Boylston's Quad-box Shaman Rated Battleground Compendium

[Boylston]

Boylston's Quad-box Shaman Rated Battleground Compendium

Introduction
Welcome to a guide dedicated to the 4xElemental Shaman team with a specific emphasis on Rated Battlegrounds. This is intended to be a large, community-driven guide to how to play this team to its maximum effectiveness in Cataclysm. Please take a few moments to read the ground rules before posting, and it is highly encouraged that you read the actual guide in its entirety before posting as well.

Ground Rules
This guide is intended to be very specific. Please stay on-topic as much as possible! Observe the following:


Although material in the guide may have broad application to Rated Arena, World PvP, or even PvE, please make every effort to not derail conversation with discussion of other areas. It's OK if a suggestion in the compendium or community discussion "won't work in arena". That's not the point of this guide.
This guide is NOT intended to debate which team composition is best for Rated BGs. Please do not derail discussions with comments like, "yeah, but 4xHunters are better for WSG" or "how does this team compare to DK+4xRets?". The point is to provide help to make this specific team composition work most effectively.
The guide will try to point out Best Known Methods as well as provide alternative suggestions where there is no clear winner or multiple effective approaches.
Try to keep suggestions independent of multiboxing solutions (i.e. ISBoxer vs. Keyclone vs. Hardware, etc) if at all possible.
I will try to edit and credit as we evolve and learn how to best play the team in Cataclysm.
Many people choose to run a healer or 5th player with this setup. Given the large number of combinations, please restrict feedback to the 4xShaman part.
If English is your native language, try to use it correctly. I am not trying to be grammar police, but I would like to be able to cut-and-paste great discussions into the main part of the guide without wholesale re-writing. (Exceptions made for non-native speakers as well as Ualaa, who is free to use stanzas to his heart's content).

Why Elemental Shaman?
Shaman have long been a popular multiboxing class for a variety of reasons. These include good ranged DPS performance, excellent burst capability, ability to heal, defensive options which do not need to be micromanaged (e.g. Totems, Mail Armor+Shields), and overlapping buffs due to the totem mechanic. They can also be easy to set up and play, unlike other classes or multi-class combinations.

Nearly all of the changes to the Shaman class in Cataclysm look like they will be for

[Boylston]

New Abilities/Talents for Cataclysm
Cataclysm brought many new features to this team. This section outlines new abilities, talents, and game mechanics and how to use them most effectively.

Unleash Elements (Trainable at L81): For Elemental, you will be using Flametongue Weapon buff for more spellpower. The Flame version of this spell is: “Unleash Flame” - Unleashes the Flametongue enchantment upon the Shaman's weapon, dealing 1023 to 1213 Fire damage to target enemy (L85 number, unsure about spellpower coefficient) and increasing the damage dealt by the Shaman's next Fire spell by 20% (this “Unleash Flame” buff will show on your character and lasts 8 seconds).
Usage: Excellent to pair with Lava Burst! Very short 15sec cooldown means you may want to just embed this into a macro and forget about triggering it manually.
Healing Rain (Trainable at L83): This is a ground-targetted, 2 second cast time, AoE heal that persists for 10 seconds. Cooldown is matched at 10 seconds. L85 heals 690-820 health (spell coefficient unknown) each tick for 5 ticks during that window. If there are more than 6 people in the area, the healing effect drops. Mana usage is 46% of base mana (L85 number?), so it’s not especially cheap to use.
Usage: This ability stacked gives a 15,000ish heal (755 avg tick x 4 shamans x 5 ticks) for your whole group for a quad-boxed group. Use pre-emptively before a big fight begins to give yourself some nice healing while you're in turret mode. Time will tell whether this ability stacked is more or less effective than Chain Healing during combat or for top-off purposes after battle.

To use this ability most effectively, you need a mouse broadcasting setup and some way to snap all shamans camera view to the same perspective.

(Anyone know spell coefficient for this one?!)
Spiritwalker’s Grace (Trainable at L85): Allows you to cast non-instant spells while moving for 10 seconds. Spell can be cast while casting other spells (read: it’s off the GCD). It’s an instant ability with a 2min cooldown.
Usage: Obviously this will be useful for doing damage on the move, as well as for healing while retreating. This will help loads with chasing down runners or dealing with Line-of-Sight abusers. There may also be some great opportunity to use Interact With Target (for facing purposes) + Backwards movement + SG-boosted spells to deal with a melee who charges into your team. (“Ring of death”, anyone?)

