Fetzen

I easily admit that I'm really just a dabbler and not an expert in Arena-PvP. Nontheless, it's not entirely true that a shaman doesn't have stuns, is it? Hexx is not a stun in technical terms, but it takes one enemy out of the picture and forces the other team to use an insignia or a bubble - if they dont have the means or time to dispell.

With my alt (Enhancer, Semmih, EU-Forscherliga) I go with a rogue as a partner and the Hexx comes in handy quite often. It doesn't even instantly break with damage (since my main is a mage I really enjoy that for a change) and we have used it several times to 'stun' their healer with low HP and kill him before he manages to get out of the Hexx again.

 

Xieon

In my low end matches (1500+/-), I have had nothing but success with the Improved Fire Nova totem, especially with a rogue partner. The rogue will go in for the stuns on a player and I drop the totem providing an extra stun five seconds later. Timed correctly, and without interuption, it works very well. I would expect top level play to all but remove the usefulness of that totem, as people would learn to look for them or simply outrange them, but so far it hasn't been the case. Its not exactly an 'on-demand' stun, but can certainly be part of a combo. The totem also works well when you need a breather to run away, such as being double-teamed by melee.

I certainly don't think that Enhance/Rogue is an easy combo to play. It requires both players to be on their game, my partner was having an off night a few days ago and it was almost unplayable. I could see other combos able to just steamroll opponents without regard to strategies. There was a particular Ret/DK team I recall that would kill me in what seemed like 5-8 seconds, regardless of cooldowns, with dogs and lust active...

I've also got a question about gearing and while this may be covered elsewhere, I feel that enhancement has a particularly interesting niche, requiring spell hit cap as a melee class. Hex and Lightning are too important to miss. I've got a couple items that I haven't been able to bring myself to replace, though I may just to increase resilience, the last few items in question are:

Current - [Surge Needle Ring] vs. [Deadly Gladiator's Band of Victory]
Current - [Drape of the Deadly Foe] vs. [Deadly Gladiator's Cloak of Triumph]
Current - [Titan-Forged Waistguard of Triumph] vs. [Furious Gladiator's Waistguard of Triumph]

I'm already running just over 800 resilience and questioning the need for more versus other stats. I'm also torn on hit gear, from what I understand, I need 6% spell hit to connect with most opponents, making the current belt more attractive than the upgrade. Most of my gems are AP/Res and without hit/res gems, so I'd lose resilience without having gear specifically with hit on it.

Spell penetration is another question for which I've seen arguments both ways, so I went with a +20 gem to be safe and called it a day.

Surprisingly, my biggest upgrade for arena comes from Ulduar - [Vulmir, the Northern Tempest] would be a massive upgrade for my PvP loadout, maybe this week!

 

Xieon

Alrighty, third try at this. My partner (Rogue) transferred off the server, so I went with the recommended Ret paladin again. I have to agree, there's much more synergy in that combo than with the rogue. We ran into a wall against one particular team of lock/rogue that were able to take 7 out of 9 games including a draw. Another oddball team that was interesting to play was prot paladin/feral druid. Overall, we are able to overpower most teams, not giving them much time to react. I'm still a huge fan of Imp Fire Totem. I can't count the number of times it really helped the match. People just aren't looking out for it most times.

One big perk, and I can't remember when it was changed, is being able to Shamanistic Rage even while stunned. That is often the difference between life and death against a decent rogue team. Being able to cut down that initial burst by 30% is tremendous. If you are stunned and the focus target, don't just sit there thinking there's nothing you can do! Activate Shamanistic Rage for your damage reduction and ride out the stun.

To the high ranked shaman or two out there, how much Resilience do you run with?

 

kaoticz

Ring shouldn't even be a question if you need survivability etc. It provides hit, which is needed in full pvp gear, and tons of stamina as well as a nice chunk of resilience.
Get the Furious/Deadly hit cloak and neck. Hit does seem to be a problem, and dual Vulmir's help a lot.
It's nice to use the pvp cloak since you can enchant it with 35 spell pen. Coupled with the 20 spell pen gem you mentioned earlier, is generally enough to ensure you almost never get resisted, though it can still occur.

Depends on the teams we're going up against when we queue. I typically run 800-900, but sometimes I'll drop a little in favor of damage.

