◊ Malan

Yah you're right, nobody ever complains about that.

I logged on to the dark iron server to try to talk to Push but he doesn't have a guild (and wasn't online) so it may be a pain in the ass to catch him online to chat.

 

panny

The reason why Enhancement Shaman are so bursty, even with dual wielding, is because the way our damage works. Our damage consists of autoattack, a proc, and SS/shocks. None of these require ramp up time (like combo points) or cast time, or even GCDs, just cooldowns.

We have perhaps the best autoattack damage increasing talent, Weapon Mastery. Arms warriors get +5% with two handers, we get 10% with all weapons. Not considering Flurry/SnD because of the touch and go of PvP. Dual Wield spec is the only thing that beats it when it comes to white damage.

Windfury is a large chuck of our damage too, and it's also GCDless. That means, of our sources of damage, only Shocks and Stormstrike use GCDs. This allows our three sources of damage to occur concurrently, much like how a raiding Warlock can load on a set of DoTs and spam Shadowbolt. It's quite funny when you switch from a Warrior to a Healer in BGs and demolish him before he can cast a heal.

A two hander may give you even more burst than this, but you have to consider the frequency and the degree of burst. I did this calculation in the other thread, but here it is again. I'll give an extremely generous crit rate of 40%. With a proc rate of 20% on WF, it's a 1.6% to get that big WF double crit, which is going to be reduced by resilence. Add a shock to it and how much damage do you really think you managed to spike? 3k on a Purged target? Unless it was really huge and managed to get someone into that 'danger zone' or outright killed them, you've now got to wait another three or so seconds to do damage again. If the other team has a healer and you don't manage to kill your target, all that damage is going to be healed away. Even if they don't have a healer, if your damage doesn't put them in that danger zone, you're better off with higher sustained throughput of dual wield.

jlavarj, I find it quite surprising that you find Spriest/Lock a hard combo, Spriest/x or Lock/x is probably my easiest matchup (as long as x isn't a Rogue or a Druid) because they're the easist target to stay on. Having a Priest on my side probably helps though.

Nadagast, I think you have a point about Purge being a very good tool. It's what makes classes that use magic buffs as their only defense mechanism (such as Priests, other Shaman, Paladins, Warlocks, Mages) a favourable makeup, but those that don't, extremely difficult. It's part of the problem of balancing offensive dispell, but I don't think it's overpowered. Even outgearing other players, (I have a 3/5 Vengeful, all the Vindicator's gear), I have trouble DPSing other classes down because of the difficulty of actually getting within melee range.

Even a Holy Priest, perhaps our squishiest target, can surive for a long time with me spamming purge on him, definitely long enough for a partner to peel a target off him.

I, personally, really like the idea of Rockbiter giving a healing debuff (make it stackable like Wound Poison at 10% per proc or 5% per hit or something). Making Frostbrand a higher proc rate and snare level would be nice too.

 

Duilliath

Adding more benefits to less used weapon enchants definitely would make things more interesting at least what you chose to go with. Do I go with a Healing Debuff ? Or with a snare so I can actually stay with people ?

But not completely sure a wishlist would be in the scope of this thread.

Now that there's a decent shaman population that hopped in - maybe they can share some insights ? There's a 2v2 thread for Shamans, which I'm going to dig through next, but surely there's more info to be had.

 

Aett

I find a disc priest/enhance/rogue setup to be very good. Last season we peaked at 2012 with basically the same setup except that our priest was the standard disc/holy setup at the time. We started off this season winning about 2/3 of our games until our priest decided to quit playing WoW.

There are two big advantages that this setup has over a lot of others. The combination of crippling poison, earthbind totem, and frost shock make it very difficult for anyone to stay out of melee range of one of us for any length of time. Constant, sustained dps with constant interrupts from fear, earth shock, blind, and chastise (if you are fortunate enough to have it) generally has pretty good results.

