5 Shammies or 4 Shammies & 1 Paly?

[Stealthy]

I've been working on a 5 x shammie team (level 48 now) but have been wondering if I should be using a paly as a main instead?

I'm know paly's make great tanks which would make them ideal for PvE, but would the loss of burst & utility from dropping a sham hurt much in PvP? I plan to do quite a bit of PvP with these guys, with the occasional heroic or non-heroic instance depending on what takes my mood. :) To be honest Paladins are the onle class I don't have much experience with, so just seeking some feedback from those who have run these setups before...

Cheers,

Stealthy

[Vyndree]

I feel like this question has been asked a billion times, but since I can't find an old post I don't expect you to. ;)

The answer to your question is this:
Do you want to PvP or PvE?

And, if PvP, a follow up question:
Do you realize that playing a healer in PvP solo is hard enough, much less healer+4dps?

A 4 shammy 1 pally group will be able to do PvE sufficiently, and you can 4box the shammies in a 5v5 with a dedicated healer. If worse comes to worse, you can respec the pally to holy and try things out.
A 5 shammy group will not be able to do high level PvE. However, you can do 4x dps shammy pvp or, alternately, 4x dps shammy + 1x resto shammy pvp if you have a deathwish.

Which one fits your goals better?

[Stealthy]

Yeah there has been a lot of discussion on shammies being a great mutlibox group, but I couldn't find much dicussing the merits of having a paly vs straight sham set up.

To answer your question - a mix of both PvP & PvE but probably leaning more towards PvP. I understand that if I wanted to go hardcore PvP (Arena's) that 4-boxing plus one is a much better solution. But I prefer to solo play and for me it will be more like 10 Arena matches a week, some BG's for welfare epix, world PvP for shits n giggles, and PvE the rest for gold & faction griding.

If Xbox's videos are anything to go by, 5 shams can defitnely do heroics for badge farming. Admittedly his shams are geared well, but I can get the gear from BG's (is this what you mean by high end PvE?).

Perhaps my question should have been - What do pallies bring to the table in terms of PvP? And if you spec them fpr PvP, how effective are they at tanking? Or conversely, if you spec them for tanking, are they still viable in PvP.

Cheers,

Stealthy

[Slats]

You will still one shot people with 4 Shamans vs 5. In Arena there is no point trying to 5 box it unless you are just farming crap points while afinding ah ealer.

I would have a pally os you have so much more open to you. Think WotLK versus PvP and imagine being able to do every single instance yourself.

On your own times your own shchedules and never have to type /afk to yourself :)

While I am not happy with my Priests, I dont have the haeart to level the Shamans afresh so I will play the 4 priests in Pvp and just use Slats for PvE. I also have a 70 Shaman that is going to be resto for the harder PvE encounters where I can kick ap irest out.

To sum it up, with pally you have the full casual end game open to you. With 5 shamns you do not.

-Slats

[Vyndree]

You will still one shot people with 4 Shamans vs 5. In Arena there is no point trying to 5 box it unless you are just farming crap points while afinding ah ealer.

I would have a pally os you have so much more open to you. Think WotLK versus PvP and imagine being able to do every single instance yourself.

On your own times your own shchedules and never have to type /afk to yourself :)

While I am not happy with my Priests, I dont have the haeart to level the Shamans afresh so I will play the 4 priests in Pvp and just use Slats for PvE. I also have a 70 Shaman that is going to be resto for the harder PvE encounters where I can kick ap irest out.

To sum it up, with pally you have the full casual end game open to you. With 5 shamns you do not.

-Slats

What's wrong with the priests? That was one of the other class scenarios I was considering when I was rolling my shammies.

[Boylston]

I am curious as well, because I actually did roll 4 priests to eventually pair with my Paladin, and then decided on a whim to make it a little easier to only level 3 shammies up since I already had a L70 shammy as well. Let us know what you think the shortcomings of the multi-priests are!!

[raylion]

For PVP I would probably go for 5 Shammies for the extra dps and it's simpler controlling 5 of the same class without introducing another (I think Shammies are probably unique in this respect, I can't think of another PVP setup where you could do 5 of the same class as well as Shammies - possibly druids maybe).

For PVE I would definately go with a Pally (or any tanking class - depends on your preference) and 4 Shammies as you really need a tank in heroics that can handle the damage. Granted, there's some great vids out there of very skilled players like xbox doing heroics but he must've had the patience of a saint to get to that level...the heroic trash is doable but those bosses can be hard.

For me, I lack the patience (and probably the skill too) so have levelled a Pally to join my Shammies just to stand a reasonble chance at taking the bosses down :)

[wougoose]

You will still one shot people with 4 Shamans vs 5. In Arena there is no point trying to 5 box it unless you are just farming crap points while afinding ah ealer.

I would have a pally os you have so much more open to you. Think WotLK versus PvP and imagine being able to do every single instance yourself.

On your own times your own shchedules and never have to type /afk to yourself :)

While I am not happy with my Priests, I dont have the haeart to level the Shamans afresh so I will play the 4 priests in Pvp and just use Slats for PvE. I also have a 70 Shaman that is going to be resto for the harder PvE encounters where I can kick ap irest out.

To sum it up, with pally you have the full casual end game open to you. With 5 shamns you do not.

-SlatsIMHO I believe Priests are a viable option. I remember a post hearing about a player having some success (Morganti?). There are many combinations that can work if you do the research and ultimately practice, practice...and practice. You just have to become aware of your counters and how to counter them. Shammies are definitely the FoTM, but I believe there are other combinations that can do just as well with the practice in place.

I'm actually re rolling away from my shammies for 4x Priests and a Pally to try something that hasn't been proven to work in high rated arenas. I'll be playing the priests and a brother will be playing the Pally. We'll pve it all the way up and he'll respec at 70. After theorycrafting and doing some research, I think the group could make it with enough practice. Ellay proved that Shammies can do well in the arena, and I feel its time to do my best and prove that Priests are viable as well. I almost went with 4x Hunters + healer, but I decided to stick with this combination by the flip of a coin :)

Sorry to digress. With respect to your question stealthy, I would ultimately decide on whether or not you want to control all 5 or not. If you are looking to excel in PVP, I'd either do 4 shammies + separately played healer (Could be a Pally that you level with the group and switch to Holy at 70) or just roll 5x Shammies. Trying to micromanage the healer+shammies at the same time would probably be worse than running without a healer, but that is just my opinion.

[Los]

Think you should ask morganti, either he is shit at arena's (hey morg! ./wave hows the pain?) or the all priest way is a bad thing. Could be a gear issue since morganti seems to be undergeared but he is having a bad time in arena's. Getting a lot of loses thrown at his feet at the moment. He is even levelling an all shammy team at this very moment. But again for details you should ask him about his results.

edit: actually he already did: Some Concerns with Five Shadow Priests ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=31929#post31929')