 

Bloodgrip

Kaoticz, when you do your 2s do you just burn the dps or the healer (depending on class)?, I am about to start doing 2s with a Disc Priest friend of mine and would like to ask some questions since you are the best 2v2 Enhance Shaman that I have been able to find.I am not sure which spec is you pvp spec, since you have no points in frozenpower/earthenpower,so I really can't compare.

 

Xieon

Another 50 games and I've broken into the 1800 bracket in 2's. The team is still Enhance/Ret and there are a couple team loadouts that give me fits. Specifically we are struggling with Disc/Rogue, Lock/Rogue and sometimes a pesky Prot Paladin/Feral or Warrior team. It seems to me as I play more that I'm questioning the usefulness of Frozen Power. The root is nice, but I've only used it a few times out of a hundred games and I've only seen one or two hunters in the past 100+ games, putting them on par with enhancement shaman for rarity.

For targeting healers, its dependant on how you can handle them. Paladins are tough to control, with two escape methods and no good way to root or slow them down. We'll quite often force the bubble early with damage and then move to the other target once he's immune. Druids have recently been a straight burn, along with priests and shaman. In general, I guess we do kill the healers first most times. Which is likely why we have so much trouble with Disc/Rogue, as one of us, me, gets locked down significantly and we can't get the output on the priest to drop him. As for playing with a Disc priest as your partner, that changes things significantly and you'll have to rely on your DPS to bring down an opponent while your exchange hex and fear as your only CC. You'll have to play very smart and I'd macro wind-shock to a mouse button or hotkey and get their healer as your focus target at the beginning of each match.

I'll be going through a round of upgrades this week and I'll be interested to see how that changes my game if at all. Any recommendations or specific strategies for the Disc/Rogue and Lock/Rogue teams?

 

kaoticz

Ah, well my 2nd spec is typically the one I used for PvP, however sometimes I have to respec it for Freya x3 Hard Mode in 25 man so I have 2 PvE specs sometimes. Generally we try to burn the healer but sometimes we're able to go for the dps. It depends on if my priest partner will be able to heal through the damage or if she'll need me to just try to kill it.

I often have to run back to my partner to drop an earthbind to peel off a dps, and if its a druid + anything comp, generally I can rely on a frost shock root to keep a warrior etc at bay. We haven't played in the past 2 weeks but we plan to pick it up again shortly. Just been doing too much PvE hard modes lately in 25s.

I also highly disagree with rouncers view that the totem of the dancing flame from ignis in 25s is good for pvp. The pvp totem is best for pve and pvp. 120-144 ap is a good chunk of AP, it's almost like using another trinket slot, where as the ignis totem is worse than a level 70 totem IMHO. The Totem of Dueling is also a decent alternative for PvP with the 4 piece making Stormstrike a 6 second cooldown.

P.S. never let the worst player on the team have lead of your 5v5 and then kick everyone off the team because he gets emo when you try constructive criticism.

 

Xieon

Flirted with 1900 at the end of last week and got pummeled Friday evening playing out of our usual time slot. I play on a west coast time server and live on the east coast. It’s very interesting playing before the west coasters are out of work, similar rated teams seem tougher and there are fewer combinations to play against. But time differences aside, I've realized that I'm trying to reach a very niche group with this thread and it may not be worth keeping open. It may be better off as a personal blog that I maintain with what i learn daily or weekly.

This week, I discovered the tactic of being less aggressive and had some success with it. Specifically, we did far better against rogues than we have in previous weeks. Against the Mage/Rogue combos, previously I would throw the dogs with hero on the mage to start damage while waiting for the rogue. After two matches of the Mage getting invis off and losing horribly while they waited out the dogs, I adjusted the strategy to circling the wagons. LOS the mage, get your totems set up and wait. The Paladin would consecrate and wait for the mage to move closer to pop perception. In this case, Fire Nova totem is your best friend. If my partner is sapped, I immediately drop the totem. Also have Shamanistic Rage at the ready to cut down the rogue's opener by 30%. Against a Mage, you can throw down Stoneclaw as well for a little more damage reduction. By now, the totem has gone off and I'm able to get a little distance on the rogue, Earthbind is very helpful for this. Now that both opponents are engaged and I've survived the initial burst, it’s time to whip out the dogs and potentially hero. Hero can end up counter-productive very quickly when spell-stolen. Cleansing totem is a must against the rogue as well as saving Grounding totem for big hits or Polymorph attempts. I find it very difficult to maintain a constant fire totem due to mana constraints, so it's limited to just Fire Nova on cool down when the situation allows.

