Gbits

So do we think that elemental is a better bet for PvP dps at the moment? I'm resto for PvE, but my background is enhance, and when my arena team opted to go full dps I volunteered to respec on the weekends. I had thought to go Enhance, since that's what I knew, but I suppose I could just as easily go Elemental using my Resto PvP gear.

Thoughts? Also, are there any really good theorycrafting/discussion-related sites for shaman PvP? Most of what I'm finding elsewhere is dreck, and the PvP area here is a little thin compared to the awe-inspiring PvE databank.

 

• Juice

I can't say from personal experience. Based on anecdotal experience, I think either dps shaman is going to get dogpiled. An enhance may be move effective while under pressure than an elemental, given anti-snare abilities and pets. However, I'd guess both of them get non stop pressure and have a hard time bringing much to the table, except being a target so the rest of the team can perform.

Do you find yourself being the target of the opposing team? If so, resto is probably more effective. You produce nearly as much dps as a targetted elemental (which is to say nearly zero) but are able to stand up much longer to fire. It really depends on the bracket and the comp you play. If your team can keep the dogpile off you (by either peeling or presenting a more enticing target elsewhere) then elemental will produce some very solid dps.

 

phasedweasel

I'm curious how much you value stamina vs. resilience for your defensive stats. I play an enhancement shaman in 3's with a druid and a DK, and my role is basically "rodeo clown". I drop totems, heroism and hex and then just attempt to stay alive long enough to get an opposing member down. I know you need a life pool large enough to survive burst, but after a certain point it's more helpful to reduce incoming damage via resilience than to simply add more stamina. I'm sitting currently around 19k life with Mark of the Wild, and I'm trying to decide between gemming stamina or resilience in new pieces. Thanks for your insight!

 

panny

I really wouldn't obsess over resil vs stam at your gear level. Work on getting more Heroic Naxx gear first.

For the record, I go for resil, but I have around 20k HP already.

 

tylore

Any word on Glyphs? I'm trying to decide what major glyphs are the most useful.

I have what increased WF proc glpyh, the increased frost shock duration, and decreased fire nova totem CD. I've been wondering about the decreased GCD for shocks and how effective that is, particularly if I were to spec into the reduced shocks by 1 second, I could probably get rid of the increased FS duration if I was shocking more often.

Also is it the general consensus that Wf/WF is the best combo for PVP? I know there's supposed to be a slight increase in DPS with WF/FT in PvE but I was thinking WF/WF was pretty much the standard. Recently I've been trying some WF/FB as well just to see if there was any increased benifet with the snaring FB might add but I'm not sure this really even stacks with FS or EB and it procs less. Can anyone clear that up for me? I'd like them to make FB into a PvP buff.

I like Enhancement and I really want to make it work because I enjoy playing it but at this point I need a lot of improvement. Doing all I can just to stay around 1500. First, I know I need to improve my gear but from there on I'm just looking for the best strategy.

In fact, It's be awesome if someone made a new thread seeing how much we've changed since this one started.

Things it'd be important to cover...
Basic builds
Best talents
Good PvP gear

-weapons
-armor
-trinkets
-Enchants

Weapon Buffs

-WF/WF?
-WF/FT?
-WF/FB?

Glyphs
GCDs
Good Partners

-2v2
-3v3
-5v5

Good Targets
Basic Strategy
Totem usage
Wolf Usage
Bloodlust Usage

If I was any good I'd do it but I'm not... yet.

 

Infuri

Hey all, I've been thinking about trying out a "porcupine" build based around comments made on the blizzard forums around frost brand weapon. The thought it using an elemental set with an enhancement build. Putting frostbrand on both weapons (faster the better), and having all the increases to Lightning shield (20% glyph, 15% talents, 10% tier 7 two piece).

From what I've read, this is the calculation for LS

Percentages are multiplicative not additive.

So:

15% from imp. shield talent -1.15
28% from glyphed stormstrike - 1.28
20% from lightning shield glyph - 1.20
10% from Tier 7 2 piece - 1.10

So the base damage of lightning shield would be

380 * 1.15 * 1.28 * 1.20 * 1.10 = 740

This is before spelldamage modifiers.

From what I've read, it's 26.7% bonus spell damage per charge. So, assuming 2.5k spell power (pretty average with elemental pvp gear and enhancement talents) the numbers look like this:

2.5k*.267 = 667 per charge.


So, we're looking at ~1400 damage per charge. Considering it procs ~5 seconds, that's 280 dps on the target, even while silenced. Then consider the 6% chance to trigger lightning shield through static shock + the procs of frostbrand from 2 fast weapons, and you have quite a bit of damage flying at the target.

