An Elemental Shaman’s Role in 5v5 Arena (4DPS)

Hello! This is my first time writing an article for shadow-gaming.com, and my first article ever written about…World of Warcraft - I am very happy to be writing for such a distinguished website. Let me first begin with a little about myself. I go by Reft, in game - the original name of my night elf priest. I transferred to Black Dragonflight from Tichondrius about a year ago to Forgotten Heroes mainly for PvE progression. I used to be in a great guild named Insomnia while I was still among fellow Tichondrius’ians. (Yes, I know, “Tichondrius is not for me”). Presently, the Shaman I play goes by the name of Coercive - specced 40/21 Elemental. I am in the same guild as Dahis… Forgotten Heroes - and I have known him for a little over a month. I am currently on a 4DPS “gib” (Dahis classifies all 4DPS as gib — lol) team, named Game Over on the Stormstrike Battlegroup. We have a decent rating - and the team is comprised of Deztruckt, Radikal, Azael, Me, and Odd - Shadowpriest/WE Mage/UA Lock/Ele Shaman/Holy Paladin respectively. This is the same matrix that Clan HeX [Lightning’s Blade] from the Vindication battlegroup made popular. I joined Game Over towards the end of Season 1 - ever since they decided to run a 4DPS matrix.




Dahis’ Note: Reft is modest, but Game Over is currently the #8 (rated) team in the U.S.




Some people were interested in having more writers for the blog - and I thought I could pitch in some of my efforts to give some variety to the current articles. I believe that most of my future articles will hopefully pertain to the Shaman class. Hopefully readers will enjoy what I have to say as well. ^_^



In the writing that succeeds - I will primarily address what I believe an elemental shaman’s role should be in 5v5 arena. Since I play on a 4DPS team - my views of this may be skewed compared to a 5v5 classical matrix - such as the team Dahis runs (Armchair Athletes). However, I will try to convey my thoughts on the classical setup in a future article. I have no experience playing in any other setup in 5v5, besides the classical and the 4DPS I currently run. I will also address mana efficiency - as I notice A LOT of shamans that I face always are low on mana early on in the fight. I will try to give some tips on how to maximize mana use, and a little bit about how I play in particular. I want to also acknowledge that there are many shamans in the game that are better than me - This article should be not taken as the “ONLY” way to play a shaman in the 4DPS/Classical setup - there are others that have their own playstyle that do just as good if not better.




Alright - for my 4DPS team, I always have 4 tasks I seek to carry out during the arena game that ensues (Not really in order of importance).


1. Pre-Purge, Purge, and Heroism.


2. Drop totems and keep them up at ALL times.


3. Interrupt heals (against a 1, 2, 2.5, or tri healer team), Interrupt Damage (against 4 dps).


4. Burst Damage (EM Chain Lightning, NS if needed)




On a 4DPS team, it is important to gain early momentum, roll with early momentum, and keep early momentum going into mid to late game. Heroism’ing early (after 3-4 purges, dots go out) is the absolute most important part of this. If you do not heroism as early as you feel appropriate - you lose out on the early game momentum, why? Because thats 5 players that could be executing actions 30% faster. Also, if the opposing team has a shaman as well - if they heroism early I like to try to also heroism right after they do theirs - because your team should never be at a disadvantage. Their team having heroism and your team not having it means you will have a very hard time early game, and a 4DPS team isn’t optimized to outlast 45 seconds of 30% bloodlust. So at the very least you should be on even keel with the opposition.



Purging is vastly important to me. Making sure I purge a couple targets before the battle begins (i.e. standing in nagrand arena around pillars), and purging during the main battle is I feel one of the most important things to me. After purging miscellaneous targets and the battle actually starts - I purge until I can’t purge anymore buffs off the first target. If they have heroism, my 2nd/3rd purging targets will be their healers, until they do not have heroism anymore. After that, I purge seldomly. Usually just a purge here and there If I feel like I do not have much else to do - or a purge on a target if I see a HoT casted on them. Since BoP doesn’t effect a full caster team - I do not have to be ready to purge that off an enemy target.




