[4xShaman Arena] Tactics Suggestions for Beginners

[Boylston]

This will be a long-ish post, so I apologize in advance. Its intent is to provide a picture of where I am as an arena player and hopefully get input from others that is helpful for not only me but the entire 4xShammy community. Many of the suggestions will be applicable to other multi-boxers in 5v5 as well, but its intent is to focus on the 4xShaman+Healer 5v5 team makeup.

The team has made a big improvement in gear over the past 4 weeks. The first few weeks, the alts were at 6600 Health, 450 Spell Damage, and 0 Resilience.
Here is a summary of my team and our general gear situation:
Boylston (lead shaman) : 10.2k Health, 654 Spell Damage, 386 Resilience
Boylbee /cee /dee (alts) : 9.3k Health, ~590 Spell Damage, 277 Resilience
Arielas (healing partner) : 9.8k Health, 10.5k Mana, 1700 Healing, ~200 Resilience (he may not be in PvP gear if you scan his armory)

Other Players: We have occasionally run with a Mortal Strike warrior and/or a Warlock in place of one of the shamans, for what it's worth.

Performance:
We are slightly positive in terms of win/loss record (about 52-44 in last few weeks), but we bounce around either side of 1500 in terms of overall rating. We have beaten some full S3 teams and lost to some teams geared even worse than us. We have tried playing on a variety of nights, and the level of competition seems about the same with our limited number of games. Monday night (pre-maintenance) does have a lot of "scrub points players", but it is also filled with a larger amount of strong teams hoping to capitalize on those folks.

When we win, they are mostly overwhelming victories where our whole team is alive and we've killed 1-3 people without much of a problem. When we lose, it falls into two different categories: a.) we played super-geared players on good teams that knew how to deal with a newbie multiboxer (think LoS games and patience on their part) or b.) we kill 1-2 of them very early, but the remainder of the enemy team is able to finish us off. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to talk about our setup/tactics as well as what we seem to be facing that could use some help.

Setup:
We stay grouped together, or with the healing pally slightly out of the shaman clump. My healer likes to be close to a LoS object so he can exploit it if they focus him early on. Shamans are set up on the BE bridge about 1/3 of the way down it (not too close to the center), behind the pole in Nagrand or off in the nook if it's melee heavy, and off to the right side of the graveyard on the undead tomb map. This positioning is pretty much Ellay-recommended, if I follow his post correctly. Full compliment of totems includes 3xTremor, 3xGrounding, 2x Poison, 1xEarthbind, Wrath of Air, 4x Searings. (4x Grounding and 4xFire Nova totems are the most common configuration). Pally runs Kings on everyone and improved concentration aura.

Burst macro is Elemental Mastery + Nature's Swiftness + Trinket + Orc Racial + Chain Lightning. I am using them all rolled up into one combo, not splitting EM/NS out on two different attacks.



Tactics:
If we are not being rushed, I have been trying to take out a DPSer as a first target, preferring folks who will be easier to kill and don't have as many get-out-of-jail-free cards. This generally means: Hunters, Shamans, non SL/SL Warlocks, Shadow Priests. I will bump a mage up to the top of the list if they are reasonably close.

If a warrior or pally starts charging in, I will attempt to take it out, but only if I think it will be successful. I've burnt down more than one charging warrior who left his healer too far behind (or had a druid healer that unstealthed and didn't blow a big heal to save his teammate). On a charging warrior, I use a Frost Shock first, then a regular LB, and if he's at around 50% or so after those two, I will blow my 4xNS+EM+CL combo to kill him before he gets healed. On a pally that isn't bubbled as they charge in, I cast a LB as soon as they enter range followed by a 4xEarth Shock. Believe it or not, I have killed some pallies this way before they bubble without any special cooldowns blown. If they come in bubbled or bubble after first LB, I immediately switch off targets. My main motivation for attacking these people is not necessarily to kill them (although it's a huge bonus if this happens). I want the healers to a.) reveal themselves and b.) get distracted healing my first target while I switch off.

Dealing with melees-- I am ignoring rogues for the most part, since I am getting a BoP from the pally and have enough gear that I'm not too concerned about them. When any melee appears on the team, I drop 4xFire Nova totems. I try to stay focused on my first target, but if I see them at low health on Proximo, I will switch and attempt to shock/burst them down.