All of that so far is the first 5-10 seconds of the match once the sap goes down. The main goal is to endure the sap so the trinket is saved for the blind. After hopefully surviving the initial burst, the match is far more manageable, Strength of Earth becomes viable for once if you can turn and start in on the rogue. With proper pressure on the mage, you can avoid most of the opportunities for Poly and just put out as much damage as possible. Trinket the blind, or poly once the blind is gone. And in many cases, its better to Flame Shock the Rogue rather than interrupt the Mage. I'll usually throw the shock as soon as I see the rogue disengage from attacking, since he often has to get away from a consecrate or range of any AOE. There's nothing better than catching a rogue and wasting his vanish. If dogs are still out, throw them on the rogue at range and finish off the mage. If both are still alive and you catch up to the mage after a blink, Ice Shock him and drop Fire Nova again. Even if you don't catch the mage in it, you'll get the rogue with another stun. If the rogue takes the swing time or uses a skill to kill the totem, you've still gained some ground in reducing his overall output on your team. The goal is to kill whatever is in range for me. The plan is always to beat the mage until ice block, but with no healing, if an opportunity arises to drop the rogue, that's worth it too.

Most of the above holds true against Priest/Rogue teams, which are far more difficult. However, Tremor becomes the only earth totem available while the priest has scream off cool down. The main goal here is to burn down the priest, but mobility is a massive issue until the priest uses fear. Many times I'll drop Earthbind just to close distance and then immediately have to Tremor as soon as I get near. Against solid teams, I recommend randomly dropping new Tremor totems every few GCD's as they know to clear them out of the way to get the most out of their fear. Playing smart about DPS'ing the priest is essential, purging shields off instead of wasting cool downs with Stormstrike or Lava Lash, peeling Fort off, etc.

One of my biggest challenges has been to remove Earth Shock from my DPS rotation in arena. Its great damage but at the loss of all other shocks. I'm a massive PvE player at heart and Earth Shock is embedded in my skull as part of the rotation. In many cases it is great for burning down a druid, since there is little chance to interrupt them., though the best start spamming Nourish or Regrowth as soon as they hear the shock sound effect.

I have to say that it is very complicated and frustrating to play Enhancement in arena effectively, and I am certainly not there yet. It was pretty easy to get to 1800, but its obvious that I need to step up my game substantially and work harder on making the correct decisions with every GCD early in most fights.

 

Xieon

This is great news to PvE shaman, but I'm trying to get a handle on how I could set this up to make arena combat easier. One preset could include Tremor/Windfury/Cleansing totem, for Disc/Rogue matches. The fire totems would always have to be manually activated or you'll run out of mana relocating too often. In mobile matches, fire totems become the least efficient and least used. Grounding, Earthbind and Fire Nova are all on-demand totems and I couldn't see any of them added to the presets. Its not as if you can chain Earthbind into a Nova, 5 seconds is a long time to get away from the fire totem and if the opponent is going to stick on you, earthbind doesn't matter, save it until after the stun to gain distance.

Any thoughts or ideas for standard totem loadouts?

On a seperate note, I just got to wondering how useful a Frost Resistance totem would be against a Frost mage... any thoughts on that?

 

phonetics

Been having some problems with my dps. I recently grouped with a holy pally - specced a bit in ret - and had a large success considering I had almost no resilience. Went with a full holy specced pally and dps was terrible. Things we were dropping with the holy/ret pally wasn't obviously dropping with the holy pally. My question is; what kind of weapons should I aim for? I'm using Greed and Kel Thuzad's dagger in OH. Also for pvp are you guys going WF/WF or WF/FB. Thanks.

 

Xieon

I recommend Frostbrand on the offhand to increase your overall damage output. With Frozen Power, you gain 10% on three out of four main attacks.

As for weapons, the slower the better. If you have a Stray lying around, you'll likely do more damage with that. You'll have to be more specific as to what level of content you have available to you when discussing gear upgrades. I chose not to upgrade weapons at 1850 rating due to having Ulduar-25 level gear.

You should try out Improved Fire Nova Totem, you may be surprised at how often you get the stuns off. While Static Shock may get you a couple hundred extra damage here and there, I think you'll find that stunning your opponent in the arena is worth far more than a that.

