sorry to bring this way back to a few months ago malan but your math is off.

s3 2h = (134.2 + 1500/14) *3.6 = 868.83
the rest of your math is right but your 2hnder math was way off.

I would agree 2 one handers are better because of the sustained dps and the windfury proc is way higher on the 2 one handers than on a good 2hander. Plus the swapping of weapons would cause the weapon swing timer to start over again so the gained damage is lost in the swaping.

Who cares? Those are damage per swing numbers. Grats, the 2h hits just harder than DW per swing. Now compare the DPS of the two, DW wins all day long.


VV I read everything you had to say and my comment still stands. Per swing numbers are useful only in burst potential discussion. For a dozen reasons already discussed in this thread and others just like it, DW>2h. It's not valuable for your to pull a months old post up to correct it when it didn't matter (right or wrong) anyway. Look for other ways to add value.

His number was the 2 1 handers if you read its statement of the total dmg that comes out per swing its
868.83 on the 2hnder per swing and 819.94 per both of the 1 hander's swing. the place that they make up that dmg is threw the flurry and the more windfury procs. Now if you had actually read everything I said rather than jumping to conclusion you would have seen me stating that 2 1 handers is better because of the damage it will make up for. I was just letting him know his math was way off base thats it.

I am not trying to state that the 2 hnders are better, the point of my post was the mistaen numbers because its where I had gotten too in the forums. and the discusion was about burst damage anyways so the point was valid. you still seem to miss me stating that two 1 handers are better but I guess I should just let it go and wait for you to truly see what is being said.

Correcting errors in math seem to be a very consistent reason for posting in these forums. At the least it shows that someone is reading through the entire thread before posting, which I commend Iosh for.

Hey -- I want to thank all of you for bringing up what works in Enhance PvP. I've only recently started arena and have had chronic issues with stun locks and burn downs; the advice I've read so far will hopefully go a long way towards boosting my own survivability and my team's win rate. I'm even encouraged to try pushing some 3v3, see if I can't pick up a rating worthy of s4.

I've read that controllable DPS is worth more than burst dps...but what about the case of [Shard of Contempt]? Versus [Bloodlust Brooch], you have less control over the proc, but more procs and a much nicer passive.

Which leads me to a real gear quandry: in arenas, is it all about maxing out the current season set, or is there room for PvE pieces? I've got a very decent raid set and a PvP set that's largely accidental. For example, I have the s3 helm but rep gloves. I can break 10.5k health and 350 resil, but then my DPS goes to crap -- around 300, or a third of my raid DPS.

The AEP and armor of some of my pieces is laughably low. Swapping out [Seer's Linked Spaulders] and [Seer's Linked Gauntlets] for [Pauldrons of Primal Fury] and [Gauntlets of Sniping], I lose 33 stamina and 65 resilience (or 1.62 % crit reduction) but gain 82 AP, 39 hit rating, about .4% crit, 341 armor (1.45% DR) and nearly 2% dodge.

Resilience can't be worth as much as all of that, can it? Is it all a matter of surviving the stunlock?

I'm also dual wielding Dragonstrike. I know, no DPS stats, no resilience, proc of uncertain usefulness...but I believe their relatively high DPS and slow speed make up for some of these. Grinding up the s2 weapons is a 36,000 honor prospect that should take the better part of a month; I'd like some assurance that it will be worth the time, and some cue as to whether I should do so before or after I upgrade my s1 pieces.

Toots, which pieces of armor you go with really depend on who your partner is. If you are not the primary focus game over game then you can sacrafice some resil for armor pen and other good pve stats, or if your 2's partner is really good at CC and locking out another member of the team, pve gear is a good choice.

The reason I would go with bloodlust over the shard is because arena is all about kill opportunities. On a 5 minute boss fight, random procs are fine, but in a 2v2 match where you have a 10 second window during a blind, fear, sheep, etc to get a kill it's nice to be able to pop that extra AP right when you need it, preferably macro'd together with your berserking racial.

Resilience is important not just for crit reduction, but for DoT damage reduction and critical strike damage reduction. Until you have 10k hp, I wouldn't sacrafice any stats for resil and hp as an enhance shaman, you are almost always going to be the target of choice. Most matches you might find yourself with a shield until the first target goes down anyway (assuming you are running double dps).

I think dragonstrike is fine for arena until you get points and rating for s3. If you find yourself needing to add some more resil, then go for s2.

