WotLK took my shammie-love away (and misc. 3.0.8 thoughts)

[Fuzzyboy]

Yeah, really. Don't get me wrong, I still like them, but I no longer love them. Well, at least not the elemental-spec. Usually my moonkin will be 500ish DPS in front of my shaman on the damage meters. Where they used to be nasty wrecking balls, they're now more like a mediocre caster-type contributing over my resto shaman only with a +140 spelldamage buff and a few extra grounding totems. If I could, I'd gladly replace my whole dps-crew with 3 hunters, or at least replace one of them with a mage.

However, 3.0.8 will bring some nice changes. Better scaling for both LB and Lava Burst (+10%/20% of bonus damage) and LB will now be better dps-wise for single targets than CL (as IMO it should be). Changes to magma totems are nice also (although I practically never use AE damage except for certain specific situations), so I really hope this will fix the DPS issues I'm having. I don't mind hybrids being on the low side of dps compared to pure-dps classes, but being harder to manage (manual flame shock apply etc.) AND being on the lowside of other hybrid casters suck.

I'm also hoping for a fix for /castsequence although that's not a likely scenario. On the bright side: Mechanostriders for my whole team :-D

[zanthor]

I had thought I was doing decent DPS on dungeons and such until last night, went with a hunter geared about the same as my guys and while I'm pushing out a very consistent 1200-1300dps she was pushing 1500-1800... full dungeon clears for the numbers there, so it's not like it's a burst difference or something similar.

All said and done, I really am enjoying the game, I like that Blizzards spinning raids towards the everyman, and it will be interesting to see how far that goes and how long it lasts.

[Fuzzyboy]

...and without tremor totems down, one good fear bomb will likely destroy you. :)

Shaman may not be DPS king/queens anymore, but the utility they provide more than makes up for it IMO. And Hunters are getting the nerf-bat. ;)My healer shaman can supply the tremor totem just fine :-) (DPS crew = moonkin + 2 elemental shaman)

Edit: And also, I only PvE - I don't PvP.

The reason I used the hunters as an example is because hunters don't require a support debuffer (spell dmg taken) in the same way that shaman does (they do however require different specs). Hunters are getting nerfed, but I'll bet you 10.000 gold that they'll be doing damage at least on par with moonkin. Hunters also have utility spells (through their pets) that rival that of the elemental shaman.

One note that needs to be made is that in terms of PvE shaman do well enough. Even though their dps is sub-par, they still do enough damage to farm heroics, which is pretty much what I'm looking for. Once I'm decked out with my current crew I'll be looking for new challenges and replacing an elemental-shaman with a mage and trying out 3xhunter for heroics is on the project list :-)

Lastly, the changes to LB and Lava burst might put the shaman dps back up where it belongs (on par with other hybrid specs), we'll have to wait and see I guess.

[Ellay]

I think the Age of the Shaman for multiboxing is hopefully over and players spread there options out to other classes. I still enjoy playing the class immensely but whenever everyone plays one, and it becomes the staple class it is never a good thing. So the events unwinding show a healthy boost for us.

[Fuzzyboy]

I think the Age of the Shaman for multiboxing is hopefully over and players spread there options out to other classes. I still enjoy playing the class immensely but whenever everyone plays one, and it becomes the staple class it is never a good thing. So the events unwinding show a healthy boost for us.I agree - I think it's a good thing when there is several options to choose from and the shaman isn't the only viable choice. I think it's a shame that it's coincidental (sp) and that the game we play (multi-wow) is a different one from the one the rest of the playerbase plays. The game is designed for them, not for us, and the effect that changes to their game has on ours are for the most part both random and unintended. Luckily for us, WoW caters a broad audience, meaning that the game is unlikely to ever be complex to a degree that makes multiboxing impossible.

Apart from the fact that I now have to level up several new chars, I'm glad about the way the wheel has spun, but also a bit frustrated that our existance is so profoundly secondary. In the end, I'm having fun though. Lots of it :-)

[algol]

It's not just individual DPS to consider, either. Paladin + 4x Shaman allows you to run with four DPS spec members at times. Could be better than three characters with higher individual DPS.

