Five boxing shaman in 5v5 arena questions

[animalrights]

I have been strongly considering to pick up multi boxing soon after being burnt out of playing solo on a mediocre realm, I would do five shaman if I did and would pursue 5v5 arena. In regard to race I see orc picked often which is for the stun resist and blood fury? The trolls racial seems that it would be of good use in arena since your bursting and the 10-30% speed increase would help but I don't know if it outweighs the orc racials. I was very curious to if chain lightning could take out two enemies at once if they were close enough from a NS+EM+trinketed CL? It seems this should be possible with five shaman but can it be done with less? Lastly is it more beneficial to take a healer as your fifth or is it purely for social purposes? Thanks in advance!

[Sun]

offense is the best defense.

ele shamans ftw. Thats my opinion and im stickin to it. I believe that if ur good at PVP you should be good in PVE. People who have the occasional tanks or healers in their groups are setup for PVE IMO. Not knockin it...to each his own. I am assuming you want the firepower by choosing shamans. Well, I have tried the 5x warlocks and I am impressed at how deadly they can be. I like both groups though.

good luck on whatever you decide to box.

[Boylston]

Having a healing partner (i.e. another real human partner) is immensely helpful in 5v5. Allows both people to focus on their respective roles and you'll have a much easier time. Arena can happen fast and furious, and you'll be a good healer or a good DPSer, but not both...

Shock and awe is fine, but it'll be used against you as well and you'll be toast without a healing partner.

[Eteocles]

Speaking purely from 3boxing on the PTR tourny realm, I can vouch for the above statement regarding a non-boxed healer. in 3v3s I got decimated by any group with a healer; too much micro not enough dps and needs lots of movement to survive. In 5v5s I recruited a healer and misc 5th to go with my trios and we obliterated people because I didn't have to worry about healing or extra CC beyond grounding totems, the healer kept me healed and I burnt down anyone going after them if I could help it. 2 heads really are better than 1 :P

[Arryth]

I have been strongly considering to pick up multi boxing soon after being burnt out of playing solo on a mediocre realm, I would do five shaman if I did and would pursue 5v5 arena. In regard to race I see orc picked often which is for the stun resist and blood fury? The trolls racial seems that it would be of good use in arena since your bursting and the 10-30% speed increase would help but I don't know if it outweighs the orc racials. I was very curious to if chain lightning could take out two enemies at once if they were close enough from a NS+EM+trinketed CL? It seems this should be possible with five shaman but can it be done with less? Lastly is it more beneficial to take a healer as your fifth or is it purely for social purposes? Thanks in advance! I have not reached arena yet with my team, but enhancement was alot of fun in the 40's bracket. Storm strike x5 and windfury was just sick.. 42's just should not be able to one shot 49 twinks. ;)

[animalrights]

Sounds like a healer makes a noticeable difference then, I'm assuming since you (Boylston) and Aelli both take one in arena its the optimal balance. One of the biggest things I'm still wondering has to do with chain lightning. After purging a target, if this is even needed when fully geared/gemmed, will EM+NS+CL always instagib? I read in your blog Boylston that their is a point where CL has a 95% kill rate, so most likely that fifth shaman will only hurt you? Also what about The Lightning Capacitor? If you can successfully hit three people with your EM+NS+CL combo, thats a guaranteed proc off of The Lightning Capacitor to hit the last person to receive the conclusion of your CL, and at 694-806 per bolt it seems that would do some damage! Does the battlemaster trinket beat The Lightning Capacitor in overall usefulness with its 1750 life trinket. Lastly, will spell haste be the new hot thing since it will affect the global cooldown?

[StormClouds]

Sounds like a healer makes a noticeable difference then, I'm assuming since you (Boylston) and Aelli both take one in arena its the optimal balance. One of the biggest things I'm still wondering has to do with chain lightning. After purging a target, if this is even needed when fully geared/gemmed, will EM+NS+CL always instagib? I read in your blog Boylston that their is a point where CL has a 95% kill rate, so most likely that fifth shaman will only hurt you? Also what about The Lightning Capacitor? If you can successfully hit three people with your EM+NS+CL combo, thats a guaranteed proc off of The Lightning Capacitor to hit the last person to receive the conclusion of your CL, and at 694-806 per bolt it seems that would do some damage! Does the battlemaster trinket beat The Lightning Capacitor in overall usefulness with its 1750 life trinket. Lastly, will spell haste be the new hot thing since it will affect the global cooldown?actually it isnt, lightning capacitor has a cooldown on adding charges on it for reasons like this (and warlock Soc) you can not proc it off of 1 spell cast

[animalrights]

Having a healing partner (i.e. another real human partner) is immensely helpful in 5v5. Allows both people to focus on their respective roles and you'll have a much easier time. Arena can happen fast and furious, and you'll be a good healer or a good DPSer, but not both...

