Praxagora

Yeah, I'm gonna try stacking some spell haste and see how it goes in Arenas. Right now I'm trying 2's with a BM hunter and we're at 1654, could have probably been 1700 but we got a slew of really bad luck matches last night to start off ><

 

xarg

PvP, and to a larger degree elemental shamans, is about burst. You will put out more sustained damage, point for point, with haste instead of crit. However there are much better chances that when you're trying to burst down a player, when you're going for a kill, that you'll put out more damage. The potential for burst is oh so much higher.

It's not PvE, you're not standing in one spot chain casting lightning bolts trying to do the highest overall damage.

 

Spellshaper

Finally back to post some 2v2 results.

I'm now pairing with a deep balance druid. Unfortunately, due to his lacking resilience (only 260 right now) and some armor points (PvE cloth) we opt to have him enter games stealthed, gathering intel on the opposing team while I go ride around and make them chase me.

Once the fighting starts with me being pounded on, it's time for the cc decisions, which we usually execute as follows:
Against healer/melee setups, root/cyclone the melee and pop force of nature on the healer.
Against double dps, cc the melee if there is one.
If there is a warrior, cc the teammate and unleash hell.
If there is a warlock, pray for your tremor totem to not get eaten and get him down before the DoTs force our druid to switch to healing.
If there is a mage, I fake some heals to provoke a cs wile grounding totem is up.

he thoughest setups seem to include warlocks and anything with one-time panic buttons, such as paladins, mages and rogues. Against mages and paladins, we keep an eye on the remaining immunity time for fast switching back, especially if it is a double-dps team.

It is a lot of fun to play, but demanding. Some teams even send out one dps alone as an initial target, which spells almost certain defeat against us.
Oh, and I just love the possibility of a 0.6s starfire, followed by instant starfire, instacrit chain lighting, moonfire, earthshock.


A note regarding 5v5. I've joined a quad-ele holy paladin team for fun, and had quite the unexpected success.
Quadruple instant chain lightning crits and earthshocks are not to be trifled with...
The fact that we are able to keep up heroism up for 180 seconds and the ability to lay down an abundance of totems helps, too. Oh, don't forget BoP against melee-heavy teams.

Both teams keep floating at about 1650, higher ratings seem possible, as we don't do much warmup skirmish before queuing for rated games and we still lack a lot of gear.
Ah would I love being able to warstomp like my tauren brethren...

 

otzie689

Your druid can IC a starfire? I'm confused.

 

otzie689

How does everyone here feel about the addition of that "lava burst" move? (Or whatever it's called.) Being able to have 2 100% chance to crit moves really ups our burst.

 

aureon

Lava burst is a failed concept for PvP because unless a target is completely full of debuffs that protect flame shock, there will be very limited usage of lava burst as a burst ability. Not only that, you lose the ability to interrupt a heal for the next 5 seconds while preparing that burst, which is often used to prevent a holy light or Gheal on the target your group is bursting down. However, there is certainly the advantage that shamans have two spells schools that can effectively do a bit of damage.

 

Spellshaper

Oh. Sorry, got confused at half past eleven after being awake since 5am :S
Scrap that extra instant starfire. All in all, it plays quite similar to bm hunter/ele shaman.

We'll see about lava burst, WotLK is still a good way off.

 

Dikij

Guys, currently i'm devoured by a possibility of using both 4x t6 and 4x pvp set pieces.

For people who haven't thought of it (or haven't seen) : you can have both sets to gain both bonuses, including 4xPvE set bonus to get 5% more damage on LB's. You will receive bunch of spell dmg , cit, haste and some crit as well. Right now i'm about 400 resilience (with ZA ring and most availiable sockets with resilience gems), and it seems to be worth, but only if your opponents are stupid enough to let you nuke.

In most cases you'll have a melee on you that will kick\pummel every cooldown, or you'll get shocked\CS'ed, so most of time you'll be an utility player, purging dropping totems and shocking nukes \ heals\ drains, whatever is needed. So the question is if the combination of both sets will be fruitfull.

Perhaps someone could share the expirience.

One more question : druids are getting annoying this season. In combination with mage it gives almost infinite control options. Let's remove the rest of the team : situation is elemental shamman + MS warrior vs druid and a ice mage. What is the best strategy here to avoid being CC'd (i mean not the shaman personaly, but warrior as well)?

