How is Losing Possible with this Setup?

[Quasi]

Very simply, how does a Quintuple Elemental Shaman setup ever lose in the 5v5 Arena (barring another team with the same setup)? I see no weakness. Please enlighten me on the downsides, before I invest the money. ;)

With staggered Tremor Totems, staggered Magma Totems to break stealth, 5 healing streams (about 500 healing/2 secs), 4 Grounding Totems, and EM-NS-trinket CL, what group could possibly defeat you?

Personally, I would sit back, and always pop EM-NS CL on the first person to enter a radius of 36 yards around me. Now, it's 4v5, and the next person to come within my range is going to get 4x/5x Lightning Bolts followed with 4x/5x Earth Shocks in rapid succession. The rest will systematically die.

The only things that comes to mind is 1) multiple Shadowstep Rogues attacking in unison, or 2) a bubbled Paladin using HoJ and Repentance on 2 of your Shamans and the rest of his team entering the fray with mass AE and multiple AE fears to confuse you. Both would require perfect timing, but they could work. Even these, though, wouldn't work if you anticipated it.

[Furball]

Hint: Its not as easy as it look in Ellay's videos.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

You've got the offense part down pretty good. What if they start focus-firing one of your guys? How do you heal? Are you going to have one specced resto? If not, your heals suck for mana and amount healed, and every time you stop to chain heal you're stopping DPS also. Survival, in spite of being relatively immune to CC for several seconds is where the problem comes in. Which is why most guys that do something similar run 4x shammies and a buddy playing a healer.

[Vyndree]

One grounding totem.

Seriously, it will eat your whole lb+cl+ns+lb.

Understanding your own weaknesses is the first step to success in PvP. Tremor is nice, but your spells are still going to get interrupted and some kiting will easily make it difficult for you to face your target. Cleaves/aoe? Grounding won't eat those. Hunter/lock pets with totem killing macros? A healer who knows to spam purge/rank1 instant casts to get rid of your grounding totems?

You're definitely not immune forever. If Ellay was impossible to beat, he'd be WAY beyond the 2k rating.

[Quasi]

One grounding totem.

Seriously, it will eat your whole lb+cl+ns+lb.

Understanding your own weaknesses is the first step to success in PvP. Tremor is nice, but your spells are still going to get interrupted and some kiting will easily make it difficult for you to face your target. Cleaves/aoe? Grounding won't eat those. Hunter/lock pets with totem killing macros? A healer who knows to spam purge/rank1 instant casts to get rid of your grounding totems?

You're definitely not immune forever. If Ellay was impossible to beat, he'd be WAY beyond the 2k rating.Ouch, I did not realize a grounding totem ate all five CLs. If I staggered one a millisecond ahead of the others, would it kill it in time?

Personally, I plan to fight as if I did not have totems (while of course using them).

As for healing, I'm going to lay down the 5 healing streams, keep up Bloodlust, and use a mix of Healing Wave and LHW on whatever target they are focus firing, in between shocks and CLs. Five Healing Waves will heal any shaman to full, even with MS debuff. Warriors will always be my first target to kill if they get inside 36 yards, to prevent MS in the first place.

With this approach, I cannot see how any of my shamans will die, barring some insane 3+ Shadowstep Rogue group ganking me with CloS.

[Vyndree]

Ouch, I did not realize a grounding totem ate all five CLs. If I staggered one a millisecond ahead of the others, would it kill it in time?
Depends. The spell has to reach the totem and actually kill it before the buff is removed from the shaman. Instant casts without a visible flight time are great for this (like DoTs) unlike lightning bolts which hurtle through the air.


As for healing, I'm going to lay down the 5 healing streams, keep up Bloodlust, and use a mix of Healing Wave and LHW on whatever target they are focus firing, in between shocks and CLs. Five Healing Waves will heal any shaman to full, even with MS debuff. Warriors will always be my first target to kill if they get inside 36 yards, to prevent MS in the first place.

This is true, but it also burns through your mana and you have zero spell pushback resistance on your heals (i.e. rank 1 Arcane Explosion?). Furthermore, if you're healing, you're not DPSing, which is just holding off the inevitable once you go OOM.

