Prefacing my question I would like to say that I have played a shaman for over 2 years before the BC expansion came out. I played a shaman in arenas on the test server and had an absolute blast.
My question though is at this stage in BC are shamans viable in arenas? 2v2? 5v5? For someone who is looking to gain a very high ranking in arena will the team hit a wall that can't be overcome because of a shaman?
Also I am looking to play a resto/ele or ele/resto.
I run a 5v5 team with 2 warriors, a paladin, a shaman + a 5th spot that might be a shaman, warlock or druid depending on who's available. Resto shamans are effective burst healers, with good instant interrupting and the ability to throw some decent damage at targets who dip low. They also have the 2 best melee DPS buffs in the game, and windfury totems are usually my first target when playing against a shaman team
elemental shamans are huge burst but in our experience they get locked down pretty quickly and can't do much. a team with heavier CC than ours might be able to make them work, and I know a number of high ranked teams use them
enhancement shamans are a melee class that has no healing supression, less armor/health than warriors and none of the escape tools that rogues get. I've heard they're ok in 2v2, but it's really not a 5v5 spec in my experience
Yes shaman are viable. Even enhance, it just depends on your group strat and how you compliment the other players, and the composition and strategy of the other team. Same as with every other class. +-
I used to run with a shaman on my 5v5 team and found bloodlust very nice. I guess my question was more based around 2v2. My team right now is Paladin/Warrior and we have very few losses to any shaman combo (though in my opinion the shaman were not that great).
Well paladin/warrior, especially MS warrior is one of those rather OP combos in my eyes. Not that I haven't defeated such groups with myself resto and my hunter friend but it really is a matter of them being much worse players then us - i.e. pally not dispelling poisons (not dispelling viper sting = I can outlast a pally in healing with MS on me), warrior not interrupting/hamstringing me, in general going for me instead of simply going in melee range of hunter and completely neutralizing his damage, etc. The fact that such teams seem to be even ranked with us despite making such completely stupid mistakes kind of annoys me. So no in 2vs2 with a warrior pally is probably better. WF/Heroism will help your warrior do alot of damage, but whether that makes up for pally survivability (and bubble), BoF and all that is debatable. It will depend on the team you're facing most likely. Shamans have an easier time neutralizing fear and blind as far as CCs (unless your oponents are smart and fast), but pally can get out of sheep more easily (blessing of sacrifice and bubble if you messed up/got dispelled).
Well I was curious about this so I figure add this in here. My wife plays a priest and myself a shaman. How viable would that team be in 2v2 arena? We're not great pvp'ers, but we know how to play and can learn to adapt pretty well.
Also wondering if we should go resto shaman/shadow priest or holy/disc priest/enhancement shaman. I'm guessing not enhancement from what I've read on the forums here. Perhaps elemental shaman though instead of a pure resto, but then again earth shield and the self heal talent are probably quite strong. Just wondering if a shadow priest + shocks is enough dps.
Prefacing my question I would like to say that I have played a shaman for over 2 years before the BC expansion came out. I played a shaman in arenas on the test server and had an absolute blast.
My question though is at this stage in BC are shamans viable in arenas? 2v2? 5v5? For someone who is looking to gain a very high ranking in arena will the team hit a wall that can't be overcome because of a shaman?
Also I am looking to play a resto/ele or ele/resto.
Thank-you for the help.
Too be honest, there are members of pretty much every class on the top 5v5 teams, so while certain matrices have advantages over the others, having a Shaman won't impede your progress. Personally, I'm a fan of 40/0/21 with the PvP talents (meaning no lightning overload, and taking things like Eye of the Storm and Elemental Shields). Moblack of Clan HeX (top rated team in Vindication BG) runs with that spec for example.
While a Shaman will never be "needed" like Paladins, MS Warriors, Holy/Disc Priests and Frost Mages, Bloodlust, Purge, WFT, Grounding Totem, Earth Shock and Nature's Swiftness make them a very attractive for 5v5.
None I'm afraid, I've given up the Shaman to concentrate on my Rogue who isn't 70 yet. I can say this, friends of mine are running Enhancement Shaman + Prot/Holy Pally duo in 2v2 and are doing okay, but run just for fun and aren't too serious about PvP, so they wouldn't be a pretty good gauge of how successful they could be.
