5 ORC Shamans or 1 Priest 4 Warlocks

[sethlan]

Which team would be stronger for WPvP? 5 shamans or 1 priest 4 warlocks?

Thoughts ?

[Peregrine]

Well, let me give my input:

4x lock/disc:

Pros:
No face req
Dots
Incredible synergy
Pets
Spell lock
Multiple variatons
No gear needed to do good
Infinite Mana (big resource in Classic for locks)

Cons:
Dispellable dots
Cloth only
No real way to clear dungeons
No way to counter fear (unless all UD, but even then you're gonna be susceptible to stuns)

Shamans:

Pros:
Fear tremor
Mail
One shot every 3 mins
5 grounding completely negating casters
Aq patch brings godmode vs casters and anti aoe ( due to how shields function, obisidan shield in particular)
Can clear most of dungeons with super ease (especially, if you combine resto specc for healing stream)

Cons:

Face requirement mostly
Mana issues
Only cast spells
Low dps compared to some other classes
Does not have really optimal dps gear (mail wise, you'll find cloth having incredible spell power).
Extremely susceptible to aoe (arcane explosion, blizzard,grenade stuns)


Overall:
Shamans are always good no matter what. Warlocks are bis class in Classic alongside mages so can't go wrong with them tho leveling is pita so you will level much slower with locks then with shamans (dungeon wise at least).

Shamans have wind fury as well, so you can always try melee cleave as well which is fun sometimes. Always needed as healers in raid too.
I am running 4x lock 1x disc (orc, troll) and kinda happy with it.

Tbh, from my personal exp the best setup boxing pvp wise is 4x ud mage, 1x ud priest hands down!

[Mercbeast]

I actually am pretty confident that 4x warlocks are the 2nd fastest leveling group next to 3-4x mages + healer and maybe tank.

[Zal]

As someone that went 5 shamans to start and is still lv 41 despite consistently leveling.... go 1 priest 4 locks. I love shamans, they're my favorite class but it was a mistake to make that my first team.

That said, Shamans are a ton better in WPvP.

[Earshy]

As someone that went 5 shamans to start and is still lv 41 despite consistently leveling.... go 1 priest 4 locks. I love shamans, they're my favorite class but it was a mistake to make that my first team.

That said, Shamans are a ton better in WPvP.

Another 5-man shaman team here. I'm only level 34.5 despite having over 5 days played time. What's kept me entertained through this grind has been WPvP as Zal mentioned. It's been a bloodbath outside of SM every time I zone out to reset, and it's been a blast partaking in it. It gets better when you hit 30 and get WF, then better again when you get Chain Lightning but it's slow for sure. I've killed 3,000 mobs in the last 30 hours of play time according to my xp meter...all one at a time, unlike the AoE groups. If you're willing to grind the shamans are a good choice.

[Andreauk]

Priest and x4 Locks - I could clear rfc at level 13/14.

Saying that aggro is a pain (and yes they have everything trained) it's so hit and miss with threat I think I need an aoe tank that's not Warrior.. I have a real dislike for stance dancing.

Dropping my Lock/Priest group now.

[xandorz]

I have a shaman team (lvl 30).
I think it should be the best team for world pvp.
One weakness should be people trying to outrange it (shocks are 20yd range so have to use lightning bolt/chain lightning on those that try to outrange it). I had someone try to do this, a warlock that was on a ledge and dotted me, could easily outheal his dots so I just kept grinding and he couldn't jump down or he would have died.
I am not sure if shamans actually can reach a warlock dotting them without ghost wolf (which has a 3 sec cast time or 1 sec when specced into). If the warlock runs at max range then he can dot and run out of your attack range, although Chain Lightning is only 1.5 sec cast with 30 points in elemental so might go off even when he runs out of range.

Healing Stream totem also doesn't stack (it was believed it does but it doesn't).

Fire Nova Totem doesn't give credit if it is the only source of damage (no xp or loot, can't skin, most likely no honor either but idk).

Other than that they should be one of the deadliest groups for world pvp and healing should be almost useless against them since even if they can't kill with just 5 shocks then they can combine shocks+1 other type of attack to guarantee a kill.

I am unsure what team I want to play, to be really strong in world pvp I would pick shamans. But I am not at all attached to them, I feel like I rather would play a group that doesn't work as good together (druid/priest/warlock/mage) and get the classes I like more... but really hard to decide.

4 Locks and a priest should be able to deal massive damage with the dots and they get higher max hp with Blood Pact and Fortitude and warlocks can use Soul Link for another 30% damage reduction and then soul stone priest.
Because of dots enemies won't die instantly so they will be able to deal significant damage before dying, compared to shamans who would quickly reduce the enemies numbers.
The enemy might also be able to outheal the dots (not easy but if they have 2-3 healers then maybe, especially if they dispel. 1 priest would dispel as fast as 2 warlocks dot up).

I think both teams would be good. I expect shamans to be better because of their instant damage but both should be really good.

[Peregrine]

I have a shaman team (lvl 30).
I think it should be the best team for world pvp.
One weakness should be people trying to outrange it (shocks are 20yd range so have to use lightning bolt/chain lightning on those that try to outrange it). I had someone try to do this, a warlock that was on a ledge and dotted me, could easily outheal his dots so I just kept grinding and he couldn't jump down or he would have died.
I am not sure if shamans actually can reach a warlock dotting them without ghost wolf (which has a 3 sec cast time or 1 sec when specced into). If the warlock runs at max range then he can dot and run out of your attack range, although Chain Lightning is only 1.5 sec cast with 30 points in elemental so might go off even when he runs out of range.

