How do you guys level 5 shamans ?? It would take half a year?

[Boylston]

avoid collection quests like the plague

I disagree here. I think it's helpful to know whether a collection quest is going to lead to a chain (or maybe be a middle section of one) that gives you a nice chunk of XP or an item that might be helpful. It's also helpful to use a tool like wowhead.com to figure out the droprate of the item(s) you're collecting and to judge how many it may take.

I did plenty of high drop rate, low number of items, not too-far-out-of-my-way collection quests, and almost all that were a part of a good chain for nice XP. I almost always passed on isolated collection quests. More commonly, I would accept the quest, start killing in the area, and maybe complete the quest on only 1-2 of the team. I simply rotated who was looter/quester for the collection items to balance out their XP.

Also, the dungeon quests had a larger than normal boost to XP, I believe. It's well worth your while to find a way to get through instances like BRD and knock out most of the quests that can be completed inside. Again, having a high level main (or friends) that can help here is nice. I think I got an entire level off just quest XP from BRD...

[Stealthy]

hehe but how do you do instance with 5 shamans? no tank and no heals? just pewpew?

It's easy, each pull goes something like this

1. Make sure your guys have a shield equipped and main hand weapon buffed.
2. Drop 5 x healing stream totems (they stack!)
3. Drop buffing totems (SoE, GoA, SS, etc)
4. For casting groups, drop 5 x grouding (they stack!)
5. Pull using chain lightning (lightning bolt if you dont have CL yet) (with EM if its not on cooldown)
6. Drop fire totems while mobs inc
7. Melee and pew pew mobs down, throwing out heals as needed

The beauty of it is that with 5 shams, the agro bounces around so you dont find one sham getting beaten on for long. If any sham's HP gets too low, do a focus heal (5 x chain heal or LHW) and they will be back up to full HP.

With bosses that need to be solo tanked (e.g. Herod in SM Armory), just send one sham in first, let him get a few ES's off to build agro, then start pew pew with your other shams, focus healing when needed.

Cheers,

Stealthy

[xum]

Stealthy,

Your totems are defunct bro :P SoE? GoA? for elemental? No thanks. Healing Stream, the 101 totem if you have it yet ( or Grounding), searing totem, and then a combo of Earthbind and Stoneskin (extra slowing never hurts). I recommend pulling with Lightning Bolt (it has a travel time and takes longer to cast), followed by EM+CL or just straight CL. LB, LB, CL. LB, LB, CL.

And Eteocles,

Shamans overpowered? No dude, please don't ever say that again. Just because Shamans work well for 5-boxing and high burst damage, the class has serious flaws from a solo play perspective, including in arenas. No CC, Earth Shield is dispellable by 5 of 9 (resto), no way to close the gap (enh), easily kitable (all) etc etc. I played my shaman for three months prior to 2.3, and it was pure hell after playing a lock to 70, a hunter to 70, and an ice mage to 67.

[Ripper]

My shamans are level 60. Shamans have no CC, so yes, it basically is pew-pew. Unlike my other group where I ran them through SM, etc with a 70, I just quested. Took about a month of casual play. I've ran SM once, ZF once or twice, and ST just to complete quests. If there are enough quests to make it worthwhile, I'll do an instance. I really like questing, especially more with the 2.3 xp boost. Yes, collection quests suck butt, but some of them are not bad at all.

As for totems, I drop 1 tremor, 1 earthbind, 3 stoneclaw, 5 totem of wrath, 5 grounding, 4 healing and 1 mana spring. When I hit 64, I'll throw in wrath of air. For pvp, I use another set.

2 lightning bolts x 5 kills mostly everything. Elites might take 3, maybe more if they're higher level. I kill everything up to 6 levels above me, including elites. Kill quests are absurdly easy, practically no downtime except looking up the next set of quests to complete.

[opt]

As for totems, I drop 1 tremor, 1 earthbind, 3 stoneclaw, 5 totem of wrath, 5 grounding, 4 healing and 1 mana spring. When I hit 64, I'll throw in wrath of air. For pvp, I use another set.

Does anyone ever use Fire Nova Totem, ive been monitoring it with SWStats and using it in SM:Cathedril and if i use it every pull or every second pull its currently contributing between 10-15% on overall damage. Im quite supprised at the burst damage 1 LB + 1 Shock + 1 Fire Nova can produce. Maybe not as much as +15 to crit from totem of wrath tho

[Lokked]

5 Shaman is definitely viable.

Just go with what you like, bro. But don't give up on them until you've at least experienced the power of 5x Healing Stream Totems (lvl 20). If you still don't like it, consider leveling up a tank of some sort to go with them instead of the 5th Shaman. In order of difficulty, from easiest to hardest, Paladin -- Druid -- Warrior. Base your decision on what you would like to run around with as a 70.

Lokked

[-silencer-]

Does anyone ever use Fire Nova Totem, ive been monitoring it with SWStats and using it in SM:Cathedril and if i use it every pull or every second pull its currently contributing between 10-15% on overall damage. Im quite supprised at the burst damage 1 LB + 1 Shock + 1 Fire Nova can produce. Maybe not as much as +15 to crit from totem of wrath tho

I'm using an AoE-prot pally for tanking, but I use fire totems now. Here's my typical pull..
- Set combat formation (F1 to make alts move forward, left, right, backwards - diamond formation about 2y apart, breaking /follow with paladin)
- Throw totems - 3x healing stream, 1x mana spring, 1x stoneskin, 1x strength of earth, 2x earthbind/tremor
- Pull with pally, either judgement of crusader or 'drive-by' auto-attack pull, bring back mobs to front of closest shaman & consecrate.
- Throw 4x fire nova totems, 4x lightning bolt
- Usually the first mob is dead from the LBs, but the fire nova is there to begin the initial hit to the rest of the mobs and finish off what's left of the original.
- Throw 4x magma totems.. more steady AoE dps.
- Throw 4x lesser healing waves on the paladin to top him off, and 4x searing/fire nova totems as needed.

This pull is quite mana friendly, and with all the threat reduction, I've never had a problem with shamen pulling aggro off the paladin.
I typically have Retribution Aura, BoK, Righteous Fury (w/ 3/3 talents), Seal of the Crusader activated on the paladin, and Blessing of Salvation on the shamen. A high block shield with shield spike is fantastic too.

[Nepida]

I <3 fire nova.

As for the pulls, I will only pull with CL if the mobs are easy. If the mobs can do some damage to me I want to make sure a few of them hit the stoneclaw totems. In fact sometimes I will stop casting to make sure a mob hits the totem to get stunned before I start casting to minimize downtime from healing.

[Ripper]

I only use fire nova when multiple mobs are right on top of my group. Most of the time, I don't even bother with totems, mobs die fast anyway. When I pull big groups, or a group with 3 or more elites, then I'll bust out the totems.

[Nepida]

Oh yeah, fire nova totems are also good for nature immune mobs. I 5xFire Nova, 5x Fire Shock and I can keep up the killing speed pretty well.