Very informative thread thus far (dismissing the earlier warlock trolling).

I've been gearing up my alt Enhancement shaman with S1 Gladiator and S3 honor gear, and I've been pleased with the results thus far. Even though her gear isn't complete, her damage and hardiness has increased substantially with only a few upgrades, and I believe that I have a good feel for Enhancement's strengths and weaknesses.

All of that said, I've begun thinking about getting into arenas. Battlegrounds still retain some enjoyment for me, but I'd just like a shot at some of the newer gear, so I have a few questions.

1. What arena items should I be aiming for? Weapons first or armor (i.e. S3 Enhancement gloves)? By far, the biggest increase in my DPS came from upgrading from [Creepjacker] and [Mag'hari Fury Brand] to [Gladiator's Right Ripper] and [Gladiator's Cleaver], but something like an additional 5-yard range on shocks seems very appealing as well.

2. When is the right time to switch to a shield? When I'm getting focus fired or before that occurs? Should I just start arena games with a shield equipped already and then switch to an offhand weapon when it seems safe or when we really need more damage?

3. Should I wait to start doing arenas until I've acquired a certain amount of gear or should I not take it that seriously (since this would be my alt)?

4. If I'm doing arenas with a warrior, should I be dropping rank 1 Windfury Totem (65 mana with 3/3 Mental Quickness and 5/5 Totemic Focus) or rank 5 (224 mana)? I ask this because I'm not sure how big of a difference in damage output it would be versus mana consumption.

5. With exception to removing the last stack of Lifebloom, is there ever a bad time to use Purge?

I'm not sure if that patch came out making it so you can't switch anything in arena yet. If it has, you can pretty much ignore my post in its relation to arena. Still useable in BGs for anyone who thought it might be of some use.

As I've said before, it's been a while since I've done arena.

Can't answer the rest, but start with Arenas asap.

Even if you lose every single game for weeks straight, you'd still get more points and thus more gear than you would if you didn't play.

You can always disband the team and start over if it really drops to abysmal ratings.

It's a fun idea, but as Caligula sarcasticly suggested, gear swapping (other than weapon/shield/offhand) is no longer allowed, due to resist gear sets on some teams. Even if it was allowed, or you do it in a bg, I think too many times you would be caught off guard wearing blue lvl 60 boots instead of your vidicator gear...dramatic differece. I would however recommend you enchant your boots with boar's speed (+8% run speed and +9 stamina) though.

EDIT: Was reading through again and saw that you mentioned WSG flag running. I think that is about the only time I would try it. Even still you have druids with a similiar buff on their arena gear, and you have to play WSG awfully competively to get worked up about this.


1. Kudos to the weapons! You're right about the season 3 gloves, the bonus is a big upgrade from the last 2 seasons. Once you have the gloves and weaps, just fill in weakest spot and go up from there.

2. Definately start DW, no reason to gimp your damage right away or get caught in a GCD because you have to swap. I think the time to go to a shield is if:
-You have more than 1 type of physical damage on you.
-At about 1/2 life with a physical damage on you, you see that you are losing the race.

Again this varies with mileage. A ret pally will try to burst you down fast with a hoJ ---> rep combo sorta kinda stunlock thing. If you don't want to trinket out of this, shield + SR will give you 80%+ reduction to physical damage.

It seems to be more popular to use a shield quicker in 2v2 as well.

3. Start arena ASAP! It doesn't matter if you go 0-10 every week for a month, points are points and they add up, not to mention the experience you get in. You'll might start out against overgeared opponents but there isn't a massive difference between season 1 and season 2/3 so as you keep up with bgs, you'll catch up quicker than you might think.

4. I am assuming you are rolling with melee heavy team if you are dropping windfury. You want to be using your max; use SR and the improved 2.3 WS to get your mana back up.

5. Watch out for pallies. Seals are going to stick now so you will just mana burn yourself trying to take it off. Their blessings can be cheap so if they just keep putting them up for you to purge, concede the battle and save your mana. Same with any class that tries duping you with "dummy" (rank 1) buffs. Don't dispel a disc priest Pain suppresion, it has 85% dispell resistance with silent resolve so save your mana if you see their blue bubble.

1. I'd grab the gloves first. +5 yards on shocks is very nice.

2. I start my games with the shied equipped in case there's a Rogue (you can work out the opposing class comp fairly easily from looking at their buffs). I'll switch back if there's no Rogue or if I'm not being stunlocked. In 5v5, I'll switch to shield if a Warrior intercepts me and starts DPSing (as opposed to Hamstringing and going back to a different target). Otherwise, I stick to DW

3. Welfare epic your way up as much as possible. Every week you don't do 10 games is wasted points. Remake the team if you bomb too much.

