Having trouble 5 manning ZF - Need Help

[BGuru]

I'm running a Paladin with 4 elemental Shaman they are level 46 and I just started trying to do ZF last night.
I wipe about every other pull on trash.
Obviously I'm doing something wrong.

I put down my totems and send my pally in start attacking put down a couple consecrates and start to DPS with my Shamans.
One or two mobs pull off me and head for the shamans it goes downhill from there.

Here are the totems I'm using 3 healing, 1 mana, 1 stoneclaw, 1 stoneskin, 1 earthbind, 1 tremor, 4 grounding.

My characters just have quest gear and drops with no enchants here are their Armory links: Pally ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Tagah'), Shaman ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Sagga'), Shaman ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Besagga'), Shaman ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Cesagga'), Shaman ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Desagga').

Up till now everything has seemed so easy but ZF seems impossible for me.

Can someone give me some tips?

Thanks

[bugilt]

When you pull are you taking one of them out with the shaman while the paladin gain aggro on the rest?

[BGuru]

The Shaman are attacking my Pallys target.
I'm only using melee and consecrate on the pally haven't tried using any seals yet.
I am using wisdom on the Shammies, tonight I'll try Salvation to see if that helps.

I only tried ZF a couple hours last night then I got too frustrated.

[Zuri]

Righteous Defence?

[-silencer-]

I think I was 44 the first time I cleared ZF with my pally / 4x shaman team.. something isn't right.

First, fix your paladin's spec. *Get your sword enchanted for a few +dmg, and Get a SHIELD SPIKE!* Get one as good as possible, but at least a Mithril Shield Spike (16-20 dmg per block). Drop a few points from Anticipation & Toughness to get 5/5 Reckoning. Double attacks help hold aggro. Always make sure you've got Righteous Fury up, and let consecrate aggro build for around 5 seconds when starting a pull with the paladin. It also helps to have some +spell damage on the paladin to make consecrate more effective at holding aggro. Cheap jewelcrafting rings will get you +10-15 spell damage.

Next, magma totems are huge for ZF since there are frequently so many mobs. For me, nearly all the work done on the 5+ minute temple fight was done using only magma totems and an occasional consecrate. You should be going full dps on your shaman spec.. drop 3/3 of Elemental Warding and 1 point from Unrelenting Storm to get 3/3 Call of Flame (more magma totem damage) and 2/2 Improved Fire Nova Totem (for the reduced magma totem threat).

My sequence was always.. pally with typical AoE-prot spec runs into mobs with BoS, Seal of Light, Ret aura, Holy Shield, then pull back to shaman group (within magma totem range) and hit Consecrate. Drop 4x Magma Totems & let aggro build on the paladin for around 5 seconds. Holy Shield again and blast away with Chain Lightning / LB / LB / LB sequence. You shouldn't need to even use shocks in most fights.. just an occasional heal or two on the tank.

You're missing two huge parts of holding aggro.. Reckoning and a Shield Spike, and Retribution Aura & Blessing of Sanctuary if you're not using those too. +3 weapon damage enchant is also a big help. Magma totems will seriously thin groups when layed down 4x with +dmg/-threat talents.

The tricky part of ZF is making sure you always eliminate the Shadow Hunters *first*. Their polymorph on the tank can cause aggro problems. I then take out the healers, then the casters, and finally the melee. Once you manage to avoid that, the instance should be cake at level 46. The hardest parts of the instance should be the cobras at the final boss, but not the boss himself, and the Antu'sul fight if you choose to do it. DPS him down quick while letting Magma Totems/Consecrate deal with the basilisks until he's dead - just clear the entire area around his cave before starting that fight.

Edit:
My shammies always had Blessing of Wisdom - never needed Salvation. I believe my totems were usually 4x magma, 3x healing, 1x mana, 1x stoneskin, 1x strength of earth, 1x earthbind, 1x stoneclaw, 1x windfury, 1x grace of air, 2x grounding.

[BobGnarly]

Make sure you have righteous defense up, have retribution aura on, and use blessing sanctuary. Give it 5-10 sec or so after the pull, and ease into the DPS.

I also spam Holy Shield, but I only use rank 1 consecration just for mana purposes. An alternative that I use is put blessing of wisdom on myself and use max rank cons, but don't spam HS as much. Just depends on what I'm trying to do.

If you do all this, you shouldn't have many agro problems. Still, Omen is nice to make sure since you don't always know how many crits a slave is getting.

