Table of contents

I. FAQs
II. Gear
III. Talent Points
IV. Top Enhancement Shamans
V. PVP Videos
VI. General PVP stategy
VII. How to kill a... (Rogue, Warrior, Priest)
VIII. How to kill a... (Warlock, Mage, Druid)
IX. How to kill a... (Hunter, Paladin, Shaman
X. Arena Strats
XI. Add - Ons and Macros
XII. Credits
XIII. Outro
XIV. Bonus arena strats!
XV. Reserved for future use


Acronym list:

DW - Dual wield
SS - Stormstrike
ES - Earthshock
CC - Crowd Control
GCD - Global Cooldown
WS - Warstomp
DOT - Damage over time
GW - Ghost wolf
LB - Lifebloom
HOT - Heal over time

I. FAQs

1. Why should I play an enhancement shaman?

Short answer: You like playing a melee class but don't want to be MS warrior or Combat mace rogue #1422592473261.

Long answer: An enhancement shaman not only can bust heads, but make their teammates stonger, dish out a little healing if needed, and has a complex buffing system through totems.

Famous for windfury, enhancement shamans can lay out devestating damage in short periods of time, shredding their opponents. Shocks can frustrate opponents with silences and slows.

Abilities like unleashed rage, bloodlust, and various enhancing totems bring their teammates to a whole new level.

There is a lot to playing an enhancement shaman so it is a great class if you like the concept of a melee class but have a very strategical mind.


2. Does my windfury (or flametongue) totem stack with my windfury (or flametongue/frostbrand/rockbiter) weapon?

- No it does not. A weapon may have 1 permenent enchantment (i.e. mongoose, executioner, crusader) and one temporary enchantment (i.e. windfury weapon, windfury totem.) Please do not get crazy and try to substitute a totem buff for a weapon under any circumstance for your own sake.

- Speaking of weapon enchantments, always use windfury on both weapons.


3. Should I use a 2-handed weapon or dual-wield?

For every circumstance, every time dual wielding is the better option. Here is why:

- Higher sustained DPS
- Higher bust damage
- Greater spell pushback
- Talents built around dual wielding
- 2 weapon enchants
- Stormstrike hits harder
- More shamanistic focus, flurry, and unleashed rage procs
- More mana returned from shamanistic rage
- and....the proof is in the pudding, all the top ranked enhancement shamans dual wield

On the topic of dual wielding, BOTH weapons should be as slow as possible (at least 2.6). This is because of windfury calculations and hard hitting stormstrikes. The difference is so dramatic that a fast purple weapon can give you less dps than a slow green one.


4. I like to PVE as an enhancement shaman as well! Where is a good guide for that?

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t13297-enhance_shaman_collected_works_theorycraft_vol_i/

It should be read before reading this actually. It's one of the best guides for any spec in the game.


5. Which race should I pick?

- If you want to be alliance, you only have 1 choice, Draenei.

Gift of the Naaru
Activate to heal your target for 35 + 15 per Level over 15 sec - 40 yd range - 1.5 sec cast - 3 min cooldown. (At level 1 it heals 50 health, and 1085 at level 70)

- This spell gains 100% of any +healing or +damage from the gear that the caster has equipped.

- Fairly underwhelming for a shaman, considering you already have heal spells, but the no cost part is nice and it's not linked to your nature school if that would be locked out.

Inspiring Presence
Increases chance to hit with spells by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards. (Priests, Mages, and Shaman)

- Since you should have the Nature's Guidence talent, you will be +spell hit capped for pvp before inspiring presence making

This is pretty useless for yourself. Maybe a teamate will appreciate it. The Heroic presence would have been much nicer.

Shadow Resistance
Increase Shadow Resistance by 10.

- Not bad since we don't have a shadow resistence totem and you'll see a lot of shadow spells in pvp, including fear. Not much resistance, but better than nothing.


Horde

Orc

Blood Fury
Activate to increase attack power and spell damage/healing by an amount based on level/class for 15 seconds, and decreases

healing done to the user by 50% for 25 seconds. The cooldown is 2 minutes.

- Peticularly nice for enhancement shamans since we can utilize both the AP and SD bonus.
- Obviously be careful when you pop this bad boy, and it will work wonders with a +dmg trinket use.

Hardiness
Increase resistance to stun effects by 15%.

- Can help out big time against one of our toughest classes to fight, rogues. Also stacks with Powerful Earthstorm Diamond to make a very noticeable difference.

Axe Specialization
Expertise rating with Axe weapons inceased by 5.

- If you are orc, this means you should only be using axes.

Troll

Berserking
Activate to increase attack and casting speed for 10 seconds. Speed is raised by 10% at full health, increasing as health is lost to a maximum bonus of 30%. 3 minute cooldown.
Costs 7% of base mana.

- Works well with a dmg trinket and will stack will flurry to give you some very fast white damage.
- It seems to work at maximum effiency when at 40% or lower.

Regeneration
Increase health regeneration bonus by 10%. Also allows 10% of normal health regenerate during combat.

- Not much, but if you win with 1% of your life left, you know what to thank.

Beast Slaying
5% damage bonus to Beasts.

- Lay the smack down on hunter pets!....and that is about it.

Tauren

War Stomp
Activate to stun opponents - Stuns up to 5 enemies within the area for 2 seconds. 2 minute cooldown
Cast time is 0.5 seconds.

- Very nice considering we don't have any stuns. Fun to use with improved ghost wolf and slipping in a heal. Handy to "spell lock" an opponent with ES - WS - ES.

Endurance
Max Health increased by 5%.

- Very important pvp stat and scales well since it is based off your actual hit points and not your stamina.

Starting stats are insignifigant and only pvp related racial bonuses are shown.
IMHO it doesn't matter what race you pick, just pick the one you think looks the best or has the best concept. If you have to be a true min/maxer Orc or Tauren are you best bets.


6. Enhancement shamans are not viable in PVP! Why are you wasting your time?

The only thing not viable is you. There are enhancement shamans picking up their season 3 weapons and shoulders as you read this. There are enhancement shamans are on top teams.

Playing an enhancement shaman requires above average skill due to it's complexity so it just might not be the class/spec for you. Arena teams with an enhancement shaman take good cordination so if you want to do minimum games per week and not work up a repoire with your team, that's fine but it's not a good class for you.

