Raidboxers, why shamans?

[Vyndree]

Personally, when I rolled my shammies it was because I'd already had a shammy. In fact, my "main" was constantly respeccing between Elemental and Resto.

Another reason why I chose shammies is their relatively simple dps rotation. In a raid, you've got too much to micromanage without having to worry about a complex rotation.

Lastly, totem stacking (particularly grounding totem). It trivializes fights like Maiden which would be incredibly hard to heal otherwise. A simple grounding totem can mitigate tons of damage without much micromanagement.

And, since I had an extra spot (1 main shaman, already 70; 4 elemental shaman) in my leveling group, I wanted a tank. I had started out with a gnome warrior (she's the one in my RFK and SM video) but had a prot paladin sitting at 40. After much debate, since I was doing fine with the warrior -- I decided to level onwards (see RFD video and later) with a prot paladin. The prot paladin had more synergy with the shaman -- BoW/Salv for the shammies, and the pally benefits from both melee and spellcaster totems.

When I was around level 40ish, Ellay proved that 4 shaman could be amazing arena PvPers as well. And, well... the rest is history.

[Xar]

LOL Vyndree, I swear I'm not following you around posting right after you do... You just happen to post in threads just before I see them.

My favorite was a lock for a long time...then I got a priest to 70 and had her follow my lock. It was a great thing. My priest was raiding for a few months and I had a blast. I'd farm gold with dailies on my priest and lock to fund my priests never ending potion and consumable needs. Got epic flying on both and drakes, etc. Then the raiding guild fell apart and I wasn't happy with the merge that happened so I quit. I saw a posting at wowinsider about Vyndree and Suvega doing Kara and that's how I found this dual-boxing site.

I set up 3 trial accounts, bought keyclone and after my first 5x shadow bolts in the starter area I was hooked. I noticed almost everyone had shaman teams or a large number of shaman in their teams. My wife and I would always have playful arguments about which class was better, me being a lock and her being a ele shaman. I started 5 shaman...never looked back. They are highly resilient in both pve and pvp and have nice burst damage. I was always affliction on my lock and it's a night and day difference at the dps difference. Don't get me wrong my lock is quite capable at killing but the mechanic is slow,life draining kills over time where shaman just go BAM and things die.

Then the totem choices available, they're like an army of little pets ready to be called to your aid if you need something extra in the middle of a fight. Getting poisoned? No problem, just drop a posion cleansing totem to replace a tremor or stoneclaw totem.

Healing...this past weekend I ran 3 heroics with my prot warrior friend. He's pretty well geared and I'd just heal him once he got halfway in health with 4x lesser healing waves, quick heal and he was full health.

I'm definitely an Ele Shaman convert for boxing, but my holy priest will always be my favorite single toon.

[emesis]

I can confirm mana spring stacking in 5 mans, haven't tested across raid groups.

Oh nice, maybe I can beat the horseman now. I get to the 3rd phase and am completely OOM. I've been using 4 healing and 1 mana, so I'll try again tonite. Damn you full workday!

I can confirm it was stacking yesterday. I do not know if this is intended or a bug. Today's maintenance may change it as well.

Hopefully this is intended behavior. I'm running the Horseman as well and 5x mana spring totems are incredible. That's 100 mana per 2 seconds or 250 mp/5 WHILE CASTING. lol

[Tidomann]

I'm sure it's intended behavior.. I just think that if it was applied raid wide, it would not be.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Chain Heal automatically seeks out the lowest hp, the one who needs it the most, eliminating a ton of healing targeting.

Chain Lightnight lets you get more bang for your buck by not over killing to much.

With those two spells there is very little else to think about.

Although some were critical of my long time spent theory crafting and not playing as it turns out 25 Shaman and 1 Paliden is about as perfect as you can get.

[valkry]

Mana spring/healing stream are not raid wide. They stack, but for group play only. Imagine 25 x healing stream or mana spring totems, lol ;-)

The original poster was asking about raid groups being composed of all shaman. While I can't speak on behalf of Sam or Prepared, I can tell you that there are virtually no bosses (especially in WOTLK) that you can steamroll by simply bringing 25 of x-class to a "raid"; some people are even questoning the viability of the 5-man shaman setup for WoTLK, especially with the pure damage that NPC warrior/paladin types are issuing in instances.

Personally, I run ten characters: 4 shaman, 2 paladins, a priest, a druid, and two mages. The mixed classes really make a difference when it comes to end-game content, as encounters are specifically designed around you bringing N-number of certain class types to a raid. Besides, if every/any T5+ instance could be steamrolled by having all of one (especially caster based, in the case of shaman) class, hardcore players could get through the entire expansion (less attunement time) within weeks, probably not more than 6 weeks at best.

Also, besides being uber fun and awesome; outside of winterspring, and as someone has pointed out - outside of a city raid, there's not a lot of content where you can bring 30+ characters into, unless you're looking at the 40 mans, which you can do now with 1 group (max 2 groups) of decently equipped characters.

Bosses that can be downed with 25 of X class: kazzak, doomwalker (or whatever his name), Gruul, Magtheridon, all of kara, half-most of ZA, lurker, hydross, morogrim tidewalker, probably fathom lord K, Void Reaver, Supremus, Akama, rage winterchill, 2nd boss of mount hyjal, teron gorefiend.

I'm thinking of 25 pallies for those bosses. prot, ret and holy, all 3 specs are awesome. Druids can also perform just as well for most of them, but lack dispels for some fights and bubble. If you want, I'll go into why each one is possible. But that is a little more than "virtually no[ne]." Think outside the box more.

[Tasty]

Simply put - totems. Seriously multi-class synergy by stacking totems and the fact that shaman are a hybrid class (heal and dps).

Coupled with a Paladin tank, they are all but unstoppable in PvE settings.

(sorry if I came off rude... this question has been asked many times and answered many times.... try using the search next time)

I keep saying that on the wow forums. All the qq posts usually end up about how shaman stacking/synergy is overpowered yet they still cry about multiboxing itself!

[Tasty]

Latest Blue notes show they are looking into Elemental Shamans AoE capability and planning on buffing it majorly , woo woo

They're also giving all classes a healing spell and the ability to tank. In a later patch they're also merging all the classes into one. :P

[valkry]

Yea, warriors will get 'Healing Shout" and th rogue ability CoBS will now also act like a 'Lay on Hands,' the remainder of their energy will be drained for a heal equal to their max hp.

PS: They are also giving pallies a new bubble which makes them immune to magic damage but not physical. And just like BoP, it doesn't share a cd with the hearth bubble.

[Vyndree]

Bosses that can be downed with 25 of X class: kazzak, doomwalker (or whatever his name), Gruul, Magtheridon, all of kara, half-most of ZA, lurker, hydross, morogrim tidewalker, probably fathom lord K, Void Reaver, Supremus, Akama, rage winterchill, 2nd boss of mount hyjal, teron gorefiend.

Have you seen this ACTUALLY done? With which classes? With what kind of gear (i.e. do you expect each of the 25 to be wearing sunwell level gear?)

What about gruul's ground slams? Netherspite's beams? Mag's box clicking? Lurker's knockback? Hydross's nature resist (for ele shammies)? Dodging void's orbs (keeping in mind that they silence)? Supremus's random targeting? Teron's ghosts?




Of course, I'm under the impression we're talking about at least 5 5-boxers or more (2.5 10-boxers? 1 25-boxer?)