The second feature of this setup is the interaction of pain suppression and shamanistic rage. You effectively get what I like to call, shammy shield wall, when you time pain suppression and shamanistic rage, which is given staying power by the dispel protection given by pain suppression. I've seen mages/priest combos doing this with iceblock to make it much more difficult to dispel. Since people often go, "Enhance lol, focus him he'll explode" this is a pretty big advantage when the shaman proves pretty difficult to bring down.

As mentioned earlier, we have really good results against anything with a warlock and pretty much anything with a pally healer. The biggest problems we had were with groups that had frost mages and druids.

Something a lot of people might overlook is the strength of enhance shaman vs. a rogue. While in a direct duel the rogue will likely destroy the shaman, the shaman can effectively neutralize the rogue's healing debuffs with a combination of poison cleansing totem and direct cleansing. I have yet to see a rogue that I couldn't cleanse faster than he could apply poisons, but I'm not 100% sure I've tried that against a mutilate rogue. Keeping wounding poison off effectively doubles the amount of healing your healer can do, and since it's all instants you can still maintain most of your dps while spamming cleanse.

In summary, the primary advantages I see for enhance are the ability to interrupt, cleanse, and purge while still doing large amounts of damage. Enhancement basically comes into arena with more or less all the damage they can do in a raid as the spec changes generally drop group support capabilities in favor of survivability.

 

◊ Malan

Lets talk more about Push's 5v5 team.

As I indicated on the previous page he isn't running with a warrior, which from what I've read on the top arena brackets is pretty unusual. No hunter either, so his team has no way to reduce healing. Further, he's only running with 1 healer on the team - the priest is Shadow spec and the 2nd paladin on the team has zero games played, so the one paladin is the only healer there. So his team breakdown is Mage/Warlock/Shadow Priest/Enhancement Shaman/Paladin.

How is that succeeding so well? He's got potentially 2 AoE fears depending on the warlock's spec (I didn't check), single target warlock fears, mana burn, 2x dispels, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection, Shadow Protection, Water breathing to guard buffs.... But what I cant figure out is how one paladin possibly keeps that group alive.

[e]Ugh I went to go back and check his team again and Push hasn't logged in for a few days, the armory doesn't have his info cached anymore.

I found some posts on his realm board where he mentions that other 4dps teams and 3 healer teams are the only ones that give his team any problems.

 

• Agwho

I play a Paladin in PvP (The World of Warcraft Armory).

I do 5s and 3s with an Enhancement Shaman teammate (The World of Warcraft Armory).

Our 5s is: Warrior - Paladin - Disc Priest - Elemental Shaman - Enh Shaman.

Obviously, the strategy would be to keep high dps up, with multiple BLs, get something low then use a PI+NS+Cl and hope something dies. Our 5s isnt a failure, but its certainly getting frustrating, we should be in the 1900s, if not for 3 stupid losses yesterday. We cant control games once they start playing defensively as we have no true CC. This is a failure in team design I think, and as a paladin, I'd rather be running a frost mage in his spot, at least against and 3 healer team, or caster heavy teams.

I think the flaws of Enh Shaman are a lack of mobility, lack of defensive abilities, and vulnerability to mana burn. Looking at Push's team, I'd say their success lies in their ability to control the other team, and given the nature of a 4 dps team, the somewhat shorter length of the matches.

On a happier note, my guild has a great Enh shaman who is now in the top 10 3v3 teams on Rampage, playing Warlock/Druid/Shaman. The World of Warcraft Armory

EDIT: 3s, Warrior - Enhancement Shaman - Paladin. It has worked, and we have had it as high as 1830, but no one really seems to care. The rating tanked after the other members of the team tried Elemental - Enhancement - Paladin. Dont do that.

 

Masq

in season2 I played 3v3 with an enhancement shaman (on my hunter). We hit around 2100 running: MM Hunter / Enh Sham / Holy Pal.

It was actually fairly effective but we did not play it that often to get a true grasp of it. The matrix is nice because you have both entrapment and freedom to play defensively vs. melee, and obviously as you shamans would know the ability to interrupt casters makes range teams not so deadly as well.