Enhancement is just as viable as any other spec/class in the game, it has a steeper learning curve, but in the end what you put into it, you'll get out.


7. I like the guide, but I would rather be throwing out lightening bolts! Where is a good elemental pvp guide?

Jedik has a fresh guide right off the press here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3773324940&sid=1

It's really really well done and covers some things that even an enhancement shaman can learn from. Check it out!

II. Gear

Gem Sockets

Red:
Bold Living Ruby - 8 STR

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24027
- STR/AP isn't taxed by Resilience
- STR over AP gems since 1 STR = 2 AP, yet STR will scale with blessing of kings while straight AP will not.

or

Inscribed Noble Topaz - 4 STR / 4 CR

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24058

- Enhancement is very crit dependant and resilience hurts us more than most

Yellow:
Inscribed Noble Topaz - 4 STR / 4 CR

or

Mystic Dawnstone - +8 Resilience Rating

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24053

- Might be better off if you are not gear capped

or

Steady Talasite - +4 Resilience Rating and +6 Stamina

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33782

- Might be better off if you are not gear capped

Blue:
Sovereign Nightseye - 4 STR / 6 STA

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24054

or

Steady Talasite - +4 Resilience Rating and +6 Stamina

or

Solid Star of Elune - +12 Stamina

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24033

- Please feel free to upgrade the above with purple gems if you are lucky enough to have them available to you.
- Avoid +hit gems. Proper talent choices suffice for hit.
- Start with the more defensive gems and obtain more aggressive gems as you gear up.
- Keep your meta gem of choice in mind while picking gems since pvp gear is fairly scarce on gem slots.

Meta:
Relentless Earthstorm Diamond
+12 Agility & 3% Increased Critical Damage
Requires at least 2 Red gems
Requires at least 2 Yellow gems
Requires at least 2 Blue gems
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32409

or

Powerful Earthstorm Diamond
+18 Stamina & 5% Stun Resist
Requires at least 3 Blue gems
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25896


Enchants

Head: Glyph of Ferocity
Requires Cenarion Expedition - Revered
Use: Permanently adds 34 attack power and 16 hit rating to a head slot item. Does not stack with other enchantments for the selected equipment slot.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29192

Shoulder: Aldor / Scyer Enchant

Greater Inscription of Vengeance
Requires The Aldor - Exalted
Use: Permanently adds 30 attack power and 10 critical strike rating to a shoulder slot item.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28888

or

Greater Inscription of the Blade
Requires The Scryers - Exalted
Use: Permanently adds 15 critical strike rating and 20 attack power to a shoulder slot item.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28910

There are honored versions of these as well.

Back: +12 AGI
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Cloak_-_Greater_Agility

Chest: +6 all stats
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Chest_-_Exceptional_Stats

or

+15 resilience
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Chest_-_Major_Resilience

Wrist: +12 STR
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Bracer_-_Brawn

or

+12 Stamina if you are undergeared
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Bracer_-_Fortitude

Hands: +15 STR
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Gloves_-_Major_Strength

Legs: Clefthide / Nethercleft Leg Armor

Nethercleft Leg Armor
Use: Permanently attach clefthide armor onto pants to increase Stamina by 40 and Agility by 12.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29536

or

Nethercobra Leg Armor
Requires Level 60
Use: Permanently attach nethercobra armor onto pants to increase attack power by 50 and critical strike rating by 12.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29535

Nethercleft is going to be your enchant of choice, but if you have focused on defensive stats in gems and other enchants, nethercobra will pack a punch. There are also blue versions of these which are cheaper, and close in quality.

Feet:
Boar's Speed (+9 Stm and 8% run speed increase)

http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Boots_-_Boar%27s_Speed

The run speed increase is mandatory. It might seem like much but it makes a noticeable difference, especially for a class

that can have trouble initiating and maintaining melee range. No, it does not stack with other run speed enhancing items

(such as Swift Skyfire Diamond (+24 Attack Power and Minor Run Speed Increase) http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25894)

Main Hand:
Mongoose
Permanently enchant a Melee Weapon to occasionally increase Agility by 120 and attack speed slightly.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Weapon_-_Mongoose

or

Executioner
Permanently enchant a Melee Weapon to occasionally ignore 840 of your enemy's armor.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Weapon_-_Executioner

Honestly, I'm not sure how the two compare. Ignore armor seems like a tasty way to surpass resilience, and this enchant combined with season 3 gear is a fair bit of armor bypassed. Mongoose on the other gives your crit a nice boost (4.8% if my math is right) and can stack with itself if you duel wielding 2 mongoose enchanted weapons (executioner does not). I don't see how you could wrong with either choice.

Edit:

From Push:
Mongoose is by far the most effective enchant in PvP for your weapons.
The only reason why Executioner matches up to Mongoose at high-end raiding is because mobs have a full stack of Sunder on them.
Mongoose doubles for 4.8% dodge, the haste adds a bit more interruption, and the crit helps mana efficiency, which matters more in PvP.
Executioner is nearly worthless against many PvP targets, which is why Mongoose is especially better: it's universally better.

Off Hand: Mongoose

Miscellaneous Items

Back:
Dory's Embrace
114 Armor
+34 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 20 (0.91% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 20 (0.51% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 46.
Equip: Your attacks ignore 112 of your opponent's armor.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33484
Cost 60 badges of justice

or if you never ever want to pve:

Sergeant's Heavy Cloak
104 Armor
+27 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 19 (0.86% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 19 (0.48% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 38.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28377

Finger 1: Vindicator's Band of Triumph
+34 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 26 (1.18% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 22 (0.56% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 44.
Equip: Your attacks ignore 56 of your opponent's armor.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33919

Finger 2: Veteran's Band of Triumph
+30 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 22 (1% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 22 (0.56% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 42.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33057

If you happen to have enchanting either Enchant Ring - Striking (http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Ring_-_Weapon_Might)
or
Enchant Ring - Stats (http://www.wowwiki.com/Enchant_Ring_-_Stats) works well

Trinket 1:
Medallion of the Alliance / Horde
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30345

- Don't be cute and try to use a damage trinket instead, this is vital.
- The CD is improved from 2 minutes compared to 5 min on the cheaper version, and the res bonus is just icing on the cake.

Definately worth the price.

