Paralysis by analysis (TBC decisions)

[Torgo]

Thanks a bunch, Nodoze!

I specifically like the idea of making the pally on the current 60 shaman account so that I have the flexibility of PSSSS or SSSSS. That thought hadn't crossed my mind as I was trying to decide where to put the pally.

Leveling the lock separate from the 5man is attractive as well. As you said, maybe sub out one shaman for the lock from time to time to get gear in dungeon, finish quests, etc.

Love the insight and the advice!

You mentioned "if" you play classic tbc. Hopefully you will choose to do so!

I personally don't like TBC for many reasons (it is the start of WoW not being an MMO for one thing). However I might give it a go with 5-man.

If you go PSSSS don't you miss a lot of utility? No priest buff, mage water, portals, summons. (Plus I hate playing shamans

Wouldn't PWWWPr be top dungeon clears with felguard/seed spam/priest buffs?

Summons, since no more world buffs, I could probably do without, but no portals/water in team would be rough.

I have a horde WMMMPr and ally WLMMPr so I guess I would be pretty flexible with char boots. There should be no difference between horde and ally anymore, so I am thinking ally for the aesthetics (horde models/skins are terrible compared to ally and human spirit regen/rep gains.

[Uhnknown]

I do not think any other group comp beats Paladin + 4 Shamans or 5x Shamans when it comes to normal and heroic dungeon runs.

Pally + 4 Shamans is less DPS (the DPS difference between 4 Shamans and 1 is quite noticeable) but it's a lot more forgivable earlier on, once 5x Shamans get decent gear then it just doesn't matter due to everything getting killed way too fast, even in heroics. And this is all without taking into consideration min-maxing pre-raid BiS, consumables, using Drums, etc. Once you add that to either group then it's hands down better to run either, compared to other comps.

[Torgo]

I do not think any other group comp beats Paladin + 4 Shamans or 5x Shamans when it comes to normal and heroic dungeon runs.

Pally + 4 Shamans is less DPS (the DPS difference between 4 Shamans and 1 is quite noticeable) but it's a lot more forgivable earlier on, once 5x Shamans get decent gear then it just doesn't matter due to everything getting killed way too fast, even in heroics. And this is all without taking into consideration min-maxing pre-raid BiS, consumables, using Drums, etc. Once you add that to either group then it's hands down better to run either, compared to other comps.

Do you have an example of a Shaman talent build? I was reading through the old TBC forums and didn't really see a guide on how to play 5 shamans. Any tips or a guide?

If I go the easy route and boost Horde it looks like probably Orc would be the best choice for blood frenzy, right? I would much rather go Space Goat but don't know if I want to take the time to level them.

[Uhnknown]

Do you have an example of a Shaman talent build? I was reading through the old TBC forums and didn't really see a guide on how to play 5 shamans. Any tips or a guide?

If I go the easy route and boost Horde it looks like probably Orc would be the best choice for blood frenzy, right? I would much rather go Space Goat but don't know if I want to take the time to level them.

If you're going Horde then i'd suggest either Troll or Orc, depending on what content you were focusing on doing. Personally i'll be doing a healthy mix of Wpvp, 5s arenas and a lot of dungeon grinding with heroics included so my Shamans will be Orc. In terms of talents i'll be doing a standard 41/0/20 build at 70, but 60-70 i'll probably do something like https://legacy-wow.com/tbc-talents/s...00000000000000 - I haven't fully decided though.

If i was going to be doing just PvE then i'd maybe consider Troll for Berserking just to have that extra haste when burning down bosses, but it's not really necessary, plus i much prefer the Orc Shaman look over Troll.

5 Shamans play pretty easy considering it's basically just drop totems and your basic rotation is Lightning Bolt x3 -> Chain Lightning, rinse repeat. By the time you're in the 800 - 1000 SP range you should have 0 problems with anything heroic related, everything dies really fast by that point.

If you're looking for how 5 Shamans play at 70 then there's a thread in the TBC section with a bunch of video links that still work from old posts in the Movies section.

[nodoze]

I personally don't like TBC for many reasons (it is the start of WoW not being an MMO for one thing). However I might give it a go with 5-man.

If you go PSSSS don't you miss a lot of utility? No priest buff, mage water, portals, summons. (Plus I hate playing shamans

Wouldn't PWWWPr be top dungeon clears with felguard/seed spam/priest buffs?

Summons, since no more world buffs, I could probably do without, but no portals/water in team would be rough.

I have a horde WMMMPr and ally WLMMPr so I guess I would be pretty flexible with char boots. There should be no difference between horde and ally anymore, so I am thinking ally for the aesthetics (horde models/skins are terrible compared to ally and human spirit regen/rep gains.

I tried many teams in TBC including Pa3LPr as well as Pa4S and 5S and though I like like all 3 I found Pa4S the best overall balance for farming for me. 5S could be faster but often when farming I am semi-distracted and just find snap-agro taunt and Paladin mitigation & aggro-management nice to make things more forgivable. While Warlock pets can be nice in some scenarios Shaman have 2 Elementals to help in hard situations. Pa3LPr is fun but I just found everyone being able to DPS and everyone also able to Heal and the ability to have pets when I really wanted them to be better overall...

After I take Pa3LPr from current cap to new cap I will likely then level 5S and use the Warlocks to summon around give health stones. Having the Mage on the 6th accounts lets me portal the whole party at once even without a mage in the 5man group in addition to making it easy to pass out food/water/etc.

Note that when running Shaman you don't necessarily need to miss out on long lasting buffs depending on what else you have in your stable... For example, with a Mage on the 6th account, in addition to party-wide portals/water/food, I can give everyone in the party long lasting Mage buffs and the Priest can give long lasting Priest buffs on all but one Shaman as well. I guess having a priest on my 6th/mage account would allow me to also buff that last Shaman but likely I won't bother for that.

Edit: I haven't looked at TBC Talents for quite some time but likely for most of my Shaman I would do something like Unknown's above build or a standard 41/0/20 build. I like to take Healing Focus on all of my Shaman so that if things get chaotic/dicey I can switch to Concentration Aura on my Paladin and anyone/everyone can pump out healing with no push-back. I also like to initially make one Shaman at least 41 in Resto for Earth Shield until everything is on full farm and really easy from a survivability standpoint and then switch all to focus on DPS.

[Torgo]

Thanks for the replies.

Looking at the videos, Shaman teams look like fun and maybe even easier to multi box than current classic teams. Now it is just a matter of what to level/boost first. I always thought the content in TBC was kind of crappy, but I bailed on TBC back in the day rather early. Hopefully I can get in the beta.