• Juice

Are you sure they are not just respeced for pve?

 

Pigua

Well I imagine if it were for pve, they would take 5/5 convection and possibly 5/5 unrelenting storm as well...
something like this

 

• Juice

I didn't actually check their spec - I just can't imagine giving up NS for pvp.

Attached Thumbnails

 

 

subscience

I did check the talent build and there's no way you're PvPing on a serious team with that spec (and his Arena team is pretty serios bizness). Not having Eye of the Storm, Elemental Shields, and NS will really hurt you.

Edit-

Gear
What do you guys think is a good balance of Damage/HP/Resilience? I can get up to ~450ish Resilience with the exalted KoT trinket, but I opt to use an Icon instead.

Currently, I have: 843 Spell Damage, 18.54% Spell Crit, 10.1k HP unbuffed, and 434 Resilience. [(PvP spec/gear ATM, our 5v5 rating is currently 2030ish): The Armory]

We run a 4 DPS team and each of our DPS's damage output is vital to our control. Are there any options to boost DPS? I pray every week for Teron to drop his totem, but alas, no luck. Two of those trash BT rings would rock, but we haven't seen any of those or Seals of Danzalars yet.

 

Kegsta

Drop the seal of the exorcist for a PvE ring? (Kara Exalted is better imo) I personally think that ring is garbage, but i don't play at the highest level. Is 11 resilance really worth that much to you?

Do you run into mana troubles with only 8k mana and only 2 in convection. i'm always running short with 9k and 5 points into it, but I think I use CL way to much.

I see a lot of high ranking shamans with 5/5 Revurb aswell, I have never specced this for my PvP spec and am definatly going to give it a go next time i spec pvp.

 

subscience

Yea, I thought about the Karazhan ring (which I threw away the other day.. d'oh), but there really isn't enough of a damage increase aside from spell critical (which I tend to shy away from due to Resilience and I use EM when I absolutely *need* burst- is this the wrong way to think?) and Int (which indeed is nice for Arenas) to use it. But, the biggest reason I don't use another ring is that with this ring, I'm at 2% spell hit. The 1 point in Elemental Precision and my 1% aura put me at 5%. Losing that ring means losing 0.96% hit.

I don't find too much mana issues in PvP. I can sustain a good amount of bolts and my big hit is mana-free (EM). Even when I go OOM, I can still rank 1 ES to completely shut down a caster and provide some totems (as long as Water Shield is procing some mana back for me). Also, we run a 4 DPS team so we tend to kill someone very soon into the fight. Our team isn't built to run the marathon matches so we need to be precise with our CCs and heavy with the damage.

Having shorter cooldown shocks, to me, is important to prevent those quick-cast spam-CCs (Polymorph, Cyclone, Fear).

 

Kegsta

Isn't the max hit you neeed like 3% for PvP (unless the enemy has talents to avoid hits, but this is usually against htings like fear) 2% talent, 1 from hat 1 from aura should be plenty.

As for raw +damage upgrade. Enchant bracer spellpower i think is a good choice, as is the +12 damage red PvP gem. If your the 'main tank' for your team, you probably can't drop the resilance gems. Depends on your team makeup i guess, and who is your 'tank' I can't see your team makeup in the armoury, it doesn't like me much.

If your paly has improved conc aura you can drop the last point in healing focus and put it in Tidal Mastery.

Does Elemental shields still prevent eye of the storm procs? Or has this been fixed?

 

subscience

I'm pretty sure it's ~5.x% base spell miss.

I rarely ever get focused (maybe once out of 10 games). Our UA 'Lock is our resident tank, taking the vast majority of all damage.

Good point about Concentration Aura. I had never thought of that.

I'm not sure about EotS and ES interaction, but I enjoy stacking Resilience because it gives me a higher chance to proc EotS from standard hits giving me that all-important spell pushback immunity.

Edit- The hat enchant and the Exorcist ring are my only two sources of spell hit, giving me a combined 25 HR (2.06%).

Edit 2- Ok, I just bought the entire S2 set (was rocking 2/5 S1 + 3/5 S2 for stacking bonuses) and the difference between 2/3 S1 + 3/5 S2 vs. 5/5 S2 is:

+7 Damage, +0.23 Spell Crit (+2.23 Shock Crit), +121 Armor, +100ish HP, -32 Resilience.

