Elemental x5 Arena and BGs - Need Advice

[daanji]

Hello everyone! I hope that some of the pros out there may take the time to read my post.

I recently leveled x4 shamans (I already had a shaman as a main) and my intent is to do PvE and PvP.

Once I hit 80, I rocked the heroics and have cleared everything so far.

However, I'm hitting a wall when it comes to BGs and arenas so I'm seeking advice.

My arena team is here: http://www.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Firetree&ts=5&t=The+Five+Paths+of+Pain&select=The+Five+Paths+of+Pain


The gear on the main is decent, the 4 alts I'm just starting to gear up via badges and honor farming.
Without further ado, I have several question that I'm hoping someone could answer (Yes, I have looked around quite a bit already).

1. Is there a guide to x5 elemental PvP? Anyone resources would be appreciated


2. So far, I'm getting rolfstomped in BGs and arenas. It is probably due to my lack of resilience, but just want to make sure. I'm not doing something wrong. Typically, when the opponents spot my team in a BG, a ret paladin will come by and divine my group to death. Usually, they are mounted and rush into the middle of my group. They dance around me in circles and I can't do much and I usually end of dead. How can I counter this? I usually thunderstorm x5 (seems to knock them back x5 the distance) and I use my earth bind roots, and I purge them like hell, but I still fail.

3. Click-Cast Sequence

In PvE, I'm using the click-castsequence tragey as outlined in one of the many threads. It works very well. Should I also use this for PvP at all? I have all the important abilities key bound (tremor, grounding, earth bind, fire ele). But the main dps rotation (flame shock, lava burst, chain lightning, lightning bolt) I just use the click cast sequence.

4. Movement

During BGs, I typically get AoE focused. I usually try to strafe out of these, but usually I get slowed or stopped as well. I try to find the person or person(s) doing the AoE to interrupt them, but by that time I'm already low on health. Perhaps once I get more resilience this won't be an issue.

5. Round-Robin

Currently I have, earth bind, wind shear, and tremor (to get 1 second fear breaks) on round robin. Are there any other spells you recommend I round-robin as well?
Perhaps thunderstorm?

6. Opponents Dancing Around You

Say you are faced by 2-3 opponents who close the distance very quickly via a mount. How do you kill them if they keep running around in circles? Mainly, ret pallys and blade storming warriors are major headaches.

7. Magma or Searing Totem

In BGs or Arena, should I drop one of the other? Situational?

8. Hex

Is hex worth casting at all? I suppose I could put it on round robin and keep CC up on someone for a while.

I suppose in arena, if I could set the focus to a separate opponent on each shaman, I could randomly hex that toons focus whenever I wanted. Thoughts?

9. Gearing

Right now, I'm running BGs and arenas for points (I try to win and have won a couple, but usually roflstomped lose).
In warsong gulch, my team makes up 1/2 the raid. Sometimes if the opposing team is bad, its ok. However, I've been yelled at and told to stopping queuing. Should I just stick to heroics and winter grasp until I have 5/5 PvP gear on all toons at least?

10. Knock Backs, Fear, etc

It seems like in arena, that I spend more time trying to maintain order than dpsing. I use FTL system, but with the fears, knocks backs, slows, etc. My toons end up facing all sorts of directions.

11. Insta-gib

So I've been hitting opponents with x5 lava burst and they aren't dieing. Perhaps my gear is just that bad and they outgeared me by that much? Though, I doubt few could survive x5 flame shocks and x5 lava bursts hitting all at once.


Sorry if my post is long. Any input is appreciated, even if its GTFO noob! Read this tutorial over here...

:)

[Littleburst]

with <600 resilience there's not a lot you can do against a warr lolstorming you. And you playing 4 sham + seperate healer is the best setup for shaman in 5vs5.

Best bet vs melee is Chain heal, or if you're dropping fast a Lesser healing wave 1->2 2->3 etc. drop magma totems + use fire nova. Just shock them and heal through the damage. The problem here is that you die way to fast. Try getting WG shoulders + 4/5 furious, then you might stand a chance.

Always drop your totemfarm, 4 or 5 healing streams = awesome.

macro for hex in arena if you have gladius(which you should):
#showtooltip Hex
/cast [target=arena1, exists] Hex
chance the 1 to any other number on the slaves. and you cast a hex on all 5 players with a single click.

