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Old 12/31/07, 2:18 PM   #38 (permalink)
Push
Glass Joe
 
Tauren Shaman
 
Dark Iron
It's weird that you couldn't find me online--I log in everyday. Because of the holidays, many of my Arena partners haven't been on too much, so I've been on my alt a lot, which may explain why you didn't catch me on Push. Oh and the Armory is dumb and hasn't registered my guilds for months.

Many of you have probably seen me comment on these exact things on the Shaman forums.

Basically Duilliath says it all. I play with a enhancement shaman in the arena but he pretty much REQUIRES to have BoF all the time and get dispelled. He is useless without it.
My 5v5 is UA Lock, Shadow Priest, Frost Mage, Enhancement Shaman, and Holy Pally. Interestingly, I almost never receive Blessing of Freedom. The philosophy of our team is to CC the DPS of the other team completely, which is why it's so easy for a healer to heal our team, and for us to deliver our massive damage that compensates for our lack of healing reduction.

As a matter of fact, our Paladin has disappeared on us for the last week, so we were forced to play with a Druid friend of ours, and we had the same success last night (couple games off #1 now). You heard me: a Resto Druid healed a 4 DPS team with an Enhancement Shaman and UA Lock.

This may sound ridiculous, but the use of our CC is the means for our survival. In addition, we depend on our anti-CC to avoid getting our damage broken up.

The biggest advantage an Enhancement Shaman has in 5v5 is the ability to cast Purge and Tremor Totem while damaging. Nearly no Fear lasts for longer than 2 seconds on my team, and naturally Polymorph isn't a problem with so many dispels and Blessing of Sacrifice. Also, the well-timed use of Earth Shock and Grounding Totem is caster CC in itself.

2h sucks. DW adds more white damage, Stormstrike damage, burst, Flurry, Shamanistic Focus, Unleashed Rage, interruption on casters, among other things. Even owning a 2her on your character is trivial--it's never better.

I'll also point out that Push runs as 0/45/19 and doesn't take the commonly assumed "pvp talents" in elemental. He hasn't placed any extra points in survivability (Toughness/Anticipation) but took 2/2 Ghost Wolf and of course improved grounding totem.
I get the most slack about my spec. The Elemental off-talents are absolute garbage. To be a successful Enhancement Shaman in Arenas, GCD abuse is necessary. The 1 second off the Shock cooldown doesn't help because 4 GCDs add up to 6 seconds anyway.

Shocks make up 15-20% of my damage in Arenas. Increasing it by 5% is only adding 1% damage. The Mana survivability in the tree is nearly worthless with Water Shield, Shamanistic Focus, and Shamanistic Rage.

Most importantly, the Resto talents provide a needed 10 yards on Totem range and max spell hit in PvP. A resisted Earth Shock changes the tide of battle more than anything else.

I choose to drop a couple points in Unleashed Rage for Healing Focus. People assume that I treat my spec as more of a healing hybrid, which is not the case. I grab full Healing Focus because the few times that I do heal, they are during desperate times.

The concept of my Arena teams is to keep enough damage pressure on the other team that I keep them on the defensive. Putting a shield on, healing too much, not being in melee range, or having your team CCd will never result in a dominant position in a fight. That's why totem twisting Earthbind with Tremor is key. The goal is to be dealing maximum damage while interrupting CC/damage and avoiding all Fear.

All of this said, I also need to thank my Arena partners, especially my Mage, Wakustabakus. They're all incredible players who I love playing with. We don't fight--we just win. I'm always happy to answer questions, which I do as much as I can on the World of Warcraft Shaman Forums. A lot of people choose to in-game mail or whisper me on level 1 alts, as I'm on a lot.

See you guys around!

Last edited by Push : 12/31/07 at 2:26 PM.
 
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