Pally + 4 shamans is probably going to always be the easiest, most robust team. It doesn't mean other teams can't be better in specific scenarios, or more fun for someone to play. The best team is the one you enjoy most, it being a game and all. But a crafted mace getting nerfed, or doing lower damage than a class that's about to get nerfed...yay, but that's not critical to why the team layout is so successful.

[Fuzzyboy]

More or less immune to:
Fear
Poisons (totem + spells)
Diseases (totem + spells)
Anti-Spell caster (grounding totems)
Paladin can cleanse magic debuffs.
Resto Shaman can cleanse curses.

...and you can do all this at the same time with multiple Shaman.

Ultimate anti-wipe (each member can rez and heal, and even auto-rez)
What you give up in top-end DPS, you gain in massive utility.

I've toyed with swapping in a Hunter for a Shaman, or a Warrior tank instead of the Paladin. The "net gain" is always negative.Except for multiple groundings, you can achieve that with a resto shaman as well. Tremor totems stacking isn't of much use in PvE and I've yet to be in a PvE scenario with my team where one disease or poison cleanse totem didn't satisfy my needs. Not only are the shaman lacking dps at the moment, they're also harder to dps with. My moonkin with /castrandom wrath, starfire is out-dps'ing my shaman with manual FS-cast + lavaburst / LB / CL by 500 dps.

Hunters have massive utility as well, I'd dare say on par with a shaman and they add a lot to the equation as well. Feign death is very nice. Pet utility is immense with three hunters, both in terms of offtanking and aggro management, but also special abilities: stun, disarm, slow, spell interrupt, casting speed reduced, root, atk debuff, atk buff etc.

I'm not saying the shaman is dead - simply that other classes can offer the same advantages and utility and sometimes more.

Edit: Wrong statement removed.

[algol]

Tremor totems don't stack, but they only pulse every four seconds. If you drop one every second, then they collectively pulse every second.

Shaman Multiboxing 101.

[Fuzzyboy]

It's not just individual DPS to consider, either. Paladin + 4x Shaman allows you to run with four DPS spec members at times. Could be better than three characters with higher individual DPS.

Pally + 4 shamans is probably going to always be the easiest, most robust team. It doesn't mean other teams can't be better in specific scenarios, or more fun for someone to play. The best team is the one you enjoy most, it being a game and all. But a crafted mace getting nerfed, or doing lower damage than a class that's about to get nerfed...yay, but that's not critical to why the team layout is so successful.It all depends on your scenario - mine is PvE. When I started doing heroics I gave up most of the dps'ing I did with my healer and I haven't missed it. I don't agree that pally + 4 shaman is the easier more robust team (already the spell dmg taken debuff is a pretty big blow).

Shaman don't just do lower damage than a class that's about to be nerfed (hunters), they do the least damage of all the dps specific classes. Sometimes my paladin has higher dps than the shaman.

That's not to say that shaman are in any way useless - I believe the dps-issue is about to be fixed (at least in part), and noone is disputing the large amount of utility they bring, they're just not as good as they used to be, which in retrospect is actually something that I don't mind. At least not once I'm done levelling my alts to replace some of them :P

As for the mace, it's a 85 spell damage loss - I don't really care to be honest, I thought it was OP to begin with, although I do wish they had announced it a bit sooner so I could have spent my money better. It's still decent post-nerf, just no longer the best choice pre-raid.

[Fuzzyboy]

Tremor totems don't stack, but they only pulse every four seconds. If you drop one every second, then they collectively pulse every second.

Shaman Multiboxing 101.I was sure they removed that in 3.0, but doing some research it seems that was just my imagination. I was convinced since the one I'm dropping almost always remove fear within 1-2 seconds, so I figured they removed stacking but made them pulse more often.

Apart from that I don't appreciate your derogatory 101-comment.

