Anyone else (besides Ellay) have success with 4 shaman + other DPS?

[Darm]

I know that Ellay has had success with his 4 shaman + a friend playing a warrior in 5v5 Arena. Anyone else had some success with the fifth team member playing a non-healer?

I've been fiddling around with 4 shaman plus a friend playing a rogue, and we've had a bit of a rough time. Part of it, I'm sure, is my fault and spending time getting more comfortable with running 4 shamans in Arena.

Our theorycraft behind the setup was that the 4 shaman + totems would be such a huge distraction to the other team, that the rogue would enjoy relative free reign to go to town on secondary targets.

So far, the execution hasn't matched our expectations. This setup has been all about burst, of course, and there have been a few times that it was great. The rogue nearly insta-killing a non-soul link Warlock, and my shaman blasting a hunter. Losing two people right out the gate is very demoralizing, and then it's just a mop up. In general, it seems like I need to do at least a little healing, which means our DPS often drops quite a bit, and that seems to shift the whole fight dynamic into the other team's favor. If I'm not DPS'ing, the enemy healers have some breathing room to do things that make winning even more difficult -- cyclone, mana burn to name two.

The alternative that we haven't tried is to have the rogue hang back amongst the totems, and let him stunlock/DPS whatever melee charges in. I'm concerned that is a more passive approach, and with an essentially 5 DPS crew I'm not sure passivity is the way to go.

As Arenas get more and more sophisticated, I'm starting to think that at least 1 dedicated healer is the way to go, but then whenever I think that I'm reminded about Ellay and his warrior friend proving otherwise.

Anyway, who else has had some success in 5v5 with 4 shaman + another DPS? And by success, I don't necessarily mean getting to 2k. Heck, I think getting to 1700 with 5 DPS would be quite noteworthy.

[Bravo]

have 1645 with just my 5 girls, I MIGHT try to get a healer, I have a pally on my team but do better with out him, so I haven't asked him to help out for a few weeks

[BobGnarly]

I haven't multiboxed a 5dps team before, but I've done it just playing one toon - here's some thoughts.

5 dps is a "shock and awe" campaign. You want to hit them hard and fast, and hopefully take them off guard. In fact, when I play on one (or see one play against us), we (they) mount right up before the match and ride right over to us, again, vying for a surprise element. I won't say 5dps can't be effective without doing this, but you lose (at least what I consider to be) a big part of your advantage once they figure out that you're 5 dps because they can prepare for you. Obviously, mounting up and riding into the opponent isn't what a shaman multiboxer wants to do since you'll be without totems.

The other thing is, as you go up the ladder, you'll find better geared opponents. As this becomes true, you'll have more trouble insta-killing one target. They will also be a better coordinated team. All of this means you might not get that first guy down so easy, they will be on you, and without a healer you're going to be in a bad position.

That's my thoughts anyway. Good luck with the team.

[Ellay]

Using a DPS you will need to utilize healing quite effectively, and that DPS needs to bring a lot to the table to render out a Healer.

Also depending on how high you go up the ladder, the more insane it is in terms of your opposing team knowing what is coming and having a plan to counter you.
A lot of the high ranked teams after the first match up if they lose will load up a lvl 1 alt on your server or Horde/Alliance side to find out if your in the same game as them. People do everything possible to gain an edge ><
For instance I have had high rated teams completely swap out their entire roster just to try and beat me, it went from a Triple Melee DPS team to Triple SL/SL gnome Warlocks lol, it was an amazingly painful fight but still managed to win 30 minutes later on both games.

[Darm]

Thanks for the replies.

We're not doing that well, so I'd really be flatterring myself to think that other people would stoop to scouting with level 1 alts to avoid us.

More theorycraft: We were hoping/expecting that since the enemy would see 4 shaman, and wouldn't see the rogue, they would assume the fifth member of the team is a stealthed resto druid. But, perhaps the lack of a Mark of the Wild is a giveaway there.

I guess I have a lot of theorycraft about *why* I think 4 shaman + rogue should be effective, but I don't have much empirical proof as yet. Indeed, if this experience continues I'll have some proof of the opposite.

As Ellay says, perhaps the cost/benefit for a 5th DPS just doesn't work when comparing the lost benefit from a pocket healer. A stealthed rogue might be great, but even with enormous burst, some healing is going to be called for. I guess one question for Ellay is -- when you were playing the 4 shaman + warrior, did you do anything that much different from your instructional video?

I'm still curious if other 5 DPS multibox groups have worked, and naturally if a 4 shaman + rogue multiboxer is out there reading this, it'd be interesting to hear their take on things.

[Ellay]

I'd say our journey to 2k rating with the Warrior was pretty lucky, we did beat some really good teams. After hitting 2k though we dropped down to 1900's~ the following week and sort of stopped there.

It's mostly the same style but you need to be more offensive and not allow them to think of a plan because the combo has a lot more weakness's to it. With a Warrior I would have him rush in and bait them out and lay a few heals to top him off then switch off for a kill, then back to heal and switch off for the kill.

I never got to push rogue very far, we stopped early with only 1 loss at maybe 1800 rating but it was quite effective with the stun lock. After that opener though if you didn't drop anyone, it's tough to pull it back from the disadvantage.