Grundar

I have been thinking alot about why enhancement is so difficult in arena in 2s and 3s, and outside the obvious of totems being the same in 2s as in 5s but providing far less total buff power because of group numbers.

I am now thinking that the style of play for enhancement in PVE might be a problem and accepted thinking and theorycrafting from PVE are hurting us. So this is an attempt to think outside the box.

Example, using slow powerful melee weapons for maximum dps.

Last night in losing a couple of matches I noticed that certain players were always on the move and that it was impossible to get hits on them. Not lag related but that they reversed and changed directions all the time (it also seemed like earthbind did less than poison cleansing totem) so that I was rarely hitting them. I have the minor speed enchant and can shock and instant ghost wolf. I was not being cc'd or slown. It was the directional changes that kept me from hitting and from storm striking and about half the time from shocks and purge.

It now seems to me that we almost always lose this type of match while our wins come in matches where there is actually an opportunity to stay on a target who is not moving. Obviously I can not force anyone to stay in melee so I see the question as what can I do to get more hits in this growing circumstance?

Has anyone who has been successful in 2s or 3s as enhancement spec tried using faster weapons in order to avoid this problem?

Does diminishing returns apply to weapon buff? Would three rapid procs of frostbrand make it pointless? According to wowhead frostbrand is not magic and not dispellable, it also has 8-9 ppm and scales.

Has anyone tried a macro to swtich to a fast OH with frostbrand then to swtich back after it procs for damage?

There are many examples of times where high fast dps is not the answer, where patience counts and maybe in arena we need to settle for more hits and maybe using an off hand weapon buff to slow someone and that avoids the use of earthbind matters.

 

panny

We apply pressure through our damage. Without it, the enemy is free to CC/mana burn/etc. It sounds like you're having trouble with movement more than anything. Do you keyboard turn and click skills?

 

Grundar

Panny, yes the movement is killing me.

There is definately a big difference in results when facing (even melee) who move. I have rarely played more than just enough games to qualify for points until the last couple of weeks. I play with mostly RL friends and some guildies and losing is painfull. Once got up to 1540 but that was the highest and several weeks ago. One of our 'guys' got to 1560 and this week our hunter got to 1590 in a different 5s that was to just earn points last night (no shaman in that group).

Yet the step up in number of games seems to me to indicate really good players are moving and winning while we are beating people who stop and try to fight. We (me teamed with Spriest/druid/rogue/HPriest/hunter) have beaten several dual rogue teams that don't move. Last night I was destroyed by a moving warrior and generally I can switch shield in and out and beat a warrior.

I have hot keys for shield macro/shocks but otherwise I use keyboard to turn and mouse to click. I find I am using hotkeys less and less and using mouse click more every week. Trying to control direction with the mouse makes me dizzy.

 

panny

Sorry to tell you this, but until you master mouse turning and keybinding your abiiities, you won't find success as a melee class in PvP. This is especially evident in Enhancement Shsman because our snare is horrible.

 

jlavarj

Season 4 now, I don't know if there are a lot of new surprises in store for enhance shaman. Everything has been tried from frostbrand and 2h weapons to the current norm, and it's been well proven. If you are having trouble, read through this whole forum again and apply points that have consensus to your game. The real answer to moving targets is to partner with someone that can help neutralize them and keep you on target, like a frost mage, druid or pally. That and you need to use keybindings and mouse turning.

 

Talunaar

One of my partners in crime wrote a guide about our last seasons 3vs3 team.

Most of it should be old news to constant readers of this forum, but i think it's at least a good breakfast reading.

 

Daer

I'm only sharing my poor experience, and would greatly appreciate any hint from better arena players. This is how I play and analyze my play.

I'm currently running in 2vs2 with a priest. We reached 1600 last week and hold it this week. My priest is very well geared (a mix of S3/S4). I wear essentially PVE gear with 110 resilience and 11K life (leather chest and legs). I have something like 1600AP, 450 armor penetration, 25-30% crit.