People surviving 5 Lvb probably had a cooldown popped, shieldwall, hunter reflect thing, barkskin, salvation or w/e. Then someone still has to have 25k hp and 1k resilience to survive though i think.

[Bettysue]

That's a good macro listed above, and for the record it does NOT depend on an addon arena# targeting is a function of the core UI not an addon. However, gladius is a very nice addon, if you leave chat bubbles on it provides a decent visual on whose up and doing what.

I've found chipping away at one while keeping up through the initial burst helps a ton. When I get charged, I spread out, trinket the first fear, if it hits more than 2 guys I blow the trinket on all 5. Heal the focus target till they really fix on him then hit my IWT and back really quick to face my kill target without closing up on each other, and nuke the hell out of it. Once EM is used I bloodlust and FS while all the guys are returning to follow on the current leader. By the time they gather up, FS and LvB are ready to go on a target that was not hit with FS during the gather process, this is usually a focus target on all the chars.

With hope the healer blew CD's on the guy they thought would be nuked and you've killed 2 guys with all 5 of yours still up. At that point it's just clean up and prevent rezzes. Remember you can nuke a player in a global, ignoring the healer is an option you will need to exercise whenever possible. If they have more than one warrior, or a warr pally combo, gib the healer with magmas down on the warrs. Try putting 2 purges in with a windshear, to get healers. Timed properly it will either get them to run or they die to incoming dmg. Never chase healers while they have DPS up, you'll get destroyed.

In your case though gear is more important than any strategy, get your resil up, while keeping high spell dmg balanced with enough spell pen.

[Ualaa]

1. Not sure if there is a guide per se... You'd probably want a pvp spec on them, something like: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hVIVqcd0tGfuAo0gRco. Go with Glyph of Shocking, after that its a preference. I'd use Glyph of Lava and Glyph of Fire Elemental for battlegrounds, but Lightning Bolt is a large portion of your damage too.

2. Do your arena games each week for the points. You might as well try to win, as some will queue and not even enter. And every game you lose, lets you learn why you lost. And practice how to kill people, etc. Don't get upset if you go 0-10 for quite a while, at this stage its about the points.

Also run Wintergrasp each week, its a lot of honor and WG marks and Stonekeeper shards are good too. There is gear you can get here, which is pretty decent for pvp. Especially the new three items brought in, in the last patch.

Over time, your gear will increase; until it does, not much you can do against a geared enough toon. You can try to spread out and such, magma's or other aoe totems, snare totem etc.

3. For PvP, especially with 5x the same class... don't bother with click. You'll want manual control of all your spells.

4. Gear will help for sure. As will more experience playing in the pvp environment. With 5x Healing Stream and Chain Heal, you can last through a lot of AoE's, but getting out of them is an idea too.

5. I have Fire Elementals, Earth Bind, Tremors, and Thunderstorm on round-robin. Also have a macro - all Healing Stream, 1x becomes Cleansing, 2x becomes Cleansing, and 3x (all) become cleansing on subsequent presses. Also have everyone drops: Grounding, Healing Stream, Magma, Nature/Fire/Cold Resists.

I've just build Wind Shear into assorted spells. So on a Flame Shock one shammy does a Wind Shear. On a Lightning Bolt, a different shammy does Wind Shear etc.

For the Totem Farm macro. Set up the wow ability which drops one of each totem type as the round robin. So, you drop 4x totems on Shaman A, then press two has Shaman B drop 4x totems etc. That way, you have your Tremors staggered on minimal GCD's dropping totems.

6. Make a vs melee totem stomp. Spread out if you can and heal through it. They're taking damage and are snared, you're healing and eventually 4x of your 5x shaman will be nuking them down.

7. I like Magma if they're near me. Used to use Searing a lot, but generally have Totem of Wrath in my stomp macro now, for the PvE spell power glyph, which might be decent for PvP not sure on that.

8. I've not messed with this, but you could have it target arena frames. Or perhaps /targetenemy (and 2x /targetenemy, and 3x, and 4x) to have it land on a different player for each shammy. Hex is pretty weak, but it is a spell interrupt something like silence.

9. Run a mix of BG's, but the only one I can contribute in well is AV really. You're too dependent on your team in the others, and with a boxer they rarely do what you need them to, for the team to have a shot.