We would basically start off playing a drain game with viper and setting up defensively, while we purge down everyone, then switch targets a few times then do a huge burst combo with bloodlust / rapid fired aimshot. If we didnt manage to drop anyone, we'd immediately switch back into a defensive mode and setup for either another burst or a drain-game.

The key to the team really was the enhancement shaman healing at proper times, regardless of how inefficient it is.

http://www.aftermathlb.com

 

Emaze

I xffered off my home server in the middle of s2 and joined a 5s team at 2100. We ran war/enhance shammy/frost mage/pal/priest. We climbed the rating up to 2250 but after a couple people switched teams/getting alts 3 games a pop we dropped to 2k and never played again.

Freedom is great, mage offers a good CS and sheep. The key is really hitting those earthshocks on healers when the focus target is around 40% and making sure ur target is under earthbind. I used s2 ele gloves for the shock range, really helped.

I also joined there 3s team and ran war/enhance/pal and had the same type of success. Gotta keep WF down and earthbind, but with freedom on me and earthbind we could focus a target down no problem.

This season I'm running war/enhance/pal/priest/resto shammy and have success with that too. Tri healer is all about out lasting those opening bursts and just abusing how good MS is. Same idea, 40% shock and CC healers and a WF proc from me or the war is usually all we need. Tri healer also lets our priest mana burn freely. Pushed 1840 before xmas but with vacas and stuff this week people are getting there points other places.

I do think we need some way to stay in melee range (stun/intercept/ghost wolf removing movement impairing effects) but with the right matrix and people who know how to play you can really push a top rating in 3s and 5s.

I haven't had any success with 2s but I do wanna try and ret pally. Random combo that a lot of teams wont know what to do with and a lot of burst damage/cc, but on a pretty dead server so no luck.

 

Bagginses

Does anyone think there would be any merit to leading off an attack with a two-hander and getting the initial swing + Stormstrike and then switching off to dual-wield while the swing timer is on cooldown? The logic is you have more potential for some burst right off the bat and the GCD from the weapon-swapping is not as bad since you would have to wait for the 3 second or so swing timer on the two-hander anyways. Or do you think it would just be better to lead off with dual-wielding?

 

panny

Personally, I'm too busy either Shocking or dropping totems to use the GCD for weapon switching. I don't think it's worth it.

 

jlavarj

Purge is an incredible tool in arena. If you use a purge mod that tells you what is being stripped off (like Enhancer) you'll be surprised at the buffs that you can take off, like Focused Will, Rapid Fire, Nature's Swiftness, etc. And I would highly recommend that all enhance shaman in arena have macros for purging and casting rank 1 earth shock on your focus target, and use a unit frame or cast bar mod to watch the casting bar of your focus.

 

xarg

If you're looking for an enhancement shaman to talk to about pvp, try mauro on blackrock. I personally haven't talked to him because I'm not particularly interested in enhancement, but figured someone might want to.
The World of Warcraft Armory
I've come up against him in arenas a decent amount, he used to play as elemental in their 2345 setup, but he's been enhancement for a while. I thought he was quite good as elemental also. One of the very few shamans I've seen with S3 shoulders, and enhancement to boot!

I've been 60 rating short of my purty shoulders and it's driving me nuts :@

 

Push

It's weird that you couldn't find me online--I log in everyday. Because of the holidays, many of my Arena partners haven't been on too much, so I've been on my alt a lot, which may explain why you didn't catch me on Push. Oh and the Armory is dumb and hasn't registered my guilds for months.

Many of you have probably seen me comment on these exact things on the Shaman forums.

My 5v5 is UA Lock, Shadow Priest, Frost Mage, Enhancement Shaman, and Holy Pally. Interestingly, I almost never receive Blessing of Freedom. The philosophy of our team is to CC the DPS of the other team completely, which is why it's so easy for a healer to heal our team, and for us to deliver our massive damage that compensates for our lack of healing reduction.

