Did an Instance (Shadowfang Keep)

Ok wanting to try out Keyclone idea of doing 5 instances at the same time so I went to Shadowfang Keep.

Using a Pal and 4 Shaman and die a bunch of times but finally won against 5 mobs. Then some PvP started on my guys standing outside lol ... well it is a pvp server.

I guess wearing basically no gear and the simple fact is that although Shaman do get the Fire Nova Totem and Pal has consecrate at their level (22-26) their aoe powers are just not all that great. It takes a long time to kill the mobs (3-4 totems each, as the mobs kill the totems a lot). By that time everyone is low or zero mana. I need to work on getting camera angles exactly the same or have everyone in first person to do multiple instances at the same time. These random camera settings are not good.

But I did get my mouse to be perfect in sync on all 5 computers. So can start the mouse in the upper left and move it perfectly to a point on all 5 computers (5 characters) and then left or right click at the exact same point of the screen (which may not be the same game spot cause of camera). That will pay off over time I am sure.

At any rate I think Ill give it another try after the patch taking away threat from totems (that should help a LOT). Also at level 40 when mail kicks in I think my servivability will go up a lot.

wait, so are you soloing each instance?? Or just 5 groups doing 5 instances?

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Originally Posted by 'Multibocks',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161473#p ost161473

wait, so are you soloing each instance?? Or just 5 groups doing 5 instances?

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he's doing five separate groups doing the same instance, though only 5 can be together at once.


unless.... you can change it to a raid group. but only some instances can be changed to raids.

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Originally Posted by 'elsegundo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161476#po st161476

unless.... you can change it to a raid group. but only some instances can be changed to raids.

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Sadly, none of them now. Except LBRS.

Damn I wish I had ten boxed during the glory days.

What I did was just send in 5 to a single instance to see how it goes.

The overall plan though is to do 5 of the same instances at the same exact time.

make sure you use your stoneclaw totems Sam, this will give you those extra 3-4 seconds for your novas to detonate.
It will also reduce the damage your guys are taking

also make sure you equip everything you can. some random cloth item with spirit on it (for example) is better than nothing at all.

yeah.. stoneclaws are key in the instances... will save your butt.. and don't pull with chain lighting... i made that mistake for like ohh..... 20 levels:) the mobs will ignore your stoneclaw if you nail 3 of em with CL:)

Interesting that you are dieing with a standard tank +4 dps/healer setup. Should be fairly easy as I think I only wiped on the bosses when I leveled up. Well except for the accidental pulls + patrol group.

depends... if he's entering the instance early at a fairly low level without quality gear, he could get wiped fairly easy

Well this is what I use on all 4 shaman:

/castrandom Fire Nova Totem, Healing Wave, Fire Nova Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Fire Nova Totem,


Maybe I should take out the healing wave ...
Or I can put one shaman on Stonclaw totem and healing the Pal only.

That might be best.

/target Samdeathwkzz
/castrandom Healing Wave, Stoneclaw Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Stonclaw Totem,

And then:

/Cast Fire Nova Totem

on the other 3, and consecrate on the Pally.


Well I die casue I just starting, like I said at the end of the day I did live, again 5 mobs but for sure if there were more mobs I be dead. The shaman are basically naked, the Pally has some decent gear though but some empty spots as well. Also thats with 5 mobs each time, I doubt I would die if I was single killing. It looks like they are killing 40 percent of the totems, maybe with a guy just casting stoneclaw I should do better.

Actually I have 400 gold now from the xmas sales and can afford to gear up all my guys with trade skill items, but I was figure to wait for level 40 to do that as why waste money on leather now only to replace with chain later ...

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Originally Posted by 'Bigfish',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161481#post 161481

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Originally Posted by 'elsegundo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161476#po st161476

unless.... you can change it to a raid group. but only some instances can be changed to raids.

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Sadly, none of them now. Except LBRS.

Damn I wish I had ten boxed during the glory days.

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At least, pre-WotLK most "regular" instances were raidable (10m). Exceptions if I'm not mistaken are BRD, STRAT, SCHOLO and DM.