Heroics will get you pvp gear via badges, faster then grinding battlegrounds.

10. If you're serious about arena, get a dedicated healer. Go with 4x Shaman, either rotating your toons in so each has similar rating and at least 30% of the games, or just stick with 4x for arena. And maybe grab a DK or Pally or another purely PvE option for the 5th slot.

11. With gearing, 4x Flame Shock + Lavaburst should kill just about anyone that it hits. It's not a guaranteed kill because of bubbles, pain suppression, decursing magic, line of sight etc. In BG's it should be, and if you catch someone in the open it should be too. With 5x, and it's not a kill, I'd guess its a lack of spell power.

You can also have the IWIN button target a focus target on all toons. And then have them on someone else. When the untargeted focus is in the open, the macro will target the IWIN at him.

You could mess around with having all the slaves /target arena 1, instead of /cleartarget... to disguise who you are going for.

[ash1ey]

Cool thread answered a few of my own questions as well.



You can also have the IWIN button target a focus target on all toons. And then have them on someone else. When the untargeted focus is in the open, the macro will target the IWIN at him.


As soon as i started using /focus for my kill target it has made a huge difference. I usually open with a few lightning bolts on my target and healers will generally think im about to nuke thim, then I use bloodlust and spam my IWIN macro on the focus.


/cast [target=arena1, exists] Hex

I use a similar macro for purge so that when i spam it, its hitting everyone thats in range.

When I hit 80 i was striaght into arena for lols and it sucked but just keep playing for practise and points. Soon as you get geared you will see a huge difference.

My BG sucks for 5s and atm i've been letting random friends play with me as well, I had some decent success bringing in a rogue, he would stunlock a healer and i just one shot my /focus. Have a decent priest joining so im hoping to improve on my 24% win ratio this week :D

Did a funny thing this week in arena actually.. went to ress my rogue as i had some stupid disc priest LoS me pillar hugging and i had 3 guys up. So the first person i targeted it let me ress so i automatically assume its my rogue friend, next thing i know i just ressed there holy priest :O I managed to kill him before any heals hit him luckly. So go back to ress the rogue and let the stupid priest ress his druid mate, anyways we won but it could have been worse.

Problem i had today actually. I managed to wipe out all this ones team dps and was left with 2 healers. So they split up either side of the map so i can only go for 1 and both start to ress :/ was a real pain in the ass ended up just leaving cus i hate long games.

[Ualaa]

I've not really implement this yet, but have it on my list of things to do with the feral team.

Prioritize Focus over FTL, if focus is set.
So I could theoretically... have a druid or two, on a healer target.
And spamming the dps key would alternatively have them target their focus and do a DPS, then target their focus and hit their IWT key.

Not sure if this is just an idea, that might not be useful.
Or if there will be an advantage to this.

[Danos]

I only started arena a few weeks ago as well and am not particularly good but I bring my priest in and have him spam heal on my shamans dps buttons which kinda works - I found they just got burnt too fast otherwise, so maybe switch one of yours to resto and spam CH until you can find someone to heal for you. There's a couple of threads on here that I found really useful for macros, I'll find them and link them. A few things I've found though:

- focus target priority on your IWIN button helps a lot.
- try and focus a ranged dps (use /focus arena1 macros to quickly focus the same guy on all your toons), keep an eye on where that guy is so when you press IWIN it's used well.
- melee I find a real pain in the ass but drop magma/FN to keep some pressure on their healers and round robin TS while you try and kill a ranged.

[Danos]

This thread has a couple of tips and Acidburning links some very useful macro threads.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=28565

[daanji]

Thanks for the input guys.

My game has improved and I've acquire more pieces of gear. My main has 1300 resilience while the others have about 500.


I have another question that I hope someone can answer.

I wanted to create a macro specifically for BGs. What I want is to cast Hex on all 5 shamans, but one 5 separate targets.

It there anyway to do this? It is easy to do in arenas...

[daanji]

So here is a macro I came up with. I've tested it out in BGs and seems to work ok. The only drawback is that sometimes hex will get cast multiple times on the same target.

#showtooltip
/targetenemy
/cast [target=target, exists, nodead, nohelp] Hex


Then on each shaman I add an additional targetenemy.

So for the fifth shaman, she would have 5 targetenemy statements.

Seems allow me to have each shaman target a different enemy and I can mass hex a group swarming me.