I figure this is worth a try, and could just be fun for a little change of pace.

Anything I'm missing here?

 

missiletoad

That you're losing a massive amount more dps than the 280 dps you gain by wearing Elemental gear with an Enhancement build, perhaps?

 

Rouncer

Also Frostbrand is a PPM mechanic so there is no point to having faster weapons since faster weapons just lead to a decreased proc rate per hit to keep the PPM constant. Maybe you are thinking of Flametongue?

 

panny

Also, I don't think the multipliers work like that. I know when I tried it with S2 glove bonus, it applied to the base value of Lightning Shield instead of final.

For PvP, I've tried all sorts of combinations. In general, WF/WF is the best. If you're dueling a high armour class, you can use a shield and MH FT, but you wouldn't use it for arena.

 

tylore

Any thought on the best glyphs for PvP? I like my decreased CD on the fire nova totem for the stun. I've found to be invaluable against healers and occasionally rouges. The WF glyph I'm not really sure about, I wonder with the increased percentage if it makes it more allowable to have a different OH weapon imbue. My last glyph the Frost shock one is the one I'm thinking about changing the most. I think two options would be either the increased crit with flametounge imbue or decreased GCD on shocks. The Increased crit would help with up-time on ele-devastation (especially since I have talented into increasing my spell damage crits) where the decrease in GCD is always helpful.

 

Infuri

Yup, you were right. Lost too much damage from it on the main hand, so went with my crimson steel main hand with windfury and enhance gear, but frostbrand in the offhand, and it actually worked really well. The damage lost isn't significant, but the 50% slow undispellable was actually quite useful. Made me have my shock cooldown available to interrupt a lot more.

Also, the calculations were correct on lightning shield though, although my spell power never got to 2.5k, it was more like 2k. The lightning shields were procing for ~1400. Something I didn't know, which kinda sucks, is that lightning shield can't crit. Not sure why not as earth shield can, but that's something that surprised me.

I'd recommend people to give frost brand a try in pvp. Especially when facing a kiting class or anything with a cleanse button.

 

Hakaishin

Has anyone had any sort of success running a caster Enhancement shaman? I'm curious whether it would be a decent versatile all-rounder, or if it would just completely fail compared to a pure Enhancement or Elemental build.

 

Malan

What does that even mean?

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Neurosisxeno

I was wondering the same thing...

 

panny

I use Frostbrand offhand in WSG. The damage loss is far too high in a normal situation. Actually, I'd be okay with the massive damage loss if Frostbrand was actually reliable at keeping a target in range. It's not. Go with double slow WF and switch in a fast FT OH if you're up against a plate team.

 

tylore

Great info, I've been using FB in Arenas but maybe I should switch back to WF/WF. I just hate the OH "stealing" WFs but I guess its better than no WF at all. I really wish they just straight up made FB a PVP enchant and make it have another effect, proc more often, or have a synergistic benefit (Like FS on a target that FB had procced on would root them in place)

BTW RAtaxes on the EU servers has been getting back to the upper tiers again. His team is ranked 10th in the 3 man divisions and he's enh. It looks like he goes with the more protective build with the 10% armor talent and the dodge talent.

The 10% armor just seems very underpowered to me. I mean an extra 800-1000 armor - for 5 points and forget about the slowing effects. For 2 talent points I can get rid of slowing effects with a quick EB totem drop.

If anyone's on a EU server they should try and get him here to lay out the juicy details of winning in PVP with an ENH shaman.

 

panny

Seriously, though, is the battlegroup that he's from good? I don't know Euro BGs.

 

kaoticz

I had a very interesting conversation with another enhance shaman on the blizz forums today, I'm 1940 rated as Enhance in 2v2 with my Survival Hunter partner, and I figured I would share the questions asked of me here as well to help out anyone who might be interested in doing the 2v2 this season. Hope this helps! Feel free to ask me questions in game via pm or mail, I play more often than I should :P I don't consider myself a pvp guru or to be the best or anything, I just felt I should share this with the community and see what others are thinking as well. I'm a PvE player at heart

Original Thread


No not at all!

Yeah you're probably seeing my full PvE spec and gear. I've actually swapped my spec around a little every time I play. I really want 3.1 to hit so I can grab 3 pts back from UR to make sure I always have anticipation, but atm I find that it is not a game breaking factor to have or not have it as I can still heal and hex and run away.

Have you been affected by or even noticed the recent bug with the wolves not responding to pet bar commands? Everyone has =( it has cost us a few games where I couldn't break out of a root to finish something off before they get away/get healed.