Dropping totems and reapplying them is I feel the next important step. Having your tremor totem always up is highly prioritized on my list. Also, it costs 60 mana without talents - it should ALWAYS be up, and it should always be near your healers, because it likes to bug out alot. In fact, I am a little frustrated with tremor because I often see it pulse, but it doesn’t remove the fear from a target that is RIGHT NEXT TO IT. Gah, what can you do? If you can’t keep track of all your totems, go to curse-gaming.com and look for a Totem-Timers mod. It helps you keep track and lets you know what the duration left on your current totems are. I drop Grounding Totem often, and if I see it has eaten a spell - I will drop Wrath of Air for my team in between. I try to keep Poison Cleansing up if there is an opposing hunter/rogue, or I just go with Mana Spring. Frost Resistance totem is under the fire element category of totems, and I always have that down if there is an opposing mage. Most mages these days are Water Elemental specced anyways.




When you see your totem has been destroyed - reapply one asap. I prioritize tremor/grounding above all else, so If I am stuck on global and I need to do something other than drop totems, I will at least try to get these two primary ones out.




(Also, for you classical teams - if you drop windfury - your melee classes will have it for 10 seconds. When you switch to grounding, the windfury is reapplied for another 10 seconds. So, you can drop windfury, switch to grounding - wait for it to eat a spell, switch BACK to windfury, and your team will never have lost the windfury buff. Basically, you have 10 seconds for your grounding to eat up an enemy spell. The cooldown on grounding is 15 seconds, [13 with talents], so you should be able to effectively micromanage this).



Interrupting heals/damage spells should be your forte. I will agree, interrupting a heal when they are casting a 1.5 second heal (Flash of Light, Flash Heal) is difficult when you are already IN a global / or they have heroism. I don’t like to interrupt these heals - because half the time I will be in a global, hit my focus macro earth shock button, and waste my earthshock cooldown because I was too late. Also, you look like a complete idiot when you miss your shock…lol . Interrupting Mana Burns on a 4DPS team is important, however, if you think about it - if they are mana-burning you, they really aren’t healing their target which is getting zerged by other caster dps. Which, can be a good thing. However, all shamans should have a focus macro. Here is mine in case you don’t have it.




/cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(Rank 1)




This is bound to my Mouse4 button, which is directly on my thumb. My other macro is simply:




/focus




which is bound to Shift-X, however, I know of many players that bind /focus to Mouse4, and their Focus Interrupt Macro to Mouse5. Thus they can seamlessly click on a target, put them on focus fast, and interrupt their heal just as fast. It’s also good to have the focus’s castbar on your screen. The bigger the better, and put it in a place where you’ll naturally see it when you play arena.



The last thing I want to cover is that I do not do alot of damage in 5s. The above mentioned keeps me busy for most of the arena fight. I see many shamans losing mana efficiency because they are mashing their faces into Lightning Bolt. Which could be great, for shamans such as Fisker from Trounce, this is deadly. With 1000+ spell damage (he has ridiculous BT gear), his lightnings bolts should not be taken lightly. However, most arena shamans will have between 600-800 spell damage. Lightning bolt costs 297 mana for around 1200-1400 on resilience’d out targets. For a shaman on a 4dps team, this is alright - but I’d rather not be dpsing, simply because healing 1200 damage is easier than dealing 1200 worth. I’d rather interrupt a holy light, that will do 5000 healing, than press lightning bolt. On a 4DPS team, this is very important. With Purges, Heroism, and keeping up Totems, shaman’s are already down ~2000 (at the least) mana an arena. If I am forced to heal, its 720 mana for a Healing Wave (Max Rank), which only does 2800(4500 crit), on a target, and a Lesser Healing Wave (Max Rank) takes 440 mana for 1400-1500 healing. I have 819 spell damage. A good way to improve your mana efficiency is to trust your primary healers. Unless you absolutely need to, I believe healing as an elemental shaman is not a good idea. On more classical teams, the DPS might be needed - on my team, the only time I need to do damage is when I know for sure a target is going to die. ~3000 chain lightning plus a shock (1000, 2000 if crit) could be deadly if the opponents healers aren’t paying attention or are counterspelled.
I want to write more but I think I should save it for another time.



I want to write a little bit more on how I would play my shaman in a classical setup, but that should wait for another time ^^! I hope you guys enjoy this article, and I am very open to suggestions on how I can improve my writing, as well as my golf game - I shot a 92 today on a par 71… Mainly because I can’t hit my driver…Haha.



Thanks for reading!


Reft