PvP totems of choice and Purge effects.Follow

A totem dropping & purging guide for the new PvPing Shaman. I did not include the Fire Elemental or Earth Elemental Guardians. Use those whenever you feel for the free bonus they give, especially for the Fire Elemental. Comments and feedback on red text is appreciated!

Mages

Purge to remove their Intellect buff, reducing mana and their spell crit chance. It is a mana intensive spell so they will not recast it in battle. Also purge their mana/ice shield. Keep your finger on that earth shock button, use it when you see him cast! Be wary of counterspell, especially for Elemental & Restoration Shamans.

Air - Grounding totem, drop it as soon as cooldown is ready. Depending on your spec you may want to drop Wrath of Air or Grace of air while grounding is on cooldown. You may just block a PoM Pyro crit for example, which is major damage negated.

Earth - Strength of Earth to increase the damage of your melee swings. If you're Elemental spec, you'll probably not drop any Earth totems against mages.

Fire - Frost resistant totem, this will increase the chance of resisting frost magic. When resisted, damage will be reduced to zero from frost damage. You may want to consider using Searing Totem instead if you do not see them casting any Frostbolts. Unless you're enhancement, resisting Frost Novas won't help you much(Thank you, RPZip). Totem of Wrath is a good option as well for Elemental Shamans.

Water - Fire resistant totem, this will increase the chance of resisting the mages fire damage. When resisted, Fire damage will only be reduced, not fully resisted.

Warlocks

Purge to remove their Demon Buffs thus reducing their armor, health regeneration, and damage & healing(RPZip).

Air - Grounding totem, drop it as soon as cooldown is ready. Depending on your spec you may want to drop Wrath of Air or Grace of air while grounding is on cooldown.

Earth - Tremor totem, Warlocks will hate you and the smart ones will immediately destroy it, lookout for this and reapply asap! This will help you from being chain-feared to death. A must against Warlocks. Their fear is a 1.5 second cast time as well, try to catch this with an Earthshock if you can, as the tremor has a slight delay. Tremor will also break their Succubus' Charm spell.

Fire - Searing totem or Totem of Wrath for dps increases.

Water - Healing spring or Mana spring totem.

Hunters

Purges do not remove the Hunters aspect buffs. Thank you, Quor.

Air - Windwall may be used to reduce their ranged damage, although the benefit of using your Grace of Air or Wrath of Air is probably greater.

Earth- Strength of Earth to increase melee dps or your stoneskin totem to reduce their pet's dps. Earthbind to slow them from getting away from you. Stoneclaw totem can be used to possibly taunt their pet away from you.

Fire - They'll be wanting to kite you and stay away so Fire totems don't usually work so good against the on the run hunters. If they drop their viper trap thus spawning a million snakes, Magma Totem will work nicely here.Thanks RP. As usual Totem of Wrath for the Elemental spec.

Water - Poison cleansing totem, crucial against hunters as they will drain your mana with their Viper Sting quickly. Don't forget to use your other poison cleansing spell as well if you need to.

Rogues

Rogues only self applied buffs are their poisons which cannot be removed by Purge.

Air - Grace of Air or Wrath of Air, depending on your spec.

Earth - Earthbind to kite them as they can't do damage if they cannot get to you. Strength of earth or Stoneskin are other options, depending on your talent spec.

Fire - Magma totem rank one or two(cheaper on mana) to get them out of stealth. Rogues do have a talent to sap you from far away, so it is possible that they can sap you, wait for your Magma to wear off and then open up on you.

Water - Poison cleansing totem is a must as their poisons of choice against Shamans will be Wounding Poison(reduces healing by up to 50%), Mind numbing(increases casting time of spells by 60%), and Crippling Poison(slows your walking speed to a crawl). Use your other poison cleanse if needed.

Paladins

Purge the Pallys to remove their many Blessings and Auras(too many to list!) Note that the Paladin's bubble cannot be purged. Have earth shock ready to interupt those heals!

Air - Grounding totem here will absorb the Paladin's Hammer of Justice spell(a lengthy stun) as well as a couple of other dps spells.Thanks RP Grace of Air or Wrath of Air when it's on cooldown.

Earth - Earthbind to kite them as they can't do damage if they cannot get to you. They do have a blessing that makes them immune to kiting, although if purged they will not be able to reapply for some time. Strength of earth or Stoneskin are other options, depending on your talent spec.

Fire - If you don't want to kite them, Searing totem will do well here. Totem of Wrath if available as usual.

Water - Healing or Mana spring totems.

Warrior

Purge will not remove the Warrior's shout buffs. Thank you, Quor

Air - Grace of Air or Wrath of Air, depending on your spec.

Earth - Tremor totem could be used here...they have one fear on a fairly long cooldown, if used on you it will cause you to cower in fear, not moving at all. Strength or Stoneskin are options, depending on your spec. Earthbind could be used to slow them down to get some breathing room. If you are Hamstrung, remember that Intercept is on a 15 second cooldown so try to get them to waste that first before you trinket out of Hamstring.RP

Fire - Searing or Totem of Wrath.

