The future of the shaman arena team?

Maybe I'm just burned out from grinding to 80.. but. Hmm. I'm having my doubts about the viability of the 5v5 shaman team in high end arena now.
The reason this matters to me is because the only real reason I multibox is for the challenge and fun of competitive arena PvP. The rest (heroics, raids, BGs) is just means of doing the former. So if my team won't be viable, I should probably stop playing now.

Thing is.. WOTLK brought a lot of mechanics that turn the table in favor of non-boxed/mixed teams.

* A bunch of classes were given powerful group buffs that add high amounts of synergy to multi-class teams. This can make the damage output of a mixed team way higher than a pure shaman+healer team.

* Many classes were given heavy AoE and AoE interrupts/stuns/knockbacks. This is very bad for stacked shaman that basically only have cast-time heals that can be AoE interrupted.

* DK is basically an anti-caster class that messes us up.



In a way, I feel that a lot of the stuff put into WOTLK was designed specifically to counter multiboxing, and even more specifically, multibox shamans, to prevent us from succeeding in 5v5. I guess we'll see how it goes. I'm just.. not sure if it's worth the massive time investment to gear up in order to get ahead in the gear race for S5.

Actually, I think it's more the quad that might not work that well.

I'm thinking of going priest/dk/3x shaman myself actually. 3x Lava burst or 4x Lava burst effectively isn't different.

Anyhow, it's not the season yet. I'll try out different things and get the feel of PvP for a few weeks before really making a statement, but at this moment, I think we'll have most viability as a tri-shaman in the new season.

Mmm that's an interesting concept, a 1+1+3 team.

I even began thinking about 1-boxing a resto shaman.. :\

The season hasnt started, and my quadbox isnt yet 80.

I think you are suffering from burn out.

As for the Quadbox Shaman team not doing well, im still confident I can play 4 toons with a good healer better than 95.5% of the WoW world can play a 5 man team.

The power of our arena team is unpredictable burst damage. People trying to disrupt that isn't anything new. I would even go so far as to say that these new abilities don't add a new level of complexity to the game but rather complicate an already existing aspect.

Realize that 5 perfectly played toons played by 5 different people will ALWAYS be greater than a perfectly played Quadbox Healer combo. Yes we are very close to unbeatable, but when you play against the World's Best, you'll notice that they can do more better and faster. Also realize that only a small number, less than 0.5% of the WoW communtiy obtain these skills and its likely you can achieve #1 without ever queue dodging. So BG Group #1, and GLad titles are well within reach.

Im sure you are still pondering my unpredictable burst damage statement. I have a very strong feeling that after any team faces me in arena they will be much more scared than they were last season, why? LAVA BURST BABY! Yeah I know you need flame shock up on the target but remember unlike Chain Lightning it has travel time. As long as it takes longer than your global cooldown to reach the target you're all good. Just pop Flame shock and BOOM 4xCrit Lava Burst + 4xFS = FTW.

Add this in with focus casting + Hex and Im more excited than ever that when I do get to 80, geared or not, Im going to destroy people like never before.

Call me optomistic, in denial, not yet 80...whatever your conclusion i'll still be Glad x4! (<-short for Gladiator x4 :D )

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Im sure you are still pondering my unpredictable burst damage statement. I have a very strong feeling that after any team faces me in arena they will be much more scared than they were last season, why? LAVA BURST BABY! Yeah I know you need flame shock up on the target but remember unlike Chain Lightning it has travel time. As long as it takes longer than your global cooldown to reach the target you're all good. Just pop Flame shock and BOOM 4xCrit Lava Burst + 4xFS = FTW.

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Not so. The flame shock is consumed "on release" rather than "on arrival", so it can't be retro-fitted to the target.

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Add this in with focus casting + Hex and Im more excited than ever that when I do get to 80, geared or not, Im going to destroy people like never before.

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I'm unable to use Hex with focus at the moment. I'm hoping this is a bug. /cast [target=focus] Hex doesn't work.
If this doesn't get fixed, I think we'll need some macro string type of thing to do this with bursted keypresses of varying counts to different instances to select different targets.


Hmm.. yes you are correct that we will probably easily beat the not-so-well played teams. But as it looks now, I think that we will hit a big wall of dominance once we encounter players that play reasonably smart. It seems that we are more vulnerable to "smart play" as a team now than before.


One thing to consider is that TS might not be the answer to everything. For example, consider the Glyph of Earth Shock combined with Lava Burst and Nature's Swiftness:
Flame Shock
Lava Burst
Earth Shock
EM+NS+CL


However I'm not sure if we'll be able to compete with this in the new environment of knockbacks.. Maybe..