[xum]

This is true, but it also burns through your mana and you have zero spell pushback resistance on your heals (i.e. rank 1 Arcane Explosion?). Furthermore, if you're healing, you're not DPSing, which is just holding off the inevitable once you go OOM.With a 40/0/21 spec, he'd have 70% pushback resist on healing.. and with S1+ gear 70% pushback resist on LB.

[Vyndree]

This is true, but it also burns through your mana and you have zero spell pushback resistance on your heals (i.e. rank 1 Arcane Explosion?). Furthermore, if you're healing, you're not DPSing, which is just holding off the inevitable once you go OOM.With a 40/0/21 spec, he'd have 70% pushback resist on healing.. and with S1+ gear 70% pushback resist on LB.

By doing so he'd miss out on 3% +hit, Totemic Mastery, and/or Tidal Mastery. I don't know many ele shammies who fill out Healing Focus. And regardless, who's DPSing while you're healing?

A quick NS+Heal should be all a ele shammy would want to do. The heals are mana inefficient, weak, expose your nature school for interruption (which is bad enough considering everything including totems/LB's is nature), and effectively shut down your DPS. If an ele shammy is forced to heal you're typically on the losing side of the battle already.

Try it out and see.

[opt]

be careful with zerging a warrior, Spell reflect is bugged it could possibly reflect all of your trinketed NS CLs back at you.

[beyond-tec]

last time a full shaman group startet setting up totems and waited for us we just walked back to our starting area, sat down there and waited for them.
took several minutes but then they came and we fought against them without their totems.
was very nice to just sit there and /lol @ the shamans which waited for us to run into their tons of totems

when I play arena... I got time... lots of time...

[opt]

last time a full shaman group startet setting up totems and waited for us we just walked back to our starting area, sat down there and waited for them.
took several minutes but then they came and we fought against them without their totems.
was very nice to just sit there and /lol @ the shamans which waited for us to run into their tons of totems

when I play arena... I got time... lots of time...I hate these strats :cursing: !! I dont have patients like that
But it only takes 4 seconds to relay all 20 totems again, run up behind the poles closer to your base and lay them, now you guys are sitting duck to a big chainlightning bomb

[beyond-tec]

I hate these strats :cursing: !! I dont have patients like that
But it only takes 4 seconds to relay all 20 totems again, run up behind the poles closer to your base and lay them, now you guys are sitting duck to a big chainlightning bomb I know that for a boxer it's just some clicks and all the totems are there again, but in a common arena group with each char = one player - running away from their totems and wait for them is the funniest thing you can do because most of them don't set up the totems again, they start bursting dps or healing against our burst dps 8)


for a boxer it's just click click click click BAM, k, who wants to die next? :D

[Diamndzngunz]

last time a full shaman group startet setting up totems and waited for us we just walked back to our starting area, sat down there and waited for them.
took several minutes but then they came and we fought against them without their totems.
was very nice to just sit there and /lol @ the shamans which waited for us to run into their tons of totems

when I play arena... I got time... lots of time...Thats why they should of walked up a bit... Laid the totems rinse and repeat until they are in range.

[unit187]

setting up 4 totems doesnt take 4 seconds. Did you forget 1.5 sec global cooldown?

[Slats]

You can theorycraft in the world about how amazing the group is, but we have no Shamans that run 5x with no other support getting close to 2k or hell even 1850.
Splitting up your healing/cc and dps is the best idea and it obviously works very well.

[Feehza]

You have 1 instant Spell with about 12k Damage.

The opposite Team have 1 Warrior 1 rogue 1 Mage +2 Healers.
They start with warrior and rogue. They spamheal warrior and the rogue use very early COS.
At this moment u dont know of the invisivle Mage.
You waste your instant 12k Spell on the Warrior, cuz the healers stay out range. Now the Mage appears and bomb you with AOE.

[beyond-tec]

You have 1 instant Spell with about 12k Damage.

