So, you want to PvP as a DPS spec?Follow

so? 100% of all druids past the 1500 mark in 2's are resto. 100% of any warrior in any bracket above 1500 has at least 33 points in arms and 20 in fury. again ill say it; shaman are actually very lucky in that all three specs actually *are* represented, to one degree or another, in arena. all three specs are 2k+ viable. the bracket you can do that in is dependent on what spec you are, with resto being viable in all three, elemental being most viable in 5's and a little in 3's, and enh being most viable in 3's and 5's.

so who cares if resto is 80% of 2v2. that still leaves 20% to enh and elemental, which is infinetely more than the 0% of mages who are fire or arcane, or the 0% of paladins who are prot, or the 0% of warriors who are fury or prot, or the 0% of druids who are feral etc etc.

Actually, if you look at how it is divided, that isn't exactly true. You kind of need to actually go look at the links I posted to understand the census.

I really could care less. I hate arenas. Everyone just wants me for windfury. Tanking everyone in your arena is not fun as shaman. I think that's the main reason you don't see many shamans. Being everyone's main target does not equate to enjoyable.

Er, no, 2h is definitely not better in PvP.

And Quor is exaggerating, but there are definitely exceptions, but they're just that--exceptions.

Kevak 2h is not better then dw in arena,s

Shamans in arena go dw, it increases there chance to wf and there sustained dmg.

2h is too slow, resilience kills the chance for it to work properly in an arena, we lack enough strikes to get much use out of it (all we have is storm strike).

The only reason 2h weapons work for paladin in arena is because they do not have dw and they can crusader strike what every 6 seconds? we storm strike every 10 seconds (not sure if any of our sets decrease the cool down but i doubt it)

Now in BGs where you will find targets with lower hp and resilience it can work, but this is mainly done for fun.

2h for enhancement shaman was basically killed by TBC you can deny it all you want to but it is sad to say for enhancement in every shape and way it is dw>2h

it is just the way it is bro, and yes you can find videos of shaman on the interweb wooping people with 2h weapons but all they show are big wf hits and its almost always in BGs. Anyone with some time to kill can BG all day fraps the entire thing and cut out all the big wf hits to make it seem like 2h are OP.

Based on what? 1 pvp video? Check arena rankings for top enhancement shaman, they ALL DW.

as a rule, i dont trust any stats unless they come straight from blizzards mouth. why? well, in your case, i looked over the threads you posted and saw no mention of how that information was acquired. was it learned from looking at armory profiles? if so, thats flawed in and of itself, because i know of a good many classes who spec for arena and then respec for pve, sometimes multiple times a week, nihilums kungen (their MT) being the most famous example. ive seen him listed as prot on his 2k+ 5's team a number of times, but i highly doubt he arenas as prot (mostly because he said so, but partly because it just doesnt make sense).

hence, any third-party stats mean nothing to me aside from a raw accounting of numbers for any given week. for instance, i noticed a number of hunters in the link you posted, by far the majority, were deep BM at the 2k+ level in 2's. however, deep BM is a pve dps spec, not an arena spec. the hunter arena spec of choice is deep marks with survival.

now, if they compiled those stats from actual face-to-face encounters with each one of those people, and/or asked them personally "is that what you arena as?" then id be more inclined to believe them. but given the malleability of specs and the ease with which respec money comes (for those who wish to respec a lot) then anything more than an accounting of numbers is, at best, questionable.



before they changed SR into what it is now, 2h was the preferred way to go, especially since most enh pvp shammies would grab NS instead. now that SR has a shortened duration and is considered a physical buff (i.e. unremoveable by anything but death) dual wield is more and more popular. for a DPS shammy, who is a high priority target, more survivability is a good thing, and SR far outstrips NS now. better yet, if said survivability gives you mana back then great. but when said mana return is limited by the number of hits you get while your buff is active, you gotta go with what works, and with the new SR, thats dual wield.

Edited, May 26th 2008 12:37am by Quor

I was going to post that, but I knew what Sin/Gaudion were going to post:

HES BEING CARRIED/THATS ONE EXAMPLE!

So I didn't bother.

Edited, May 29th 2008 9:15pm by Theophany

LOL, guess wat, I rated up the OP becoz.... 'IT GAVE US HOPE'. (Yes, I really did)

Yah, especially for newbie shamans. They would be fooled into thinking there is something to work towards,... so we'll still have shamans in this forum =P

Now, my honest opinion, that post has it's uses. Ideally, what he described is what we would LOVE to be able to do.

BUT. U will not be able to do that against any competent team. They would shut u down for good (with CC) or kill u so fast that your healer has no chance of keeping u alive.

They can do that, because we have no CC and no counter CC (except my 2 min trinklet).

If your opponents dont do that, they are just plain n00bs. Coz we'll then be doing the huge amount of damage.

And wat's this nonsense about doing a lot of damage through Cloak of Shadows? Are you afraid that Cloak might get nerfed? My PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE against rogues who used it,.... RESIST RESIST RESIST. ZERO damage.

