Somewhat finalized Thunderstorm rotation, elemental tips

[magwo]

Yesterday me and Lizandra discussed the Thunderstorm rotation a little, came to the conclusion that it's best to have your grounding totems included in the rotation of TS.
For those who are new to this or not aware.. what I do is that I have 4 separate buttons, each with the same but rotated spells around the shammies:

Button 1: TS, Grounding Totem, Fire Nova Totem, Grounding Totem
Button 2: Grounding Totem, TS, Grounding Totem, Fire Nova Totem
etc, or something similar optimized for your needs

Should preferrably be used in succession B1-B4 to maximize effect.
On a side note, the reason I don't use cast sequence is that they are unreliable in PVP with all the CC and silence going around - they get way out of synch. Using these buttons in pvp I spam them as needed until the TS goes off.

This rotation has improved my pvp performance immensely in BGs. Knockback + aoe stun + spell defense in one single button press - it's simply an awesome tool to survive the onslaught of many enemies.. The thing to look out for is to not waste TS on nova stunned targets.
I used to have Frost shock and no groundings in the rotation, but the frost was sort of counter-productive, because meelee that was TS:ed and frosted sometimes didn't get back fast enough to get stunned by the Nova.


Edit: Note that "TS" in this rotation is a macro with pvp trinket + TS which makes it more useful under pressure where you are often stunned or polymorphed or whatever.

[GizmoxLoW]

On my TS roation i have one of my shamans drop an earthbind. so when i do knock someone away it gives me a few extra seconds to set things up to start nuking

[suprafro]

I don't get the value of separate buttons, aside from the issue of the toon whos turn it is to fire being CCd? Thats solved though with a PVP trinket or simply hitting the button again to progress to the next character/sequence...I DO have a seperate squence that is empty aside from staggered TS (ex: ,,,TS,) so that if someone is missed I can use it to access their TS without waiting on GDCS from doing other stuff. I find that party cooldown tracking is priceless for monitoring whos are available...Anyway I have staggered cast sequences on all my shaman on one button to produce the following:

main sequence: (all toons)

1 tap = 1 TS, 1 nova, 1 tremor, 1 earthbind, 1 warstomp

backup sequence: (all toons)
TS,,,,
,TS,,,
etc

I've played around with having the warstomps out of the sequence but I prefer them in the sequence as they are delayed by 0.5 so they hit after TS knockback and stun remaining targets whom probably had up some sort of magic immune ability up at the time

[pinotnoir]

Can you guys post your macros for this? I am trying to figure out the best combos for either button press keybinds or cast sequence macros. I have 3 cows and I never use their stomp. I like the idea of rotation on novas for the stun. I think the button press would be tough because the character assigned to ts may be cc'ed. That would require tons of awareness to know whos turn it is and if they are able to ts by not being cc'ed.

[magwo]

I don't get the value of separate buttons, aside from the issue of the toon whos turn it is to fire being CCd? Thats solved though with a PVP trinket or simply hitting the button again to progress to the next character/sequence...I DO have a seperate squence that is empty aside from staggered TS (ex: ,,,TS,) so that if someone is missed I can use it to access their TS without waiting on GDCS from doing other stuff. I find that party cooldown tracking is priceless for monitoring whos are available...Anyway I have staggered cast sequences on all my shaman on one button to produce the following:

main sequence: (all toons)

1 tap = 1 TS, 1 nova, 1 tremor, 1 earthbind, 1 warstomp

backup sequence: (all toons)
TS,,,,
,TS,,,
etc

I've played around with having the warstomps out of the sequence but I prefer them in the sequence as they are delayed by 0.5 so they hit after TS knockback and stun remaining targets whom probably had up some sort of magic immune ability up at the time

Many times when you use this your pvp trinket will be on cooldown.

Hitting a cast sequence button again causes multiple drops of unwanted totems, for example several fire novas or several earthbinds. Then they might be on cooldown when you actually need them. Most of the time when I'm doing this 1-4 of my shammies are coming out of CCs like fears, stuns, silences so I need to mash the button for a while to make sure most of the stuff is actually done.

I only have 4 shammies, and I value grounding totem way over earthbind, and my tremor should not need refreshing when I'm doing this rotation. Not having earthbind in the rotation eliminates the need to also have tremors in it.

[suprafro]

toona:

/castsequence reset=45 thunderstorm, fire nova totem, tremor totem, grounding totem, earthbind totem
/castsequence ,,,,war stomp

toonb:

/castsequence reset=45 earthbind totem, thunderstorm, fire nova totem, tremor totem, grounding totem
/castsequence ,,,war stomp,

toonc:


/castsequence reset=45 grounding totem, earthbind totem, thunderstorm, fire nova totem, tremor totem
/castsequence ,,war stomp,,

toond:

/castsequence reset=45 tremor totem, grounding totem, earthbind totem, thunderstorm, fire nova totem
/castsequence ,war stomp,,,

toone:

/castsequence reset=45 fire nova totem, tremor totem, grounding totem, earthbind totem, thunderstorm
/castsequence war stomp,,,,



I'm not saying these are the ideal abilities to have in a sequence, thats up to you, but there is no waste here... each sequence is only using 1 nova and 1 TS per button push. If an ability on the first sequence is not available or on cooldown use the second sequence (warstomps)

[magwo]

Um I'm not sure if I'm missing something here.. but I fail to see how that would work.

Assuming your pvp trinket is on cooldown:

1. You get AOE stunned, toon C and D resist.
2. You press Your TS rotation button, no TS but toon C casts a Fire Nova.
3. You press your TS rotation button again, still no TS but toon D drops a Fire Nova.
4. You get AOE feared, toon B resists.
5. You press your TS rotation button, no TS but toon B drops a Fire Nova.
6. You get out of CC and now most of your Fire Novas are on cooldown.


I don't see how you avoid this problem with cast sequences.


EDIT: All this is referring to suprafro's castsequence model for doing this.

[entoptic]

Sorry guys but I am failing to see this.

Why not have all your grounding totems on one button. Press it and blame 5 grounding totems.

Why not have all your TS on a single button as well. Press it and watch everyone die and fly.

Use shift to modify or just another button for round robin.

I guess I don't see the use of single TS vs TSx5. I get the whole knock back thing but if you use TSx5 then they go FLYING and you can just chain heal up and roll whomever comes in next.

[entoptic]

Um I'm not sure if I'm missing something here.. but I fail to see how that would work.

Assuming your pvp trinket is on cooldown:

1. You get AOE stunned, toon C and D resist.
2. You press Your TS rotation button, no TS but toon C casts a Fire Nova.
3. You press your TS rotation button again, still no TS but toon D drops a Fire Nova.
4. You get AOE feared, toon B resists.
5. You press your TS rotation button, no TS but toon B drops a Fire Nova.
6. You get out of CC and now most of your Fire Novas are on cooldown.


I don't see how you avoid this problem with cast sequences.

Drop grounding totems and tremor totems before they come in. For me these 10 totems are ALWAYS down. TSx5 kills just about everyone and if they survive FSx5 and they are dead. Then CL whomever is left. No one wants to run back into the mix after you TSx5 and they are at low health.

[suprafro]

I've got seperate modifier keys to drop all novas, all TS (with EM), all groundings, staggered novas, staggered TS, and staggered tremors but I just find it convinent to merge nova and TS into a combined sequence in a single button to handle most PVP situations. There are definitely times when blowing all nova/TS is a beautiful thing like BGs, but in the arena I always use them staggered as im basically dead if they are all on CD and everyone ive come across in arena is in the 22-26k hp range. Just my experience anyway