Quad Shaman - BG's Help

[Slats]

Hi guys,

I havn't played my four shaman in PvP very much - normally I run my Prot Pally as well. Since he is the lead and gets targetted most often, he eats an amazing amount of damage and mostly throw avengers shield and stuns melee while I nuke on the Shaman.

I decided to just play the Shaman as a set of four. I have almost no resilience. About 110 on each character. I'm slowly grinding out the gear and will probably run a heap of heroics to grab some more Triumph for the Furious stuff as well as doing 10 5's a week to get base points to try by some Relentless.

I'm really struggling in BG's though, is it just going to get heaps easier once I have more resil? I find the other side will often just rush me, use as much AoE CC as possible and then aoe me to death in seconds. I can take down a few of them before I go down, but I never really feel in control.

I'm a little worried that Shamans are too easy to counter and wondering if this is the right PvP team for me going ahead into Cata.

My characters are Slatsa, Slatsb, Slatsc, Slatsd on Caelestraesz. Pretty much pure mish mash PvE gear. I have about 2300-2700sp depending on the character with identical specs. I am using:

Glyph Of Chain Lightning
Glyph Of Lava
Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem
Glyph of Water Shield
Renewed Rebirth
Glyph of Ghost Wolf

Any suggestions on my talents or glyphs? If I have missed some newbie PvP thread that already talks about this please let me know.

[Kicksome]

With my 5 shaman in BGs I kick ass. No question about it. It's fun as hell blowing 5 fire elementals and hero, along with watching people try and tab target you in a sea of 20 totems. The only people that beat me are a good 5's team that are doing BGs or another group of 5 shamans. Or, if it's like 10+ to 5 and they just overrun me.

If you see a group running to you, you just earth bind, instant ghost wolf and run back a bit. Or Thunderstorm on round robin.

Once you get around 1K resil, you'll really have a much easier time staying alive.
Without resilience, I get like 15k lava bursts on people, they go down instantly. You don't stand much of a chance without resil.

Glyph of Stoneclaw totem is required. I'd also get the thunderstorm glyph that shaves off 10 seconds.

[Slats]

Thanks very much for the advice.

I shall look into mixing up my Glyphs a bit then.

What totems do you drop normally? If your using Stoneclaw do you use it only when your about to get rushed? Or when your not facing people who can fear?

[ash1ey]

Personally in BG, I have have only the main guy with stoneclaw glyph as they try to kill him 90% of the time. I have my other 3 guys drop round robin fear totems as fear is my biggest hate in BG (and i right pain in the ass for other multiboxers im sure). Nothing worse then having no totems down and no trinket CD and getting AoE feared : /

Like the OP said, more ressilience and you will stay alive longer to kill shit. I used to suck badly till i got too 1k ressilience. Now im more geared i even win WSG and SoTA alot more.

Using Grid and Clique with repeater regions (if you use isboxer) helps tons for healing who ever they focus dps. I also have a keybind so they all chain heal each other if its lots of AoE coming in.

[Slats]

Yeah I use Vuhdo to do the healing with Repeater Regions and I have a button that does Chain Heal on self for heavy aoe.

Thanks for the tips, good to know that 1k resil is what to aim for.

[BrothelMeister]

BGs definitely become way easier as you gear up, hang in there.

Not sure which BGs you usually do, I suggest AB, as its one of the best ones for a box, since you can camp LM the entire time, effectively, and no one will hate on you for it. One thing to do on non-40 man BGs is to ask for lead, and put all of your characters in the same group, which helps your totems to stack.

My line usually is: "Please pass lead to any of the <insert name scheme here> so that I can move my guys together" I usually get lead 90% of the time. If someone is silly and wants to try and move you, but cant, just remind them that you have to be on the same server.

Glyphs/spec: copy myself or any of the 2k+ teams (theres really only 2 kinds of specs if you look at them all)
Lava/Shocking are very solid. The third spot goes to either Thunder/Stoneclaw or Wrath usually.

Be sure to keep Thunderstorm on round-robin, and try to space them out. At the least, one of the tricks I've learned if u want to blow all 4 at once is stagger them from one another by a hair (2 Tstorms back to back WILL launch someone twice as far, but no more than double). From videos I've watched not a lot of other ppl like to use fire nova, but in BGs, when the melee is stacking on you, its badass (use all 4 fire novas at the same time).

Another good trick is to pop 3-4 fire elementals in times when a lot of your teamates, and enemies come together, they effectively add chaos to the enemy, and do substantial AOE to the enemy team. (Bloodlust/Heroism Helps with these situations as well)

Hope this helps

[Littleburst]

Resilience is what you need, once you got 600+ resi, i highly recommand to find yourself a dedicated healer to join you in BG. That makes you atleast double as effective, since you don't have to waste time healing yourself up -> you kill the oposing faction faster -> faster node/flag cap.

I like eots and AV best, hate AB and sota most.

Problem with low resi is that you're dead before you can even try to heal yourself up. If there's a healer with you, who's out of range of the AoE stun/fear/silence he should have time to keep you alive untill you can cast a round robin lesser healing wave on yourself. Or chain heal if you're pretty sure you'll finish the cast(no priest/lock or BE running towards you)..

SP is not really the problem, i run with 3k SP and i'm actually considering to lower it and get stam trink from frost emblems and Warr Wrathfull shield, just for lolz in BG.

[BrothelMeister]

I wouldnt go so far as to say that spellpower ISNT what you are aiming for, but trading haste and crit for the resilience that pvp gear offers, and the innately more stamina that comes with it, are a good thing.

Spellpower does help with finishing someone before they reach you in a BG, so it's not a bad thing. (as well as self heals)

[LionsFist]

Although it may sound obvious, don't forget to pop BL every time you've died...

I'd much rather have popped BL, get ganged and killed 2 instead of not popping BL, dying and getting no kills.

Unless you're dying more than once every min and 15 seconds, you should have it ready to go...

[Seraphaw]

Be aware of your surroundings, have the tactical advantage. Pick your fights, strike where the enemy is weakest or where it would buy your factio time even if it's akin to a suicide mission. Be more aggresive than your opponent. Do WG every time it's up for easy gear and little mental anguish.

SWEEP THE LEG


Maybe we could share stuff like battleground tactics in this thread too?