The opposite Team have 1 Warrior 1 rogue 1 Mage +2 Healers.
They start with warrior and rogue. They spamheal warrior and the rogue use very early COS.
At this moment u dont know of the invisivle Mage.
You waste your instant 12k Spell on the Warrior, cuz the healers stay out range. Now the Mage appears and bomb you with AOE.hell... how I hate those dragonbreath mages which slip out of their invisibility and BAM! :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing:

[Monkofdoom]

Also another common problem I've been faced with is the simple casting onto melee, you have your shamans in a group (close together normally) and some rogue / warrior / retri pala etc run up and into your group, you start casting and they run behind your guys - you can't mouse turn all of them instantly because your using keys. The cast fails, you start again and they jump behind you again, constantly wasting your casts - A decent melee group which isn't instantly afraid of you can cause all sorts of problems until you master how to counter react it.

[Djarid]

Intimidating shout is a killer, if your tremor totem doesn't catch it.

[Ellay]

I think I need to make some videos of me actually losing Arena's.. yes it does happen!

Many of the really high ranked teams know what your capable of and play the waiting game or hide most of the match. It took over 2 hours last night for me to do 10 games to finish up the week on my high rated team. I went 9-1 but each game was at least 10 minutes, with a couple in the 25 minute range.

This whole blow up a target that comes within 36 yards is not doable. My tactics have evolved and it actually starts to break down even further in order to pull of wins.

Types of classes and what they can do:
Warriors go into defensive stance and chain spam Spell Reflect which will reflect multiple spells if they are thrown together, i.e. 4 Lightning Bolts. When I say chain spam, Spell Reflect is on a 10 second cooldown, but there is a way to exploit it currently by spamming /sit, allowing you to cast it every 5 seconds. In most cases if you see a warrior with a shield on, just ignore him - he's not doing any damage.
Mages have iceblock - every single one of them, they see the pain coming - they stop the pain.
Paladins have bubble, same scenario as mages.
Priests usually hug walls and almost 99% run around with Pain Suppression making your damage cry, and consuming your burst.
Shamans are what I like to kill first, their single grounding totem is the bane of your existence with synchronized attacks. I can't count how many times 1 well placed grounding totem has consumed 4 Lightning Bolts and 4 instant cast Chain Lightnings.. 8 spells into 1 totem, ugh!
Druids plays exceedingly defensive, and they can usually be ignored, their quick shifts make them tough to lock down long enough to get more than a Lightning Bolt off.
Hunters are able to pluck away at 41 yard > your 36, and have Feign Death to stop your casting abruptly. The good news is that is all they have - usually one of the first targets since they can't completely stop the damage, and usually one of the highest DPS in a match.
Warlock... warlock... every single one of them rolls around with Soul Link and a Fel Hunter giving them insane resists. No joke I've launched 2 Volleys of Lightning Bolts and 4 instant cast Chain Lightnings + 4 Earthshocks and the Warlock still had 30% health left. They are killable but you need to drop the pet first if you want to burst them down, usually not a good first target. I leave them for last as all they do is annoy - no real damage.
Rogues are currently the most Overpowered class against us at the moment, coming in the form of Cheat Death. Most don't view this skill as asinine but I don't see how you can't. The flavor of the month for Rogues is Shadow step which is very deep into the Subtlety tree, giving them Cheat Death. This ability is a GUARENTEED proc if they are going to die and negates the damage that would have done the killing blow while incoming damage for the next 3 seconds is reduced by 90-99% damage. So if the Rogue has 2000 HP and you hit him for 3000 damage, he does not die and is still at 2000 hp while also being practically unkillable for the next 3 seconds. It's also on a 1 minute cooldown!! Passive ability ftw..
Also the ever wonderful Cloak of Shadows which means 0 damage for 5 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown, and if somehow any of those are down within a 1 minute time frame they can just vanish and start over. I've had many teams run in, blow everything and then run away and let their cooldowns refresh.

