Quad Shaman - BG's Help

[Slats]

Hi guys,

I havn't played my four shaman in PvP very much - normally I run my Prot Pally as well. Since he is the lead and gets targetted most often, he eats an amazing amount of damage and mostly throw avengers shield and stuns melee while I nuke on the Shaman.

I decided to just play the Shaman as a set of four. I have almost no resilience. About 110 on each character. I'm slowly grinding out the gear and will probably run a heap of heroics to grab some more Triumph for the Furious stuff as well as doing 10 5's a week to get base points to try by some Relentless.

I'm really struggling in BG's though, is it just going to get heaps easier once I have more resil? I find the other side will often just rush me, use as much AoE CC as possible and then aoe me to death in seconds. I can take down a few of them before I go down, but I never really feel in control.

I'm a little worried that Shamans are too easy to counter and wondering if this is the right PvP team for me going ahead into Cata.

My characters are Slatsa, Slatsb, Slatsc, Slatsd on Caelestraesz. Pretty much pure mish mash PvE gear. I have about 2300-2700sp depending on the character with identical specs. I am using:

Glyph Of Chain Lightning
Glyph Of Lava
Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem
Glyph of Water Shield
Renewed Rebirth
Glyph of Ghost Wolf

Any suggestions on my talents or glyphs? If I have missed some newbie PvP thread that already talks about this please let me know.

[Kicksome]

With my 5 shaman in BGs I kick ass. No question about it. It's fun as hell blowing 5 fire elementals and hero, along with watching people try and tab target you in a sea of 20 totems. The only people that beat me are a good 5's team that are doing BGs or another group of 5 shamans. Or, if it's like 10+ to 5 and they just overrun me.

If you see a group running to you, you just earth bind, instant ghost wolf and run back a bit. Or Thunderstorm on round robin.

Once you get around 1K resil, you'll really have a much easier time staying alive.
Without resilience, I get like 15k lava bursts on people, they go down instantly. You don't stand much of a chance without resil.

Glyph of Stoneclaw totem is required. I'd also get the thunderstorm glyph that shaves off 10 seconds.

[Slats]

Thanks very much for the advice. :)

I shall look into mixing up my Glyphs a bit then.

What totems do you drop normally? If your using Stoneclaw do you use it only when your about to get rushed? Or when your not facing people who can fear?

[ash1ey]

Personally in BG, I have have only the main guy with stoneclaw glyph as they try to kill him 90% of the time. I have my other 3 guys drop round robin fear totems as fear is my biggest hate in BG (and i right pain in the ass for other multiboxers im sure). Nothing worse then having no totems down and no trinket CD and getting AoE feared : /

Like the OP said, more ressilience and you will stay alive longer to kill shit. I used to suck badly till i got too 1k ressilience. Now im more geared i even win WSG and SoTA alot more.

Using Grid and Clique with repeater regions (if you use isboxer) helps tons for healing who ever they focus dps. I also have a keybind so they all chain heal each other if its lots of AoE coming in.

[Slats]

Yeah I use Vuhdo to do the healing with Repeater Regions and I have a button that does Chain Heal on self for heavy aoe.

Thanks for the tips, good to know that 1k resil is what to aim for.

[BrothelMeister]

BGs definitely become way easier as you gear up, hang in there.

Not sure which BGs you usually do, I suggest AB, as its one of the best ones for a box, since you can camp LM the entire time, effectively, and no one will hate on you for it. One thing to do on non-40 man BGs is to ask for lead, and put all of your characters in the same group, which helps your totems to stack.

My line usually is: "Please pass lead to any of the <insert name scheme here> so that I can move my guys together" I usually get lead 90% of the time. If someone is silly and wants to try and move you, but cant, just remind them that you have to be on the same server.

Glyphs/spec: copy myself or any of the 2k+ teams (theres really only 2 kinds of specs if you look at them all)
Lava/Shocking are very solid. The third spot goes to either Thunder/Stoneclaw or Wrath usually.

