Algoren

I am curious about my current 2v2 arena setup. Resto Shaman/Ret Paladin. I have 10k HP, 11k Armor, 368 resil. Ive seen a lot of people post about shaman/warrior, and am wondering the viability of this set up. We no longer lose to the warrior/druid teams but still have issues with others. Also running rogue(or hunter), ret paladin(2v2 partner), and myself for 3v3's as well. Any comments to this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Branar

Gear question: How awesome is the +5 yards to shocks vs. a bigger stat upgrade?

I'll have enough points for the season 3 resto gloves this week (which would replace tier 4 gloves). I'll have enough points for the season 3 resto bp in 2-3 weeks (which would replace the leather healing bp off nightbane - a 20 stam, 600 armor, etc. upgrade).

My shaman's current starts are ~225 resil, ~9300 hp unbuffed. He's still got a fair amount of PvE gear on. Thoughts?

 

Kaataa

After reading through this thread and getting some excellent insight. I've been working on a getting a working earth shock
focus macro. What I would like it to do is similarly to a cast sequence with a reset function, I would like it to primarily cast r1 earth shock on my focus target and if I use another combo ex. like shift+something to cast r1 earth shock on my current target. Any suggestions for my macro or macro others use would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

 

Yur

Stolen from the [Shaman] How to Heal like a Pro threat, written by Skyhoof.



For anyone who hasn't read that thread, I suggest giving it a run through. It is mainly PvE information, but a lot of it is useful for PvP also.

 

Surpico

The extra 5 yard range to shocks is vital in PvP and well worth investing over any marginal stat upgrade. Arguably, what the 15 second intercept cooldown is to a warrior, the extra 5 yard range to shocks is to a shaman. Adding that range to stop enemy casts, kite targets and inflict instant damage is so important that all s3 arena sets now provide it.

 

Algoren

[quote=Yur;617649]Stolen from the [Shaman] How to Heal like a Pro threat, written by Skyhoof.





Noob question, How do i set my "focus"?

 

◊ Gwaihir

Target something, and type /focus. Or make a macro with /focus in it that you can hit when targetting something.

 

Minister

Proximo has a bunch of stuff for this, like you can right-click cast Purge or Earth Shock.

"I'm sorry, honey, but since I stopped playing WoW it appears that there has been some sort of expansion to the game. Unfortunately, it appears to be quite good." -- Me to my Wife

 

Doppel

I'm not sure how useful my comments will be as I'm playing in the same bracket as you and in the same bg so your experiences should be similar. I've done ret pally+ Rshaman 2s for fun when the queues are low and no one else is on. It came down to we could farm 2 dps teams pretty much constantly, but any teams with the ability to keep the pally off target or mana drain were lost causes, surprised a few badly played druids for a fast takedown but that was about it. Figure it'd hard cap pretty early on, once they catch on.

3s rogue/ret pally/Rshaman would probably be your best bet from what you have, I've played it casually a few times(and done hunter/Ret pally/Rshaman - unsuccessfully alot more), wf ret pallys can do insane burst, and with a rogue to hold someone in place the pally shouldn't be kited too badly. The basic strat we were running vs single healer teams was open with a sap shaman+pally charge in wf+heroism+wings get a target down a bit, hoj the healer. Then blind as soon as the hoj runs out or gets trinketed. Shock/ground cyclones on druid teams, shock direct heals/poly/fear on other teams.


/stopcasting
/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/clearfocus [button:2]
/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(Rank 1)

is the macro I use. basic breakdown is:
Left click or a button bind will set your target as focus if you don't have one and cast earthshock.
Alt+(left click or a bind) sets the current target as focus but doesn't shock.
Right click sets current target as focus and shocks.

And I use proximo and right click to shock people if I don't want to change my focus. If you want an all in macro you could probably add another modifier in there in the style used and have a shock current target without changing focus.

 

woeye

Very nice und helpful thread. Thanks a lot to everyone. Now I need to get my own macros working ;-)
One thing I struggle with is to watch out for dangerous casts from multiple casters. Since I play in the 3vs3 bracket I've faced several caster-only teams, like druid/lock/mage. Constantly switching between those three tagets in order to find out what they're doing isn't very effective at all ;-) Maybe I should try NECB?