Unknown: Can this be used with Earthquake? (I think Astrall recall works but it isn’t usable in combat, right?)
Earthquake (31-pt Talent): Ground-targeted remote AoE ability with a knockdown percentage chance.
Usage: Reserved.

Note: This talent is optional. You do not need it in order to satisfy your 31pts-in-Elemental requirement before branching out to other talent trees.
Fulmination (Paired with Rolling Thunder + Lightning Shield + LS Glyph(optional)): These two talents+glyph open up a mechanic that allows your Lightning Shield build up charges beyond the 3 starting charges (max of 9) periodically as you hit targets with Lightning Bolts or Chain Lightning (60% chance per hit, each target of Chain Lightning has own chance. Overload bonus casts do NOT add charges.). The glyph prevents people striking you from dropping the charges below 3 (it can still be dispelled, however). Whenever you have more than 3 charges going, an Earth Shock will hit the target for its normal damage plus the Lightning Shield damage on charges 4-9. This shows up in damage logs as two separate entries (Shock+Fulmination). With a 9-stack of Lightning Shield, this can yield very substantial damage.
Usage: Maximize your charge gain using Chain Lightning on multiple targets. Glyph of Chain Lightning (adds 2 more targets, reduces damage 10%) highly recommended as well. Keep track of your team’s charge status using an external add-on (Power Auras is highly recommended). General consensus is that if most of your team has 6-7 stacks or more, it’s a very useful tool. Re-cast LS on anyone who loses the buff due to dispel, and don’t forget to rebuff your team post-rez. Note: re-casting the buff will reset the charge level to 3, so it’s handy to have a way to manually rebuff just one shaman.

[Boylston]

Cataclysm's Mastery Mechanic

Elemental Overload: Grants a 16% chance for Elemental Overload to occur. Elemental Overload causes a Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Lava Burst spell you cast to trigger a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes 75% of normal damage and no threat.

Each point of Mastery increases the chance of Elemental Overload by an additional 2%. (Note: 179 Mastery Rating = 1 Mastery Point at L85. (double check)).


Some Sample Mastery Math: with a 4xShaman setup and the default 16% chance to proc an overload, you can expect the following results for each volley of spells:
P(no overloads) or P(0) = 50%
P(1 overload) or P(1) = 38%
P(2 overloads) or P(2) = 11%
P(3 overloads) or P(3) = 1%
P(4 overloads) or P(4) = 0.065536% (Get a screenshot!)
P(any amount of overload) or P(1-4) = 50%

Just a little bit of mastery changes things slightly (20% overload chance):
P(0) = 41%
P(1) = 41%
P(2) = 15%
P(3) = 2%
P(4) = 0.16% (Still, get a screenshot!)
P(1-4) = 59%

Mastery heavy, but not crazy (25% overload chance):
P(0) = 32%
P(1) = 42%
P(2) = 21%
P(3) = 5%
P(4) = 0.4%
P(1-4) = 68%

Go crazy with 20% mastery bonus (36% overload chance):
P(0) = 41%
P(1) = 38%
P(2) = 32%
P(3) = 12%
P(4) = 1.7%
P(1-4) = 83%



Note: I am in the process of building a simulator/calculator for comparing Mastery, Crit, and Haste (mostly Mastery and Crit, however).


.

[Boylston]

Recommended Races and Talent/Glyph Builds

Race Choices (Horde):
There is no clear winner here. However, here are some considerations for the Horde races.

Goblin (recommended): This new-for-Cataclysm race will be a very popular quad-shaman race. It has a very small size to make mouse-targeting harder for enemy players and navigation through indoor/tight spaces a little easier. Racial traits that benefit the effectiveness in BGs include +1% Spell Haste, and Rocket Barrage / Rocket Jump. The latter two abilities share a common 2min cooldown-- Rocket Barrage is an instant-cast, 30yd ranged attack that scales with spellpower. It is off the GCD, so it can be used within macros at the same time as other spells and is a Fire School, useable if you are locked out of a nature school. Rocket Jump is a forward-propelling ability that can be useful to quickly move your team.

Orc (recommended): Orc was a very popular race for 4xShamans and will remain popular. Significant racial traits include Blood Fury (584 spellpower boost for 15sec, 2min cooldown) that can be activated off the GCD and used to boost several spells as well as Hardiness, which allows decreased stun duration by 15%. The race is also quite compact and doesn't get hung up on most terrain/building features. One long-term consideration is that Orc's spellpower boost is a static amount and will not scale (probably good early on in expansion, with less impact later).

