5 Shammy Heroics

[Zappy]

After getting the 1800 weapons, my shammys are all just below 2900 SP before ToW and 150 hit before talents, so I decided to try a few new heroics to see how my new PVP gear would fair.

I must say, I was totally shocked, as I was one of the guys saying that WOTLK heroics would not be possible with 5 shammys back in the day. Well, I can say with gear, it's not only doable, but also extremely easy.

The first one I tried was the Culling of Stratholme as it was the heroic daily. I remember in fresh 80 gear with a geared tank, I could barely clear it, and would get annihilated as 5 shammys. Anyhow, this is the first time I've been back here since the start of the year. The first boss kicked my ass due to him silencing different members of the team constantly. I ank'd all 5 so that I would still have a shot at the drake, but drew aggro before I could get much mana/health back, so I ran back from the GY. This time, I decided to unload 5 fire elementals to keep up the DPS along with bloodlust for that fight, and this time he dropped rather quickly. The second boss was a total joke. Keep grounding totems down and you won't take any damage. To my surprise, the rest of the instance was a joke now. Enough of a joke to after wiping twice on the first boss and running back from the GY that I was still able to complete the timed run with 2 minutes to spare and got my first bronze drake. I'm guessing the entire run could be completed in close to 15 minutes:

http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/CosDrake.jpg

http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/CosFinal.jpg

The next night the daily heroic was Halls of Stone. I figured I'll give it a shot, and didn't have high expectations. I lost two of my guys during the prospector event. The next attempt, it was very easy:

http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/HallsOfStone.jpg

All in all, I was very shocked and surprised how easy these heroics are now. I used to use focus hexes to make the pulls easier, whereas now, almost everything with 63k HP dies in 2 lightning bolt volleys, so I would typically open up with 2 volleys on the first mob, switch the 2nd and FS/LB, then the back to the 3rd with more lightning bolts. If there were more 3 mobs, then I would round robin thunderstorms to keep them off me.

I've been running ToC normal a few times a day to farm abyss crystals, and now I'm really tempted to attempt it in heroic.

[Maxion]

Hehe indeed, my shamans cleared heroics already in quest blues, so i bet its easy in that high pvp gear, lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVYaF-464-o
Nice work anyway, see if you can make some videos so that i'm not the only one in the world with 5 shammy northrend heroic clear videos anymore :)

[Zappy]

Drak'tharon was the first one I cleared in mostly blues, then gun'drak, followed by UT Keep. I remember trying a few others and just thinking there is no way. After knocking down halls of stone, I'm confident I can do just about all of them except for that one boss that phases everybody.

[daviddoran]

Not only is doing it without a tank/healer an accomplishment, but doing the timed run with time to spare AFTER a wipe (and a half with the Ankhs) is a very nice accomplishment. I'm still sportin deadly/furious on my 5 shammys, but maybe ill give it a shot? I've soloed the bosses in AV with just the 5 of me, so I'm guessing it wouldnt be so bad for me....

[Multibocks]

Drak'tharon was the first one I cleared in mostly blues, then gun'drak, followed by UT Keep. I remember trying a few others and just thinking there is no way. After knocking down halls of stone, I'm confident I can do just about all of them except for that one boss that phases everybody.

Actually you should go try him, my current tactic when he is daily is to hero with 3 fire pets up and 1 wrath totem. I dont even bother healing tank and just go full tilt dps and he usually dies as soon as second insanity finishes casting and my shaman dont have 2900 sp ;)

[Zappy]

UPDATE. I tried Halls of Lightning tonight. Not even a single death in there. :)

First, here was my 2nd drake run: (6 minutes left)
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Drake2.jpg

Bjarngrim with buff for achievement:
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Bjarngrim.jpg

Volkhan with achievement:
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Volkhan.jpg

Ionar: (this was the one boss I was really worried about) The sparks were extremely easy to heal through, so I won't need any elementals next time:
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Ionor.jpg

And the final boss. (I popped bloodlust before pulling him and took a few seconds to hit screenshot as you can see the achievements fading away), which means he was dead in about 30 seconds. :D

http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Loken.jpg

[Ughmahedhurtz]

lol...your shammies have more HP than my damn prot pally tank does.