Trinket 2:
Battlemaster's Determination
Equip: Increases attack power by 80.
Use: Increases maximum health by 1750 for 15 sec. Shares cooldown with other Battlemaster's trinkets. (3 Min Cooldown)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33832

Battlemaster's Cruelty
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 40 (1.81% @ L70).
Use: Increases maximum health by 1750 for 15 sec. Shares cooldown with other Battlemaster's trinkets. (3 Min Cooldown)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34163

Bloodlust Brooch
Equip: Increases attack power by 72.
Use: Increases attack power by 278 for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29383

Berserker's Call
Equip: Increases attack power by 90.
Use: Increases attack power by 360 for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33831

All of them are pretty solid damage trinkets, any one of them is a good pick so just get the one that is easiest for you.

Totem:
Stonebreaker's Totem - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33507
Equip: Your Shock spells have a chance to grant 110 attack power for 10 sec.

or if 20 badges of justice is just too much:

Totem of the Astral Winds - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27815
Equip: Increases the attack power bonus on Windfury Weapon attacks by 80.
Drops in heroic mana tombs off of Pandemonius (1st boss)

Don't waste arena points or honor on the pvp totems. They aren't worth it.


Vengeful Gladiator and Vindicator Gear in every slot. Start buying season 1 gear with honor to begin with and work your way from there.

If you are starting fresh you ideally would go medallion of the horde --> weapons --> Gladiator's Earthshaker (season 1 set) --> vidicator belt/bracer/boots/neck/rings --> trinket 2. However, your gear is going to be a mix of green, blue and maybe a heroic or kara purp. After you get your medallion of the horde, I would just start working on eliminating all the greens, and then the blues from there.

Some tips:

- The Gladiator's Earthshaker (season 1 glad set http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=578) makes a good buy since you get a set bonus.

- Start arena the day you hit 70...you might be terrible but the points will add up. Buy the season 3 gloves as your first purchase with arena points because of their improved set bonus (+5 yd range to shocks) compared to the prievous seasons (Increases the damage done by your Lightning Shield by 8%).

- Make the Medallion of the Horde your first buy. It's mandatory for pvp...in the same right don't waste money on the Insignia...the Medallion is worth it.

- The second trinket can probably be your last buy. Your Bladefist's Breadth isn't that bad.

- Don't buy PvP totems.

III. Talent Points

The build you are looking for is something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZxibzq0sAuqox0eu

There is a little flexibility in some points and we'll talk about it. Keep in mind your team make up and philosphy while you make your build. A talent like enhancing totems or improved weapon totems could be a good idea if you run melee heavy.

Elemental Tree

This tree can be pure fool's gold for the enhancement shaman, especially elemental devestation. The stonger shocks consist of a proportionally small part of your dps and elemental devestation will rarely (if ever) proc against a decently geared opponent that has resilience. At the end of this section I have compared elemental vs. restoration sub talents. While I personally recommend resto, there has been some sucess with elemental...I recommend trying both and going with what you like. If you go this route I recommend a build like:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hVshxZxibkV0sAuqo
Putting points in Earth's grasp and imp fire nova totem how you like...stay out of ED and Eye of the storm!

Enhancement

Teir 1:
This is a lose/lose decsion. You can't win either way.

Ancestral Knowledge
More mana doesn't do much for an enhancement shaman because of shamanistic rage, but it helps slightly.

Shield specialization
Obviously you aren't using a shield on a regular basis, but you should still have one with and be ready to throw it on at a moments notice. It can really help against a melee class like a rogue or warrior.
You lose either way you go here, put in your 5 points and move to the next teir

Teir 2:
Thundering strikes is a no-brainer, but you often have to come back here because teir 3 is so bad.

Guardian totems
Taken in pvp for the 2 seconds to grounding totem. Not great, but could be the difference between a shadowbolt to the face or not. Even worse of a talent since the grounding totem nerf.

Improved ghost wolf
Nice for combat mobility, even after you get your mount. Works well with LOS, catching up, or after a tauren stomp. Still somewhat underwhelming since you want to be breaking face and not running around.

Improved lightning shield
Yet another bad talent in the early goings of the enhancement tree. Can help with rogues, warriors and pets...maybe?

Teir 3:
At least you are close to the good stuff!

Enhancing totems
Nice if you like to pve on the side or have a peticular group make up

Shamanistic Focus
Take this, no questions asked, helps a lot with your 5k mana pool for only 1 point.

Anticipation
Point for point better than toughness, but still weak for a point hungry talent.

Teir 4:
Finally you made it! This is about where things start getting good.

Flurry
Lovely talent and part of why enh shamans love their crit.

Toughness
Point for point worse than anticipation. Very seldom taken since the talent is terrible to begin with, sits right next to an awesome 5 point talent, and everything above it is great.

Teir 5:
Lots of links to vital talents so make sure you pick them up.

Improved Weapon totems
Generally avoided, but depending on your team make up might help. Varies with mileage.

Spirit Weapons
Link to Dual Wield! Pick this up

Elemental Weapons
Not only do you get some harder hitting windfury action, but you fufill your link to stormstrike. Awesome on both accounts.

Teir 6:
2 Very solid talents that you want max, especially with the mental quickness buff. In fact, you'll most likely be maxing every talent from here out.

Mental Quickness
2 great benefits from one inexpensive talent, shock away!

Weapon Mastery
Since white damage contributes to >50% of your dps this is pure gravy train.

Teir 7:
Dual wield
Yes, you want this. No, you are not "saving points" by missing this talent. Max out specialization for sure due to the high dual wielding penalty.

Stormstrike
Once you get this, use it every time it is up. It hurts, and goes with the arena gear bonus.

Teir 8:
Unleashed rage
Another crit based skill which is very strong, more or less so depending on your team makeup, but strong even for yourself.

If healing focus is maxed out, this is often the talent that takes the hit.

Teir 9:
Shamanistic rage
-Use early, use often
-Dispellable

Restoration Tree

Taken for the third teir, imp healing focus and totemic focus are really the only choice's towards that path. Nature's guidence max's your spell hit against pvp tagets and helps with the dual wielding penalty. Totemic Mastery is vital due to the short range on our totems. Healing focus is great for that essential emergency heal. You're not healing much as an enhancement shaman, but when you do, it has to go off. Combines well with a pally's concentration aura to give you an uninterruble heal.

