doogless

Multi-boxing isn't cheating unless you have external programs that control the actions of the characters (ie botting). It's not different than just counting down over Vent, and you wouldn't call that cheating, would you?

 

• Gwaihir

It's one guy playing 4 machines with a sick dual boxing setup, demo'd on The original MMORPG Dual-Boxing and Multi-Boxing Site!. I've played against this guy in 5v5 several times over the course of a night, and it was most certainly frustrating as hell, but it's certainly not cheating. He's running multiple accounts, multiple machines, and a setup that lets him directly control all of them at once. It's not botting and not against the ToS. (And yes it is disgustingly frustrating to play against 4/5 elemental shaman without big CC on your team)

 

xarg

I was on a team running this not too long ago. We cleared 1700 with about 1 loss and no use of vent.

The quad boxing actually works a whole lot better because the timers go off at *exactly* the same time.

The best way to beat this is to just hump a pillar for the entire game. If you're out in the open for even long enough for them to get one cast off you're going to die.

And yes it's terribly hard to find 4 good elemental shamans on the one server. I imagine servers other than blackrock and tichondrius would have a considerably harder time of it, too.

 

Tezhut

1 What do your keybindings look like?

First off, i seem to never have enough keys to bind things to
On all my characters my keybindings have "grown" from what spells i used often and what new spells i gained. Although sometimes i try to do a cleanup and switch things around a bit, trying to make the bindings more efficient.
The primary buttons i use are 1-6, Q,E,V,T,Y and ` (this is the button left of the 1 key on my keyboard).
I dont use the default 7,8,9,0,- or = buttons, i find them too far away to reach for. Also the buttons i use allow me to still have:

• tab for targeting. Many ppl i know seem to use tab as a keybind, but i use tab targeting a lot.
• R for replies. My brother started using R as a keybind a few months ago and he says its working perfectly! Since R is a really close button for you to reach i can imagine it does work very well. You would have to get used to another reply key tough.
• F for assisting. Something i very rarely use these days, so might use F to bind another spell to soon.

So i use 12 keys to bind my stuff: 1-6, Q,E,V,T,Y and `. Of course using only those keys would not nearly give me enough keybindings. So I use modifiers Ctrl and Shift. So that gives me 3x12=36 combinations to use. In addition i use F1-F5 for some additional stuff. F1 is always my PvP trinket, F3 my mount, etc.
The general system is that i use a different modifier for a different set of spells. For instance on my shaman (I am playing elemental) my unmodified keys are my main damage spells, my shift+keys are healing spells and shields, my ctrl+keys are mostly rank 1 spells or totems. On a druid you could have the ctrl+keys for shifting forms.
Another very nice bind I've been using lately is the two buttons on the side of my mouse. I used to have autorun on here , which was fine until I realized i could use one for setting my /focus target and the other for Earthshock (Rank 1) on focus target. This is working really well for me now! i manage to fool around (and switch around) with focus targets a lot faster. Especially in busy environments like BG's (or maybe 5v5) you can jump in focus the enemy paladin, spam lightning bolt on their warrior while you shock every other heal from the paladin almost seamlessly.

(and p.s. Yes i click only a few totems, a res and maybe a healthstone, altough i might bind that aswell soon. I even have Windfury totem binded for any warriors/ret palas in my group ;P )

2 What's the best variant of 40/0/21 for 5v5?

The best variant is anything with overload, clearcasting, NS, totemic mastery, reduced LB casting time and max crit from talents. Rest depends completely on your playstyle, setup, gear, opponents, luck, skill, (god?), etc

3 How do you prefer to gem your gear? What enchants do you use? What trinkets?

I am in full PvP gear so that means im even using the arena totem (resilience when i shock) Battlemasters trinket (Crit rating one) and PvP trinket. I really like the stam/spelldam and stam/resi gems, then with the 3 honor gems and one meta your gem slots are filled quickly.