Thoughts?

 

Kegsta

I'd use it, but i don't rate resilance as much as others

Plus season 2 looks much cooler!

 

najob

Me and my friend are trying to 2v2 with his Frost Mage. We can beat most teams with a Resto Druid or a Pally, Warrior team (with some good polymorphs and some lucky kiting.) Now if a team has a warlock.... we are doomed, with a heathstone and deathcoil we can't seem to burst them down. My gear is currently well underpar from my partners but it just feels like we are doing something wrong since we are stuck in the 1600-1700 rating.

Any tips? Other than get more gear obviously.


Edit: With the new patch hitting soon I guess dots from locks are gonna do a fair amount less damage so we might have a better chance.

 

Hodan

Tested this a few days ago. After 300 attacks I didn't get eye of the storm, and I never got crit (with 0 resilience and 3/3 elemental shields). Safe to say it still prevents them.

 

campa

i'm currently looking to respec as elemental, and i check you actual armory, something changes in you game style in those months?

your spec 40-0-21 seems more pve oriented, before reading what you said i start to building a tree like this, and i think is pretty good.. but i got no experience in pvp arena. mmm

 

Trifle

Come patch 2.3 the S1 will be worthless as you won't get the double 2 piece bonus anyway, so you might as well get used to it now.

 

Ashen

I'm actually currently trying to gear out myself for PvP. I've just recently returned to WoW, and was lagging behind considerably. My current plan really depends on Patch 2.3 as well, but here's my biggest question.

I've been looking through all of the shaman gear and planning out the stats and enchants and gems I'd get. What I'm noticing, from the armory, however, is that most top rated Elemental Shaman are very close to the 10k Health mark, and don't go that far beyond it. This really confuses me, as the biggest advice I've gotten from my PvP friends is that I need more stamina resilience. And in essence, that makes sense. And I believe their advice, considering that several of them are Gladiator ranked or will be at the end of Season 2. I figure they know what they're talking about.

So why is it that I'm seeing all these Top rated elemental shaman with gear that brings them to borderline 10k health?

 

Tejs

You have the dubious distinction of having one of the worst mana efficiencies in the game as an Elemental Shaman (right now). Thus, going over 10K HP can be nice in some situations, it's not worth reducing your mana pool for it.

Having a huge health pool usually requires that you cut your spell damage, spell crit, intellect, and mp5 down to levels that would really make you ineffective as part of your team. Not to mention that you have Mail + Shield, Grounding Totem, and can heal yourself effectively, so having that low of an HP count really doesnt put you at too much of a disadvantage.

Once you are OOM, you're useless.

My 0.02.

 

Hodan

It's mainly because there's no reason to go much higher than that. In my case, a 4 dps team, you're trying to burn someone down as quickly as you can. There is no need to stack 2000 more HP, since it won't help you accomplish that goal.

 

Fafood

Stack up HP or not?

It all depends on playstyle/team composition and .... your team rating (ye seriously, read for more info).

For my case, a team with war/mage/hpal/hpriest/esham, I remember that at around 1.9k-2k rating, they LIKE to attack me, like 8 out of 10 games, and 2 others focus target was our Hpriest, I have no idea why... but because of it, I should stack up my Hp quite a bit, my unbuff hp is at 10.5k, around 820sd and 19% base crit (full pvp gears). But once we break 2k rating, and start hitting up higher, I feel no love anymore, they hardly target me, only a pet or a fel hunter sticks on me, and thats it, maybe some cc/interrupt, but not focus fire.

I wonder if this could effect your itemizations, but for safety, I'd say stack up Glowing Nighteye, one of the best gem for Shaman imo.

My armory link: The World of Warcraft Armory

 

berg

I do not think there is an ideal gear set for elemental.

Like stated a few times above playing elemental in 5's can vary so much from game to game.
Sometimes you get to cast freely and you wish you had more dam/crit.
Sometimes you get CoT and a hunter pet/fel puppy stuck on you and your dam/crit go out the window since you are on purge duty.
Sometimes you get zerged and you wish you had more stam/resil.