[Prepared]

Yeah, really. Don't get me wrong, I still like them, but I no longer love them. Well, at least not the elemental-spec. Usually my moonkin will be 500ish DPS in front of my shaman on the damage meters. Where they used to be nasty wrecking balls, they're now more like a mediocre caster-type contributing over my resto shaman only with a +140 spelldamage buff and a few extra grounding totems. If I could, I'd gladly replace my whole dps-crew with 3 hunters, or at least replace one of them with a mage.

However, 3.0.8 will bring some nice changes. Better scaling for both LB and Lava Burst (+10%/20% of bonus damage) and LB will now be better dps-wise for single targets than CL (as IMO it should be). Changes to magma totems are nice also (although I practically never use AE damage except for certain specific situations), so I really hope this will fix the DPS issues I'm having. I don't mind hybrids being on the low side of dps compared to pure-dps classes, but being harder to manage (manual flame shock apply etc.) AND being on the lowside of other hybrid casters suck.

I'm also hoping for a fix for /castsequence although that's not a likely scenario. On the bright side: Mechanostriders for my whole team :-D

/agreed with these comments. Which is why I'm considering reconstructing my boxing team. The best 10 man all-around boxing team for Player versus Player (PvP) and Player versus Environment (PvE) now appears to be:

1 Death Knight - main tank and main assist - Unholy spec
1 Warlock - Demonology spec for Damage Per Second (DPS) and some PvP crowd control
2 Paladins - Retribution spec
1 Priest - Discipline spec
2 Mages - Frost spec - DPS and some crowd control
1 Druid - Balance spec
1 Shaman - Elemental Spec
1 Hunter - Beast spec

I've been working on building up this team for awhile to catch up to my shamans to work together to level 80. However, it will take a long time to level up all of the characters through the post 70 levels.

Why different classes? Because with this team, there is the best of everything, DPS is strong, healing is strong, 3 classes have pets for added targets for the enemy to focus on, plus all of the buffs are available. Additionally, all of the classes have casting abilities.

How are the macros and short cuts set up for different classes? By having the single target DPS, Area of Effect (AOE) target DPS, healing/curing spells and assist/initial cast spells on the same keys.

I'm welcome to any critism for a multi-class boxing team, but my opinion is that the multi-class boxing team is a lot better with Wrath of the Lich King than with a single class boxing team. Just set up the keys appropriately and the multi-class team is a great and fun way to experience multi-boxing in World of Warcraft.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Im more then happy with 1 pal 25 shaman ...

Pal getting 30 year taunt! Shaman nova totems is going to be no threat!

Who can ask for more.

And the knockback thunderspell.

You guys can fish around for something better but Im staying right where I am.

[algol]

Shaman don't just do lower damage than a class that's about to be nerfed (hunters), they do the least damage of all the dps specific classes. Sometimes my paladin has higher dps than the shaman.

Quite possibly, but the original comparison to hunters is (temporarily?) invalid for that reason.

Tremor totem escaped the great stacking purges because it never stacked to begin with. Only buffs/debuffs can stack, and it's neither - more of separate entities each spamming an effect at intervals. You can increase the frequency of the effect going off by staggering them, and there's no loss to doing so since only one can affect you at a given moment anyway (fear is a binary effect). The pulsing does start when you cast the totem, just like the pulsing of a DOT or HOT, so the spell as implemented isn't even aware of other tremor totems in the area - it's completely independent. I don't recall it ever behaving differently.

As annoying as it is to have them play takebacks with the crafted mace, it might end up being a good thing overall for shamans since they're not the only mace user. Maybe. Really, I think it was just a screw-up...still, there are some nice shaman changes in .0.8, so I don't see a point in doing a prolonged analysis of current shaman DPS suckage when it is being worked on. However, it would be interesting to know how the changes affect the issue.

[nazgul]

Im more then happy with 1 pal 25 shaman ...

Pal getting 30 year taunt! Shaman nova totems is going to be no threat!

Who can ask for more.

And the knockback thunderspell.

You guys can fish around for something better but Im staying right where I am.

Holy crap a 30 year taunt? Does it reset if you log out, then it's 30 more years or does the 30 years last through logouts?

lol...

