5 Shaman vs 4 Warlocks and Priest?

[Texic]

Its time for me to start my 5 boxing adventure but I am stuck on this class dilemma.

5 Shaman -
Totems.. Yay totems!
Chain Heal is sweet with 5 shaman
5 Bloodlust/Heroism's at 70
5 Tank and Dps "pets" at 70
Self Rez + Rez
Ability to do heroics to some degree as shown by xbox
Ability to do decent in 5v5 arenas

4 Warlocks and a Priest -
Soulstones + Rez = win
4 Tank pets
Constant healing = unlimited mana
4 sets of dots will make anyone cry

I think the shaman could be more fun overall however dots are amazing for runners :)

Leveling wise I think the warlocks and priest have an advantage for instances with pets as tanks but when you hit 70 I don't think the pets will stay viable tanks.

I would also think horde is almost required because of their racial abilities.. Wotf and warstomp not to mention they have an instance at level 14ish.

I'm curious to hear from people on both ends that are currently boxing these combos and how they feel playing and what they like or dislike about the combos.

[MrLonghair]

How high quality gear can you get for the shamans once they reach 70? Xbox's got some really nice stuff. Five-Shaman PvP has more visual Oompf to it in PvP than 4lock1priest, but you have to do a bit more work to kill people.

Personally I think it's up to wether you'll want to run instances and heroics on your own for farming gold and gear, or if you want to be a god in pvp and AE farm with coordinated Seed spamming warlocks.

[Texic]

I think my whole attraction to 5 boxing is the ability to run my own group. I think pve viability is just as important to me as pvp in terms of just being able to get gear once I hit 70.
Warlocks + Priest is definitely better for pvp but I think the shaman allow more options for pvp and pve.

I guess really what I can't decide over for shaman is whether to go tauren or draenei. Tauren's warstomp and extra HP would be great but then again so would the +spell hit and 5x free heal.

[unit187]

If you want shamans I would suggest team of tankadin or dr00d + 4 shamans.

For example, myself I have taken a druid and 4 shammy. Feral druid can tank any instance with shamans' totems helping - thats great help for tanking. And you can go respecc to boomkin and pwn in pvp. Thats 4 totems of wrath (3% crit/hit each, which is 3x4=12 +5% crit boomin aura, so it is 17% +crit :)).

Talking about race. Draenei racial +hit will become useless when u will have 12% (or 15% if u go 5 shamans) hit. With you +hit from gear it will be maxed +hit already I think.

Free heal... it would be good if it would be insta cast. No way I would rely on it :)

Taurens give additional hp which is insanely good, especially when you are using pvp gear with lots of stamina.
War stop is nice as well to stop rogues, mages who try to aoe you, etc.

[Texic]

I'm thinking Tauren are the way to go. Not to mention 5 cows running at anyone can be kinda scary. I think I will go with 5 shaman though over a tank of any sort. I think with the damage output I can avoid really needing to tank in some situations and shaman where mail (at 40) and have shields anyway and at 70 using rock elementals as much as possible will work too. If not I have a level 51 be pally I could switch in later on.

[unit187]

When you reach heroic stage, you wont be able to stay against some of those insane mobs hitting you longer then like 3-4 hits and will have to kite. Some bosses will be doable but not all.
Tho you wont be able to do some encounters with this team.

And after all it depends on your play style. Personally I wouldnt go for kiting, I prefer tanking :)

[Texic]

Well I think doing any heroics 5 boxing is a huge challenge whether you have a tank or not and I don't expect to be able to do all of them but just enough to make it interesting.

[Xzin]

5 Shammys was not as good as I thought it would have been in PvP.

PvE it is probably stronger than locks or mages.

The inability to do burst damage past the chain lightning, shock gimmick and the fact that their mana pool drains quicker and they don't have anything but trinkets to deal with fear......

Once people get up in your face it is tough to react. Mages and locks can AoE.

Shammys can't.

[unit187]

what about 5x tremor against fear?

[Xzin]

You actually only need one.

So with a clever macro, you could trinket on ONE shammy and then have him immediately drop a tremor.

The tremor pulses though, so sometimes it can take up to 5 seconds to pulse and it all to register.

Which kind of defeats the purpose.

With WOTF, if you are quick on the trigger - you are unfeared in under a second.

[unit187]

well, you dont have any other use for earth totem besides earthbind so you can just drop 4-5 tremors. That many tremors will dispel any fear under 1-2 seconds

[Xzin]

Ok, but how to drop when you are feared on all 5?

Can only trinket every 2 minutes.