With the patch today i suppose it will be wise enough to split, and let shammie take care of a mage and warrior of a druid, but the question if there will be enough dps to take one of them down?

 

aureon

Dikij, you have to look at your other team mates in the situation you described, if you have a paladin with you, use his HoJ on the mage stick the warrior on the mage, thats an easy 3-4k damage. If you run with a priest or paladin, allow the poly's to fire off and dispel it quickly. You as the elemental shaman must keep cyclones off of your warrior, also your warrior needs a focus frame with a cast bar so you can communicate when you cannot shock or grounding the cyclone, so he can quickly pop spell reflect.

Your primary job when the warrior is on the mage is to not allow the druids cyclones to get off, make sure the mage's ice barries is purged, and do your burst.

 

xarg

Assuming you're talking about playing against a euro comp (warlock priest mage rogue druid) the key to winning is stopping CC. Your priest (or pally if you don't have a priest) should be running around dispelling poly/fear as a priority, you ground/shock as many of the druid's ccs as you can, and keep tremor in range of most of the team.

Lava burst I think will be situational, there are going to be times where you can toss up the flame shock before bursting, but it certainly won't be a catch-all for shaman pvp. Against a team with no defensive dispell it's up for 12 seconds, which is plenty of time to put together a kill.

Arenas will change drastically anyway, imagine playing on a 4dps team when you can drag someone behind a pillar and stun them.

 

Dikij

@ Aureon :

I believe that when warrior will focus mage, the damage will fall drastically, starting from yesteraday frost armor can't be dispelled (the one that slows on melee strike), so the warrior will be kited and mage would still be able to cast his poly's even shatters. And ofc seal of freedom would be dispelled in a split second.

Would it not be better to make warrior focus the druid and shaman the mage ? Comparably to warriors we are still able to do a ranged interrupt.

 

aureon

When a warrior alone tries to stick on a druid who knows how to shift forms at all, it's completely an exercise in futility. In order to provide any sort of damage, you would have to be wasting your shock cooldowns on frost shocks -- easily dropped on a druid. When a warrior is on a mage, he won't have 100% dps uptime, but the mage will concentrate on staying away from that warrior.

Your responsibility as a shaman is to make sure even if he does spell steal a freedom that it is purged off, and then launch a burst combo onto that mage to pressure him even more. This makes the druid concentrate more on lifeblooms and often times regrowths which you easily shut down. If you are running 2345 with a frost mage in your party, he can also provide slowing support on that mage with shatter bursts. If you play your cards right, the mage will ice block, everyone on your team focuses on not allowing the other team to get heals out, then go for a swift kill once the mage is out of block.

 

broods

Subt rogue Vs elem shaman has to be the most onesided fight in the entier game. Even an aweful rogue with bad gear can totally demoilish a great geared ele shaman.

 

BloodTwister

You are wrong plain and simple. We have two sources of damage over time versus a rogue (lightning shield, searing totem), poison cleanse totem combined with stoneskin totem allows us to mitigate damage while increasing the amount we heal ourselves for on top of being able to kite for a second or two through the generous use of frost shock. On top of this we are highly armored. We literally have everything we need to fight a sub rogue 1v1. Save your trinket for blind. If you have trouble its simply because you are not utilizing every GCD you have correctly, just as a good rogue does.

Now I realize this is an extreme example but my 2v2 partner (SL/SL Lock) disconnected at the beginning of an 1850 match and I was able to down a druid who mistakenly let his health reach 50% and died while his rogue partner downed my lock. The druid was simply trying to CC me but failed miserably... and I handily downed the rogue because of my extensive practice fighting sub rogues 1v1.

I say versus a equally geared and practiced rogue I win about 50% of the matches depending on stun resists (I'm Orc) and my ability to kite as poison cleansing is not a sure thing either. Occasionally I've been able to get a burst of on a rogue who's practiced on me! That is just GG...

My advice if your having trouble. Making sure to Melee at Melee range + Searing Totem + Lightning shield are your number 1 priorities when fighting a rogue. 2 is ice shocking every GCD. 3 is keeping poison cleansing totem and stone skin down. Try to cast a heal whenever you have a free GCD. It uses his energy for something besides pure damage and you may even get it off. Even try to cleanse more poisons before trying to heal if your health is not critical. Wrath of air totem is optional when fighting a rogue. If you do happen to get distance with decent health throw a CL in his face... if you do damage with CL in a duel (especially with EM) that fight is a GG! Also when your kiting realize deadly throw interrupts and slows. If you can force him throw it as a slow only you can cast a spell or two before he reaches you.

