Heroic dunegons and 5m setup

When i boxed TBC, prot pally + 4 Ele shaman was the best comp for any and every 5man dungeon. The totems stack (Totem of Wrath is insane stacked) and the burst aoe damage of 4 ele is unmatched. They can easily heal up with chain heal. Nothing comes close to this comp until WotLK. After obtaining good enough gear, the pally becomes overkill and you can swap it out for a 5th Ele and just delete heroic packs before they touch you, while Earth ele handles bosses since with 5 of the best DPS with stacking totems and Bloodlust they just melt. The synergy with pally and shaman buffs are so good as well.

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Originally Posted by Purpleflavor

When i boxed TBC, prot pally + 4 Ele shaman was the best comp for any and every 5man dungeon. The totems stack (Totem of Wrath is insane stacked) and the burst aoe damage of 4 ele is unmatched. They can easily heal up with chain heal. Nothing comes close to this comp until WotLK. After obtaining good enough gear, the pally becomes overkill and you can swap it out for a 5th Ele and just delete heroic packs before they touch you, while Earth ele handles bosses since with 5 of the best DPS with stacking totems and Bloodlust they just melt. The synergy with pally and shaman buffs are so good as well.

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I agree with all of this and Paladin+4Shaman was the best for me as well when boxing dungeons in TBC. My Paladin was my main and had the best gear so personally I didn't seem to get much out of swapping in a 5th Shaman.

In addition to the raw power I found the utility of things like tremor totems, grounding totems, & guardian totems with a taunt made things much more forgiving for me as a boxer. Hard to quantify but I found the Artificial Intelligence (AI) built in to secondary healing from Chain Heals, secondary damage from chain lighting, auto-cleansing from Tremor totems, protection from grounding, and an extra boss taunt per shaman guardian totem in hard fights all very helpful...

I have a small update.
I have decided to go with pala + 4 x ele sham. So far I have level 42, but I bo0sted them to 40.
Right now I am leveling them as a team in SM and soon will move to ZF.
There are few things which bothers me and I am not sure about future of team.
1. Without any software and even addons (beside follow me) I decided to make 1 macro for shamans which combine castsequence for LB, CL, totems etc. I am trying to AoE pulls like 10-15 mobs in SM and it is not easy to control everything with window focus binded to mouse scroll.
2. CL + LB is strong, but I am not intrested in small grp pulls, i want to make fast and smooth aoe pulls which is difficult with shamans as they lack in good aoe (only 2x fire totems which are nice aoe but not even close to mages / lock aoes)
3. Shaman`s aoes are not enought to kill humanoids which run away when low and targeting em with pala and switching windows with focus and scroll is annoying so I ignore it simply and sooner or later they come back sometimes with company.

I still manage to clear sm armory + cath in ~20 mins, but I dont like lack of aoe during leveling, maybe in herocis when you pull 3-5 mobs it would be perfectly OK to simply cast totems and spam LB / CL, but at least during leveling it is annoying. Furthermore, utility, there are no portals, no food / water, either u buy it or create by own mage and trade it, which over long period of time can be also annoying + lack of buffs.
Compared to any other team, u would still need to target mobs etc, unless you decide to go with mages / locks, where you still have to switch focus windows and scroll mouse constantly, but you do not have to care about targeting mobs at all (in AoE fights) as you just spam AE / Blizzard / FS / RoF / HF - it is up to u whetver u decide to spam AE / FS or simply cast blizzard / HF/ RoF and done for few seconds. I see huge improvement in life quality with such setups and if u add up priest with circle healing / holy nova etc it might be so easy - at least in aoe pulls. Plus on top of that so many utilities, like food / water, portals, many different buffs, summon. So I am still strugling with chosing proper team, I will level shamans + pala to 60 and see the performance at high level, if I dont like it, i can always change to mages + priest and boost one lock to 58 and still be ready for tbc.
But my longterm aim are heroics and in I do not see possibility to AoE pulls, like 5+ mobs, so mage / lock team is falling behind I think compared to shamans.

Any remarks to those set ups? Advices? Considering no software/ hardware and just window focus with scroll mouse bind

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Originally Posted by Mearwen

I have a small update.
I have decided to go with pala + 4 x ele sham. So far I have level 42, but I bo0sted them to 40.
Right now I am leveling them as a team in SM and soon will move to ZF.
There are few things which bothers me and I am not sure about future of team.
1. Without any software and even addons (beside follow me) I decided to make 1 macro for shamans which combine castsequence for LB, CL, totems etc. I am trying to AoE pulls like 10-15 mobs in SM and it is not easy to control everything with window focus binded to mouse scroll.
2. CL + LB is strong, but I am not intrested in small grp pulls, i want to make fast and smooth aoe pulls which is difficult with shamans as they lack in good aoe (only 2x fire totems which are nice aoe but not even close to mages / lock aoes)
3. Shaman`s aoes are not enought to kill humanoids which run away when low and targeting em with pala and switching windows with focus and scroll is annoying so I ignore it simply and sooner or later they come back sometimes with company.