 

Wise

Hey guys, first time posting, long time reading:

This season (and also in s2) I'm playing in a 5vs5 team consisting of 2 warlocks (both 5/35/21), shadowpriest, warrior and resto shaman (me).
Now I'm wondering if you see any problems awaiting us in season 3 or a "cap" at which there's no further.
We started playing last week since one of our WLs was absent for 2 months. It started quite well, won nearly every game and reached 1730. I know that we ain't that bad (touched 2000 rating in s2), but I experienced in 2vs2 and 3vs3, which I've played constantly, that s3 bears much more problems.
I also do know that a shaman as the only healer in a 4 DD team is not the best choice.

Our playstyle is most of the time nuking the warrior (bloodlust popped at the start), because any ms debuff is killing us and after that starting with CC (fear obviously ). We also try to hide our shadow priest as good as possible, e.g. leaving him at the start and appearing shortly before we start nuking.
ES is most of the time on the shadow and only if our opponents focus someone else I switch it. Cycling totems (especially grounding and wf) is one of my weak points in 5vs5. Is it even necessary to have grounding up? I try to if one of my mates gets low HP and a silence or fear is expected.

Maybe you have some advice for me and I'm looking forward reading it.

 

Skyhoof

SOURCE: Eyonix

No word on if Earth Shield will have a cool down or reduced mana cost. I suppose this will also make Bloodlust/Heroism more difficult to dispel -- and Shamanistic Rage, Water Breathing, etc. I'm guessing they are putting the talent there to keep it in line with the Druid and Priest talents.

 

david0925

Frankly speaking, I really hope they make Earthshield (or any elemental shield) dispelling charged based, even with the nice change of 30% of dispell resistance, if earthshield is going to be removed by 1 spell it will be annoying.

Not saying I don't welcome the buff to healing grace, but more towards the fundamental flaw of shields in general.

 

woeye

Though I like to buff in general I think Blizz put it in the wrong place. Healing Grace is a pure PvE only talent. It has almost no use in PvP. Whereas the proposed buff is really a PvP buff because which mob will dispell our spells? I do not know one single PvP resto shaman who has specced this talent. We already have to put a lot of talents into resto. Do we really have to spend another 3 talent points? Why not buff Nature's Guidance? I would make much more sense imho.

 

Flesseck

I completely agree. Even though I really do appreciate the dispel resistance buff, I believe it's location is not convenient as well much like woeye has stated. If it only works on whatever buffs/spells you apply to others or to self, then its use is very limited. I believe it should just be tacked on with the Earth Shield talent because that's mostly what you'll want it for, and it just seems more sensible.

 

Yekkom

Look at it this way; Blizz made a talent that has 2 completely different jobs. I personally like the fact they did this. Instead of moving it so far down the list other specs could not and would not take it Blizz made it accessible. LoL, just wish the reduced threat worked in pvp. Seems everyone on the other team hates shamans from the getgo.

Would like to see some theorycraft on possible talent builds incorporating Healing Grace.

Sidenote: Blizz brought out the pluses to 2.4 but not the nerfs. Think the 30 second cooldown on ES will be in patch notes early next week myself. Hope not but....

 

Grizlor

The resto tree is already annoyingly bloated, adding this to a talent people already don't take is just a kick in the groin. If they were intending to put it on a more lackluster talent, put it on Restorative Totems or Nature's Guidance.

 

◊ foolish_fool

Putting it on healing grace means taking the only talent that has use in only one of pvp and pve, and making it so it has a use in both. Now it means that every talent has some form of use in both (though some aren't particularly significant).

This follows logic completely.

 

Raiste

30% dispel resist is nice but really doesn't even begin to address any of the shaman pvp issues much less resto issues. The main issues we have are inability to escape from melee classes at all, and being the easiest to CC healers. Both of which makes us very poor choice for healing in 2v2 and 3v3s and barely average healers in 5v5. Our best utility is earth shock atm but pales in comparison to how powerful cyclone and mana burn are. We'll see what else comes down the pipe but just 30% dispel resist for a class that hardly has any self buffs does little to nothing.