Shock and awe is fine, but it'll be used against you as well and you'll be toast without a healing partner.Sounds like a healer makes a noticeable difference then, I'm assuming since you and Aelli both take one in arena its the optimal balance. One of the biggest things I'm still wondering has to do with chain lightning. After purging a target, if this is even needed when fully geared/gemmed, will EM+NS+CL always instagib? I read in your blog that their is a point where CL has a 95% kill rate, so most likely that fifth shaman will only hurt you? Also what about The Lightning Capacitor? If you can successfully hit three people with your EM+NS+CL combo, thats a guaranteed proc off of The Lightning Capacitor to hit the last person to receive the conclusion of your CL, and at 694-806 per bolt that does some damage! Not to mention if you ever happened to run OOM you could spam rank 1 lightning bolt at 1 second a cast (with talent) and still do moderate dps from capacitor procs. I'm assuming the battlemaster trinket beats The Lightning Capacitor in overall usefulness with its 1750 life trinket and sustained dps. Lastly, will spell haste be the new hot thing since it will affect the global cooldown?

[animalrights]

Sounds like a healer makes a noticeable difference then, I'm assuming since you (Boylston) and Aelli both take one in arena its the optimal balance. One of the biggest things I'm still wondering has to do with chain lightning. After purging a target, if this is even needed when fully geared/gemmed, will EM+NS+CL always instagib? I read in your blog Boylston that their is a point where CL has a 95% kill rate, so most likely that fifth shaman will only hurt you? Also what about The Lightning Capacitor? If you can successfully hit three people with your EM+NS+CL combo, thats a guaranteed proc off of The Lightning Capacitor to hit the last person to receive the conclusion of your CL, and at 694-806 per bolt it seems that would do some damage! Does the battlemaster trinket beat The Lightning Capacitor in overall usefulness with its 1750 life trinket. Lastly, will spell haste be the new hot thing since it will affect the global cooldown?actually it isnt, lightning capacitor has a cooldown on adding charges on it for reasons like this (and warlock Soc) you can not proc it off of 1 spell castI was reading the description on wowwiki and i took it as you couldnt fire off a bolt more than once every 2.5 seconds, so its actually you cannot build a charge more than once every 2.5 seconds?

This is from wowwiki: This item was changed in Patch 2.3 ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_2.3'). It now has a 2.5 second cooldown after each lightning bolt. The tooltip is quite misleading. It is actually meant to be "cannot be discharged more than once every 2.5 seconds".

From this definition I can only conclude that it is after every bolt that their is a 2.5 cooldown, as it does not say electrical charge ?(

[Lightning Capacitor] ('http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Lightning_Capacitor'): This item now has a 2.5 second cooldown on acquiring Electrical Charges. I just went through the actual patch notes and it is 2.5 seconds between each electrical charge, bummer :wacko:

[Fear The Wrath]

although i have only done 5v5 with 5 shaman [have tried 4 shaman + healer] id say i love the 5 shaman idea! its great and pwns if you know how to play:/
but then again having 4 shaman on the pure offense and a dedicated healer seems very tempting too8D

[StormClouds]

Ya animalrights ('index.php?page=User&userID=6020') as my main is a warlock, I was rather bummed when that got changed seeing it proc at least once if not multiple times off a well placed seed of corruption was really cool.

[Boylston]

Sounds like a healer makes a noticeable difference then, I'm assuming since you and Aelli both take one in arena its the optimal balance. One of the biggest things I'm still wondering has to do with chain lightning. After purging a target, if this is even needed when fully geared/gemmed, will EM+NS+CL always instagib? I read in your blog that their is a point where CL has a 95% kill rate, so most likely that fifth shaman will only hurt you? Also what about The Lightning Capacitor? If you can successfully hit three people with your EM+NS+CL combo, thats a guaranteed proc off of The Lightning Capacitor to hit the last person to receive the conclusion of your CL, and at 694-806 per bolt that does some damage! Not to mention if you ever happened to run OOM you could spam rank 1 lightning bolt at 1 second a cast (with talent) and still do moderate dps from capacitor procs. I'm assuming the battlemaster trinket beats The Lightning Capacitor in overall usefulness with its 1750 life trinket and sustained dps. Lastly, will spell haste be the new hot thing since it will affect the global cooldown?4xPurge has really helped me. It should be obvious to most folks, but I wasn't using it in arenas a whole lot at first. I still don't purge much in BGs unless I really want to piss off Disc Priests and Resto Druids. I will generally do a 4xPurge from my first target so it is at a baseline of 11-14,000 HP.

