seems talk of boxing mages is dead.

[Silly Gooooose]

I personally just hate the mage class, lol.

But yes, if you sit down and think about what class is best suited as a starting class, so you can do either pve or pvp. Well that class needs heals of some kind, so pally, priest, shaman, druid or maybe warlock. You also want them to have a bit of survivability so cloth is out. Plus, what class stacks better with multiple of it's self? Priest, other than having them different specs, don't stack at all. Druids can stack, but once again you need different specs. Pally's can stack, but.... we all know pally DPS is a joke, and they have to be melee, or lolshock spec.... (yah....) Now shamans, totems stack awesomely. They have pretty close to the direct target damage of a mage, though no CC or aoe.

I say it's not so much that we are all jumping on the band wagon, but more than ellay picked one of the best starter classes for keeping it simple, while still having fun and learning a lot.

Plus I wanted to roll a shaman for my next class, lol.

[OzPhoenix]

Well, I have to admit, I chose Shaman for my 5-boxing because of my reading here but I'd also never played a Shaman before, so for me at least, it's been unique.

[Vyndree]

There are still people successfully boxing mages, they're just not very vocal.

*jabs Suvega*


Shaman are popular due to their versatility.

[Sun]

shamans for survivablity...I cant tell you how many times I have been ganked by higher level groups and survived. Even after being feared. Usually go for the mage or priest who feared me with CL and LB to wrap it up. Then finish off the pally/warrior who thinks they got me on the ropes. I picked the Shamans for the very fact they got Chain Mail. Once you see what 5 Earth Elementals can do, you will be surprised. I cant wait for my Fire Elementals. ooo yea. If I was going to try another class it would be locks...I love those 5 DOTs that locks can do. Never played a lock but I have seen a lvl 70 5 box in action.

[Xzin]

Don't expect to win any arenas with 5 cloth. It just doesn't happen.

Mail + shield + 5 healers + totems + NS + wolf form + LO + 5 anhks + 5 rezzers >>>>>> 5 cloth in arenas.

In AV? Mass world PvP (like the new siege battleground?).... 4 mages shine. 5 and no healers? Bad idea. But 4+ shammys have so damn much going for them in arenas that the combo just WORKS.

Since arenas are the new leet gear spot, most people are choosing shammys. Not to mention you really can't do heroics with 5 cloth.

If mages didn't die in 2 hits and run OOM so damn fast, maybe they would be viable in arenas. Until then, forget it.

That's why you see so few people boxing mages. Warlocks? Much more popular but DoTs can be dispelled and people with DoTs and pointy things don't stop poking you. 4+ Shammy is the best combo for arenas in the current state WoW is in. That's why they are so popular. Jack of all trades master of .. nearly all.

[mrmcgee21]

I honestly cannot see any other class being succesful in highend pvp. Shamans are (1) sort of broke when you stack 4 and 5 in one group and (2) you simply cannot cc them if you alternate tremor totems. Any other class is going to get wtf owned 5 boxxing ( or 4 ) because of the CC issues. Your group will get spread out seperated and owned. I'm sure with practice you'll sit around 1500-1600 with other class makeups, but I really would like to put a challenge up for anyone else to break 1800 using anything other than the *sigh* shaman pewpew train. Hunters possibly due to BW but I forsee a lot of issues there also. Take away tremor and shamans would be just as useless as the rest imo. Maybe theres already multiple 1800+ teams out there that arent mostly shamans, but I doubt it ( speaking strictly in terms of 5 boxxers .. or 4 ). In PVE theres a million different ways to be succesful, gotta have at least some heals though and some resemblence of a tank for certain situations that will arrise in nearly every instance.

-Mike

[Maxion]

As for the question about dots stacking, yes, you can have one of each dot per warlock on each target.

[Tdog]

A lot of us abandoned the squishies because they just die too damn fast. There's a balance in there somewhere between utility, survivability and DPS and shammies do a fair job of all 3.

Meh...I'm actually liking my warriors quite a bit now. And Melee unfriendly fights are not anywhere near as big of a pain in the ass as I thought it would be. For AoE abilities that the bosses use I have a /follow button for my main obviously but also I have 2 /follow buttons for my healer whom I have sitting at max range of /follow. One of my healer /follow buttons runs just the melee out, the other runs the tank out as well. Basically just ping pong my toons back and forth w/o much mirco management at all.

My 5x shaman team is still fun but I'm digging the melee more atm. I may switch back to the shamans at some point though who knows...

[Los]

Actually have been busy with levelling some mages. Just of and on and still very low level (22ish atm). I do hope to get them to 70 one day and would love to comment on how they where doing . But I must admit prematurly, grinding = FUN on mages :P

[Suvega]

We're here, just we don't have the "OMG LEWK AT ME!" mentatlity that the SHAMAN HORDE HAS.

I keed I keed, I've been using my 5 box team mostly for a farm team atm. 1.5k gold per day for dailies is pretty nice, albeit it takes 3 hours.
I'll post more when I do somethign interesting.