What is preventing 4 Shammies + Healer from breaking 2200?

[Kromtor]

I was expecting to see some 2200+ shammy teams by now. What exactly seems to be keeping you guys from breaking into the top? Tremor killers + fear bombs? CC'ed healer? Unable to burst down initial targets as expected? I've heard rumblings about melee cleave issues but you've got 4 big knockbacks + earthbind. That screws me up bad enough when there's just 1 shaman. What's the deal?

I was thinking about doing something serious with my shammy team since my restokin team was a bust and more than 10 games on my rets seems counterproductive but i dont know now...

[asonimie]

Shamans are still very strong. This post is not to deter people from rolling traditional shaman teams. A few of us have consistantly hit 2k+ at lvl 80, but please don't think it's easy. Success at this level requires perfect.. i mean PERFECT execution, target choices, positioning etc - while our opponents can sloppily just zerg us and have the same level of success. There's a million issues with them (both solo and boxed), but most of it has been talked about already. Shamans are basically a micromanaging nightmare

To summarize the main faults, while probably just as bad of an idea as listing faults in your team, are as follows:

1) Aside from instant lava burst which can be countered 30 different ways, shamans lack any instant cast dps. Having to stop and stand there while casting everything makes us extremely vulnerable to aoe silence, aoe stun, and melee weaving behind us. Without heroism our DPS is slow as shit and easy to dodge... meaning it takes 2 seconds to actually start putting out dps. This leads to:

- Lots of ranged enemies LOSing while only showing themselves in the open for 3 seconds at a time, as soon as they are targeted they run off and the remaining 4 people sit on you(along with melee). When you switch targets and start casting, the new target blows immunities and runs off while your previous target resumes dps / heals. Healers can pre-heal faster than you can target switch + recast. That = fail right there.

2) The "turret effect". Having to be aligned, grouped, stationary kills us as a class, both solo and boxed. Our ability to kill melee dps is really horrible. Talented warriors and DKs can be near impossible to kill once in melee range... and thunderstorm is a joke. Warriors (good, which above 2k you can assume they are) will either re-intercept you instantly or blow spell reflect while running 10 yards out of range.

- If feared, knocked around etc, you must re-follow and re-align yourself before reliably being able to DPS again - wasting 3-5 seconds each time.. which makes rotating CC pretty easy for a skilled team. This should paint a good picture of failure right there.

3) Lack of Snare / MS effect / Crowd Control. We have no (realistic) snare and no MS, and hex is a joke. This means we have to be twice as quick and hit twice as hard as a normal wiz cleave, or my rogue team for example. The difference I'm noticing MS effect makes is truly startling, Healers have to not only heal twice as hard, but they have less time to react and begin healing. The net effect is 3-4 times more difficulty in healing... not just the 200% healing amount you would expect on paper.

- With no MS effect, and being easily interruptable creates a separate problem as well. While its true we are a 4xDPS team which is normally quite scary in arena - with no MS I have found that losing even ONE shaman makes it almost impossible to out-dps a single talented healer. This means we are now RELIANT on having 4 dps all casting effectively. Either 1 shaman dying, or a rogue kicking/stunning a single shaman can make our DPS easily healable. This is a huge problem.

The reason I am so excited about my rogues... relates DIRECTLY to the above problems/roadblocks we are faced with as shamans.
Line of Sight gimmicks? Nope. I'm stuck to you like glue.
Slow casting/reaction/switching speed? Nope, all dps is instant cast and not silenceable.
Shutting down my dps? Nope, other than stuns (which everyone faces), I can pretty much maintain 100% of my DPS potential over time... something I never achieve as shamans.
Losing cause my 3x dps is healable? Nope, with MS and instant casts, just TWO of my rogues can put out as much healing pressure as 4-5 of my shamans. This pretty much sums it up.