[Prepared]

Im more then happy with 1 pal 25 shaman ...

Pal getting 30 year taunt! Shaman nova totems is going to be no threat!

Who can ask for more.

And the knockback thunderspell.

You guys can fish around for something better but Im staying right where I am.

Yes we know Sam, you've been there under level 30 for a while now. But I've not moved up any levels for over a month on my shamans either. I might ding level 70 this month. :-)

[Soundeyes]

From the start of my WoW multiboxing career I've always gone for the classes that are fun to play instead of the flavor of the month. Out of my groups so far the Shaman have the lowest priority. The enjoyment factor for each team has been something like:

1xPally 4xMages : Very very fun! Not really capable of killing hard bosses. Great for BG PvP and ganking. Perhaps the ultimate farming team.

1xPally 1xPriest 3x Mages : My first go at a tri-force style team, still boosting the priest through Outlands. Some heroics will be totally doable.

5xBoomkin : I love stealth so this is fast becoming my favorite team. This will probably be the team I take into the arenas.

1xDeathknight 1xPally 3x Warlock : Another take on the tri-force team. When both are at 80, all the "parts" will be swappable.

5xShaman : Just... not... feeling it. Plus they are still way too popular. I've only run across one other boxer who doesn't do shaman.

[reman]

Elemental shamans' DPS should at least be on the same level as moonkin, given moonkins have more armor and usually more hp as well. So I am not too worry about shaman's DPS as they are buffing us. I am sensing the trend (design choice by blizzard) is to not stack any classes. Blizzard is obviously spreading things out on all classes. and I expect that to be continued. This is great for solo, more choices, really fatal for us boxers, pvp wise at least. With that said, I wouldn't be surprised to see diminishing effects on same spells hitting the targets (wild guess on my part), another level of challenge for coordination and call for diversity.

[Stabface]

I rolled up 3 mages for fun, going to respec my druid to resto for heal along with paladin tank. Should be a monster in PvE... will see how it turns out.

[Hachoo]

Sorry but its been LESS than a single month since WotLK came out. Complaining about ANY class right now, or shaman DPS, or anything else is just silly. Talking about rerolling or changing team makeups this early is even dumber. So much is going to change in the next couple of months that almost none of the classes will play like they do right now. Trust me, shaman will be buffed, other classes will be nerfed, shaman will also get nerfed some probably, its a huge cycle of buffs and nerfs.

Sometimes this forum reminds me of the WoW forum, especially lately. The sky is always falling. Its really annoying.

[Halo]

Agree with ^^^

You have to ask yourself, at some point, why are you playing the game? Most of us boxers probably got into it because the single player game had pretty much run its course. So, let's say 5xshammy or 1xpali+4xhammy is the win, and can roll through all 5 man content without breaking a sweat. OK, so you run through all of it and then what? Do you get a "you win" flashed on your screen. No. In a way, the tweaks (call them nerfs or buffs if you want) that change the mechanics of the game keeps it fresh, even for us boxers. It forces you to try new things instead of hitting the same 3 macro keys over again until the instance is cleared.

I first ran 5 shammies, which at first was a huge leap from playing a single toon. Then went to 1 pali and 4 shammies. Just having a real tank made the game all new again, all new macros to sort out, positioning etc. Now it's become ez mode. I'm now trying a holy trintity setup (DK, healadin, 3 locks). At some point, I will try a full mix of 5 including some meelee.

Leveling them up to at least outland is painful, yes, but with RAF and $25 transfers it's not unbearable. And, it's not like running Azeroth instances while you level a team isn't playing the game. Now, I will admit, I do NOT group with anyone since I started boxing, don't even return chat messages, all my channels are turned off in cities etc. It's a purely PvE environment for me, so the changes I make to my playstyle/gear/team composition are based purely on my effectiveness vs. the server and not compared to other players.

[valkry]

Ele shammies should not be so far behind on the dps. Blizz have stated they want everyone to be equal, but they well only progressively buff them til they reach the other classes, they wont make the mistake of massively buffing and then having to deal with the QQs when they nerf them again. So just relax and wait and see what happens.

