I sapped a druid stealthed in cat form in the arena the other day. Was that just a bug that allowed me to do that?

These shaman enhancement buffs make me really sad. Do they really have to cater more to the synergy between shaman and warrior? Sure, this helps shamans have a 2v2 spec, but I'm worried it's going to make 3v3 out of control. I thought healing debuffs were going to always be a integral part of Warrior and Rogue classes, now they just give MS to shaman making wound that much worse in comparison?

I sure hope there's poison changes around the corner, or a hefty nerf to abolish or BOTH.

The problem comes mostly when I end up getting locked down with snares. Even as ShS, there comes a time where I'm without an escape for at least 30s. With a warrior spamstringing me and forcing me to engage, my shaman can only interrupt 1 heal every 5sec, and even with wounding poison I find it nigh impossible to dps through the heals (especially druid heals) if the team has a clue.

It might be easier if I could CC people from the start with a good sap/blind combo, but half the time I can never catch my target before he engages my shammy (and I'll never be able to sap a druid), and it seems like the other half just gets trinketed before I can do anything useful. That's kinda trivial compared to the times where I can't catch the healer because the warrior just keeps me snared after all my cooldowns are used, and my shammy has to focus on me or the warrior tears me apart. Maybe I'm just using cooldowns at the wrong times? I dunno. I don't see myself as a terrible player, but I have a lot to learn. BG's aren't a good practice for arena, and it's hard to get actual arena practice with queue times of 8+ minutes after about 10am.

Also, I'm curious as to the general opinion here. I'm in S1 arena gear save for my legs (S3) and weapons (S2), and I currently have 4100 stocked arena points. I'm on the fence as to whether it'd be better to stock to 5k points and buy 3 pieces of S4 when it comes out, or if I should just suck it up and buy what I can of S3 right now- namely head and chest for the moment (keep in mind that my 2s team is where I generally get my points from, about 400/week). Of course, if I hit 5k and 2.4 isn't just around the corner, I'd buy something so I didn't waste points. I'm just unsure exactly how big of a boost S1 -> S3 is. I also figure S2 weapons will be "okay" until I can rebuild points for S3 at cheaper prices or manage an 1850 in S4. Advice?

I don't see how this stops anyone from gibbing the enhancement shaman first. He can 1h shield to slowdown the pain train but as a melee class they have no outs. Rogues have vanish, Paladins bubble, warriors can spell reflect and get stronger when taking damage. Shaman just take the pain fall over and die.

No question warrior/druid is a tough matchup for rogue/shaman. Ideally you want to kill the druid but like you said if you are unable to do so and run out of cooldowns you have to switch to the warrior. I think we all know who wins in a rogue vs. warrior fight when you are snared and have zero cooldowns left. With that in mind I have a possible tactic specifically for human rogues (feel free to critique it). The general idea is approach the battle as a two dps team zerging the druid as quickly as possible before your cooldowns run out. All or nothing baby!

At the start it's vital the shaman remain mounted and avoid any confrontation with the warrior while you use perception to find the druid as quickly as possible. The shaman should use enemy name plates to keep out of LoS using anything and everything on the map to buy time. Unfortunately, there are really no places hide in Ruins of Lordaeron so he might want to fall back inside the gate. Most teams will not attack inside their enemy's gate at the start as it pulls the druid out of position and it's generally viewed as dangerous. Once you find the druid have your shaman partner collapse as you start dpsing the druid. If your shaman was charged/snared at the start it will take a little while before he can contribute dps, however 95% of the time the warrior will retreat to help his druid and that will give your shaman an opportunity to snare the warrior. At this point some of the more experienced posters could theorize what combos are best to burn a druid as rouge. You could try to stun it as much as possible to prevent the druid going bear and charging away as your partner rains CL/LBs. Might also want to consider incorporating SnS into your cycle as its multiplicative with BL/heroism. Hopefully with the two of you all out dpsing you can kill the druid before you run of out cooldowns or die yourself.

Obviously there are alot things that can go wrong. A successful disarm, bash, mace stun proc, intercept, stun resist, feral charge, or fear will mess things up and prolong any plan. Personally I would devote your trinket for intercept stuns, bash or for an emergency snarebreaker. If your team gets feared, it falls onto your shaman to trinket and drop tremor quickly. If the druid manages to switch to bear use evasion even if the warrior isn't hitting you try prevent the bash. Feral charge is very difficult to prevent as druids are always moving and your shaman has to be stationary to cast bolts or healing spells. The shaman might be better off moving with the druid while using his instants, shocking whenever it's up, dropping earthbind and purging selectively. If you guys manage to get a stun off or able to get the druid low the shaman can stop and try for CL+NS/LB combo or safely start spam some bolts.

As I'm sure some of you are aware, you cannot use Nature's Swiftness to instantly cast a spell while moving. You have to be standing still or the macro requires two button presses to work. For example, if a druid wants to NS/Healing Touch while fleeing he has to hit his macro twice which takes .5-1 seconds. If you can apply enough pressure to provoke them into using NS while they are moving (as druids usually are) you can purge it or apply a stun before the second spell gets off . This doesn't happen often but if you are successful it's absolutely devastating.

Obviously this entire strategy doesn't work as well if you don't have perception or are unable to find the druid. At which time you would probably have dps the warrior to force the druid out of stealth and then switch. Only benefit of this is alot of druids open with cyclone/roots which you can null with a preemptive grounding totem.

How is giving shaman a debuff that warriors already have catering to the synergy between shaman and warrior? If anything, it's not much of a buff at all to them.

This strikes me as a change in the right direction that allows for more 2v2 combinations to be competitive. (Keep in mind, it's not just enhancement shaman - it adds some utility to resto and elemental as well.) Maybe it's too powerful and the percentages or application method needs to be scaled back, but I think the basic idea (giving shamans some core PvP utility) is good.

Honestly, so much has changed for shaman on the PTR at the moment that I think it will take a while to really assess what this all ends up meaning for the PvP balance of various classes.

I agree that we won't know what these changes truly mean for some time yet.

But to answer your question: giving the shaman an MS effect reduces the effect any kind of counter-strategy relying on controlling the warrior, which is really the best strategy for reducing the effect of a double melee team tearing apart your clothies. With warrior/shaman, no matter which target you control, you're stuck with a healing debuff.

My real fear: imagine a ret pally, enhance shaman, and warrior training your clothie. They'll be dead in seconds.

Hm did a search but didn't find anything. How do you counter Mage+Rogue setups as Muti rogue+Disc priest? Usually even if I get the opener on rogue I get chain sheeped/blinded and my priest is down in 10 sec. We basically need a way to survive the burst. Sapping the rogue is out of option since I'm 41/20 and I'll get sapped first most of the times. The priest can't dispel all sheeps, since he's stunlocked.

Run in, engage the mage asap, use gouge and kidney whenever they're up on BOTH the mage and rogue and pillar hump.

If you deny them the sap and engage the mage before he is able to position with his rogue, it's an easy win.

This. Mages and druids offer CC that need only last 4-6s to let MS drop, healing through MS is the most powerful mana burn there is.

I tried doing a search but with no luck, but what gems are ideal for Rogues and PvP? Roguecraft 101 focuses on PvE gemming, is there a guide for PvP gemming and the various builds like Mutilate/Combat?