Hmm I think your style of play is a bit too conservative Nerull. I think rogue is a bad target for your warrior because given typical AR/Prep rogues, this means that the warrior has to dps thru 2x evasions and there is always the issue of bladeflurry eating you and your warrior at once and putting un needed pressure on the paladin. This also creates a lot of mana burn opening for the priest.

We usually start on the rogue but as soon as the priest gets in range he is always going to be the final target for the warrior. PMRs will usually go for the warrior or the shaman. If they go for you, be sure your pally gets Bsac up on you to make sure he doesn't get sheeped, He has to make sure to LoS/Range the mage enough to not get CS locked out and keep landing a steady stream of heals on you, with BoF/BoP to prevent fatal outcomes. Your warrior is a huge help here, he can fear/kill the water elemental and intercept stun/disarm the rogue when he pops AR. If you live thru the CDs you have a great chance of winning. You should be focusing on interrupting the mana burns/sheeps as long as you pally is keeping up, if pally falls behind then you need to obviously start healing yourself. Once you survive the initial KS/shatter combo burst (or better yet prevent it), get the warrior on the priest, purge the priest to no end and pop BL/windfury and go after the priest hardcore. Pally has to be sure to be quick about cleansing the inevitable sheeps/novas from the mage and you have to be quick with the purge/ES on the priest.

Here's a great video of one such high level match gurg posted in the other thread: mob1.avi - FileFront.com

Against druid teams we generally kill the warlock pet right away. Spam purge once it's dead and hope to get Fel Dom off to prevent a quick resummon. If you are putting a dent in the lock and forcing heals from the druid then keep the pressure on. The warrior will usually be on you so have you pally BoF you for easy kiting. If warlock is geared to tank, then your target is the druid. The key is when the switch happens. As soon as druid sticks out his neck a bit too far, quick intercept and get JoJ up on him. He will trinket and start to kite, the pally at this point should look for a good oppertunity to HoJ/JoJ the druid and once this happens you win. Help out with frost shocks/earth binds if you are in range, but most of all keep yourself alive while the paladin is taking the time to JoJ the druid. Get the druid down and even if you die, your team wins the game.

The key is to play agressively still with a 2 healer team. If you just try to turtle up and "outlast" teams, you are just going to give them free reign to CC/mana drain you. Only time you should be thinking pure outlast strat is against pure drain teams, then it's focus on killing pets and rotating drinks.

That video isn't the best illustration because the other team makes some huge mistakes. I'm on a pal/sham/war 3v3 at the moment, and while PMR is such a versatile comp that you can't really go in with one fixed strategy (in some games we've killed their rogue first, in some we've killed their priest, etc.) because it depends on how they play it, my general advice is to play a control game at the start.

PMR is actually a very up-front bursty sort of team, greatly limited by its use of timers and the mage's mana. As a shaman, 90% of my shocks against PMR go to the mage, and we generally start off by going on him. Shock frostbolts too, not just polys -- especially when there's an elemental out. Shatter combos are bad. We try to LoS mana burns, ground them, or make sure the priest simply has to heal.

Ask yourself: How are you going to lose to PMR? Almost invariably the answer is going to involve a shatter combo or a mix of blind/poly/scream/CS that shuts down your healers and creates a window for them to blow someone up. Kill water elementals immediately. With the warrior on the mage, Ice Armor purged off, pushback, shocks, and pummels, the mage should have a hard time doing much of anything. If you have the mage controlled, a single rogue is not going to solo any of your high-armor classes while they have outside healing support. Not happening. And once the rogue is out of cooldowns, he's easily kiteable. So I'd say to play for survival, control the mage, kill elementals, and heal through the rogue, for the first 90sec or so. Then you can afford to play much more offensively.

I've got a question regarding 3v3 that I hope someone can answer for me.

Today on my resto shaman alt I did some 3's with an ms warrior and a holy paladin. We only played about 20 games but we ran into 3 or 4 drain teams (sl walrock/mm hunter/druid). Our first game against a drain team we won off of sheer luck blowing up the warlock at the start of the match. After that we lost to each team of this composition we came against.

I told our warrior he should taking the pets out of the match. If we can't take down someone from the getgo then it feels like we're playing a downhill match through inevitable drains and not being able to drink at all with pets on us. Taking out the pets would lose scorpid stings, devour magics, silences, soul link, and most importantly let us get drinks in.

