Need Help with Pally tank, 3 Shaman Team

[omgwtfmoo?]

Hey everyone,

I have a 52 Prot Paladin on my main account.

I just leveled 4 Orc Shamans to 50, one of them on my main account.

My plan is to use the Pally and the three shamans to get to 70 where I will be adding a 70 shaman from another account to the team and I need help in playing these classes at the same time, as up til now I have only played the pally by itself and the 4 shaman together.

I have seen a lot of posts about some 696969 macro or something but I really need some explanation or a "How to Pally-Shaman Team" type thing.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

-Moo.

[JU1CYFRU1T]

Okay... here is the breakdown of how to run the two classes together... but first you need to understand how they should function as individual classes.

Pally Tank:
This is my main-spec, so I have a decent grasp on how they function. I am not a 1337 T9.5 geared tank, but I know how they work. We won't get into what addons you need/want, nor how to set them up... cause IMO that is just hand-holding. Do some research on paladin tanking and you will find what you want.

I WILL give you the links to get started... but the research is up to you. The more you put into your tank via research, the better you will be because of it.



Links:

Maintankadin (http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/) (The home for Pally tanks everywhere)
Tankspot (http://tankspot.com/) (GREAT tanking page... with TONS of videos for raids, etc)
Paladin Schmaladin (http://ferarro.blogspot.com/) (an AMAZING resource for all paladins... converts EJ theorycrafting jargon into normal talk)
Now... to your main question about 969 and getting the two classes to work together.

The 969 rotation refers to the cooldowns on your abilities. You have three "9" second cooldowns, and two "6" second cooldowns. If you chain these together, you will get 9696 indefinitely without running into a GCD clash. YOU don't have all of these abilities yet, and won't get your last one until level 75... but you can practice tanking with as much of the rotation as you can.



Your "9 second" ablities are:

Consecration
Judgement (you MUST spend one point in "Improved Judgements in the ret tree)
Holy Shield


Your "6 second" abilities are:

Hammer of the Righteous
Shield of Righteousness (this is the spell you won't have until lvl 75)
Next
Hopefully at this point (from your research about pally-tanking) you understand the basics of tanking, what you are going to want to do, is find a "one-button macro" for your rotation. Get an addon that will allow you to extend the length beyond 255 characters, and create a 969 rotation.

Then, find a "one-button macro" for your Shammy team, and bind them both to the same key. For this example, we will use the [3] key.

Bind all of your pre-fight buffs (totems / Divine Plea / etc) to a key (ex. [1])

Bind your taunt to key [2].

Now, when you are ready to pull... your sequence goes:


Select target(s)
Press [1] (buffs)
Press [2] (taunt)
Spam [3] key until the mob drops.

Another option, and one that you might consider, is binding your DPS rotation to the key next to your tanking rotation (in our example key [4]. This would be ideal if you are having threat issues due to an incomplete 969 rotation. Then, if your shammies start to pull too much threat, you can stop DPSing while you maintain your tanking-threat-gen. It will depend on your gear, both for your tank, and each shaman individually.

p.s. Chain-lightning can pull agro like you wouldn't believe. Use it sparingly until you are comfortable with getting Righteous Defense / Hand of Reckoning / Hand of Salvation off in a pinch.