EDIT: I did some checking though, it definitely seems that the top Shamans in 2v2 go Resto, which makes sense when you think about it. In 5v5, Earthen Shield will last about 5 seconds against a good team, or the way I put it to one of our Shamans this weekend...the team that doesn't dispell ES, isn't a team you need ES to beat. That obviously changes in 2v2. Many teams don't have an offensive dispeller, so ES will generally be fine.
While this is in no way a hard and fast rule, it would look like Resto is best for 2v2, and either going Resto or Elemental for 3v3, then Elemental for 5v5.
I personally think a pvp spec'd elemental shaman can be very useful in 5v5 if played right. While they dont have any conventional form of cc their offensive dispels (you dont have to bring a priest), ability to damage mulitple targets, burst damage, and earth shocks can make up for it. Not to mention they can heal also.
Certainly viable in the form of resto, Earthern Shield is nasty for among others the Druid/Rogue and the Paladin/Warrior combo. Enhancement however is stupid, they dont bring anything to the table a Warrior, Rogue and in some cases even a feral Druid cant do better. Elemental is propably somewhere in between.
2on2 is very strick in its form, healer/dps is the only really succesfull format and from my experience the more healer the healer is and the more dps the dps is the better the results will be, given decent surviveability for both parts though.
5on5:
Another story, format is a little more loose as both bi-healer and tri-healer teams are viable giving a little more freedom for hybridism. Enhancement is still stupid though as noone cares about 10% extra ap for your warrior/rogue/hunter when you could trade it for another ms or a stunbot. Even Viper Sting is better than that. Elemental is quite good though if you have a very magic based team, and in combination with lets say a mage, warlock, paladin and priest you should have yourself a quite deadly setup.
In my experience, shamans are the #1 target in a good 9 out of 10 match ups. Prepare to have all stuns, interrupts, and spell lockdowns thrown at you first, as people know shamans cannot counter them well. This can be highly frustrating, especially before you can build up a good stamina/resilience gear set, but you can play it to your advantage (quite well as Resto) by providing quality group buffs while distracting the competition.
Elemental can provide some violent "alpha strike" burst damage. In my experience in 5v5 matches getting off this initial stream of damage is key because you'll likely spend the rest of the match trying to stay alive as the primary target. Should you not be focused upon early, it's a grand fun lightning fest. 2v2 as Elemental is pretty fun as it's less ohgodohgodthey'reallonmeI'mgonnadiehorribly and more tactical in my opinion.
Enhancement doesn't have a good rep as the aformentioned low-ish survivability and melee don't mix well, but I've heard of some pretty successful 5v5 teams incorporating an enhancement guy. I suppose it'd hinge a lot on your group makeup.
Elemental Shaman don't really work too well in 5v5 from my experience.
They work for one game, then the opposing team armory stalks you, learns the shaman is elemental, and focus fires that shaman at the beginning of the next game.
Your shaman is now pretty much dead weight. Elemental Shaman can do little to nothing when being focus fired down, and also have pretty bad survivability.
Yes, they have very nice, timely burst capabilities, but I don't think the tradeoff is worth it.
We've had tremendous luck with a elemental shaman on our 5v5. Although our team setup isn't exactly standard: MS warrior, holy paladin, beast hunter, marks hunter, elemental shaman. Our marksman hunter gets focused 99% of the time.
Heroism coupled with double rapid fires, the beast within, death wish, lightning overload, and an offensive purge can make for a very impressive initial burst. I wouldn't dream of doing my 5v5 without an elemental shaman, but YMMV.
I've liked our Ele/Resto Shaman's performance in 5v5 but he does suffer unduly from focus fire. We've run Paladin, Priest, 2x Hunter, Shaman quite a bit and obviously have some very hard counters. The Shaman tops damage by a silly margin when he's left alone but as noted above he's reduced to shocks when the enemy team brings serious heat on him. Playing against Enh Shamans I haven't been impressed but one of the top teams on our server fields one (or used to, haven't played them in a couple of weeks). Earth Shield isn't that impressive in this bracket as every team (almost) brings offensive dispellers and ES is terribly obvious.