[Ualaa]

/Targetenemy is the equivalent of hitting Tab.
However, /Targetenemyplayer will not target npc's, which include pets.

[daanji]

Thanks. I'll update my macro.

Over all, /targetenemyplayer done multiple times should tab through the enemy list and should make each shaman target a different player right?

I've tried it in BGs and seems to work, but not well.

[Ualaa]

Each line is the equivalent of hitting Tab.
Unfortunately, it is from the perspective of each toon.
Which isn't always exactly the same, depending on range and facing.

If you are in arena, you can target by arena frame number.
And get an exact target on each of them.

[daanji]

Yeah, in arena it works well and gives me enough time to blow someone up while everyone is confused.

I got about 800+ resilience on my shamans now. I've been doing arenas and practicing a bit. I can survive a lot longer now, but still tend to lose most of the games.

I tried x5 ele shamans and x4 ele + x1 resto. But configurations have the same results though.

I think I need to find a dedicated healer to run with, perhaps a paladin or druid would be fine.

[daanji]

So I got some decent gear now. I have all the non-set Wrathful pieces and accesories, the relentless hands, and 1-2 furious pieces.

The resilience on my main is 1100+ and the alts are 900 or so.


So I've been running 5s. First, I tried it with just me x5 eles and I won a couple games, but most I've lost.

So I dropped one of the alts and found someone to heal for me. A very well geared resto shaman. Still, I can't see to win so perhaps I'm going about it entirely wrong.


I have tremor staggered, with x5 grounding totems. If melee get on my group, I drop magma and fire nova them.

At the start, I do a chain lightning on some target then quickly switch targets and try to nuke someone else down.
However, this rarely succeeds. I think the healer is getting off an immunity right before my Lava Bursts hit.

Although I have magma and fire nova going, it doesn't seem to even phase the melee standing in it as they proceed to pummel me into the ground.

So am I better off just ghost wolf and running away? Should I constantly be moving and LoS and only dps with Flame Shock + Lava Burst is up?

In some games, I've focused on trying to nuke down an opponent, but just can't seem to out dps the healer (a lot of teams I've faced seem to have 1K+ resil).

If you look at the link to my team, you'll see my gear is pretty good now. However, a few pieces are terrible. So perhaps they are holding me back.


For my setup, I don't use the FTL system. Instead, I use the basic idea and the macro sets the leader as the focus. and I /follow focus. I found it much easier to setup and manage.
From reading the forums, I probably should use the FTL system for arenas? That would free up my focus and I could have all the alts target random members I don't intend to nuke.

I've toyed around making dps macros for each of the opponents. That way I could switch targets on the fly and never actually have to target or set a focus.

For example, on each toon I would create macros like this
/castsequence [target=arena1] Flame Shock, Lava Burst

and

/cast [target=arena1] Chain Lightning

By doing this, I could switch targets on the fly by just pressing that button for that arena opponents.

Also, I should make a IWT macro? To interact with the target? So if I do this, the shamans will turn to always face the guy I'm targeting and walk towards him?

Does anyone has good videos of x4 eles doing arenas? I need to learn how to play better.

Thanks!

[mrmcgee21]

You need to purge targets before nuking them if your having trouble killing people. Even in my gear I'm finding people with more than 35k hp pools often times don't die even from a well executed FS>LvB>CL combo ( use this combo as well ). Also go download an add'on called "SpellAlerter" and configure it to play a sound effect you like anytime a person uses defensive cool-downs such as grounding totem, iceblock, bubble, pain suppression, shield wall, spell reflect, and the list goes on for awhile but I'm sure you will think of them all as you do more games. Ideally you want to DPS each target ( what target you might fire at first can be random based on the match ) until a defensive cd is used and THEN change targets. Don't just rotate targets for no reason, any given player on the opposing team can be killed through continuous nukes if they do not line of site or pop a cd ( one exception are destro locks ). I didn't look at your gear either but you want to be pushing 3000+ spell power with flametongue to really be competitive ( aim for 3000 without flametongue to push the envelope ).

Trying to AoE people is usually a bad idea in my experience as well, there has been a few pure cleave(pure cleave meaning 3 or more melee dps) comps that I have used it to pressure healers to come out into LoS of me so I can kill them, but I wouldn't ever expect the AoE to actually kill anyone.