4xEM+NS+Trinket+CL is not always an instant-kill, especially not in arenas against geared opponents. You can find folks in sub-optimal PvP gear in BGs and one-shot them if their health is below 12,000 or so, but this doesn't generally work in arenas. Resilience impacts crit damage, and people are using better gear, so there's many folks that the 4xEM+NS+CL button won't kill. What you use that combo for is finishing off a player before the healer(s) can land a big enough heal to save them. If after my first cast (or two) of lightning bolts, I see a target at 60% health or so, I can then pop the combo to finish them off. (Your mileage will vary based off Spell Damage and the HP of the target).

5xShamans would certainly be better for damage. It's not that 4xShamans is already "enough to insta-gib"... it's just that having a separate, dedicated healer allows you to keep 4 characters DPSing more efficiently and with better focus (no macro pun intended!). I would love to run a 5xShaman, 1xPally setup in a 6v5 arena situation-- the extra damage would be great!

Based off my admittedly limited experience, I think 5xShamans are going to result in the following:

1.) Match starts
2.) You draw first blood, killing someone very fast with 5 focused attacks
3.) You may even kill a second very quickly
4.) Things start to go downhill as multiple shammies are being CCed and/or DPSed down
5.) You lose a shammy or two, unable to effectively heal AND DPS now
6.) The other team is able to come back from an early setback and win

OR... Variation B...

1.) Match starts
2.) You draw first blood, killing someone very fast with 5 focused attacks
3.) You may even kill a second very quickly
4.) The other team resurrects, because they have two healers and you (partnerless) are unable to keep two of them in combat
5.) You lose


Incidentally, these are exactly the loss mechanisms that I am trying to overcome currently, even with a Pally+4xShammy setup. We have gotten much better about the dealing with rez, though. These types of losses will really haunt you as a 5xShaman, though.

At first glance, it seems impossible that a team could kill 2 fast and still lose with a 5v3 matchup, but it happens a lot. You may kill a couple quick, but the other team will have been busy and your team will be in sad shape.

If I had Ellay's gear level and Spell Damage (I'm probably at least 1500 +Dmg behind him, team-wise), I think I could be pulling off an 1850ish rating. He is definitely more skilled than I am, no doubt about it. If I had Ellay's gear and was running 5xShamans, I think maintaining 1700 would be a stretch.

A lot of conjecture on my part, but I think you'd be better off grabbing a healer partner and rotating your 5 shamans through games in a 4+1 configuration.


This tool may help you with Resilience/Spell Damage/Crit theorycrafting for a variety of spells you'll cast in PvP with 4 shaman: Boylston's Theorycrafting Tool ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=6318') It has at least help me understand a little better what another 100 Spell Damage / Shaman will do to my overall killing capability. (see Notes page for some model limitations that slightly overstate some conditions).

[animalrights]

Sounds like a healer makes a noticeable difference then, I'm assuming since you and Aelli both take one in arena its the optimal balance. One of the biggest things I'm still wondering has to do with chain lightning. After purging a target, if this is even needed when fully geared/gemmed, will EM+NS+CL always instagib? I read in your blog that their is a point where CL has a 95% kill rate, so most likely that fifth shaman will only hurt you? Also what about The Lightning Capacitor? If you can successfully hit three people with your EM+NS+CL combo, thats a guaranteed proc off of The Lightning Capacitor to hit the last person to receive the conclusion of your CL, and at 694-806 per bolt that does some damage! Not to mention if you ever happened to run OOM you could spam rank 1 lightning bolt at 1 second a cast (with talent) and still do moderate dps from capacitor procs. I'm assuming the battlemaster trinket beats The Lightning Capacitor in overall usefulness with its 1750 life trinket and sustained dps. Lastly, will spell haste be the new hot thing since it will affect the global cooldown?4xPurge has really helped me. It should be obvious to most folks, but I wasn't using it in arenas a whole lot at first. I still don't purge much in BGs unless I really want to piss off Disc Priests and Resto Druids. I will generally do a 4xPurge from my first target so it is at a baseline of 11-14,000 HP.