[Zappy]

Adding Violet Hold to the list: (Yes I'm bored tonight) :)

http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/VioletHold.jpg

[Zappy]

A few more:

A very sloppy watch him die, but got the job done:
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/WatchHimDie.jpg

AzjolNerub:
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/AzjolNerub.jpg

Nexus (My other 4 already did this fight with a tank a long time ago):
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Nexus.jpg

And per multiblocks, I decided to try Ahkhaket. Interesting enough, just pop bloodlust and go to town. I didn't even use the fire elementals, and he died in about 30 seconds. He never got a chance to put insanity on my group:
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Volazj.jpg

I didn't even know this mushroom boss existed in heroic mode, so I had to go find him:
http://www.garysdecks.com/WoW/Ahnkahet.jpg

Looks like now, I need to do Occulus and UT Pinnacle for the hero achievement.

[Multibocks]

grats man looks like you are tearing it up. Side note: Anyone notice that this is about the same timeline in BC that shaman could solo heroics well? (Right before last patch before WoTLK came out.) Obviously it's tied to all the gear being released, but it's interesting that its about the same point.

edit: So then its safe to say 5 shaman wont work in Cataclysm until the 3rd patch.

[daviddoran]

I tried this as well, and did Drak'Tharon keep successfully. Got the trollgore achievement as well. Wiped once on the dinosaur, but didnt attempt again, and just skipped him. I'm not nearly as geared as the OP, but it looks like it's possible.

[gitcho]

Not only is doing it without a tank/healer an accomplishment, but doing the timed run with time to spare AFTER a wipe (and a half with the Ankhs) is a very nice accomplishment. I'm still sportin deadly/furious on my 5 shammys, but maybe ill give it a shot? I've soloed the bosses in AV with just the 5 of me, so I'm guessing it wouldnt be so bad for me....i'm in full deadly/furious with my 5 shamans too ... is this do-able with 2300 sp? my hit isn't that great, but i could gem for it ... what's your general strategy? drop 1 rock ele per fight and try to burn down the boss before the ele is dead? or is it different for each fight

never thought it would be possible - would love to hear what you think about it with my current gear level

[daviddoran]

I have like 2.1k sp before ToW, and 20k hp on each, and most bosses, i just zerged down fast. The encounter is designed for 3 dps, so when you run 5, overgeared dps, its like triple what its meant to be. Add in heroism and its just insane. I used elementals on certain bosses, that hit hard, but mostly, just zerged down, ocasionally stopped to mass chain heal to full.

Edit: oh, and i have dual spec pve and pvp, but i forgot to change it, so i was full PvP spec/gear, and i know i wasnt hit capped... it was really easy, especially considering you are only DPSing...

[gitcho]

well, my sp is around 1850 BEFORE totems ... my shamans in full pvp gear with pve spec, do 3k on the raid boss, and about 4.4k dps (with hero) on the lvl 80 target. My hit is only at about 30 - do i need more hit to do this?

[Zappy]

I was doing Drak'Thraron, Gundrak, and UT Keep in a lot lower gear and under hit cap (like 50 hit and around 2k SP before TOW). Granted, there are some fights that were very close calls almost all the time. Trollgore was one of them. I since started farming badges for my 4 pally / DK team (haha - i'm such a bandwagoner) and this was when I really noticed a huge difference from before, so I decided to step it up and try some of the other heroics.

The biggest things that helped me is to 1) have hot keys to have everybody heal an individual toon, so that as one guy is getting burnt down, they all stopcasting, and immediately heal him. 2) Keys (such as arrow keys) that move your entire group, so for fights that you have to move quickly you can move. Drak'Tharon and the soul mages come to mind. ;)

Another thing is that if you are close, but just can't quite squeak it, you can use drums of forgotten kings, drums of the wild, scroll of fortitude, food buffs etc. to buff your entire team. You can tell from some of the screenshots where I was using some buffs and no buffs. The difference I'm seeing is nearly 4k HP -- 27.4k buffed, vs 23.6k without them.

[Ouroboro]

Dude I just got your reply in my thread about using 5 shamans and now I can officially say that you are my hero. I do have a few questions however.
Are all of your shammys spec'd into ele? or are one or two spec'd into resto for healing?
Also does it take a really long time to complete these dungeons when compared when you que in dungeon finder with a single toon and get a full party? I'm just curious, but this stuff is really crazy that your running through, now my 5 shamans have hope lol.

[daviddoran]

Not quite the same, but a guildie and me did the raid weekly, which was Noth, with 10 shamans. I believe he had one resto shaman, but my 5 were elemental. the damage he did was a complete joke, and even when the curses popped, mass chain heal solved that. I bet that 10 shaman could go pretty far in Naxx, but im sure there will be road blocks. Maybe get one enhance shaman with pvp gear, and tanking off set stuff, spamming frost shock...