I'm not full S3, but I'm almost all pvp geared, (S1, 2 and 3 combo) with the 40k trinklet, etc. My res is 350ish (no where near what I want, but that's all I could get for now)

In the games that I win, what you wrote really happened. it was so fun to actually be able to DPS. Simply becoz my opponents did not focus on me (dumb opponents) or I managed to hide (they did not have stealthed rogues or druids to scout). When they didn't get me out of the equation, my team USUALLY WIN.

BUT, in most other games,... I'm the 1st one to die. And I can't do NUTS. It's super frustrating. All I could do, was to pray that I get heroism off before I die. And soon after that, usually my team will lose.

BTW, I'm ele speced.

Why do I even bother to PVP then? Coz some of the PVP gear is actually the best PVE option I could get before T6. If not, I wouldn't subject myself to such torture and spoil the game.

Edited, May 30th 2008 5:38am by waihwang

There's no point.

Edited, May 30th 2008 9:21am by Sinstralis

Personally, after reading that, it seems to me that you have NO CLUE what you are talking about when it comes to rogues. Sap-> gouge? Or he could just sap-> cheap shot but w/e he is taking on a shaman so he can use skills only useable in stealth outside of stealth and vice versa. The fact that you're dieing in a stun lock to a rogue (who is apparently in greens too) tells me that either A. you have terrible gear or B. you're just a terrible player. Rogues should NEVER stunlock you to death. Will they kill you? Probably, rogues are incredibly strong with all of their cooldowns up. Should you be dieing that quickly though? Should you be giving into a defeatist attitude long before the fight ends? Almost certainly not. Especially if you're geared enough to 2 shot him to 44%.

I think the problem that most of the shaman here have on this thread (Gaudion and Sin included although they, for the most part, stick to 2v2 and 3v3) is that many arguments fall back on the "We fail at 1v1" statement which is absolutely ludicrous. I don't know how many times blizzard has said (and yes it's been quoted numerous times in related threads) that PVP IS NOT BALANCED ON A 1v1 BASIS. Shocking I know, but pvp is balanced around 5's not 1's.

The fact that shamans have many counterclasses means that you have to work that much harder to beat them with your arena buddy(s). Nobody loves losing duels, but lets face it they're meaningless. Mages beat warriors in duels just about every time. Does that mean that mages are OP and need a nerf? Or is it that warriors just suck and need a buff. The train of thought in this thread seems to point towards the latter and, unfortunately, many uninformed preconceptions have been stated, proven wrong, and then restated again because the posters of this forum can't seem to get it into their head that no class can beat every single class in a 1v1.

Um, almost EVERY class is a counterclass to shaman. Every class has some kind of "oh ****" button with the exception of Shaman. You could count Bloodlust/Heroism ... but it's purgeable/dispelable and THAT is easily countered if you have any form of kite ability for an enhancement or silencing ability against an elemental shaman even if you can't use purge, mass dispel, spell steal, arcane shot, or have a felhunter out.

No form of intercept
No form of escape
No way to get people off of you
No way to stop taking damage

This is why shamans are the first targets in Arena and why they are considered easy kills.

Aren't you the guy who whined that he was just god awful at pvp and couldn't figure out why? Only to be told that pvp gear and a little bit of practice would help? I seem to remember that you refused that advice to get proper pvp gear and went out on your own way. Honestly, as a long time reader (only short term poster though) I can tell you that in these past two threads they have at least triedto post useful information whereas you (and unfortunately Gaudion and Sin whom I actually respect) continue to bang your heads against the wall and post the same rhetoric about how Theo and Quor don't care and they're just being arrogant pricks.

I fail to see how you can get that opinion. As a long time reader, I've seen previous posts by both Theo and Quor and I've also seen the recent flame wars going on within the shaman forum. While I can't say the same necessarily for Theo, Quor has always posted helpful and useful information. Please drop the victim complex as well as the superiority complex and admit to the fact that these last few threads have been extraordinarily useful through both theory craft and personal experience in teaching shamans who (unlike you apparently) would like to try and be successful in Arena as a DPS spec.

First off, I want to thank the people who are trying to help shaman out. My main is a rogue but I have abandoned him to play on a server with some friends where my main is a Shaman. It is very discouraging for me to come here and see people bash are abilities in an important part of the game (at least to me).

I enjoy reading the posts with content that I can use and learn from. I don't mind heated arguments where two people have different opinions. I unfortunately am not horribly experience with Shamans and can't yet fully participate because I don't feel I can reasonably state anything until I experience it first hand.

So I am trying to sift out what gems I can find out of all the crap. I find it hard to completely trust someone who doesn't have first hand experience of something. But it isn't like people are going down Theo's post and point by point refuting everything he says so he must be saying SOME things correctly.

In any case, rather than the personal attacks...just itemize what you disagree/agree with so it is actually helpful. I really don't care if Theo is doing this because he wants to help or if he likes the attention, as long as I can walk away learning something about my class, then I will be a better shaman. And if you want to prove your knowledge is better than someone else's, you are going to be more respected if you just counter where the person is wrong rather than all the e-***** waving about.

So in other words, keep up the debate, but tell me what is so objectionable about the facts he is stating rather than going back to that mess we had in the other thread.