Hopefully that gives a good reality perspective of what your up against. Now for the tactics on how to evolve past this.
1.You play on your terms and do not budge!
Blade's Edge Arena, you stay on the bridge and make them come to you. Providing an open surface where they cannot hide.
Ruins of Lordaeron, either take the middle tombstone over and own it - or set up camp in the front of your starting area.
Nagrand Arena, take over a pillar and hide/LoS if they carry a hunter, if no hunter you can utilize the cubby holes where the shadow sight orb spawns.
All these locations force them to fight you in an open field, it's in your realm - on your territory.
2. Be prepared to sit and wait!
Oh they know your packing the heat - and you can only imagine whats going on in their vent channel. Luckily your team consists of 1-2 players that have all the time in the world compared to 5 who can't be on all day long. They'll come to you.
3. Evolve - they find tactics to counter you, you find a counter of that counter!
Your probably wondering what my counter is?
You give em' the ole 1-2 punch! Set a focus for the target you want to kill, then select a different target that you also may want to take down. This way you are clearly showing who you want to take out, they will prep with pre-heals and Pain suppressions - the whole shabang to keep that player alive when they rush in.
You can soften up the first target by throwing a lightning bolt, maybe blowing an earthshock their way and then WAMMY hit your /target Focus macro so you swapped to your real desired kill and Boom shakalaka - they can do nothing about it. Their heals just landed on the wrong target and the target swap was way too fast for them to control. This ability in and of itself is the definition of good teams that are rated in the highest brackets out there, yet they will never ever ever be able to perform this type of maneuver the way we can.
Whew that was long, hopefully helps :)

[Boylston]

Ellay, when you get a melee on you, I see in your winning videos that you typically drop Fire Nova totems and then shock generally.

Is it better to deal with the melee since they're not going to outrange/grounding/etc you, even if there's going to be some delay to reposition your main/alts? Or do you just let your healer friend heal you through 1-2 melees and stick with your current target list?

Thanks for posting a little bit of your strategy. I am curious at what rating level you started to see real resistance... I can imagine that the rush in and blow up their first member strategy might work really well if you're playing teams in the 1750-1800 rating level. Maybe it's not a valid tactic past 1600, I don't know. The teams I play on my main character that are in the 1500-1700 range all seem like they contain someone dumb enough to rush into the hornet's nest of totems and eat some LB+CL+Shock love...

[Ellay]

Whenever a melee drops in on me I instinctively drop the Fire Nova totems, it's an extra 4k damage non crit at least to anyone within the vicinity. Just an extra step to soften up targets forcing them to play in defensive since they lost 35-50% of the health and the healers occupied with heals instead of offensive debuffs.
Usually I try to stick with my 2 intended targets that I've picked out, but within a game I'm very unpredictable myself and I drop who I identify will not be able to stop my damage at any given moment. So if I have no idea whats going on, they definitely don't :)
The biggest factor against other teams is dropping their damage dealers ASAP. Healers usually can't overcome the damage potential you carry but their DPS is what does you in. So dropping the Mages / Ele Shaman / Hunters, anything that says ouch - pushes you one step closer to victory. The paladin that couldn't kill you with his hammer even if you went afk for an hour usually isn't the best approach to ensuring victory with an instant kill.

[Slats]

How do you do your targetting macros Ellay?

One of my bigggest problems in PvP is how slow focustarget is to update. I am curious as to how you do your macros - would be awesome to speed things up a bit.

[Ellay]

Focustarget and /assist work at the same speed. There will always be that 1 second maybe even 2 second delay for the target to udpate. I'd prefer to say 1 second but it feels like an eternity I know.
I have all of my characters using /focus instead of /assist, so if one dies I can switch easily by making another character the new main through focus.
Your main though does not need to utilize focus. Thus leaving it free to set as a primary target or secondary.
Other than that I target via tab targeting, clicking, pushing the I'm feeling lucky button (aka instant kill). It's always wonderful when someone flops and you never had the targeted due to /assist or /focus not updating fast enough or Chain Lightning arcing over and splashing them with wonderful colors.

[Boylston]

Maybe we need a "How does Ellay do it?" thread.

As for targeting, sounds like Ellay is NOT using the /cast [target=focustarget] type functionality a lot of us use, since he makes reference to picking one target and then switching to kill his focus.

I actually think Tab targeting (or selecting closest enemy) might be worth playing with some for arenas, or even some /target [target=focustarget] type functionality where you pick a target and stick with it. Tab targeting is nice because that delay isn't there as much, provided all your guys have the same nearest target (which is often the case).

Tell us more, Ellay!

[Boylston]

Your main though does not need to utilize focus. Thus leaving it free to set as a primary target or secondary.