This is my first experience as a melee DPS in arena and I enjoy it.

We really are powerfull against cloth wearers but we made it several times against druid/war, druid/rogue or pala/war, despite my poor resilience/armor. Anyway, this should only count as a 40% chance at the moment. And we are often exploded when the RNG warrior take his luck or the druid plays very well (not so often at this rating). Poison specced rogues are really painful too.

At the moment, I really don't feel like enhancement shaman is bad at pvp nor arena. Our weaknesses are quite frustrating, but our strenghts are really frustrating for opponents :
- very strong against magical capacities : earth shock, grounding totem, purge
- very high burst at will : dual-wield, windfury, bloodlust

Recently, we obtained the instant ghost wolf, making us the best spec against druids in arena. At the time they finally are able to cyclone/root us, we trinket out, launch our burst abilities, putting an insane pressure on them.

I really like playing with a priest, because of:
- prayer of mending (really powerful against dot teams)
- dispell (offensive/defensive)
- mana burn (this put a lot of pressure, doesn't really need to be landed)
- dps : mind blast, smite and death hit for around 1K each

An invaluable advantage at this rating: we are an unusual teamup. Often, teams that should attack right away stare at us trying to understand what is happening : a ghost wolf with mana shield and priest who has no shadowform. Double healer???

The tactic generally consists to smash anyone at reach and to read the game cleverly: switch to the healer or the dps at the right time and you'll win. Switch at the bad time and... well, this is not really a problem, you'll win later when you'll have the good timing. We generally aim at a well placed fear on the healer while we burst the opponent dps. This is not allowing us to kill him, but the pressure is at a maximum: the dps has to play defensively, the healer has to heal (and uncover).

How do we loose?
- rogue + mage: they'll find a time to CC the priest effectively and kill me.
- warrior + healer : lucky RNG warrior will just stunt and root me several seconds whilemortal strike will do its job.
- rogue + healer : the rogue will do its job to protect his healer, while beating on my priest. It takes a while, but when I'm not able to reach the healer, there is no kind of pressure we can put anywhere.
- double frostmage : we generally win these, but when I'm stuck in the middle of arena with decent opponents, there is no way my priest can keep me alive. Generally speaking, we'll loose if I play really bad.

This evening, I'll go buy the S4 chest. Not a really big up I think, but with some more resilience (+30 +35 2-pieces-bonus) and 500 more armor, I should resist way better

 

Blazingwater

With you and you're priest's gear level, you could both get a much higher rating (providing the skill is up there too), but only if you get different partners. With my experience, enhance shaman+healer isn't the best of combos. The shaman lacks CC and snare needed to kill an opponent fast. The burst only happens when you can hit a target, which is getter harder and harder with each patch (ice armor=not fun).

A priest is good for a healer though, if they're specced into silence especially. Although a problem you'll get into is when you try to outlast your opponents, and they find out you're squishy. They would CC the priest anyway, as dispel would be a problem.

Also, at higher ratings, people aren't going to be stupid. One look at your mana will tell them you're enhance.

If you're willing to switch teams, try a BM hunter. Bestrial wrath+bloodlust+your PvE dps gear+MS effect is very hard for anyone to heal through.

With any setup you try, see if you can get some more resil. Try to replace whatever PvE piece you have with a PvP one, trying to get the most resil per loss of PvE stats. If you have any stam gems/enchants, try to replace them with dps or resil stuffs. You can stay around 200-250 resil and 10.5k hp and get up to 1800-1900 easy, depending on the battlegroup, skill, partners' skill, etc. Once you get around those stats, put everything else into dps stuffs.

I'm not telling you how to arena, the point of it is to have fun (and be uber!). Try whatever team you wish.

 

panny

Disc Priest + Enh SHaman does work. The Priest plays very offensively with dispels, Mana Burns and fears, and the Shaman gets ready to switch into a Shield when the Priest needs to drink.

