Malag

I've seen some good threads in here with a lot of thoughful discussion regarding a few classes in 2v2. I was hoping someone could share their experience with me regarding enhancement-shamans in the 2v2 bracket.

Mainly I'm looking for input on class to group with, but wouldn't mind tips on how to improve my game as well. Most of my experience is from 3v3 (grouped with a holy priest and a fire mage), and we didn't have a very good rating in season 1 (partly because of lack of experience, poor gear and sub-optimal setup).

I was a rogue from the release of 1.0 and until tbc, but rerolled to enhancement-shaman because I wanted to switch things up a bit. In PvE this is fine, but in Arena's I often find myself playing the 'crazy rogue' character - e.g. something between the in-your-face warriors and behind-your-back-rogues. "Blodlust", or tunnel vision as it's most commonly referred to tends to be a problem of mine, and by the time I spot teammates needing help it's often a bit too late.

Sometimes playing agressively works well, but when I get focused things take a turn for the worse. Either I pray that my partner(s) can keep me up, or I start turtling with my, let's be honest, puny heals. Either ends badly really - it's rare that we win (3v3) after I've been turtling.

Playing defensively is worse considering the burst-group setup mentioned above. I tried taking time to set up correct totems and purging the other team as much as possible before engagement, but I find myself going into turtle-mode more often than not when doing this rather than going for the initial hit.

I've managed to get 144 resilience, and planning to get the season 2 pants come wednesday and the honor-boots as soon as I can muster up the honor for them - bringing me up to 180-190ish resilience.

I was thinking maybe I'd try to group with a paladin in 2v2, mainly because of BoF that I long for sometimes during kite-fests (maybe it'll allow me to play more agressively), but by going that route there's not much CC to get. Anyone have any experience with that setup?

I'm not planning on competing at the 2300+ rating segment, but I'm not content at surfing 1600-1700 either. Any suggestions would be welcome.

 

• Amera

The only really great way around your Bullseye is probably BoP, so that is definitely one route, though your typical holy paladin contributes zero offense and probably will spend the whole game trying to keep you up while you get zerged. You could go with a warrior for pure melee burst, which, combined with grounding + shocks + purge, would probably be pretty annoying against a lot of setups. You could also grab with a Ret paladin for a variant of the melee burst - would give you BoF and BoP, as well as a healer under bubble if needed. Windfury and 2 big weapons is no joke (with repentance, stun, and shocks, you could probably control some healers well enough to burst a person down), but yeah you'll probably still get obliterated by a fair number of setups.

 

jsoeph

Hi. I am playing 2vs2 with a warlock and I find that the two classses complement themselves fairly well. I have specced 0/40/21 and with HS we get 6-7K all instant heals each fight.

I try not to cast heal at all except for the NS LHW combo on the charcter that is most heavily hit. The lock uses the succubus pet for the most part. BL gives good burst to the destruction lock. We try to help each other by me healing and the lock DC heavy melee. Again with limited practice that took us to 1800. I will try to get to 2000 as I don't really want to give up on a class and spec I have played for over two years.

I find that this combo works well as we complement each other, have good burst damage, can get 6-7K instant heals and my buddy is good at CC, whilie my improved grounding totem and tremor totem help us counter some CC. This makes us into dps team that looks to end fights quickly. We have employed a few different strategies against the different classes we face. Double teaming the mage, me interrupting and hitting heavy the healer who gets a choice of either healing himself or his teammate, seduce and nuke and a few others. We played at 1800 for like 2-3 weeks and still don't think I am a liability to the team maybe later I will join the people that think enh shamans are not viable. I played this character to rank 13 so I take way longer to give up.

 

Vazu

I'd say MS Warrior, and burst somebody down fast.

Actually, it's a combo that might work really well. Maybe a 0/50/11 build or something.

 

Stopokingme

I play with our resident Protadin, started pretty late last season, and managed to climb up to 1600 rating with him, nothing stellar, but not as bad as I thought we would be. We mostly just play for weaponry though, not to sure what kind of advice to give if you seriously plan to get high up on the ladder.

 

◊ Praetorian

This was my thought as well. Your bane would be 2 DPS teams that can CC, though the new trinket will help tremendously with that.

Against any Healer+DPS pair, focus on the DPS guy -- one healer will never be able to outheal bloodlusted WF'd damage from both of you on an MS'd target, and you can stop the guy you're focusing from doing much damage to you with general interrupts and such.

Enhancement + Retadin would be really, really interesting as well. Probably best of all because of the sheer versatility, but finding a well-geared and skilled ret paladin is easier said than done.

