Did an Instance (Shadowfang Keep)

[Tonuss]

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.

[Frosty]

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?

[Tonuss]

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

[Gadzooks]

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.

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.

[Tonuss]

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.

[Catamer]

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.

[HPB]

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.

[Frosty]

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.

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.

[Sam DeathWalker]

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.

[HPB]

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.