 

zaughlin

I am a pve' main shaman as well, and had to reconsider a few talent points in their allocation for pvp.
the 2 talent points to increase the health (therein the absorb) on stoneclaw and increase the radius on earthbind is debatable, but i found it helpfull. Depending on what you view your damage output actually from, because alot if it IS white, you may want to reconsider having 3 points in the hit talent for +6% hit. In pvp the hitcap for specials is 5%, and everything past that is only helping white. pulling a stat point out of it and using the deadly ring puts you at hitcap and allows for you to get the crit neck/back - effectively talenting for crit while staying hit capped. Alternatively, you could get the hit neck/back (and deadly ring) and get less points in it - getting more % hp, disarm reduc, or other talents. This trade off is questionable, but one way to look at it is that while you can gear for hit vs crit, you cannot gear for +% hp or disarm resist (unless you want to loose your OH enchant). Any thoughts?

 

Callaloo

The hit talent doesn't take you to the probably needed spell hit cap, just a thought.

 

kaoticz

If you're not running frost resist totem against a frost mage then there is something wrong. It's on the fire totem, and the only other things you can use with that is searing (which can break CC which is bad), Fire Nova (for the stun, and isnt something you keep down for more than 4 seconds), Flametongue (for ~160 spell power 30 yard range and assuming the other team is too terrible to totem stomp), or Frost Resist totem.

If you have a pally they should be swapping to frost resist aura I'm pretty sure, since they can run it and still keep conc aura benefit if holy.

As a side note, someone mentioned frostbrand imbue above, yah, you should use it. However its not the advertised 10% increase, and max rank isnt getting the right coefficient, but it's being fixed for 3.2. I'm glad it was ok for it to be bugged for an entire arena season! Yay

 

Xieon

Next up, having to give up 2s as they serve no purpose anymore...

Any thoughts on the best team loadout centered around an Enhance Shaman? While it obviously won't be as strong as RMP, I'm interested in continuing my trek to 2000, but with a 3s team now. I've got a solid Ret partner, so the best bet would be a druid or priest for diversity. Assuming skill and gear equality, what's your opinion on the best team you could manage?

 

clliche

You should have all rolled tauren

I definitely think pve weapons are a must for enhance shamans anyway and shoulders aren't a huge loss. I guess if you want to really pvp for titles as an enh shaman you need to roll with some sort of cleave. I will be trying enh shaman disc priest dk. Disc priests are really good at keeping enh shamans up but i definitely think double cc teams are going to be a huge problem for any 3's team with an enhance shaman as we just die too fast. That brings me to something I am really curious about, are you guys rolling with resil at all or just capitalizing on burst. I don't see resil helping my survivability enough to warrant giving up the burst.

 

kaoticz

Just know as you read this post, it is not intended to be a QQ post so please read it with an open mind. This post is my observations and they may differ from your own. I value your views and opinions so long as you do mine.

I would like to direct the discussion towards how we apply pressure to our targets to force them into using defensive cooldowns, etc. And, for the life of me I cannot figure out what else I can change to accomplish this goal of applying more pressure to the opposing team.

I've done so many tests of the same things over and over and over and over and over to try to narrow down what's the best totem, what's the best way to gem, what's the best imbue setup to use, what's the best trinket combo -- and no matter what I've tried I still cannot manage to make any really noticeable difference. I've sort of fooled myself into thinking I must be doing something wrong and once I figure out this magical gear setup or different talent spec I'll just start rocking out. Unfortunately there is also the problem with having to wear 800-1k resilience just to survive as an enhance shaman when Shamanistic Rage and Wolves are not available. I feel really gimped having to glyph stoneclaw instead of it just being baseline or talented in the Earth's Grasp talent at the top of the tree.

Obviously, using purges correctly and grabbing interrupts help to apply pressure -- but only to a limited degree. At some point you need to be able to just really pressure the other team and commit to a kill. Against any good team, when my wolves are up and heroism is popped I often cannot get out enough pressure to force a shield swap on a warrior or a bubble on a holy/prot paladin or a druid rolling hots on himself or his teammate to need to play more defensively.

I've noticed that since the current live version of Frostbrand doesn't have the proper coefficient (and I believe Rounced pointed out that it also only increases damage by 6% instead of the advertised 10% on the Frozen Power talent), that the difference between using WF/FrB and WF/WF and WF/FT is so slight in a pvp setting with pvp gear that its ridiculous. The only advantage to really using Frostbrand is the slow, which is very useful and is in fact why you would even use it.