Since you have no idea which outcome will happen you need to be decently prepared for all of these situations.


I will say that stacking resilience is different for us than it is for other classes.
With 12k AC and -6% chance to be crit from talents an elemental shaman with 350 resil is better off than most players with well over 400 resil.

 

bloodhooves

Hey guys, thought i'd contribute a little to the ele shaman pvp community. I will not try to explain how to play your class, that is your responsibility, just contributing from my arena exp.
40/0/21 - way to play in my books, em/ns is irreplaceble
Arena:
2's
Elemental Shaman/Frost Mage is the only real success i have found. Mages' nova and your ability to cleanse can help survivability against rogues, and other melee. Hunters have shown similar results but the mages survivability allows you stay in an offensive position instead of playing healer all game.
Ele/Ret Pal, it works -.- my bro has been going ret this season and we've been playing for fun. but the ret pally's dmg w/ wf totem downs brings people down, our job is to finish them. the problem with this setup is that your weak against drain teams and when we are oom we are worthless. Timing burst is very key. succefully kiting on the other teams part can really make this team fall apart.

3's
War/Ele/Hpal have seen a lot of this and played this myself. There is initial success with the raw dmg on targets and an offensive bop can surprise players early. The flaws were that we had no mana burn or dispells thus druids/priests would kite and and LOS the sham, while players could cc the pally and focus down on the sham.

Fmage/Ele/BoomorFmage we rolled through teams with this setup. the 2nd fmage can be replaced by boom so the other mages novas aren't breaking the sheeps. Cyclone is simply a better form of cc and a few more heals are helpful. heroism/bloodlust when they are out in the open and make them QQ

MMhunt/Ele/Disc "great success". I've started playing this s4. Kiting and mana burning is the name of our game. Focus Macros have been the key to this success(I'll break it down lil later). At beginning of match we setup our zone with totems and traps. on 2dps 1 healer teams we will down a target. Vs. 2 melee the hunter and shaman can each keep one slowed and the kite can be quite successful. on 2healer 1dps teams the priest & hunter focus on burning one healer while we survive through dmg. holding on the heroism has helped us win a lot of matches vs higher rated teams. key to this i find is healing/cleansing. When your priest gets locked up you need to make sure no one goes down or to keep yourself up. NOTE:many ele shamans forget to heal and this is what keeps your rating down.

5's is discussed a lot.

Gemming:

In 2's and 3's res/stam helps with survivability and if you played elemental shaman you know how fragile you really are.

In 5's gearing +spell dmg/+spll Crit is only viable in 5's, the elemental shaman will either sit on a 4 dps burst team, or he will be backed up by 2 healers, who should be able to . Any shaman geared in pvp gear with 400+res will have a suitable chance .

macros:
the focus macros. I find that FOCUS macros have not been fully explained, it took me a while before i understood how they worked, so i hope this will help. if you find your teammates yelling about you missing an earth shock this is for you.
Note: focus macros are for 2ndry targets . This will allow you to dps a target and shock a 2ndry target without switching.

ie. you are dps'n the warrior but you wanna make sure the healer does not heal. thus the healer is your focus target.
Any focus macro is made up of 2 macros.

1) /focus
create a macro that is /focus - this acts as the targetin system. At the beginning of arena match, when proximo has identified your opponents you will be assigned the task of shocking heals. select healer click your /focus macro (his portrait will highlight in the wow default interface) this target is now FOCUSED.
2)/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus,harm] Earth Shock(Rank 1); [harm] Earth Shock(Rank 1) OR
/cast [target=focus,modifier:alt,harm] Earth Shock(Rank 1); [harm] Earth Shock(Rank 1) w/modifier alt

target=focus - the target that you have saved as focus
note: if you already use a rank 1 earthshock and u do not want it to interfere you need to add a modifier. ie. alt shift, ctrl. this acts as the activator to target the focus target.

TESTING: to make sure your macros have worked. duel a class with a pet. at the beginning of the match select the pet to be the /focus target, and begin dps'n the player. use the macro and you should be able to shock the pet without switching targets.
note: if you use the pitbull interface make sure you go into its settings and activate /focus. other problems can be resolved in your key bindings menus.