Tauren (acceptable): Taurens suffer from a very large size which makes them attractive to enemies and quite easy to target. This same large size can make them difficult to navigate through battleground features such as towers, doors and narrow hallways. While Taurens have some marginal benefits to their racial traits, the biggest is War Stomp, which is a PBAoE stun for 2sec on a two minute cooldown. This can be set up in a round-robin fashion to allow a stun every 30sec or so.

Trolls (not recommended): Trolls, unfortunately, are not a serious contender for a competitive quadbox team. They have a 20% haste booster for 10sec on a 3min cooldown and a passive 15% reduction in movement-impairing effects. They look great and have fun roleplay potential, but they are not a common choice for most multiboxers.

Race Choices (Horde):
I am by no means an alliance expert. May need help here.

Draenei: Draenei possess a racial treat that allows some healing healing over time (15sec duration, 3min cooldown). This ability does scale with spellpower, and it can be cast on any friendly character. The other racial bonus offers a 1% To-Hit for Spells bonus. Draenei are a mid to large-sized race that has a tail, if you're into that sort of thing.

Dwarf: New for Cataclysm, Alliance shamans can pick Dwarves who have the useful racial trait, Stoneform. This will clear and prevent all disease, poison, and bleed effects for 8 seconds every 2min. They are also a very compact size on the battlefield.

Thanks to: HPAVC!

Talent Builds


Here's what Kruschpak has to say:


Main-- http://wowtal.com/#k=K-wSC_i.a6d.shaman.
Alts-- http://wowtal.com/#k=l3AxydC.a6d.shaman.

Glyphs: shocking/thunder/lava/lighting shield/lighting bolt/elemental mastery


Glyph Discussions

In order of easiest to decide to hardest, here's what you might consider:

Minor Glyphs: These are mostly for flavor or convenience. I tend to think that for convenience of boxing, the following "Go Reagentless" glyphs work best.
Water Walking, Water Breathing, Renewed Life
Minor Glyphs: Right away we run into choices. These choices will mostly be based off your playstyle and preference.
Healing Stream Totem (1 Shaman Only): Massive boost to Resistances. You want this on someone, but not necessarily more than 1.

Lightning Shield: Your lightning shield can't drop below 3 charges (unless dispelled!). Good for all builds, but very important for Fulmination junkies. You may still want this (and Rolling Thunder talent) even with no Fulmination usage to regenerate mana.

Chain Lightning: Causes it to hit more targets, generating more LS Orbs for bigger Fulmination damage. Good even if you aren't using Fulmination much, too.

Now for some tougher choices...

Stoneclaw Totem: Gives a significant Damage Shield to each shaman when you drop a Stoneclaw Totem (every 20seconds!). Figure about 16,400 at L85. You can drop a stoneclaw then another earth totem in succession to get this Power Word: Shield-like ability.

Thunder: Reduces cooldown of Thunderstorm from 45 to 35 seconds.

Elemental Mastery: Gives you 20% damage resistance from all sources while you're under the effects of EM. It's only 15sec every 3min, but it's a big buff and you're likely to use EM during a big fight when you're under pressure.

Recommendation: Stoneclaw Totem, Lightning Shield, Chain Lightning
Heal Stream to sub in place of one Shaman's Stoneclaw glyph, and that Shaman drops a Tremor right away in your rotation.

A non-Fulmination user would likely go with Thunder instead of Chain Lightning.
Prime Glyphs:
Lava Burst: 10% more Lava Burst damage. You'd be a fool not to get this.

Lightning Bolt: 4% more damage. Also highly recommended.

Then, tough choices again...

Flametongue Weapon: 2% extra crit chance. Keep in mind that some of our best damage comes from Lava Burst which should already crit almost 100% of the time.

Shocking: After any shock spell, the GCD is 1.0sec instead of 1.5sec. This shortens the time between a Flame Shock + Lava Burst combo a bit.

Fire Elemental Totem: Shortens elemental cooldown to 5min. This can be a game-changer at times, so might be useful to some folks.

Recommendation: For now, I think Shocking, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt. If battles are fairly protracted and quick kills are not the order of the day, then I'd substitute Flametongue for Shocking.

[Boylston]

Totem Recommendations
There are variations and slight strategic differences from player to player, but here is a good start point.

(Note: Feel free to provide input here!!!)

