5x ele shamans vs 4 ele shamans+1 druid tank

Hello all!


Background: time limited player (2-ish h/day average) managed to level 1x 60 Shaman (resto spec) just recently, on one of the highest EU pop servers. Geared him up a bit, ran a few raids … etc.
Then ran into consumables issues for raids, which let me to ways to find good (and preferably easy) gold or farming strategies, that don’t require spamming for 1-2-3 hours for groups (or the ever nice: join group then immediately get passed leader and told to ‘spam for tank cuz I need to go for a smoke for the next 40 minutes, also pizza guy at door’).


Naturally I thought of regular gold farming methods, like DM:E jump runs: nope – tauren hitbox issues required more consumables to fix and the whole finesse positioning was stressful. Most other open-world lucrative areas camped/drained .. and so an idea popped up of doing some multiboxing and blow everything up instead, +the fun factor.



Since I already have experience on shaman, naturally I red up about 5 ele/resto shaman being viable for Classic dungeoning/PVP, maybe even in TBC and beyond (Outside of BG’s of course)


So now the uncertainty:

1. Is having a tank available (going for druid, as the easier tank) for other 4 ele/resto shamans, faster clear time (or maybe lower stress) in high level 5 man instances (lvl 52-60), compared to full 5 ele/restos ?
2. Any experienced 5 ele/shamans team in high level dungeons can offer some insight ? did you ever think: “man! If only three was a tank here now I’d have smoked that pack/boss instead of wiping!”
3. If 5 ele/restos are viable, should I drop the druid from the team at lv 48 (to minimize xp loss from lvl difference), and swap in the 60 shammy I have already, to run the full 5 ele/resto team?
4. Or should I keep lvling the druid to 60, and use it for dungeons, with swapping in 1 shaman for pvp sessions only?

Also thought about mix-team, like mages DPS group + warrior/Rshammy. But as first time 5-boxer I want to keep it simple, and I do like the option to go 5x chain lightning some alliance at times while being un-aoe fearable…


Cheers!

Thread moved to the Classic sub-forum, as it's best suited for that section of the forum until we move to the new domain.
-MiRai

A case of trying to answer my own question, maybe a bit premature since I only managed to level the team to RFC level between all the queues that have plagued the server lately.

- Yes, having a tank make the dungeon run more manageable (when the tank died, the other shammys had a very rough life ... if any)
- yes, Swapping in a tank would probably make things easier at high lvl dungeons for this composition

While the queues subside a bit, I rolled a LLLLP team on another server, and I'm having more fun running around insta-dotting everything in sight than casting on all shammys. I guess I enjoy the freedom to dot on the run, heh


Incoming LLLLP questions soon™

5x ele shamans are VERY viable in TBC, it's what got me started boxing after watching a vid of them back in the day wrecking AV lol.

As for being viable in classic, I really can't say how they would do in end game dungeons. I remember when I was leveling mine back during TBC I was able to plow through leveling dungeons no problem. Bosses just melted, but once I hit lvl 58 off I went to Outland to blow more stuff up with the new TBC greens that were as good/better than Naxx epics lol. Never got a chance to run Vanilla end game dungeons with Vanilla gear.

That said by chance I just started a 5x shaman team today, pretty fun so far, got to level 9 before the wife pulled me away from my game lol. Not sure if I'm going to stay elemental with all 5 or try out a 5x enhancement now that IWT was kept for Classic.

Since you already have a 60 Shaman at cap, assuming you level up a shaman team and don't switch to something else, I would definitely level up a Tank+4Shaman team.

My initial thought was that I would put the Tank on my current Shaman account so that once the team is at cap I would have the option to go 5 shaman or 4shaman+Tank but that may be problematic if, after you get the 5 man team to cap, you still view your current Shaman as your main and always want him to be in the group (whether the tank is in the group for that session or not).

Tank option-wise Warriors are the proto-typical choice but I think Druid fits your goals better and is more versatile as you could also use the Druid in ranged DPS mode from time to time (or even do some healing with it).

Thank you for the replies!

I DO have an eye on TBC viability, especially since the classic launcher has a Blood elf background on it, and since TBC is the 'low hanging fruit' when compared to all the extra work that comes with a classic+ progression path.

The 'main' shaman is not that advanced (only 2 runs of MC on him) and since he is just a bit more geared, I rolled the a druid tank on his account. This way I reckon I can deck the other 4 shammys in pre-bis blues and have the 'main' not very far away gear wise when I do swap him in for 5 shammy sessions.


On the side, gonna try to run through RFC with the main shammy boosting, to see if I get more xp/h compared to current all-same-level team.


Worst case scenario, I level 5 shammys and find end-game dungeons difficult in this formation, then I can farm up a bit of coin and have a mage boost my druid to 45+, where I can then pick him up with the rest of the shammys to level him to 60 as well.