Anyway, the warrior I play with can be stubborn as hell and is stuck on killing the lock or druid without focusing on taking pets out after our initial shot at gibbing someone. Am I right and should I try to convince him to take the pets out or is there something we're missing that should be done in this matchup?

taking the pet out is extremely important in this setup since Shaman and Paladin are both stationary healers. In addition, this combo's strength is outlasting since you can alternate drinking. With a pet on one/both of you, it nullifies that advantage. With that said, killing the pet can be difficult. Make sure your warrior sunders it 5 times, build max rage, and then burn it down like mad, while you purge the pet as well as interrupt any incoming direct heals from the opponent's healers. If you can kill all the pets, it should be a much easier (not that its autowin) match from that point.

Currently running Aff lock/resto sham in 2's, I have a few questions.

We aren't well geared yet, (he's high 200's resil, i'm just under 100) so this is about low/mid level arena. Right now we do varyingly well based on the team combos we hit, bouncing from a bad low of 1480 to a high of 1600. If we get casters, we destroy them, melee tend to be very rough on us. We do better on dps+healer than 2dps.

My afflock is willing to respec SL/SL, but I'm wondering if we would be giving up too much dps. I tend to be the focused target a majority of the time and I'm worried that him losing the dispel protection UA gives would hurt us more in the long run. Thoughts?

Also, any tips you could give when running a lock//sham setup would be sweet. I see mirrors occasionally (we usually win these, possibly because all the locks are SL/SL?) But I have not seen any information about the combo.

Do convince him to kill the pet. When I played on my warlock the felhunter can really screw up healers, and it can spell lock WHILE the lock is casting. On top of that you have an offensive and defensive dispel (though on a 8 sec CD).

Yeah, kill it.

I'm going to risk a flame and try to go for several "valid" points for Shaman/Warlock combo

1.Warlock and Warrior are probably the best independent partners to go with a healer, so healing shamans pick them since you can't fire yourself =P

2.With a CoT up, if the shaman can catch the majority of spellcasts with earthshock. This can shut down a lot of incoming dps and healing

In 2v2 you have about 50% chance to meet a rogue or warrior and speaking from experience here, as UA you just get torn apart by them. If they manage to make you use your trinket on lets say a cyclone, then after that you eat a blind and your lock will be dead against any half decent team.

Also your lock doesnt profit so much from your buffs as bloodlust/heroism barely has any impact on the dps he does plus you need your air totem as defense most of times.

I suppose your only chance is to play really agressive, but not having a mortal strike/poison wounds makes it really hard for an UA lock to outdamage the burst healing.

So no, I really dont think its viable, but ofc there might be two exceptional players around who prove me wrong :-)

I think you are remembering more how shamans use to be. I play with a SL/SL lock. The hard teams are the Druid/Warrior, Priest/Rogue teams. It really depends on how well you hold the position on the field it seems. You need to be in control, druid should never cyclone you without being forced to come out and get drained, druid should never get a chance to drink, warlock pet + dps on warrior, fast dispels on warrior for rejuv. Priest/Rogue teams, its more hit or miss. If the priest plays cautiously you can sometimes burst the rogue down while just locking/dispelling all of the priests actions. But I'd love to hear any tips for priest/rogue. Warrior pally you can just lock the pally out almost non stop. Warlock/druid, we have 100x's better counter to kiting than druids. Water shield is just a nightmare for any warlock to try and kill a shaman(except maybe blades edge). Mage/rogue, honestly if your a shaman throw flametounge on and beat on that mage. Dispel his mana shield and watch the push back work wonders. But then again I can say our bg is no bg9.

So I've been playing the resto shaman alt recently, and run into intelligent warlocks far too often for my liking, in both BGs and arenas. In particular, curse of tongues cramps my style. The fact that it's instant (making LoS only of limited use against it) and has no cooldown (meaning grounding totem absorbing it is almost a waste) makes it a real challenge to deal with. Toss in a felhunter removing earth shield and any pushback (including the felhunter itself) effectively makes even lesser healing wave just about the most sluggish, easily-interrupted heal imaginable.

Any advice on dealing with CoT and/or warlocks in general?