[algol]

[Titansteel Guardian] ('http://www.wowdb.com/item.aspx?id=41384') reduced to 457 spellpower ('http://www.worldofraids.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=4158&c=9').

No more tears, mmkay?

[Fuzzyboy]

One Shaman can drop both Poison and Disease totems at the same time? ;)

So the pulsing is now a FIXED time (like, sync'd with the server clock)? I always thought the pulsing started from the time you dropped it.Actually no, but considering I've never been in a scenario where I needed to drop both poison and disease cleanse at the same time, I think the blow to the team is manageble :P

I thought the pulsing time got alligned in 3.0, but it turns out I was wrong :-)

[pinotnoir]

I rolled up 3 mages for fun, going to respec my druid to resto for heal along with paladin tank. Should be a monster in PvE... will see how it turns out.

I have this setup waiting to be leveled at 70. If you start using the setup send me a pm and let me know how its working out. I am too busy to start them in northrend right now. Maybe in Jan I will start their grind to 80.

[Rin]

replace my whole dps-crew with 3 hunters

I did this, and I haven't had any regrets -- other than I should have switched teams earlier :P. As far as the sentiment that Hunters are being nerfed.. Volley is being nerfed (it went from a trash skill to being a godly skill anyways; I never added it into my rotation for this very reason), and pets are being toned down by a 10-15% margin in dps. Hardly a nerf. If we are going to talk about nerfs, then reduce pet damage by about 50%, reduce all hunter skills by 10-20% across the board, and then we can talk about a nerf. Also, keep in mind that it is very likely that the Exotic pets damage be increased in the future (right now their damage is on par with regular pets); these things take time though.

As far as comparing the Shaman to a Hunter; it's not going to be a fair comparison. Pre-WoTLK, we had Shaman who could easily dish out a burst of 10k+ inital damage with their chain lightning x 4/5, depending on gear. In most cases, the best of the best plate classes Pre-WoTLK were breaking 25k hps raid buffed, and 30k meant you were really damn good. What you would have is an instant kill on anyone in PvP for the most part (provided you got the jump on them), not so much anymore. Same thing holds true for Heroics, 4 shaman + tank in BC would annihilate heroic dungeons, mainly because warrior npcs a) weren't outputting the damage that they produce now, b) had less hps, c) had been toned down through patch after patch...

Hunters, on the other hand have always had their pets. Recently "cooler" looking pets became available, but the damage in comparison to a regular pet was/is negligable. They've always been a pretty well-rounded dps class. They don't rely on totems and spell damage buffs to get their jobs done, they just kill. With the new expansion, their killing has been ramped up, but its not over the top. Mages, rogues, ARMS warriors (wtf? nerf incoming), can outdamage hunters. It's just easier to manage a hunter now / easier to do instances when you have extra tankage coming from your pet. Shaman don't have any "pets" per se.. as Elemental shammis we get totems / pets that we cant control every 20 mins, but thats it.

As far as ever being the "kings" of dps, I don't think you'll find it in the shaman. It's a hybrid class-> an EXCELLENT healing class, a decent melee class, and a marginal elemental/casting class (we'll see what the new changes bring). Part of the reason why I dropped 3 of my shaman (and converted the fourth over to resto) is simply because I realize shaman aren't a great dps class... theyre OK, but not great for PvE. For PvP, Boxed Shaman are better than Hunters though (Thunderstorm+ES = dead hunter pets ftw), but for PvE, I feel that the damage will be lacking. Only time will tell.

[Fuzzyboy]

replace my whole dps-crew with 3 hunters

I did this, and I haven't had any regrets -- other than I should have switched teams earlier :P. As far as the sentiment that Hunters are being nerfed.. Volley is being nerfed (it went from a trash skill to being a godly skill anyways; I never added it into my rotation for this very reason), and pets are being toned down by a 10-15% margin in dps. Hardly a nerf. If we are going to talk about nerfs, then reduce pet damage by about 50%, reduce all hunter skills by 10-20% across the board, and then we can talk about a nerf. Also, keep in mind that it is very likely that the Exotic pets damage be increased in the future (right now their damage is on par with regular pets); these things take time though.