I also made an observation awhile back that Rounced acknowledged and offered suggestions for as well as others in the community, but unfortunately blues did not acknowledge it for Q&A or anywhere else. It is simply this: It seems as though blizzard has designed Enhance PvP around the assumption that we can keep Windfury and Strength of Earth totems down, while dps'ing in an arena match (as well as possibly magma/searing totems), even though we have to continually redrop Grounding Totem, Earthbind Totem, Stoneclaw Totem, and Tremor totem throughout a match, constantly, while purging and interrupting spells, and still managing to pump out a priority list damage rotation.

The reason we excel and are able to perform so well in a raid environment is because we are split between spells and melee for our DPS, and we receive buffs in a raid to compliment both aspects of our damage. In PvP however, mostly 2v2 and 3v3, this is not possible. In 5's with a decent setup enhance seems to perform much better, but the problem in 5's becomes our ability to survive with a 4 dps team, and if playing 3 dps 2 healers, then our problem is back to being buffs. We are forced to play cleave comps in 3's because they compliment us and earthbind totem compliments them, but that is the only reason.

I do not consider myself the best at pvp but I do consider myself a competent player, and I realize there are other Enhance Shamans in pvp who have achieved a higher ranking than I have in each bracket, and to them I say congratulations, especially to those in battlegroups with far superior players such as BG9.

So, are there any successful PvP enhance shamans out there that are higher rated than I, that care to comment on what you do to try to pressure the other team more, or have you run into much of the same problem? It seems we have to try 10x harder just to perform at the same level as a regular comp, and unless anyone out there can shout out what they have been successful with and done, I think it's time to spec elemental or resto for pvp and to give up "the dream".

 

panny

Your points are very similar to my own. We don't do enough damage in PvP due to how we scale with raid buffs/debuffs and our buffing totems are mutually exclusive with our utility totems. Funny how Paladins got their utility Blessings changed to Hand spells so they could both be used but we didn't. Oh thats right, totems are an enjoyable system unique to the Shaman class!!

At the moment, I use Earthbind and Ghost Wolf to kite cleave trains while my partners supply most of the offensive pressure. Then I joust in and out, doing my best to get out of range whenever they're not stunned by Fire Nova totem or something. It's pretty tough work though, especially on your teammates. My Shaman's 3v3 teammates asked me to switch to my DK so they could get their shoulders and difference was so incredible it was depressing.

P.S. Resto sucks at the moment too.

Fix Spirit Wolves not responding to commands.
DK/Rogue

 

Aezoc

I haven't seriously pvped on my enh. shaman since TBC, so I can't say how far these changes will go towards fixing things, but they do seem to touch on the major issues at least. The ES debuff will work out to decent damage reduction against most melee classes, and it'll be easier to pressure casters with an interrupt that's not linked to ES.

 

panny

This is what I said elsewhere:

Fix Spirit Wolves not responding to commands.
DK/Rogue

 

• Juice

I think it's pretty huge.

Basically you've been given a free interrupt to use (same is true for elemental shaman), as you have your shocks on CD more often than not while attempting to go for a kill. And while it's no silence, shutting down a spell every 6 seconds for basically no cost (gcd free) is outstanding. One of the things I enjoy about pvping resto (there are very few) is being able to disrupt enemy spell casters.

Don't sweat the instant cast heals - think about how this improves your position against frost mages, warlocks, and paladins. Now all shaman can be as disruptive as resto shaman can be - along enhance have positional concerns to consider.

Your complaint about the buff to MW and Hex seems mostly focused on Hex itself. Those complaints are warranted, but skip them when addressing this buff. Now you have the ability to instantly CC with MW. That seems to be pretty nice and while it may screw up your existing combo, other combos are possible to capitalize on it. Particularly in 3s where you don't have to be the end-all be-all in damage to your kill target. Interrupt, instant Hex, and another interrupt will play havoc against an enemy healer...and you are much more likely to use hex now (I say as a non-enhance player, so what do I know) because you don't have to stop pursuing your target to use it when MW stack is up. I've long felt Hex should be instant cast due to it's other limitations (druids lol), at least this is a step in the right direction.

