don't see much reason to take a pally unless you're really trying to make some sort of large target who can simultaneously function as a damage sponge and heal the rest of the group. Seems more trouble than it is worth.

In a PvE group, paladins make decent enough tanks, or main healers if you put a shadow specced priest in the group for minor aoe healing/mana regen. The 4 priest and a pally group would be an interesting looker just for the huge holy damage buffs, the lack of resistance factor for holy damage,and the fact the pally would be nearly impossible to kill with 4 renews ticking and flash heals.

[Bunny]

awesome pics and videos,
I was surprised that it is possible to clear the shadow labs, but that makes me want to get to 70 with my group even more.
Have fun,
Bunny

[Ztar]

i know i seen team xbox arena videos before but cant seem to find them now, not here or on xbox web page...

Anyone have a link to them?

/Ztar