Ele/resto comparison

Reason's To Go Resto For PvP:

1) Cheaper totems. This allows you to keep dpsing longer before going OOM. Not really an issue in most games, but can become one if the match becomes drawn out.

2) +3% melee AND spell hit. Nothing sucks more than having someone at 5% hp only to see "Miss, Miss, Miss" and then have them get healed. Also the spell hit helps make sure your frost shock actually snares someone (even more valueable against hunters with the anti snare talent) and with making sure that Earth Shock interupts that heal (go from 1 resist per 20 casts w/o the talent to 1 resist per 50 casts with it. Of course this is on average). This is one of two main reasons to go into resto.

3) Faster HW. While you will rarely heal, this is nice for those times that you do toss them out. Especially when a pally casts BoP (more likely to last its duration in 2s and 3s. Not that a pally would be the best partner in there, but if you have one its helpful). Also HW is really the only heal that will put out numbers anywhere near useful (although still weak) and the cost of heal per mana is better than casting 2 LHW (good for saving mana) in addition to now being faster than 2 LHW.

4) Increased totem range. While some totems like WF it doesn't matter, staying inside of grounding's range can be tricky if you have to chase that mage around that is blinking. Also it helps with tremor totem (there is a conflict between the talent's tooltip, tremor's tooltip, and what it actually does. I tested it and found it to work up to about 35-36yards with the talent). This is the second main reason to go into resto.

5) Healing Focus. Now this talent depends completely on how you spec, but I have seen some pvp shaman with it (I think I saw Push with it). It would allow you to toss a heal when you don't have much on you (mainly just a hunter pet) and someone else is getting beat on pretty badly. Also this talent and IHW go together pretty well (so if you have this you should have IHW imo) in making it easier for you to get a somewhat useful heal off. This talent isn't in most shaman's spec since the MQ change, but it is there and if you're willing to drop points from somewhere else (generally 2 out of UR) it can be useful.


Reasons To Go Elemental For PvP:

1) Harder hitting shocks. Sure its only 5%, but every little bit helps. Also when teamed with another talent that will be mentioned later, it means your shocks hit harder AND faster than an enh/resto build.

2) -10% damage from elemental sources. For me this means that against a person using elemental damage my 12k hp just became 13.2k and if you're getting heals then the benefit and how much damage it saves you will be even greater.

3) Increased Earthbind Totem range. This talent is more of filler and could be put into other talents (namely increased fire totem damage), but I feel the points are best spent here. That extra 20% range means that generally the totem will pulse 2 times before someone is out of its range, giving you about 7-9 seconds of them being slowed, assuming it's not dispelled. Also it allows for any caster to kite around it easier since it would have a greater range to slow down melee.

4) Faster CD on Shocks. This is the main reason for going elemental. Everything up to this point and after this is just icing. This talent makes it a LOT easier to lock down a healer or keep someone slowed. Also if you are trying to burst someone down this talent adds a good bit of dps (I average 1.1k damage on a target with ES when SS is up when specced ele as opposed to only 1k when resto, so this talent and 5% shock damage effectively increases my dps by 60. Nothing large but helpful when you're after as much damage as possible)

5) Imp Fire Nova Totem. This talent is similar to Healing Focus in that it's a talent that could be spent else where. The nice thing about it is that you don't have to sac points in enhancement to get it. The point of it is that it makes it a LOT more likely for it to hit someone, and for it to go off if cast just before death. Five seconds is a lot of time for an enemy to move out of it's range, and I know when I see another enh shaman drop one the first thing I do is try to pull them away from it, or at the very least get out of its range. Also the sooner it goes off, the more burst it adds to the target, and the sooner you can drop a searing totem. Assuming 800 damage from this totem you gain 100 dps in having this talented (not sustained dps, but burst dps) which helps put more pressure on your target faster.

IV. Top enhancement shamans

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dark%20Iron&n=Push
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorefiend&n=Brootus
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Frostmourne&n=Zagine
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Archimonde&n=Cednar
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Blackrock&n=Fuzze
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eredar&n=Destyn
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Blackhand&n=Solidus
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Frostmane&n=Visculent
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kel%27Thuzad&n=Hila
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Laughing%20Skull&n=Endern
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Demon%20Soul&n=Nidaime
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Tsalrioth
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kalecgos&n=Totemforbull
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Korgath&n=Kyntt
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gurubashi&n=Taowth
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Runetotem&n=Chaostunder
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Blackrock&n=Mauro
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Executus&n=Unreal
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Arthas&n=Diivide
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Cho%27gall&n=Smokestomp
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Malfurion&n=Nastynate
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Boulderfist&n=Jobee
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gul'dan&n=Phrail
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Lightning's%20Blade&n=Republic (sorry the ' is throwing it off, just copy and paste)

Only click Friday through Monday:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kil'jaeden&n=Nimah

If you are tearing up the arenas, throw down a post and I'll add you! In the same regard, if you would like to be removed from the list go ahead and let me know and I will do that for you. I made this list up so you can check out their team make-ups, gear, talents and so forth. Also if you want actual interaction with a good player, you can go to their realm and ask them. Thanks for breaking the mold guys!

The international list:

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Vashj&n=Rivx
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aman%27Thul&n=Tike
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Twisting+Nether&n=Zaltas
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Das+Konsortium&n=Kyar%C3%A0
http://tw.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Arthas&n=Bloodseeker
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Steamwheedle+Cartel&n=Er%C3%A4dak
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Trollbane&n=Zinnsalabim
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Agamaggan&n=Gorxar
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Un%27Goro&n=Qu%C3%AAntin

Thanks to Voldunr for the international list, it is nice to give our overseas players their due recognition.

V. PVP Videos

Competitive PVP videos - videos that show pvp in high rated arena or battleground/world pvp against geared opponents

http://files.filefront.com/Divide+Nubfuryavi/;8554808;/fileinfo.html - Diivide
http://files.filefront.com/deuceavi/;9605948;/fileinfo.html - Diivide's 2nd video
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=47875 - Zagine


Fun zone - videos that don't fall under the above category i.e. 2-handed windfury triple crit videos against 0 resilience opponents.