The bait and switch: I have been most successful with picking a first target and flinging out plain ole LBs and CLs. If that target does not die in 2-3 casts, I will switch to a different target, preferably a non-pally healer if I am in range of one. My priority for those is Shaman, then Priest, then Druid. If it's a 2 Pally healer group, I will pummel on one to at least force a bubble. In games without an early, easy kill, I generally need to switch focus targets 1-2 times in order to kill folks. In some ways, these are better matches for me because the healer and first focused target will become very consumed with staying alive, often running out of range or blowing big cooldowns. By the time I have switched to the second target, they may be out of LoS, out of key cooldowns, not sure who to heal, etc. I try to keep target selection fluid, basing it off who I can easily hit and who will do me the most good to kill.

Problems:
Forgetting Bloodlust-- Believe it or not, I sometimes struggle to keep Bloodlust active the whole time. This is just a simple improvement that I know how to fix.

Neglecting to reapply grounding totems-- I will occasionally forget to reapply groundings throughout a fight. Again, this is something I know how to fix.

Positioning-- I have good control of my guys, but I am undecided about trying to move them away from melee folks if I get rogues/warriors swarming me. My gut tells me to stay put and let my healer do his job, so most of the time I don't move unless I need to.

Drawing first blood, then losing-- This is the most frustrating one. A lot of our losses come in matches where I actually kill the first target fast, and maybe even the second. However, I will very quickly lose 1-2 of the shammies and/or be low on mana and unable to finish the match out. Essentially, it feels like I kill 2 of them, then it's a 3v3 match where my team is low on health or mana (or both). I have tried quickly chain healing the whole team once or twice if we've taken some AoE damage, and sometimes that helps. Often times, that just makes the mana situation worse. It's hard for me to diagnose whether I am getting mana drained or just having to blow too much to get those first kills.

Mages-- I generally drop 4xFire Nova totems on an AoE happy mage, shock them with Frost+Earths, and try to get them to ice block. If they DO ice block, I try to get away from them, re-lay totems while I'm running, and switch targets briefly. I try to frost shock them again when IB is down. Most mages I've fought have not been Fire, and they pose less of a problem, thankfully.

Going offensive-- We have not tried rushing the other team much. At best, we will creep away from out starting point by slowly moving the totem farm, but we have not done any mount up and charge type games. I am reluctant to charge in without fear-bomb protection or any totems. However, the longer we wait to have engagement against better teams, it becomes more likely that they have assigned CC to a bunch of us and it is very difficult to win.

Summary:
I think we're doing OK given how late we started, our gear, and our relative inexperience with this setup. It's only been a few weeks, and we have had some monster 21-23 point victories, so we know we are capable of doing well. There's also nothing we can do about full S3 folks on 1450 rated teams. I'd welcome ideas for improvement or strategy ideas.

I think if I can improve on totems/bloodlust and increase my spell damage stats (working on that heavily this week), we will be in a much better situation. The 2.4 Seer's Mail resilience gear was nice in some ways, but it pales in comparison to Vengeful gear in terms of Spell Damage.

It's easy to get frustrated, I had hoped that we would at least be at 1650-1750 rating with our current gear level and really start to make headway against the Vengeful gear goals. We'll keep hammering away and see where it takes us, though.

[Ellay]

Setup:
Try 4x tremor instead of throwing an earthbind in there.Although my healers have been pushing me to add an earthbind into my rotation so maybe I'm the one that needs to make the switch

Burst macro: I used to use the orc racial always but the 15 second MS is a heavy price to pay afterwards. In your situation it may be worth it though to push your spell damage up a lot higher.

Everything else on the list seems like you know what the game plan is. Also try not to use the burst combo unless your 90%+ sure it will drop the target.

[Tamu]

Great write-up! My group is only 62-63, so I haven't done arenas on them yet. But, I have a question on how you target on your clones. Do you use some sort of variation of [target=focustarget] for your damage spells so that the opponent can't really tell who your clones are targeting? The UI I use shows me who in my group is targeted or has aggro. If you could throw off a healer expecting incoming damage on player A but you actually hit player B then you might get a slight advantage by drawing out a Pain Suppression, bubble, etc.

[Gallo]

Great write-up! My group is only 62-63, so I haven't done arenas on them yet. But, I have a question on how you target on your clones. Do you use some sort of variation of [target=focustarget] for your damage spells so that the opponent can't really tell who your clones are targeting? The UI I use shows me who in my group is targeted or has aggro. If you could throw off a healer expecting incoming damage on player A but you actually hit player B then you might get a slight advantage by drawing out a Pain Suppression, bubble, etc.