Earth: 3x Tremor (staggered highly preferred), 1xEarthbind (strongly consider talenting another shaman to AoE root)
Fire: 4xSearing Primary, Button for 4xMagma if melees swarm. Recommend Partner Fire Nova button/modifier key.
Air: 3xGrounding, 1xWrath of Air (Recommend a button that refreshes/drops 3-4 Grounding totems during a battle)
Water: 1xMana Stream, 1xTranquil Mind, 2xHealing Stream, (1 character should have Healing Stream Glyphed for more resistance buff)

Space reserved for staggering technique discussions, also discuss re-apply all at once , re-drop groundings, etc)


Discussion about grounding totem glyph also necessary.

[Boylston]

Stats: Space reserved for Spell hit-cap discussion and general stats allocation (Stam vs. Int, etc)


Reforging Strategies: Reserved.

[Boylston]

(reserved 3)

[Boylston]

Dangers and How to Counter Them
Sometimes, the Excrement hits the Air Conditioning. This section is intended to provide some quick tips on how to deal with what other people throw at you.




General - AoE Fear: Try to use staggered totems to eliminate a long duration. If you're caught off-guard or they've destroyed tremors, consider trinketing on one shaman and dropping a tremor. Regroup post-fear.

General - AoE Root: Just keep nuking!

Warrior - Bladestorm: Running won't help, and spreading out is not always terribly effective. Drop Magma totem, Fire Nova when available, and heal through the damage as needed. Thunderstorm and Earthbind are of no use here if you're trying to escape. (4xThunderstorms CAN help finish off a wounded warrior's health pool, however.)

Druid - AoE Silence (Solar Beam): You'll need to move out of the area of effect as soon as possible, or you're very much shutdown. You may need to leave a single shaman in the beam if it is also rooted. Highly recommend using a key to move your whole team in a direction so that you can get as many out as possible as there's a good chance the same druid will root your main. Although useful in other scenarios, Instant Ghost Wolf WILL NOT help you here, since it's a spell. (Help: Will Goblins' Rocket Jump count as a spell?)

Warlock AoE Stun: Ouch. You can either trinket out of this or just eat the duration. Thunderstorm IS useable while stunned, so you might want to pop at least one to get any dangerous melee off your team temporarily.

Warlock Hand of Guldan:

Mage Freeze Ring Thingy: Move ASAP.

Elemental Shaman Earthquake:

Rogue Smoke Bomb:

[Boylston]

Best Guess at Spellpower Coefficients in Cataclysm (weird source, need to confirm)

Shaman, Chain Heal, 0.32
Shaman, Chain Lightning, 0.571
Shaman, Chain Lightning, 0.429
Shaman, Cleansing Waters, 0.282
Shaman, Cleansing Waters, 0.141
Shaman, Deep Healing, 2.5
Shaman, Earth Shock, 0.386
Shaman, Earthliving, 0.058
Shaman, Earthquake, 0.119
Shaman, Earthquake, 0.191
Shaman, Elemental Overload, 2
Shaman, Enhanced Elements, 2.5
Shaman, Fire Blast, 0.429
Shaman, Fire Nova, 0.143
Shaman, Flame Shock, 0.214
Shaman, Flame Shock, 0.1
Shaman, Frost Shock, 0.386
Shaman, Greater Healing Wave, 0.806
Shaman, Healing Rain, 0.038
Shaman, Healing Stream, 0.0827
Shaman, Healing Surge, 0.604
Shaman, Healing Wave, 0.302
Shaman, Lava Burst, 0.571
Shaman, Lava Burst, 0.429
Shaman, Lightning Bolt, 0.714
Shaman, Lightning Bolt, 0.536
Shaman, Lightning Shield, 0.267
Shaman, Magma Totem, 0.067
Shaman, Riptide, 0.238
Shaman, Riptide, 0.075
Shaman, Searing Bolt, 0.167
Shaman, Searing Flames, 0.0334
Shaman, Thunderstorm, 0.571
Shaman, Unleash Flame, 0.429
Shaman, Unleash Frost, 0.386
Shaman, Unleash Life, 0.201

[Boylston]

I've got enough space reserved. Feel free to start commenting at any point. I will still be building sections over the next couple of days... --Boyl

[Kicksome]

Oh, this is gonna be good!

My big concern is the druid AOE silence, roots, and the warlock AOE stun. In addition, the mage has the freeze ring thing and frost nova, and rogues have the smoke bombs that might make targeting difficult. Also, ele shamans get earthquake.

It seems like you will need to spread out much more than we have in the past, much more quickly.

[Boylston]

Oh, this is gonna be good!

