Frost baby, yeah!!! Yeah! Yeah?Follow

Elemental Shaman, new to the game as of 01/08, level 70 working 3 of the 5 Gladiators Thunderfists in BG's, Quel Danas (sp?) and Halaa and trying to get my 4th armor piece to get the 50% chance for non-interrupt of LB... Sounds nice at least.

Here is the scenario:

When I have the good fortune to see my attackers (instead of being eaten alive by rogues and druids) I usually drop an earthbind, pop a frost shock and swing away as I back up with my frost buffed 1 hand mace. Alot of times this works as I'm able to slow down the melee classes and pets/minions while I deal damage enough to either make them leave or die. Or I die. If drop an Elemental (Rock/Fire) I'm usually pretty solid but I like to save them as long as I can.

My question is this:

Do all 3 Frost stack or is it overkill or rather underkill that they don't work? Would it make sense to find a fist weapon that hits 1.5 seconds and hope for the 8 second slowdown? I mean, with eathbind, frost shock and the 8 second frost weapon slowdown how would they ever get to me? The reality is that they do but why? Am I missing something?

I'm sure this has been asked before but I hate having to read a million posts to get to the information and I know that there are very savvy Sham's on here that typically know the answers or can at least provide an old link that they probably started discussing these very things...

Rarely do I melee by choice; it's usually the attack of choice of those that come towards me (hence the frost/slowdown post). I'm just thinking of strategies to keep them at a distance long enough to either heal or hit them with enough dps to kill whoever is attacking me.

All 3 do have dubuff times that I need to work around but I try to frost shock as soon as I can, but if they are too close and it isn't ready to cast than it is earthbind. The Weapon Frost is, in my mind, the last result to keep them off me. I see rockbiter, flame and winfury as increasing my dps but without anything essential to staying alive. If I keep the melee classes at a distance I win with spells backing up and slowing them down. Maybe, and part of the reason for the original post, frost weapon gives me more time vs. the potential for higher dps.

Disclaimer:

I haven't re-aligned my talent points to take advantage of some of the spells to quicken my delivery of dps and my resilience points are uncomfortably low.

Frostband and rockbiter are such terribad weapon buffs now, no one usually uses them. Flametongue is the buff of choice for most resto/ele shaman since it ignores armor. I think slowing effects should stack, that would be nice, but then rogues would use different ranks of crippling poison and have a field day.

Thank god blizzard seems to be heading in the right direction with the weapon buffs (flametongue will increase spell damage in XP - and a new healing weapon buff for resto shaman). I would like to see them do something with frostband (maybe give a chance for frostshock to snare while frostband is applied, or rocbiter a chance to stun) but for now windfury is the only good weapon buff really.

I seem to be the odd one out here, but for PvP i always use either Wizard oil for increased spell damage, or mana oil for mana regen (usually only in AV).

as an elemental shammy , you SHOULD NOT be meleeing ppl , ever. RUN AWAI MOAR !!

obviously, you dont always have the choice on wether or not to engage in melee combat. but once you do, unless your facing a severely retarded opponent or you have backup, you're dead anyway.

if, like you say you have the great fortune to see your opponent frost shock, earthbind and run to max lb range if poss.remember, once you're in shock range , you're pretty much also in range for the afore-mentioned Intercept/ShS/Feral charge.

also one thing to keep in mind, you will die. Lots. but im sure you'll have loads of fun while doing it ! :)