 

bloodhooves

Ele shaman tactics.
I'm seeing a lot of shammy's job is to come out and spam LB. in small arena teams your better off conserving your mana and purging /earthshocking/laying totems down. LB spam and burst should come at a point in combat where you feel you have pressured the healer enough for him to stray away from the burst target that you have an opening.
Remeber as elemental your usually gonna be peoples first choice as a target. preparing to kite/ground/shock has many more benefits then spamming LB so that you create a chance to down a target. hiding behind a pillar throwing heals and purging targets will show more benefits in the higher ratings as oppose to just straight bursting targets down in the lower ratings.
Seeing alot of frustration vs other classes and its true rogues + 1 can lock you up fairly well and you will not be able to do anything about it. but here are some tips that might help.
Rogues.
-poison cleansing totem and self cleanse have got to be active. i know a lot of shamans will start healing but i find putting distance between you and the rogue buys more time for your healer to get an heal off on you.
-earthbind totem is necessary but should be totem twisted with tremor.
-trinketing. choosing when to trinket is essential. trinketing out of saps is a waste of a trinket, look for cheap shots or situations where u need to LOS.
Mages. (ie. rpm combos)
-LOS is important for ele sham.
- look for shatter combos. they are normally executed after you are frost nova'd down. this is the time to drop grounding totem.
- earth shocking frost bolts. locking up their cold tree is essential. to stop their dps.
-obvious frost totem. its a fire totem use it.
-stoping polymorph.

 

Lafter

First off, no, I am not a hardcore player, nor do I crunch numbers with such mental prowess to be called a Theorycrafter... Do not look for me in the top arenas, I don't care enough to grind them. =P

However, I do PvP a great deal with an Elemental shaman using absolutely no Resto talents. I do not deny that the 40/0/21 spec is the main PvP spec, but I hate to respec, so I took Instant Ghost wolf and reduced Grounding totem time because I'm more of a mobile player.

This post is not a response to any previous posts, it's simply a post giving my take on PvP and how we can get the best of any class but also it happen visa versa. I do not presume to have the best spec for anything, but I find I am not greatly lacking in performance on my raids or battlegrounds, so I'm fine until Wrath, even though I could probably be spec-hopping and do even better in both cases. =P

Druids: I feel Moonkin usually get the upper hand with their treants and their shorter cast times, as well as their instant cast having no cool down. It's still more than possible to show them up, they simply have the advantage when they can do things such as Pounce, Summon, Swarm, and Moonfire before you even break the stun. Feral, on the other hand, couldn't kill an Ele shaman if it meant saving his firstborn. Our armor is too high (PvP armor should be around 12-13k for an all purple PvP Ele shaman) and Grounding Totem/Earth Shock just does not allow their 'cyclone+heal' combo to enter the equation. Resto druids, though, simply will not be killed by you unless you take them by surprise, catch them while they're distracted into healing others, or have instant cast ghost wolf to chase the cowards down and beat them at their own game. >=D

Rogue: Let's face it, Sub-Rogue will be the only one worth mentioning for PvP so that's all I will mention. If you get jumped by a rogue one-on-one, the rogue will probably win simply because he has the 30sec-5min cooldown spam to deny you escape and castbar spells. Your best option is to drop Stoneskin/Poison Cleansing totem/Searing totem (in that order) as soon as you can. Assuming you have Lightning shield up and turn about to melee him (Yes, you heard me.) you have a chance to whittle him down faster than he's whittling you, simply because you don't take near the damage you would as enhancement since you have 50-55% physical damage reduction, stoneskin not included. Shock/Fire Nova/NS-Spells are your best option and if you're lucky enough, you'll be the player-on-top when it ends, but more experienced Rogues will know how to counter this, in which case, you are certainly hosed.