Haven't played with a Shaman in 2v2 but I've had some experiences against them. With a Paladin+Warrior (admittedly a Naxx geared 70 alt) setup we had some problems with Caster+Ele/Resto Shaman. The 5k+ burst from the shaman coupled with the other caster's nastiness is often enough to carry the day for them and they have solid enough healing. Enh though suffers terribly in this format. They don't pack much healing and their dps is extremely easy to counter in a smaller playing field. That said, almost anything can get some 2v2 wins and maintain an alright rating in 2v2 if the players know what buttons they're supposed to be pushing.
Elemental without nature's swiftness is just frustrating in the arenas, but then again ns + em + chain lightning makes it completely different. At least in the lower ratings you can force the opponents healers to act sooner which frees some focus fire from you. I've had good fun with guild mates on all brackets with all builds but now we actually won some matches.
In my experience, shamans are the #1 target in a good 9 out of 10 match ups. Prepare to have all stuns, interrupts, and spell lockdowns thrown at you first, as people know shamans cannot counter them well.
Ironically, I view this as a advantage, as it means my opponents are predictable. I have just over 10k HP unbuffed and 145 Resilience, which with ES and Nature's guardian makes me pretty near impossible to kill in any reasonable amount of time. The key is to turn your weakness against the enemy by punishing his decision to focus on you. Mortal Strike is really the only thing I worry too much about.
I tried elemental briefly, and it just didn't work in small teams where I was the only healer. Without NG/ES and the healing talents, you just go down too quick.
Enhancement doesn't have a good rep as the aformentioned low-ish survivability and melee don't mix well, but I've heard of some pretty successful 5v5 teams incorporating an enhancement guy.
Having played around with enh for a while, I can't really see any circumstances where having an enh shaman wouldn't better be filled by a warrior or rogue in that arena spot.
I run (full resto) in a 2v2 with an MS warrior and our biggest problem is always classes with decent CC. We can beat pretty much any dps/healer team, but heavy CC teams give us a run for our money. Warlocks give us a hard time, but we can handle fear better than many other teams; it's the combination of fear, seduce and spell lock that makes your life miserable. A good mage that knows how to juggle poly is pretty harsh and rogues are hit or miss(anything that isn't crippling/wound poison is cake though).
In my experience heavy CC teams in 2 vs 2 come down to whether they can kill your partner in the 12 secs (or more if they re-poly before it breaks) it takes for you to break CC and NS heal them - this is also why I usually put ES on my partner in the beggining and only switch to myself if I'm getting heavy focus fire. Since the shaman trinket can't get you out of CC, and you cannot break mage CC (although with good use of grounding totem and LOS you can sometimes avoid it quite well), a good poly can often be the death of your partner as a resto shammy. The only good part is that poly is the only CC you really can't do much against, at least with fear and blind the right totems can save you (if they don't get killed). Pally is clearly superior in this type of matchup since they can both trinket and shield out of CCs.
Elemental Shaman don't really work too well in 5v5 from my experience.
They work for one game, then the opposing team armory stalks you, learns the shaman is elemental, and focus fires that shaman at the beginning of the next game.
Your shaman is now pretty much dead weight. Elemental Shaman can do little to nothing when being focus fired down, and also have pretty bad survivability.
Yes, they have very nice, timely burst capabilities, but I don't think the tradeoff is worth it.
This has been my experience as well, at least in 3v3's. Enhancement shaman can output tons of damage, for example, but they're ridiculously easy to focus down. The only healer I'd rather be fighting than a shaman, would be a druid that doesn't shift into bear form, or doesn't star the match in cat.
My guild's team has been running since last Monday, so for little over a week, and the people in it uses whoever is available (as long as there are 2 healers), so some strange matrices to say the least (Resto Shaman/Elemental Shaman/Paladin/Mage/Warlock for example). The one thing they noticed is that if they are facing a Rogue, the Elemental Shaman without question will be jumped by it. Happens every game. So that is something you need to prepare for...that, and make sure you have a PvP Trinket even if it's the old one (use on the KS, not the Cheapshot).
I guess the good news is, there aren't many Rogues on 2000+ ranked teams anymore.
04/03/07, 1:59 PM
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