Be sure to keep Thunderstorm on round-robin, and try to space them out. At the least, one of the tricks I've learned if u want to blow all 4 at once is stagger them from one another by a hair (2 Tstorms back to back WILL launch someone twice as far, but no more than double). From videos I've watched not a lot of other ppl like to use fire nova, but in BGs, when the melee is stacking on you, its badass (use all 4 fire novas at the same time).

Another good trick is to pop 3-4 fire elementals in times when a lot of your teamates, and enemies come together, they effectively add chaos to the enemy, and do substantial AOE to the enemy team. (Bloodlust/Heroism Helps with these situations as well)

Hope this helps

[Littleburst]

Resilience is what you need, once you got 600+ resi, i highly recommand to find yourself a dedicated healer to join you in BG. That makes you atleast double as effective, since you don't have to waste time healing yourself up -> you kill the oposing faction faster -> faster node/flag cap.

I like eots and AV best, hate AB and sota most.

Problem with low resi is that you're dead before you can even try to heal yourself up. If there's a healer with you, who's out of range of the AoE stun/fear/silence he should have time to keep you alive untill you can cast a round robin lesser healing wave on yourself. Or chain heal if you're pretty sure you'll finish the cast(no priest/lock or BE running towards you)..

SP is not really the problem, i run with 3k SP and i'm actually considering to lower it and get stam trink from frost emblems and Warr Wrathfull shield, just for lolz in BG.

[BrothelMeister]

I wouldnt go so far as to say that spellpower ISNT what you are aiming for, but trading haste and crit for the resilience that pvp gear offers, and the innately more stamina that comes with it, are a good thing.

Spellpower does help with finishing someone before they reach you in a BG, so it's not a bad thing. (as well as self heals)

[LionsFist]

Although it may sound obvious, don't forget to pop BL every time you've died...

I'd much rather have popped BL, get ganged and killed 2 instead of not popping BL, dying and getting no kills.

Unless you're dying more than once every min and 15 seconds, you should have it ready to go...

[Seraphaw]

Be aware of your surroundings, have the tactical advantage. Pick your fights, strike where the enemy is weakest or where it would buy your factio time even if it's akin to a suicide mission. Be more aggresive than your opponent. Do WG every time it's up for easy gear and little mental anguish.

SWEEP THE LEG


Maybe we could share stuff like battleground tactics in this thread too?

[daanji]

If you do WG, my favorite spot to hang when we defend is on the edge of the platform by each tower.


I play horde and on my server, we defend like 90% of the time. The alliance usually have 6-7 stacks of tenacity.

So taking a single alliance toon down is actually hard, as they have 60-70K health.


So, the alliance players feel pretty invincible right? So they get careless and enter the circle of pain and unload on them.

I have my x5 shamans do purge, flame shock, Lava Burst, Chain Lightning, Frost Shock, Lightning Bolt and repeat.

By the time frost shock hits, they are almost dead or dead.

During each WG game, I can usually rack up 500 kills :)

[Slats]

These are all great tips, very appreciated. And some specific BG advice for sure would be great in this thread. I dont care if its boxing specific or quad-shaman specific, any advice will help.

I havn't done much PvP bar levelling in AV since TBC so this is all a bit of a culture shock to me at the moment. It certianly feels a lot harder than it used too.

[Seraphaw]

These are all great tips, very appreciated. And some specific BG advice for sure would be great in this thread. I dont care if its boxing specific or quad-shaman specific, any advice will help.

I havn't done much PvP bar levelling in AV since TBC so this is all a bit of a culture shock to me at the moment. It certianly feels a lot harder than it used too.


