Maybe I'm just not playing my Shaman correctly........

[Nisch]

Ok, well I just can't get into my Shaman team. It seems like I have to keep dropping totems, which takes forever, and then with casting time, it just seems like a slow moving team.

Perhaps I'm just not playing them right. I'm actually thinking of deleting my 60 shamans and rerolling them to learn how to play them differently.

So given the following situations, how would you handle them with your 5 shaman team?

1-3 elite mobs near your level. Do you drop totems every time you run across a fight??


2-6 non-elites near your level. Do you drop totems all the time?? Just mana totems?


1-2 players near your level. How do you handle the setup? If they come in from behind or land a flying mount on you, how do you prepare for the battle without totems?? I run out of mana so quickly with no totems, it's not even funny.

it just seems like the Shamans need a lot of setup.

My favorite team is my Paladins, where I just run in and start beating on things. But I know the cookie-cutter team is the Shaman team and I want to make sure I'm not missing out on something.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Bollwerk]

I only drop totems for boss fights, but then again, I have a pally tank.

[Frojax]

I am by no means an expert, but this is how I handle things.
1-3 elite mobs near your level. Do you drop totems every time you run across a fight?? Usually a straight forward fight, if they didn't jump me, I'd pull with elemental mastery and chain lightning, drop nova totems as they approach, bolt, bolt, chain if their's still 3 of them and heal the main as needed. Not normally a problem.
2-6 non-elites near your level. Do you drop totems all the time?? Just mana totems?Non-Elites are even easier, chain lightning, nova, bolt to death.

1-2 players near your level. How do you handle the setup? If they come in from behind or land a flying mount on you, how do you prepare for the battle without totems?? I run out of mana so quickly with no totems, it's not even funny. Players are a whole different thing, depending on what they are, grounding goes down first, tremor is always ready and on round robin. Again, i don't bother with healing or mana totems, I tend to find pvp is over so quick that it is just a waste of time. Nova totems down too if they land on top of you. Then I would flame shock the softest target first and EM/Chain lightning and bolts. Cleansing totem is always there when needed though.

I've found the biggest pain in the arse in pvp for me, is when they jump through your ranks, so make sure you keep some keys bound and passing to all clients for turning, it can save you.

The way I see it though, shaman are so versitile, it's just a matter of learning what to do when, but always be flexible and on your toes. That said, I've yet to master any of this and often can be found "face down, dead on the ground" :D

[Jubber]

Elite mobs - setup your totems.

normal mobs - I usually just drop a healing totems and 1 totem of wrath. 1 button does this

players - grounding totems and healing totems. thats about it.

Edit: It's true PVP fights go quick but during that time I would prefer to spend that time dishing out damage than worrying if my chain heal will make it. and the healing from my totems is just enough extra heal to make it worth while. adding on another sec or 2 to allow my heals to finish or my spells to fire.

[Ken]

Don't forget to keep Water Shield (http://www.wowwiki.com/Water_Shield) active at all times, that gives you a lot of mana.

[Nisch]

Don't forget to keep Water Shield (http://www.wowwiki.com/Water_Shield) active at all times, that gives you a lot of mana.

But only if you get hit, right?

Edit: I never realized it was a regen too......hmm. That may be a big part of my problem.

[Hachoo]

You weren't casting it because you thought it only worked if you got hit? It costs no mana to cast, you should always have it up no matter what (unless you're using lightning shield instead which for a tank + 4 shaman team is only useful in PvE when you're getting AoEd).

I don't find shamans slow moving at all. I drop a totem farm every time I'm fighting more than 1 elite - it takes 3 seconds or so, and even with having to drop totems throughout an instance I can still mop up things like Heroic Gundrak, Heroic DTK, Heroic UP, Heroic UK, Heroic AN, etc, in 25 minutes or so each... things like Heroic VH I can do as fast as the mobs will spawn (18 minutes for the entire run or something).

But my question is, why would rerolling your entire shaman team help you learn how to play them any better? You still have to go all the way from 60 to 80 which will teach you far more about playing a shaman then running 1-60 even 10 times will.

[BobGnarly]

I drop a totem field on every pull. I find that by spending the time to do this, I save time down the road by not having to drink.

[Dorffo]

for me -
totems go down before every fight unless its a single mob in instances - you can drop them as you run into position (full 16 takes... 4 secs omg!). Always have watershield up... Pvp - groundings and tremors poision/disease cleansing always, then stay in range of them. re-drop if needed.

As far as rerolling - questing/grinding from 1-60 again will not really improve your game as much as pressing on from 60 and working out the kinks - you might try playing one of your shaman solo for a bit to get an idea of how to play the class.

