5 Shammys.... Sequenced Casting.... Possible?

[Xzin]

As much as I am trying to avoid it, I cannot deny the power of 5 Shamans. So simple - only a few spells to pick from. Flexible - healing + damage + rezzes + anhks + near spell immunity. Oh and they wear mail and can melee. They even have underwater breath and ghost wolf! 5x Bloodlusts... Elementals.... it's tough to argue against it for boxing.

So - uh - I am getting more and more excited about also rolling Shammys.

The Warlocks are just about to hit 40 and I still intend to get them to 70. But once that is done, I might also level up the shammys to 70..... and swap them out with the locks.

Anyway.....

Most spells lend themselves to casting all 5. Chain Lightning. Shocks.

But the biggest problem I see with Shammys is their lack of AoE and their inability to break out of fear.

A solution I have to the fear problem is this: you have 5 trinkets. 2 minutes cooldowns and they break fear now. If you drop a tremor totem, it will pull fear off all 5 guys within 30 yards of the totem. So all you need to do is drop 1 totem and presto - fear gone. You are never going to be feared 6 times in 120 seconds. If you do well.... diminishing returns.

Anyway, the point of all of this is - is is possible from a UI mod perspective to hit 1 button and have it know which Shammy has cast their trinket (or mana spring or whatever) such that you can mash 1 button and if character is alive and has mana it casts the totem or uses the trinket then casts the spell. If not then it cycles automatically and instantly to the next one, who then casts it.

If this fear problem can be solved.... I think I just may level up some Shamans too. I feel they are stronger in the arenas than the locks. Not sure about the mages yet.

[Stabface]

Alas, UI mods can't really make complex decisions.

Thankfully all you have to do with Shaman (in PVE anyways) to cut any fear down to <2 seconds is just keep a Tremor Totem down at all times. Since there's no cooldown or reuse, and it lasts 2 minutes, this is easy...

In PvP you'll just need to keep re-dropping the totem if people whack it.

[Xzin]

Not an acceptable solution. I could manually trinket and totem with 1 keypress (I think). Not as ideal though.....

[trainwr3ck]

As much as I am trying to avoid it, I cannot deny the power of 5 Shamans. So simple - only a few spells to pick from. Flexible - healing + damage + rezzes + anhks + near spell immunity. Oh and they wear mail and can melee. They even have underwater breath and ghost wolf! 5x Bloodlusts... Elementals.... it's tough to argue against it for boxing.

So - uh - I am getting more and more excited about also rolling Shammys.

The Warlocks are just about to hit 40 and I still intend to get them to 70. But once that is done, I might also level up the shammys to 70..... and swap them out with the locks.

Anyway.....

Most spells lend themselves to casting all 5. Chain Lightning. Shocks.

But the biggest problem I see with Shammys is their lack of AoE and their inability to break out of fear.

A solution I have to the fear problem is this: you have 5 trinkets. 2 minutes cooldowns and they break fear now. If you drop a tremor totem, it will pull fear off all 5 guys within 30 yards of the totem. So all you need to do is drop 1 totem and presto - fear gone. You are never going to be feared 6 times in 120 seconds. If you do well.... diminishing returns.

Anyway, the point of all of this is - is is possible from a UI mod perspective to hit 1 button and have it know which Shammy has cast their trinket (or mana spring or whatever) such that you can mash 1 button and if character is alive and has mana it casts the totem or uses the trinket then casts the spell. If not then it cycles automatically and instantly to the next one, who then casts it.

If this fear problem can be solved.... I think I just may level up some Shamans too. I feel they are stronger in the arenas than the locks. Not sure about the mages yet.

You could write a very clever but complex castsequence macro. You're limited by the number of characters of course but it might be possible to do something like this:

Char 1: use trinket, drop totem, use misc useless item, use misc useless item
Char 2: use misc useless item, use misc useless item, cast trinket, drop totem
Char 3: use misc useless item, use misc useless item, use misc useless item, use misc useless item, cast trinket, drop totem
etc etc

When you hit the button, your first char will use his trinket and then you hit it again to make him drop the totem. On your other characters, they'll try to use items they either can't use or won't do anything. But the third time you hit the button, your second character will trinket, and then you hit it again and he'll drop a totem. The others will try to use items they can't so it has no effect. Fifth time you hit it, third char will use his trinket. Sixth time, third char drops totem.

Bind it all to the same button and set the reset timer for the cast sequence macro to 2 mins so that if you don't hit the button for 2 mins, the whole macro will reset and it will start with your first char using trinket and totem again.

[Zaylek]

I've been trying to come up with a solution to the same problem for quite some time. I wanted to have a way of cycling through the death coils of each of the warlocks. The only thing I have come up with so far is a software solution by modifying multi-box. But that kinda violates the idea of it just being broadcasting software and it then becomes more 3rd party game modification that blizz frowns upon.

[HPAVC]

Ummm, the 'presto' of totems isn't exactly how you describe. You need to wait for the pulse. That pulse can seem to be the duration of 'why did I bother'.

[MrLonghair]

I have ideas that would probably be filed under "illegal hardware modification", but meanwhile regarding cast-sequencing:

[code:1]
Macro Press 1 press 2 press 3 press 4 press 5
Sh1: trinket totem /p 4 next /p 5 next /p me next
Sh2: /p me next trinket totem /p 5 next /p 1 next
Sh3: /p 2 next /p me next trinket totem /p 1 next
Sh4: /p 2 next /p 3 next /p me next trinket totem
Sh5: totem /p 3 next /p 4 next /p me next trinket[/code:1]

Then you just need to do some LUA magic and make a mod that listens to and displays which shaman is next. Something which I'm researching for future multiboxing - I want to code addons and UIs for WAR once it's out.

(yes I messed up the X and Y variables! I blame the heat)

[Morganti]

I cycle action bars on my mages. Each mage only has 1 action bar with his sheep, counterspell, and frost nova on it. Mage1 has it on bar1, mage2 on bar2, etc. So, I hit counterspell button and whichever mage has it on his action bar casts it and all mages cycle to their next action bar. This leaves the next mage ready to cast. 4 sheeps, 4 counterspells, 4 frost novas.

[Gigatron]

I cycle action bars on my mages. Each mage only has 1 action bar with his sheep, counterspell, and frost nova on it. Mage1 has it on bar1, mage2 on bar2, etc. So, I hit counterspell button and whichever mage has it on his action bar casts it and all mages cycle to their next action bar. This leaves the next mage ready to cast. 4 sheeps, 4 counterspells, 4 frost novas.

This sounds interesting, how do you switch action bars?

I just rolled a 5 shaman group, up to level 12. lol

[Mannyman]

5 staggered tremor totems? Without using ahk or something else to introduce delays into your commands, I don't think it's possible. You could play around with the order of your macro commands, but I don't think it would give you the effect you want. Keyclone has round robin, maybe someone could write something for Vetra users

Shamans have magma totem and fire nova totem for aoe. EM + trinket + fire nova is nasty. Grounding totem doesn't prevent enemy aoe.

Just keep in mind that 5 shamans face problems in instances where mobs can't be kited, i.e. earthbind and frost shock don't work. Sure, you can whip out the elementals, but they are somewhat squishy and there is a cooldown on re-summons.

I can see a bunch of shamans fitting nicely into your 10 man group. How you will control frost shock, earth shock, 4 trees of totems, healing, and your other classes at the same time will be interesting