Healing Stream totem also doesn't stack (it was believed it does but it doesn't).

Fire Nova Totem doesn't give credit if it is the only source of damage (no xp or loot, can't skin, most likely no honor either but idk).

Other than that they should be one of the deadliest groups for world pvp and healing should be almost useless against them since even if they can't kill with just 5 shocks then they can combine shocks+1 other type of attack to guarantee a kill.

I am unsure what team I want to play, to be really strong in world pvp I would pick shamans. But I am not at all attached to them, I feel like I rather would play a group that doesn't work as good together (druid/priest/warlock/mage) and get the classes I like more... but really hard to decide.

4 Locks and a priest should be able to deal massive damage with the dots and they get higher max hp with Blood Pact and Fortitude and warlocks can use Soul Link for another 30% damage reduction and then soul stone priest.
Because of dots enemies won't die instantly so they will be able to deal significant damage before dying, compared to shamans who would quickly reduce the enemies numbers.
The enemy might also be able to outheal the dots (not easy but if they have 2-3 healers then maybe, especially if they dispel. 1 priest would dispel as fast as 2 warlocks dot up).

I think both teams would be good. I expect shamans to be better because of their instant damage but both should be really good.

Overall, I think shamans will have much harder time overall in both world pvp and everything else due to following:

Nature resist, no way to counter resist apart the resist gear. Extremely squishly vs aoe (unless obsidian shield) which means 2 mages can wreck you.
Mana dependant so you can go oom actually quite fast. Spell pushback from aoe (mage blizz,reign of fire, hurricane,volley).
Warlocks vs Shamans (classic) always would bet on warlocks since they can macro pets to insta gib the totems (grounding), then simply dot everything and you die.

Given the Spellstone mechanic and high xp, most likely you would be able to kill only single warlock before 4 locks would recover and fully dot you to death. I've done math and with my pvp team (locks n priest, I'll be able to reach 7500 hp non stop (no flask). If I were to use soul link, that would be 10k hp on single lock.

Also, don't forget that priest acts as pseudo debuffer and when keybinded properly, swp acts as dot plus shadow weaving debuff which acts another debuff for dispell, plus chance to stun. Priests would have to go thru hell of a trouble to remove that,plus on bright side, one spell lock on 1 healer ( you got 4x felhunter) you would be crushed (with solid gear I've done math you got 600 spell power and with 40% scaling plus baseline dmg you would annhilate everything via dot spam).
One more thing: Death coil on healers plus spell lock, they die asap.

Final thing: Mortal strike effect from priest: -20% healing.

[margulda]

Overall, I think shamans will have much harder time overall in both world pvp and everything else due to following:

Nature resist, no way to counter resist apart the resist gear. Extremely squishly vs aoe (unless obsidian shield) which means 2 mages can wreck you.
Mana dependant so you can go oom actually quite fast. Spell pushback from aoe (mage blizz,reign of fire, hurricane,volley).
Warlocks vs Shamans (classic) always would bet on warlocks since they can macro pets to insta gib the totems (grounding), then simply dot everything and you die.

Given the Spellstone mechanic and high xp, most likely you would be able to kill only single warlock before 4 locks would recover and fully dot you to death. I've done math and with my pvp team (locks n priest, I'll be able to reach 7500 hp non stop (no flask). If I were to use soul link, that would be 10k hp on single lock.

Also, don't forget that priest acts as pseudo debuffer and when keybinded properly, swp acts as dot plus shadow weaving debuff which acts another debuff for dispell, plus chance to stun. Priests would have to go thru hell of a trouble to remove that,plus on bright side, one spell lock on 1 healer ( you got 4x felhunter) you would be crushed (with solid gear I've done math you got 600 spell power and with 40% scaling plus baseline dmg you would annhilate everything via dot spam).
One more thing: Death coil on healers plus spell lock, they die asap.

Final thing: Mortal strike effect from priest: -20% healing.

Could you post your builds and maccros you use to destroy totems ?

[Peregrine]

This is the Classic/Bc macro for totem stomp, they've changed in wrath not to be able to be stomped by pets (afaik, I've used on mouseover for Wrath so can't be 100% sure).

/petattack
/petattack [target=mana tide totem]
/petattack [target=tremor totem]
/petattack [target=grounding totem]
/petattack [target=windfury totem]

The totem priority starts from top one to bottom one.
From my experience, there are 3 builds for locks overall.

Max scaling dps : https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-c...-2350300142001
Soul Link : https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-c...50300152501051
Conflag with Shadow burn: able to take 2 targets really fast: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-c...50005122005141

There are other variatons, but this should be best possible setup.

Therhe are some gear tricks too, but that's different story.

For priest, there are 2 possible setups:
Spirit setup for mana game: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-c...-2-05025201035
Extra armor and Holy nova: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-c...03-05025201035

Do note: the shadow wands benefit from COS and Shadow weaving (need to test ds and sm) so your wands with shadow dmg would do effectily extra 25% dmg.