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=59128 - Mylittlegoat
http://files.filefront.com/Karl+Enhancement+1+0001wmv/;9415479;/fileinfo.html - Karl
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VQ4hoBD19P8 - Xrave
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=53650 - Beavis
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wiqm_5-RqiQ&feature=related - Faber
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zD4s154lEU0 - Stumpy


I encourage everyone to make their video, just post a link and I will put here in the guide. For some help on making your own movie a possible video capturing progam is called fraps found at:

http://www.fraps.com/

I am in no way trying to advertise the program and I'm sure there are other options out there. I have found that it is easy to use and works well...many of the warcraft videos have been made using it. It's fun to watch yourself play, and for people who are still learning how to excel at an Enhancement Shaman, it's also very helpful.

One of the best recommendations I have to improve play is Fraps yourself in Arenas. You should try to notice things in the game that you didn't pick up on that you can try to pick up on in the future. In addition, you can learn how to maximize use out of your GCD.

Most importantly, you can see how you time your Grounding and Earth Shock with their cooldowns and the GCD. One of the keys to Enhancement is locking down casters as well as possible.

I hope to post your future video!

VI. General PVP stategy

First some general all around pvp stats.

-Use purge often and intelligently.
With one button you can remove a couple thousand hp, shields, mana, and an array of terriffic buffs. Purge often and melt their buffs but you can go too crazy and mana drain yourself.

Constantly purging a paladin of their blessing can put you in constant GCD and run you oom since their blessing is relatively inexepensive. Purging lifebloom from the target of a druid heal can "trigger" the hot making it go off at full value. Not good.

-Totems
One of the trickiest parts of being an enhancement shaman. Your skill is going to be directly related to your ability to use totems at the right time in the right place. I'll cover them against specific encounters but your use (or non-use) will determine how good you are.

-Shocks
Similiar to purge and totems, smart use is everything. Spamming frost shock for the sake of dps is a good way to leave your earth shock on CD when you need it. Earth shocking a holy priests mind blast will leave his holy school open for healing or shocking a mage's fireball lets him root you with ice nova.

These are just examples but everything is taken on a case by case that only experience can teach you. Be mindful that rank 1 ES interrupts spells just as good as all the others, so don't be hesistant to conserve mana with it.

-Go hard early
An enhancement shaman doesn't whittle opponents down, he goes hard or goes home. Use your CDs (Damage trinket, BL, SR, racials) early and be the aggressor, maintaining pressure in the fight.

-Positioning
The most underlooked part of the arena. Utilize pillars, ramps and stairs to your benefit! You can use these obstacles to advance within melee range, line of sight ranged opponents on you, or drag dps'ers away from their healers. The field isn't just an empty lot for a reason and it's up to you to exploit your opponents

-Use focus macros
Used for targeting a player (your focus) while maintain your current target. Essential to good PvP as it let's you shut down those heals and CC spells without babysitting multiple targets.

This one sets your current target as your focus target
macro 1) /focus target
macro 2) /cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(rank 1)

This one sets your focus to whoever you hover your mouse over
macro 1) /focus [target=mouseover]
macro 2) /cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(rank 1)

This one isn't really a focus macro, but Earth Shocks whoever you're hovering your mouse over
/cast [target=mouseover] Earth Shock(rank 1)

-Use garbage buffs for dispel protection
Your water walking and underwater breathing are considered buffs that are dispellable. While it is a little mat heavy to use them all the time in bgs, but if you are serious about arena it can be the difference between a full 30 sec of SR or losing it after 2 seconds.

-Stop keyboard turning!
Unless you are a master countstrike player, use key bindings and use your mouse to turn. The difference between the 2 playstyles can be dramatic. Your reaction times will be signifigantly better than a clicker.

This isn't to say don't EVER...we only have so many fingers but you should have your main staples (SS, ES, etc.) and emergency buttons (warstomp, pvp trinket) in short easy reach of your fingers.

If you have been a clicker for a long time you can always unbind your turn keys to force yourself to learn :)

Examples of keybindings:

Movement R (forward) D (left) G (right) F (backwards)

This way every finger is in reach of at least 2 keys. Then I use mousewheel to switch between action bars, mousewheel up = action bar 1 and mousewheel down = action bar 2. This way every finger has reach of 2 keys, or 4 spells.

Press mousewheel is attack.

Pinky:
Z (shield/dw macro, poison cleanse totem)
A (earth shock, strength of earth totem)
S (stormstrike, tremor totem)
X (flame shock, grounding totem)

Ring:
E (poison cleanse, grace of air totem)

Middle finger:
4 (mana spring totem)
5 (lightning shield, water shield)

Index:
T (frost shock, pvp trinket)
Y (healing wave, fire nova totem)
H (lesser healing wave, earthbind totem)

Thumb:
V (target nearest enemy)
B (purge, bandage)
N (ground mount, flying mount)


Then a couple of shift combo's (mainly rank 1 or stuff I don't use alot)
shift-a (earth shock rank 1)
shift-t (frost shock rank 1)
shift-h (gift of the naaru)
shift-e (windfury totem)
shift-n (ghostwolf)

F1 (heroism)
F2 (stone claw totem)
F3 (fire elemental)
F4 (earth elemental)

1 (fire resistance totem)
2 (frost resistance totem)
3 (nature resistance totem)

Then 2 buttons on my mouse, 1 is for autorun and the other one for shamanistic rage and totemic call.

As you can see most of the totems and "goodies" are on the 2nd bar, so I mainly fight with the first action bar up. This setup is great but takes ages to get used to, I used to have notes glued to my flatscreen so I would remember spells I don't really use alot (like the resistance totems were a pain to learn). Hiding the action bars is what helped me learn it, cause you are forced to remember the keybind. I only show spells with cooldowns.

But once you are used to this there is not a single spell you have to click. I only use the mouse for movement and sometimes targetting.

Hope this helps someone.

-Winfurae from Xavius (EU)


I was pretty much in shock when I saw all those bindings but it just shows how your figures have to instinctually know what to do. If you can get that setup to work, all the power to you...but the important thing is maximizing the important totems and attacks in a setup that is easy and convienent for you.

