Fatalwisdom

I read here in an earlier post someone says 'jesus christ elemental sucks in pvp." Is it really that bad?

I been leveling a shaman and just reached level 31 last night and I was looking forward to pewpew at 80. Any significant reasons as to why elemental is considered as bad in pvp?

Also as far as 2s arena goes... what would be a superior class combo for a resto shaman, or ele?

 

Bnol

The problem with Elemental PVP is the weakness to stuns and cast time debuffs, as well as the lack of mobility and a lack of effectiveness while moving by having only one instant on a 6 sec cooldown. You are also always the target, both because of your inability to defend yourself/escape or be able to provide benefit to your team while moving, and for the fact that you can do massive damage if left alone. Because of these weaknesses you have to essentially form your comp around classes that can protect you and you are reliant on them (now many comps are built around covering weakness, but not to the degree of an ele shaman). This is mainly in an arena setting. If you just want to pewpew in BGs it isn't quite as bad.

 

Dollar

Yeah elemental shaman are absolutely devastating if they can get some breathing room but they are really easy to lock down. They still excel in 5s if you play like old 2345 would (not necessarily the same comp though).

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

 

Adapted

When it comes to PvP gear, should I use 2/5 Resto and 2/5 Elemental set pieces for the extra resilience, or is the 4 piece Resto (1.5s off Grounding Totem CD) worth it?

Also, should my offset pieces be Elemental for the extra +hit?

Thanks in advance.

 

• Juice

I think the extra cooldown reduction on Grounding is more valuable than 50 resilience. Your mileage may vary, but I use grounding frequently enough that I believe the extra 1.5 seconds has a large positive impact in games where grounding use is essential.

Yes, you should get +hit till 100 or 110 (I don't remember the exact number) so you won't miss interrupts or hexes. This doesn't include overcoming racial bonuses which protect some races from being hit, however.

 

Dollar

It really depends on your comp. Obviously if you're not ever getting focused you can skip double resil. But, for example, if the only thing your team consistently loses to is say cleave teams that tunnelvision you then the double resil is probably more valuable. Personally I got double resil because earlier this season I was getting my shit pushed in by anything and everything. Next season I'm probably going to go with the 4pc.

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

 

Brgid

OK so I'm going to jump into the murky waters of Arena as Resto (now have my basic 450 resil yeah I know :-( but only just starting out) and a DK partner...

As a (somewhat embarassed) PvP clicker up until now, I'm wondering if anybody would be willing to share a good seet of Resto keybinds (or link to a site / thread that has one?) so that I can practice with them? (And as a quick subsiduary question, is the combined /cleansing/ totem still planned for 3.1 or wil I still need separate poison / disease keybinds?)

 

Adapted

I use:

` - mouseover ES
1 - mouseover LHW
2 - mouseover Riptide
3 - mouseover CH
C+2 - mouseover HW
S+2 - mouseover NS+HW

I use Grid + Clique + mouseover macros so I can cleanse/heal without changing targets, allowing for quick burst damage or easier interrupts.

E - focus Earth Shock
S+E - focus Wind Shock
Q - Frost Shock
S+Q - Flame Shock
F - Lightning Bolt
S+F - Chain Lightning
C+F - Lava Burst
G - Tidal Force
S+G - PvP trinket

Z - Water Shield
S+Z - Lightning Shield
X - Purge
S+X - Tremor Totem
C+X - Poison Cleansing (soon to be just Cleansing =D)
C - Grounding Totem
C+C - Earthbind
V - Hex


The rest of my totems are bound to the numpad, because I was running out of room. =/

F1 - Caster totem macro (WoA, FT, Mana, SoE/Stoneskin)
F2 - Melee totem macro (WF, FT, Mana, SoE/Stoneskin)
F3 - PVP totem macro (Grounding, Tremor, Poison/Disease, FrR)

 

Brgid

Thanks, Adapted! I will try those out and see how quickly I can get used to them although sadly I have no numberpad (laptop user -_-)

Just out of curiosity; you don't bind Ghost Wolf? I would have thought that talented it would be something that would get a fair bit of use for mobility / positioning...?

 

Adapted

Ah, forgot about that:

H - GW
S+H - Mount
and a couple others..
R - I don't have bound to anything because I prefer using it to reply to whispers, but it's a good idea to use it for something important because it's in an easy-to-reach button
T - plain old attack, mostly to get rid of other shaman totems, because my mouse is always busy on Grid

As for not having a numpad, you may as well just click all the non-essential totems or bind them to F keys.

 

millsey

Are there any implications/further information to peoples spec's & tactics given that the PTR has stoneskin totem glyph applying the 4k shield to all group members?

I would have thought this would be great as a defence to switches and burst especially in 3's (thinking vs RMP) but I'm unsure as to whether the shield will run out from 4k cumulative damage to all party members or once one specific party member has absorbed 4k...Anybody able to provide clarification of this?




