Again Blizzard Screws Me....first warriors ..now Shamans !Follow

Over two years ago I rolled a warrior to the level 60 cap. Then the massive pvp urge kicked in and I quickly became frustrated on how useless warriors were in general none arena/organized pvp...just out about questing and getting jumped. I quickly became tired of trying to close the gap on mages after my one and only useless 1 second effect of hamstring wore off. Watch the mage freeze me in place and then blink and toast me in two shots. If it wasnt that then it was priests ...fear...pain...fear...blah blah blah. Warriors had no way of getting close..intercept and charge were useless if you didnt get the jump first. So did I whine or complain? No...I did the easiest thing. I quit.

Two years hiatus I come back and get the expansion and horray! Shamans on the alliance side! I quickly start the mad rush to hit 70 before the 2nd expansion is released. Oh wait...something is wrong....shamans suck at pvp too??? Great, the shaman does the DPS a Warrior does...but as enhanced spec I still cant get near anyone and still get toasted like im naked running around swinging a toothpick? I mean seriouisly, my buddy has a mage the same level as me (65 right now) and He can freeze me and blast me for 2200 a pop and if im lucky and can get close enough to him after freezing me and blink i might be able to hit him 6-8 times to kill him? Oh wait ...my mail armor will save me right? lol......please...might as well be naked drinking ale at the Inn and let myself get mauled by a elwynn forrest boar.

I hate whining but...this is horrible. As enhanced spec shaman..I cant do elemental damage because im spec'd enh for dps. Ok fine..that was my choice to spec enhancement. I cant get close enough to anyone to kill them and meanwhile they cut through me like a hot knife through butter. Ok fine! Cant beat em? join them. I re-spec to elemental spec....worse! I now can do more damage from a distance the problem is now I have no CC to keep them in place to do the damage? Everyone says "use the frost spell to slow them down" lol..please..it slows them down...they still close the gap..they dont stop moving. Most of the time it doesnt even stick....this is starting to be another waste of time.

I read a good article that said it the best: Shamans great at alot of things..masters at none. Couldnt say it better myself.


HELP BLIZZARD !!

I give up...I hear Conan and Warhammer will give shammy's love..I hope.

Yea, im finding this to be very true. Organized pvp'er I am not...dont really have a interest in hard core pvp...but when I get jumped by someone at should at least have a fighting or equal chance to survive. Also...I would love to have an AOE or a stun? I mean my aoe is a nova totem ..that I actually have to physically hit each target prior to setting the totem down. If I dont hit the totem then one mob reaches over and blows it out like a candle..meanwhile 5 mobs are beating on me. stun? forget about it...I mean mages get a stun on some spells, warriors get charge, rogues stun, hell even pallys get stun. why dont shamans get plate? I mean every melee class gets plate except shammys?

Ok if your elemental spec I dont think you should get plate..your not up melee style...but they should revamp that if your enhance spec you should get a talent point for plate...elemental should stay mail. dont want a plated caster rolling around indestructible :) But overall...im sad...I was really pumped to play. PVE we are a sought after class....to bad blizz doesnt care enough to keep customers.

What's plate going to do to mitigate your mage friend's spell damage again?

Well, truth is, I started a forum awhile back just on this subject, and it went 4 or 5 pages. You can beat almost any class as long as you pay attention to anything cept for demon spec'd locks and believe it or not, prot tauren warriors (just too many interrupts and counters) Our biggest advantage is being able to get one of those spells off even after they cancel one. The trick is getting geared. As of right now, I'm using alot of haste gear as elemental and my LB hits for bout 1600-3600 with a crit rate of 34%. you just simply have to kill them before they kill you. Now dont get me wrong though, we are still very much screwed over compared to other classes.

In my opinion, Ele shamans CAN be useful in 5v5s. ***Provided you are geared***

Due to the fact that we have no CC or counter CC and we deal so much burst damage, when fighting against a competent team, they WILL target us 1st and kill us off, becoz we are easy to kill, and we are dangerous to be left alone.

But this changes once we have enough resilience. We can last longer and thus soak some damage. This enables our teammates in 5v5 to do some serious damage to our opponents when they have heroism buff. And if we survive long enough, those with 4 piece Glad gear have a good chance to throw out at least one 100% Crit Chain Lightning.

If any team leave the shaman alone, they are asking for trouble, lol.

I came to the above conclusion from my experience in arena at various stages of gearing up. The KEY is SURVIVING long enough to make that one useful shot.

Also, surviving long enough also means that your totems have a chance to make a difference.

Having said all that, I haven't been to the higher brackets of Arena so I can't say whether the above is still true there. But I was told that Ele Shamans are an important component in some high ranking teams.

I'm in the camp of those that don't complain about the pvp abilities of my shaman because I don't pvp. I'm not good at it and pvp sucks if you suck at it. I shine in pve and I'm happy for that.

Situationally sorta.

Dmg and "Resto" shaman are oxymorons, first of all. Resto shaman's are sorta like Pally's. Big on survival, low on dmg. So typical fights with a Resto shaman, goes something like (Hopefully start at distance) Earth shield up, LIghtning bolt (til in shock range), Flame shock, Searing totem, and from there on its healing and throwing out a appropreate shock for the situation. Either way to cut it....expect a long drawn out fight (assuming you have the MP to go the distance).