Of course, xp are really nerfed due to raid malus. I did nevertheless a lot of RFC and SM 10m.

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Well this is what I use on all 4 shaman:

/castrandom Fire Nova Totem, Healing Wave, Fire Nova Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, Fire Nova Totem,

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Maybe this has already been answered, but why are you only using AoE abilities with your shaman? Until you get to around 60 (ele thunder aoe), Shaman AoE + consecrate dps will never be enough to kill anything except for non-elite equal level creatures. Are you casting lightning bolts inbetween the AoE's? I know that you like to only use one button, but wouldn't it be easier to just set something like this up:

Button 1 - Lightning Bolt
Button 2 - <fire based totem> (you could use fire nova here, when it is available)
Button 3 - <water based totem>
Button 4 - <earth based totem>
Button 5 - Heal

Have your paladin pull the mobs onto him, and setup your macros so that you can basically assist the paladin... then you shouldn't have too many problems. I think if you're going to only AoE your way up to 60 via instances, you're going to be in for a much harder battle than you should have to deal with. If you were running a group of mages, I might give some different advice, but shaman AoE (pre-60, and arguably altogether) is a weak link atm.

Cheers!

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Originally Posted by 'Mortah',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161508#post1 61508

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Originally Posted by 'Bigfish',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161481#post 161481

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'elsegundo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161476#po st161476

unless.... you can change it to a raid group. but only some instances can be changed to raids.

---

Sadly, none of them now. Except LBRS.

Damn I wish I had ten boxed during the glory days.

---

At least, pre-WotLK most "regular" instances were raidable (10m). Exceptions if I'm not mistaken are BRD, STRAT, SCHOLO and DM.

Of course, xp are really nerfed due to raid malus. I did nevertheless a lot of RFC and SM 10m.

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Originally, you could 10-man raid all instances. It was actually the preffered method to do scholo and strat and BRD that way back in the day (DM being the exception, that was always 5 man). Then they changed it about halfway through vanila WoW so the 60 dungeons were limited to 5 people. You could still do the lower level instances in 10, but almnost no one did that anyway. Then at some point, as far as I'm aware, the ability to 10-man the lower dungeons was stealth nerfed out.

Well aoe is more mana efficient then LB (i.e. as the number of mobs increase the damage per mana ration goes up).... If you are going to use LB then why pull a group of mob, why not just kill one at a time?

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Originally Posted by 'Sam DeathWalker',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161525#p ost161525

Well aoe is more mana efficient then LB (i.e. as the number of mobs increase the damage per mana ration goes up).... If you are going to use LB then why pull a group of mob, why not just kill one at a time?

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Because being efficient doesn't mean much when you're eating dirt.

I spent most of today so far on professions, going to gear up a crew of 5 shaman so I can take in 4 and my pally and once they are in green and blues see how that changes things .... Made some nice blue gloves and some neck that reduces mellee hits by 2, that not sound like a lot but I bet it adds up.

Ill try again when I finish getting them all greens and blues.

Sam, honestly. stop the non-gathering professions. keep mining/herb/skin and enchanting (to DE stuff)
Instances will provide you much better green and blue items.

Regarding the cast sequence.
Stoneclaw is on a cooldown, you cant spam it.
Pull 1 group with your paladin, and have all your shamies drop stoneclaw, THEN fire nova (4 of each) then you need all shamies to do a Lightning bolt on whatever mob your paly is hitting.
Once the cooldowns for Stoneclaw and nova are up, repeat.

using oly nova is going to take too long because of the cooldown, so mana efficiency means nothign since the fights take longer.
you probably need 3 macros for the shamies. something like:
macro 1. just smash it all the time
/assist <paladin name>
/castsequence [reset=15] Stoneclaw Totem, Fire Nova Totem, Lightning bolt, Lightning bolt, Lightning bolt, Lightning bolt, Lightning bolt, Lightning bolt

macro 2. when the paly needs a heal
/cast [target=<paladin name>] Lesser Healing Wave

macro 3. when the shamies need a heal
/cast [target=player] Lesser Healing Wave

On the paly, bind macro1 to your threat abilities, macro2 to your ow shit button, and macro 3 to your taunt.