Warriors: Fury is cool and all, but like a combat rogue, they need more burst to have a prayer in PvP, so I will just say that anything I bring up about arms will count against Fury... Only moreso. Arms warriors are considered by many to be the pinnacle of PvP. With abilities like Charge, Intercept, Overpower, Pummel, Execute, Mortal-Strike and a number of fear-counters, they're really pretty nasty, if you ask me. Your answer to this nonsense? Instant casts. Don't bother with a cast bar unless they're rage starved (not likely at all) because they'll simply pummel you. Lightning-Shield, Frost Shock, Fire Nova/Searing totem, MELEE (Yes, I did say it... Again.) and Stoneskin when you have your cooldowns spent. Remember, Lightning shield does more damage than a lightning bolt when a target eats all 3 charges (total should be 1400-1600). With the aforementioned physical damage reduction, an Arms warrior will, more often than not, fold under the pressure that you've dished out. Yes, it is important to melee, because fighting a warrior is a battle of attrition. You have to eat damage to give it back. Average damage done with flametongue+melee is 300. If the battle lasts 20 seconds, you've done 1500 in melee attacks, about 3000 with lightning shield (give or take 1000), 2400 with Fire Nova, 1800 with Searing totem, 3600 with Shocks. That's if nothing is resisted or crits. That's over 12k in damage, and you will more than likely crit twice before it's all said and done.

Hunters: These are completely unpredictable. It mostly comes down to who is the better player. My suggestion is to slow them and get in melee range and cast-bar in their face as much as possible. Scatter shot isn't going to help them because you don't really NEED to be in their face to cast, it simply makes most hunters panic and start taking anti-melee procedures. Silencing shot burns and stings but there's nothing you can do about it. If you're low on mana, pray that your 'cure poison' spam will save you from Viper Sting. If you have too much resilence (there is such a thing), they won't crit often enough and the pushback will ruin you. All and all, it's all in reaction-time and play style. Contrary to popular belief, windwall totem does indeed help against them, simply for the fact that if you take 10 shots from a hunter, that is 1000 damage you did not take, not including your armor (it's nice having lots of armor, isn't it?). I can't offer much more than that, perhaps someone else can.

Paladins: Ret Paladins are a nightmare. With plenty of spell damage to work past your armor, two stuns to make your spell-casting less of a threat, and a bubble to ignore a heavy spell combo (LB, LB, CL, Shock), you're not likely to get far with them, unless the graveyard is really far away, because a smart ret pally will usually send you right there. This is even moreso if you're alliance, because Arcane Torrent can turn the tide in a mere two-second silence (Basically bridging the gap to get you from >20% to 0%). Don't try jumping one with low health either, Eye For An Eye, can kill you quicker than you think. Crit on two lightning bolts and you just ate about 1500 damage that you didn't want to eat. Prot Paladins? They will offer you tears in exchange for mercy because they have purgable seals, only one stun, and have no burst damage. Even if they get the jump on you, Bubble-Heal themselves to full when they get low, then Lay On Hands-Mana Pot, they will still die horrible screaming deaths before your lightning-filled rampage. Holy! Don't bother! You will probably go oom fighting them! I've spent (literally) 22 minutes duking it out with a shrimpy belf healadin lady. She lasted through both elementals, and an onslaught of nature-spells! I even killed a shaman that entered the fight at half health to help her and still could not bring her down. The MP5 between you and a healadin will cause the battle to never end if you both play smart.

Priests: Discipline Priests. Remember that Holy Paladin rant I went through? Same here only one difference: The Priest has mana burn and more MP5 than you. Yes, it will take a while for them to kill you (if he even cares to take the time) but there will be no winning when it comes to Ele vs Disc priest if your opponent has any amount of intelligence. Being that they are the anti-burst and Ele shamans are burst-surpreme, it only makes sense that you could not bring them down on your own. Don't even bother with the purge spam, it'll eat your mana and they'll just find other ways to negate your damage and you'll spend all your time trying to get rid of all the buffs. Shadow priests are nothing but players banking on luck, in my opinion. They have too many cast bars and not enough crit. With purge, Grounding totem, and Earth Shock, on your side, they really can't do anything worthwhile except silence you for a short while. Shadow Priests are not burst damage unless you count Mind Blast+PW:Death as burst (I've seen them die from PW:Death, it's stupid funny.). However, black out will make you want to chew your keyboard in half. I've seen it proc four times in a one-on-one with a priest, giving him time to /lol me before his PW:Death killed me. Holy Priests? They crumple like paper-cranes under your shoe. Rotate purges with heavy amounts of burst for a dead healer. Earth shock the Greater heal, Flash Heal usually won't save them unless they do nothing but spam that alone.