[-silencer-]

Still, Omen is nice to make sure since you don't always know how many crits a slave is getting.
I didn't mention this.. Omen is the only add-on my 4x shammies use - I can't live without it. Especially since you're trying to finely balance a tank's aggro vs 4x big-burst DPS classes, it really helps you see how much of an aggro buffer zone you have until you pull mobs off your tank.

[BGuru]

Thanks for the replies.

I never thought I might have the wrong spec.
My Pally was using the tanking spec ('http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhtIx0dMgqtVbx') from the Wiki ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Paladin'). Should I use the Offensive AoE farming/tanking with Reckoning ('http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhtIb0zggqtVbx') spec?

My Shammies were using the PvE Elemental ('http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hEckV0MsAotZx0ek0x') spec from the Wiki ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Shaman'). What spec would you recommend for the Shammies?

Thanks

[-silencer-]

Thanks for the replies.

I never thought I might have the wrong spec.
My Pally was using the tanking spec ('http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhtIx0dMgqtVbx') from the Wiki ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Paladin'). Should I use the Offensive AoE farming/tanking with Reckoning ('http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhtIb0zggqtVbx') spec?

My Shammies were using the PvE Elemental ('http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hEckV0MsAotZx0ek0x') spec from the Wiki ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Shaman'). What spec would you recommend for the Shammies?

Thanks

My gear/spec strat hasn't changed yet..
Here's my tank: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Laughing+Skull&n=Zandantilus
..and my shaman: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Laughing+Skull&n=Zandantilis
At level 46, they'd look like this:
Paladin: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=000000000000000000000530400350000 1515210200000000000000000000000
Shaman: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/shaman/talents.html?tal=550031052002123510200000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000
Gear:
Paladin had the same SM Sword/Shield, but I had +3 damage enchant on sword, and Mithril Shield Spike on the shield. Other gear was similar, but I had these jewelcrafting neck/rings on the paladin & shaman:
http://thottbot.com/i20966
http://thottbot.com/i20958
http://thottbot.com/i29157
Shaman gear was all the quest/crafted cloth gear I could find with +spell damage and +spell crit.

[BGuru]

Thanks for all your help I really appreciate it.

[Sarduci]

It really depends on how hard you farmed SM before doing ZF. My pally was in all the blues she could use from there. I farmed that stupid ribcage for hours before it dropped.

That being said, I used 3 healing/1 mana, 4 searing, 4 grounding totems on a 6 second reset. I'd pull with dynamite, consecrate, seal to stun, judge it right away, reseal, stun an off target. Open up dps on the first melee target. Drop grounding totems again (grounding totems in my macro were first, then healing/mana and finally searing) and move to 2nd melee target if there is one. If there's only one caster or two casters left, keep dropping grounding totems and burn them down.

[tzibo]

I've just finished running through ZG (47/48 now). Started at 43 to get a feel, by 46 it was straight forward.
The advice I can offer is practice, Holy Shield and kill the casters first.

With your grounding totems down, the casters won't be able to do any damage before you've killed em. Meanwhile your Pala is keeping the others entertained and building a lot of aggro. Holy Shield is awesome for that, with prolly about 1k threat on the targets by the time you've nuked a caster.

The mobs to watch out for which could potentially be doing you the most damage are the ?blooddrinkers. When they are close to your pack they do some health stealing (I need to look up what it is!), which is a pain, so just make sure you tank em away. Having your mobs on follow all the time could make this tricky, so have them set up a position with their totems before you pull.

[Vyndree]

http://www.vboxing.net/v/index.php?q=node/62

Of course, that video was pre-2.3... But things shouldn't have changed much.

[wowphreak]

If yer shamans are in melee range its easier for them to pull aggro if there further away they can do more damage before they pull aggro.

I think having reckoning as yeh level is better, although I got both (reckoning and spell warding) getting improve judgement isnt all that great

It helps a ton getting Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower on what ever weapon he has, even if the weapon is real low level having that helps allot more then having a weapon of equal level to yer pali. hope that made sense :P

Don't start off with chain lighting.

When yeh pull make sure everything hitting the pali before yeh start dpsing

usually the way I start off is gather the critters, park the pali, consecrate, pick one target, hit assist (but dont start attacking yet) cast Seal of the Crusader, judge,
Seal of Righteousness, consecrate, then start dpsing the palis target. Once all targets get hit by at least 2 consecrates I start aoeing (chain lighting, Searing Totem...)