As far as comparing the Shaman to a Hunter; it's not going to be a fair comparison. Pre-WoTLK, we had Shaman who could easily dish out a burst of 10k+ inital damage with their chain lightning x 4/5, depending on gear. In most cases, the best of the best plate classes Pre-WoTLK were breaking 25k hps raid buffed, and 30k meant you were really damn good. What you would have is an instant kill on anyone in PvP for the most part (provided you got the jump on them), not so much anymore. Same thing holds true for Heroics, 4 shaman + tank in BC would annihilate heroic dungeons, mainly because warrior npcs a) weren't outputting the damage that they produce now, b) had less hps, c) had been toned down through patch after patch...

Hunters, on the other hand have always had their pets. Recently "cooler" looking pets became available, but the damage in comparison to a regular pet was/is negligable. They've always been a pretty well-rounded dps class. They don't rely on totems and spell damage buffs to get their jobs done, they just kill. With the new expansion, their killing has been ramped up, but its not over the top. Mages, rogues, ARMS warriors (wtf? nerf incoming), can outdamage hunters. It's just easier to manage a hunter now / easier to do instances when you have extra tankage coming from your pet. Shaman don't have any "pets" per se.. as Elemental shammis we get totems / pets that we cant control every 20 mins, but thats it.

As far as ever being the "kings" of dps, I don't think you'll find it in the shaman. It's a hybrid class-> an EXCELLENT healing class, a decent melee class, and a marginal elemental/casting class (we'll see what the new changes bring). Part of the reason why I dropped 3 of my shaman (and converted the fourth over to resto) is simply because I realize shaman aren't a great dps class... theyre OK, but not great for PvE. For PvP, Boxed Shaman are better than Hunters though (Thunderstorm+ES = dead hunter pets ftw), but for PvE, I feel that the damage will be lacking. Only time will tell.That's very encouraging :-) How are you doing in instances/heroics with this setup?

[suprafro]

For pure PVE teams that include tank and healer, hunter DPS seems pretty ideal...aside from the class being IMBA/OP on the DPS front you can maximize DPS in a single button spam macro similar to tanking with a pally

[Fuzzyboy]

For pure PVE teams that include tank and healer, hunter DPS seems pretty ideal...aside from the class being IMBA/OP on the DPS front you can maximize DPS in a single button spam macro similar to tanking with a pallyApart from hunters being 1-button friendly (not really, but more so than elemental shammies because of the flame shock thing), they also bring a good amount of utility through their pets (stun, castspeed debuff, interrupt etc.), not to mention feign and with HKN's very nice mousebroadcasting feature even decent AE damage:-)

[elo]

Pre Wrath I started raising up a mage and boomkin to replace 2 shamans and so far am very happy with it. I did it for several reasons

1) WATER!!!!!
2) Portals!
3) Protection against specific class nerfs
4) DPS spread across different schools of magic so nature immune bosses don't pwn me anymore
5) More buffs!

Also I really wanted a resto druid for arena's after getting owned so hard by groups with them. If they don't shine in Wrath like they did in BC then I'll just leave her boomkin and enjoy the benefits that provides.

Also also, now when I want to single box with a group (which I still really enjoy), I've got more options to offer to a prospective team.

Also also also, I now have a class for each type of armor that drops, so being a loot whore I get a little more satisfaction this way. Whatever drops can (almost) always be used by someone in my group!

But this all is just what I think about it. Different people have different goals/likes/dislikes so whatever works for you works.

[TheBigBB]

I love having one shaman on my PVE teams and will likely love them a lot more after the next patch. I couldn't imagine instance life without totems and heroism.