I've tried 2s with BM hunter (with a decent amount of PvE gear) and didn't like it. It's possible we were bad, the Hunter having never played BM (though he had over 2k as MM) and me having never played double DPS.

 

Daer

We tried a silence spec yesterday. This is awesome for our specific combo : paladin+warrior become really easy now (interrupt focus macro on the paladin, dps the warrior, works great when I'm not focused).
Any team able to CC my priest effectively will win, that's a fact (we hate rogue+mage, but managed to beat one yesterday).

Yes, I don't count on stupidity, but some lure is good, isn't it?

The interesting part with this idea is that all combinations of this arena team are viable : shaman+BM, shaman+priest, BM+priest. Just have to find a hunter I guess

I'm on my way to get more resilience. Next step is ring or boots.

A link to my pvp gear, I'll try to update it often: 70 Tauren Shaman (AP gems instead of strength are in prevision of WotLK, I'm not counting on Kings for arenas anyway).

This is the way we are playing!

We also tried another unusual team in 3v3 with a retribution paladin. This is way harder because we lack efficient CC. Not so much strategy to share at the moment, we only played two times, and it's not working well at the moment. The "working" way is to rush and impose our burst to the other team: either we can get a kill in the first 30 seconds, or we have to resist until the DR on most CCs hit them in the face. We have a really hard time to protect our priest and lost at least two matches after having made the first kill. Some work still to be made here I think. Would be better with a MM hunter but, hey, this is a game. Let us have fun!

 

Blazingwater

I would recommend you to replace all of your +stam gems with AP, str, and/or resil. Also picking up +resil to chest will help some. You don't have to replace the stam and resil head enchant though. Try maybe run speed and AP in helm and surefooted (I think that's the name, lol) on boots, or cat's swiftness on boots and another dps gem in head.

2v2 with a healer can work just fine, but you'll have to know what you're doing, and in most cases enhance shaman can achieve higher ratings doing a double dps. I myself am in a 2v2 with a resto druid, only hovering around 1560 atm. Some teams can be just about impossible (lock+ice mage I think was one, or lock+healer. Point is it was a ~10min battle where no one on their team lost much mana and hp when it ended.), but many double dps are doable, just because the druid can kite and CC enough for me to kill something before one of us die.

But whatever.

 

panny

You realise you haven't given us any reasons why double dps is better than dps/healer, and your ratings are far too low to take your word for it.

 

Rako

If your problem is keeping in contact with targets then fast weapons is worst not better. Using a 2 hander might be your best bet. Now I know dual wielding is better over all, but the less you are in contact with your target the better 2 handers are. It means you can hit and SS then dont need to reaquire target for 3+ seconds. Not the best solution, but when I was Keyboard turning it actually worked for me. Also I would burst, and then run or ghost wolf around a pillar. If just running i would drop 4 totens and SS would eb back up and burst again. If I need to GW then I pull thier DPS with me while my teammate (lock) would dot them all up while they chased me. Of cousre the higher rankede teams it might not work as well.



To Daer, You really need to get more pvp gear. 110 res on shamans is very bad. Even with a priest you will get targeted first so you need the res even more then the priest. I know it hard to give T6 some times, but your teamate will notice the difference fast then you. The priest shoudl be able to DPS more and heal you less.

 

Blazingwater

Apologies.

Enhance shaman are very easy to snare, slow, CC, etc. Hard to make contact with decent teams that know what they're doing. Without full contact, it's hard to pressure a team, and harder to kill someone on the team. Our main burst comes from a 40sec dispelable buff, and contact with an enemy.

Double dps, especially one with a MS effect, puts a lot of pressure on the other teams, with or without bestial wrath, BL, etc. A double dps only works well with another person with good CC (to protect you (ice mage especially)), or with a MS effect. Using all CDs (BL, bestial wrath, etc), it's unrealistic the other team can heal through that. Against double dps is harder, just have to either try and kite them while your opponent can kill one, or burst on a target and try to live (SR and shield comes in handy).