Trying to ghostwolf kite as a multiboxer is usually not going to work either. First off your chars are all going to be running different speeds due to some being snared some not being snared. Next your going to LoS your healer, and lastly your going to range your totems. LvB isn't the end all be all of killing people, I probably kill just as many people with LB and CL as I do with LvB so don't think its just GG as soon as your lvb doesn't land a kill. Now if you just don't have a good person to nuke at that moment and are still taking a lot of dmg, just help your healer out and drop some chain heals while you wait, make sure your dropping grounding totems every time they are up, and lastly use that hex macro if your in real trouble.

As for the not having a focus key, that can hurt in some matches but to be perfectly honest it won't really matter until your getting into the 2000+ teams and even then I use it sparingly still. FTL setups are superior in my opinion so changing to one sounds like a good idea for more than just arena to me.

Lastly I just want to add that I use /target arena1, /target arena2 macros on my chars, all bound to shift-f1 shift-f2 ect. For me this has been the fastest way to change targets in arena, it takes some getting used to in that you have to process what f key to punch for each member of the enemy team at the start of each match but it works best for me. Making individual nuke keys for each person on the other team would eat up a TON of hotkeys and be very cumbersome ( I'm sure you would end up with some very awkwardly placed hotkeys to try and hit ).

[daanji]

Thanks for the advice.

I've been seriously considering just making separate nuke / dps keys for each arena member.

Sure this will eat a quite a few keys, but my entire numpad is currently unbound so it seems possible with some modifiers thrown in.


Here is my current plan.

Create two basic macros for each arena member. IE

/target arenaA
/castsequence [traget=arenaB] reset=8 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning

/target arenaM
/castsequence [traget=arenaN] reset=8 Lightning Bolt


Notice what I did here. First, all my shamans will target arenaA, but my actual target is arenaB.

So, as I change kill targets my main target changes.

Since all shamans will being targeting the same guy, but actually dpsing another, it will keep the opponent guessing and confused.

Thoughts?

[Littleburst]

Thanks for the advice.

I've been seriously considering just making separate nuke / dps keys for each arena member.

Sure this will eat a quite a few keys, but my entire numpad is currently unbound so it seems possible with some modifiers thrown in.


Here is my current plan.

Create two basic macros for each arena member. IE

/target arenaA
/castsequence [traget=arenaB] reset=8 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning

/target arenaM
/castsequence [traget=arenaN] reset=8 Lightning Bolt


Notice what I did here. First, all my shamans will target arenaA, but my actual target is arenaB.

So, as I change kill targets my main target changes.

Since all shamans will being targeting the same guy, but actually dpsing another, it will keep the opponent guessing and confused.

Thoughts?

i wonder how much that's gonna add. I use focus just for casting all spells. slaves assist focus. my main = their focus. And well, it really doesn't matter that much if they can see who you're targetting. I've had plenty of games where i just targetted my kill target from the start and blew him/her up without to much difficulties.

If someone doesn't die, it's because he/she is able to los before my CL hits, not because of the healing.

So, i guess it can help a bit, but don't expect anything big. Gear is a real big factor.

[daanji]

I met a multiboxer in arena today (boomkin + 4 shamans). The first time we met, he got me. However, we met two more times and I smashed his team with ease. It was a lot of fun.


Ok, so I setup a system where on my number pad with the following macro

/use 13
/cast Elemental Mastery
/cast Berserking(Racial)
/target arena5
/castsequence [target=target][target=arena1] reset=8 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning

I have five of these macros and each one targets a different arena enemy.

I also have a set of dps macros that will attack my current target.

I begin the match by hitting my target (which all the shamans are targetting) with chain lightning and Lightning Bolt.

Once they immune, I smash the corresponding key for the person I want to kill.


So far, it has worked for me fairly well and have won me a few games.


I think my main problem right now is synchronization. It seems as though 1-2 shamans are either stunned, CCed, silenced, etc. so when I try to nuke, it just isn't enough to kill and they enemy gets topped off.


One match lasted for 5 minutes. I nuked down two people, while they killed one of mine.

At that point, they just CCed, silenced, interrupted, feared, and danced circles around me.

Eventually, I lost due to lack of mana.

I'm getting better and my rating is now 1070, but pushing 1800 seems so far away.


Thanks for all the help everyone!