[Texic]

Well I have a 70 draenei shaman who is pretty well gear and can put out some massive burst damage and even then his lightning bolts crit for 3-3.5k so image 5 of those. I guess how I see it is at 70 you will need gear to be decent and being limited to mostly pvp it's going to take awhile to collect a decent set. Also as a tauren anyone gets close and all you need to do is warstomp to get some distance or just to get off a cast.
Every combo has its advantages and disadvantages so it's hard to decide..

One question though.. you can dot without facing the person can't you? I guess thats a huge problem for a shaman if you have someone running in circles around you.

[Xzin]

Yes, dots can be cast no matter what direction you are facing.

Same with priest heals.

Don't expect to do much melee damage with elemental shammys.... and they don't have wands.

[raylion]

My shammies are 48 and have cleared pretty much every instance so far (Princess in Mara is a pain so far though, have yet to down her but she is lvl 51 :-) ). They are all elemental (with a little enhancement) and they tend to steal aggro from each other while fighting so spreading the damage isn't too bad and the 5 x healing totems is most welcome.

But....mana is becoming a problem in boss fights so I generally start off meleeing until about 75% and then start with spells if I know if I'm in for a longish fight.

I'm really, really hoping the upcoming shaman review (2.3 possibly) will sort a lot of the mana problems out although it looks like it might be more an enhancement review.

I'm on a PVE server though so PVP isn't a prime consideration for me, I plan to do AV and maybe try my hand in arena but I suspect I'll get my butt handed to me in arena a few times until I find my feet!

For PVE though, shammies seem to do quite well, will have to wait and see how heroics go but watching the Xbox vids gives me hope :-)

[unit187]

Ok, but how to drop when you are feared on all 5?

Can only trinket every 2 minutes.

I have 70 lvl draenei shammy. So what I did I do? drop totems when I see a char of class which can fear. Basically, a fight starts with position myself somewhere and growing up totem forest.

So when u have 4-5 shamans, you get a position in middle of the battlefield, drop totems and start demolishing everything around totems. 30 yard range talent would be more then useful. After all you drop tremor totem each time you start a fight.

[unit187]

My shammies are 48 and have cleared pretty much every instance so far (Princess in Mara is a pain so far though, have yet to down her but she is lvl 51 :-) ). They are all elemental (with a little enhancement) and they tend to steal aggro from each other while fighting so spreading the damage isn't too bad and the 5 x healing totems is most welcome.

But....mana is becoming a problem in boss fights so I generally start off meleeing until about 75% and then start with spells if I know if I'm in for a longish fight.

I'm really, really hoping the upcoming shaman review (2.3 possibly) will sort a lot of the mana problems out although it looks like it might be more an enhancement review.

I'm on a PVE server though so PVP isn't a prime consideration for me, I plan to do AV and maybe try my hand in arena but I suspect I'll get my butt handed to me in arena a few times until I find my feet!

For PVE though, shammies seem to do quite well, will have to wait and see how heroics go but watching the Xbox vids gives me hope :-)
hm, crits restore mana (60% of spellcast mana used) + mana spring. So when u have 70 lvl avg. spellcrit 25% + 15% (17% in case u've got boomkin like I do) from totems of warth, thats 40% crit. Dont tell me it wont keep you at full mana.

[Xzin]

Ugh .... but then you become one of these:

http://www.ciberstar.galeon.com/starcraft/terran/ter7b.gif

Not as mobile as warlocks/priest and certainly not as mobile as mages/priest.

So if things to bad and you get swarmed.. I guess you can run and drop totems but it seems like a drawback to have to dig yourself in in order to fight.

[Xzin]

In AV when I did Shammys, I ran out of mana. Of course - buying water and drinking will GREATLY help with that - but I still found myself coming up empty mid fight quite a few times.

And an elemental shammy.... with no mana.... is as good as dead.

[unit187]

Ugh .... but then you become one of these:

http://www.ciberstar.galeon.com/starcraft/terran/ter7b.gif

Not as mobile as warlocks/priest and certainly not as mobile as mages/priest.

So if things to bad and you get swarmed.. I guess you can run and drop totems but it seems like a drawback to have to dig yourself in in order to fight.
so true, u become less mobile but thats not actually stops you. It takes like 3 seconds to place needed totems and start the fight. If u see enemies incoming, you dig yourself with all kind of totems which takes 6 seconds roughly and become very tough :)

if things go bad, you just drop tremors and earthbinds, poison cleansing if a rogue attacks and escape, throwing 1.5 sec cast chain lightnings and FROSTSHAWK!'s. Then you stop, spend 2 seconds on totem placing and become siege tank ;)

[raylion]

hm, crits restore mana (60% of spellcast mana used) + mana spring. So when u have 70 lvl avg. spellcrit 25% + 15% (17% in case u've got boomkin like I do) from totems of warth, thats 40% crit. Dont tell me it wont keep you at full mana.