I've had a 2v2 and 5v5 with ratings of 1650+, and have had much adivce given from higher rating teams with those types of makeups.

Please don't call me a noob

 

Daer

While I totally agree with you, I just want to emphasize the fact that we are able to survive at 1600+ because of my PVE gear. If I'd wear S1 gear at the moment, I wouldn't be able able to kill S3 druids this fast. There are plenty of S3 geared people in my battlegroup, at the rating of 1500-1600.

But the way to a better rating is to be able to survive longer on my own, and this will go with more PVP gear, that's a fact.

 

zamoda

Ugh, you kill druids with this setup.. Is it realy true that the difference between Cyclone and other battlegroups in player skill so big, maybe its time to trasfer :-)

I played 2v2 dpriest/shaman all 3 seasons with my mate. Highest in season3 was something around 1900. Druid healer is just impossible to kill. I just dont see how melee shaman can catch the druid. If rng was unlucky for him that he is in little trouble, his partner will always be able to peel shaman. Be it rogue/warrior/warlock/hunter.

Any rogue+healer is a loss. Rogue neutralizes melee shamans so well that it is not even funny. sometimes they even let shaman run free, and rogue sits on me full time, and i just run out of mana. Melee shaman can not kill any healer on his own (try in duel, just let priest stand still and cast rank1 gheals and melee tremor/fear every cd, it will take 5mins for shaman to kill a priest) Only the stupid healers die - i.e. the ones who run from shaman(not druids). Maybe it is my issue and i need l2p, but thats how I see it.

Healer/warrior we try to go after the healer if it is not going well we try to kill warrior. If they have learned how to switch to def stance and how to equip shield we usually loose :-) Smart ones escape with intervene, and oom shaman can not put enough preasure (we have 20% healing debuf thanks to troll ratial but druids with half a brain remove it as soon it is cast).
Shaman/war we oom shaman and switch to war. Ench shaman can not finish even oom resto shaman thanks to water shield regen and Nature's Guardian talent. I can not help on dps at that time because usually my own mana pool is dry.


Mana burns do not help much. If dps is on priest, usualy there is no time/out of range/no los to cast mana burn.

Well good luck with your combo, I hope that you dont go mad about abundant druids and rogues in this bracket (well maybe it is not a problem for you if you kill druids ;-) ). Sometimes it is realy fun to dance on warriors body and look at the clueless druid thinking wtf :-)
My partner has leveled a rogue already. Dark side is strong :/

 

Daer

Keep in mind that at my current rating, I meet a lot of bad players.

Druids that are killed fast are the ones who don't use all their possibilities. I think they're not aware of enhance shaman capabilities (grounding, interrupt/snare each 6 seconds). Average bad druids will land a cyclone or root but will try to heal just two steps of me. This is time for trinket+APboost+bloodlust.

On the other hand, there are great druids, with decent partner, that I never reach. Don't misunderstand me: we usually lose to druids+melee.

Did you try a silence spec? At our latest attempt, my priest tried it (40/0/21). We found it very powerfull.

Oh and don't transfer to my BG, we speak french here

 

panny

Dpriest/Enh isn't bad. There are videos of 2k+ ratings of it out. Last season, I helped boost a friend's Priest (S2 gear) that needed 1850 PR using that comp. On BG9, so let's not start battlegroup shit.

Purge is almost as good as MS when it comes to HoTs. The idea against Druid teams is to focus their DPS, while spamming purge. The Disc priest spams damage/PW:S/mana burn where appropriate. If you need a breather or want to go for a kill, drag their DPS behind a pillar. Either their DPS dies, runs away, or the Druid comes into range of fear. Then, you can make a choice to stay on their DPS or switch to the Druid.