4 What spells do you downrank?

R1 Earthshock (obviously).
R1 Flameshock is great on rogues before they vanish when you're oom.
R1 Frostshock kiting when you are oom, this will also do quite a lot of damage for a rank 1 spell.
R1 Magma totem. If you are running from a rogue who is stealthed, run in a straight line and pop these down at low mana cost most of them will run right into them.
R1 LB use to be better but still nice when warriors spellreflect or killing some totems at range etc.
I also have some downranked healing spells on my bars.

5 When is the best time to heal, and when is the best time to DPS at all costs?

Very situational question, but id say that healing should be productive if your going to heal at all. So assisting heals on your warrior when he gets bursted is almost always good. But healing your mage who wasted all his cooldowns and is on 0 mana might be a big waste of time and mana on your part. Ofcourse this all depends on if you are able to heal at all at that moment (Los from pillars, range) and if your mana can handle assisting the healing.

6 If focused, what do you do to continue being productive?

In 5v5 i tend to back up and try to get out of Los of ranged opponents while purely focussing on shocking main damage or cc spells while im running. Cyclone, Shadowbolt, Frostbolt are good things to shock trying to minimaze the damage you take and keeping your healers healing you. Also, if you are getting heavily pressured the enemy priest will many times find the time to mana burn, so I keep an eye on this if I can! I dont bother trying to cast LB's while I'm are beeing pressed really hard: Pummel, CS, kick, etc you dont want your nature school locked when you want to shock their casters. As soon as the opportunity presents itself i get myself back to casting them chains/bolts.

7 What mods do you find helpful?[/quote]

Proximo, i set it up so right clicking someone will set him as my focus target. Works great if you are planning a strategy.
And i use Pitbull so that gives me loads more information about my party. Party targets are really nice, i see their buffs&debuffs clearly, hp, their pets, etc. Also has focus frame in here so i don't need another addon for that.
I also use Chaman2 for my totem management, it has timers, and saves much much space on your bars for totems that you rarely use anyways (But often enough that you don't want to look trough your spellbook everytime).

 

woeye

From the PTR front:

[Shaman] Elemental Season 3 arena set 4-piece bonus nerfed to 50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Lightning Bolt (was 70%)

Just to let you know.

 

Ninjerk

Yeah, I think I might be changing this profile soon to reflect my new, old main, a rogue.

 

whave

From worldofraids.com: - Nature’s Swiftness and Elemental Mastery now share a 10 second cooldown.

We must have been too overplayed in arenas, so this had to be nerfed. Nerfing the interruption chance was not a big deal for me, as doing purges and shocks and totems all the time (of course it affects battlegrounds performance), but this was... unnecessary?

 

woeye

Being able to deliver instant burst damange on command can be painful for the enemy team, granted. Since most of WoW's PvP is based on luck (crits, procs, resists, misses and so on) the ability to control the crit is very special. But then again, this is what an elemental shaman is about, isn't it? On the downside elemental shamans cannot deliver the constant DPS/pressure as other DPS classes can. DoT's are strong because they are instant and do their work while the caster is moving around. Hunters have many instants and a pet as well. Somehow I feel that the elemental shaman is going to be replaced by hunters in the long run. Snares, traps and mana drain tools together with an additional MS effect and nice DPS sounds like a better overall package than the elemental shaman.

 

Meggles

Do you think this is due in part to the interupt chance? as in now that they are giving us something they feel the need to take something else away?

does this mean we get a CC now? =P

 

whave

Maybe I cannot recognize your [sarcasm] tag, but currently I'm thinking you misunderstood the shared cooldown thingy. They are not giving, they are taking. I can't NS+EM+CL crit any longer, as NS activates 10 sec CD on EM and vice versa. Apart from constant shocking and purging, this was my THING in arenas... at least it would be 5 seconds or something, after an EM crit I'm not even able to save a life with NS+HW for a LONG time.

 

Aadar

The 2.4 Nerfing Heats Up : AFK Gamer

I do find it funny that elemental shaman that are barely viable in 2v2 and 3v3 have got nerfed.

