Yeah, I think I will be dropping ToW as well from my final PvP spec. I don't know why I picked it up when I dual spec'd, b/c I never had before. But ultimately if we're in a 5s group, we want to dish out as much damage as possible, so do you think picking up ToW and ToW glyph would be the way to go for 5s? I think Glyph of Thunder is a good a choice as any. It's a great anti-rogue weapon now that it works while stunned, and since they are going to be right on you that's going to be as good a chance as any it will get the full knockback on them. We could also consider dropping earthbind before we know a rogue will get the jump on us, it might not root them out of stealth if they're smart, but it will probably end up snaring them and we can TS afterward giving us more time before they can re-engage us (unless they CoS :O) and by then we can have escaped and can kite them around

I think this might be my spec for now - http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?sham...3&version=9767

Has anyone tried 44/27, for Booming Echoes and Frozen Power?

I've been testing this spec on the Tournament Realm for a few days now. I have been planning on it for a few weeks, and have to say I'm pretty impressed with its potential. It plays somewhat similar to an arcane mage, with 3 second frost/flame shock CD's. Mana might prove to be an issue in long 3s/5s matches. It does, however, offer an unusual amount of CC for a shaman, especially against melee, between frost shock snares, nova stuns, and earthbind snares. Probably going to need more testing before I can say it's really viable.

Why do you consider Thundering Strikes and Toughness to be worthless?

Anything that adds directly to burst capability or survivability is vital in PvP. As I mentioned in a previous post, although resilience has nerfed the impact of crit, it certainly does not make that stat a "waste". In addition, I find myself often in situations in battlegrounds or world PvP where self-healing has been the difference between winning or losing a fight, and Thundering Strikes certainly brings more to the table than just the benefit of burst damage. I think the value of toughness is very clear as well, since stamina is directly proportional to survivability.

I saw that you posted earlier on instead putting the extra points into Improved Shields. Let's suppose you have 2100 spell power. 33% of that is added to the damage of one of your lightning shield orbs. Lightning Shield (Rank 11) hits for 380 nature damage. Add 700 to that and we arrive at 1080 nature damage per orb. 15% of that is an additional 162 damage per orb.

For 3 points into Lightning Shield, we see an added benefit of 486 damage per Lightning Shield, assuming we are regularly being hit.

For 3 points into Thundering Strikes, we get 3% increased critical strike chance. The cap on critical strike damage reduction is 33.3% at a resilience rating of 1353 at level 80 and assuming your opponent has this (which is highly unlikely):

Avg. Damage = [Hit Damage * (1.0 - C)] + [Hit Damage * (1.0 + B) * C]
where C is the critical strike rate and B is the critical strike damage component.

Assuming you can still crit your opponent, the average damage, assuming a spell dealing a (mediocre) 3k damage non-crit is:
[3,000 * (1.0 - 0.03)] + [3,000 * (1.0 + 0.67) * 0.03] = 3,060.3
The difference in average damage is therefore, 60.3 damage.

This means that if there is the possibility to crit your resilience capped opponent, you will still see an average increase of 60.3 damage per each 3k non-crit damage spell for 3 points into Thundering Strikes. Since most of our spells hit harder than 3k non-crit, most of our opponents are not resilience-capped, and it is highly likely that you will cast more of these spells than deliver lightning shield charges within the same amount of alloted time, Thundering Strikes is more often than not, better than Improved Shields. The only time I could recommend getting Improved Shields over Thundering Strikes is if you are getting hit often and are unable to really cast any damage spells, but last time I checked, this is when you've lost the fight.

For 3 points into Toughness, 6% of stamina on a shaman with 18k health is 1,080 health, not to mention the movement speed reducing effects.

But a normal part of your burst is to have an INC CL immediatly follwing a LvB which is definately affected buy your crit rating, as well as the following instant LB. 2 non-crits after the LvB can mean certain death.