[Ogloo]

when u hit 80.. go into BG's or create a 5's team.. play play play play.. even if ur team is 1200.. keep playing.. ull get confortable with it.. and ull see small things like. O fear totem hear good.. and each match ull improve a little bit.. and well.. ur going somewhere

[Starbuck_Jones]

I don't play a shaman team but a druid team and I can understand where your coming from. There is speed vs efficiency. I can blow through thing but after 2-3 pulls ill be oom and have to drink. Or I can go a little slower and get about 3-4 pulls before oom, or just tab around and dot and never run out of mana, but each pull takes about two or three times as long. Ive found in the end its just better for me to blow things up as fast as I can and drink between every other fight.

Right now I just use a cast random wrath, wrath, starfire and it seems to be the right balance to blow through stuff quickly.

As far as pvp goes, I haven't lost a fight with a lone 80 since hitting level 64. I have a pvp button set up that basically fires off every instant cast spell I have. All of my paladin spells are instant cast so that's nice. Druids its moonfire, insect swarm, trees, starfall. Most fights dont last past about 5 spells.

[Ogloo]

totems are a waste of time unless ur in a arena waiting for people to come (essential for poisens and fear and stuff)...
but for questing mobs.l. who cares if u take 2 more secs to kill something because of the lack of spell power..

and yeh use water shield.. also get the talent that increases like 12% of intellect regen. every 5 sec, even while casting.. Ive gone all out spamming like crazy butt. on a boss in vault.. at the end (7 min fight) i was still at 80% or something crazy.. use it.

[Nisch]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I'll admit that leveling up so many toons so quickly has kept me from really knowing the classes.

It seems that the Shaman team has a lot more capability than I'm currently utilizing. Perhaps I need to sit down, work out some macros and give them a try again.

[Souca]

I'm leveling my Pally/Shammy team right now, so I can identify with your pain. I'm currently 71 so I have some tricks you might not.

Like others said, always keep water shield up. It's free, so just hit it on all shammies when it gets low on one.

For normal mobs, I just hit them with a lighting bolt, or chain lightning if there are mobs it can jump to, followed by an earth shock. Usually the first lightning bolt will kill them, but if not the earth shock finishes them off. Mobs beyond the first one get lightning bolts and shocks as needed. No totems.

For elites I usually just drop all my totems. I have my numpad set up for totem binds and it's easier to just drop all 16 than try and micromanage them. Lightning bolt and shocks till it dies. I drop four fire novas if there are enough mobs to make it worthwhile and occasionally thunderstorm to get them back some.

PvP is very situational. So far it's pretty much just consisted of multiple 80s falling from the sky and making me into fertilizer, but if I have a chance to I drop grounding and tremor totems followed by fire nova for the stun.

The thing you are likely adjusting to is the caster versus melee switch. Up until a few days ago I was leveling an all DK team. Switching to shammies was a jolt to the system and it feels slow. For questing the healing just doesn't seem to matter that much. Every mob dies in about the same amount of time, but the shammies have a cast time associated with their two attacks where the DKs just had to deal with GCDs. I think the other thing that gets to me is the need to stand still. With melee you are cosntantly moving so things feel like you are always doing something. Casters have to stop and stand still everytime you need to deal with a mob. It's the stopping all the time that makes it feel slow.

- Souca -

[daviddoran]

I leveled quickly with RAF, quested 2 teams boosted 2 more, and when I hit outland it was a reality check. I ended up taking a few classes solo on a few quests, pugged a bit, etc and I learned the class that way, then devised ways to maximize stacking that toon.

I also found that anything outside of instances is no challenge and doesn't teach you anything. I suggest getting the starting quest gear, then hitting up Hellfire Ramparts for a quick dose of reality. I learned way more doing that than anything else. Now my shaman team with the same gear but better macros can tear through ramps like nobodys business, even surviving a few bad pulls, like pulling the first boss AND a pack of mobs, and still coming out victorious. That felt awesome.

As for totem farms, I would make creative use of Death Grip, and team positioning to allow me to do 2 pulls in roughly the same spot, using the same totems. I also made a quick n dirty /castsequence for a basic totem set for when it doesn't really matter, so I just wack that 4 times and im ready for 90% of whats coming at me. I still need to sit down and make individual keys for specific combos, like 4x grounding, a set of healing/mana/cleansing, fire, etc etc. I am still using a big "i win" /castrandom macro, but I eventually wanna build up a real rotation, which I feel ultimately will make me a better player. But still even just mashing a button I feel like I am way overpowered. I'm also tired of questing, and am doing as many instance runs as I can stand, before I quest so I can skip annoying ones.

[Tizer]

5 shaman, 1 button, pressed 4 times = 20 totems in what...3 seconds?

Water shield casting every time you use your /follow macro

Thunderstorm to regen mana, dont worry about doing damage to mobs you dont have to damage anything to get the mana increase bonus.

You should rarely be out of mana!