Errelno

I think the blind changes really hurt shaman/paladins as well. It really gave them an edge over rogue teams.

With that said, I think that cure poison is still very strong for shaman teams. I plan to run restosham war pal in S3.....and considering 90% of top 3v3 teams run a rogue now, having a shaman to cure poison and no DR frost shock kite rogues is going to be key for when I can't get a hamstring up.

 

Venomia

I think Gurgthock forgot to mention some tiny dps output if you actually can afford some GCD or casting time to use it. This goes pretty much to all healers post 2.3, but probably should be mentioned as something that shaman "can" use.

But I must admit I totally second the feeling of shamans hopelesness when locked down by rogue / warlock or hell even felhunter itself with warlock far away. Some emergency button for this would be pretty awesome (maybe some self cast magical immunity which would cause forebearance or something along the lines), too bad I just cant really figure what exactly it should be.

 

◊ Praetorian

I debated putting damage on there, but the reality is that it's not like I have Lightning Overload or something. A priest can Smite or a druid can Wrath just as easily as I can bolt. I can finish someone low with a max-rank shock, and a priest can SW: D, etc. I do have NS/CL as an additional burst, but that's really something I'm only going to use if I know with certainty it's going to secure a kill, and I certainly can't afford to save my NS for that situation if the other team is applying any pressure at all.

 

gatzu.

I'd like to see earthen shield become more of a signature ability in PvP then what it is now. Maybe if earthen shield is dispelled it heals for 5 charges worth of the shield (around 2000 with ms up), this would basically be the defensive version of UA and would give shaman a "unique" skill in arenas.

But like Gurg said we are locked down way too easily, same with paladins. Not really sure how blizzard would be able to fix this without major rebuilding of these classes unfortunately.

 

Venomia

The problematic part is that its atleast 2 levels issue. First level is that all your healing spells are either holy or nature based. This sounds like the core of the problem, but its not really. Druids have all heals nature based and I think priests got all healers holy based too.
The second level is that holy paladins and resto shamans are simply calling for the counterspell with the spells they have compared to druid and priest. And this is the main issue with it. Both priests and druids can just spam instant heals which are basically non-CS'able except silence / improved CS and dish out some decent healing with it. Paladin got holy shock for laughable instant heal on quite long cooldown and shaman got earthshield which gets promptly dispelled and NS-HW macro which mostly doesnt work if theres a warlock around.
So to keep their target alive, they need to expose themselves to the enemy interupts (or smartly outLOS it) and simply risk and use heals with longer cast time.

Possible solutions would be:

1. Resistance against interupts / silence effects - There were some ingame already and been changed to reduce the silence time instead, because % resist chance simply sucks for both sides because it gives more unavoidable randomness. Not really possible solution

2. Better effectivity on current instant casts or more instant spells avaible - This would need to be done carefully to avoid messing with working PvE mechanics and not pushing both classes too much forward in arena, but with carefull and tuned implementation sounds quite reasonable.

3. Self Protection mechanism - something like paladin bubble which cant be prevented with holy school locked down and something similar for resto shaman aswell (maybe some modification to earth shield).

These 3 are just from the top of my head, im pretty sure someone could come with some way more elegant and effective solution than this though.

 

Coriolis

I have to say I've quit the game and this is a big part of it (the other was Hellgate london coming out). I played with a warlock/war in a 3vs3 team, and while we weren't quite as good as your team was (I think we broke 2200 but only for a short time, then stuck around 2100-2150), it was just too frustrating for me since 90% of the time our loss could simply be attributed to me being cced/locked out in some fashion. The real frustration to me wasn't even so much that, but the trivial mistakes I kept seeing the other team doing and us loosing/barely winning in spite of that (not putting CoT on me, barely CCing, etc.). I'm certainly not the best shaman player there ever was or anything but like you I just didn't see what I could do that would have made a qualitative difference in our game and allow us to beat some of those teams.

The biggest shock for me was when we played a feral druid/pally/war team. We beat them 2-3 times, as I barely kept up our warlock vs the feral druid/warrior dps, as they always quickly killed the fellhunter and focused the warlock (who was admittedly UA which is a bad spec vs that composition). But then the feral druid started playing radically differently, rather then just trying to dps he shifted forms, interrupted me with bear charge/stun, rooted our warrior, cycloned me, and basically from that point on we got our asses kicked .