As a matter of fact, our Paladin has disappeared on us for the last week, so we were forced to play with a Druid friend of ours, and we had the same success last night (couple games off #1 now). You heard me: a Resto Druid healed a 4 DPS team with an Enhancement Shaman and UA Lock.

This may sound ridiculous, but the use of our CC is the means for our survival. In addition, we depend on our anti-CC to avoid getting our damage broken up.

The biggest advantage an Enhancement Shaman has in 5v5 is the ability to cast Purge and Tremor Totem while damaging. Nearly no Fear lasts for longer than 2 seconds on my team, and naturally Polymorph isn't a problem with so many dispels and Blessing of Sacrifice. Also, the well-timed use of Earth Shock and Grounding Totem is caster CC in itself.

2h sucks. DW adds more white damage, Stormstrike damage, burst, Flurry, Shamanistic Focus, Unleashed Rage, interruption on casters, among other things. Even owning a 2her on your character is trivial--it's never better.

I get the most slack about my spec. The Elemental off-talents are absolute garbage. To be a successful Enhancement Shaman in Arenas, GCD abuse is necessary. The 1 second off the Shock cooldown doesn't help because 4 GCDs add up to 6 seconds anyway.

Shocks make up 15-20% of my damage in Arenas. Increasing it by 5% is only adding 1% damage. The Mana survivability in the tree is nearly worthless with Water Shield, Shamanistic Focus, and Shamanistic Rage.

Most importantly, the Resto talents provide a needed 10 yards on Totem range and max spell hit in PvP. A resisted Earth Shock changes the tide of battle more than anything else.

I choose to drop a couple points in Unleashed Rage for Healing Focus. People assume that I treat my spec as more of a healing hybrid, which is not the case. I grab full Healing Focus because the few times that I do heal, they are during desperate times.

The concept of my Arena teams is to keep enough damage pressure on the other team that I keep them on the defensive. Putting a shield on, healing too much, not being in melee range, or having your team CCd will never result in a dominant position in a fight. That's why totem twisting Earthbind with Tremor is key. The goal is to be dealing maximum damage while interrupting CC/damage and avoiding all Fear.

All of this said, I also need to thank my Arena partners, especially my Mage, Wakustabakus. They're all incredible players who I love playing with. We don't fight--we just win. I'm always happy to answer questions, which I do as much as I can on the World of Warcraft Shaman Forums. A lot of people choose to in-game mail or whisper me on level 1 alts, as I'm on a lot.

See you guys around!

 

• Juice

Great input, thanks for showing up, Push.

 

Aett

Granted my experience is more with 3v3 than with 5v5, I find that that a 5 second shock cooldown is invaluable, I currently am speced without 5/5 reverb and miss it terribly. I can see this being a lot different in 5s though, where you can't sacrifice GCDs waiting for a heal to be cast. Chaining interrupts on the healer is a primary strategy for my 3s and being able to reliably hit a heal every 5 seconds is amazing.

Also it's really hard to pass up 10% less frost/fire/nature damage and increased damage to shocks. The increased radius on earthbind totem is also incredibly useful in my opinion.

 

Push

I still suggest you give the Resto talents a shot (I can't see your Armory ATM).

As I mentioned before, the Concussion adds 1% total damage, which is completely dwarfed by Nature's Guidance (3% spell & melee hit).

Elemental Focus is a joke. Assuming 5% spell crit, at most, it adds 4.28 mp5, which even ignores the possibility of critting twice in a row (which is low, anyway). Totemic Focus (-25% totem mana cost) supplies much more mana as assuming the Shaman uses more than 200 mana per minute on totems, which obviously happens.

The 10% reduced Fire, Nature, and Frost damage only primarily applies to one two of nine classes: Mages and Ele Shaman.

Earth's Grasp can be nice; however, Earthbind is generally used to snare your target when you know you don't have Frost Shock available or don't want to use it, meaning you should be using Earthbind while you're already in melee range. The only class I'd say Earth's Grasp is a clearcut aid for is Druids.

