1 Paladin/4 Shaman - 4 Elemental or 1 Resto?

[Aradar]

Skip to bold paragraph, if you just want to get to the questions. Thanks.

I know, another 1 Paladin/4 Shaman question, but I haven't really seen this covered and yes, I used the search box. With this setup, it seems most of you are running 4 Elemental though I did notice that Vyndree has one resto in addition to her 4 elemental (correct me if I'm wrong on this, armory is down and I can't check). My thought was to go 3 elemental/one resto but now I don't know from seeing the combinations here. My goal is to "solo" 5 mans and I'm not running 5 shammies because I already have one level 70 and don't want 6. I also already have a 70 pally but he is very well geared retribution and I'd like to keep him that way. Though I'd like to have a druid tank some day, I chose a pally because they seem to be the best at multi mob aggro.

Additionally, I don't want to power level these guys by using one of my current 70s because I want to "solo" all the instances as I grow to really help me get this down and tweak my play style over time as opposed to rushing to 70 and then figuring it out. Plus I didn't do very many instances with my other toons because either I hate pugs (which is one of the reasons I find this so intriguing) or I just wanted to get to 70 and quested straight up. With this setup, I can hopefully experience that content a little more.

As for where I'm at now, I just started this the other night. I've been looking at this for some time and already had two accounts for leveling a hunter/priest combo but that was purely follow and alt tab. Finding keyclone is what pushed me over the edge as I didn't want to buy multiple computers. With keyclone, I'm running 5 accounts on one computer and one 30" monitor. My guys are currently up to level 8 and naturally being a clicker is making it slow going but I'm working on it. I believe key bindings will probably help me get better with my other toons as well once I get the hang of it.

My current input devices are a G11 keyboard and a G9 mouse and I'm thinking of getting a Nostromo N52. Speaking of which, I'm not having much luck with the G keys for my formations so any help there would be appreciated as well. I've tried macroing it in and changing the key bindings for the multiple characters but when the macro has multiple key presses the toons don't seem to really do anything. Do I need to added pauses between the key down/key up? Probably should have tested that myself but it was late and I needed to go to bed and now I'm now at my house.

Sorry this was so long, but I know most of you like some background before you respond and asking questions about one thing obviously leads to questions on other aspects of it. So in short, with a tank + 4 shammy play style, do you have a dedicated healer or no? As a side question, is a pally tank really that much better for 5 mans as opposed to the other tanks? I don't mind having another pally but I wouldn't mind a different class either. And one last side question(s), Nostromo N52 or no and could any of you provide a good G key formation macro?

Thanks in advance for any help you may offer.

[Aradar]

Sorry this posted as a wall of text, I didn't type it that way. I don't know what happened, I will try to edit it.

Edit: Okay, I got it fixed but now I can't remove this.

[elo]

Vyndree has documented and proven successes with 3 elemental and 1 resto, so I call that the safe bet. The 'holy trinity' is always safer. She says she got to 70 with 4 elemental then started hitting walls. Swapped one to Resto and it was a new lease on life.

I'm hard headed and lower level (55 atm) so I'm still running 4 elemental but I'm starting to stack my remaining 20 talent points (after getting ToW) in Resto and I do healing rotations.

Your play style will morph as you go anyhow, so I wouldn't get too hung up on setting it in stone. I'd just run the 4 elementals, plow through everything until you hit a wall. Then figure out how to get around the wall. It's not a big deal to change spec later, it IS a big deal to have to reroll a class.

[Vyndree]

[quote='elo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=35826#pos t35826]Vyndree has documented and proven successes with 3 elemental and 1 resto, so I call that the safe bet.[/quote]

Not quite true. I leveled 1 prot pally and 4 ele shammy all the way to Slabs before I ran into problems (lvl 69, FYI). There were some threat issues but nothing unmanageable until the 2nd boss in Slabs. At no time was any of my 4 leveling shammies specced resto. All of the videos I posted, unless you see the name "Velani" in the intro, do not contain a specced healer. At this point, the only videos where Velani (resto shammy) makes an appearance is the Kara videos.

My resto shammy was my main, and already 70 when I was leveling the other 4 shammies + prot paly.

See my discussion on resto vs elemental and healing threat here: [url='http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3505']Of offspec healers and threat (Shadow Labs)[/url]

I would end up with 1 or 2 shaman left with almost no health, and a oom paladin who is blowing every mana pot cooldown trying to rebuild her threat. And, of course, since she's taking damage, the heals from the elemental shaman on the tank or themselves would pull aggro. Total wipefest.