Just one more example from Sylus (Al'Akir - EU):

Normal WASD movement. Shocks, heals, lightning, WF weapon, mount, warstomp, purge all on 1 to = and shift 1 to =
Q: Strength of Earth Totem
Shift Q: Earthbind Totem
Alt Q: Tremor Totem
E: Grace of Air Totem/Windfury Totem
Shift E: Grounding Totem
Alt E: Poison Cleansing Totem
R: Rank 1 Earthshock
Shift R: Rank 1 Frostshock
F: Searing Totem
Shift F: Fire Nova Totem
Alt F: Magma Totem
V: Cure Poison
Shift V: MACRO (if i use one)
T: Stormstrike auto attack macro
X: Shamanistic Rage
Shift X: Bloodlust
Mouse Button 4: Lightning Shield
Mouse Button 5: Water Shield
Shift Mouse Button 5:PvP trinket

Remember these are just some things you can try out, you don't have to neccessarily copy them. The important thing is to max out your keybindings but stay comfortable with what you like.

VII. How to kill a... (rogue, warrior, priest)

Arena is against a team, but you have to know each memeber of that to defeat them. Also you can fight anyone 1v1 in a bg or world pvp.


Rogue

Rogues specialize in doing heavy melee damage and controlling a fight.

Stealth
Rogues can Stealth while not in combat and only on a 10-5 second cooldown. During combat they can Vanish, but on a 5 minute cooldown timer. A rogue trained in Preparation can Vanish three times in 5 minutes. Flame Shock will keep the rogue from stealthing. However, the DOT duration is 12 seconds and the rogue's Blind is 10 seconds. If timed right, the rogue can wait until the DOT timer is 8 seconds (Unless the rogue uses Cloak of Shadows), Blind, wait for the DOT to fade then stealth. Now that Blind is not a poison, cleansing totem will not counter this.

Searing totem and lightning shield are nice to increase your damage output on the rogue.

Magma Totem is mana expensive, has a medium duration (20 secs) and only an 8 yard radius, but will unstealth a rogue within it's radius on each pulse (2 seconds). You can use rank 1 Magma Totem to save mana.

Earthbind Totem will NOT unstealth a vanished rogue on its first pulse (or any pulse) if the rogue is within range.

Shaman can beat a rogue in a duel, if the shaman attacks first. If the rogue applies poisons or stuns, the shaman can be considered defeated. Do everything you can to break the rogue's stealth (which is not much because shaman have no anti-cc other than maybe tremor totem (which is unreliable at times). Since the rogue is slowed by Earthbind Totem or Frost Shock, Joust with the rogue by running through the rogue, hoping for a windfury proc and dpsing w/ shocks.

General tips
Use a low-level Magma Totem to unstealth the rogue.
Use 1H weapon and shield to reduce the damage taken.
Use Lightning Shield to do damage even while you are stunned
Use Cure Poison. Rogues can have slow or DOT poisons on both blades.
Use Poison Cleansing Totem. Rogues rely on poisons, specially Crippling Poison. This is the best water-based totem for PvP combat.

Get and use the PVP trinket to break out of kidney shot (not cheap shot which has the icon of an eye). Its icon looks like a fist and this is the time where the rogue is most vunerable as he is out of energy and using this time to build up again. He also cannot CS outside of stealth but can KS. Don't let him do it.

If you see an unstealth rogue, use Flame Shock, Earthbind Totem to kite the rogue. Be sure to keep him from stealthing and you should win.

Use either your max rank or rank 1 of Searing Totem to keep the rogue in combat when he blinds, gouge, saps, or does anything to attempt to get out of combat.

Use Frost Shock to aid in kiting.

Be wary of kick when casting, if he gets that kick off on you while your casting, you're dead. Its generally safer to start healing once you notice his energy is dropping rapidly or is below 40%.

Use Searing Totem consistently to deal supplemental damage.

When dueling a Rogue, consider starting out the fight in Ghost Wolf form, as Rogues cannot sap Beasts (which Ghost Wolf is counted as).

If you have your Insignia of the Horde equipped, its better to use it when you are hit w/ kidney shot rather than cheap shot because they can always kidney shot outside of stealth while they cannot cheap shot outside of stealth.

Totems:
Air - Grace of Air
Fire - Start with magma, go to searing
Earth - Earthbind
Water - Poison cleasing


Warrior

Use 1H weapon and shield.
Use Grace of Air Totem to increase your dodge, but be mindful of Overpower.
Use Searing Totem for supplementary damage.
Use your PvP Insignia, Earthbind Totem and Frost Shock to get away from a warrior who charged you. Grounding totem does not absorb the stun effect of charge anymore.
Use Frost Shock for the damage and to kite them from you. Make sure you don't go too far or they will intercept you.
Try to get them down to half health before you attempt to start melee combat.
The problem w/ warriors with mortal strike is that it makes your heals useless. The fight comes down to who can kill who faster.

If you are a tauren shaman, you can time your warstomp and heals to when mortal strike is at 1 or 2 seconds. By the time you get your heal off, the debuff is gone and you will get the full benefit of your heal.
With precsion shocks and totems like Strength of Earth Totem, Grace of Air Totem, may be good enough to out damage a warrior in melee. However, against a well-geared warrior, you will take damage very rapidly without a shield.
Heal early, not when you're dipping below 50% w/ the occasional shock and try to get out of range.
Use Lightning Shield to do supplement your damage

Air - Grace of Air
Fire - Fire Nova for bust, Searing
Earth - Strength
Water - Don't waste the GCD


Priest - Holy/Disc

If you try to fight a Priest, they will probably use their Psychic Scream spell to scare you away. So, try to drop a Tremor Totem at just the right moment to keep yourself in control of the situation.

Since a priest can dispell your frost shock, save your shock CD for ES, and use earthbind totem if you need a snare.

Do as much melee damage as you can, and whenever you see them channeling a spell, Earth Shock them to interrupt. You always want to have a Rank 1 Earth Shock set up in addition to your highest rank if you get low on mana, or don't want to waste mana.

Purge! A lot of priests will raise a Power Word: Shield and start healing when the situation becomes too dangerous. Dispelling the shield, followed by Earth Shock can effectively prevent this. Furthermore, priests will most likely have Power Word: Fortitude. Purge will remove that stamina buff and, consequently, HP.

Do not purge pain suppression (flashing blue blubble), it has a very dispell resistant and it's a great way to blow GCDs and mana.

Be wary of smart priests that feign a heal by first casting some other spell (which a shaman might shock out of a reflex).

Use your stoneclaw on their shadowfiend. If you can afford the earth totem, it will help you a lot since this pet is their only way to get back mana (other than drinking, and natural regen of course)

Most priests will try to outlast you by spamming mana burns and buffs for you to purge. Your best bet is to DPS them down ASAP or else you will go OOM and lose.


