Weekend Summary - Quadbox Shaman 5v5 Experience (50-15)

[Elektric]

One of the greatest joys in Quadboxing is that I only need a healer to 5v5. Prior to last night I had rolled all my healers into one team. Unfortunately balancing the amount of games played and rating proved impossible. My solution was to have each healer create their own team. Of course my rating resets everytime I decide to play with someone else but atm Im after the learning experience for both myself and the healer.

Surprisingly many of my healers are at all different skill levels. The worst healers have me constantly paying attention to my health bars and throwing lesser heals on myself and them. The best healers allow me to focus on DMG and only need me to heal under opposition Cool Down blowing Zergfests. What I found fascinating is that playing with the lower skilled healers allowed me to learn what mistakes were being made and how to counter them. I learned little tricks like keeping the Healer in front of me, so when he's taking dmg I can burst down his attackers effortlessly. And when the healer gets locked up behind me, the "turn clones seperately" move that Ellay showed in the video is taking my game to the next level. This simple strategdy is melting opponents that have given me trouble in the past. The scene in the tutorial on the Blades Edge Bridge is nothingless than mad skillz, I inspire to look as flawless when I pull it off. And mind you Im working on that move because it seems to be the only way to get a fight started in that place...letting the idiots charge you when your backs are to them! And then just MELT EM DOWN!

My new found success came from finding a healer at the same gear and skill level as myself (yeah I actually think Im good at this stuff ). Im proud to say that the only teams that give me any trouble atm are top 100 teams. That being said many of them are BG1 transplants that have had previous practice (thanks Ellay!!!!). The arena is all about timing, and to be successful in 5v5 arena both the healer and myself have to be MONEY!

So we stopped last night at 1709 and after losing 3 matches to the same team. 30 minute fights...both the healer and I made silly mistakes (it happens at 1 am in the morning, hehe). I feel good about the weekend session because for the first time I didnt run across a team that I thought was unbeatable. And here's some advice to you up and comers, once you realize the power and grow confident in what your doing, a quadbox shammie group is UNSTOPPABLE! We played one match last night and the team just came in and destroyed us. We requeued and it was the same team again, ready for the zerg this time I took down their healer and a dps but went OOM...it was a turning point because I new that this well organized team in full S3/S4 and "Gladiator" titles by their names was beatable. But here's were the real confidence boost came from, we queue up again and its a scrub team and in the middle of the battle I get a whisper from Elektronic, typical level 1 Tauren Warrior. He asks how long I'll be playing and if what Im doing is even legal. I tell him I'll be playing all night and its legit. I then ask "You wouldn't" happen to be from that Glad team I almost beat? Thats right people at number 88 with my 4th shammie still in reputation PvP gear, the queue dodging has begun. Turns out that team is the rated #1 in the battlegroup atm.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for providing such a cool community. With all the haters, and QQ's its nice to come to a place and share my experiences without the typical "WTF" "HAX" response.

[Naysayer]

Effing sweet. Keep it up and get some real gear.

[Ellay]

Good times, glad it is working out well for you

I queued up last night and fought the #2 team, they got some lucky burst on me with their rush and got the win. I re queue hoping to get my revenge and it sits in there for 5 minutes.. I log onto their server and ask why they haven't re-queued and they told me I was scary and that they were done for the night. Dodging is lame! heh. So now they are sitting in first because there aren't any other teams remotely close to our rating and this one refuses to play against me.

[bugilt]

I went into the arenas for the first time yesterday and got my asses handed to me a few times. I didn't expect to win anything with the current gear I have on (4pc s2 and random 60-70 blues and greens.). My friend was playing his pally as my healer, also not very well geared atm. The AOE teams crushed us the first few games, but after getting down to 1420 we started getting teams that get softened fast. My healer friend was getting upset even after telling him we are only doing this for practice and I don't expect to win much. I was planning on playing 50+ games over the weekend, but I need a understanding healer to sink with my ship atm.

What else should I be working toward as I collect my honor gear?

