Long time coming

[remanz]

I think without fully maxed on armor + weapon + professions, it is really hard to tell what works or not. It seems like NOT long ago when I was struggling to bring down 1 restore druid in a 5 vs 1 battle, where he heals himself until OOM. And 50,000 gold after, he went down in 2 seconds.

The reason I throw out the enhance idea is that it does seem to address some of the issues DK + 4 rets have , sacrificing some survial along the way. I am a huge fan of enhancement shaman's

Earthbind AOE snare + remove snare on group
Bloodlust
Purge
and the Wolf Pack is very intimidating. Suits this group's overall tone very well.

[asonimie]

Kind of ironic but I also felt the same way about this team. It felt very gimmicking to me, more so than the Shamans. After several matches I would try and think about what I can improve on, what I could change on my tactics and while you can say Shamans are one dimensional - this combo is even more so.

With the Shamans I could always find a strat to make it smoother, maybe it was the sense of more control of your surroundings I'm not sure, but getting kited by 1 Mage and 2 healers while your entire team is up and lose is quite possibly one of the most frustrating experiences in Arena.

I think getting those 1800 weapons will change things greatly for you, and I love this team in the PvE realm but from what it seems Shaman may still reign supreme after the changes to resil.

They aren't one dimensional and none of the top shaman boxers feel that way I'm sure. The problem with shamans is they are prolly the EASIEST class to halt their dps. Facing / Stuns / Silence / Re-alignment time etc. Yes, shamans can heal and have good utility, but If you can't kill you shouldn't even try arguing their other facets. A good opponent with any number of classes can chain CC on you indefinitely, reducing your damage to zero for extended periods of time. And please nobody argue with the usual "instant LvB blah blah." It is more than easy to mitigate 75k instant damage down to a survivable 30k. I personally worked very hard on different ways to best utilize EM LVB, and in the end I was still very disappointed with it vs. all the immunities out there. And 1 dead target doesn't guarantee a win playing with mana hungry elemental shamans. Most teams give up after a couple teammates die, but I've had 2 people (healer + dps) kite and run my mana dry before, then proceed to kill my priest or worse, rez up. That's a major weakness.

Resilience change? It hurts shamans just as much or more than other comps, considering now our lightning spam prolly entered the healable zone now with 15% more reduced dmg. Also, shamans also do not benefit as much from bloated season 8 melee dmg which scales higher than spell dmg in arena. The feel of the DK / Ret comp is "offensive, driving and controlling", whereas the shamans are "defensive and try to avoid being controlled." I much prefer being the aggressor. Sitting in totem camp waiting for the wiz cleave to get their timing on you sucks, and I don't want that weakness over my head again.

The "control of the fight" is definitely more difficult now, not having totem camp or much range, but I believe there are ways to make up for it. While difficult, the DK Rets have more room for improvement, as in managing repents, silences, grip/strangulates, focus target switches, staying alive longer passively etc.

[remanz]

Drawing comparison between dk+rets with shamans is ok. Just different play style. Seems like shamans are doing well right now, which is only fair since the shaman team have a healer who has the shamans' back. Oh my lava burst didn't make the kill. Priest is still alive. we can do this again. There are more back and forth in the battle.

DK + 4 Rets are more like "bam ! bam ! bam ! bam!" then it is over. Garbage time. I am either cleaning up or getting cleaned up. Not a bad thing, some people prefer this way, including me. And this "bam bam" style blows up in BGs. The raw killing power is much greater than shamans. Kill 5 people, my team is fresh as new to move on to the next 5 people. Stopped by nothing, and truly a killing machine. Its like PVE 5 man heroic, melees just do it quicker. If killing is the objective, I don't see any other combo beats this at the moment. But unfortunately, at least half of the BGs' objectives are not based on killing.

[Èlemental]

I'm looking into starting one of these teams remanz and you seem to know your stuff about it. Was the leveling process hard for you, or did it just kind of "Flow" by?

[remanz]

I'm looking into starting one of these teams remanz and you seem to know your stuff about it. Was the leveling process hard for you, or did it just kind of "Flow" by?

Oh leveling. It helps greatly where you have a level 80 5 man team already. Especially, if you got a lvl 80 tankdin.

Prepare 4 heirloom shoulder + chest. Send them over to the paladins.
Quest level 1-8. No trick here just do questing and killing some mobs with 4 paladins.
8-10. RFC. Boosting with level 80 paladin
10-20. SFK. Boosting with level 80 paladin
20-40. SM. Boosting with level 80 paladin
40-58. Strat. Boosting with .... you know what. I think Heyaz got a great video on how to do it with 1 pull.

58 + . go to outland. Wait there.
Create a new DK. starting at level 55. Do all the quest and get him to lvl 58.

At this point, there are no more boosting for me since DK and lvl 80 paladin are on the same account. I quest all the way from 58-80. Mixing some BGs. no tricks.

Others might have better ways. But this is how I did it.

Note this is the No RAF lvling route. With RAF, your 1-60 will be much quicker. and the boosting was supremely boring, no doubt. Only one thing keeps me going-that was watching Kromtor's rating skyrocketd around that time.

[Èlemental]

I sadly only have an 80 shaman team, no tank. I could rez my 80 DK and faction change him to orc and have him Powerlevel my guys. But idk, seems like it would take a while. Yet the reward seems great! :O