Well that raises some good solid points. But without aoe you are limiting the amount of mobs that can be pulled or ran into. Thats the whole point of aoe is to not use LB or shocks, but like you say long cooldown means you just cant stand around and do nothing.

I need an instance where the mobs are lower then my level, but still give exp. A lot of weak mobs will give better overall exp then a few stonger ones.

Well lets see what happens I think Ill move to the searing totem, but everything you say makes good sense.

Why do you figure you need 4 stoneclaws out?

the stoneclaws will keep agro until the mobs are hit by something else.
4 stoneclaws mean those mobs will be 'busy' 4 times longer. The stoneclaw totems have a nifty stun effect, but still go down after a couple hits.
Having 4 out will basically give you more seconds to focus fire the mobs 1 by 1 in between aoe bursts.

I think you'll be able to aoe much better once you get Chain Lightning, which is level 32 (?) from memory. until then you'll have to use bolts to kills stuff.
Note that chain Lightning is also on a cooldown (6sec) so in any case you'll have to use bolts unless you want to stay idle for 5 secs every time.

the quickest way in instance (before you outlevel them) is to do pack by pack. Don't over pull as mobs take much longer to kill, and hurt more.

I reckon, at your level you can go in Ragefire Chasm (the one is Org) and AoE it well, but you'll get no xp.
In SFK you need to pull separate groups (3-4mobs) one by one.


Also note that as a tauren i always hated SFK, as it's all small corridors and shitty angles. Go to wailing caverns (near crossroads, barrens) if you haven't (might be low level now) or go to blackfathom depths (levell 20-27, ashenvale) which is a good fun instance in large areas
Note that BFD still shows as 10-manable on wowhead. you might want to try 10man to see the instance first, and 5man it when you're confident enough.


I don't think the 5x5 instances at the same time will work for various reasons:
- you only have 1 tank at the moment
- as was stated, soe mobs run away when low on health, and never in the same direction. It will be uncontrollable in 5 separate instances
- there are patrols that walk aroud, and will most likely not be at the same place at the same time
- groups of mobs differ, you could have 3 melees or 3 casters, or a mix of them. You can't place yourself the same way in all instances.
- fear and crowd control effects on your toons will mess with positioning in different ways on different instances.

Yet again a number of very valid and solid points ...

Is there a spicific reason to do instances as vs. say setting up 3-5 differnt camps at say the wetlands gnolls camps like say 6,6,7,7 at 4 camps and just tossing down totems on everyone at the same time?

Short said sam

running multiple instances at the same time will not work for the reasons the person above mention.
but camping various mobs sites at the same time coudl work. but keep in mind that its respawns time and most camping spots got random mobs also. including casters that attack from distance a few lucky hit could cause one of your team to die and you gotta spend time ressing and souch.
but if you configure the setup and have a good overview over everyting i think it will actually work if you are a bit carefull that is

Silver

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Originally Posted by 'Sam DeathWalker',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161713#p ost161713

Is there a spicific reason to do instances as vs. say setting up 3-5 differnt camps at say the wetlands gnolls camps like say 6,6,7,7 at 4 camps and just tossing down totems on everyone at the same time?

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Not only do instance mobs give you heaps more xp than world mobs, but they are in relatively constant positions and are easily repeatable. All you have to do is run out, reset the instance (party leader portrait menu option) and run in again.
The biggest factor though is that you'll get heaps of green drops, and blues from the bosses.
At lower levels (i.e. under 55-60) bosses are very often tank and spank, so once you get rolling you shouldnt have too much hassle.

Obviously all this gear will help you with longevity, and dps, meaning quicker grind in the end.

All in all, the quickest would be to be questing, but you don't seem keen to do that. Make sure you pick up the instance specific quests tho, they give heaps of xp/cash (relatively to the level) usually very good rewards, and are usually just "go in this instance and kill that boss", or "kill x of this type of mob" or "pick up this object behind the boss"

Also, there are instances all the way to 80. you wont find instant spawn points for all ranegs of level.
Finaly, i find instances fun, compared to the mindless grind of a spawn point.