My big concern is the druid AOE silence, roots, and the warlock AOE stun. In addition, the mage has the freeze ring thing and frost nova, and rogues have the smoke bombs that might make targeting difficult. Also, ele shamans get earthquake.

It seems like you will need to spread out much more than we have in the past, much more quickly.

Yeah, I am hoping to add a "How to Counter" section... thanks for reminding me!

[HPAVC]

Need info: These are off the GCD, yes? Is there a travel time on the Rocket Barrage?

Yes, its instant cast and its instant damage. Its "fire school" spell, your able to cast it when spriest silence effect is on you.

[Negativ1337]

Great guide!

Keep it up to date, its worth reading. I will try to make some viable talent specs in PvE + PvP some time soon.

Kind regards,

Team Overdose

[BrothelMeister]

As far as Totem selection goes:

Air: 3-4 Grounding, with 1 Wrath of Air completely optional. Extra Grounding totems never hurt.

Fire: Flame-tongue x4 I prefer simplicity, and the damage from Searing totem or magma totem will rarely be what finishes someone off. I also prefer to be able to cast Fire Nova at will without having to change totems, and FT totem has the longest Duration.

Earth: 2-3 Tremor ,1-2 Earthbind; Once again with the simplicity thing, I focus less on totems and more on other things, so if you don't want to stagger Tremor totems, it's not really necessary, just drop all your Grounding and Earth totems together every once in a while in combat to refresh them. More Tremors can still serve as protection for when someone kills one.

Water: Completely a toss up here, all based on preference. Ele shaman mana at 80 is beyond a joke, so the Mana spring totem is not needed yet, but that might change, and you will be providing Raid members with mana, so it might be worthwhile to have 1 up. Some form of resistance is a must, however I really don't like the glyph for Healing Stream totem to make it fill that role. As far as Healing Stream totem goes, you will end up with alteast 1 up regardless, but keep in mind that it's healing will not win or lose fights in Wrath, and with the changes to healing in Cata, I don't expect it to later either.

[Boylston]

Fire: Flame-tongue x4 I prefer simplicity, and the damage from Searing totem or magma totem will rarely be what finishes someone off. I also prefer to be able to cast Fire Nova at will without having to change totems, and FT totem has the longest Duration.


Flametongue totem does not stack with Totemic Wrath, which you should definitely have somewhere on one of your shaman, right? :)

If you know you're gonna get melee swarmed, I'd go ahead and drop magmas. If you're defending or just coming in range of someone, I prefer Searings. It's a good visual indicator that someone's in range as well.

[BrothelMeister]

Right-O, Flametongue totem is 100% useless except that it is a 5 minute duration stick, that allows you to cast Fire Nova. (while having one toon provide Totemic Wrath) Something that Searing totem unfortunately does not allow.

I wasn't saying that Magma totem was useless, just unnecessary since I prefer to knock melee away from me instead of letting them sit on me while Magma totem hits them.

[Shodokan]

Might want to add macro section etc etc.

I don't see fear as a problem, and most stuff that you need to move out of is relatively easy to do so.

This team will be good like always. Mastery > crit Also i understand people think that coordinated lavabursts is the way to go... personally i'm still going with lava surge with built in lavaburst usages, the more of them you use the more procs you get from overload the more damage you do.

[Boylston]

Might want to add macro section etc etc.

I don't see fear as a problem, and most stuff that you need to move out of is relatively easy to do so.

This team will be good like always. Mastery > crit Also i understand people think that coordinated lavabursts is the way to go... personally i'm still going with lava surge with built in lavaburst usages, the more of them you use the more procs you get from overload the more damage you do.

Will add macro section or at least link to another macro post.

I am curious about a priority system for Lava Burst. I think it will depend on the flow of damage with geared 85s.

Obviously, it's more damage over time. Secondary benefit might mean simplicity in fighting. If you have a priority system going where you always try to cast an available Lava Burst, then default to Lightning Bolt, then you can focus on other things instead of timing LvB volleys. After 8sec of non-combat, you'll always be able to make your next big opener a LvB...

Also, if you're casting more Lava Bursts, it will skew the analysis in favor or Mastery as opposed to Crit.

This will be one to stay tuned on, for sure!



One problem I don't have figured out is how to make the best use of Unleash Elements if you were going to have a priority-based LvB/LB setup...