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Originally Posted by 'magwo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154515#post15 4515

I'm unable to use Hex with focus at the moment. I'm hoping this is a bug. /cast [target=focus] Hex doesn't work.
If this doesn't get fixed, I think we'll need some macro string type of thing to do this with bursted keypresses of varying counts to different instances to select different targets.

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It's been posted around the forums a number of times... just adjust your macro.

/target focus
/cast Hex
/targetlasttarget

Same functionality, exact same consequences. Works just fine for me in pvp and pve.

The season hasn't started, and people are theorycrafting left and right about comps, but fact of the matter is, I compete just as well in Wintergrasp vs. 2-3 20 stacked Tenacity buffed alliance players as any other 5 person team. Not many teams can take out a 90k+ hp DK, pally, and mage without suffering a loss.

And everyone talking about DKs and their anti-shamanness boggle my mind. Anti-magic zone is an Unholy talent, and only absorbs a certain amount of damage. Ironically, I can lava burst an anti-magic zone out of existance in one cd. It's pretty weak. Anti magic shell lasts for 5 seconds, and is on a one minute cooldown. Essentially, it's a spell reflect on an insanely long cd. We've managed these in the past, right? All of their damage that can get through groundings is melee damage, so round robin thunderstorms, normal fire novas, and hex should take care of the rest of them.

Seriously, I have more concern about multiple ret pallys than multiple dks.

Finally, knockbacks - are typhoon and enemy thunderstorms that big of an issue? If a shaman is charging you to thunderstorm, he's not dpsing. He's vulnerable to frost shocks and then your burst. I don't find the knockback that serious. Typhoon is more of a nudge and interrupt other than something useful. Maybe it's just me but a thunderstorm or typhoon on me makes me laugh. I can still heal everyone, they're all still facing the right way, and you just moved my characters so I can't be futher aoed? Thanks. I can pew pew you down now.

Oh I'll have many videos for you to watch when the season hits :)
Some classes though are pumping out an insane amount of damage. I expect them to be toned down and for PvP gear to offset this. Other than that Lava Burst is pretty much our pinnacle ability. Repeatable never ending on demand burst at a very very low mana cost.

We don't just have 1 move anymore which is Lightning Bolt - > Chain Lighting - > Eartshock and throw in a NS in the old days.

You have that +
Flame Shock - > Lava Burst - > Chain Lightning - > Shock
Fire Nova Totem - > Chain Lightning (optional) -> Thunderstorm

Our heals are out of this world. 4x Chain heal cast on themselves is absurd healing. 50% hp on all characters pretty much tops everyone off.

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Originally Posted by 'Alemi',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154524#post15 4524

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Originally Posted by 'magwo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154515#post15 4515

I'm unable to use Hex with focus at the moment. I'm hoping this is a bug. /cast [target=focus] Hex doesn't work.
If this doesn't get fixed, I think we'll need some macro string type of thing to do this with bursted keypresses of varying counts to different instances to select different targets.

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It's been posted around the forums a number of times... just adjust your macro.

/target focus
/cast Hex
/targetlasttarget

Same functionality, exact same consequences. Works just fine for me in pvp and pve.

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This does not work. Also, I predict many upset boxers once arena strats. :thumbdown:

The thing I think will happen, mainly at higher ratings, is dk's lossing you and pulling chars off of you for their group to kill. If they do this right, we would stand no chance.

I can think of only one way to reliably counter this, is by having a dk of your own, pulling their dk before they pull one of your chars. :P

Grounding totem works on death grip. That crap got mad annoying in AV when i was doing the 60 bracket, it was seriously soemtimes 35 dk's 4 shaman (me) and a random joe.

Same thing for the other team lol. Talk about getting pulled around alot.

I'm talking about teams that los. The long fights. The cat and mouse games. Generally high rated teams that do not make mistakes. People with skill that will make sure you won't be able to Lava Burst them after putton on Flame Shock. And that will stick max range, now allowing more then one cast to hit them. They'll just find a way to bust your groundings right after you refreshed them, DK deathgrips, you owned. Simple as. :P

I'm sure we can work fine up to reasonable ratings. I'm just saying teams have more viable counters now due to different spells and set ups. And therefor, at the higher ratings where teams don't tend to make mistakes, it will be harder for us. But it will always still be fun. :P

theorycraft is great, but what matters is what really happens.
"everyone is so buffed OMGZ!!!!!!! i r not doin zee dmg i want!"

man, its been like this for ages... whatever class u play, the others u face are always better than u!
lets stop the moaning about shaman dps, cause i think our weapon still is our unique BURST

im going 4 shaman 1 disc priest

3 shaman 1 disc priest 1 ms warrior/1 DK is also a very good option

To be honest, I think I'm out - I think the shaman team is doomed to fail since 3.0.
If people have any clue what they are doing, I'm being constantly steamrolled nowadays. And I used to be one of the best boxers on my BG, which is the best in europe..