4. It will depend on your team's composition, your opponent's composition, bracket, and map. If you're playing against a team on a map where you don't expect to move around much and you don't expect mana issues, use max rank WF totem, otherwise use rank 1.

5. Personally, I keep Druids completely purged. If not, Natural Perfection/Lifebloom stacks up and you can miss purging a Rejuv, letting him Swiftmend.

As I bought the subject up I guess i should give your more specific use of the thing. And please dont generelize it over other situations not mentioned here.

First, the thread originally was not only about arenas but PVP, thats also BG-s, duelling, wolrd-pvp. And escpecially duelling in mind I proposed it - if u duel as enh vs a good resto shaman, frostband on OH could be a good idea.
Why?
- easy to loose/win shaman vs shaman kitting, you both have same length of snares (unless you have some talents on reverberation).
- frostband ignores armor
- OH windfury not proccing makes all the WF procs to be mainhand, yes, wf procs in total less, yes, in total less damage, but not THAT less as mere numbers of how many WF procs in total there are might suggest - no offhand -50% damage windfury procs
- frostband damage goes up with spelldamage

Last comment was hint to a very fucked up situation - vs a resto shaman I do much better with full pve gear (DUEL). Typical restoshaman spellcrit rate is what, 6% on shocks? Only dot is a flameshock dot - not much point of resilliance gear. And instead of 5,6k mana I have 7,1k. Higher AP, more spelldamage, more meleedamage. And hold your flamewar. I know its a fucked up situation that I really hate - example of blizzard superiour balancing skills. But if i loose a duel vs a goodgeared arenaresto, I hit an itemrack button and ask for re. And is probably only true if you got tier6 or equal gear that is actually better than merc/vengful gladi gear.

Before going any further, to avoid another flamewar, its about duel or battleground or outdoor PVP situations where you see who are you going against and that you will have 1vs1 with him and can switch gear (same as I switch on some shadowres (or 315 thats with me for raiding) if im protecting a flag in AB and i see a solo warlock heading my way, lame, mybe, but Id rather win him with 80% hp left than 10% and loose flag for next person on his way down).

Quick test showed that with some of the AP increasing stuff procing I get 2400 ap that results ~720 spelldamage and frostband hits for 380. If you do team BG-s, you could have all the raidbuffs and get much higher AP/spelldamage. Highest AP on me seen in raids is ~3700/1150 spelldamage. And if you keep kitting in mind, then out of range = 0 dps, it has its use.

Above doesnt, most probably never be use IN ARENA, please note that before mindlessly commenting.

Using Frostbrand against another Resto Shaman would be foolish. You absolutely should not be kited by another Shaman as Enhancement: between Earthbind Totem (unavoidable snare for the opposition--can't Ground it!), Grounding Totem, Searing to break his Grounding Totem, and your Frost Shock, there's no excuse for not staying within melee range.

Using a rare-proccing, weak slow with minimal damage does nothing but hinder your damage. Even if the slow was the full 50%, it wouldn't be close to worth it.

The argument that not using WF on your OH helps your MH procs is unfounded. WF/WF adds monumentally more damage than anything else, as well-proven.

Without rolling as much damage as possible, you'll get beaten by Nature's Guardian.

As far as using PvE gear over PvP...maybe in duels.

But to mention duel strategy when discussing PvP is kind of pointless. Duel-specific strategies don't help in Arenas. There's no way you'd end up facing a Resto Shaman in Arenas with your PvE gear on.

Bingo. SS alone does more damage, and given that a DW SS has a vastly greater chance of proccing further WF damage, the gap widens. There is simply no comparison. DW's overall damage is much greater. Again, 2H is occasionally capable of greater burst, and that well-timed burst might win you one match, but meanwhile you've lost ten due to the greater DPS you've sacrificed.

You really need to do a bit more research before you post things like this.

If your intent is to make some outlandish claim and then back it up with a rare and altogether pointless scenario to prove it's effectiveness, save it. No one here cares about fucking duels. We also don't care about potions and engineering trinkets, cause those things won't be found in the arena....just like your PvE equipment storyline. If you can't find an application for your idea in enhancement shaman arenas and, to a much lessor extent, BGs, then let it go or save it for the WoW forums. Don't fag up this thread trying to defend your idea with a one in a thousand scenario possibility.

1. I would go for the Gloves and weapons first. Getting the gloves is the easiest and quickest + gives the 5yd range. Then you should get the weapons (s2 if you cant get the personal rating) Then fill the rest of the slots.

2. - Get a target of target Mod. If there is more than 1 melee that are visable and they are targetting you, equip your sheild. You can get out healed on the damage of one melee with SR and healing on you.
- If there is a stealthed class that you can identify as a rogue (as opposed to a druid (you can tell by buffs) switch to sheild because they could go for you. If they dont and their stealth is broken, unless they start attacking you switch to DW and continue to DPS.