Shaman: >_> There's... really no way to predict enemy shamans. It's all totem and shock rotation, regardless of the spec. I can say it favors this pattern, though: Ele>Resto, Resto>Enhance, Enhance>Ele. Reason being, Enhancement can purge Eye of the Storm but can't burst his dps (unless he's using 2-handers) enough to ruin a resto shaman, usually, An Ele-Shaman can burst a resto to tiny-bits, but purge, grounding totem, and earth shock make it hard to bring down an enhancement shaman once he's on you, and a resto shaman can win the battle of attrition with an Enhancement Shaman, but usually can not stop an ele from making short work of their defenses and such.

Warlocks: You're going to lose to anything that isn't destruction 7/10 times. One Wand or Instant Cast to your Grounding Totem, Another to your Tremor Totem, and you're toast if you're a good shaman and dropped those in the first place. It's even worse with SL/SL because they have high spell resistance, making your 2500-3000 LB crits turn into 750-1900. That stings and burns your skin in many ways, especially when they Curse of Tongues you, making your quick cast bars take longer to cast than an unspecc'd Mage Fireball. Oh, And Felhounds will damn near solo you if you're inattentive enough to get your spells set on cooldown twice. =P Destrolock? It's like fighting a mage without a counter spell. It's the greatest thing in the world! Purge their backlash, drop grounding totems, ignore curse of tongues, and bring a shocking end to their world! They deserve it! Because 90% of Destro locks NEVER think to fear. 95% will not bother wanding your totems! Those remaining 5% will probably be one of the most interesting fights you've had, though.


Mages: It's a crapshoot, it really is. I've taken mages from 100% to 0% without taking an iota of damage, then had the same thing happen to me. Frost Elementals are a problem, seeing as they are moving searing totems that will occasionally freeze you in place. Silencing Counterspells can make your day seem much less bright, and PoM-Pyro will either kill you or it won't (You'll know after it hits whether you've one or not). Arcane Frost builds will bring about the doom that you never wanted to see (Those 4.5K Frostbolt Crits aren't nice), and you will burn Deep Fire mages in the same fashion they wished they could do to you. LoS is your best chance if you get counter spelled. There is no advantage to getting in melee range other than getting behind them quickly to avoid castbars as much as possible, but anyone smart enough to be using a mouse in PvP won't be fooled by that nonsense. I will say that with my experience, I've come to the realization that the more intelligent the player is, the more deadly the mage is. If you die to one and consider yourself a good PvP'r don't be ashamed, they simply had the skill and you're not going to win them all, anyway, right?




I probably won't be back on for a while to evaluate how this post was received, but most of this was to get it off my chest and discover what others thought of my opinion as an Elemental Shaman player. If you think I'm simply talking too much and not saying anything worthwhile, let me know and I'll remove this post to avoid any further friction.

 

xarg

Since this thread and the other elemental pvp thread are the same thing we should probably keep them consolidated. Both threads seem to be pretty much exactly the same topic.

[Shaman] Elemental PVP Thread

 

Melg

I got the Gladiator title in season 1 and 2 playing 3v3 with Elemental, a warrior and Holy paladin. It was a good setup with a lot of burst in s1 but definately took a hit after that with the paladin and Windfury Totem nerfs. WF totem was used by me as a way to dps when I was being focused or CC'd.

We still worked it out in season 2. In s3 it seemed as if rogues were getting a lot more common, and warlocks as well (despite armor penetration). Rogues could no longer be bursted down with Cheat Death and Curse of Tongues always was a one stop winner against Elemental shamans. The amount of RMP (rogue mage priest) teams exploded and those can't be beaten with the setup we ran.

After that I switched to Resto and we ran double healer warrior. I couldn't do much damage outside the burst macro anyway so to get Gladiator, Resto was the way to go and it worked.

We had some success in 5v5 as the traditional 2345 (Holy paladin/warrior/Disc priest/Frost mage/Elem sham) but organisation fell apart due to "people problems", much like what often happens to smaller guilds.