Priest (Shadow)

They have no spell pushback so stay in their face and keep up the pressure.
Purge bubbles and ES mind flay...if you force them to do break shadowform they probably won't go back into it due to the high mana cost and lose 15% dmg and 15% melee dmg reduction, both good for you.

They have a longish cooldown on their fear (21 sec after season 3 gloves) so after your initial tremor totem (or eat and trinket out) switch to earthbind. Go back to tremor if it is taking you awhile to break them down.

Keep your grounding totem up at all times.

Easy win.

Air - Grounding
Fire - Searing
Earth - Tremor/Earthbind, get the timing down between the two
Water - Don't waste the GCD...if they are undead, watch out for Devouring Plague, the only disease spell in the game players have access to. Clease disease if need be.

VIII. How to kill a... (Warlock, Mage, Druid)

Warlock

These will be your toughest fights, not the least because warlocks have multiple means of crowd-controlling you and they have the all-powerful death coil, a life steal that also sends you running horrified (doesn't count as fear, so tremor doesn't help) for 2-3 seconds. A good warlock will wand your grounding totem, death coil you, begin casting fear, kill your tremor totem, dot you up, cast shadow bolt once or twice, depending on how long the fear lasts, recast fear, etc, etc.

In addition to usually being able to keep you powerless at your keyboard, warlocks can also silence you with their felhunter for approximately 4 seconds (locking down the nature school if they time it on a heal spell) with a 30 second cooldown, and purge buffs. Of course, this also means that felhunters can purge bloodlust, shamanistic rage, etc, so you should use your buffs gained from talents as quickly as possible to avoid them being wasted.

Throw down your grounding, tremor, searing, and fire resistance totems (if he is destruction, rare in pvp)

You should purge immediately to remove fel armor or any other buffs he has on. Tremor totems and grounding totems should be thrown down as often as you have them off cooldown, so that your opponent has to either:
1. stop what he's casting in order to wand it, or
2. watch as your grounding totem eats his fear (yes it can eat fear), Shadow Bolt, Conflagrate, Soul Fire, Immolate, Death Coil, etc... or you break his fear after 1 second thanks to the Tremor Totem.

The main key in beating the warlock is to prevent him from getting his death coil/fear/spell lock (the felhunter silence) combo rolling, and to keep beating on him with melee and shocks.

Pound on him at melee range as often as you can. Use a Frost Shock to help close the distance if necessary, and don't worry about spell interruption: grounding totem works just as well as Earth Shock
Double Windfury can do significant damage to a cloth-wearing warlock in a short amount of time. Just remember to rotate earth shocks and grounding/tremor totems to keep the warlock effectively silenced as you pound on him.

A lot of Warlocks will save their Death Coil until either you or they are low on HP (typically around 20-30%). Learning to roughly time your Grounding Totem so that it eats Death Coil dramatically increases your chances of surviving a fight with a Warlock. If you have had success with your tremor totem during the fight, go ahead and trinket out of the death coil to prevent him from regaining his life.

A good tip when facing a felhunter and lock, is to cast either rank 1 lightning shield or rank 1 water shield so that the felhunter will absorb that. You can then follow up with SR/BL without any worries of having it dispelled.

Against the SL/SL or demo locks you can have success killing the pet first. Watch out for shocks on the pet because they typically have high magic resistance. After the pet dies, get ready with a fast reflex and spam purge. They will cast fel domination (lowers the cast time of their pet to an instant) and it is purgeable, and won't be ready for you doing that.

Enjoy your clothie dessert!

Air - Grounding
Fire - Searing
Earth - Tremor
Water - None


Mage

Purge! Mages will have Ice Armor and Arcane Intellect cast on themselves as a standard buff. Great ready for a /lol if you happen to catch an arcane power or presence of mind (no more instant cast pyro in your face)

Drop a Grounding Totem when the "hands light up" (which usually is the first thing you will see happen in case of a Fire Mage).

Earth Shock whenever you see them channeling a spell.

Try to figure out what type of Mage you're fighting quickly, and drop the appropriate totem - Fire Resistance Totem for Fire Mages.

Use searing totem to slow down the mage's casting speed and add some extra damage

What the mage will do:

A Mage may try to Polymorph you. Don't panic though - you'll revert to your normal self if you take any damage, and while you're sheeped you'll quickly regain your health. Don't trinket to fast...they may be precasting another polymorph. Give it a second before you make your decsion.
The best tactic is to drop a Grounding Totem and a Fire/Frost Resist totem or a searing totem.

Use DD shocks for spell interrupts and purge any shield they bring up. Tank them, use the earthbind totem or frost shock to keep them from gaining distance.

Mages can be a pain, since they'll typically root you. At this point you have a few options:

The Grounding Totem would be the best choice, followed by casting your fastest heal.
If possible, shock them to interrupt, but more than likely you won't have range for it.
You can always try to shoot a bolt back at them :)
Once free from the root, close the distance and snare/interrupt or you're dead.

Air - Grounding
Fire - Searing/Resist
Earth - Earthbind
Water - None


Druid

Purge! But, careful! He may use Lifebloom, which your "purge" will trigger. Watch out, since this spell is so cheap and efficient they won't even care if you dispel it. Many shammies have fully healed their oponents by purging too much before understanding what was going on. It makes the match last so much longer than it should and it can run your mana pool dry. Get a druid friend to show you what lifebloom looks like so you know not to purge it. Or you can get an addon (look at NECB in the add-on section) telling what buffs the opponent just buffed himself with.

UPDATE on lifebloom:

Lifebloom is a low cost HoT that can stack 3 times. Lifebloom, unlike most other HoTs, heals every second of its duration, as opposed to once every 3. Lifebloom lasts 7 seconds. When Lifebloom expires, it will trigger an instant heal. This happens when it is removed by dispel effects as well. Lifebloom may be refreshed by the caster casting the spell again before it expires. This may occur indefinitely, and when at 3 stacks, is far more mana efficient and effective healing than allowing Lifebloom to expire.

Lifebloom heals for a set amount of health when it expires or it is removed, regardless of how much time was left on the buff when this occurred.