I personally equip the weapons that give me the most health, so if i do switch i dont "lose" health.

3. Do arenas ASAP! Doesnt matter about gear! Points are points. Even at a low rating you can save up points, then as you start getting new gear you will see your rating increase thus more points.

4. As said before, drop the highest rank WF, you can get mana back with SR and mana spring if you drop it (which you should for your healer if you dont come against anything that can poison)

5. Again as said before. Pally blessings are annoying. Alot of the time they will recast over and over, so if you see that happening, stop purging. I keep druids purged completely because i can out damage lifebloom and they wont get any other heal off while spam purging- Bear in mind if they are kiting you, make sure you use it between Frostshock and Earthbind, otherwise you waste a GCD and they can get away.

Emaze, i took the liberty of quoting everything Push and Sebudai said about gems in this thread.

Conclusion: Gem for setup. If you get focused, go for defensive, if you dont; go for damage (but dont nerf your defense too much)


I have just re-read this thread and found the macro:

You should really search through the thread before you ask a question, chances are (like in this case) it's already been answered.

If you're looking for a defensive trinket, don't go with [Alembic of Infernal Power]. That's just a waste. Any epic dps trinket would be better than 33 resil.
My personal combo is the [Medallion of the Horde], and [Spyglass of the Hidden Fleet]. Sure, I don't have a dps trinket, but only because-
1. [Medallion of the Horde] is a must have and..
2. [Spyglass of the Hidden Fleet] outweighs any dps trinket for PvP (well, not any, but most)

[Spyglass of the Hidden Fleet] drops from early trash in SSC and yea, it is a tank trinket, but our tanks didn't need/want it, and I was #1 on the loot list so...

Its not a tank trinket its a PvP toy for any class. A better resilience trinket would be the crystal shard one from Ogrila (maybe the skyguard?) that gives +weapon damage and some resilience.

I think if you want to get a defensive trinket, the new battlemaster master trinkets ([Battlemaster's Cruelty] or [Battlemaster's Determination]) are ideal. Not only do they provide a strong offensive boost, but the heal the provide is fairly large (1750hp) and is not affected by healing reduction effects like the [Spyglass of the Hidden Fleet] or [Talisman of the Horde] would be.

Here are some focus macros:

This one sets your current target as your focus target
macro 1) /focus target
macro 2) /cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(rank 1)

This one sets your focus to whoever you hover your mouse over
macro 1) /focus [target=mouseover]
macro 2) /cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(rank 1)

This one isn't really a focus macro, but Earth Shocks whoever you're hovering your mouse over
/cast [target=mouseover] Earth Shock(rank 1)

If you use proximo arena unit frames you can set it up so that you can cast whatever spell you want by clicking the unit frame of the opponent. Can be pretty useful for ES.

I do believe you're mixing up a few items. Ogri'la gives +7dmg and AP on activate. Skyguard gives crit and +ap on kill. KoT gives +27 stam and resilience (and a threat dump on use, which'll be highly useful in the arenas, I'm sure...)

Griff, thanks for the detailed response with all the smart ass comments. Yes, I read the forum up to my post and understood what it said (English is my primary language, it must not be yours).

The point of the post was to explain how my game is played, what others who experience the same type of focus fire choose to do, and what we can do to improve our survivability. I asked if someone would explain focus macros because I didn't want to use a mouse over shock.

Exactly what I was looking for, thanks a lot.

On another constructive note, I used [Alembic of Infernal Power] back when I was PvPing and we had more mana problems. Thinking about it now that doesn't happen to often in arena nowadays. I do have a [Spyglass of the Hidden Fleet] but I really don't need the sta and, like said above, the heal is effected by MS and WP. Sta past 10.5k in my experiance is kind of a bonus. Your not gonna get 2 shooted with that much health and thats all I wanted to prevent with that.

Yah [Timelapse Shard] is what I was thinking of.

I admit, one of the hardest things about pvping as an enhancement shaman is just so many buttons that you need to use to play effectively! My Shadow priest has less than 10 to be effective (wand, SWP, MB, flay, PWS, VT, fear, SWD, dispell, probably forgetting something) while for a shaman that doesn't even cover all the totems you might want to use. I'm a big supporter of using keybindings myself and I have as much as I can bind as I possibly can. I use 1-5, R, T, F, G, V, C, F1-F4, and my mouse side buttons for key bindings, and still I need to use shift + button for some abilities.

I use the first focus macro myself (the targeting one), but some people like the mouse over ones...it's just a playstyle choice.