Ooooh...I didn't realise that Totem of Wrath stacked...looks like I'll be respeccing soon then ;-)

[unit187]

hm, crits restore mana (60% of spellcast mana used) + mana spring. So when u have 70 lvl avg. spellcrit 25% + 15% (17% in case u've got boomkin like I do) from totems of warth, thats 40% crit. Dont tell me it wont keep you at full mana.

Ooooh...I didn't realise that Totem of Wrath stacked...looks like I'll be respeccing soon then ;-)
well at least I heard they stack, my shamans are lvl 20 yet

[Shogun]

hm, crits restore mana (60% of spellcast mana used) + mana spring. So when u have 70 lvl avg. spellcrit 25% + 15% (17% in case u've got boomkin like I do) from totems of warth, thats 40% crit. Dont tell me it wont keep you at full mana.

Ooooh...I didn't realise that Totem of Wrath stacked...looks like I'll be respeccing soon then ;-)
well at least I heard they stack, my shamans are lvl 20 yet

They do stack, I confirmed this when I was considering 5 shamis. The racial +hit on Draenai does not though, shame. The spell power totem also does not stack, as far as I know the mana/health regen totems don't either

[unit187]

mana totem doesnt

health totem does

[Xzin]

Totem of wrath is nice but I am unusually running TOWARDS people not away. They tend to be the ones running away.

Frost shock can be nice for that but still.

Nothing beats 4x blink + frost nova :)

[unit187]

well imo chain lightning with totem of wrath and stuff beats fireballs etc. :)

actually if you look deep enough you can find shamans perfect in pvp, it is just alot different then mages but not less effective

you are basically spamming chain lightning, destroying everything and execute them with shocks, ofc shocks with talent that lowers c/d, +fire nova to all survivors. Meanwhile you must have good use of totems because it is like half power of shamans. Good timing of totems make them very powerful things.


PS. 5x grounding totem spamming oO invulnerability to spells

[Slats]

Yeah I am worried about LoS issues.

First thing I'll be doing once all my hardware arrives is test out 5 Shaman Combo vs Warlocks / Priest.

The thing that puts me off about Warlocks (and I play one as my main) is they dont have the burst dmg. Yes all the dots are nice, but you give people time to work out whats going on and start healing through your dps target.

As long as I can do SOME Heroics on 5x Shamans I am keen to farm the tokens for PvP gear (Sheild/Icon Trinket etc), but my main focus will be 5vs Arena and BG PvP.

To be honest I will probably start both teams - but Dranei Shaman is what I will focus on I *think* as I play Alliance. My other team I would roll as horde probably on Magtheridon and level on rested XP.

All my hardware arrives on Tuesday except monitors and PC's. =) Heehee!

[l0de]

I think the lock\priest combo is the way to go. So much synergy!

[unit187]

The thing that puts me off about Warlocks (and I play one as my main) is they dont have the burst dmg. Yes all the dots are nice, but you give people time to work out whats going on and start healing through your dps target.


I"m thinking 4x shadowburn (destro talent that eats a soul shard) would be pretty nasty, follow up by four (in sequence) death coils....

And by that time you'd have them all dotted up as well.

Of course the cooldowns would make that not work all the time, but its a great "get out of death free" card you can play.
ye so many cooldowns... also burning death coils cooldowns on 1 target isnt good enough

[Los]

hmm immolate conflag ftw, i like my locks destro ;), also destro is one of the best pve specs for a lock now a days

[Xzin]

If you guys really want to know for sure - make characters on the PTRs.

I spent over 30 hours testing shammys and mages in 5 and 10 boxing configurations.

Shammys in theory are so much better.

In practice and in real PvP (I did not test PvE) - the mages were FAR superior in both shortness of downtime, ability to insta gib, ability to instant shield and heal and increased mobility (blink, invis).

Granted, I have 2 years of playing mages under my belt and I am already a bit biased towards mages anyway but honestly.... the shammys were not anywhere near as good as I would have imagined. Even with some upgrades of macros and more practice.... I still see them as weaker than mages/priest in large scale PvP. In arenas and PvE situations - that may very well be a different story.

[l0de]

How do you feel about locks vs mages in terms of the 4+priest setup xzin?