 

woeye

Though we might not have Mana Burn we still have other useful spells. What we really lack, however, is a HoT. Instant casts do matter in PvP imho. This is why druids and priests are so strong. The ability to heal others while CCed. When we shamans are CCed for several seconds, like, let's say from a mace rogue, we cannot heal anyone at all.
Furthermore we actually have to "tank" the damage with our amor, Nature's Guardian (if it proccs) and Earth Shield (it it doesn't get dispelled - hello Mr. Priest ;-) ). Priests have to tank damage in a way, too. Because fear isn't very reliable. But they have a better protection than us, even though they are limited to cloth. Because Pain Suppression is a flat 40% damage reduction with a 65% dispell resistance. And not only against melee damage but also against magical damage (where our amor fails). On top of that they have Prayer of Mending, Shield and Renew.
And Druids? Well, I think we do not need to comment on this :-D

 

Branar

Yeah, I'm not too impressed by this change. Dispel resistance fits well with druid and priest abilities since they have a number of zero cooldown heals/buffs that are used throughout the fight, as well as a few more powerful heals/buffs, as well as a few trash buffs, as well as Natural Perfection/Focused Will. Heck, even paladins use blessing of freedom many times in every fight, and every second that (or BOP) is up can be precious.

For shaman though, I just don't think there's enough fodder or effective buff recasting, not to mention enough returns from buffs lasting several seconds longer. With Earth Shield presumably getting a cooldown as they indicated (or costing so much mana that you're still putting yourself in a position to lose the mana war by recasting it) and Heroism having a ten minute cooldown, it's just going to take a few seconds longer to remove them. Healing Way is decent dispel protection (just too bad it's attached to a slower cast-time heal and only lasts 15 seconds), and Underwater Breathing is too if you don't mind burning fish scales like crazy...but that's it.

To be honest, I think it has less to do with HoTs and more to do with the effective power of Cyclone and Mana Burn. I don't feel like I'm overmatched until I make the mistake of taking a psychic scream/get caught exposed in LoS and lose a quarter of my mana bar/can't heal for 10 seconds while I'm chain cycloned. Granted, a lot of the time it's a mistake I make that puts me in those situations, but the people I'm playing aren't perfect either...the difference is just that about the worst I can do to them is interrupt their cast for 2 seconds.

HoTs are nice and all - and definitely contribute to druid/priest superiority - but the fact that they have such a leg up on shaman offensively is a bit odd.

 

Illundai

* Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance.
* Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.
* Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.
* Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.
* Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
* Stormstrike has a new icon.
* Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.
* The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometime detonate without doing any damage.

Well. So much for any other buffs
Not to whine or anything, but I was definitely expecting more.

Yes, Death Knight tanks are/were too good in 3.0.x. Having 38k HP, 76.81% Avoidance (Miss incl.) and not gimping your threat in the first tier of gear is broken. (Yes this is clickable)

 

Thunk

I am switching from a PvE spec to 3 man PvP. I will be working with a rogue and warrior. I am curious what spec is commonly considered the most advantageous for PvP arena work. I used to play a lot of battle grounds, but I am sure the spec needs to change drastically. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

Touf

Personally, I would go something like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Then when 2.4 comes out dump either elemental, enhance, mana tide, or all the trash 1 pointer buffs for the dispel resist. I would dump elemental myself, only useful against a few specs.

 

Masho

Hello, i have a question (hope someone still reads this topic from time to time)

Have any1 tryed to team up with mutilate (or any other spec) rogue for 2v2 and achieved any good results/rating?

We are both above average skilled players (at least in my oppinion) personally have 404 resi, 10,5k hp, +1700 healing, 170ish mp5 (not casting). my team mate is around 400 resi, 4/5 s2, 1/5 s3, s2 offhand dagger, s1 mh dagger. Both have quite some pvp experience. The problem is - since the s3 started we've the highest rating we hit was around 1709 or smth like that. We can gain that raiting in 1 night, but we loose it even faster than that (different opposing combos), so for past months we've been going up and down all the time an no real improvment.

Is it possible to hit at least 1850 rating or is it that pointless?

Plz tell me that i'm not a noob and it's just a terribly hard combo and stuff like that ^^