Rogue/Dpriest is harder due to lower reliance on HoTs, but it's the same idea. (Close to a counter comp).

Healer/Warrior is very winnable. With a shield you have equal mitigation, and some of your damage goes through armour. Dispel hots/shock heals/mana burn the healer. Get the innervate if its a Druid.

Saying that Enhancement Shaman can't kill any healer on their own is ridiculous, when you consider how hard it is for a Rogue or Warrior to kill a Disc Priest by themselves. In fact, I'm pretty sure Disc Priest beats them both in duels, whereas Enhancement Shaman can beat any healer but Dreamstate Druid or Resto Shaman with ease.

 

Ardonomus

How do you gem in a combo like that? Personally I've gemmed myself offensive since I'm in a low rating 5's at the moment where I'm usually free to roam around doing what I want. I'm just unsure what to do if I'm to pair up with a disc priest (which I'm likely to do soon).

Since I'd be the main DPS'er and he'd be healing, should I stay with my offensive gems, or will I end up tanking a lot as well due to the nature of the disc priest being a difficult target for the opponents to kill?

 

ktimekiller

Im Dorrus of Tichondrius, currently I am sitting at 1950 2s, a pathetic experimental 1777 3s, and i think 1721 5s.

For 2s, I run with a average player druid, and we so far have gotten I think 120ish games in, not quite 2050 yet, we have been stuck in 1950s for a few weeks.

As for 3s, its a experimental 3s including my 2s druid, me, and a third partner who has 4 different 70s. We have been trying his rogue, lock, and a friend spriest, with a mix of me being enh, and resto. Its still in works of finding what we like best heh.

As for 5s, its a team of a friend of mine who invited me to do some 5s today with a bunch of people I never heard of, obviously have some stuff to work on. Oh, its a cleave 3 dps team btw. war, rogue, dpriest, hpally, enh.

clearly, im not in push's caliber, but I have fought him in 2s and 3s before i transfered, and we had a good time talking to each other afterwards and commenting on each of our playstyle and whatnot. (he was doing resto in 2s heh)

Im hoping to find myself a above average druid soon and push to 2050 and above, maybe even 2200 if I am lucky, and the stars are aligned, but 1950 is my current state.

If anyone have questions go ahead and shoot, ill answer them if I can.

 

panny

Just try it, and see how it goes. I personally went for ~400 resil, but how much is up to what kind of teams you play and how you guys play. Harliya made a video of this comp (currently ~2k) and runs 415 resil.

 

ktimekiller

isnt emberstorm ranked one of the lowest if not the lowest bg?

 

panny

Yes ;D

 

Melg

I got up to just above 2000 rating as Enhancement in season 3 with a druid (BG Cyclone), but after that we hit a wall with all those druid/warrior teams. I didn't use that much resilience. The setup wasn't all that bad against double dps but outlasting was impossible without MS. I don't doubt it'd be worse now with the undispellable mage and lock shields, as well as the elimination of point sellers.

 

ktimekiller

From what ive seen, your best bet against a warrior is hope that hes sword (rare) and completely outplay the druid.

Also, its nearly impossible to burst down the warrior, even a successful burst that gets the warrior very low will blacklash at you when hes at 100% rage, and the druid healed him to full with NS.

Your druid needs to try to kite him, while you off shock the warrior with rank 1 frost shock to slow him, it will help out plenty, even if it means your getting cced, it also means their warrior gets cced. Remember, even if you get cced, its never as long as a warrior, so your recovery time is much higher, and if you let the warrior beat on your druid freely, the efficiency of MS vs enh is fail.

Also, another strategy if the map or situation allows it is to cyclone bounce and dps both. Cyclone druid dps war until hes immune to cyclone, cyclone warrior and dps druid until hes immune, then switch. This doesnt work on big maps obviously and needs special requirements.

even played right, its difficult to win. Also, being dreamstate helps alot in this particular fight.