I haven't had much experience yet (my highest 2v2 rating was 1730 w/ a sl/sl warlock) but what I've found was that preemptive healing worked best against CoT. Basically not letting your partner get low enough that a spell lock would kill him, I would often just eat the spell lock and then go about my business, I couldn't think of any other solution around that.

Also dont forget to cast water shield before doing NS / Heal macro, no matter how fast you press your macro, the puppy will eat the nature swiftness and the game is most likely over. If you pop your water shield first it will be devoured and you have 6 seconds to cast your NS macro.

Yep. Though that too can be frustrating. Usually when you want to NS, there's a reason you're using NS and it's because a heal is needed truly ASAP. Trinketing a blind or something and having to first burn a GCD before casting NS can itself be fatal to your partner.

Well, I can't argue with the truth. I don't think the combo is viable past 1700-1800 actually. The thing is, you can't just ask a random 300 resil MS warrior to join your team as a shaman with 66 resil.

I'm in Stormstrike BG, but we really tend not to meet warriors at all in the 1500's. I see a lot of shadowpriest/xxx and ice mage/xxx which are combos we tend to do very well against. Paladin/xxx is actually one of my favorite matchups because with UA to shield dots and my interrupts (plus warstomp yay racial!) it can be hard for a pally to do much.

I really wish bloodlust did more for my lock, but I use it as a heal speeder- and I need it since we're both rather squishy as undergeared as we are. He does get off fast-cast fears though, which is a lifesaver.

It comes down to if I can avoid getting CC'd a LOT. I'm coming from playing a resto druid/rogue combo (alliance) in the 1700's though so I'm good at pillar dodge, and I've been teaching him as we go.

The unfortunate bit is Mana burn teams (hunters in general) are auto-loss. Warriors, rogues, are decent fights. Disc/hunter? AFK Is there anything we could be doing against that team or is it just the shredder to our cheese?

I wouldn't automatically give a UA lock/ Restro Shammy 2v2 a 1800 cap... In the middle of last season, when I was running with only about 200 resil, our 2v2 got up to 2k, and I think it would have gotten higher if we hadn't taken a break.

It has been little different this season, but this week we are going to actually push our rating up instead of just settling for 10 games a week at 1750.

We actually do fairly well against Hunter/ Disc Priest Mana Burn teams... the lock controls the priest, so with his fears/ felhunter and my earth shock/grounding, I usually don't get hit by mana burns. Viper Sting usually isn't too terrible unless you get 2-3 resists trying to remove it. The hunters pet will usually always be on me so I can't drink, but water shield works wonders. These games are obviously really long, and either end in my lock spiking down someone when the priest gets too greedy trying to mana burn, or the other team running oom.

Against healer/melee (warrior or rogue), if the melee gets on me, we will have a good shot at winning, as locks can destroy healers pretty fast. If the melee is smart and gets on the lock, then its either hit or miss, depending on how well healers get out of combat and deal with CC.

Against 2 dps teams, it all comes down to how well my partner can keep himself alive when I'm CCed, and how well we can abuse LOS.

It is a really frustrating team to play at times, but its our only option, so we make due.

My biggest problem in 5s is the push back from having a melee class trying to own me. ES helps until it is neutralized (spellsteal/dispel/purged) and I am looking for more resistance to push back. It is easy to keep myself alive when I have a melee class on me, but at the sacrifice of the others in the group. I am considering going with a spec deeper into Elemental to pick up EoTS: Talent Calculator - Shaman

By going with this spec I give up:
-Imp Chain Heal (Very Low usage in Arena)
-Healing Way (Never get stacks of Healing Way on a target)
-Totemic Mastery (Marginal Benefit)
-Tidal Mastery (Only talent I'm really concerned with losing)

I gain:
-EoTS (100% push back when critically hit)
-Elemental Warding (Reduced damage from mages/shaman/LOL-Destro Locks)
-Reverb (Improved Frost Shock kiting)

My biggest concern with this spec is that I am dependent upon being crit when resilience counteracts this potential. What are your thoughts on going with a spec like this for 5v5?

Two things.
1) Giving up Totemic Mastery is unacceptable and you should drop a point from Ancestral Healing before you do that. It's not a marginal benefit, it's a major increase to totem aura in an environment where mobility is key.