Some things that usually works for me in BG's, maybe it can help you or... maybe not?:

In EOTS (my favourite), go to the node with the least amount of players (in my battlegroup, it's usually FR). Most games the alliance are going to try and charge felreaver ruins in earlygame to gain some kind of advantage. Laugh at them as they get oblitherated one by one while trying to run up the hill to FR. Rush magetower and drop your fe's and pop BL if you see some red guys. Check the map, is your team just standing around you with mouths wide open? There's no time to waste, go to BE if it's being owned or charge towards dranei ruins to put the final nail in the coffin. Pretty much a 100% succes rate for me...

In Isle of Conquest
Be with the horde on the offensive early game, but a boxer is most valuable in the defensive from mid-game to end. Protect your base from the ongoing assault of your keep! Early game you have a few choices, I wouldn't go docks the first thing I do because the alliance (almost ) ALWAYS have 20 or so players there and you will get torn, go for midfield or the airbase.

In WSG it's just hoping that you get a healer who can run with your flag carrier and it's a boxers job to pave their way to your base, while keeping your IWIN button ready when the enemy flagcarrier shows his ugly face.

In Arathi Basin
I usually don't do this BG since hordes are a bunch of tards most of the time but what works for me is rushing BS and then move on towards gold mine. Some alliance will probably try and capture farm but your horde buddies should take care of that. From GM move on to stables, keep watch on BS so the second rush of alliance don't capture it. Hope that your horde mates are handeling LM because you dont want to go there and get knocked off... Anyway crappy BG but fun when you capture all nodes and farm alliance at their starting point.

In AV
Honestly, just try and defend any chokepoint past the starting cave, defending inside your keep can work but most of the time alliance will push back horde to the starting cave and then suddenly horde are defending their keep, and allliance will win by reinforcements. Protect a GY earlygame if you want to save horde from an embarassing defeat.
If horde are succeful in their offensive, then it's time for you to go back to your keep and nuke the alliance.
Don't like this BG that much, but 8000 honor is fun.

In Strands of the Ancient
Right click BG symbol, click >Leave battleground. Go pet a puppy for 15 minutes.

This is what I do and I'm sure other people do it differently, so please share! :)

[BrothelMeister]

In EOTS
Just keep moving around to attack enemy nodes. call out places for teamates to defend or attack as needed. If you have 4 shamans, you should definitely know that staggering your Tstorms by a tiny fraction (like .1) of a sec and having several back to back can, and do launch ppl twice as far. If you are at the BE or Mage towers, you can launch ppl from the top all the way into the abyss. have fun !

In Isle of Conquest
If they have the hangar/docks, defend inside your base. If they have the workshop, go get it back (unless they have a lot of ppl already inside your base raping the gates)

In WSG it's just hoping that you get a healer who can run with your flag carrier and it's a boxers job to pave their way to your base, while keeping your IWIN button ready when the enemy flagcarrier shows his ugly face.
(Not gonna modify this one, it hits the nail on the head. Only like to add that many ppl will be confused as hell what they should do when a boxer takes up half the team, so pick someone to carry the flag, and call it out)

In Arathi Basin
Favorite BG. I have engineering, so If I defend the LM, I can use the parachute+rocket boots to rush down and defend/attack anywhere on the map. Even If you team is not defending, just continue to move around and cap the least defended nodes. The node nearest your enemies side (Stables or Farm) is a decent one to hold, especially if the enemy does not control the LM/BS/GM, because they will be forced to spawn at the original GY, and run down past you to escape, or re-engage you, and get destroyed. If no one is helping to defend the node that you are at, but you see a nearby node that the enemy is capping/ owns, rush over and grab it, if they attack the node you were just defending, you can always get back in time to blow that guy up and re-cap it.

In AV
Heres the one to leave. Turtling isnt too bad, but you still need ppl on your team to be offensive. TOwers rape me, as I suck at leading ppl up the circular ramp.

In Strands of the Ancient
Get bombs for each of your toons, and set a button to dropping them. If you pave your way to a wall, and drop 4-5 bombs, it really hurts the wall. For defending, I can global most vehicles, so Im usually on a hunting spree for that.