Not sure what to do really. My team doesn't work anymore.

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Im sure you are still pondering my unpredictable burst damage statement. I have a very strong feeling that after any team faces me in arena they will be much more scared than they were last season, why? LAVA BURST BABY! Yeah I know you need flame shock up on the target but remember unlike Chain Lightning it has travel time. As long as it takes longer than your global cooldown to reach the target you're all good. Just pop Flame shock and BOOM 4xCrit Lava Burst + 4xFS = FTW.

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Not so. The flame shock is consumed "on release" rather than "on arrival", so it can't be retro-fitted to the target.

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I stand Corrected.

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Add this in with focus casting + Hex and Im more excited than ever that when I do get to 80, geared or not, Im going to destroy people like never before.

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I'm unable to use Hex with focus at the moment. I'm hoping this is a bug. /cast [target=focus] Hex doesn't work.
If this doesn't get fixed, I think we'll need some macro string type of thing to do this with bursted keypresses of varying counts to different instances to select different targets.

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I think I need to clarify what I meant.

• I define Focus Casting as the ability to target an enemy player but apply damage to your Focus Target instead. When a healer has to rely on his reactions to health bars and raid mods our burst damage has its greatest advantage. In most cases if a player has made themselves vulnerable its gg.
• I also want to clarify that I DO NOT plan on using focus to set a hex. If I learned anything from S4, the difference from the 1700s to +2k bracket was using focus and my regular target to make my damage unhealable.

Good teams make mistakes. As a multibox I think Ellay said it best "Theres five of them waiting, only two of us..." DO NOT underestimate your ability to be better than them at waiting :D.

The death grip mechanic will be interesting. But I'm very certain as a multiboxing team they'll be the new mage like threat (Destroy him before he destroys you). I think breaking follow on your toons is going to have to be a new standard to avoid him pulling your entire quadbox. Other than that I dont see any real threat by this ability. A 40yd range FSx4 will have any good player running for cover from our shaman team.

If last season is anything like S5, the first team to lose a man loses about 95% of my fights. I /cheer for the DKs to bring the DG...they might catch a little more than they anticpated like 32K lava crits to the face.

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Originally Posted by 'pinotnoir',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154561#po st154561

This does not work. Also, I predict many upset boxers once arena strats. :thumbdown:

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My hex macros work just fine. Not sure what you're doing wrong.

Mind you, i'm not speaking from theory, I'm speaking from practice.

[align=right][/align]

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Originally Posted by 'Alemi',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154837#post15 4837

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Originally Posted by 'pinotnoir',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154561#po st154561

This does not work. Also, I predict many upset boxers once arena strats. :thumbdown:

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My hex macros work just fine. Not sure what you're doing wrong.

Mind you, i'm not speaking from theory, I'm speaking from practice.

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I have the exact macro listed above and it does nothing when I press it. I dont know what could be different but on my end it doesnt work.

I do not plan to Hex at all in Arenas. Unless you are able to have their entire team targeted on each character it's going to be a huge waste of time. 20 yard range with an insane cooldown, it's a big waste of time that they will trinket out of. We have no other abilities to force them to trinket so it will always be up.

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Originally Posted by 'Ellay',index.php?page=Thread&postID=155073#post15 5073

I do not plan to Hex at all in Arenas. Unless you are able to have their entire team targeted on each character it's going to be a huge waste of time. 20 yard range with an insane cooldown, it's a big waste of time that they will trinket out of. We have no other abilities to force them to trinket so it will always be up.

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Was my thinking too, unless you bring a class that has some heavy cc, it's a pointless skill. And in all honesty, if you are at the point of being able to hex (20 yard range). the fight shouldnt last longer then 45 seconds anyhow. At least, a few should die and after 45 seconds of having people in 20 yard range, hex shouldn't be needed at all anymore.

Plus, trying to cast hex when they are in 20 yard range would basicly allow them to come all the way to you, before you do any or very little dps. And I think the only way we can still work is by keep the pressure high - real high. Give a team two seconds without dps, and a team can change the tide and win from you. So, from the moment anyone gets in range, we need to focus on dps. I've no doubt about that fact.

not forgetting there are more tweaks to come to shaman and other classes in the up coming patches. Its not worth sacking it all now. im just gonna get on with making gold, raising enchanting on all 4/5 shaman for the ring ench and anything else i can think of which will help give an edge. :)

My plans for the seson is to play with a disc priest..