2) Reverb is for... frost shock kiting? What? First off, frost shock lasts 8 seconds. How does a 5sec cooldown vs. 6sec cooldown make any difference in that regard? Reverb is to earth shock more spells more frequently, and the core resto shaman dilemma with Reverb is whether you want -1sec on ES cooldown or -2sec on grounding cooldown. Frost shock kiting is fairly uncommon in arenas in the sense of chain-FS'ing the same target. A single frost shock to force a druid to burn more mana, or on a rogue who doesn't have sprint up and is trying to catch you, is common. But are you really frost shocking over and over so often that it seems like the primary reason to invest talent points in Reverb?

Not saying it is totally not viable , but shaman gives the least synergy to warlock of any kind of healer :

- Druid : Lots of hots -> hard to interrupt healing and cyclone -> No need to comment on this one
- Priests : Hot, shield, prayer of mending , pain supression, can assist in mana burn strategy, defensive and offensive dispel, fort buff, fear ward
- Paladin : Blessing of Protection, blessing of freedom, can bubble once if CC-ed a lot to get at least some healing in.

Now what does a shaman give ? Earthshield and Tremor totem.

Just saying that if you can reached high with shaman/UA lock it is not because of the synergy between the two classes, it is simply because you outplay the opponents by a lot. The UA lock can get a lot higher rating by going with any other healer or a SP and shaman can probably get a lot higher by going with melee. Synergy between the players is what can make two good players a nearly unbeatable team unless mirror matched.

I think shaman is better than paladin and likely priest. You get Wrath of Air, you get lust (which isn't trivial), you get tremor, but you also get grounding and earth shock. You get someone who can interrupt a cyclone, someone who can help you burst someone down who gets low in a way that no other 2v2 healer can. You get quick offensive dispelling so that your felhunter can be used more defensively. You get the ability to completely and utterly shut down a paladin or another shaman with Tongues + Earth Shock (seriously, having been on the receiving end of this in 2v2, it's so unbelievably maddening). And so forth. You get a partner who is easily sturdy enough that healer+melee teams are going to have a very very tough time trying to just blow him up while ignoring you.

I think druid/warlock is stronger than shaman/warlock, but druids are OP in 2v2. I'd take shaman over any other class for healer+warlock, though. It's probably the best 2v2 for a resto shaman, and while it's not the best 2v2 for a warlock (druid or rogue clearly make better partners I think), it's not a terrible one either.

Just wanted to say this is probably the key to this team, at least for us. It's actually pretty rare for him to get the killing blows, and I use max rank shocks almost exclusively. My NS is a CL more often than HW. The Warlock also gives me a trash buff dispel shield with unending breath/see invis, which lets my trinket powered earthshield tick a couple times and a 2/2 healthstone which is literally a game saver. Bloodlust-speed fears are nothing to sneeze at, and it affects his UA cast as well. I help him kite with Frostshock/earthbind and I try to keep him (and me) from getting sheeped with groundings and earthshocks. You have to support each other a ton though, and I'm kinda ashamed to admit how many times my warstomp has decided a match for us. He's undead, and that helps too heh.

Thanks for the advice on drain teams, we'll start focusing the priest so he can't mana burn. I'm just scared to step in LOS range of the damn hunters, they shred me faster than MS warriors... Still that's more of a gear issue, it'll get better.

Out of curiosity, has anyone had success using an EotS/resto build? It seems potentially useful (both as a dispel-protection sort of buff and as spell pushback-insurance while your ES is getting purged/allowing you to cast ES on another target), but I hesitate to give up so much in resto.

My impression with Reverberation when I was specced for it was simply that it's difficult to maximize your use of it. Shocking 20% more often sounds nice in theory, but often times repositioning, waiting for them to begin a cast for you to ES, being mid-cast on a heal, etc. makes it difficult to get the full 1s off shocks repeatedly in practice. I like the grounding totem cast time reduction more.

to help with the synergy with shaman/lock, my 2v2 partner is now SL/Ruin lock(seems to be the newest lock trend it seems), before he was SL/SL, this way he gains slightly more benefit when heroism is popped at the cost of losing SL. plus having his felhound out + CoT +ES allows for a complete shutdown of a healer at critical burst dps moments. Like Gurgthock said being on the receiving end of a CoT + es is a nightmare, and adding a felhound makes the situation for a healer more dire when played right.

also having the felhound out improves the shamans survivability against polys in matches vs mage teams. devour magic is a life saver when the pvp trinket is on cd.