[Siaea]

Do every WG you can, especially on Tuesdays. That's a ton of honor turning the 4 quests in. After you get the tokens for the 2(?) off pieces and ring from WG (They're iLevel 245 now I believe, maybe one step lower), trade the shards and tokens for the 2k honor. You'll get geared pretty fast like that. WG is pretty much my exclusive battle ground now (and my Horde buddies love me in there :P ) and it's insane honor, especially if, like on my server, you win 90% of the time.

Your team mates are going to hate you in WSG and AB until you get geared, because you'll be taking up so much space in the raid, and not really accomplishing anything except keeping the graveyard warm.

You can get decent honor in AV (even losing, as it is on Horde Bonechewer) by hitting a tower and staying until it caps. Usually Alliance only trickles in to try to retake it and you should be able to blow them up.

Personally I love the Isle and SotA, only problem with SotA is if you end up on different boats. I put the ones on the other boat on auto run towards my main's boat, and hope the Alliance doesn't hit the boat my stragglers are on.

Now as to actual fighting strategies, first off I hope you're using the FTL system, so you can control any toon as your main when your main gets killed/stunned/CC'd. Have instant ghost wolf talented, and when you see a warrior come in to roflcopter-of-death you, earth bind/fire totems and get out of there. Nuke him when you get some range. Same with a mage who tries to AoE your whole team, ghost wolf and nuke when you're out of the AoE. You'll notice a Huuuuuge difference once you get around 1k resilience.

Personally anytime I see a warrior I blow my trink/EM and lava burst him before he can get to me. If you're quick he won't reflect it. I don't even flame shock until after the lava burst because a good warrior will know what you're about to do.

[Toned]

Glyph of Lava
Glyph of Thunder
Glyph of Shocking
+ resilience = win

[Zappy]

In AV, my win % used to be right on 50%. Everybody zergs almost every match now. In all my games, I've only see the horde zerg successfully two times. The key to winning IMO is a solid defense, and to do that, you need to use your frostwolf trinket. Once I started doing that, my win percentage went way up. It seems to be closer to 80% wins now.

For horde, I go straight to galv, defend, then immediately use the trinket and get back to the base and defend. If they don't attack galv right away, you need to trinket sooner as they are zerging. By the time you trinket back to base, ally are just starting to arrive and you should have time to run to the GY and park over there. It's still easy to nuke them down before there are too many and you get overwelmed. Don't be shy and waste your fire ele's and BL immediately. The nice part is that even if you do get overwhelmed, the trinket will be ready to use again as soon as you rez. The real beauty of this strat is that no GYs have capped yet, so everybody you kill will be sent back to the GY at their starting location. The key is to not let them cap frostwolf GY, then it's very easy to take back all the towers and push them hard. Once you've cleaned up the base, you'll usually find 2 or 3 people with you at the base helping you defend. Recap the towers and start heading to snowfall. You should have plenty of time to recap all the towers, and then take snowfall. Yes, I said it. Take snowfall and turn it into a turtle at that point. The problem with horde is that horde very rarely defends anything, so one rogue in our base is usually enough for them to cap both towers and the GY. I always keep a close eye on the timers and trinket back to base if needed.

What's nice about this strategy is that by the time you get back to snowfall, stonehearth bunker has usually been destroyed, and everybody is fighting right at stonehearth GY. A very nice chokehold for a boxer to be around. Even if no bunkers have capped, after we take back stonehearth GY, we're usually up by a good 2-300 resources from all the kills at that point.

[Toned]

Some things that usually works for me in BG's, maybe it can help you or... maybe not?:

In EOTS (my favourite), go to the node with the least amount of players (in my battlegroup, it's usually FR). Most games the alliance are going to try and charge felreaver ruins in earlygame to gain some kind of advantage. Laugh at them as they get oblitherated one by one while trying to run up the hill to FR. Rush magetower and drop your fe's and pop BL if you see some red guys. Check the map, is your team just standing around you with mouths wide open? There's no time to waste, go to BE if it's being owned or charge towards dranei ruins to put the final nail in the coffin. Pretty much a 100% succes rate for me...