But you yourself say that there are a number of problems in doing multiple instances at the same time.

So I should just take in 5, do an instance then take in another 5? Elite mobs do give X2 exp. And basically there is no down time waiting for respawns... but there will be downtime waiting for mana regen.

yes i dont think you'l be able to do multiple instances at the same time.
I was still in the idea of doing your toons 5 by 5, one instance at the time.

Sam da man!

Invest in a fel iron spike for your paladin. At levels under 60 and AOE tanking this will dish out prolly more damage than your consecration will. Tradeskills are fine to fill out and augment your gear, but when I did taloring for my priest 4x mage group, there were not enough recipies to fully equip them this way. Enchanting was the best by far.

Instances are going to be better than outdoors. double that your on a pvp server. Why? mobs are always going to be there and uncontested. 2x xp per kill. Higher drop rates of lewt and boss drop gear. and you dont have to put up with anyone messing your game.

Outdoor spawns, just about any place with lots of mobs is going to work. It seems to me that once you manage to kill everything in an area it becomes insta spawn, so just find a place thats level appropriate and aoe away.

Im not sure how well your shaman aoe thing is going to work. If you realy want a one button to mash easy win, its going to be a priest and 4 mages, but I have faith that you will get it to work with the shamen.

This item / spell?

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=32006#comments

I dont see anything that says spike:

http://www.wowhead.com/?search=fel+iron#recipes

Well after 2 days of getting gear here is the typical result for my 5 group leader shaman:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...n=Samdeathwkda

And my Pal:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...n=Samdeathwkzz

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=29657

^^

From wowhead:

• 
  [Iron Shield Spike] (8-12 damage), BoE world drop from Level 25-35 mobs, found easily on the AH.
• 
  [Mithril Shield Spike] (16-20 damage), BoE Rare world drop from level 35-45 mobs, found sometimes on AH
• 
  [Thorium Shield Spike] (20-30 damage), BoE rare world drop from level 58-60 mobs, also dropped by Master Elemental Shaper Krixix, and Emeriss, very rarely found on AH. Good luck getting this one.
• 
  [Felsteel Shield Spike] (26-38 damage), bought from vendor after exalted status for Thrallmar/Honor Hold. Mats are expensive, and the rep grind is hard, so this items sells for a high price in AH, but is rarely found due to honor requirements needed to make it.

Yes excellent I off to AH now to get one.

Nothing at the AH ... cept a recipe for the mithril sheild spike whcih I bought for the future (5g). Rats ...

Well i killed the SFK boss with my 5 geared guys (1 pal 4 shaman). It went ok, die on the breakin to one room but if did it agian I would die much less now I know the layout and what to expect. As stated no shortage of mobs. I did 5-6 a lot of times and 7 or 8 once or twice I think. The exp was good like 600 per group of 4 or 5 oppenents (600 each on my guys). And gear drops were also really nice, but nothing i was able to use.

The up shot is that its like 4 hours per level accoding to my titan bar thing. I was doing better single killing with 25, I could level up a group of 5 in about 2-3 hours that way. But as some of the mobs were grey to the Pal I think he took some exp or something.

So there are 6 possible plans:

Instance 5 at a time
Instance 5 X 5 at a time (dosn't seem likely but we will see)
Outdoor Single kill with 25
Outdoor aoe group killing (move to a camp aoe it, move to another camp ...) with 25
Outdoor 8,9,9 3 static camp aoe killing
Outdoor 6,6,7,7 4 static camp aoe killing

Ima try them all and see whats up.

Trying not to turn this into a flame war but will you really not consider questing to level? With RAF It was taking 4-6 quests per level. I know it will take much longer to level 26 chars than it will someone to do 5 (although prepared leveled his team about the same speed as me). Not only will you get more xp, but also more gold and reputation. You wont have to loot mobs unless they drop something you need then also. 5x5 instances will never work unless you vastly outgear and outlevel them. Also AOE'ing an instance at that level will be much slower xp than focus firing just because your aoe spells are sucking badly at the moment.