That leaves Reverberation. I'm not going to say it can't be helpful, but getting maximum spell hit from the Resto tree and the added 10 yards through Totemic Mastery is more important. Like I said above, 4 GCDs add up to 6 seconds, so when you're in melee range already, it's absolutely worthless, since you should be using every GCD when you're in melee range.

So basically, you're looking at a tree that only helps against only three classes: Ele Shaman, Mages, and Druids.

I'm Enhancement.

Add 20% MS to Stormstrike or make Toughness affect immobilization effects. kthx

 

panny

I'm currently 44/17 after being 16/45 for awhile. The main reason I switched was Nature's Guidance. Because our Frost Shock is our only snare, and it's on a cooldown, resists on it can completely turn the game around of me. Given that I'll most likely be snared too and my partner (Disc Priest) has no snares, my target can get escape. Considering getting into range is one of our worst issues, this is perhaps the biggest benefit of Resto. Having a more reliable interrupt is also superior to being able to interrupt two consecutive spells. And you won't be able to interrupt two consecutive heals in a row even with the shortened cooldown.

Increased totem range is also useful for Poison Cleansing and Grounding. Having decent heals isn't great

Elemental Warding only helps against Elemental Shamans, Moonkin and Frost Mages in arena. I don't really have problems with any of these, so it's not a great loss. Resto is superior.

 

• Sebudai

What are our thoughts on the 2nd trinket slot? I currently just use my DST, but I feel like it is probably suboptimal due to the random nature of the proc. I think Berserker's Call might be the best pvp trinket for us, since you can control it.

 

Aett

I guess to a point it's a matter of preference and team setup. Since I've historically only really done 3v3 and then with a rogue increased range on totems isn't huge since, save the priest, the person the totems would be effecting was almost always within 5 yards of me. I concede that increased range on totems would clearly be more useful in general.

This leaves basically Reverberation vs. Nature's Guidance. My main reasoning behind liking Reverb better is that I feel there are more occasions where the reduced cooldown would have allowed me to interrupt a spell than occasions where a crucial shock gets resisted. Granted I'm Draenei and have 1% spellhit racial, leaving only 2% hit (correct me if I'm wrong) left to hit-cap for PvP. My play style also lends itself to more effective usage of the reduced cooldown because I make a point of not using every GCD so I can have more flexibility in my interrupts. I believe being able to land a well timed interrupt is better than burning every single GCD.

 

panny

But with NG, there's more of a chance of that interrupt actually landing. How often does 1 second off shock really matter?

I have a choice between Bloodlust Brooch and DST, and it really depends what kind of game you're playing. If you're in a 4dps team, or all dps team in the smaller brackets, I'd go with Bloodlust. On longer battles where it's basically a healer mana war with how well you get through the opposing sides defensive cooldowns, I use DST.

 

Tenu

Push,

How much mileage do you get out of the improved Ghost Wolf? It's a fairly unusual spec choice and I'd be interested to hear how it has worked out for you.

 

Bagginses

Currently I'm Elemental spec and running 2v2 with a Frost Mage friend of mine. We've gotten over 1700 rating and we do well against pretty much any team that doesn't have a Rogue or Warlock. The problem, though, is that there are a lot of Rogue and Warlock teams out there. At this point I'm toying with the idea of going Enhancement to help us get a little bit of an edge up against Warlocks. I know it won't help much against Rogues (or could even be worse), but I think with the pushback and the fact that you're out of the GCD so much, I think we would see an improvement against Warlocks. Does this seem viable or would we then open ourselves up to abuse from other classes?

 

Pokkai

enhancement just can't compete with elemental because both specs serve the same purpose and ele proved more benefits while doing the same thing. Enhancement needs SR up to have as much damage reduction as an ele shaman with elemental shields/warding and a shield on. Enhancement has a proc based damage system while elemental can simply EM chain lightning for on demand burst.