...

And if you're having threat problems with a 1 pally 4x shaman group, try a specced healer. Ele shammy heals are not mana efficient and add to the already high elemental threat. Earth shield alone will make a huge difference in pally threat since they get both healing and mana on earth shield procs. It's like thorns. Every little bit helps.

In my experience, you'll do perfectly fine without even gathering a heal set and just using all 4 elemental shaman for situational healing up until Ramparts. Ramparts will be hard without a specced healer, but I was still able to clear it at level 62 using 4 ele shammies and no +healing gear.

When you hit outlands, it will be your choice. With 3 dps classes, you'll still be fine with questing so it's not like you lose anything speccing one resto for the 60-70 grind. In fact, I'd probably recommend it. If I had to turn around and do it again, I'd probably spec a resto shammy at lvl62 (Ramparts) -- if you don't, you'll be riding your paladin's ass on the threat meters all the way to 70.


Oh, and Elo... I don't do healing rotations -- I have two assigned healing wave shaman and two assigned lesser healign wave shaman. They're paired up, so if the healing wave shaman dies, a lesser healing wave shaman will take over both a healing wave and a lesser healing wave. It's kinda hard to explain...

This is a macro for a shaman assigned to healing wave... If the LHW shaman is dead, cast LHW. Otherwise, don't even bother casting anything

/stopmacro [target=ShammyLHW,help,nodead]
/cast [target=focus,help,nodead][target=party1,help,nodead] Lesser Healing Wave

This is the same shaman's healing wave button:

/cast [target=focus,help,nodead][target=party1,help,nodead] Healing Wave

Swap LHW for Healing Wave and you've got your LHW shammy's macros. This I found to be the most effective way for me to heal with my ele shammies. If I'm taking massive damage, I can kick off everyone's heals and get 2 LHW's to hit me fast, and two regular Healing Waves already casting. If I only need a spot heal, just 2 LHW's will do. If I'm taking large but steady damage, just queue up 2 Healing Waves.

Anyway, I've played with alot of healing macros and this one was the one that worked for me from lvl 40 onwards.

[Aradar]

Thanks for the replies.

To Vyndree: Is that second macro supposed to be Healing Wave and not Lesser? Do you have the first macro bound to the same key as the LHW for the 2 Shamman that do cast it so assuming they are all alive, 2 cast LHW and 2 cast nothing and then another key bound to tell the other two shaman to cast HW?

To Furshpere: How did I know that some l2* comment would come from you? I tried to avoid this but after one page of search results, I quit reading the threads. Guess this will teach me to read farther as Vyndree's post was on the second page.

[Vyndree]

To Vyndree: Is that second macro supposed to be Healing Wave and not Lesser? Do you have the first macro bound to the same key as the LHW for the 2 Shamman that do cast it so assuming they are all alive, 2 cast LHW and 2 cast nothing and then another key bound to tell the other two shaman to cast HW?

Doh. Yes. I'll fix it.

Copy paste ftl.

[elo]

Oh, and Elo... I don't do healing rotations -- I have two assigned healing wave shaman and two assigned lesser healing wave shaman. They're paired up, so if the healing wave shaman dies, a lesser healing wave shaman will take over both a healing wave and a lesser healing wave. It's kinda hard to explain...

Nice solution, I'm pretty definitely going to take that! Like I've told a few people in different posts, I usually just run whatever I come up with till I hit a wall, then I figure out how to work around it. The healing hasn't been a wall yet but it's been looming on the horizon and I know I'll have to improve it pretty soon.

Thanks!

[d0z3rr]

I'm currently leveling 1 pally and 4 shams while my 4 hunters gain rested XP.

I was wondering how you guys with 1 pally and 4 shams handle 3 mob pulls. For me 3-4 mob pulls are quite easy with my hunters. But a paladin cannot tank 3 mobs at once.

[thinus]

I'm currently leveling 1 pally and 4 shams while my 4 hunters gain rested XP.

I was wondering how you guys with 1 pally and 4 shams handle 3 mob pulls. For me 3-4 mob pulls are quite easy with my hunters. But a paladin cannot tank 3 mobs at once.

What level?

[elo]

I'm currently leveling 1 pally and 4 shams while my 4 hunters gain rested XP.

I was wondering how you guys with 1 pally and 4 shams handle 3 mob pulls. For me 3-4 mob pulls are quite easy with my hunters. But a paladin cannot tank 3 mobs at once.

Iono about anyone else but I use a shield...