I still manage to clear sm armory + cath in ~20 mins, but I dont like lack of aoe during leveling, maybe in herocis when you pull 3-5 mobs it would be perfectly OK to simply cast totems and spam LB / CL, but at least during leveling it is annoying. Furthermore, utility, there are no portals, no food / water, either u buy it or create by own mage and trade it, which over long period of time can be also annoying + lack of buffs.
Compared to any other team, u would still need to target mobs etc, unless you decide to go with mages / locks, where you still have to switch focus windows and scroll mouse constantly, but you do not have to care about targeting mobs at all (in AoE fights) as you just spam AE / Blizzard / FS / RoF / HF - it is up to u whetver u decide to spam AE / FS or simply cast blizzard / HF/ RoF and done for few seconds. I see huge improvement in life quality with such setups and if u add up priest with circle healing / holy nova etc it might be so easy - at least in aoe pulls. Plus on top of that so many utilities, like food / water, portals, many different buffs, summon. So I am still strugling with chosing proper team, I will level shamans + pala to 60 and see the performance at high level, if I dont like it, i can always change to mages + priest and boost one lock to 58 and still be ready for tbc.
But my longterm aim are heroics and in I do not see possibility to AoE pulls, like 5+ mobs, so mage / lock team is falling behind I think compared to shamans.

Any remarks to those set ups? Advices? Considering no software/ hardware and just window focus with scroll mouse bind

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I personally found 5boxing TBC Heroics pretty hard back then at least until the later phases when I had raid gear. Paladin+4Shaman always seemed the most balanced team with good AI but to your points I often was doing pulls as small as I could until the later phases. My initial goals were just to complete them and get badges though as my gear got better and better I did start to do larger pulls and go faster (but I was never trying to do crazy large pulls)... That being said I did all of that when Input Broadcasting was allowed and spammy play wasn't potentially dangerous (and I didn't have carpal tunnel pain back then) so casting chain lightning over and over was OK...

If you really want to do larger pulls in TBC you likely should go with true AoE and also likely should move to (pun intended) a kiting playstyle by leveraging a Mage's Blizzard or a Shaman's Earthbind totem (or both if they stack). As a TBC boxer I never really played leveraging kiting but lots of people make it a core part of their "spell cleave" AoE team for which the Paladin Tank is great because dragging the mobs though Consecrate while the 3DPS AoE works really well...

After the recent policy changes my recommended approach would be the same as yours (no additional software nor hardware) and I would also try to get rid of any spammy playstyles that may look like input broadcasting which means I would not make my normal DPS based on chain-lightings nor Arcane Explosions... For non-bosses I would move to an all AoE team that only needs to interact with each of the Tank+3DPS once every 8 seconds as discussed in this post and the follow-on posts:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...l=1#post434484

For a low input all AoE team I would go with Paladin plus at least one Mage and at least one Warlock (and the 3rd DPS could be a Mage or a Warlock though I prefer 2 Warlocks for the reasons I typed). If you really want to do large pulls and leverage kiting then, if Earthbind AoE slow stacks with Mage Blizzard AoE slow, I would try to go with a Shaman over a Priest healer (though my preference is Priest for true AoE healing). With your Tank dragging the mobs through slows you shouldn't have to worry much about runners but as long as you have 1 Lock you can easily Curse one or more runners with Recklessness to get them to come right back...

Thanks for all the detailed information.

@nodoze @Purpleflavor another question about Sham-Teams (1 Pala + 4 Ele or 5 Ele):

Were Sham-Teams with the self crafted Netherstrike set viable in heroics or is this bursty playstyle only possible with ele-shams in raid gear?
So do I have to raid before bursting heroics?

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Originally Posted by Kraxx

Thanks for all the detailed information.

@nodoze @Purpleflavor another question about Sham-Teams (1 Pala + 4 Ele or 5 Ele):

Were Sham-Teams with the self crafted Netherstrike set viable in heroics or is this bursty playstyle only possible with ele-shams in raid gear?
So do I have to raid before bursting heroics?