<--- inc Resto Shammy come 3.1

edit: speeeling and grammmah

 

darkhunter139

I would love to play my elemental shaman in 2s or 3s but I cant see it happening evne with the changes in 3.1

I am trying to get some resto pvp gear before 3.1 and I am going to arena in resto while keeping elemental as my raiding spec. Are resto shamans as commonly targeted as elemental?

 

Teez

Yes, but keep in mind, you really don't need to get "resto" gear per se. I'm running 2pc/2pc still, but I'm starting to get the other Ele pieces to run 5pc Elemental set as resto. I just find the crit to be far superior (as do a number of other fairly high-rated shamans, mind you.)

Warrior - Shaman - Priest

 

Dollar

It's really just going to be something to drop when you're getting focused and you don't want to get interrupted or if you get counterspelled/shocked. Or if you can anticipate some coming burst and you have a second to prepare for it.

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

 

• Lanky

Resto Shamans are the second best healer in 3.0.9, they have the most throughput and the best mana regen, and they can add offensive pressure with Flameshock / Hex / Lavaburst. They are also much harder to interrupt due to the guarenteed riptide into fast LHW chains that they can pull off. 3.1 only strengthens them.

 

Bnol

Well it always depends on the comp, people go after the easiest target to kill for their comp and the target that loses the most effectiveness while under focus fire. Resto shaman do not have any personal (IE not targetable) defensive cooldown. Their only personal defense is Natures guardian, which is RNG and has an internal cooldown, it helps but it isn't iceblock/bubble/CloS etc. If you have a lock on you team then they might FF the lock/pet (because of the same reason). If you have a rogue or a druid against a melee team they will likely focus them. However, even while focused as resto you don't lose all of your effectiveness because of riptide and tidal wave lhw, you don't have to do longer casts to be effective.

 

Dollar

Yeah I really think we are going to be the healer with the most potential in 3.1. I only say potential because resto shaman is not an easy class to play very well. There is a pretty big difference between a mediocre resto shaman and a good resto shaman but you can't really say the same about the current ridiculous class, paladins.

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

 

MatsT

Concerning keybinds: I wouldn't really try to use mouseover macros for healing in pvp. The main problem is that they can't be used while holding the right mouse button for turning, which is something i do at least 50% of the time. This means you must build the macros such that they will use your target if no mouseover is present. This can work in theory, but it's easy to heal the wrong person by thinking you are currently healing the target when you have your mouse over something unintended.

Concerning elemental/resto gear: Crit and mp5 are both quite bad. Mp5 will not help at all in short games, but on the other hand crit doesn't do anything at all when you're purging, dropping totems, interrupting, hexing etc. In general i would say mp5 has a slight advantage, but the difference is so small that I might still get the elemental gear next season to be able to play as elemental. For the set bonuses i would almost always go with 3+2. Grounding Totem is a great spell, but i rarely use it as soon as it's up since it will just catch a random Waterbolt or Death Coil. I prefer to save it for being able to catch a Chains of Ice when escaping or if i get Interrupted. Of course there could be situations where I really want to use it and it still has 1.5 seconds cooldown, but overall I feel that 50 resilience is a lot better.

Concerning Lava Burst: If you are resto, trying to boost your Lava Bursts with Flame Shocks is usually a very bad idea. Many people play arena with 900-1000 resilience, and even dk's/palas tend to run with 700ish. This means a crit Lava Burst will not hit for much more than a noncrit, and Frost Shock->Lava Burst is actually more damage than Flame Shock->Lava Burst. Slightly related, Flame Shock glyph seems pretty awful to me. You're still not going to "keep it up" just to prevent a restealth, and if you get to a situation where it's "shit he's gonna restealth", 12 seconds is more than enough. On live it's a decent option to all the other awful/horrible/silly glyphs, but post-patch no resto shaman should use it regardless of bracket/setup.

 

• Lanky

I suspect that In 3.1 we will be looking at a Build Like This In order to take advantage of the new 10% stamina from Toughness, only major losses are 3 points in Ancestral Healing (armor), and 1 in Ancestral Awakening (10%). Everything else is easily dropped and all of the core talents remain. The benefit is that you get 10% more stamina and 30% reduced snare duration.

I chose to use the new Stoneclaw glyph, as well as Water Mastery and LHW, the old standby set, but you could replace the Water Mastery with the new Earth Shield Glyph too if regeneration is not a problem.

 

Dollar

I think I mostly agree with you especially with the advent of warlock teams (locks are on almost every common 3s team). Before I hardly saw any. Healing wave is much, much more useful versus warlock teams for obvious reasons. I still use flame shock in 2s over the water shield glyph though because lots of people use pve gear (namely DK's, the class I'm most often nuking) and any bit of damage can help. It's also really nice to be able to flame shock before your cc is up and then you can lead into your cc chain with a shock and still have the auto crit lvb. Obviously it's pretty situational and since I play with a ret paladin and spec mana tide so I hardly have mana issues anyways.

