[4xShaman Arena] Tactics Suggestions for Beginners

[Stealthy]

Any chance of getting hold of your training video Ellay? I'd like to see it as I'm about to start doing arena's myself.

Cheers,
Stealthy

[Ellay]

Here ya go
http://files.filefront.com/Aelli+Are.../fileinfo.html

I'll make a new post to make sure no one missed it as well. It's unfinished of course.

[Crucial]

lol I didn't know that either, is that for sure? :P

When we killed him the match immediately ended and we won so I guess thats the proof, but Its not really an opportunity that presents itself very often, so I haven't had a chance to confirm this for sure.

BTW, thanks for the great video!

[Xzin]

Think maybe Xzin's 4xmage+priest (or whatever healer) might work against you? sheep all shammies or something like that and dps the 5th? (prolly better to sheep your healer instead of a shammy to prevent dispels)

I believe my setup could beat the shammys. But it would lose to nearly everything else. 5x cloth is NOT what you want in arenas!

[Boylston]

I also use an addon that alerts me when someone is rezzing and I always call it out on vent.

Ellay/Anyone-- Mind sharing which addon you like for this purpose?

If I had my druthers, I'd have something like this show only:

Resurrection Alerts
Ice Block/Pally Bubble/Cloak of Shadows/Cheat Death/Pain Suppression - Stuff that indicates "wrong target to burndown"

and not give me an alert for every single spell being cast...

[Boylston]

Update (4/21):

We got MUCH better in the last 10 days or so due to practice and Ellay's advice/tips/training video. We gained 80 or so points of rating and finished close to 1600. In our last play stretch, we were winning twice as many as we were losing, so we're excited about playing more this week.

A good rush against us is still problematic, mainly because I can't DPS down folks as fast with 1-2 people CCed or tied up. I think that more +SpellDmg is going to help all around. The team should be getting another piece of vengeful in the next week or two, which will help both resilience/HP pool and spell damage. 2/4 shamans are now 360 Enchanters, so the spell damage looks like 700, 680, 610, 610 for the team. Better, but still a ways to go.

Another common loss mechanism for us is the dreaded "we kill 1-2 and then stall". It's common for us to kill the first guy right away and then have 2 healers keep up with my guys for long enough that we have mana issues or they drop a shammy. This is only happening against teams with two +1800 or more healers. Purging off HoTs and switching targets up does seem to help slightly, but if a team with good gear turtles a bit, it can be tough at times.

[Darm]

I started another thread, but was re-directed here. I'm not going to cut and paste my entire post, but I am interested in hearing discussion about a tactic that I am having difficulty countering.

To be specific, it's not a "rush" per se that gives me the most trouble. It's when the opposite team takes its sweet time, assigns roles to all of their players in ventrilo, and then attacks simultaneously. The most effective has been a rogue/warrior stunlock on one of my shamans, while a warlock and druid spam fear/cyclone at my paladin. The net result is that I only have 3 shaman to DPS with, and it rapidly turns into a 5v4 game in their advantage.

I know that some folks will describe this as a rush, perhaps this is just a semantic distinction, but I've been in bunches of games where the other team just rides all of their mounts right into my team. That can be difficult, but what I'm trying describe is quite different. It is a deliberate and very well-coordinated alpha strike.

They only reason why the enemy can orchestrate an attack like this, unless I am playing against a very experienced veteran group, is because they have plenty of time to coordinate their plan in ventrilo. They reason why they have plenty of time is because I am passively sitting in my totem farm.

At it's core, a 4 shaman time is an alpha-strike team. It depends on big time frontload damage to win a game. It doesn't depend on CC, mana draining, or interruptions to win a game, it's all about pure all-out burst damage that cannot be healed. I'm beginning to wonder how much totem farm sitting is really consistent with that core identity. The longer I give an opposing team, it seems the longer they have to plan and discuss their counter strategy.

I'm beginning to consider rushing the enemy with my shaman team. Sure, I'll be vulnerable to a well-timed AE fear. But, I can have a trinket on each shaman, and I should be able to get down 2 tremor totems relatively quickly. I won't be doing damage instantaneously since I'll be dropping totems, but what I will be doing, or what I'm trying to do is perhaps just as important -- I'm trying to deprive them of that time they use to coordinate a methodical plan to dissect my team.

My shaman have around 700-720 spell damage, and 150-300 resilience right now. Any comment about those numbers?

[Gallo]

Darm, when you're rushed by a warrior/rogue, do you instantly drop 4x Fire nova totems? Just wondering if that isn't helping quell the rushers. That will make the rogue pop CoS and with some shocks will likely take the warrior out.

[Ellay]

You keep the opposing team in limbo while their working a strat on you, run in and out purging their buffs. Sure they will have a strat on you, but they should have 0 buffs when the rush happens. If they are a well played team, I switch off to defense mode and heal through the first 5-10 ~ seconds then blow someone up. Sometimes you have to ride through their damage to pull off a W.

[Boylston]

A couple comments:

When I and Ellay say "rush", we generally mean that their whole team goes straight for you as soon as the door opens. Ellay's recommended anti-rush tactics on each map generally involve having a totem farm out and bloodlust #1 burned so that if they rush in, you can kill 1-2 fast.

Against the "took their sweet time and have a CC plan" teams, it's more important than ever to focus on killing their DPS first. I really like the following targets:

Warriors: They're going to fear bomb and Mortal Strike you. I 4xPurge them, cast one LB volley, then evaluate their health. If they are in range of a 4xEM+NS+Trinket+CL kill, I burn it and hopefully take them out. Be ready to add a 4xShock on if they don't quite die. If for some reason they get healed through this, it's bad news for me, generally.

Fire Mage: These are arguably the most dangerous DPSers, but they are more dangerous on a rush than if they have setup/strategy time. If there's one present, I prioritize them over a warrior. Frost mages I ignore for the most part.

Hunters: Mana draining stings and multishot wreak havoc if left unabated. I really like to blow up Hunters ASAP because they have no Cloak of Shadows/Ice Block/Divine Shield/Soul Link type immunity/mitigation. When you engage one, keep your mouse over them so that you can retarget them quickly after the inevitable feign death.

Rogues and Feral Druids: I drop Fire Novas and maybe shock these guys. Because Cloak of Shadows is so annoying, I do not try to make a rogue my 1st/2nd kill ever. A feral druid can sometimes drop easily if they got hit with Chain Lightning or Fire Nova damage and haven't yet gotten healing support.

Again, I don't worry about trying to get the chain Cycloning druid or the other CC as much as I try to get their biggest DPS threats down first. Sure, your healer may be struggling to fight CC and you may have a shammy tied up, but if you can take out a strong DPSer on their side, they're going to be left with only 1-2 people that are really going to be a threat.

Echoing Ellay-- I also recommend "turtling" a bit by pitching in heals, reapplying totems/bloodlust, etc. If anything, my early arena experiences showed me that we were trying to kill TOO FAST and not being defensive enough. Feel free to "reset" the battle after you kill the first person (or two). 5v4 or 5v3 is much easier than 5v5.


For whatever it's worth, we're doing about 1600 rating now. My lead shammy is at 710 or so spell damage and 400 resilience, but the 3 others are still at 660 spell damage and 300 resilience. I had similar issues to the ones you are having now a few weeks back, but now I've moved on to new problems. (Such as, how to counter the team with 2 rezzers (or three!!) that undoes all your early kills.

Good luck!