Third time's the charm?

[Skuggomann]

Some gay homo love going on in the BG?

I played AV so much this weekend, that by the time you met me last night, I was pretty organised with some crafty tactics that seemed to work about 80% of the time. And following our last encounter I now have 3x Grounding in my 1st totem cast sequence instead of just the 1.

lol 3 or 4 grounding is must!!

And Skuggo? Where were you dude? We need to trade storms

Im lvlign as fast as i can! jstu dinged lvl 54 but i suck at pvp so you will steamroll me.
Also i dont like to swich manes, if my mane goes down its game over, i just w8 untill i get killed and rezz upp.

[Kyudo]

lol 3 or 4 grounding is must!!

And Skuggo? Where were you dude? We need to trade storms

Im lvlign as fast as i can! jstu dinged lvl 54 but i suck at pvp so you will steamroll me.
Also i dont like to swich manes, if my mane goes down its game over, i just w8 untill i get killed and rezz upp.

Well my caster sequence had 3 or 4,and I was just referring to the 1st press, I have 4 by the time all totems are down. Changed now anyway, and works a treat vs casters, but weaker vs melee, so I've developed a different sequence for them.

As for switching, I also let them die if 2 go down, but if 3 are still there, I'll continue.

[cepheus]

That was one thing better with warlocks/priest. If your main died, I could just lifetap/hellfire myself to death fast. With shammys you have to depend on enemys to do the job for you.

What AV tactic do you use kyodo? For myself I find that the best tactic so far is to go up and kill balinda, then retake towers. I guess I also could have defended galvanger instead, but with my crappy gear I will just get zerged.

From what I could see, it seemed that you run right to FW, then defended the hill up there, where you killed me? I tried something similar with capping DB, then defend the bridge from recappers, but I did not have as much success with this as defending towers.

As for my totemrotation I put up all my groundings in my first click. It goes like this:
tremor,wrath,healing
grounding,tremor,poison
grounding,poison,tremor
grounding,healing,stoneskin
grounding,earthbind,mana

All fire totems are on diffrent buttons since they are used situational.

[Kyudo]

I've been spending this weekend experimenting with loads of different tactics, with varying success, the main thing I've learnt is to be flexible. Main principles as follows:

1) Watch the map regularly, and react accordingly, if all the team are going to Galv, dont bother... rush to FW, they can kill him without your help, and with your slower mounting, potential to get stuck behind stuff, and higher likelihood of getting aggro midfield you'll often turn up with Galv at 40% or less anyway.
2) I tend to ignore midfield, but if ANY of my chars gets aggro on the initial run across I'll immediately totem farm down and pwn as many as I can before remounting (also means I'll be too late for Galv).
3) If I'm guarding a tower or Gy and someone comes to admire or whatever I tell them politely to go elsewhere.... I only ever loose a capped objective about 5% of the time, if 6+ come, I pop elementals and call for help.

Tactics and their relative success are as follows:

1) Like you mentioned, rush straight to FW, about 70% success rate. I try to take a wide line past FW as there are often many horde there defending, then jump the fence. This often means aggroing Jortek the elite guard, but he goes down quite quick. If I arrive alone, I'll cap the GY and wait. If others came too, I'll cap a tower or tell them too while I guard.
2) Galv -> TP, slower, and depends on the intelligence of our team, particularly stealthers to go and cap FW. 60% or so.
3) Balinda defence. Varied..... I dont care what anyone says, Balinda is still so much easier than Galv, but that's beside the point. If I do this approach, I tend to wait till at least 5 or 6 horde are inside, then rush in, drums of panic, kill as many as I can and hopefully wipe them. If I release and there is a short res timer, I'll go back again, but she's normally down in under a minute with 6+ horde (try that on Galv :O).
4) Defend a choke and recap - 40% or so.... Again really dependent, but I hate towers, no matter how much experience I have I still get stuck on stairs or fall down with alts, and it's too easy to LoS us.... Easy enough to defend one, as you can get in position and totem farm in advance, but assaulting? I hate it..... This approach tends to lead to really long HK games too.... all defending horde and ally, /yawn, too slow hon for me.

The variation.... I've learned to time my recalls! A well timed recall if offense is going well, or if I think I might be able to turn the tide on a game thats going bad can be such fun. I tend to res up, shield up, Naaruu then Recall.... As I arrive if horde have the GY, I'll pop my melee totem sequence including drums of panic, and run towards vandarr... Then depending on the # of enemies around I'll either recap GY and towers then SP, or run to Vand and try to force a pull (pets and dumb warriors <3). If it's a last ditch attempt to stop Vand dying, I'll try to get in and blow up the tank, again drums of panic and elementals if they are up.

On totems, I am 40/0/21, so no fire on normal PvP sequence, my main sequence is:

1)Tremor, Wrath, Wrath of Air, Healing Stream
2)Grounding, Posion, Wrath, Earthbind
3)Grounding, Tremor, Wrath, Mana Spring
4)Grounding, Wrath, Healing, Stoneskin

For when the warriors/rogues jump me I use a totally different cycle:

1) Poison, Fire Nova, Earthbind, Grounding
2) Tremor, Magma, Drums of Panic, Wrath of Air, Healing Stream
3) Nova, Grounding, Tremor, Manaspring, Drums of Panic
4) Nova, Drums of Panic, Stoneskin, Healing, Grounding

Spam those drums lol, often means that I can fear them twice when it works... and due to interrupts etc, I like how at least one goes off pretty quickly, gives time for a quick heal and a spread out before pwning.

I also have fire on numpad keys, but I only really use that for PvE, might be good to use in Pvp in some situations I guess, but that melee cycle works for me.

[cepheus]

Thanks for your tactics sharing

I will maybe add more later when I get a bit more expirience with shamans in AV.

Just a little remark:

I agree that towers really suck for assaulting, but it is quite possible with some expirience. I have as maybe you know, pvp'ed alot with my priest/warlock group, so I know exactly how to get up the stairs fast without getting stuck. It just takes some practice. As for Los'ing, I agree that this is the worst part. But I usually succeed when recapping towers, unless there is ALOT of defense.I try to get inside the room before I do any fighting, and burn my NS/EM/CL combo there,+5x fire nova totems.This clears out quite a bit

a little tip:

When you get the hang of taking the stairs, also throw down totems while running up. They have very long vertical range, so you usually get their buffs if you put them down in the stairs. I also allways pop bloodlust when running up.

[Kyudo]

a little tip:

When you get the hang of taking the stairs, also throw down totems while running up. They have very long vertical range, so you usually get their buffs if you put them down in the stairs. I also allways pop bloodlust when running up.

Yeah I drop the 1st two sets of totems as I enter, then the 2nd two as I arrive at the higher levels.