[Boylston]

Just so I make sure I have this all right in my head and in the model I have in Excel... (numbers seem to match what Kruschpak's reports/screenshots show in my model)

If you were to get the most out of two attacks, it looks something like this:

Attack 1: Flame Shock... triggering a 1sec GCD if you have the Shocking glyph.
Attack 2: Elemental Mastery, Unleash Flame, Lava Burst, (optional Rocket Barrage racial or Eng Trinket).

Also assume you would follow that with Chain Lightning immediately afterwards.

So the damage ends up being a total of:

Flame Shock Instant Damage, t=0
Unleash Flame Instant Damage, t=1sec
Racial/Trinket Instant Damage, t=1sec
Lava Burst Hit when missiles arrive at t=2-2.5ish seconds?
- - - - GCD Resets at t=2.5sec, Cast Chain Lightning (1.2sec cast time with EM Haste)
First Flame Shock DoT at t=3.0sec
Chain Lightning Hits at t=3.7sec

Burst may be dead for normal people, but I think with 25% reduction due to resilience, we're still going to kill people with our big combo unless they are healed between Flame Shock and the Lava Burst landing. Even if they get a "normal" heal or two, the rest of the damage cascading in between t=0 and t=4sec may very well do the job.

At 7600 spellpower, the Flame Shock instant+Unleash Flame+Lava Burst damage (with no crits other than LB) is 174,547. Add in Rockets and it's at 191,233. Even if you assume 25% damage resistance due to resilience, that's 143,000 incoming damage when the Lava Burst lands (t=2.5ish).

At t=3.7, when the Chain Lightning and 1st Flame Shock tick have arrived, there's another 20,000 post-resilience damage that has piled on.

(All this assumes no crits for a total of 12-16 FS, UF, CL spells and no overloads, which is completely and totally unrealistic and conservative. Also, does not assume effects of Clearcasting damage boost. Actual damage could be significantly higher.)

Wow! Admittedly that's with all our IWIN cooldowns going...

Without either EM+UE cooldowns going, in a more sustained battle, numbers from my model show that a Flame Shock + Lava Burst + Chain Lightning with 2 shamans in clearcasting states (because we've been fighting) on the team combo will hit for about 65-75k on a 25% resistant target, again assuming only the LvB crit. No other crits or overloads, which we know is very likely to happen.

UE will be available every 15sec, and will change that number from 65-75k to 105k or so. Same no-crit, no-overload assumptions.

Wow...

[Shodokan]

Burst calc is way off. Premade pvp vs premade pvp lavaburst crits for like 15-17k... its like 35% damage reduction. So it would be more like... 60k for the 4 shaman, which is about 1/2 the life of someone. Not including overload, which is another reason i think mastery and lava surge are so important.

This is demonstrated in a few 85 pvp videos you can watch on youtube.

35% damage reduction is ridiculous.

[Boylston]

SO, at 35% damage reduction, the big IWIN looks like this:

Flame shock instant: 4,237
UF instant: 1,402
Lava Burst Crit: 24,127
Goblin Rocket: 2,712

TOTAL: 32,478/shaman or 129,910.

Lava burst damage, plain jane, will be around 15-17k like you mention on 35% resistant targets. But EM+UE makes a big difference.

UE is available a lot as well, turns that 15-17k into 18-20k.

I have watched the videos... You can see the big difference that our cooldowns make. You can see the 15k bursts in arena matches as well as the 25k ones.

Better yet, I built a spreadsheet with the correct coefficients and validated it with real PTR data. I think the numbers are still strong, even at 35% resistance due to resilience.

I guess we'll see soon. I hope I'm not too wrong. :)

[Ualaa]

It will also depend which scales better (on justice/valor/drop gear, or honor/conquest gear), resilience/mitigation or health or damage.
Or do they go up at the same rate, approximately?

Blizzard seems to want less burst.
But they balance around single players... and we usually have 3-5x DPS in sync.

[remanz]

How is lava burst hitting on live now ?

I heard a lot of people saying level 85 is doing the same damage as level 80 at the moment. I wonder if just haste/hit/crit are not on par.
100% crit spells would be OP at the moment.

120k hp is confirmed with blue pvp gear. Have to see where the damage is at.

[Shodokan]

How is lava burst hitting on live now ?

I heard a lot of people saying level 85 is doing the same damage as level 80 at the moment. I wonder if just haste/hit/crit are not on par.
100% crit spells would be OP at the moment.

120k hp is confirmed with blue pvp gear. Have to see where the damage is at.

Without UE it is like 17k max.

[Negativ1337]

Have you noticed that chain heal is healing for almost nothing, and costs a lot of mana? I think it needs to be buffed...

[Negativ1337]

Without UE it is like 17k max.