If your goal is to farm gold for consumables and such then you're much better off rolling a mage team in classic. Mages dungeon clear time, portals and free food/water is pretty unbeatable. They're also (IMO) better than shamans in world PvP. Shamans don't get strong until TBC.

With a decently geared mage on each account you can boost any character you want to 60 in 3-4 days. I suspect leveling and gearing a mage team and then using it to boost 4 shamans to 60 will take less time than trying to level 5 shamans by themselves.

5 Shamans will do pretty much everything in TBC as Ele. Their toolkit was insane. That's going to be a wild situation with the knowledge everyone has now about their power and seeing it in action.

5x grounding totem and staggered tremor totems. Hnngg. I mean I suppose those abiltiies are available now but boy oh boy was that their prime.

Has anyone done just 5 in Classic? Interested to see how they handle dungeons.

there was a team of 5 shamans around: https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...389#post426389
Also read on a youtube comment they are (were?) around lv 58 nowadays.

Back on thread, tried boosting with the high level shammy and I found brings in +40% more xp/h than clearing with same lvl team. Some of the XP comes from skipping looting, so with looting it should be maybe +30% more XP than same lvl team.

But overall I think I'm not enjoying the re-leveling 4+x shamans experience too much. Think I got PTSD from mana draining SO FAST on shammys on first play-through to 60, now multiplied x4.

Personally, LLLLPr team looks more fun than MMMMX or MMMXY. I like the increased tanky-nes of locks and pet offtanks, plus lock mana management gets away from drinking all the time (especially w/ a disc/shadow priest acting as a battery). I'm just not sure on LLLLPr viability for end-game dungeons and TBC heroics in a few years time. Got to research this a bit.

Shaman's don't really get their insane synergy / burst until TBC.

Even if / when TBC comes out, it won't be for at least another half year / year. If you think you could manage two teams of 60s by then, I would just level a team that would be good in classic and have a teamed prepped for TBC.

I have a DSSSS team at mid 20s. They aren't really doing anything better than my MMMMP/WWWWS team at that level. I assume chaining lightning will make it a lot better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Apatheist

They're also (IMO) better than shamans in world PvP. Shamans don't get strong until TBC.

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I have to say this one (IMO) is a toss up. Mages are indeed strong in world PvP, but my preference would be shamans over mages. Shamans have spell interrupt, grounding totems, slows, and tremor totem. Tremor is just so useful vs fear, even though mages have their ways of breaking fear especially if you roll undead, multiple tremors constantly pulsing are a great fire and forget defense.

Ele shaman can have some nasty burst damage, you just don't see it much because they are a one trick pony and go oom so quickly. 1 ele shaman ready for burst can nearly "one shot" anything but a tank class, nevermind 5 of them round robin. That chain lightning can many times take out multiple people and is so fun to watch. Catch a group of 5 enemies outside a dungeon, blow your burst macro x5 and you can drop their whole group instantly lol.

But like you said mages are way better for PvE content overall as well as for farming gold, shamans don't hold a candle to them in this regard, at least as far as Classic is concerned. I'm mainly leveling a 5x shaman team for fun since I'm pretty set with my other team, gold is not an issue anymore. Also a bonus, if TBC ever does come out, I'll be ready to rock my shamans right off the bat assuming they allow character copy to a TBC server ;)

Problem is shamans are very susceptible to being swarmed, LoS'd, interrupted, etc. due to their immobility. Mages can just global one character or a hundred with instants.

I was skeptical when people started advocating mages on the forum because I've always had a preference for "tankier" classes. I saw the Xzin videos ages ago but I figured his success was just the result of people being bad at the game in vanilla. I decided to give them a try because of all the forum hype and it didn't take long to convince me. Since there's no resilience in classic, survivability is more about killing your enemies before they can do a lot of damage to you and no other composition does close to the same damage to any number targets as mages.

I also actually prefer mages for countering fear over tremor totem. Tremor totems take up globals to place and can be killed. Mages have 2 ice blocks, trinket plus WoTF or fear ward. You'll DR fear before you run out of cooldowns.

Oh for sure, I see your points. I'm looking at this more from my point of view and my playstyle I suppose. I can't play any class in a multibox setup even 1/5 as good as I can play a solo toon, and I suck playing a solo toon too. So all those advantages I see for mages I just could never take advantage of in the heat of the moment lol. For me, Shaman just seem easier in almost every world PvP situation I might find myself in, and that's because I do what I can to avoid world PvP in Classic :D. I would blow my cooldowns and GTFO asap lmao.

I suppose if you go looking for PvP, you're probably a decent multiboxer, I suck and make the most minimal effort to successfully complete my PvE goals haha. Shaman is for me just easier to handle probably because I was so comfortable with them during TBC/Wrath. Ya they are nowhere near as good right now, but still interesting and enjoyable. When I compare them to my mages I feel more comfortable with the shamans already and I've only hit level 20 so far lol.