Shaman team questions

[Suribusi]

I was never really that big into shaman. My highest one was like level 12. I've seen a couple videos linked around here of the 5shaman team and I had some questions while watching it.

Basically, I'm not familiar with their supporting spells/abilities, stackable totems, etc. Could someone fill me in with some pro's/con's of running 5 shaman? I would appreciate it.

For me, mages and a priest was easy to figure out. 4x pure damage whether direct or AoE is huge. I mean...that is what mages do! But shaman I'm running through their spell/totem list and there is a lot to soak up.

Thanks. :wink:

-S

[raylion]

I've got my 5-man shaman team to level 30 now and can say that once you get them to level 20 they absolutely eat up instances. Before that however they can be hard work. The simple reason is that level 20 introduces a series of talents that makes the shaman life easier (I'm at work now so can't remember them all) but things like lesser healing wave and 5 x healing totems seriously improve survivability (I'm sure the healing totem is at 20 but can't remember!). Ghost wolf is very welcome too!

Anyway, the other advantage is that they are not clothie and can also do decent melee damage so once you let off the initial pull you melee plus shock each mob in turn with the lesser healing on standby (all 5 of my shammies cast this when one is low on health). Not mana efficient but a very quick heal to full health. I've also found that after the pull the mobs generally ping-pong on aggro so you can (if you so wished) set things up to steal aggro from each other and spread the damage.

On the con side I guess taking AOE damage is going to be a problem as will crowd control at later levels. Also controlling the shammies when they are in melee mode takes a little practise to get right, I'm still perfecting the technique but it's coming along. I imagine when they hit outlands I'll need to adopt a technique similar to Xbox where you kite the mobs but at what stage or level I'm not sure. Mana hasn't been a huge issue yet as I can always melee but I would imagine this will raise it's head in the levels to come.

I also find the huge range of spells/totems a bit overwhelming (I thought locks had lots of spells but Shammys seem to surpass them) but most are very situational and I generally find myself using the same spells/totems over and over.

So far I'm really enjoying them (more than my 4xlock 1xpriest team who are also at 30 (I have a 70 lock so probably need a break from locks if I'm honest). I've just got the reincarnation talent which will effectively mean minimal corspe runs on a wipe and I'm really looking forward to chain lightning, chain healing and mail armor in the coming levels.

If you can stick with them until they reach 20 then you'll find them very rewarding to play, I personally was very disappointed with them until that point but now have a big grin on my face as they just seem to survive every situation they come across. At the moment most of my talents are in elemental and enhancement is my secondary tree to mitigate melee damage, I'll probably stick with elemental all the way to 70 but whether I'll need to respec out of enhancement and into resto I'm not sure.

[Suribusi]

I'm also curious about some high-end shamman abilities/totems. What do shaman get that when used 5x is tremendous (besides chain heal/lightning)? I guess I'm mainly referring to heal/mana totems, or spell damage increase totems (or other buff totems), shocks, hmm..maybe I'm not making sense. :wink:

-S

[Shade]

Totem of wrath stacks 5x (so +15% crit and +15% hit, on top of the 11% crit from talents, 5% dps from lightning overload, and 5% damage from concussion)
Healing stream stacks 5x (pretty nice hot, it looks like... but you'll probably use 3x, and use 1x mana spring and 1x poison cleansing)
Wrath of air does not stack (+121 spelldamage)
Grounding "stacks", sort of
5x magma or firenova is pretty good AOE dps
5x searing sounds pretty good, but I haven't seen it used in Xbox's vids
None of the earth totems stack, but staggered tremors in a castsequence macro are basically fear immunity
Staggered bloodlusts for perma-haste, basically

That's pretty much it, I think.

[Ellay]

In regards to Tremor totem, someone mentioned Blizzard changed it so that it pulses at random times once dropped so it would not make some raid content easy in that fears would be timed and tremor would take them off instantly. Thus making it easier for multi-boxers since we could drop all at the same time.

Any confirmation on that?

[Shogun]

Totem of wrath stacks 5x (so +15% crit and +15% hit, on top of the 11% crit from talents, 5% dps from lightning overload, and 5% damage from concussion)
Healing stream stacks 5x (pretty nice hot, it looks like... but you'll probably use 3x, and use 1x mana spring and 1x poison cleansing)
Wrath of air does not stack (+121 spelldamage)
Grounding "stacks", sort of
5x magma or firenova is pretty good AOE dps
5x searing sounds pretty good, but I haven't seen it used in Xbox's vids
None of the earth totems stack, but staggered tremors in a castsequence macro are basically fear immunity
Staggered bloodlusts for perma-haste, basically

That's pretty much it, I think.

If you play Draenai shamis then you get +1% spell hit per caster accompanying you (racial) So I think in a group of 5 Shamis each will benefit from a further 4% +spell hit, that's 19% +spell hit with the 5 totems, pretty decent, which means you can totally ignore +hit on items and load up on +crit and spell damage. There's also more +hit talents worth taking, pretty much guarantees no resists.

26% crit from talents and totems alone, meaning 40-50% crit in decent gear would be doable (if you include the crit that intellect gives etc, this should be easy)

Meaning you'd be critting most of the time, meaning with the Elemental Focus talent, most of the time your spells will cost 60% less mana, very nice

[Ellay]

The draenie racial doesn't stack

[Shogun]

The draenie racial doesn't stack

You're sure? damn, shame

[Ellay]

Ya, I leveled 3 priests together, only had 1% spell hit the racial doesn't effect yourself, just others in the group. So even if it did stack you'd have to take the current # and -1.

[Morganti]

Great post Shade! I myself was wondering just what stacked and what didn't when it came to totems. Thanks!