[Ruodhaid]

Well at 70 there was alot of shamans hitting 2k, and that was kinda high back then, and it wasent relly that hard for a boxer, but when we hit 80 and pvp was so stuped shamans were just to soft to be playabel, and i think thay made moste old players quit, thats for sure the main reason that we dont see alot of them anymore

you can look at my movie in the bottem of this post, that was done in lvl 200/213 pvp gear only weapons and shields were pve, sure i could 1shot alot of players and yes the movie is recorded at low rating as i never got more then 1600 rating

at 01:36 in the movie i face a team covered in furios gear including 2350 weps and that was the top gear back then, try ot see how fast thay killed me, in secund go vs them i removed there warrior pritty fast, but then there mage/shaman burned my main shaman in 2 sec? and i relly found that was the same story over and over again were i got owned by rating sellers

i could priolly have gotten higher but didet relly try as i took a brake from wow just a few days after making this movie

http://www.vimeo.com/5585886

[Fat Tire]

I was expecting to see some 2200+ shammy teams by now. What exactly seems to be keeping you guys from breaking into the top? Tremor killers + fear bombs? CC'ed healer? Unable to burst down initial targets as expected? I've heard rumblings about melee cleave issues but you've got 4 big knockbacks + earthbind. That screws me up bad enough when there's just 1 shaman. What's the deal?

I was thinking about doing something serious with my shammy team since my restokin team was a bust and more than 10 games on my rets seems counterproductive but i dont know now...

Thought you were going feral with your druids?

Asonimie post summed up quad shamans to a T

imo healing is insane in general currently /shrug

[Iceorbz]

Warlocks and AOE stun lol.

On a serious note for me, i really think its my BG that keeps me from hitting at least 1800-2k.
At an 1k rating, I was playing half the time guys in near full relentless or having relentless weapons. When you face off against disc priests in 30k hp's... not sure what the hell to do with that I didnt have the spell power to burst through most of them.

[Kromtor]

ya i'm having flashbacks of my hunters now, melee weaving in and out dealing damage while the healers and ranged dps LOS'ed... yech

[heyaz]

Zero margin for error past 2000.

Beat a 2300+ team 4 times in a row, they figure out a strat we can't counter - never beat them again. Have to quit for the night if that's the only team playing.

Wizard cleave? If we get a few wins on them, they adjust to this exact strategy:

1.
- Get grounding totems down.
- Totems on cooldown? Bloodlust + shadowfury + global any of my shaman, through pain suppression.. 3 shaman left, can't kill anyone with gear.

2.
- Get grounding totems down
- Realize I have them ready, not on cooldown - LoS game and oom my priest, or even attempt to global my lead shaman while I can't really dps anything because they'll just see me cast and run away.

God forbid we get them on blade's edge or dalaran sewers. Ele shaman flanks, or even just runs straight at you, thunderstorms your guys to the far corners of the map. We started having my priest pop the grounding totem and I hit IWIN button as the shaman rides in... but most of the time I leave the shaman at like 5% hp as I can't finish the macro (CL would have killed them) since I'm in mid air at that point.

Blood elves on the team? How about shadowfury + aoe silence. Trinket + drop groundings instantly won't work against that.

I have over 3k spell power unbuffed on my main, and a lot more with totems and cooldowns, and rocket gloves, and a single cc'd shaman, or a little rng, and your focus target, whom they have no idea you were targeting, lives with 1000 hp and gets a NS heal to full. After that, it's difficult to coordinate any burst that's really a threat to a good LoS team. I'm still just at a loss for words as to how people manage to run 10 yards behind a pillar during a bloodlusted lava burst cast, and avoid them all. When I play solo I can't even make it 2 feet, I just get hit behind the pillar.

Massive amounts of passive healing that with a little RNG will save your nuke target with just enough HP to get a nice big instant heal.

A plethora of AOE cc that gimps a grouped caster team to no end.

A bubble on practically every class that any player over 1500 rating has wired to their brain for instant reaction time.

