WotLK took my shammie-love away (and misc. 3.0.8 thoughts)

[Prepared]

Yeah, really. Don't get me wrong, I still like them, but I no longer love them. Well, at least not the elemental-spec. Usually my moonkin will be 500ish DPS in front of my shaman on the damage meters. Where they used to be nasty wrecking balls, they're now more like a mediocre caster-type contributing over my resto shaman only with a +140 spelldamage buff and a few extra grounding totems. If I could, I'd gladly replace my whole dps-crew with 3 hunters, or at least replace one of them with a mage.

However, 3.0.8 will bring some nice changes. Better scaling for both LB and Lava Burst (+10%/20% of bonus damage) and LB will now be better dps-wise for single targets than CL (as IMO it should be). Changes to magma totems are nice also (although I practically never use AE damage except for certain specific situations), so I really hope this will fix the DPS issues I'm having. I don't mind hybrids being on the low side of dps compared to pure-dps classes, but being harder to manage (manual flame shock apply etc.) AND being on the lowside of other hybrid casters suck.

I'm also hoping for a fix for /castsequence although that's not a likely scenario. On the bright side: Mechanostriders for my whole team :-D

/agreed with these comments. Which is why I'm considering reconstructing my boxing team. The best 10 man all-around boxing team for Player versus Player (PvP) and Player versus Environment (PvE) now appears to be:

1 Death Knight - main tank and main assist - Unholy spec
1 Warlock - Demonology spec for Damage Per Second (DPS) and some PvP crowd control
2 Paladins - Retribution spec
1 Priest - Discipline spec
2 Mages - Frost spec - DPS and some crowd control
1 Druid - Balance spec
1 Shaman - Elemental Spec
1 Hunter - Beast spec

I've been working on building up this team for awhile to catch up to my shamans to work together to level 80. However, it will take a long time to level up all of the characters through the post 70 levels.

Why different classes? Because with this team, there is the best of everything, DPS is strong, healing is strong, 3 classes have pets for added targets for the enemy to focus on, plus all of the buffs are available. Additionally, all of the classes have casting abilities.

How are the macros and short cuts set up for different classes? By having the single target DPS, Area of Effect (AOE) target DPS, healing/curing spells and assist/initial cast spells on the same keys.

I'm welcome to any critism for a multi-class boxing team, but my opinion is that the multi-class boxing team is a lot better with Wrath of the Lich King than with a single class boxing team. Just set up the keys appropriately and the multi-class team is a great and fun way to experience multi-boxing in World of Warcraft.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Im more then happy with 1 pal 25 shaman ...

Pal getting 30 year taunt! Shaman nova totems is going to be no threat!

Who can ask for more.

And the knockback thunderspell.

You guys can fish around for something better but Im staying right where I am.

[algol]

Shaman don't just do lower damage than a class that's about to be nerfed (hunters), they do the least damage of all the dps specific classes. Sometimes my paladin has higher dps than the shaman.

Quite possibly, but the original comparison to hunters is (temporarily?) invalid for that reason.

Tremor totem escaped the great stacking purges because it never stacked to begin with. Only buffs/debuffs can stack, and it's neither - more of separate entities each spamming an effect at intervals. You can increase the frequency of the effect going off by staggering them, and there's no loss to doing so since only one can affect you at a given moment anyway (fear is a binary effect). The pulsing does start when you cast the totem, just like the pulsing of a DOT or HOT, so the spell as implemented isn't even aware of other tremor totems in the area - it's completely independent. I don't recall it ever behaving differently.

As annoying as it is to have them play takebacks with the crafted mace, it might end up being a good thing overall for shamans since they're not the only mace user. Maybe. Really, I think it was just a screw-up...still, there are some nice shaman changes in .0.8, so I don't see a point in doing a prolonged analysis of current shaman DPS suckage when it is being worked on. However, it would be interesting to know how the changes affect the issue.

[nazgul]

Im more then happy with 1 pal 25 shaman ...

Pal getting 30 year taunt! Shaman nova totems is going to be no threat!

Who can ask for more.