Water - Healing or Mana spring totem.

Priest

Purge them to dispel their stamina buff, armor buff, damage shield, and Pain Supression buff. Be ready to Earth Shock their heals, Mind Flays, and Mind Blasts.

Air - Grounding totem whenever it's up, Wrath of Air or Grace of Air when it's on Cooldown.

Earth - Tremor totem asap because Priests fear is instant cast.

Fire - Searing or Totem of Wrath.

Water - Mana or Healing spring.

Druids

Purge their MotW buff and beware of purging while they are in tree or their humanoid form due to their Lifebloom HoT spell healing them if it's dispelled. Try to Earthshock their Regrowth or Healing Touch spells, as well as their CC spells Cyclone & Entangling roots.Thanks, RP

Air - Grounding if they are balance spec, Grace of Air or Wrath of Air when it's down.

Earth - Stoneskin or Stength of earth, depending on your spec.

Fire - Magma totem rank one or two to get them out of stealth, or searing when in battle or Totem of Wrath.

Water - Mana or Healing spring.

Shamans

Purge their shields - Mana, Lightning, & especially Earth Shield. Purge Draineis HoT spell Gift of the Naaru. Purge enhancement Shamans Shamanistic Rage. Destroy those totems!(lol) Keep earthshock up to interupt those heals!

Air - Grounding Totem to block those dps spells, also Grace of Air or Wrath of Air.

Earth - Earthbind to kite the Enhancement Shamans, or also Strength of Earth or Stoneskin depending on spec.

Fire - Searing or Totem of Wrath.

Water - Mana or Healing Spring.

Thank you Quor for clarifying Mage frost & fire resists.


Thank you RPZip for your many contributions.

Edited, Oct 30th 2007 12:09pm by Zornov

Nice guide, good info and well presented. GJ.

Warlocks:


Fel Armor, which increases their +DMG and all healing effects on them (including Drain Life/Soul Siphon), but it's pretty much the same catergory as the Demon Armor ones.

Mages:
Against Mages it's almost always worth dropping Fire Resistance totem, as all mages use Fireblast, but you want to swap Frost Resistance for a Searing Totem at your discretion if they're not casting Frostbolt (unless you're Enhancement, resisting Frost Nova doesn't help you much).

Hunters:
I haven't confirmed it with your totem(s), but I can confirm that Warrior Taunt works on Hunter pets. I don't know how exactly the Stoneclaw Totem works - if it has a hard-taunt (forces something to attack it no matter how much threat you have) then it'll work fine. If it's a soft taunt (builds threat) then it won't work at all, unfortunately.

Magma Totem can be a good choice against Hunters, especially if they're dropping Snake Traps. Nothing is worse than having all those poisons up and not being able to drop Viper Sting off.

Paladins:
Grounding Totem can absorb Hammer of Justice (and Holy Shock/Judgements), which may be crucial. I'd heavily recommend it for most specs.

Warrior:
Especially with judicious use of your PvP trinket to break Hamstring (and the upcoming 10s Hamstring Duration, down from 15s) and Frost Shock you can get good use out of Earthbind Totem. I certainly wouldn't discount it; even a few seconds out of melee is going to be the difference between victory and defeat in a lot of cases.

Druids:
Beware of spam-Purge on Druids, especially when in caster (or tree) forms. They can cast Lifebloom on themselves, a decent HoT that also gives a large healing kick when dispelled... which makes spamming Purge a bit counterproductive. Also beware of Earth Shocking Starfire, as they may simply follow it up with a Cyclone (nature spell, Banishes you) and get a heal off while you're unable to do anything to respond. Roots are also the bane of Enhancement Shaman and for good reason.

Sticky.

Sunsoarer, you could add/link this when you make your post-2.3 FAQ.

/bump

Sticky!

Speaking of stickies...

How's the new FAQ going, SunSoarer?

Retribution paladin and paladins in general:
- A retribution paladins' seals cannot be dispelled, I'm digging my own grave here as I've seen plenty of shamans purge spamm, trying to get my seal away.
- A paladins' aura cannot be purged.
- A paladin can only have one blessing active at a time.
- Paladins can cleanse earthbind totems' effect.
- A retribution paladin won't heal unless you are stunned or 'gouged' by repentance, a PvP trinket can come in handy here but a both HoJ (Hammer of justice 6 second stun, 10 yards range) and repentance (20 yards range 6 second 'gouge' effect) have a 1 minute cooldown and the cooldown of HoJ is decreasable to 35 seconds with talents and 4 pieces of the gladiator set. Keep the redirect spell totem up.

Yours sincerely, DdarkDdemon.

Two seconds. And it still depends. Sometimes even that single second you can gain from Cleansing can be worth it.


Plausible, but impracticle. No self-respecting arena Retribution Paladin (See what I did there? Huge oxymoron. I'm so witty and clever...) is going to be deep enough into the Protection tree for Imp. HoJ. They are or should all be 20/0/41 or some variant of ??/0/41+.

Still, that having been said, I agree with keeping Grounding Totem up as often as possible.