I think one thing that could help shamans alot would be to lower the GCD from instants for shamans, or maybe make purge/ES none-nature spells and therefore usable while interrupted. There are so many important things I can do with my GCD - ES heals, FS and help someone kite, purge, put down the right totems, earth/water shield etc - but the problem is that this takes as much time as a LHW, and most of the time if I have the time to spare to use them we'll be winning in any case. Not to say that a ES/purge at the right time hasn't helped us win even if someone almost died because of it, but it would make a pretty big difference to my game if I could more easily spam those abilities. And it would also be a change that would reward "better" gameplay (multiple interrupting/purging), rather then just making the class flat out stronger like extra healing would let's say. An alternative solution would be to increase the duration of interrupt/cooldown of ES by 2-3 times.

Another thing that could be done would be increased range on shocks/purge, although this is even less likely. Combined with the GCD issues, most of the time I find it better to try to LOS/outrange the other team's ranged classes to avoid CCs/interrupts/mana burns, rather then to get in range so I can ES them.

 

Bagginses

I think another approach that could be taken to fix some Shaman woes (for both Resto and Elemental) in 3s is a more reliable way to escape, especially from melee. Pretty much every ranged and healing class has some method of escaping pressure (Scattershot, Howl of Terror, Blink, shapeshifting, etc.).

Shaman only really have Earthbind and Frostshock to put distance between them and the melee pounding on them (if you're Tauren, Warstomp can help). While removing DR on Frostshock was a big help, Earthbind totem can still be easily destroyed. Additionally, against warriors, staying in that sweet spot outside of melee but inside Intercept can be difficult, especially with any sort of lag. Admittedly, Paladins aren't all that much better off in this department. HoJ, Bubble, and BoF are about all they have as well.

Personally, I think Ghost Wolf should be changed to instant cast. Then maybe change the Improved Ghost Wolf talent to remove all snares and effects or however it is the mechanic works for Druids. Now you might say that this would make Shamans too much like Druids, but keep in mind that GW can still be dispelled. So any team worth their salt could still keep the Shaman from getting too far, but the Shaman can still get all the snares off to keep running on foot. Also, this could help out Enhancement seeing as a serious problem for them is a way to close the gap to melee range. So, I'm no dev, but this seems like a reasonable compromise to me. Shaman gain an extra way to escape, but still have to worry about good teams who have the wherewithal to Purge/Dispel.

 

gatzu.

Instant cast I can maybe agree with but removal of snare no way. Druids don't have any snares but we have two. Certain classes wouldn't have a prayer to keep up with us. To fix our mobility I'd like to see maybe the improved earth bind talent changed to an entrapment type talent. This would allow us at least 1 escape ability once were stuck in melee.

 

• Golias

Just going to underline this. I've messed with several comps. last weeks and was really surprised by how well warr/feral/pal worked (with mostly pve gear/specs we reached 2k rating). Considering the limited choices a warrior has to team with, I think this is worth to mention. I'll probably be trying to keep this comp. up on S3 and then give some feedback on how it went. If anyone has more experience with it, do let me know how it goes for you.

I have done 3v3 with a shaman also, and they are really that easy to shut down, to the point we simply gave up, not because we couldn't get a good rating, just because it was downright unfair. To a lesser extent, this happened to me also with lock/warr/pally. The solution for us seemed to try and introduce more CC to the team, to be used in a defensive way. Instead of the lock (and in your case spriest), you may want to try a mage, especially now they been buffed and work very well with rogues, or even a druid. I never played above 2000, so I'm not sure how it effective it would still be above that. The true point is both shaman and paladin need more to adress their huge vulnerabilities. Not buffs, something new that expands their power.

 

Duilliath

Very briefly played War / Feral / Paladin. Mostly due to the Paladins in question both going AWOL for a period of time.

It's a team that has potential to do well, but you'll run into rather big problems with anything that can lock down a Paladin without giving up too many options for being controlled themselves. I would expect it to pan out similarly to the general Warrior / Paladin feeling in 2v2... works well up till 1900-2000 or so and then just hits a glass ceiling.

Didn't quite have a chance to test it thoroughly as I said, and didn't enjoy it as much as I think I would enjoy another team make up.

 

Edoc

Hey all. I'm a big fan of PvP but in 3v3 so many members have come and gone its been tough to get above the 1900-2000 bracket when after 2-3 weeks of playing one of our core members leave. Me and my paladin are the only two who have kept to it.

Anyway my paladin joined his friends team to help him get his points and to try something new and they rant a Warr/Pal/Pal setup. The setup means long fights with one dps but they managed to hit 2100-2200 with it. What are everyones views on this?

 

◊ Lord BEEF

I could see Warrior and double paladin doing fairly well, but I think it would be categorically inferior to Warrior/Paladin/Shaman

 

Balkoth

My team (spriest/aff lock/rogue) fought this team yesterday twice (all ranked as Duelists). Burning the warrior was pretty much hopeless, and we lost miserably. Focusing the Shaman the second time around helped, but our warlock died to the warrior and rogue/spriest versus paladin/warrior didn't end well since we had blown our cooldowns and I was nearly out of mana. Bloodlust must be dispelled, though, as it was the reason we lost so badly the first time around (We were frantically trying to burn the warrior down).