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Originally Posted by 'Sam DeathWalker',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161745#p ost161745

But you yourself say that there are a number of problems in doing multiple instances at the same time.

So I should just take in 5, do an instance then take in another 5? Elite mobs do give X2 exp. And basically there is no down time waiting for respawns... but there will be downtime waiting for mana regen.

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This is one reason most people think it's silly/crazy to run any more than 10 toons at a time in WoW. ;)

You are VERY limited in what you can do in the game.

AoE totems should just be considered extra damage and not your main solution to killing elite, instance mobs.
I understand that the more mobs you pull, the better the overal damage-to-mana ratio the totems are.
BUT, if you can't kill 3 elite mobs with your totems, you damn sure won't be killing 4+ elites with them either.

You should research quests as your army levels up, it's the best way to get the gear you will need for the instance runs. Running instances with little or no gear will be painful. Aside from the bonus exp for completing a quest, lots of them also give you a piece of gear as a reward. It beats scouring the AH or hoping for random drops, and for large groups of the same class, it helps you to more easily track their progress (since they will generally be geared out the same way).

If your shaman are level 20 or higher, make sure to complete the quest for their water totem. Your instance groups would then have 4 x Healing Stream Totem which would provide very nice periodic healing for the group. Don't bother trying to AE mobs down, at least at those levels. Drop healing stream x 4, stoneclaw x 4 and searing totem x 4, have the paladin grab a group and consecrate, and have the shaman knock each mob down in turn with lightning bolt. Cast a heal as necessary. Rinse and repeat. It will be boring but that formula will take you through a lot of instance runs as you level up.

Here's a silly question (I haven't run the 4-5 x Shaman groups).

With a Paladin tanking, will there really be a need for the stoneclaw totem? Or is it just for the lower levels until the Paladin becomes better at holding aggro?

If the paladin is adequately-geared/specc'ed, you shouldn't need them, aside from larger groups where healing aggro could be a concern.

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Originally Posted by 'Mortah',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161508#post1 61508

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Originally Posted by 'Bigfish',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161481#post 161481

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Originally Posted by 'elsegundo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=161476#po st161476

unless.... you can change it to a raid group. but only some instances can be changed to raids.

---

Sadly, none of them now. Except LBRS.

Damn I wish I had ten boxed during the glory days.

---

At least, pre-WotLK most "regular" instances were raidable (10m). Exceptions if I'm not mistaken are BRD, STRAT, SCHOLO and DM.

Of course, xp are really nerfed due to raid malus. I did nevertheless a lot of RFC and SM 10m.

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You could raid Scholo, I know that for a fact - finishing the quests there ( I know crazy talk, questing in dungeons) was infuriating, most people insisted on raiding it, and you could'nt get the quest objectives in a raid, and nobody wanted to run it with 10. Took me and my guildies weeks to finish those quests! The guild I was in was about halfway done getting everyone their gear in Scholo when they dropped the number of players to 10, and I remember all of the complaints about it - same as UBRS. Scholo was easy with a raid, then with 10 it got *hard*.

I think BRD was raidable too, I dimly remember trying to run the Emperor with a fledgling raid team, and wiping (that part of BRD used to be skipped by everyone, it was a pain in the you-know-what before they nerfed it). I could be wrong about that - that was a long time and a lot of guilds/players/nerfs since then.

Strat, I don't remember if you could raid it or not.

Both Stratholme and Scholomance could be run with up to 15 players in a raid. When they dropped it to a 5-man limit, I remember all of the screeching and crying because "now no one will ever run it!" Of course, my friends and I wound up running them way more often after it was dropped to a 5-man. Not only were we finally able to complete the quests, the zones turned out to be very manageable once you "unlearned" all of the bad habits you picked up while 15-manning it. UBRS went from 15 to 10, same thing-- people complaining that they'd never run it, and people running it all the time with no issues.

That may have been the last time that Blizzard actually made something in the game harder. :p

I think you need to sperate your totems from your casts.