Heh, I've noticed something like this when I play. My clones will all target something different when I hit tab, but only cast to what my main has targetted. Could be nice if you coordinated it.

[Mokoi]

Before I had to stop playing, I had my 5v5 team to the early 1700s and the late 1600s.

the ONE thing I found, was that the patience of TWO people (ie: you and your healer) will outpace EVERY team with 5 impatient people on it.

SO, you will get into high level arenas and face off against good people, but they are impatient just like everyone else, and if you wait in a smart spot on the map so they cant get their hunters LoS stinging / Shamans purging / Mages causing havoc/ etc.. you will always have the upper hand. someone on their team will get anxious and jump the gun getting in a bad spot where you can blast them. once one is down, they are more likely to give up and start charging than anything else, and you have had the time to pick a target, mass purge and spam him for a couple seconds hopefully taking him down =)

YOUR patience, should ALWAYS outlast theirs. 2 people can hold their cool a lot longer than 5. Guaranteed. Learn to be patient and hold your ground. You are a terrible rusher since they can always LoS you easily on most maps.

-McWrathy

[Boylston]

Great write-up! My group is only 62-63, so I haven't done arenas on them yet. But, I have a question on how you target on your clones. Do you use some sort of variation of [target=focustarget] for your damage spells so that the opponent can't really tell who your clones are targeting? The UI I use shows me who in my group is targeted or has aggro. If you could throw off a healer expecting incoming damage on player A but you actually hit player B then you might get a slight advantage by drawing out a Pain Suppression, bubble, etc.

Yes, I use [target=focustarget] for all damage spells. I have one macro that resets focus target to the next living member of the team, which is very helpful in arenas. I don't have to worry about who else is alive if my main goes down.

For what it's worth, Tamu, I'm a member of the Fighting Class of '95! Whoop!

[Boylston]

Setup:
Try 4x tremor instead of throwing an earthbind in there.Although my healers have been pushing me to add an earthbind into my rotation so maybe I'm the one that needs to make the switch

I will try this. I don't feel that I'm getting fear bombed too badly, but I do tend to put a Frost Shock on all the targets that matter. Neither probably helps me too much, but I could see how your healers might like having an EB down so that a rogue/shammy who decides to break off and tie them up has to get there while slowed.

Burst macro: I used to use the orc racial always but the 15 second MS is a heavy price to pay afterwards. In your situation it may be worth it though to push your spell damage up a lot higher.

I have really debated this. I may try a few games without it and see if that helps. I've left it in place because of the preponderance of MS warriors... I figure I'm going to have some kind of healing debuff on anyhow.

Everything else on the list seems like you know what the game plan is. Also try not to use the burst combo unless your 90%+ sure it will drop the target.

If anything, I wait TOO long to use my burst combo. I need to get a better feel for when to use it so that I down folks sooner.



Thanks again for the commentary, Ellay. I think those of us that are just getting started now will have a tougher road to travel, but you're advice is helpful.

[Ellay]

I've got a great idea, wondering your thoughts ~

I can live stream my arenas a specific time every week. So that way you all get some entertainment! and hopefully some tips and tricks, also gives experience in games I lose and win against the toughest teams out there.
Thinking about doing this maybe on Friday or Saturday nights, we can all be in vent so you can hear me going at it!

[Boylston]

I've got a great idea, wondering your thoughts ~

I can live stream my arenas a specific time every week. So that way you all get some entertainment! and hopefully some tips and tricks, also gives experience in games I lose and win against the toughest teams out there.
Thinking about doing this maybe on Friday or Saturday nights, we can all be in vent so you can hear me going at it!

That's an OK idea, would be even better if you let me HAVE YOUR CHILDREN FIRST!!!1!1!

Seriously, I might turn into a total Ellay fanboi by the end of the day.

[Nitro]

I've got a great idea, wondering your thoughts ~

I can live stream my arenas a specific time every week. So that way you all get some entertainment! and hopefully some tips and tricks, also gives experience in games I lose and win against the toughest teams out there.
Thinking about doing this maybe on Friday or Saturday nights, we can all be in vent so you can hear me going at it!

That would be fun to watch.