I feel like locks really offer a lot more versatility, and of course there's the insanity of having four warlocks run around laying whole sets of dots, (along with coex\cot) on a target and staying in motion). While mages have better burst, I'm a big fan of the lock utility, especially in terms of having 5 instant cast aoe fears, the ability to regen mana through lifetap and dark pact etc. Also you eliminate positioning from the equation alltogether. If you're using keyclone, feers and death coils on round robin is pretty spectacular, and you can continue doing damage while they're up.

I have a ton of priest and lock experience, but no real mage experience (other than a quick stab at boxing them which I found to be excrutiatingly boring). So I'm probably biased.

[Xzin]

Mages are deadly in mass PvP.
Warlocks are better suited for single targets one after another.


Locks have a lot of utility but that is a lot of micromanagement. You can do it with the right keybinds though.

Locks are easier to level up and they do have some tankage in the form of VWs... of course succubi/fels for PvP.

It comes down to a matter of choice really. Do you want to wtfown in AoE mass PvP situations or have a bit more utility?

I think I am over simplifying things but the general concept is sound. You can't go "wrong" with either choice but unless you spec destro and go Hellfire..... you will have a hard time AoEing in PvP with locks.

I think the biggest drawback that locks have is their DoTs. They can cast them endlessly but people can and will react - heal or move out of the way. I would rather have the opponent dead (mages) than dotted but still fighting and healing (locks). Shadowburn is also bugged such that you rarely get back all 4 soulshards so you have to constantly farm for them - not viable in PvP.

Perhaps if you combined an ice specced mage with imp blizzard with 3x warlocks for hellfire you MIGHT have a viable setup but again.... you have to hunker down and dig in..... you can't move around like you can with mages. In PvP - when people get hit by AoE - they VERY QUICKLY get the hell out of there. Being able to move around and cast IAE helps so much.

In arenas.... not so sure. Locks have more hit points and more CC but much less burst. Perhaps if you went Affliction and dotted and unstable afflictioned.... you MIGHT be able to pick people off 1 at a time... but to do so with 2 - 4 people beating on you AND 2 - 3 healers healing their dotted guys........ I am not sure how well that is going to go. Arenas are tough once you get to the 1900+ level.

[l0de]

I don't think 5 boxing for arena is really viable other than just eeking out at the 1600 range for the gear in a few months. Don't forget the ole seed of corruption though, it's serious business stacked in groups of 4.

[Xzin]

It also goes off in one tick.

But it - like chain lightning - requires people to be clumped.

They tend to clump together within 20 - 30 yards but generally not as close as one might expect (or need for SoC/CL).

[Slats]

I think I will level up both.

I am really torn between mages/priest and shaman.

Is there any way that mages could do heroics?

Even a few bosses to farm tokens for items needed for PvP (trinkets etc).

-Slats

[unit187]

I think I will level up both.

I am really torn between mages/priest and shaman.

Is there any way that mages could do heroics?

Even a few bosses to farm tokens for items needed for PvP (trinkets etc).

-Slats
mages and priest cant, they will be 1 shotted by any boss

[Ztar]

hm, crits restore mana (60% of spellcast mana used) + mana spring. So when u have 70 lvl avg. spellcrit 25% + 15% (17% in case u've got boomkin like I do) from totems of warth, thats 40% crit. Dont tell me it wont keep you at full mana.

How does crit restore 60% mana? is that always how it works or is it talents or what?

// Z

[Bena]

When you get a crit from you flash light/holy light you get 60% of your mana back (it was 100 but they nerfed it :(). So if your FL costs 180mana when it crits you get 108 back.

[unit187]

hm, crits restore mana (60% of spellcast mana used) + mana spring. So when u have 70 lvl avg. spellcrit 25% + 15% (17% in case u've got boomkin like I do) from totems of warth, thats 40% crit. Dont tell me it wont keep you at full mana.

How does crit restore 60% mana? is that always how it works or is it talents or what?

// Z
I was a bit mistaken. When an elemental shaman does spellcrit it reduces cost of next damage spell by 60%. Clearcasting talent.

[Ztar]

ah now it makes sence... :D

[doc]

i'm going with the shammies, however, i'm considering adding a mage to the mix,, so 1mage+4 shammies..

i will play mage as main with shamies as support tankers and healers
the mage is there to cut down on the mana downtime with summon water.. CC and be able to AOE DPS on the run.

is this combo viable

and could it stack up in pve and pvp.. and how well can it kite in heroics..
ive seen Xbox do well with 5shammies.. and i just though adding a mage in the mix might be fun and add a little more.

[steeh]

for 3vs3 arena and triple-boxing i'm thinkin about elemental shaman as a main and 2 pom pyro mages as a slaves, drop now 3% crit totem/spell damage totem and try getting some burst, shaman cannot heal and support as good as priest do, but would do some additional burst with mages.