Soooooo...

Hex not useful?

If i can get 1 hexxed my priest can drop a fear on him and hes cc'ed for a short while atleast!

http://thottbot.com/s47951 is the tool that should give me sometime to get a heal off and totaly fuck up theyr damage rotation/burst or whatever..

We do not know if DK's will be useful att all in 5vs5, Dks have big issues with getting in range accoring to themself.

Things will be unbalanced but hopefully it will get better the longer we get into the sesons..

Magma totems will be buffed in the next small patch according to blue posts, Wich means it will hurt ALOT more to be in our meele range.

I imagine for most the start of the season will look somewhat grim. 4 DPS team will be very prevalent, and Blizzard has not taken the time to tune classes for PvP. You'll see a lot of one shotting / gimmicky stuff.

Stick with it, I expect them to tone down damage across the board.

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Originally Posted by 'pinotnoir',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154895#po st154895

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Originally Posted by 'Alemi',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154837#post15 4837

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Originally Posted by 'pinotnoir',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154561#po st154561

This does not work. Also, I predict many upset boxers once arena strats. :thumbdown:

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My hex macros work just fine. Not sure what you're doing wrong.

Mind you, i'm not speaking from theory, I'm speaking from practice.

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I have the exact macro listed above and it does nothing when I press it. I dont know what could be different but on my end it doesnt work.

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Are you using the /focus system to assign your clones a leader to follow? if so then no this macro wont work cause you current focus is obviously the leader of your group

Hi!

We are making some upcoming changes to the Elemental shaman tree. Our goal was to streamline a few of the utility-based talents while giving shamans a little more damage scaling in later tiers of gear.

* 1) Unrelenting Storm – reduced from 5 points to 3 points. Bonus is 4/8/12% of your Intellect returned as mana.
* 2) Elemental Warding – now reduces all damage (not just Nature, Fire and Frost) taken by 2/4/6%
* 3) Elemental Shields – this talent has been removed, since its effects were combined with Elemental Warding.
* 4) Storm, Earth and Fire – reduced from 5 points to 3 points, but keeps around the same net benefit. In addition to current effects, also increases Wind Shock range. The damage bonus to Flame Shock has increased to 60% at 3 ranks. Storm, Earth and Fire has been moved up the tree as well.
* 5) Shamanism – this is a new 5 point talent in the old Storm, Earth and Fire position. Your Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst gain an additional percentage of your bonus damage. We have not finalized the numbers, but it will probably be something like 10% for Lightning Bolt and 20% for Lava Burst at max ranks.

These changes will be available in the next minor content patch, and are in addition to the AE changes mentioned previously.

AE changes:

There is definitely a lot of AE (area effect damage) going on in World of Warcraft dungeon runs at the moment. We’re not too worried about it for now – on the contrary it’s nice to see so many people doing the level-up dungeons on the way to level 80. If we find that AE tank + AE damage strategy (with no sheeping, sapping or other crowd control) is the only way people are running heroics and raids, then we’ll probably make some changes, but for now we’re content to just see what happens.

Having said all that, we feel like a few groups are being left out of the AE fun which makes them of less utility in the 5-player dungeons. We aren’t able to provide a lot of details yet, but here are some upcoming changes we’re making.

Shaman – we are removing the threat component from Fire Nova Totem and Magma Totem and increasing the damage from Magma Totem. This should provide the Elemental shamans in particular with some formidable AE.

Rogue – we are removing the cooldown from Fan of Knives and adjusting the damage calculation slightly to make daggers more useful for this ability.

Druid – we are adding Swipe (Cat) as a baseline ability.

As is the case with most multi-target abilities, these three should be something you want to use when faced with groups, but never against single targets. Fan of Knives and Swipe, for example, don’t grant combo points so they should never be a core part of the rotation against single targets like most bosses.

These changes will be available in the next minor content update, so keep an eye out for the next PTR push.

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Originally Posted by 'Ellay',index.php?page=Thread&postID=155119#post15 5119

You'll see a lot of one shotting / gimmicky stuff.

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Why hello there ;)

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Originally Posted by 'GizmoxLoW',index.php?page=Thread&postID=155140#po st155140

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Originally Posted by 'pinotnoir',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154895#po st154895

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Originally Posted by 'Alemi',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154837#post15 4837

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Originally Posted by 'pinotnoir',index.php?page=Thread&postID=154561#po st154561

This does not work. Also, I predict many upset boxers once arena strats. :thumbdown:

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My hex macros work just fine. Not sure what you're doing wrong.

Mind you, i'm not speaking from theory, I'm speaking from practice.