[Elektric]

I went into the arenas for the first time yesterday and got my asses handed to me a few times. I didn't expect to win anything with the current gear I have on (4pc s2 and random 60-70 blues and greens.). My friend was playing his pally as my healer, also not very well geared atm. The AOE teams crushed us the first few games, but after getting down to 1420 we started getting teams that get softened fast. My healer friend was getting upset even after telling him we are only doing this for practice and I don't expect to win much. I was planning on playing 50+ games over the weekend, but I need a understanding healer to sink with my ship atm.

What else should I be working toward as I collect my honor gear?

As you collect your gear...make sure you get exalted with the factions for +dmg gryphs/inscriptions. Save up those shards from farming your Totem of the Void...all those Large Prismatics add up to some serious Gold.

Skill wise I've really been working hard to work the clone turn into my playbook. In the bg's its really hard at the moment since most people die before ever reaching my shaman. Another nice skill while Bg'ing is when confronting a group, just like you would in arena, practice burning the most dangerous target first. Identifying and executing kill order needs to be second nature to do well in high end arena. Totem management is another big one, practice keeping your Grounding totems and Tremor totems up. It sounds silly, but against the really good teams, they'll go after these immediately realizing that immunity to polymorph, silence, fear, instant nukes is really where our power comes from. How do you beat a team that can nuke but you can't?

I try to play with as many healers as possible. Playing with different healers has allowed me to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the healers, myself, and our opposition. Experience doesnt get any better than that. I try to never enter a bg without a healer in the group and on vent. Killing people while communicating is what 5v5 is all about, and you can get that experience in the BGs. Most of the time they just laugh and say how watching Chain Lightning kill people never gets old. BGs aren't any real comparison to arena, but they do allow you to work the basics.

Speaking of Chain Lightning, my new Joy in arena is blowing the Nuke on scrub teams and killing two targets at once. Its never worth any points but its funny as hell! lawl

[bugilt]

I have been lacking on the clone turning even though it's setup. I'm thinking about setting my mouse buttons for clone movement. I guess I have another long haul in front of me for rep and gear.

[Elektric]

Enjoy the turning and think about all that clone turning you'll be able to get in, lol.

[Mercurio]

Elektric, that's fabulous, I'm glad you are doing so well.

Thought I'd share my experiences in 5v5 when 4-boxing shammies:

My guys are basically epicced out:
S4 hands
S3 heads
S2 shoulders
Veteran Bracers, Boots, Belts
Battlemaster trinkets
Guardian Necklaces
S2 weapons
Totems of the Void
all +dmg and +resil enchants that are available, tons of crit, basically modelled off Ellay's gear on the armory and not terribly far from what she's got
Same talents as Ellay's shammies

My healer is a holy pally with better gear than I have (over 400 resil, etc)

I've played a few hundred arena matches with my healer and we have gotten to an all-time high rating of....







1503!!


Of course, that was after resetting my team back up to 1500 last week and getting lucky by running into total noob teams a few times in a row, but it still doesn't lessen the accomplishment.

After doing this for a few weeks and getting enough points for another S4 piece I capitulated last night and paid a duelist 850 gold to raise each of my four shaman's 2v2 personal ratings up to 1550 so I can buy the pants.

It has taken a long time to get my guys as geared up as they are now and it is very interesting to see how varied our experiences are.

Keep the lessons coming, haven't heard anything I'm not doing already yet, but nothing can hurt at this point. /salute

[Thulos]

I must have missed it in the videos but how do you handle the individual clone turning? I'll watch the videos again but a simplified rundown would be great.

[Elektric]

Bind a key on your clones not your main that makes them turn left and right.

In Blade's Edge in Ellay's video he purges and then he gets stunned by something. He turns his clones around using this button and nukes away. This is mad skillz and he makes it look ez. Adding this simple tool to your bag of tricks will make you more powerful. Controlling your clones is more important than you main. Theres 4 of them and one of you. How many times have you had a Rogue/Warrior run through you and only your main is hitting them because the follow turn can't keep up with your target so only your main get dmg off. Controlling your clones and nuking destroys this stupid melee aproach to destroying us multiboxers.

And BTW, once you get it down you can see the fear in the Melee's movement that his little figure 8s arent helping him at all...only seconds till a nice yellow HK on your screenie.