 

panny

We haven't been given a free interrupt. I already save most of my shock cooldowns for interrupts. The number of interrupts I land will increase after this patch due to being able to Frost Shock more, but it's a minimal increase. All the change does really does is give me extra damage. I don't see much improvement in the area of stopping 1s polymorphs, cyclones, and heals (could just be a problem due to my Oceanic lag). And I mean actually applying meaningful pressure against CC/heals, not just delaying them for 2s (or 1.4s or whatever)

My complaints concerning maestrom-hex are centred on hex itself, but I don't think it's an unreasonable thing. It doesn't matter if a shitty car is free, it's still going to be shitty. I already use hex on cooldown against teams that don't have a Druid or aren't RMP. It's a small convenience change when it comes to using a shitty spell.

Forgive my doom and gloom, but I'm pretty cynical when it comes to Shamans. We've been quite poor for a long time (and not just the spec, I mean the class) and instead of overpowered buffs followed by nerfs to balance us like so many of the other classes, we get tiny change after tiny change thrown at us to keep us happy for another few weeks until we realise how ineffective they really are.

Fix Spirit Wolves not responding to commands.
DK/Rogue

 

• Juice

We're on the same page in many cases.

You have been given extra damage, and more opportunities to put the enemy in bad positions with your frost shock root. Better than a kick in the balls, but perhaps not enough to fix enhance. Stopping polymorph/cyclone/fear casts is probably lag related (get smoothping), because those things work very well for me (obvious we can't get them all - but no one can, and I'm not sure I'd trade our 6second CD for a 2 second silence and a longer CD).

Hex is crappy, but making it instant cast isn't. Yes, you trade off damage for it, but I know there are times when the instant cast can secure a kill, or make the difference in keeping one of your team alive.

Your cynicism is well founded. That said, I think in 3.2 we will get strong relative to other players (which is a first time in a long time). Elemental, in particular, is going to be great with the ghost wolf change.

 

kaoticz

I agree that the changes are nice; I also view them the same way as mentioned above that we keep getting minor change after minor change to hold us over until we realize how insignificantly they impact our viability in the arena.

I like the fact that we have things we can do to control situations, it seems like thats sort of our niche as enhance at least in arena. Grounding Totem and Shocks to cut down on offensive casts or stop a match-changing heal, Earthbind to remove snares and make us immune for 5 seconds as well as our teammates to keep melee pressure on the target, OR to peel the melee pressure off of a teammate.

Tremor Totem breaks fears on the team, and Hex to provide CC (except against lol druids). Frost Shock root to gap close on another player (which the range should be reduced to 10 yards for lag purposes, IMO, since the client-server positioning can differ enough to screw you sometimes), and finally Purges, to "try" to shut down a players defenses to your pressure.

We have a lot of shit we can do when you look at the whole picture. I'm also more than sure that it probably lends to the Q&A where the blues said:
"One of the challenges of designing the shaman class is that we think it is one of the most challenging classes to play in PvP. (Players sometimes call this having a “high skill cap.”) The shaman has to think about defense and offense at the same time, while many classes can worry about one or the other."

I think this is why they keep doing minor change after minor change, because if we play everything right, technically, on paper, we should be able to shut a lot of people down. In practice however, it requires a lot of work and since our damage cannot pump out a lot of pressure to commit to a kill, it seems to fail.

I honestly think they aren't sure if they want us to be more utility, or some sort of counter-CC, or... what? All I have to say though is that, the amount of crap we can do, is what sort of makes Enhancement enjoyable to PvP as. The inability to be even half as amazing as we look on paper however, is somewhat disheartening.

 

Adrammelech

While a lot of the changes I've seen on the PTR so far are good, and a long time coming, I frankly don't think they go far enough.

If there's going to be more focus on BG pvp, Ghost Wolf needs to be functional indoors, it can be limited to 100%, but it's new anti snare effect needs to be available.

Elemental weapons should increase the proc rate on Frostbrand Weapon.

They should remove the secondary effect from Earth Shock entirely and just increase it's damage.

They need to do something with the totem system, the spec feels more balanced around flametongue/totem weapon and SoE being down. Yet pvp is very mobile and in the case of Earth totems we're constantly juggling EB and tremor. I say combine SoE and stoneskin totem into a single casted pre-fight buff like blessings and call it a day.

The tree needs some kind of dependable burst, either to front load or as a finisher.

Finally, if hex is going to be a shit spell because of the sheer amount of druids running around and the fact that it counts as a poly effect, maybe it should do something else, like zombify the target instead of transforming them into a frog.