This is correct about Lava Burst, however, all of your shocks, fire totems, and even thunderstorm receive benefit from additions to crit rating.

In regard to Astral Shift, I used to think the same. After all, 30% is 30% and that should be imba, aye? But then I realized that it's not stuns which kill me, it's the rogue's ability to counter pretty much everything I throw at him (most of all the annoying Cloak of Skills). Since it only works on stuns and not incapacitates (such as Gouge) and since it only counters silences and not counterspells, I figured that 10% health might work better - and it does. Thunderstorm can be used to break stunlock in the key moment, whereas pvp gear + gift of the naaru + stoneclaw + Toughness combo give me about 30k health to work with. What's even better, Toughness is useful vs. counterspells (what? It happens) and I've noticed that combined with Stoneclaw, my survivability has increased by quite a bit. Of course, that's just personal view of things.

In regard to Glyph of Elemental Mastery, I agree, hence my comment that it's mainly a BG glyph.

In regard to Glyph of Thunderstorm, I believe you ment Glyph of Thunder? Thunderstorm removes knockback :p

MatsT (post 112): With Booming Echoes, Frost Shock has essentially become Arcane Barrage Lite, so any crit on that helps.

A thing to consider when deciding on this is that the diminishing CD is 15 sec and then CD on Fire Nova is also 15 sec.
If you are the only one with a stun it's probably better to know it will never get diminishing returns and use my gyph on something else.
And if there are other stuns on your team reducing the CD from 15 to 13 sec probably won't do a whole lot.

And usually stuns are plenty and knock-backs few.

Are you sure the DR is 15 seconds? Most stuns have 20 seconds DR. Doesn't really matter regarding the glyph though I guess since you probably don't want to drop it often enough for the glyph to be worth it.

Regarding crit: I know helps the damage of for example Frost Shock. My point was that even in PvE, crit is a quite bad stat, and in PvP it's even worse due to resilience and less % of your spells that gets affected.

(partial quote)
Now THIS, sounds like an issue i'd like to hear debated, is Haste > Crit for Arenas? (regarding this class) or only when your facing teams W/ 1K+ resil? I feel this is a big issue because it affects what gear your choosing, hate to grab the wrong stuff :X


1st time post, good to be here EJ you guys rock

Personally, I am a HUGE fan of Stoneclaw, Thunder, and FlS. Why? 10s off of your TS CD is HUGE. Stoneclaw is nice b/c you can Stoneclaw => Fire nova totem => Instant GW and be provided with a HUGE gap from melee, as they run at you, EB / hex. We are looking very very good for S6 in the 5's bracket. I cannot wait!

A few things about PvP specs (this is assuming just the 5's bracket and some BG's, resto is still our best bet for 2's/3's):
Required talents:
Enhance Tree:
Instant GW - Great escape tool from a Frost shocked target.
Elemental Tree:
Concussion - Damage increase > Mana reduction.
Elemental Warding - Smart teams aren't going to let us free cast. Damage Reduction is amazing.
Imp Fire Nova Totem - Obviously for the Stun
Eye of The Storm - Obvious reasons
Lightning Overload - When you get that Double Chainlightning Overload once in a blue moon, you will lol so hard...
Astral Shift - The dmg reduction from this is amazing against a good rog who locks you down.
Lava Flows - The 10 sec Heroism from a dispelled auto crit is a pretty neat mechanic.
Thunderstorm - Obvious Reasons.


A few things that I chose to skip:
Storm's Reach - I have never been able to cast against anything max range, I use this more as a filler talent than anything.
Totem of Wraith - Not worth it. Fire Nova Totem, or searing totem will always be a better utility that ToW.
Unrelenting Storm - Thunderstorm + Water Sheild == more than enough mana for arenas.
Toughness - Too far down the tree, for not enough benifit.
Earth's Grasp - Not worth the extra range. Why? B/c why cast a root on a melee who is that far away from you already?