Resto's bank on the hopes that they can weather the onslaught long enough for their "little" dmg to wear someone to death.

Elementals bank on the hopes that their LB's, CL's, and shocks will kill their target before they get into melee range on them.

Enhancement bank on the hopes that they can get into melee range (and STAY THERE)and a SS and/or WF will crit.

As far as the likeliness of "strategy's" playing out the way I mentioned it above, I'd say I put it in proper order.

Course in the BIG picture compared to ALL other classes in PvP, we generally suck. Even the Resto's gameplan has TONS of holes in it, and there's nothing "we" as players can do about it, til Blizz get's their heads outta their naughty hole.

sounds like you need to learn to use all that you've got, i perfer enh for pvp over elem because once im known/targeted im screwed, theirs a ton of ways to shut me down.. so i pvp enhancement and really have no problems with any class other then warriors and rogues.

i don't know how you play but all other classes are basically easy/free kills.

friends of the enh shaman: grounding totem, earth shock, PURGE<<big one there and instant ghostwolf.

mage freezes you purge him twice, drop a grounding totem somewhere in there earthshock or if novas about to break frost instant wolf drop earthbind then rape the *****.

honestly your best friend is purge, you can make some classes basically a free kill by throwing a few purges, key thing if theirs a druid and say its wsg he has flag purge purge purge frost shock wolf earth bind frost purge he'll die fast with no HoTs.

another thing don't get suckered into a kite mage freezes you and starts running around expecting you to chase.. ghostwolf and run the other way.. close the distants on your grounds not his.

warlock?? purge purge tremor grounding night night lock, tries to kite ^do as above suggests with a mage, do it with a hunter too.. attack when you want to attack don't be suckered into a fight to close the gap.. let them come to you then.. mouse turn bam your in their lap. (in ghostwolf of course)

hunters will either frost/freeze trap or scatter you see it coming frost shock earth bind so he can't get away then finish him.

really don't get the QQing i love pvp as enhancement its so much easier, its really the ppl under plate your after and thats what your great at other then rogues cause the stuns. elemental will eat plate classes tho.

too bad blizz based class balance on 5v5 arena, not 1v1 encounters. reroll a rogue, play more in BG's and 5v5's, or QQ moar, your choice.

I spent about a year leveling my Shaman and dealing with the identity crisis that is the "Utility Class Shaman" before I finally found my niche as an Enhancement Raiding Shaman. During that time, I tried BG, Arena, and ganking the unfortunate horde players to walk around flagged. I figured out a few things: if I want bigger numbers and flash, Elemental was the way to go. If I wanted to actually be brought into 5 man runs (due to the common ignorance of the majority of the player base), I had to go Resto. Finally, after 2.4, I decided to try out Enhancement. As I have a 70 Resto Druid, I was never allowed to bring my Shaman on guild raids because we're always hurting for healers. I ended up answering a /whisper from a guy looking for an enhancement shaman for Karazhan. In my two months of running with this other guild for Karazhan raids, I've seen that, while me may be "lacking" in the PvP department, we can really excel in PvE. I'm not always top of the DPS chart, but I'm up there in the top 2 or 3 every run. And it's not just the numbers I can put out, it's the chain heals, chain lightening, AoE fire totems, and every other buff that my totems bring to the party that just add icing to the cake. I have not even bothered trying to find an arena team this season for my shaman, my time now is focused on Gruul's, Mag's, Kara, and planning where I want to go next. I think that being able to be "Top Dog" with an underdog class is a blast. Maybe one day the Dieties that are Blizzard will actually "fix" Shaman PvP, but until then, I know I have a full plate seeing the materials they have placed in front of me now.

Purge often = win in PvP.

A pally runs up to you to start smacking you around? Purge his auras, blessings and judgments. All he can do now is white damage. Lets say s/he tries to grab flag in wsg and run with BoF, making them immune to snares. Purge it and frost shock.

A frost mage shows up and frost nova's you? Purge his ice barrier, frost armor and AI while letting your grounding totem eat the fb. Now he's got no protection you effectively drained his mana. And the nova is just about to break.

Taking on a priest? Purge away. You probably just removed thousands of pts of armor by purging Inner Fire and hundreds of health by purging PW:F. Maybe you can purge Renew, too.

A druid just dropped a bunch of hots on him/herself or a teammate? Purge em. No more heals (But be careful not to purge lifebloom, that'll trigger a big burst heal.)


Unkillable resto shammy giving you trouble? Purge that earth shield and two-shot him.

Note that some talents make buffs harder to purge, so it's not guaranteed you'll take out a disc priest's buffs by purging, for example. But purge can be a terrific weapon.

Edit: PS, if you're not clear on what purge does, it basically dispels two beneficial spell effects from the target. And there's no cd, you can spam it, though it does cost mana, not something that shamans often have a big supply of.

Edited, Apr 30th 2008 3:11pm by tuskerdu

Spamming purge usually isnt great but Shamans have more GCDs to play with than some other classes. As an enhancer, much of my damage comes from auto-attack. I can shock every 6 secs and ss every 10. Thats about it. If my totems are already down I have lots of purge opportunities. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe weaving a purge or two in there will impact the number of autoattack swings you get between ss. Even if it does, sometimes a purge is worth that (purging fort at max rank can remove, what, 540 health from an enemy in one click).

I imagine this is a tougher calculation for elementals.