Thats without using any totems and trinkets i guess? I am hitting for 24-25k on players/mobs with 0 resillience with trinkets and everything.

[Boylston]

The biggest issue I've seen so far is that Unleash Elements is on the GCD. A lot of my modeling earlier was based on the assumption that it wasn't going to trigger a GCD. Not the end of the world, but it adds a 1.5sec delay into the big burst attack and makes macroing a little more difficult.

The difference between a 24k mob attack and a 17k attack is resilience. That's what a 30% damage reduction will do for you.

My team is only 81, since I haven't been able to play much due to work, but I should get a little more game time in the next couple of weeks. I'd love to hear feedback from folks so that we can improve this living document!!

[Negativ1337]

Oh lol!

Never noticed Unleash Elements is a ranged attack... I thought it was a melee attack because of the stormstrike icon hehe.

[Boylston]

It does ranged damage plus gives a significant boost to your next elemental attack-- which will be Lava Burst.

so the attack sequence looks like

Flame Shock
Unleash Flame
Lava Burst (optional Elemental Mastery + Trinket + Racial or other off-the-GCD cooldown items)

I was hoping that Unleash Flame could be combined into the Lava Burst GCD, but it can't... :( Oh well, it's still a very good ability.

[remanz]

Kudos for putting the guide together.

Currently the 85 damage is kind of low. People are all doing some what ICC 10 with 30% buff kinda damage. On the flip side, Healers are all having severe mana issue, as well as DPS. I think when it comes down to it (for now), the fight would probably be determined based on mana.

Shaman has a good burst sequence. In case that wouldn't even land the kill, then we are looking at a match for who goes OOM first.

[thedreameater]

God, Satan, Allah, Shiva, Buddha, and Azathoth bless you a thousand times for this amazing thread!!!

[remanz]

Ok. I was wrong.

the fight was not determined by mana, at least for now. Its defensive CD vs CC game vs Burst game. PPL die fast without resilience. Bubble effect is maximized.

[Boylston]

Ok. I was wrong.

the fight was not determined by mana, at least for now. Its defensive CD vs CC game vs Burst game. PPL die fast without resilience. Bubble effect is maximized.

What do you mean by "bubble effect is maximized"??

[remanz]

When resilience is low, you die too fast from the burst. Healers had no chance on healing you. Immunity rules.

Divine Shield is immunity and more importantly, you get to cast/attack while in bubble. Since dying too fast, a lot of classes don't get to see the end of bubble. Paladin can use avenging wrath while in divine shield now.


Say I am a retribution paladin. All classes HP drops from 110k to 0 in 3 seconds while under attack. Shaman gets to attack for 3 seconds then die at the 3 second mark. Paladin gets to attack for 3 seconds, and then pop divine shield for another 8 seconds.

So everybody dies in 3 seconds. Paladin are in 11 seconds. Other classes' immunity are also good. but they don't get to attack or cast once they use them.

this is not new really, last time at Season 5 during the launch of WotLK. Paladin and DK ruled the arena with defensive skills. Back then, Paladin only -50% attack speed in bubble. It was OP. Then they changed it to -50% damage in bubble.

[Boylston]

Ok. Gotcha.

Are you running a shaman team now, or just the DK+Rets?

[remanz]

Well,

I was trying to be smart and different. I swapped 1 paladin for 1 enhancement shaman. This seems to be a good move in theory, but it backed fire big time in practice (so much for being smart and different). I added tremor totem , frozen power root, blood lust, 1 grounding totem, 1 minor CC as hex, and above all, earthbind totem remove snare (not root though). This pays off in PVE. In arena its all different story, my shaman becomes the weakest link in the team. Team would just focus fire on him, and my shaman dies all the time.

4 paladins with bubble + wings are the way to go. Heck I would even go with 5 paladins. Don't need the DK either.

[Negativ1337]

Paladins any fun these days in arena?

[remanz]

rather not talk about pallys more in this shaman thread. plenty of discussion surrounds pally and dk in other 2 threads.

[Barazanthul]

I tried some battle of gilneas bg yesterday (Gilneas inv time 8 minutes, Random BG 11- 30 Minutes Oo). The only thing i see is that i have problems getting my burst of, because i will get chaincced :(.