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My 4 Shaman were first in mainly gear from Dungeon drops and then upgraded via Badge gear and some from AH &/or crafting. I also had a 5th Shaman with pretty much the same gear but it felt better for me to run with my Paladin tank than 5Shaman though to be fair my my Paladin was in Raid gear with max enchants/gems/etc and the Shaman were not totally maxed... If I did have raid gear on my Shaman it was BoE from the AH (can't remember off hand). I could be wrong but I don't think I really raided with my Shaman until WoTLK...

Note that I wasn't really 5boxing at what would be our Phase 1 and think I started focusing more on 5boxing dungeons around Hyjal/Black Temple (Phase 3?) so the badge gear, crafted gear, and BoE gear from the AH for me was likely better than we have in Phases 1 & 2.

Out of curiosity, what is the shaman dps rotation?

I'm going PaLLMPr but am interested in doing shammies down the road. Trying to understand the way they'll play

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Originally Posted by Murdertrain

Out of curiosity, what is the shaman dps rotation?

I'm going PaLLMPr but am interested in doing shammies down the road. Trying to understand the way they'll play

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From memory it is basically just Chain Lighting & Lightning Bolts empowered by stacking Totems, Elemental Mastery, Bloodlust/Heroism, drums, & trinkets (especially on bosses).

I found it very flexible as the AI help from Chain Lighting and Chain Healing, while not true AoE, helped simplify things and was good enough when working against multiple targets. The fact that everyone can both DPS and Heal and made for a very forgivable setup that could often burst damage through and/or Heal through most mechanics (everyone Chain Heal themselves is a pretty nice oh-shit button when you didn't move out of AoE). Mix in Tremor totems for auto-clear of Fears/Charms/Sleeps, being able to summon Guardians for hard encounters, being able to shock/interrupt as well as ground the party, and also Reincarnate when things go wrong makes for a very forgivable team... Personally I preferred Paladin+4Shaman over 5Shaman but to be fair my Paladin was in top Raid gear and it was just better for me overall.

My biggest concern is that the playstyle will be very spammy and if you optimize it I would be concerned that it would look like Input Broadcasting or at least streamlining. We shouldn't have to worry about that but these are weird times for WoW multiboxers...

An alternative to pala +4 shaman might be prot pala +4 Spriest.
Vampiric touch stacks, giving your team mana equal to 5% of the total shadow dmg.
Vampiric embrace stacks, heals your team by 25% of the total shadow dmg.
Blackout gives you a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 sec when you deal shadow dmg. So a trash mob is basically in a infinite stun lock when you spam x4 mind flay on him.
In addition to that you can spec holy nova as panic aoe heal.

The big con is that both, vampiric touch and vampiric embrace need to be applied on the target. So after applying both debuffs to a trash mob, it might die too fast to really benefit from the heal and mana gain through shadow dmg.
Against bosses however x4 vampiric touch + x4 vampiric embrace sounds very powerfull. I'm certain that the dmg of many bosses can be out healed just by dealing shadow dmg and with x4 vampiric touch your team probably gonna have 100% mana after the boss encounter.

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Originally Posted by Borug

An alternative to pala +4 shaman might be prot pala +4 Spriest.
Vampiric touch stacks, giving your team mana equal to 5% of the total shadow dmg.
Vampiric embrace stacks, heals your team by 25% of the total shadow dmg.
Blackout gives you a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 sec when you deal shadow dmg. So a trash mob is basically in a infinite stun lock when you spam x4 mind flay on him.
In addition to that you can spec holy nova as panic aoe heal.

The big con is that both, vampiric touch and vampiric embrace need to be applied on the target. So after applying both debuffs to a trash mob, it might die too fast to really benefit from the heal and mana gain through shadow dmg.
Against bosses however x4 vampiric touch + x4 vampiric embrace sounds very powerfull. I'm certain that the dmg of many bosses can be out healed just by dealing shadow dmg and with x4 vampiric touch your team probably gonna have 100% mana after the boss encounter.

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Already gave up on 5hunter, priest+4mage mid 60-70 and atm doing 5spriests (leaving), priest+4lock (hard commit), pala+4ele (newest)

- 5spriest are 4fun only in terms of performance - randomness, amount of clicking, speed, mana issues but! they say some dungeons like SP hc are rly fun and 'doable'
- priest+4lock is absolute winner in some ez dungeons like Botanica, SH, SL but cant handle much in hc even in raid gear, soon 2pice t5 bonus for final try before I give up
- pala+4ele smooth, wipeless and probably the only hc friendly setup, it is truely the best setup even from early 60s when I compare to my experience in dungeons on other setups

When u try pala+4spriest u end up with pala+4smite very fast and start thinking about comparison - smite vs ele.. with obvious results ;)