[Rin]

Apart from hunters being 1-button friendly (not really, but more so than elemental shammies because of the flame shock thing), they also bring a good amount of utility through their pets (stun, castspeed debuff, interrupt etc.), not to mention feign and with HKN's very nice mousebroadcasting feature even decent AE damage:-)

Sorry for the late reply! Yes, I would agree that Hunters are nice because of their pet abilities, but they're also nice b/c of the instant rez that you get on your pets (Heart of the Phoenix)... While I don't often end up using this talent (something would be wrong if my Hunter pets could out-tank my Warrior and DK....although, they did for a bit until I created new macros), it's still a godsend if you need to bring your guys back quickly. For instances, they've been great. I haven't ran into any content that I couldn't handle (messed up in the Underbog in my early 60s while trying to coordinate the movement around the spore boss, and never went back there since... I'm sure it would be overkill now at 69.7/70 though). I'll report back here once the team tries out Utgarde (will probably be late this evening or tomorrow), although I can't imagine any problems having watched videos of the fights and looking at the overall damage produced by the bosses (again, my hunter team is 2x hunters, 1x dk, 1x warrior, 1x priest; my B team is 1x shaman - bloodlust, 1x pal, 1x druid, 2x mages... 10 man instance runs, win or lose :P ). I believe there's another person, Bolyson, who may have some additional thoughts to contribute to this thread too - he's running 4 hunters and a druid as the healer. You really can't go wrong when rolling with Hunters though... tankage , heals + great pve dps = Heroic instances become managable / even easy in some cases.

The only annoying part was rolling the hunters up from nothing. Dropping 3 shaman in order to build a new team/add on to my pve damage wasn't an easy choice... although, I'm suprised at how quickly I've managed to raise them up. 2-3 weeks into it and now my little ones are about to hit 70 (tonight). Cheers!

[Fuzzyboy]

The only annoying part was rolling the hunters up from nothing. Dropping 3 shaman in order to build a new team/add on to my pve damage wasn't an easy choice... although, I'm suprised at how quickly I've managed to raise them up. 2-3 weeks into it and now my little ones are about to hit 70 (tonight). Cheers!Yeah, I'm surprised as well. I just opened another box of RAF-goodness and started levelling my moonkins (inspired by evilseed), mostly for kicks and giggles, since I'm unlikely to level them past 60. I'll use the gift-levels to make a new hunter team, and dreading 60-70 a bit. Did you just quest all the way from 60-70?

[Prepared]

The only annoying part was rolling the hunters up from nothing. Dropping 3 shaman in order to build a new team/add on to my pve damage wasn't an easy choice... although, I'm suprised at how quickly I've managed to raise them up. 2-3 weeks into it and now my little ones are about to hit 70 (tonight). Cheers!Yeah, I'm surprised as well. I just opened another box of RAF-goodness and started levelling my moonkins (inspired by evilseed), mostly for kicks and giggles, since I'm unlikely to level them past 60. I'll use the gift-levels to make a new hunter team, and dreading 60-70 a bit. Did you just quest all the way from 60-70?

You're doing exactly what I'm doing. I'm working on a new RAF'd 4 box druid team since I already have one druid at level 70 now. Just started them today and they are all level 19 so far. My shaman are on hold until Blizzard fixes the DPS for elemental shaman. If they don't fix it, then I won't be playing the shamans, but will be playing my alt mages and priests along with my druids and other classes such as the death knights and warlocks. I was also inspired by the post made by Evilseed.

[Toned]

I'm using Pal + 4 shaman atm and doing fine in heroics and what not. Currently I have a priest/dk/druid at or over lvl 60. I'm toying around with restructuring my group to this:

Unholy DK Tank
Boonkin
Ele Sham
Resto Sham
Then Mage/Lock/Ele Sham/shadow priest maybe ? in the last slot.

Then I'd use my shamans for pvp. Pre WOTLK I was working on a 10 box setup with 2 tanks, 2 healers, 8 dps .... Dunno though PVE was boring to me in TBC but once I started running Kara/ZA every week I started to like PVE again. With WOTLK I'm liking the PVE a lot so the above group would be purely pve. Anyone know if earth and moon + curse of elements + ebon plague stack ?