In addition i did several Wargames 5v5 against sephice his DK team. In the best game i got 2 of his guys and his healer. In the baddest game, i could not even kill a single toon :(

So the question is, how to survive ... i only did one arena game and in that game i got swarmed to death :( Because of the weak healers, my healer is not able to bring me back up and if i start healing i am oom :(

[Boylston]

I'm currently trying out a totem rotation which uses glyph of stoneskin+stoneskin totem to proc the damage shield on 3/4ths of my team. At the end of the rotation, I stagger tremors.

I'm not sure if it's worth it. The shield doesn't last terribly long (you CAN re-cast the sequence every 20sec, though) and it sucks up some GCDs. I think I'd rather have one GCD that plops down all totems and then follow that with some other staggered tremors. Part of the problem is that I don't see how much damage it's absorbing (due to its nature).

I keep wondering if I might do better with the EM glyph (20% damage reduction every 3min). It's probably a better arena glyph, but I'm trying to stay focused on BGs.

Krusch/others-- any thoughts on this Glyph and its usage now that we're 85?

[Negativ1337]

Hey guys,

I wanted to share my keybindings:
1: Lightning Bolt
2: Chain Lightning
3: Earth Shock
4: Wind Shear
{#showtooltip
/cast [target=arena1] Wind Shear
/cast Wind Shear}
5: Frost Shock
6: Flame Shock
7: Totems
{4x Grounding Totem, 4x Searing Totem, 2x Healing Stream, 1x Mana Spring, 1x 30% reduced casting time interrupt}
8: Grounding Totem
9: Cleanse Spirit
0: Water drinks
-: 1x Earthbind Totem, 3x Tremor Totem
{For my totem farm i drop fire, water and air totems at once, then i use my earthbind and tremor totems (round-robin)}
F/=: Follow macro
{/follow Focus}

Shift+1: Healing Surge
{/cast [target=focus] Healing Surge}
Shift+2: Healing Surge
{/assist focus
/cast Healing Surge}
Shift+3: Chain Heal
Shift+4/X: Stoneclaw Totem
Shift+5: Magma Totem
Shift+6: Fire Nova
Shift+7: Healing Rain
Shift+8/C: Spiritwalker’s Grace

Ctrl+1: Lightning Shield
Ctrl+2: Water Shield
Ctrl+3: Totemic Recall
Ctrl+4: Thunderstorm {round robin}

T: Lava Burst
{#showtooltip
/assist focus
/cast Elemental Mastery
/use 13
/use 10
/assist focus
/cast Lava Burst
/cast Rocket Barrage(racial)}
G: Rocket Belt Jump (racial)
Ctrl+F1: Ground Mount
Ctrl+F2: Flying Mount
V: PvP Trinket
Ctrl+V: Earth Elemental Totem
Shift+V: Fire Elemental Totem
Alt+V: Toggle enemy nameplates
Shift+F: Purge
Ctrl+T: Hex
{#showtooltip
/cast [target=arena1] Hex
/cast Hex}
Shift+T: Bind Elemental
Ctrl+G: Ghost Wolf

Notice:
I play as a lefty, some keybindings may be annoying/not playable as a righty
I use TAB to target enemies. I also have enabled Target Nearest Enemy in the Keybinding Options to prevent tab-targetting totems/pets/mirror images.

[Negativ1337]

Spec that i use with glyphs:

3 of my shamans are talented with:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hGGGGRfkbZbhMZb

1 of my shamans is talented with:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hGGGGRfkkZbhMZb

For glyphs i use:
Prime


http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_shaman_lavaburst.jpg Glyph of Lava Burst
http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_nature_earthshock.jpg Glyph of Shocking
http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_nature_lightning.jpg Glyph of Lightning Bolt
Major


http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_shaman_thunderstorm.jpg Glyph of Thunder
http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_nature_stoneclawtotem.jpg Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem
http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_nature_wispheal.jpg Glyph of Elemental Mastery
Minor


http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_shaman_improvedreincarnation.jpg Glyph of Renewed Life
http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_shadow_demonbreath.jpg Glyph of Water Breathing
http://eu.battle.net/wow-assets/static/images/icons/36/spell_frost_windwalkon.jpg Glyph of Water Walking
I have swapped on the shaman that has Totemic Wrath in his talents, Glyph of Thunder for Glyph of Healing Stream Totem. This totem provides +195 resistance to Fire, Nature and Frost spells.

Tip:
If you drop a Stoneclaw Totem 2 seconds before the arena gates open, you will keep the absorbing shield for its full duration, even if you drop any other earth totem afterwards. So you have a shield + tremor totems for example up. The cooldown on Stoneclaw Totem is around 12 seconds. Please correct me if the cooldown is longer, im not sure anymore.