 

xarg

This thread seems to have died off a bit since the changes were announced. The NS+EM change has been reverted, however I believe the change to the armor set pieces (which makes absolutely 0 sense at all) has remained.

All in all, it's a buff to elemental shamans in 5v5, as we stay at 100% uninterruptible and gain the reduced totem GCD.

The set bonus should really be put back up to 70% though (if not 100%) as elemental shamans are really still quite ordinary in 2v2 and 3v3.

And yes, there was talk of what shamans were going to receive in return for the EM+NS nerf, things like the flametongue buff that got fooled around with, but nothing was put in concrete.

 

Molri

Don't understand exactly what you mean by staying at 100% uninterruptible. Not really my experience..

I think it is very telling that the Elemental PVP thread is, what 3 pages? There is just so many problems to overcome and so easy for so many classes to shut us down that it is very tough to be viable in 2v2 and 3v3. Until Blizzard decides elemental should be a viable PVP spec (from posts about Spriests that may be never) we're going to continue to be in trouble I'm afraid.

 

Aadar

I assume he means with the 35% of the Concentration Aura of a paladin in a 2345/6 team added to the 70% of the kit bonus in the current patch, and if the Pally has Improved Concentration Aura giving 50%, then 50% on the 2.4 kit will still be 100% avoidance of push back.

 

◊ Greenexile

Is this a pretty good summary of what ele shammies can expect from 2.4? I've recently finished a shammy so he is brand new to 70 and I'm wondering if I'm setting myself up for heartbreak by grinding/speccing for elemental. Are the ele shammies still pigeon holed into a 2345/6 lineup? The reduced totem GCD sounds nice - but without anything more, is there any scope for an ele shammy in the smaller brackets?

 

• Karakas

Pretty much any PVPing Holy Paladin will have Improved Concentration Aura, so in 5v5 (where Paladins are ubiquitous), the "nerf" doesn't change anything.

Honestly, don't ask me when they made the change. It nerfs Elemental in 2s and 3s, where a Paladin is not guaranteed. However, those brackets are already where Elemental is the weakest.

 

Ninjerk

The reduction of the "tick timer" on Tremor Totem should prove to be a substantial buff, as well.

 

diemos80

ive heard of people going 40/21/0 and liking the added survivability,.. but my question is why go 21 enhance? for parry? =/

 

Ninjerk

Disregard what I said, I'm an idiot and have been drinking.

 

Anu

Despite the nerf to our 4 piece arena bonus and the minor nerf of our crit on LB and CL, I am really enjoying pvp in 2.4. I decided to try out a 33/7/21 spec and its the most fun I've had pvp'ing in a long time.

Burst is down slightly without LO but my survivability with the instant cast ghostwolf is way up. I finally feel somewhat like a hybrid 8)

 

xarg

That does sound like fun, I'd play around with it in smaller brackets and in BGs/World pvp for sure.

I severely doubt it would make up for the lost burst damage in 5v5, however

This seems like as good a place as any to plug a movie I threw together, my team has more or less stopped playing 5v5 except for selling points. The video quality isn't brilliant and the editing is virtually non-existant, however if you're interested in high end 5v5 gameplay give it a look.

Xargify 1 - Elemental 5v5 By Xarg

 

Deepss

Quick question. There are now two caster spell dmg necks, one with spell dmg and the other with spell haste. Which is the better choice for an ele shaman?

 

doogless

There's also one with spell crit - [Vindicator's Pendant of Conquest], which I imagine most Elemental Shaman use

 

Deepss

I meant to write spell crit, not spell dmg. :p my bad.
yeah I was wondering whether the crit one or the haste one would be better

 

whave

Only my personal opinion, not based on any tests but: crit can be lowered by the enemy with resilience. Faster casts can't be. But I don't think you should go for it before you have reasonable amount of haste (like 5% to get 0.1s off of LB).