 

• Calantus

I was 2v2ing with an enhancement shaman for a while and what I found was that he had real trouble staying on targets because he didn't have the permanent snares that rogues and warriors have. If he got snared his target got away or he had to blow a shock to snare and they get in a free spell or two. You also don't have reliable ways to break fear beyond your trinket so priests are very difficult especially since they can dispell the snares you have (and your fear ward -_-).

With that in mind I'd be looking for a partner that can either keep snares off you or can put snares/roots on your target. I'd think mage, warrior, rogue, or paladin would all be decent choices.

 

• Tiiki

Retadin sounds great to me, BoF is the best thing an Enh Shaman can get, plus cleansing. Also Retadins have insane (OP almost) burst.

Warrior would also be awesome for WF synergy, hamstring and MS.

Rogue would be ok, but (as is always the way?) strictly inferior to a warrior. The main advantage a rogue brings is ability to CC a healer whilst helping burst down your target (+expose is nice).

Even a mage would be *ok* simply because of sheep + frost snare on your target.

 

Herde

I also think that a MS warrior would be your best bet. I (a raidspecced firemage, 10/48/3) and a MS warrior managed to get to 1900+ last season with about 10 games/week, and I think an enhancement shaman could do as well, even if lacking the CC-tools of a mage.

As already pointed out, your best setups will likely be against healer + dps, and you will struggle against teams with hunters and the dreaded warlock/shadowpriest combo. If your battlegroup, like mine, heavily consists of warrior + paladin teams it could be worth a shot.

 

◊ Malan

With the changes to the trinkets I don't see a warrior/shaman combo having issues against a hunter too much anymore. The problem in the past of course was the annoyance of the ice trap and then gaining range again, even if hamstrung/frost shocked. Blowing out of the trap early for both the warrior and shaman means you can perpetually stay on top of the hunter.

~Rocks, coming to a shaman near you in the next expansion~

 

Ceress

I see either Ret paladin or Elemental shaman working the best for you. Warrior is not really a good choice because both classes are extrardinarily weak to snares, roots, cc, and dots. Any team with a frost mage will basically autowin, you will blow your pvp trinket and then get re-novad by the WE or coldsnap and you're pooched.

Ret paladin does great damage, especially supercharged with WF totem, and they provide you with defensive dispells, CC insurance, and despite no snare they're pretty tough to kite with HOJ/repentance. I could see this working really well with a well-geared ret paladin, and this team would also have the advantage in that NOBODY will see it coming at all.

Elemental shaman would be impressive vs healer teams because of the stormstrike debuff + nutso burst. Also speaking from experience here, double grounding totem is a near guaranteed win vs UA lock / shadowpriest.

 

Tipme

I'm just wondering if putting weapon chain on is not viable? As a warrior, that's the first thing I do, I disarm enhancement shamans, and they forget they can cast spells or heal or something, and then they die shortly after. Sorry for being off-topic.

 

• Tiiki

I think Enh Shaman + MS Warrior would be pretty weak against Pally/Warrior personally?

Warrior gets heals whilst you hit on his Plate, or his partner's Plate?

Plus he has the option to Hamstring you both and get outta Dodge, or get BoP'd to remove the MS and get a full heal.

 

havefaith

I've thought about this and Enhancement shaman + Retribution paladin definitely seems optimal.

The synergy of cleanse/purge, windfury totem/bloodlust for the paladin, blessing of freedom/blessing of protection for the shaman. Seems like these two "bad pvp specs" compliment each other very nicely.

However, I have yet to find a retribution paladin with a worthwhile set of gear to try this with. Even if I find one, I would have to replace alot of my PVE gear to get a respectable hit point pool.

And i'm not sure how far into the ratings you could make it before the burst damage of this team is inadequate, this team would zip through their mana pools pretty quickly.

 

MeCh

Enhance Shaman + Ret pally fails once you go up against people with decent amounts of resilience. Mitigating both vengeance and flurry gimps dps by a decent margin.

 

Malag

Interesting to hear the Ret-paladin come up here as a more serious alternative to a holy-paladin or a warrior. I like the thought of two sub-optimal speccs possibly complimenting eachother very well. If I can find one I'll be sure to try it out. Otherwise I guess I'll go with the warrior for MS -> burst target dead.

I tried grouping with an elemental shaman a little, and didn't really like it. I ended up, as stated by someone, kited, and the elemental got his ass whopped. Yes, frost-mages will lock down two melees, but frost mages thoroughly humiliate me already no matter what. I'm not sure a BoF would help much against a smart (read: spellstealing) mage anyway. I see the point about resilience having a large impact on ret-paladin and enhancement-shaman in terms of longevity. Will be interesting to see how much it's noticable if I find myself a retty.

Thanks for your input guys.