On Shard of Contempt vs pop trinkets, it seems to me like it depends on the opposing team. Shard is very solid against warriors and hunters, because they can parry and I'm probably going to be hitting them from the front. Zerker's Call is better if I'm going to be trying to burst someone down in a very narrow window.

If it helps, Shard of Contempt's proc isn't exactly a sure thing, but it has a very high proc chance and a long internal cooldown. If you need it up right at the beginning of a fight it'll probably be up.

Bear in mind that I suck at arenas, so anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt.

Speaking of which, anyone have any thoughts on defensive/survivability trinkets? I've never had much luck with [Battlemaster's Determination] - either I hit it too early, or try to save it until too late, or I don't need until I'm stunlocked and can't hit it. It actually seems like Battlemaster's decreases my survivability as often as not, because of the sudden drop in my health when it wears off. I've tried wearing [Commendation of Kael'thas], which seems dumb. You can't dodge spells, you can't dodge while stunned, and 57 stamina alone doesn't seem worth it.

Don't use Commendation, I tried it for dueling Rogues and went back to Timelapse Shard. Dodge isn't great for PvP.

The Battlemaster's trinkets have different worth depending on your team. They're mostly for surviving a long CC chain on your healer. If you have a healer that's hard to CC like a Druid in 2v2, I'd just go for an activated damage trinket like Bloodlust Brooch/Zerker's Call. I don't really like the trinket myself, but it's saved me from death more than once.

The pocketwatch from moroes is fantastic for dueling rogues and warriors. But I wouldn't try it out in arena.

I don't think Push really keeps up with this thread anymore, and maybe you overlooked the fact that he's specced full resto right now so he doesn't really need +hit talents. Still wearing his enhancement arena gear though, so /shrug as to what he was doing, but his talents as of 12:43pm EST don't really reflect his normal enhancement spec.

It depends on your bracket also. I don't think the battlemaster's trinkets are particularly useful in 2v2, as your damage output matters more there. In 3v3 the trinket is good to have on for when you come up against a triple dps team. In 5v5 it really shines for negating burst when the opposing team is trying to gib you. If you play with a warlock try macroing it with healthstone.

Yea, the alpha stuffs been up for a while. Its a shame the shaman talent designer probably plays a hunter or something. The only actually good talent is Weapon Specialization, and the rest are just junk, none addressing any of the problems we have, and changing our only defensive move into an offensive. Ugh. Whatever i'm not gonna rant bout it.

In regards to frost/enhance I havnt done it myself, but it seems like the idea would be to majorly control their 1 dps while blowing up the 2nd one with coordinated shocks and counterspells to lockdown healing. If your shaman partner is getting demolished, then tbh you're too focused on DPSing than in CCing to keep your partner alive.

There's a thread about it on AJ: [Guide] Enhancement Shaman/Frost mage 2v2 - Arena Junkies Forums

Anyway, I've tanked about 200 points on my 5s this weekend. We had a promising start, playing Enh/War/FrostMage + Disc/RestoDruid and hitting 2150 with only 2 losses last week, but we fell apart. The horrible abundance of 4dps and rerolls really hurt us. Dreams of glad... shattered T_T

Overall, I think it was probably the comp that hurt us. Having low healing power and only one dispeller for CCs was painful.

I make the assumption you're talking about imp SR? I kinda saw that change as adding both defense and offense utility to the cooldown. The problem with it that I see is that theres almost too much rolled up into this one timer.

Also, I think the jury is still out on the wolves, the only info I've seen on them is a short video hosted on a sandbox, but I've heard rumors of a bleed and stun ability, which might make them worthwhile.

Personally, I'm just kind of excited about the notion of seeing a shock crit in pvp again.

I play Enh Shaman with a Resto Druid.

Arena = Nagrand
Opposing Team Comp = 2 caster Setup of anykind
Issue= Opposing team runs to one of the Pillar in the middle of the bridge. Jump over and setup their instant cast options.

What do I do?
Heres what I did: Throw Grounding Totem, and jump over to start pounding on the Moonkin. Mistake I know, should have been a cloth wearer.

Results: I died rather quickly.

Question: How you other teams handle this situation?

I had that same issue as you except in my 3's team which is a Warrior/Dreamstate Restokin/Me


For Nagrand we've taken to running straight into the middle UNDERNEATH the bridge. We have the 4 poles to run around. I generally drop all my totems and hang in ghost wolf for a few until they come to us. Just wait them out. Usually they'll jump down with cooldowns popped (If a Mage) and you could have enough time to start purging away. Play defensively till the Druid can get a handle on your healing. I find if I survive the first barrage then we're all set.