Any suggestions? I doubt I could land a Mass Dispel on the paladin if we focus him first due to both a CC immune warrior (save Blind) and a shaman able to interrupt me. My aff lock partner is 400-450 resilience with 13k health, he doesn't die quickly due to a lack of gear. I'm worried that trying to constantly shield the lock will lower our burst DPS too much since the warlock isn't doing much as it is.

 

• Kalince

I don't see how you can say that with the goal of the team being to outlast the cross cleanses go a long way to longevity. A shaman may be able to purge a BoP but the BoP doesn't matter in the scope of the game as it is only temporary protection from the warrior.

 

• Snowy

WF totem. My team (spriest/rogue/resto shaman) had pretty good success vs resto sham/pal/war just by focusing the shaman, and ignoring the warrior. The only times I'd come close to dying or die outright was when multiple WF procs happened. A warrior by himself wasn't going to drop me without a little external help. Also having an offensive dispel is a big deal, leaving Earth Shield + Lust on for full durations is not what you really want to see against my team.

I agree with Beef, and I think it's categorically inferior because the 2nd paladin doesn't bring anything extra to the table outside of being able to bubble.

Benefactors' Bar, where you get free English lessons:

 

◊ Praetorian

It's not just WF totem. It's interrupts, grounding, purge, etc. Obviously pal/pal/war is viable, but I think it leaves too many holes. Druids will be cycloning them all day, a single opposing paladin can counter their BoFs with his own as well as an unremovable BoP, etc. You really aren't likely to finish a match except by completely running them out of mana (whereas sham/pal can do something like shock --> HoJ --> shock --> BElf silence --> shock to lock out an opposing healer for quite a long time), and there are a number of teams against which you really just aren't going to be able to do that.

 

Kiln

The one change I would like to see is a removal of Global Cool Downs on Shaman Totems. Way back in the day shaman use to be able to cast all four schools of totems at once. Back when a shaman could burst / insta kill all classes this was to powerful. With the changes to HitPoints and Armor this is no longer the case.

Other possible changes:
1. Totem that has a purge effect.
2. Totem that dispells non-poison snares and roots.
3. Make NS and Crit non-dispellable. 3 minute cool downs shouldnt be subject to fell hunters auto eat.
4. Have the totem range talent effect the offensive range of totems.
5. Add an offensive damage totem to the earth totem line (ns damage).

 

AriasImmortal

I'd run pal/sham/war except my guild has zero resto shaman and the only geared/skilled one on the server is already taken.

Since I'd like to get heavily into 3s this season (the one bracket I really neglected in s2) can anyone point out the countercomps to pal/war/lock and how to beat them? That's what I'll be running.

 

Silver_Surfer

Everyone is subject to having certain cooldowns dispell-able. And shamans can purge a ton of buffs as it is. Making them virutally immune to everything AND giving them all sorts of offensive capabilities with totems is way, way OP.

 

• Ralask

Has anyone run hunter/lock/paladin to high ratings? I am going to run that this season and I want to know what problems you had and what comps to watch out for. Lock will be FG, hunter will be marks.

 

• Kalince

I would think a Hoj -> Hoj -> BElf silence -> BElf silence would be just as effective and maybe even more so if you are facing healers more based on instant casts. Druids also cyclone everyone all day it doesn't really matter to them unless you have someone with a significant lockout on their interrupt. Both types of healers are locked out of healing about the same with people on them with kicks/stuns etc but the paladin actually has an escape option on his own.

Edit - WF totem is an actual real bonus I would give since it goes a long way to draining the other team quicker but I still think you are running into more lockout combos with the shaman over the second paladin.

Edit 2 - The real bonus would probably be Tremor Totem as that provides you a fear defense that Pal/Pal does not get.

 

AriasImmortal

Not sure how long the belf silence lasts, but in that case it's only possible for blood elves and not for humans/dwarves obviously. HoJ->HoJ is 9 seconds and only if it doesn't get trinketed out of.

I think pal/pal would get destroyed by any team with a warlock. Double curse of tongues, fear one with no real fear break aside from trinket/bubble, spell lock the other, and kill the war.

 

Mex

I played paladin / warrior / ele sham for a while, and really enjoyed it. Tremor made my job a lot easier, and with WF for the warrior and an ele shaman as well, we had a lot of burst (although the shaman was focused 90% of the time).

I don't think I've ever really had any success stacking two of a class, even in 5s, let alone 3s. I find it's almost always better to bring something different to broaden your range of abilities.