List goes on. But I'm sure we'll get a little lucky streat and hit the 2100s if not 2200, but I still don't have a good proven strat to get there. We're already using every trick in the book, all kinds of split cc with arena1-5 targets, interrupts, focus, hard switches, thunderstorm rotations.. what's left?

[heyaz]

I was expecting to see some 2200+ shammy teams by now. What exactly seems to be keeping you guys from breaking into the top? Tremor killers + fear bombs? CC'ed healer? Unable to burst down initial targets as expected? I've heard rumblings about melee cleave issues but you've got 4 big knockbacks + earthbind. That screws me up bad enough when there's just 1 shaman. What's the deal?

I was thinking about doing something serious with my shammy team since my restokin team was a bust and more than 10 games on my rets seems counterproductive but i dont know now...

The thing about thunderstorm is if you do it to them, they'll go like 2 feet away, and it's a miracle if they fall off the bridge or the platform in the sewers. Paladins will run right back, ferals and warriors will charge in mid-air (they're that quick), and DK's will often get a nice death grip off when you thought you had grounding totems down.

If a single elemental shaman does it to your team, you will fly 30 yards in every direction, except maybe one shaman who will get stuck by himself and get gibbed.

[Void]

Yep blades edge only way to knock someone off bridge is to blow 3-4 TS but like it was said a single TS on me and all my chars are pinned in corners somehwere.

[daviddoran]

The mass AOE CC and damage spells astounds me. its too easy for a team with half a brain to do a cc sequence and pick off shaman one by one. the warlock aoe stun has way too long of a range, they cast it and run out of range and im helpless, then a blood elf does an aoe silence, then i get thunderstomped, then aoe fear, etc etc. the whole time I'm unable to do anything past my first use of the trinket.

The AoE Everything needs to get toned down, maybe diminishing returns on any sort of stun/CC? Although the supposed DR on Fears doesnt seem to work when its multiple classes doing it.... In AV trying to cap a tower, I've had a warrior priest and lock run in and chain fear me, and it seems like i get the full duration every time.

It's made me not want to do arenas at all, but thats the only way to get gear upgrades until 3.3 for me.

Rated BGs might have hope, but I fear that all it will do is put these arena gladiators into BGs and they will continue to rape us.

[Ualaa]

Well with a rated BG, when the gladiator is one of forty toons, they have a much smaller impact.

Sure with coordination, they can do some nastiness, but the more you have the harder it will be.

In arena, they can do five things at once, versus our one or two, depending on how many people we have across our team.
In a rated BG, it might be 15 vs 15, where we have 11 players on our side; the disadvantage of greatly reduced independent action will be severely reduced overall, even if its still prominent in one area at a time.
Still, it depends on the BG; in WSG, given the task of controlling the middle of the field, their half of the map, to kill their flag runners and support our runners has a lot of open space, without pillars to hump.

[Ogloo]

I think the reason we cannot get over 2.2k is cordination or like everyone said a billion CCs i mean, ive been in games where ive run out 4 grounding totems, boom wtf there first guy. But then CC i pop trinket, then CC's in rotation (anything above 1600ish will have rotations down pat), and well, to be honest shammies are squishy and ive died with 1.1k resil just in 1 fear or something, there is literally nothing other to do than sit back and whatch my guy die while he is CCd without a trinket up'
My highest yet is 1900, but we are beating teams above 2.2k so i feel like we are gunna get there when i get back from exams+trips+christmas. (new season? )
After a certain points there is soooo much micro-management and perfection that needs to be nailed down, its hard to get it right every time
I have played over 1500 games this season, and I feel confortable against most teams, but man they do one thing and it owns what my plan is.
I think 2.2k is sortof the max untill we master the techniques even more, but 2.2k? thats sick dunno why u would look at that as a bad max :)
but the possibility of class changes/buffs/nerfs may bring new light on to this topic, whatch them add a arena with siege vehicles or something, they already added them to most of the BGs+wintergrasp.. that would be the end of it all ;0

[suicidesspyder]

Yea ive really wanted to arena with my shamans but leaning more and more toward my 4 dks and a dedicated healer. Obv. i have 5 but one is just raid tank thats all. So i got 4 and ill throw in a second person to heal but in pvp ill use my druid to hot heal so it will be easier. As for shamans yea wg and other bgs are fun cause you have a better chance to cast stuff but in arena its just the luck of the draw.