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

 

Dollar

Grats to everyone who got gladiator, what are people thinking about for s6 comps? Personally mine are going to be mostly the same except for 5s. Ret/resto in 2s, ret/resto/disc priest in 3s and maybe 2345 (Elemental shaman, holy paladin, disc priest, frost mage, ms warrior for those who don't know) in 5s. I'll also be running holy paladin/hunter/shaman and dk/shaman on my other shaman. I'm always up for giving fun comps a shot though.

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

 

• Juice

Grats on glad, Lasers. For 2s I was looking forward to Arms/Resto throw-back comp. Do you believe Ret/Resto will be superior to this and if so, it is because of the ret's offensive burst or defensive capabilities to protect the shaman that gives it the edge?

In 3s I would like to run a cleave/plate train team. Warrior/Ret/Resto or Warrior/DK/Resto. Your ret/resto/disc comp is interesting - win by mana burn, I assume?

2345 is always fun, just a pain in the nuts to schedule and manage with other active raiders/arena players.

 

MatsT

The priest tends to get focused a lot, so landing mana burns is hard. Fortunately you can usually win long before the opponents are out of mana. I can't speak for him, but our general strategy is to land a Repetance on the healer, Freedom our priests to let him land a fear following the Repetance. This will usually force a trinket or divine shield, and when those aren't up we drop our target. If our target is a weak one like a Rogue or Warrior, we can even drop him from 100% in a single Repetance.

All 3 classes are getting buffed in the patch, so the future is bright. One problem could be a potential rise of cleave teams which seems to be causing the most problems now, and Arms is getting quite a few buffs.

 

Mitear

I might repeat a few things here that's been said above, but this will wrap up alot.

Now, with 3.1 live, Resto Shamans has gained abit more. Restorative Totems down to a 3-pointer talent actually makes Mana Tide worth to pick up now for arena specs. As a Troll, you should maybe consider dropping some crit talents and actually go all the way to Toughness in the enhance tree.

Resto Shamans are stronger now, than they were in TBC. We've got Wind Shock outside the gcd to interupt casting, use a heal over time(with dispell protection talents to back it up) and as far as cleansing goes, we can remove Curses, Diseases & Poison and on the offesive, we can Purge/Dispell. The only thing we can't do in that regard, is to dispell defensively. That's why the Shaman/Warlock combo has been pretty successful in the 2v2 bracket in S6.

The only problem(and it's a huge problem) is the lack of survivability and escape mechanisms for resto shamans. I've been death gripped, while on full HP, followed by a strangulate and died during it's duration many times (Focus Mind didn't really cut it, it seems), both in 2v2's (hello Double GLG + DK & 2 pets nuking) and 3v3's(same but but ad a feral druid). So getting focused as a Resto Shaman can be a pain, especially with totem stomping macros, we're extremely squishy.

Despite that, we are all in all a pretty solid healing class. A tip would be to pick up Engineering. It gives you the Nitro Boost boot enchant which will save you and win you many matches.

Now, with the dual spec implemented, I have decided to grind up some Enhancement PvP Gear. This is where the Shamans have gained their largest buff with 3.1. Enhancement actually offers more survivability and escape mechanisms. Some really decent snaring added with the new Frozen Power talent and also, the fact that Enhancement Scales EXTREMELY well with gear... Mental Dexterity, Mental Quickness, Ancestral Knowledge & Toughness basically covers everything.

So I dunno if Resto is the way to go with the new patch. We'll just have to let time tell, I guess. Gearing up for 2 specs really is time consuming, but might be well worth it with dual specs implemented

 

Dollar

Well Arms/Resto will certainly be more viable than it was s5 but I'm not really quite sure yet. The problem I see with arms is that basically all you have (assuming you're trying to overpower casts) is MS, SD, auto attack and then bladestorm. I think it's going to have trouble pressuring people to actually cast much especially because Overpower is on the GCD and therefor easy to fake/avoid. Though obviously the in combat charge is going to help loads. I really haven't seen much of it though I'm planning on dueling a decent MS warrior when I get some time online that isn't spent wiping in Ulduar. The main benefit I see is if you have MS/Overpower up you can probably drop somebody in bladestorm unless they have some kind of out.

Ret/resto will basically be the same comp but with a few minor buffs. The little things shaman are getting like cleansing totem, 4 pt mana tide, toughness (not sure if I'm going to really spec this yet though) only help. Ret paladins are going to have less burst but, at least from what I've heard from my ret, much more sustained damage. So you may not get that one out of 20 randomly gib someone win but overall I think it will be slightly better and it's already a top tier comp.

Our general strategy is usually pretty similar. The ridiculous thing about the comp is that you have so much survivability and it doesn't take much of an opening to heroism/pi burn someone down to zero and it's so easy for the comp to create those openings. Cleave comps are our greatest counter I think and warrior based ones in 3s are going to be the ones that hurt most. Though the disc priest buffs will counteract that to a certain extent. I know that we definitely could have ended much much higher this season if we had actually played more games. I'd definitely give the comp a shot if you can find two other decent players, it's pretty fun and is definitely going to be considered very faceroll during s6.

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