I'm still awaiting on 3.0.8 changes before I do anything... however I'm about 99% sure I'm dropping 1 ele sham for a boonkin as it stands now.

[Hachoo]

I still love Shamans, and the closer I get to 80 the more I love them. The few issues I have will be fixed shortly anyway.

IMO Even if say Shamans do less DPS than other classes, the synergy you get by not having to do weird complex cast sequences with multiple classes makes the DPS equivalent if not HIGHER than other classes when multiboxing.

I also like the utility of having multiple shamans that IMO makes them better than having mixed classes or multiples of any other class. (Fire totems for AoE, mana or healing totems for mass passive healing, tremor for free, grounding for spell, earthbind for kiting, etc, bloodlust, earth eles and fire eles for extra tanking or DPS, etc). IMO you just can't get anything close to that flexibility with any other class.

[Rin]

The only annoying part was rolling the hunters up from nothing. Dropping 3 shaman in order to build a new team/add on to my pve damage wasn't an easy choice... although, I'm suprised at how quickly I've managed to raise them up. 2-3 weeks into it and now my little ones are about to hit 70 (tonight). Cheers!Yeah, I'm surprised as well. I just opened another box of RAF-goodness and started levelling my moonkins (inspired by evilseed), mostly for kicks and giggles, since I'm unlikely to level them past 60. I'll use the gift-levels to make a new hunter team, and dreading 60-70 a bit. Did you just quest all the way from 60-70?

Yeah, I mostly quested from 60-70... it really didnt take much longer than 8 casual days tops.

60-64 : Just do all of the Hellfire Peninsula quests (minus the *really* long collections -- one that comes to mind is the gather 30 sprockets... but the other collections should go by quickly) + the instance based quests (Ramparts and Blood Furnace)
You'll probably end up about 1/4-1/2 through 64 by the time you do this
64-66: Zangarmarsh... theres a lot of quick kill quests out here; I skipped most of the collections in this zone.
66-68: Nagrand -
68-70: Blades Edge Mtns / Netherstorm

My guys dinged 70 last night in Netherstorm, and I kept going there... after you get through some of the bull$hit quests, a lot of good/quick kill ones open up. I think I ended the night at about 16% into 70 (170,000 exp earned), and that final 16% was earned in less than 1.5 hrs (again, once the quick kill quests open, you can maximize on the exp)

Some other super fast (less than 5 minute) ways to gain loads of exp:

- Swearing to Aldor or Scryer (I did Aldor b/c of certain kill quests that I wanted to complete) + turning in both the marks of Kil'jedean and Sargeras will net you a quick 25k exp (you can buy the marks on the auction house for like 50 marks ... 20-25 gold - its an easy 25k xp for virtually nothing)
- If you can get your hands on a Fel Armanent (Aldor) - turn that bad boy in.. 15k exp
- Ring of Blood is a definite must while you're in Nagrand... the exp yield is insane for the time it takes to complete

Other thoughts too:
- Grab the Eyes of Skettis quest when you go to Shattrath -> it opens up a chain that yielded 60k+ exp total for probably 20-35 mins of running around.


Cheers

[Kicksome]

I was messing around on the PTR checking out the new shaman changes. I have about 1700 spell power without totems.

1) LB spam is still almost as effective as the lava burst rotation. I think I did about 2.4K dps with just LB spam, I did about 200 more dps with FS+LB rotation on a single target
2) Magma totem was doing about 650 damage a tic, critting for around 1200-1300 or so. This is about double the damage it is now, and I'm pretty happy about it. Vs. 2+ targets I think it'll probably pretty much always be more effective to throw down magma as far as DPS goes. It's not as good as druid hurricane, I think my hurricanes crit for around 1500. But it's probably our best single change. 3 or 4 of these is going to hurt really quick.
3) It looks like my 3K spell power shaman with the old hybrid ele/enh spec is doing about the same damage as the new ele PTR shaman. The hybrid spec probably still is up dps by about 10%, but I'm not totally sure.