I think my best chance to do good is my 4 dks and a dedicated healer. Since i can pull targets into me and chain ice them then burn. Esp. with hunters and disengage. Oh no i dg u disengaged well comeback here and stay lol. Also even with the change in army of the dead i still believe 4 packs summoned would be a healers worst nightmare lol.

While they are running around healing them selves i can take out the other parts of the teams lol.

[Fat Tire]

I
but the possibility of class changes/buffs/nerfs may bring new light on to this topic, whatch them add a arena with siege vehicles or something, they already added them to most of the BGs+wintergrasp.. that would be the end of it all ;0

Blizzard already has said adding arenas was a mistake just 2 weeks ago. I think if they are going to continue the e-sport semi seriously that they would never add vehicles to arena. I believe they said that the vehicle BGs would not be rated. Just wsg/ab/eots are the ones I have seen quoted.


Source: http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/6773-Five-Years-of-Warcraft-Speaking-With-Blizzards-Rob-Pardo.2

[asonimie]

Yea ive really wanted to arena with my shamans but leaning more and more toward my 4 dks and a dedicated healer. Obv. i have 5 but one is just raid tank thats all. So i got 4 and ill throw in a second person to heal but in pvp ill use my druid to hot heal so it will be easier. As for shamans yea wg and other bgs are fun cause you have a better chance to cast stuff but in arena its just the luck of the draw.

I think my best chance to do good is my 4 dks and a dedicated healer. Since i can pull targets into me and chain ice them then burn. Esp. with hunters and disengage. Oh no i dg u disengaged well comeback here and stay lol. Also even with the change in army of the dead i still believe 4 packs summoned would be a healers worst nightmare lol.

While they are running around healing them selves i can take out the other parts of the teams lol.

fyi, I think you will find healers have just as easy of time healing 4x DK damage in arena as they do 4x shaman.

[Fat Tire]

Cant army of dead in arena either

[Gares]

I think either Rets or Rogues is the way to go at this point. Rets we know work. Not sure with a healer but they probably do, rogues have yet to see some real action yet..hopefully soon

[Ualaa]

Well rogues have the surprise opener, and a snare/mortal wound effect which you can AoE.
Not quite the armor of the paladin team, but I would think superior damage with the MS effect will help a fair bit too.

One of the bigger things against Shammies is that its been done for many seasons, so it is not a surprise to the better teams. If you were boxing 4x Shammies with a healer, as the first team to be boxed in any battlegroup at a high level, not many would have a counter. As it is, there are a lot of videos out, and almost every battlegroup has had top teams encounter this comp and develop counters to it.

[Naysayer]

I was expecting to see some 2200+ shammy teams by now. What exactly seems to be keeping you guys from breaking into the top? Tremor killers + fear bombs? CC'ed healer? Unable to burst down initial targets as expected? I've heard rumblings about melee cleave issues but you've got 4 big knockbacks + earthbind. That screws me up bad enough when there's just 1 shaman. What's the deal?

I was thinking about doing something serious with my shammy team since my restokin team was a bust and more than 10 games on my rets seems counterproductive but i dont know now...

warlocks...

[suicidesspyder]

Yea but i think for the sake of no countdown that 4x dk with healer would be almost better then most other 4x combo with healer cept maybe the pally. Since for some odd reason are such a pain in my ass to kill lol. I just wonder 4 x tank pallies and a healer lol. Or 4 x prot warrior cause of reflect hmmm. They both already take less damage so sheesh wonder if it would work in arena.

[Kruschpakx4]

i think the reason we cannot

yes we can

[Mangi]

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