4xEM+NS+Trinket+CL is not always an instant-kill, especially not in arenas against geared opponents. You can find folks in sub-optimal PvP gear in BGs and one-shot them if their health is below 12,000 or so, but this doesn't generally work in arenas. Resilience impacts crit damage, and people are using better gear, so there's many folks that the 4xEM+NS+CL button won't kill. What you use that combo for is finishing off a player before the healer(s) can land a big enough heal to save them. If after my first cast (or two) of lightning bolts, I see a target at 60% health or so, I can then pop the combo to finish them off. (Your mileage will vary based off Spell Damage and the HP of the target).

5xShamans would certainly be better for damage. It's not that 4xShamans is already "enough to insta-gib"... it's just that having a separate, dedicated healer allows you to keep 4 characters DPSing more efficiently and with better focus (no macro pun intended!). I would love to run a 5xShaman, 1xPally setup in a 6v5 arena situation-- the extra damage would be great!

Based off my admittedly limited experience, I think 5xShamans are going to result in the following:

1.) Match starts
2.) You draw first blood, killing someone very fast with 5 focused attacks
3.) You may even kill a second very quickly
4.) Things start to go downhill as multiple shammies are being CCed and/or DPSed down
5.) You lose a shammy or two, unable to effectively heal AND DPS now
6.) The other team is able to come back from an early setback and win

OR... Variation B...

1.) Match starts
2.) You draw first blood, killing someone very fast with 5 focused attacks
3.) You may even kill a second very quickly
4.) The other team resurrects, because they have two healers and you (partnerless) are unable to keep two of them in combat
5.) You lose


Incidentally, these are exactly the loss mechanisms that I am trying to overcome currently, even with a Pally+4xShammy setup. We have gotten much better about the dealing with rez, though. These types of losses will really haunt you as a 5xShaman, though.

At first glance, it seems impossible that a team could kill 2 fast and still lose with a 5v3 matchup, but it happens a lot. You may kill a couple quick, but the other team will have been busy and your team will be in sad shape.

If I had Ellay's gear level and Spell Damage (I'm probably at least 1500 +Dmg behind him, team-wise), I think I could be pulling off an 1850ish rating. He is definitely more skilled than I am, no doubt about it. If I had Ellay's gear and was running 5xShamans, I think maintaining 1700 would be a stretch.

A lot of conjecture on my part, but I think you'd be better off grabbing a healer partner and rotating your 5 shamans through games in a 4+1 configuration.


This tool may help you with Resilience/Spell Damage/Crit theorycrafting for a variety of spells you'll cast in PvP with 4 shaman: Boylston's Theorycrafting Tool ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=6318') It has at least help me understand a little better what another 100 Spell Damage / Shaman will do to my overall killing capability. (see Notes page for some model limitations that slightly overstate some conditions).Typically how much HP do you subtract off a target when fighting a well geared, FOTM 5v5 arena team?

If you were to use the 4xNS+EM+CL when fully geared in s3 + vindicators + gems, what would a purged targets remaining hp be in most cases? Would it be that much different with that extra fifth shaman?

That was always something I was wondering regarding burning down one or two of the opposing team and then them possibly having a comeback. Does this have to do with expending your NS+EM+CL combo? I never took a second at all to think that they could get a rez off, is it because it's that much harder to multi task and make sure they are in combat?

How important is taking NS in your build? Is it unrealistic to consider picking up totem of wrath? The 15% crit and hit would hurt your instant burst capability, but make up in sustained burst (kek) from a significantly higher crit chance it seems, as well as being more efficient via more Elemental Focus procs, not to mention minor changes regarding spell hit where you could put one more point from Elemental Precision into Unrelenting Storm for more effeciency, and throw a resist enchant on your cape in place of spell penetration, plausible?

I'll take a look at that theorycrafting tool thanks!

[Boylston]

If you were to use the 4xNS+EM+CL when fully geared in s3 + vindicators + gems, what would a purged targets remaining hp be in most cases? Depends on their gear and class. The big combo still won't kill a fully purged target unless they're undergeared.



Does this have to do with expending your NS+EM+CL combo? Somewhat. It has more to do with the incoming damage you're receiving. Good teams can have me losing a shammy or two fairly quickly, and if my healer isn't perfect, there's going to be a death or two. Then things go downhill...



I never took a second at all to think that they could get a rez off, is it because it's that much harder to multi task and make sure they are in combat?
Yeah, you're not going to keep track of and lock out two rezzers by yourself as effectively as you can with two independently-controlled characters.


I did a big write-up on ToW from a theorycrafting perspective. You need NS for the big kill combo that makes shaman so effective. However, ToW will effectively neutralize a lot of the benefits of high resilience. If you're just going to hover near 1500 and like ToW for PvE, you can probably get away with not respeccing for arena. If you're at all serious about arena, 40/21 is the way to go.