Same goes for the Druid friend. Just drop groundings, Wrath of Air, ect.

vs 2 caster DPS I find its mostly defensive till we can get the upper hand.




As for my problem.. survivability.

MS War/Me(Enh)/Dreamstate Restokin

We do fine usually in matches where I live. Thats the major issue.. my survivability. When I'm getting melee focused I end up getting my ass straight up handed to me. He's poppin heals all over me. I pop Shamanistic Rage and drop a shield ect.. pretty much doing everything within my power to stay alive.

No luck usually. Once I'm down it goes downhill. Games where I manage to survive we usually win. Should I just hide in ghost wolf and let my teamates run out first to the fight?

Right now my constant dying is just holding us back.

Yeah. Hrmm..

We have also been running a new comp.. albeit an odd one..

Enh/Dreamstate Restokin/Boomkin.

So far this has worked quite well as I can normally take somebody out on my own while they roots/cyclone the two other teamates while tossing DoT's on my target as well. I also have double the healing capability. Anyone else have experience in that comp? The problem was our Warrior and our new Boomkin arent up to par experiencewise as me and the DS Restokin. So far we've been doing excellent and only losing when I LOS my own heals or one of them just zones out and forgets to heal me completely.

Does anyone use the Resilience Totem, or do you guys generally find that a DPS totem would be better? I'm not sold on using the badge totem since I'm not shocking on every cooldown, so I'm debating between the Astral Winds and the Indomitability.

The two arena options seem questionable for an enhance shaman. The times I'd want an extra 39 res are when I'm getting focused by melee, and in those cases I'm usually shocking/dropping totems and trying to GW kite, not stick around to SS. Personally, with it's 50% proc rate I've never felt like uptime was much of an issue with the stonebreaker.

Hi all... I've been a ghost reader for quite some time, and finally decided to sign up. My current Shammy is Enh, but severely under-geared. I've got full s1 armor and weaps, s3 gloves/bracers/boots; still gotta get my totem (debating the same as Malan; thinking I'm going to farm Astral Winds over pvp) and rings/trink/back.

All that said, I do have some input regarding topics brought up thus far, and some personal experience.

Regarding OH WF/FB: I bought my weapons long before I knew much about the class. I bought both of the S1 fist weapons. I KNOW OH WF is better for sustained DPS. I just haven't had the opportunity to go back and get a slower OH. With that said, Frostbrand has served me very well in PVP. Granted, most of my time is in BGs; but that extra slow really helps me stay on target with out having to spam FS/earthbind/GW. That, and crits for it really aren't that bad. Extremely fun to get that extra slow on a druid trying to heal and run away. I am currently working on upgrading my weaps to s2 axes.

Regarding 2h vs DW: I agree with the majority. DW better, more efficient, damage. 2H More fun for under geared quarry.

The question I have would be for enchantments. I currently have 20 str on both weaps right now, which will get changed once I upgrade them. I was considering Executioner for MH and Mongoose for OH.

My reasoning is this:

Mongoose would proc to give 2% haste, ~4.8% crit (which would push me to ~30% crit) and dodge. I understand this to be stackable, but have yet to see it do that for me. With regards to Executioner, I tried a few number crunches but wound up with a headache. What I have come to believe is that executioner would give a greater return as armor mitigation seems to be constant,( Armor - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft and Image:ArmorVsTimeToLive-LVL70.PNG - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft), or at least more constant than resilience. It would *seem* to me that proc'ing to ignore armor would take priority over agil/dodge/haste.

OTOH, this is just my feeling, I don't have anything to back that up with raw numbers. That and the theme for shaman DPS seems to be to get to 25-30% crit, then stack AP. Since AP is basically raw melee DPS (assumption on my part), it would seem that if I'm already in that crit range, the damage mitigation reduction or AP increase would be better. Do you all have any opinions for weapon enchant configurations?

Executioner provides more damage against low armor targets, mongoose is going to be better against the high armor targets as well as providing you with more dodge against melee attacks. When in doubt, follow the example of the higher ranked enhance shaman, they go with MH Executioner, offhand mongoose for arena.

I guess the next question would be: would it be better to stick with what I have for now and upgrade once I finish filling out gear, or go ahead and grab the enchants now; and why?