I use all 4 shaman have all out dps on button 2
/assist focus
/castrandom lightning bolt,flame shock,lava burst,chain lightning,purge
or
/castrandom [target=focus-target] lightning bolt,flame shock,lava burst,chain lightning,purge

and on button 3 I have my resto shaman healing my pally and all of the other shaman still doing the same all out dps so span between button 2 and 3
/cast [target=focus] earth shield, (the heal over time one), lesser healing wave, chain heal, ....

as for totems, I control them from my numpad keys with numpad-5 being my panic button chain heal from all shaman on themselves ( /cast [target=player] chain heal )
you will have to decide your own totem patterns but I have numpad-1 as being all healing totems and ( 7 & 8 are different sets of pvp and pve totem cast squences )

I use xperl and it allows me to bind my numbpad keys to any set of bars, so I setup BAR-5 to use numpad 1-9 in the first 9 positions

The problems you see at the very lower levels is that shaman are under powered due to no mana pool and bad gear. they will be much more powerful at 60-70 range.

I'd really look for some big Kill quests, the ones that annoy single boxers. Also group quests as well. You can smash those out pretty fast I'm sure. I'm confused about the totem use though. You really shouldn't even need totems except for 'Oh Sh*t' situations while leveling. They take time to lay down and you should be constantly moving looking for the next spawned mobs to kill. Keep in mind that you get 0 xp from mobs killed only by your totems. Unless you've got a pally in each of your groups, to lay down the consecrate, some of you groups won't get any xp. Lightning bolts and Chain Lightning should let you clean an area fast. If you set up a button for 'group 1 kill' another for 'group 2 kill', 'group 3 kill' ect... you may be able to kill a whole pack of mobs at once and very quickly.

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Originally Posted by 'HPB',index.php?page=Thread&postID=162200#post1622 00

I'd really look for some big Kill quests, the ones that annoy single boxers. Also group quests as well. You can smash those out pretty fast I'm sure. I'm confused about the totem use though. You really shouldn't even need totems except for 'Oh Sh*t' situations while leveling. They take time to lay down and you should be constantly moving looking for the next spawned mobs to kill. Keep in mind that you get 0 xp from mobs killed only by your totems. Unless you've got a pally in each of your groups, to lay down the consecrate, some of you groups won't get any xp. Lightning bolts and Chain Lightning should let you clean an area fast. If you set up a button for 'group 1 kill' another for 'group 2 kill', 'group 3 kill' ect... you may be able to kill a whole pack of mobs at once and very quickly.

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I think we just need to break Sam out of his EQ grind-fest mindset. AoE's and multiple pull/kiting were the king of exp in EQ. But it's highly irrelevant in most WoW situations.

Ya its looking like the payoff is level 60 and thunderstorm, once to 60 things will really look up for the all the shaman. I have been toying with making 5 minigroups of 1pal, 1priest, 3 mage (tank, heal, dps), but then when I think about 25 thunderstorms (no mellee can kill me at all) well doh. Also the lure of 25 thunderstorms means I can't spec out of elemental.

Tagging is the core problem (i.e. doing some damage without killing completly with totems.). As I said I was able to do 6-7 eliet mobs (4-5 easy) with my well geared Pal and 4 shaman (not with the naked shaman).

I just dont have a plan for tagging except to use the Pal and then he will be always getting exp and outlevel the others (and if he tags mobs grey to him then the others get no exp I thinks). Is there a way to get rid of exp in this game lol ... (like deleveling with the deaths for the necro rez item in eq?). I suppose I could make a 2nd leader / tank like Druid on the same account and split off the exp with him ... hummm.

Otherwise I have to use shocks or LB to tag, in which case may as well just use shocks to kill as well ... (shocks is better as you can cast those while moving).

I think that chain lightning will be an effecitve tag method but thats at like at level 32 ... maybe I should just single kill with shocks untill then.

If your Paladin in group 1 tags every mob, group 2 will never get any xp from mobs, neither will group 3. If you're going to grind your way leveling, you'll want someone from each group tagging 1/5 of the mobs. This way each group of 5 gets the xp from 1 out of 5 mobs you kill.

In wow, once a mob is tagged, only people in the group with the tagger get any xp from it.