And the knockback thunderspell.

You guys can fish around for something better but Im staying right where I am.

Holy crap a 30 year taunt? Does it reset if you log out, then it's 30 more years or does the 30 years last through logouts?

lol...

[Prepared]

Im more then happy with 1 pal 25 shaman ...

Pal getting 30 year taunt! Shaman nova totems is going to be no threat!

Who can ask for more.

And the knockback thunderspell.

You guys can fish around for something better but Im staying right where I am.

Yes we know Sam, you've been there under level 30 for a while now. But I've not moved up any levels for over a month on my shamans either. I might ding level 70 this month. :-)

[Soundeyes]

From the start of my WoW multiboxing career I've always gone for the classes that are fun to play instead of the flavor of the month. Out of my groups so far the Shaman have the lowest priority. The enjoyment factor for each team has been something like:

1xPally 4xMages : Very very fun! Not really capable of killing hard bosses. Great for BG PvP and ganking. Perhaps the ultimate farming team.

1xPally 1xPriest 3x Mages : My first go at a tri-force style team, still boosting the priest through Outlands. Some heroics will be totally doable.

5xBoomkin : I love stealth so this is fast becoming my favorite team. This will probably be the team I take into the arenas.

1xDeathknight 1xPally 3x Warlock : Another take on the tri-force team. When both are at 80, all the "parts" will be swappable.

5xShaman : Just... not... feeling it. Plus they are still way too popular. I've only run across one other boxer who doesn't do shaman.

[reman]

Elemental shamans' DPS should at least be on the same level as moonkin, given moonkins have more armor and usually more hp as well. So I am not too worry about shaman's DPS as they are buffing us. I am sensing the trend (design choice by blizzard) is to not stack any classes. Blizzard is obviously spreading things out on all classes. and I expect that to be continued. This is great for solo, more choices, really fatal for us boxers, pvp wise at least. With that said, I wouldn't be surprised to see diminishing effects on same spells hitting the targets (wild guess on my part), another level of challenge for coordination and call for diversity.

[Stabface]

I rolled up 3 mages for fun, going to respec my druid to resto for heal along with paladin tank. Should be a monster in PvE... will see how it turns out.

[Hachoo]

Sorry but its been LESS than a single month since WotLK came out. Complaining about ANY class right now, or shaman DPS, or anything else is just silly. Talking about rerolling or changing team makeups this early is even dumber. So much is going to change in the next couple of months that almost none of the classes will play like they do right now. Trust me, shaman will be buffed, other classes will be nerfed, shaman will also get nerfed some probably, its a huge cycle of buffs and nerfs.

Sometimes this forum reminds me of the WoW forum, especially lately. The sky is always falling. Its really annoying.

[Halo]

Agree with ^^^

You have to ask yourself, at some point, why are you playing the game? Most of us boxers probably got into it because the single player game had pretty much run its course. So, let's say 5xshammy or 1xpali+4xhammy is the win, and can roll through all 5 man content without breaking a sweat. OK, so you run through all of it and then what? Do you get a "you win" flashed on your screen. No. In a way, the tweaks (call them nerfs or buffs if you want) that change the mechanics of the game keeps it fresh, even for us boxers. It forces you to try new things instead of hitting the same 3 macro keys over again until the instance is cleared.

I first ran 5 shammies, which at first was a huge leap from playing a single toon. Then went to 1 pali and 4 shammies. Just having a real tank made the game all new again, all new macros to sort out, positioning etc. Now it's become ez mode. I'm now trying a holy trintity setup (DK, healadin, 3 locks). At some point, I will try a full mix of 5 including some meelee.

Leveling them up to at least outland is painful, yes, but with RAF and $25 transfers it's not unbearable. And, it's not like running Azeroth instances while you level a team isn't playing the game. Now, I will admit, I do NOT group with anyone since I started boxing, don't even return chat messages, all my channels are turned off in cities etc. It's a purely PvE environment for me, so the changes I make to my playstyle/gear/team composition are based purely on my effectiveness vs. the server and not compared to other players.