I think maximizing your keybindings (and for heaven's sake don't be keyboard turner) to be as good at pvp as you can get. The biggest thing I have got out of the entire thread are these couple lines from Push:


Think about the highlighted part for a second. It's why Push is the top enhancement shaman and we're asking questions. I think it is really the pvp enhancement shaman nirvana; it means if you aren't in a constant state of GCD you could be doing something better. Whether it is purging, dropping a totem, shocking, or SS, it means you have to be 100% of the time busy and focused. With a bunch of totems for the right situations it is easy to see why a lot of enhancement shamans struggle...that is a lot of fast on the fly computations that have to become almost instinctual to your fingers, which ties back to the keybindings.

Hope that helps some, and didn't mean to put words in your mouth Push, it is just my interpretation of it all.

No problem--it's a good interpretation.

Because I'm working on a PvP video, I've been looking at myself play a lot. It's fun to watch yourself play, and for people who are still learning how to excel at an Enhancement Shaman, it's also very helpful.

One of the best recommendations I have to improve play is Fraps yourself in Arenas. You should try to notice things in the game that you didn't pick up on that you can try to pick up on in the future. In addition, you can learn how to maximize use out of your GCD.

Most importantly, you can see how you time your Grounding and Earth Shock with their cooldowns and the GCD. One of the keys to Enhancement is locking down casters as well as possible.

About keybindings, I have found a setup which really works for me. Pretty much copied it of Otherguy (oldschool mage, had like the first pvp videos).

Movement R (forward) D (left) G (right) F (backwards)

This way every finger is in reach of at least 2 keys. Then I use mousewheel to switch between action bars, mousewheel up = action bar 1 and mousewheel down = action bar 2. This way every finger has reach of 2 keys, or 4 spells.

Press mousewheel is attack.

Pinky:
Z (shield/dw macro, poison cleanse totem)
A (earth shock, strength of earth totem)
S (stormstrike, tremor totem)
X (flame shock, grounding totem)

Ring:
E (poison cleanse, grace of air totem)

Middle finger:
4 (mana spring totem)
5 (lightning shield, water shield)

Index:
T (frost shock, pvp trinket)
Y (healing wave, fire nova totem)
H (lesser healing wave, earthbind totem)

Thumb:
V (target nearest enemy)
B (purge, bandage)
N (ground mount, flying mount)


Then a couple of shift combo's (mainly rank 1 or stuff I don't use alot)
shift-a (earth shock rank 1)
shift-t (frost shock rank 1)
shift-h (gift of the naaru)
shift-e (windfury totem)
shift-n (ghostwolf)

F1 (heroism)
F2 (stone claw totem)
F3 (fire elemental)
F4 (earth elemental)

1 (fire resistance totem)
2 (frost resistance totem)
3 (nature resistance totem)

Then 2 buttons on my mouse, 1 is for autorun and the other one for shamanistic rage and totemic call.

As you can see most of the totems and "goodies" are on the 2nd bar, so I mainly fight with the first action bar up. This setup is great but takes ages to get used to, I used to have notes glued to my flatscreen so I would remember spells I don't really use alot (like the resistance totems were a pain to learn). Hiding the action bars is what helped me learn it, cause you are forced to remember the keybind. I only show spells with cooldowns.

But once you are used to this there is not a single spell you have to click. I only use the mouse for movement and sometimes targetting.

Hope this helps someone.

Well i thought perhaps you missed it, or didn't actually read it (that's how it came across) so i thought i would quote it.

And about the macro, you should be more specific, i wasn't trying to be a smart ass, but having someone ask a
question that has been answered (with lack of specification) gets rather tedious.

The point of my reply was not to be a smart ass (even though, admittedly, it came across that way), but to try and help you get what you were looking for because you may have missed it. I myself don't use focus macros so i quoted the only one i saw.



Keybindings: I thought id post my setup of keybindings. Like Winfurae i have most of my buttons in reach.

Normal WASD movement. Shocks, heals, lightning, WF weapon, mount, warstomp, purge all on 1 to = and shift 1 to =
Q: Strength of Earth Totem
Shift Q: Earthbind Totem
Alt Q: Tremor Totem
E: Grace of Air Totem/Windfury Totem
Shift E: Grounding Totem
Alt E: Poison Cleansing Totem
R: Rank 1 Earthshock
Shift R: Rank 1 Frostshock
F: Searing Totem
Shift F: Fire Nova Totem
Alt F: Magma Totem
V: Cure Poison
Shift V: MACRO (if i use one)
T: Stormstrike auto attack macro
X: Shamanistic Rage
Shift X: Bloodlust
Mouse Button 4: Lightning Shield
Mouse Button 5: Water Shield
Shift Mouse Button 5:PvP trinket