My 2's partner Kalethin specs Survival, and he is very good at managing to peel players off me. I stack resilience gear and 90% of the time my MW5 stacks go into healing myself and Kalethin (I have a macro so I don't have to swap targets, /cast [target=Kalethin] Healing Wave). Sometimes I am able to use my MW for LB but it is a rare scenario. For us to win we have to survive long enough to drop at least one of their teammates, if I die or he dies after we've dropped one we usually win.

How do you handle rogue/DPS and mage/DPS? The way we handle rogue/mage , is we get the mage to iceblock right off the bat, no matter what, we just go all out on the mage and try to get into combat as soon as the game starts. Whenever we don't see the 2nd teammate on a team and don't see a mark of the wild buff we can safely assume a rogue is on the team. If one of us gets sapped the game is pretty much over for us, because if we trinket the sap we will get blinded or dismantled or stun locked without our trinket up to get us out of those. We have to avoid the sap at all costs.

As soon as the rogue comes into play Kalethin either scatter shots him to get him off me or Wyvern stings him to put him to sleep. Either way the rogue usually blows a trinket here. When the rogue is able to move again I 90% of the time must hex the rogue in order to survive long enough to kill the mage, but depending on the situation I might throw the hex on the mage (since damage doesn't break hex right away). Of course grounding totem is used off every cooldown and wolves are popped at the start with this combo because I have to survive any initial burst the rogue and mage put on me. I also pop shamanistic rage as soon as the mage starts attacking back.

Do you shield swap? I don't shield swap right now (I did in BC), I plan to buy the Deadly shield and see how it works out but with the current burst in arena you need to survive as long as you can while still doing as much damage as you can to end the damage source.

How do you handle holy pally / x ? Holy Paladin/Warrior if played right will beat our combo 95% of the time. Depending on the make up we might swap to the paladin after the bubble is gone or stay on their teammate and finish them off. The way we handle this make up though is Kalethin pretty much controls the paladin while dps'ing the teammate. He'll scatter/wyvern the pally, and when he can no longer do anything to the pally because of cooldowns, I'll interrupt whatever the pally starts casting and then start casting my hex on the pally. At some point out of the 3 things he needs to bubble to save his teammate, and heroism is blown when he gets hexed to force that bubble since his trinket should be gone. It's all about control.

In terms of totems for each arena match, worrying about keeping all of them down and using the GCD to cast them instead of a purge or any part of the priority rotation usually hurts more than it helps. I just make sure to grounding totem every time its off cooldown, use tremor totem if needed, use earthbind if needed, and use poison/disease cleansing totem when needed. If I can I'll throw out a frost resist totem to help lower damage a little.

 

Israfel

I was going to post this EXACT same thing, lucky I read the post first.

Shameless bump to bring attention for the hopeless Enhancement Shaman PvP!

 

Watipah

Hey, me and my holy paladin are rated 1930 right now with a lucky 10 wins in a row ( 3 or 4 very hard matches )

So it's an other point of view then Kaoticz has.
- Hardest comb vs. us are all hunter healer combs.. cause of ms mass dmg and incredible cc ... (vs hunter diszi we lost within one cc chain although my ghosewolfes healed me and i could use instant heal once while wearing a shield in my offhand... cause of this chain)
- Hardest Healers are shamans right now, i can't kill a good healing shaman in one on one.. even if he's oom, cause i will be oom too... (of cause there is a change with good support of my paladin)
- double dd teams aren't that easy to defeat... especially rogue frostmage but it's still possible... starting with onehand and shield focussing the mage until he goes into ice block, then hit the rogue... use the ae stun of firenova totem vs rogue as often as possible.. losses will mostly appear if i'm oom... (this will probably change with 3.1 so it will be great)
- Healer DD teams in general are hard to defeat.. but it isn't that bad balanced if the don't have constant ms ( so hunters and fury are much too op vs enhancement in arena ), but hunters will get some nerfs, will be rootet by forstshock etc in the future... fury will still be impossible to defeat, if playing quite well
- Rogues as worst ennemy on lv 70 right now are quite balanced vs enhancement i think... starting a fight with a shield in my oh and switching to oh if my pala is cct works quite well... kiting with earthbind totem in cc situations, using manareg only while all ccs are on cd, or insignia ready to use should lead to a win
- Target switching: There are lots of wins because I switch targets, it will be very expensive for priests and druids to hot, shield both players all the time.. in fact they will be oom too fast if they do... in consequence to this target switching will force them to spent mana for both of them... and aditionally give the possibility to burst a nonhottet dd while the healer is ccd, drinks, jumps down the bridge.. etc... so don't try to focus only one target all the time, if you want to be successful!
- Hex, slowtotem, lavaburst, instant lightning bolt, fire nova ae stun: if target switching doesn't work vs healer dd combs you either have to play the ennemy healer oom, or use a chain of your ccs ... slow the healer with earthbind totem, (or better get him stunned by your pala ), put ae fire nova totem, flameshock, lavaburst, lightning bolt, stormstrike, windschock him and try to kill... it's not that easy because ennemys can move while frogged but it sometimes works.. especially combined with ghostwolves..
- other way is firenova totem, windschock ... -> stun inc... -> wind/earthschock again and deal dmg.. but this will only work after a target switch on a non hottet, or lowlife healer... we are missing dmg ;-)