In Isle of Conquest
Be with the horde on the offensive early game, but a boxer is most valuable in the defensive from mid-game to end. Protect your base from the ongoing assault of your keep! Early game you have a few choices, I wouldn't go docks the first thing I do because the alliance (almost ) ALWAYS have 20 or so players there and you will get torn, go for midfield or the airbase.

In WSG it's just hoping that you get a healer who can run with your flag carrier and it's a boxers job to pave their way to your base, while keeping your IWIN button ready when the enemy flagcarrier shows his ugly face.

In Arathi Basin
I usually don't do this BG since hordes are a bunch of tards most of the time but what works for me is rushing BS and then move on towards gold mine. Some alliance will probably try and capture farm but your horde buddies should take care of that. From GM move on to stables, keep watch on BS so the second rush of alliance don't capture it. Hope that your horde mates are handeling LM because you dont want to go there and get knocked off... Anyway crappy BG but fun when you capture all nodes and farm alliance at their starting point.

In AV
Honestly, just try and defend any chokepoint past the starting cave, defending inside your keep can work but most of the time alliance will push back horde to the starting cave and then suddenly horde are defending their keep, and allliance will win by reinforcements. Protect a GY earlygame if you want to save horde from an embarassing defeat.
If horde are succeful in their offensive, then it's time for you to go back to your keep and nuke the alliance.
Don't like this BG that much, but 8000 honor is fun.

In Strands of the Ancient
Right click BG symbol, click >Leave battleground. Go pet a puppy for 15 minutes.

This is what I do and I'm sure other people do it differently, so please share! :)

WSG
I play D with a 5th either Rogue/DK/Hunter/Mage some one that can help slow people down. I tell the other 5 to work as 1 and escort flag carriers. If people listen win ratio is very high.

AB
I go for LM so I can see everything going on. Tell the others to hold BS and Farm and it's pretty much game over. If they pressure any nodes I leave LM and go reinforce and then go back to LM to recap if they hit it in my absence. If they leave stables open I hit it when they go for our BS/Farm.

EOTS
This one is by far the most multi-box friendly. You just have to throw bodies at towers which we are very good at :)
I rush DR then move to MT... Instruct my fellow teamates to hold BET and FEL. To insure retards don't tunnel vision I normally hold onto the flag till we get atleast 3 towers under control and hold the middle. Nothing drives me crazier than people tunnel visioning the middle when we only have 1 tower lol.

AV
Depends on my mood I'll either hold choke points and recap our towers, or rush on offense for a AV Blitz if the group is decent.

Strands
On Defense very simple... Kill the demos. Float in between purple and red soon as either one looks over ran make sure you fall back to yellow. You must hold yellow then hope your team is competent enough to win on offense. On offense I grab bombs and drop 4 at a time on the gates and kill anything near our demos. I instruct the team to have everyone grab demos / bombs and go Green. If they die rez up and go blue with bombs/demos. Pretty high win ratio in here can be a real pain sometimes.

Isle
Don't do this one often rarely pops, but when it does I focus on keeping the alliance and their vehicles dead. Soon as we break a wall on their keep I mount up and rush their keep. Pop ele's and bloodlust and kill their leader for the win!

[Kicksome]

What I like best to worst


AV
EOTS
Isle of Conquest
AB - when you start out, go for the far flag - e.g. Farm if you're alliance right off the bat. Messes up their spawn.
WSG
Strand

My win rate is probably best in EOTS and worst in Strand.

Strand I AFK out of - god I hate that place. WSG I can win, but it's just very stressful since you're 1/2 the team.

[Zappy]

AFK out of strand??? Are you crazy? :) That's hands down the easiest to win IMO. I used to have a very bad win ratio (maybe 15-20% win) until I tried a new strategy.