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I have the exact macro listed above and it does nothing when I press it. I dont know what could be different but on my end it doesnt work.

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Are you using the /focus system to assign your clones a leader to follow? if so then no this macro wont work cause you current focus is obviously the leader of your group

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I guess one of these days I need to change to the FLT setup. WTB more time in the day!

Dk's are annoying with the Death Grip deal

With Lava Burst and the spell power change we gained things, rather then lost thinggs comapred to other teams. The only problem could be Fire Shocks' range, but with the burst we can easily force healers to use they CD's and nuke an other target down a few seconds later.

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Originally Posted by 'Imbest',index.php?page=Thread&postID=155412#post1 55412

With Lava Burst and the spell power change we gained things, rather then lost thinggs comapred to other teams. The only problem could be Fire Shocks' range, but with the burst we can easily force healers to use they CD's and nuke an other target down a few seconds later.

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Aparently flameshocks range gets 40 yards with talents and the pvp bonus.

I have been considuring to go a 4elemental + 1 DK setup.

Imagion you are all setup with totems. The other team is doing their "wft is this, who do we kill first? and who will run in and get one shoted" planing. While we basicly pick out our worst enemy and death grip him over to finish him. Lets say their healer.. As i can imagion if we start the fight by moving one of them directly into range and PEW PEW PEW, we will be a 5 vs 4 before they can really do much about it.. And then i will ofc have to self heal through the 4 remaining.. but i do have TS to add some time for some chain heals.

A DK + 4 shaman team would seem very powerful. Someone started a rumor in my guild chat that DKs would be unable to death grip in arenas however, seems ludicrous but anyone else heard that?

The cant be right. It would totaly destroy how the DK work. Its a main skill of how they build the DK. And without it he would really lose most of its value contra other melee classes that could add in alot better stuff then a broken DK. I dont rally belive that would happen.

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Originally Posted by 'xtobbenx',index.php?page=Thread&postID=155848#pos t155848

The cant be right. It would totaly destroy how the DK work. Its a main skill of how they build the DK. And without it he would really lose most of its value contra other melee classes that could add in alot better stuff then a broken DK. I dont rally belive that would happen.

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/agree.

That's like not letting paladins bubble in arena.

I've done a fair amount of skirmishes, currently deathknights can certainly deathgrip...oh, they can also do the self res as ghoul thing too

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Originally Posted by 'suprafro',index.php?page=Thread&postID=156327#pos t156327

I've done a fair amount of skirmishes, currently deathknights can certainly deathgrip...oh, they can also do the self res as ghoul thing too

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Those ghouls have like 4k hp? I haven't met one that didn't get oneshotted yet. :D

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Originally Posted by 'Imbest',index.php?page=Thread&postID=156432#post1 56432

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Originally Posted by 'suprafro',index.php?page=Thread&postID=156327#pos t156327

I've done a fair amount of skirmishes, currently deathknights can certainly deathgrip...oh, they can also do the self res as ghoul thing too

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Those ghouls have like 4k hp? I haven't met one that didn't get oneshotted yet. :D

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mwahaha resurrected death knights are shacklable :D you can also slow them though I'm not sure if you can silence their explode or not.

The corpse explode "could" be very nasty ;/

Probably, but just if we let it happen, it would probably be worth the mana cost of 4x Earth Shock to get rid of that ticking bomb ghoul Death Knight with 4k health. Don't you think?

That is like one global cooldown (1sec) and some mana to get rid of it, not worth the risk of charging a LBolt or waiting for Flame Shock to take it out, then it might just run into our group and explode.

Or?

DK's get kited all the time. Death grip is on a 25s CD.
As a DK I have found You have to be very careful when you use Death grip.

DK's have to have runes/runic power to be able to hold you in place or do dps.
So as a Dk what are my options for disrupting your attacks?

Hmmm I could try to death grip one of your shamans, but wait you have 4 grounding totems. So blowing a huge spell that is on an 25s (atleast) CD would be retarded at this point.
I could pop Anti Magic shell in hopes of running in to dps to build my lifeblood called runic power, but wait it easily gets purged/dispelled/devoured.
I'm pretty sure Strangulate is a spell so it can be grounded also.
Really my only good opening skill to use is a glyph DnD, which has a short range and you can run out of thanks to instant GW. Also it used 1 of all 3 types of runes = fail.
So beware the death KNIGHTS BOOOOOOOO!

My resto Shamans LvB hits for 4k. A Fully PvE DK has max of 21.5 hp.

So the way I see it I have 2 secs to live... maybe...

I'd be more afraid of range AoE and knockbacks. But with the right strat those can be dealt with also. :thumbup: