• Juice

Ease up on the absolute statements. Your own admission to not playing a shaman and your fundamental error about their ability as resto should preclude you from saying things like

If you want to make a case for why the above is true, by all means do so. Compare the previously very strong 2s/3s healers to Rshaman in their new forms and draw the conclusion. But don't just come and offer the conclusion without any backup. That's not really what our forums want to encourage, as it only starts pointless and non-informative flame wars.

Also, avoid double posting like that. Just put it all in one note.

 

Gorb

I apologize. Here's a better way to put it.

Riptide, physical school totems, decurse, and windshock are good buffs. However, there are also a sizable number of nerfs coming too and many of the problems with shaman pvp healing are not addressed at all.

There is no downranking now which hurts totem spamming. There's no more rank one windfury, not to mention windfury totem doesn't provide burst anymore, just a static haste buff. Toughness is also being nerfed to 30% from 50% which hurts mobility quite a bit, especially in smaller brackets.

Totem killing macros have not been addressed at all. Healing still largely requires standing still. Riptide helps a little, but it's still inefficient and is a relatively small heal. We still lack a valid form of CC (hex does not count, it's a cast time silence/disarm on a long CD).

There are buffs and nerfs, but overall the core problems with shaman pvp healing have not been addressed sufficiently. I know I wasn't very polite the first time, but I still think it's ridiculous for someone to claim that shaman will be the kings of small bracket pvp healing ESPECIALLY when that person doesn't even play a healing class.

Who?

 

Pitbuller

Resto shamans single target base healing values are much weaker than other healers. Chain heal is fine but Healing way and lesser healing way just lack output. This is even bigger problem in pvp than pve. Just compare greater heal and healing wave and you see. This is trend with all other healing spells. Yes we got utility but so do others. Resto will be my pvp spec and I do think it's competitive but "best" is too soon to tell.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Playaskillz

Pretty much all the top Gladiator Resto Druids who do tournament play are rerolling to Resto Shaman for Wrath.

Hafu for one.

 

Inferno

Hafu is actually currently leveling her druid, and not her shaman (Maymay).

Not that you should really base your decisions about what Hafu does.

 

Pheus

season 3s vengeful gladiator druid in 2's on bloodlust-us (medicor) rerolled to a shaman few weeks before wotlk launched. He said it was for the purpose of arena healing. All that really means is that he will have the option of playing a druid of a shaman... I don't think anyone should be taking the actions of a few players as bible. If you have both then level both, I know I am.

 

Sorrugis

Has anyone given this spec a shot now that a good percentage of people have hit 80? I was curious what the first impressions were. Obviously no one has been able to do ranked arena with the spec, but I was curious what your thoughts were; if you had indeed tried it out.

 

Ninjerk

I really don't see how you would make 2v2 work without Riptide.

 

panny

Even I am considering playing Resto Shaman, it looks like alot of fun. Totem stomping macros have actually been addressed and having some HoTs really increases their viability. I'm not sure if they'll outpace Druids (snare/root breaks and Cyclone will always be incredible) but they'll at least be more competitive than they are now.

Also: Tremor Totem actually working is pretty nice.

 

aureon

Totem killing hasn't really been addressed at all, the only real totems that need to be kept up is tremor for pulse and perhaps grounding which would die anyway. Stoneclaw does nothing to help either; the only real buff I see with stoneclaw is that it offers protection on mana tide -- it is a buff as you state, but since it takes up that very necessary earth slot it's greatly diminished.

The real issue as to why tremor is so valuable is that it provides as many as 5 globals to do more heals and drop more totems; moonfire hitting a windfury totem now costs the druid 300 net mana in comparison to the shaman, and it only takes the shaman 2/3 of a global to reapply that totem. The best solution against warlocks would be naming Tremor Totem to "Aureon's Tremor Totem." Now it takes some skill to spot mana tide, tremor and windfury among the chaos of an arena fight.

 

Kaataa

Stoneclaw does not count at all anymore, it only counted when divinestorm was considered holy damage at the start of 3.0. there was a few days where stoneclaw granted all the other totems that were down prior to it immunity from all damage until stoneclaw was destroyed or expired *insert hot fix here*. Now it only takes one hit, sure you can talent it but the hp gain was really only beneficial @ 70 imo because of the many players which will have high crit pve gear when this season starts. I like the idea of the player named totems, right direction for sure.

 

Gadoh

I was thinking maybe a build like this would help more for pvp resto. It may not have toughness, but with it nerfed to 30% I think the 6% dmg reduction from Ele would help more. I picked up ancestral knowledge because I seem to crit a lot and against war/rogue/dk's I feel it adds a bit more mitigation, but if you dont like them you can move then anywhere.

PvP spec

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/Daeavorn.png

 

Dollar

Keep in mind while reading this that I haven't stepped into an arena for probably nearly a year before today and never healed in one. I tried arenas for the first time today with this spec:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

First off I went with a TG warrior (i'm trying to convince him to try Bladestorm but he simply doesn't want to, some convincing reasons would be nice because I really think it would be better). We went 10 for 10 to 1650 (keep in mind we are on Emberstorm BG). Healing in 2s seemed pretty easy and we dominated all the healer/dps teams with a simple hex/wind shock combo with sometimes an Intim shout thrown in.

Then we went to 3s and picked up an Unholy DK. This is where stuff got retarded. I was at about 17.5k unbuffed health and 360 resilience. A lot of the games went like this: I drop windfury and pop heroism, then both of their dps are on me. I use NS and riptide if I'm lucky, I drop grounding if they aren't double melee. Then I die. The hope was that my warrior/dk would take out their healer before I was killed. We got up to about 1600 but really most games were just a toss up. If we made a single mistake we would die (or even sometimes no discernible mistakes). If they made a mistake, we would win. It seems a lot like Post 3.0 before BC when everything just died in 4 seconds. I'm really hoping that changes when people start picking up resilience gear because right now I am getting destroyed in seconds. It probably would have went a lot better with a Paladin instead of the warrior/dk but the burst is still pretty retarded right now.

We went back to 2s and lost to a couple 2 dps teams and I had a 30 minute 1v1 with a frost mage (luckily when we decided to /roll for the win, I won). Overall Shaman seem to be pretty viable in this season, especially with well timed hex's and wind shocks but I'm hoping that when we get a little more pvp gear fighting 2 dps teams won't be a futile endeavor because right now, at least in 2s, I see elemental or enhance being much more useful.

"Oh he's a sad little man? He's thrown a kettle over a pub, what have you done?"

 

Barcode Too

I came up with the same spec except instead of 4 points in the crit talent I went for imp shields and 1 point in the grounding totem cooldown talent. 4% crit is tempting now though.

 

aureon

Dollar, you simply will fall over if you let a rogue and ret paladin sit on you. Firstly, you have to take advantage of the fact that Grounding Absorbs a lot of really good effects, in this case, HoJ; if you get rid of that by good timing and knowing generally when the paladin is going to use it you have a great advantage. Generally, you want to save trinket for the kidney shot if the other team commits to killing you.

The most important part of Resto PvP and any healer PvP is that your team needs to know how to peel; you have a DK which is the absolute king with Death Grip, your warrior really needs to go Bladestorm so he can pick up improved hamstring, as well as provide an immense burst with bladestorm and the new mortal strike. You should always try to get hex on a melee and notice if they trinket, if so, an intimidating shout and DK snare will give you valuable seconds and more globals to use on riptides and getting quick LHWs off. Your gear is very good so you really should notice the ability to go from 20% to 100 nearly instantly with bloodlust and tidal waves up, and that is nearly uninterruptable except for stuns and DK silence; I noticed you have alchemy which allows you to use the endless healing potion while silenced - do not forget about that, as well as lifeblood (which doesn't incur a GCD). There are times where the enemy will simply outlast you with their CCs and your lack of outs, but as long as your teammates peel effectively, you can get out of many a bad situation.

 

Dollar

Yeah I agree that there was a couple things I could have done in those situations. Since then I haven't done anymore 3s but we did get our 2s to 1778 which is top 20 in our BG. So resto shaman even right now aren't that horribly off, I think it will just get easier and easier as I climb in resilience.

"Oh he's a sad little man? He's thrown a kettle over a pub, what have you done?"

 

Loukey

So i just started doing 2's for the first week seriously, my team is me and a dk both of us are just starting our pvp sets and are fairly well geared in pve. My question relates to the best spec for pvp healing currently do i need to be going for Elemental warding or toughness and why one over the other. We took our 2's to 1700 off about 30 games and did decent, but any combo with a rogue and another class i had trouble with, is there any advice to this besides have dk death grip him away and mark of blood? And my last question if i am going to be taking pvp seriously since pve content is a joke atm, what is the amount of resil i should be going for, meaning at what point is strait SP and stam going to be better since they changed resil.

 

skizz

Nobody really has a clear answer on how much resil you should stack before getting more SP or stam..part of this depends on how well your partner can peel for you. A DK is one of the best at this with grip+chains of ice, as well as the damage he can put out on a rogue. Riptide is very mana inefficient in pvp but you practically need to use it on every cooldown just so you can have a chance to cast against 3 undispellable poisons. I currently have ~830 resil and any class that can afford to use PvE gear still hits me very hard, so getting as much resil as you can definitely helps if you guys are just starting out. There are plenty of shamans who have been more successful with less resil though, so maybe I'm just bad :|
I don't think I've seen very many shamans use elemental warding or toughness in their specs..they simply cost too many talent points. A 0/18/53 spec including shamanistic focus, with some points moved around based on preference, seems to be pretty much the standard pvp spec.

 

MatsT

PvP is just as much of a a joke as PvE right now, especially for shamans. That being said, very few shamans take elemental warding in it's current state. With the new version, 6% damage decrease that also works on physical and shadow damage is a lot more useful. It's certainly better than toughness, but it's an 8 point talent. Looking at the possible builds, you still have to give up a lot of things to get these talents. There are ten 1-pointers for 1% crit, which is not that far from 1% healing per point plus the mana/armor you get.

For a 5on5 or 3on3 build where you will be tanking two or even three dpsers most of the time, it might be worth it to get these talents in place of more healing power and mana talents, but in 2on2 you're pretty much gonna have to learn to survive without them. A lot of the teams will only have 1 dpser and those that have two will get interrupted a lot by the full attention of your dk, plus you don't need to survive that long for him to finish them off or get them low enough to win 1on2.

 

Dollar

I've been doing 2s with a warrior (TG nonetheless so his peels aren't the greatest) since s5 started and we peaked a bit over 1900. Even with having nearly 800 resil I can still get blown up inside of a blanket CS vs mage/rogue so really I wouldn't ever stop stacking it unless you approach cap (which you won't with current gear). For anybody wondering how shaman/warrior is, it's not nearly as good as it was in it's tbc glory days. Shaman/rogue is going to give you a lot more success and a lot less frustration. Warrior's lack of peels combined with Shaman's relative lack of survivability and longevity don't add up to a lot. I have pvp gear in every slot except for legs and my warrior is using half pvp/half pve gear which is pretty much necessary or he won't be able to pressure anything.

"Oh he's a sad little man? He's thrown a kettle over a pub, what have you done?"

 

mcfattyx

Could someone suggest a good resto pvp build?

 

unckle

I'd go for this 7-13-51.

This build has a few "powerfull" talents in it :
Elemental Warding - only 4% damage reduction ( i think that more reduction time on disarms is better, but that's just my opinion )
Anticipation - 50% disarm time reduction - there are melee classes that can go "around" your shield, and that will cost you a lot of health - so , I belive that this is a good talent
These 2 talents combined with the resto tree will give a lot of mitigation against various interrupts, silance, disarm, and pure damage.

What i did not pick - 10% health restored form the Nature's Guardian talent - if you get to 30% health, and heal to 40% .. nice. But what if you get a 5k crit on you... you die. What if you get some big crits on you - you die - maybe 1 second later - but one second for 5points in the tree , missing a lot of orther talents - i don't know , maybe it is a good talent, but i'd go for some other talents ( i'm no PvP God, so take my words with "caution" ).

( btw, it hurts not to see some shaman PvP threads , i'd really like to find some good advice around here - except the "universal truth " statements like " L2P " ; " Go farm Gear " ; " you got no arena rating = you got no ballz " - those belong to wow official forums :P )

 

abandonhope

I agree with your thoughts on getting more survivability talents. I'm going to be testing out an Elemental Build (51/20/0) that has those built into it. This build has Astral Shift for 30% less damage when fear/stun, Thunderstorm knockbacks, 20% Earthbind totem range increase, Anticipation for 3% dodge and 50% duration disarms, and Toughness for 50% stun duration.

Is elemental just not a good option for arenas? I don't see many people trying it. Any thoughts on a better build? I'm thinking of grouping with another dps or 2 for a quick DPS burn-em-down team in the 2's or 3's. It seems like this might give me enough survivability to outlast those rogue stunlocks and kite some stuff long enough to kill. Right now I can't survive a rogue stunlock, but thinking this build (and getting some better PVP gear) will help.

 

phasedweasel

Anticipation and toughness I think are just weak talents. 3% dodge doesn't help against magic or rogues (stuns). Toughness is more armor, doesn't really decrease incoming melee damage by very much for the amount of talents that it takes. Decreasing the length of disarm effects is also pretty weak. Where are you getting 50% stun duration reduction?

 

Bnol

Elemental warding is a good talent, since it reduces all damage, and the increase in damage to get to the talent can help with an offensive playstyle.

Anticipation is a lack-luster talent. Doesn't help against magic, and does not help you survive a stun-lock, since you cannot dodge while stunned. The disarm reduction is quite pointless for resto/ele, since all it does is disable the use of the weapon and shield abilities. It does not removed stats/armor. Thus you are gaining very little for the talent points.

You do not need to put all 5 points into Natures Guardian. It is usually not worth all the points because of the internal cooldown, but it can save you, by giving you an additional second to get off a heal/get out of LOS, especially when fighting melee (in particular rogues) because it will activate off of auto attacks, and will also give you a chance to proc another ES, if it is stil up. I usually will put 3 points into it, it has saved my life many times (both PVP and PVE)