Classes:
- another tip vs diszi priests: if they run towards you they usually want to fear ... put grounding totem on a new place so they can't hit it with their melee weapon right before they fear, put grounding too... if stunned by rogue you can't this and manaburn will hurt much... target switch to the priest too if he stands next to you.. so he always has to do this run towards you to fear... (he can't survive for a long time standing in your melee range/ looses too much mana this way)
- DKs earthbind totem is your most powerful weapon in those fights... kill their pets so they can't stun you/your healer, always kite if the gargoyle is outside / help your healer if he has dk aggro bye slowing/frog the dk)
- defeat dk's healer normally... they will probably be easier to kill... except heal shamans .. ther you really have to go for the dk... if your healer gets trouble support him!... if ennemy healer wants to drink do what you think is better in this situation... killing the dk/bursting him so the healer has to heal him, or follow the healer ... there isn't the best solution... it's the situation...
Hunters: Try to burst him or his healer with heroism/blootlost and ghostwolfes... switch to mh and shield / put poison clearnsing totem vs cc, keep next to the hunter .. use maelstrom for heals while your healer is cct... and hope your ennemys healer won't succed in one of the situations ghost wolves are active... (then with oh weapon again...
Feral: Hit the Feral while in cat... hit the healer while feral is in dire bear form...still interrupt/grounding totem his cc...you won't be able to kill a feral with his regeneration ability active.. even switching to dire bear form with 2k hp left... don't try it... switch target... (i tryed to often right now.. even with ghostwolves active.. their regeneration is increibly sick) instead interrupt his healer from drinking....
warlock: Easiest ennemy in 2vs2 arena... always hit the warlock.. purge him... kill his pet if it's low cause of soullink / purge pet too.... locate his demonic circle so you don't wonder where he's gone... fight next to his demonic circle of possible... play his healer oom.... and kill one of them
mage in double dd combs: don't let a frostmage cast... don't get sheeped, vs illsusion sheep you can't do anything so keep only in mind that his partner can cc too.. so which is the worst situation without insignia, kill his frost elemental only in mage healer combs/ while standing in frostnava next to it... use your frog it will help your healer to survive... attack the mages partner if he vanishes....he will regenerate anyways... so do your best you can survive the second attack chain of the double dd comp...
Retardins: purge and focus... grounding always active... in double dd combs hit him first all the time.. using ghostwolfes, heroism/bloodlust, slow (if he wants to attack your partner), fire nova totem stun.... regenerate health while he bubbles... and kill him after....
Rogue: kite, use your shield and burst .. do remember which cds he has active and which not...
Fury warrior: max dps him, cc his healer... and be happy if he tries to focus your healer (then of cause kill his one)
Moonkin: don't get cct, hit him burst him, let his trees hit your stoneclaw totem/kill them with firenova and magma totem, don't let him escape.. purge hots if shapeshifted... never let him hit with starfire on either you or your partner...

So guys i hope i was able to help some of you to have at least a bit of fun in arena again.... don't give up.... enhancement is weak but can still be good enough to defeat many teams... although you will never defeat a top played ennemy team that isn't warlock/healer or dk/retardin ....

Suggestion: Because Enhancement has lost most of it's Burst dmg.. the idea of an Healing Reduction Effect could be viable again... I would suggest a 5% healing reduce that stacks 5 times... and is only caused by using lavalash... this would make that skill a viable one and it would give us a chance vs fury, hunters, rogues and healers again...
This debuff should'nt last longer then 15 secs.. so it would take 30secs to debuff your ennemy and only 6(cd) + 9secs to remove it either completely or stack by stack... this would be an very interesting point of ms i think.. and it would finally make lavalash (which is nerfed a bit for pvp by 25% cause of frostbrand instead of flametongue on oh) a viable skill and the PvP totem relict senseful...