When you're on offense, the goal is to get to the orb as quick as possible. When I'm on the boat, I always use water walking and make my guys run in the middle of the water to regroup them as quick as possible. I ask the BG which gate they all want to attack, then I'll go after the other gate and let them know. Most of the time, the opposition will see a multiboxer, and will storm after you which makes it even easier for the rest of the team to go through the initial gates. If the opposition stops the other sides attack, I'll already have the two cannons destroyed making it easy to get through the gate that I'm on. As long as someone makes it to the orb, we're almost guaranteed a win.

The real key to winning this BG is better defense. My old strategy was to rush down to the beach and kill everyone as they come off the boats. Lots of fun to be had there, but the reality is that we'd almost always lose. With this strategy, they'll almost always break through the opposite gate and and this point, it's very difficult to catch back up to them as you'll be forced in combat almost nonstop, then it's a loss.

Try this strategy instead when you're on defense, and I guarantee your win percentage will go way up. Pick a gate and go to it, then park your guys on the ledge next to one of the cannons, then nuke all the demolishers as they arrive and anything else you can kill. The demolishers have a longer range, so it's possible they'll break through. If they break through your gate first, it's even better as you can choke them really hard at the gate. Pay close attention to when the opposite gate goes down. When this happens, you need to pack up and relocate as quick as possible. Drop staggered earthbinds, groundings, etc and get to the next gate and repeat the same strategy. The yellow gate is by far the easiest to choke down as usually by then, 90% of your team will be there with you.

I started using this strategy a few weeks ago, and since then ally haven't gotten to the orb so I haven't lost a match yet. ~7-8 games so far with one of them being a tie.

[Fat Tire]

AFK out of strand??? Are you crazy? :)

When I played my quad shamans on defense in the strand I would do this. When it works its a lot of fun.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWDla8acgm0

[Littleburst]

AFK out of strand??? Are you crazy? :) That's hands down the easiest to win IMO. I used to have a very bad win ratio (maybe 15-20% win) until I tried a new strategy.

When you're on offense, the goal is to get to the orb as quick as possible. When I'm on the boat, I always use water walking and make my guys run in the middle of the water to regroup them as quick as possible. I ask the BG which gate they all want to attack, then I'll go after the other gate and let them know. Most of the time, the opposition will see a multiboxer, and will storm after you which makes it even easier for the rest of the team to go through the initial gates. If the opposition stops the other sides attack, I'll already have the two cannons destroyed making it easy to get through the gate that I'm on. As long as someone makes it to the orb, we're almost guaranteed a win.

The real key to winning this BG is better defense. My old strategy was to rush down to the beach and kill everyone as they come off the boats. Lots of fun to be had there, but the reality is that we'd almost always lose. With this strategy, they'll almost always break through the opposite gate and and this point, it's very difficult to catch back up to them as you'll be forced in combat almost nonstop, then it's a loss.

Try this strategy instead when you're on defense, and I guarantee your win percentage will go way up. Pick a gate and go to it, then park your guys on the ledge next to one of the cannons, then nuke all the demolishers as they arrive and anything else you can kill. The demolishers have a longer range, so it's possible they'll break through. If they break through your gate first, it's even better as you can choke them really hard at the gate. Pay close attention to when the opposite gate goes down. When this happens, you need to pack up and relocate as quick as possible. Drop staggered earthbinds, groundings, etc and get to the next gate and repeat the same strategy. The yellow gate is by far the easiest to choke down as usually by then, 90% of your team will be there with you.

I started using this strategy a few weeks ago, and since then ally haven't gotten to the orb so I haven't lost a match yet. ~7-8 games so far with one of them being a tie.

Strand sucks because you rely on your other teammates a lot more then in other BG's. If none take a Demolisher to attack, no matter what you do, you've lost. Making or breaking Sota depends on how good your pugs are. Aparantly you're a lucky one. If we defend first and save the keep till their time runs out, it's still not an exeption to tie in my BG, because none takes demo's.