Now, onto a followup question: I've always been dualwielding thinking that while a two-hander could provide some serious burst, the amount of that burst didn't negate the loss that is stormstrike and more frequent pushbacks. However, lately I've seen more and more of my fellow totemstompers run around with the crafted two-handers (the mace being the most popular for obvious reasons). And their damage isn't that bad really. Given that I'm likely to group with a Ret-paladin, or MS-warrior... which do you guys see working the best?

 

Zerakor

Grounding totem should take the single target traps anyways, so smart play made warrior/shamans win over hunter teams at a regular rate.

The hard part is when he uses his aoe frost trap, as the lack of BoF is pretty devastating for both the warrior and the shaman.. However, I will do some extensive testing with a ms warrior / enhancement shaman today and return with the results. We did 2100 as max last season with resto shaman and ms warrior, and we've only just broken 1600 with this setup (might be because I'm a terrible enhancement shaman, time will tell).

 

panny

I did 2v2 with a Combat Swords Rogue for while. I would hang back a bit till he got into position for a Sap. We'd then focus down the other player with cooldowns, using Blind if we still needed time after Sap ran out. Between Grounding Totem, Poison Cleansing Totem, Earth Shock, CloS, Tremor/Earthbind, we could avoid being CCed during the burn down time. We had a few problems with multiple classes in a team that could break Sap like Warriors, Frost Mages, Paladins with BoSac, but for the short time we played, it worked well. With the trinket changes however, everyone can break Sap, so it's probably not so great anymore. A ret pally sounds like a great partner.

Malag: I don't see a 2h working out great to be honest. Granted, I had sub-optimal 2h gear, but it seemed the burst I had wasn't enough to offset the loss in sustained damage. In addition, 2h Shaman burst isn't great, because it's uncontrolled. I think you're better off doing sustained damage, and relying on an Earth Shock/Fire Nova and your partner to finish a target off once you've brought them low.

 

Nalmeena

have you tried teaming up with a hunter? You might get in trouble vs endurance teams, but you should have fair enough CC and burst to be able to avoid that. A hunter is at least a good asset to help you stay on your target with additional snares. I would give it a try at least.

 

jsoeph

I use a 2h weapon and it works relatively fine. The burst damage could make a difference in a number of occassions and with the DW WF downgrade I imagine the call gets closer then before. I use Hammer of the Naaru, so I would say that you should aim for 120dps 2h or well itemized DW. Considering you do not need so much "to hit gear" you could use the budget to greatly increase AP and Crit rate.

 

Gozul

I'm playing 2v2 with another enhancement shaman. We can afford popping bloodlust right before the doors open. Our main strat relies on mount rushing our opponents, double grounding totems and smashing the first target we see. Surprise is our biggest advantage. It's clearly unefficient vs double stealth'ed teams.

 

jsoeph

How well did it work for you?

 

Malag

I'd imagine grouping with a 'rushed, 'lusted rogue would be devastating to some teams. Truly "I pop - you drop", but honestly, I've tried playing my rogue in arenas, and with so many people able to break sap, avoid sap by healing/buffing a warrior, or sending their pets on someone... and the trinket taking people out of blind... it's just so damn random.

I agree on many of the points about DW vs. 2H, but I don't bring out the "oh shit" feeling in my opponents when I land my attacks. And I really miss that feeling where I could jump a warrior or paladin and make him go "crap, what to do?". Now they just go "a-ha! I'll smash his face". A wf-procc, although more rare, with a heavy hitter would still play mind-games with the opponents, as opposed to more sustained damage - which should be easier to handle and predict. And besides, my hit-gear is starting to suffer from the PvP gear I buy anyway. I am under no illusion that a 2H can compete with DW in PvE though. I saw the post where you described trying to use the 2H Kael weapon.

Heh, I'm advocating the choice I didn't think I'd made yet. Oh well, I guess it just got decided... I'll grab a biggun and try it out in practice.

 

jsoeph

For a 2h it is also important that even as an enhancement shaman you sometimes do not want to be constantly in melee range. Swinging a very slow weapon in pvp means at times that you go in SS and hit with 40% WF proc rate from the two hits. Then get out of melee range if against faster weapons as staying there only hurts you. Get some trinkets up, Racials, weapon ready, maybe another SS, a shock, totems, a heal. Basically a slow 2h weapon gives you a bit more control of the fight rather than DW. Clearly this is not the PVE thinking where you want sustained constant damage but for pvp it is quite a consideration.

By swining a slow weapon you get the benefit of getting other things done while trying to reduce damage taken. Getting out of range does not reduce your damage but reduces the damage of other melee significantly.

That might be off but I really do not think that we can be "in your face" type of pvp players. The versatility of enhancement shamans requires a bit more than that to get to full utility. Of course most warriors use the same two handers etc, but at the same token every second they are not in range costs them this tiny bit of rage, while we get free searing totem hits, shocks, or interrupt healers.

 

panny