The problem with Shaman is our ability to utilize every GCD to do something useful. Work on your bindings. Make macros that simplify your button spamming. Learn to strafe kite while shocking, use your mouse for moving and steering (don't click anything! if you don't do this you CANNOT turn fast enough to fight a rogue). The advantage other classes have is having the improvements they need to make in play easily visible. Because of our hybridization, the choice is much less clear, but it is there. Just make the effort to figure out the best possible move and you could make every single GCD count. Also learning how other classes work helps immensely.

 

BloodTwister

Basically you have two options in position. A pillar position or a open position. If neither of them work kiting is the only other option, but not possible for your team make up so I'm not even going there.

An open position would mean the mage and druid would be spamming heals, CC's,counter-spells, and damage on whoever they want as fast as they can. GG. This is not a good option.

Option 2 you could draw a mage in out of LOS of the druid and try to nuke it down. The problem is the mage has several reset options because he can 1) Kite of both of you Easily 2) Counterspell You 3) CC whoever he needs to 4) Ice Block twice 5) Druid intervention through feral charge, instant heals, or CC 6) If the mage is smart he will drink to full each reset in the open with enough mana to kill you

Now if you were able to reset with the warrior every time he consumed his reset option he potentially could run low on mana and run out of ice blocks allowing you to burst him down. This would mean you and the warrior never getting in a bad position allowing the mage to out damage your healing ability. And you would have to out mana the mage... running the druid out of mana is out of the question. The druid however killable by your team should never be in a bad position and will always be supported by the mage. If your lucky enough or they are bad enough the mage will die. This is really your only option to simply conceding the game...

 

xarg

I agree with the majority of this, except for the part about using stoneskin totem. Stoneskin is very lackluster mitigation. You'll hardly even notice it at all, because it works before armor rather than after. But yes, basically between searing totem, lightning shield, and frost/flame shock, you can generally take down a rogue before he can take you down. Poison cleansing totem is of course a must. Keep tossing it and frost shock when it gets crippling, forcing the rogue to chase. It's generally pretty rare that I will have to stop to heal in this matchup.

The only fight 1v1 that I lose more than I win as an elemental shaman is against a warlock. Between tongues and fear, it's virtually impossible to kill any competent warlock.

 

bloodhooves

I've been stacking haste this season, currently at 104, no spell haste totem and currently i find that pros out weigh the cons. I am still missing the Guardian Ring, and Aclarity Cloak and intend to get the s4 spell haste mace.
Cons: - Difference in LB cast time is .1, the gems that account for spell haste could be replaced with +12 spell damage gems and increase my base damage.
Pros: - Casting lesser healing waves vs opponents seems more effective.
- Overload Proc seems to have increased during Heroism phase. (anyone else get this?)
If someone running with higher haste could get back to me with their thoughts on it, I'd appreciate it.

 

Teez

That item never made it to live realms.

 

joe_in_hell

I'am planing to go 3vs3 with a warrior and a disc priest, how good would this combination be? If it's bad, what would be an alternative?
Would this 40/0/21 variant be good for arena and some PvE?
Thanks!

 

aureon

Joe, to be completely honest I can't imagine that lineup going very far past 1700 because an elemental shaman in 3s can only work with another very bursty class. A warrior is so limited by crowd control, even with the priests dispel in that case. You could run a PMR knockoff and bring a rogue in, that would allow your priest to be quite offensive and you would be able to get casts out against the prevalent cleave teams.

More of an issue than anything at your point is gear, at least looking at armory and seeing your resto gear. Elemental is so dependant on having good gear in order to gib someone very fast, so you realistically need 900 spell damage and 19% crit (without talents) with about 375 resilience to even compete. Although, if you are just working on getting 400 points a week with your 3s, you could run that disc priest/ele shaman/warr combo and complete that goal.

 

joe_in_hell

Oh yes, the gear is crap
I don't plan to go for gladiator, but I wan't the option for some S4 items to improve my gear. Elemental is a little bit better and I have some stuff to turn in. (I could also use this to improve my healing gear, but a dual healer setup seams quite strange to me)