Interesting. I have all my shammies set up with the exact set of macros/assist stuff. Probably because I didn't pick slightly different names, so I like the prospect of my "main" not being the character that they may think it is. I've even gone so far as sticking one of the alts out in front in world PvP situations where I know I'm gonna get jumped so that they pick him first.

What's the latest version of your instant CL macro? I'm considering making a separate one that just picks nearest target, trinkets, and goes boom. May avoid the assist delay issues.

[Ellay]

I still utilize the /cast [target=focustarget] functionality.

As for my macro layout on CL looks like this.

/cast Elemental Mastery
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Blood Fury(Racial)
/cast Icon of the Silver Crescent
/cast Battlemaster's Audacity
/cast Chain Lightning
/cast Attack

[Sanctume]

A charging Warrior hotkeyed to Shield Reflect. :)

[Diamndzngunz]

Wow Ellay thanks for explaining each class in an arena. I get a better understanding what I am up against.

My problem and for some reason I can not understand it to save my life is the whole /focus macro. I don't know how many time I have been told what focus does but for some stupid reason I still don't understand it, and seeing this I only know I am doomed to fail seeing I do a /target (toon) /assist. Damn.

[Ellay]

It's really not that difficult, in the macro you just said you can also drop the /target piece /assist does it for you.

Basically start off when you log in with /focus "main char name"

then on your other characters when you want to do an action it would look like this /cast [target=focustarget] and just add something to the end of it such at Lightning Bolt. So it would now look like this:
/cast [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt

Now say the main character dies, you push your macro button to /focus "second char name", now you can use all the same buttons and the are assisting the new main leader instead of having to have dozens of pages full of /assist macro's for each in case the main dies :)

[Ellay]

That would take too much time to achieve :( I usually blow a frostshock to kill the grounding or I drop 4 searing totems and run out of LoS, which will eat up their groundings and go in for the kill.

[Diamndzngunz]

It's really not that difficult, in the macro you just said you can also drop the /target piece /assist does it for you.

Basically start off when you log in with /focus "main char name"

then on your other characters when you want to do an action it would look like this /cast [target=focustarget] and just add something to the end of it such at Lightning Bolt. So it would now look like this:
/cast [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt

Now say the main character dies, you push your macro button to /focus "second char name", now you can use all the same buttons and the are assisting the new main leader instead of having to have dozens of pages full of /assist macro's for each in case the main dies :)Wow I get it now THANKS!

It took you explaining that with a visual for me to understand. thanks.

[Ripper]

Well, I don't want to spell out how to defeat a shaman team, since I have one myself. But there are ways to do it. Not very easy, but not too difficult either.

[crebble]

hello!

ive been runnin 4 shammys at 70 for a week and 2 days or so and havent done much pvp yet esp arena.
did 10 games last week with my girlfriends lock when i just dinged 70 and lost 9/10 due to gear and no effort in trying.
this week we did 10 games again (ofc) tho i switched her vengeful lock to a blue geared pala and won 5/5.
im not one of those that buy skills from others so i prefer to learn how to myself and sofar its been really nice what ive accomplished with my setup, ive fixed 100+ spirit shards and exalted lower city mace gladiator shoulders and chest, a couple of nicer blues etc etc. tomorrow ill grab my vindicator wrists aswell.

the thing with arena tho is that if they keep my main stunlocked/novad and the rest were behind me i would be a free kill.
also some teams mountrun to our entrance giving us 0 preparation and keep us feared nuking us down.
now im not uber elite and dont really have the gear for it atm but still its fun!

you,ll learn loads of things by trial and error such as using ES on 2 and FS on the other 2 since i dont need to earth shock with all... this way i get em slowed aswell.

havent either had any probs by EM/NS/CL going to groundings since they'll never have the reaction to drop it when i insta shoot it unless he was pressing it at the sec before me.

its wery nice tho to own a couple 5v5's with vengeful gear using mainly blues/greens myself 8)

/sticky

[Monkofdoom]

Ellay that was a great post with a lot of useful information, I know we have a lot of people playing different combinations and tactics like that are extremely useful to those who read them.

Perhaps we can add a pvp and pve tactics section and add it to it ? or even just class sections so people can discuss tactics like this for each class they play.