A Shaman should be cautious about spamming purge on a Druid using Lifebloom, but it is foolish to say that you should NEVER do it. There are times when it could really hurt.

If they stack Lifebloom up to 3, purge that ASAP. It will reduce the HoT and not cause it to bloom.

If they have 2 stacks of lifebloom, and some other buff(s) that can be dispelled, you have a gamble. The purge can benefit you greatly by removign only 1 stack of lifebloom, and something else, or it could knock off 2 of the lifebloom, healing the druid.

You can easily out dps the HoT. Yes, it will bloom anyway in 7 seconds, why let them ge tthe HoT too? Well, because it's cheap, instant, and has no cooldown. If you purge the HoT, they can get soem fast cheap direct heals from it.

If you think it will be an attrition fight, purge Lifebloom when they go bear or cat. LB is cheap, but changing forms + LB is not.

NEVER allow a bloom due to purge when focus firing a druid.

The druid is a very versatile class to battle. They can switch forms quite rapidly during combat, switching from a caster class to a warrior class, to a rogue class. The key adaptation is to treat every form as the associated class (IE. Cat Form as a rogue, Bear Form as a warrior and Druid/Moonkin form as a caster).

Should the druid start to run in Travel Form, slow him down with Frost Shock and Earthbind Totems.

Get in their face early, make them use their mana for healing.

Don't waste your mana! Most of your mana in this battle should be for keeping the druid as close as possible.

Tired of those darn trees slowing your cast time? You can use stoneclaw totem to take aggro off of you and have the trees attack it. It takes a while for the trees to take down the stoneclaw as well.

Don't cast if hes in bear form and hes walking backwards. He'll charge you and you'll get silenced.

Drop a snare totem, strip any buffs they may have with purge, then tank them. Follow this up with shocks.

If a moonkin uses his treats, use your stoneclaw totem to get suck them off you.

The Druid offers a unique fighting style since they can root and heal.
This can be problematic. Rooted: If you are weak, heal yourself. If you are high on health and the Druid isn't if you have range use Earth Shock if not use your strongest Lightning Bolt.

The key to beating Druid healers is to avoid their CC by making them have to heal. Killing Druids is typically a bad idea with an Enhancement Shaman.

The more time you spend pressuring the druid, the more he spends healing, and the less he spends cycloning.

Totems - Use judicially based on spec and form.

IX. How to kill a... (Hunter, Paladin, Shaman)

Hunter

Place Stoneclaw totem to distract the pet.

Use Frost Shock and Earthbind Totem to keep them in melee range.

Use Poison Cleansing Totem or Cure Poison. If you are doing things right, you'll be moving within a small area.

Use Grounding Totem to absorb potential traps such as a Freezing Trap.

Hunter stings are considered Poison. The most important one to remove is Viper Sting.

If you need to heal, be sure you're in melee range first. Slow him with Frost Shock and try to get in a quick heal with

Lesser Healing Wave. Even if the pet is on your back you should be able to heal no problem with Lesser Healing Wave. Regular Healing Wave will give them too much time. It's much better however if you kill him before you have to heal.

The longer the fight, the harder it gets.

Had enough with those snakes on a plain? Use magma totem to kill those pesky snakes in one pulse.

If you see the red pet of death you might be better ghost wolfing out of there and staying away until it is over.

Air - Grounding/Grace of Air
Fire - Searing/Magma
Earth - Earthbind
Water - Posion cleansing



Paladin

Use 1H and shield if needed.

Purge, but do so judicially. Seals aren't going to come off now.

Don't waste your mana! Paladins are the Shaman's polar opposite: their spells are extremely efficient, but tend to be low on the massive burst damage that a Shaman can pump out. Since your burst damage is sketchy, however, you need to be able to beat the Paladin at their own efficiency game.

Some clever Paladins may try and trick you by repeatedly casting a low-rank spell in an attempt to get you to Purge/ES it off. Watch their mana bar: if you can barely see it dip when they cast it, it's unlikely that they're casting a higher rank spell.

Since a paladin can dispell your frost shock, save your shock CD for ES, and use earthbind totem if you need a snare.

Use Rank 1 Earth Shock to interrupt any heals that the Paladin is doing, unless they're low enough and vulnerable enough (no bubble ready) that you can burst them down with a max rank Earth Shock.

Remember that Paladins can cast Divine Shield or the similar Divine Protection and then heal while invulnerable two to three times during the battle, while you watch helplessly. During that time heal yourself (if he heals under his magic shield, bandage yourself). Normal cooldown for Divine Shield and Divine Protection is 5 minutes. If the Paladin has spent talent points on reducing the cooldown, it can be as short as 4 minutes for Divine Shield. After using one of these two spells to become invulnerable or casting Blessing of Protection to become immune to melee damage, the Paladin will be unable to cast any other invulnerability spell for 60 seconds; they cannot, for example, cast Divine Shield first and then cast Blessing of Protection 20 seconds later.

Most of the time, whoever runs out of mana first loses. The best thing you can do is get them to use their mana. And watch out for Lay on Hands; it can be cast with 1 mana.

Divine Shield and Divine Protection cannot be purged, but Blessing of Protection can be. Blessing of Protection looks like a lot of whitish hoops traveling around them. If the paladin is using this, Divine Shield is most likely on cooldown. Blessing of Protection ONLY stops melee damage, but they can't melee with it. Thus, only Purge it if you're using melee as your primary damage output.

If they're holy, attempt to insta-gib him. If you go oom, and he has at least 30% mana, you will probably lose and you will lose slowly.

Air - Grounding
Fire - Searing
Earth - Earthbind/Strength
Water - None



Shaman

Proper Grounding Totem timing and paying attention your opponent is absolutely key to this battle. Unobservant players who don't notice when their opponents drops their Grounding Totem to heal and instead mash Earth Shock to try and interrupt will lose to their opponent easily.

Generally you are going to have to change tactics quickly. Observe what spells they cast so you know what spec they are. If they are closing to melee range while dual wielding, you know he is enhancement, if you see him using a 1 hand w/ an offhand or shield he's elemental, if you see he's using an offhand or shield w/ an earthshield on, he's obviously resto.

Elemental Mastery and Nature's Swiftness can all be dispelled using purge.

If you have time, Totem. But remember, only do the ones that will help you most in that situation.

BE CAREFUL OF GROUNDING TOTEM. You can end up wasting mana by spamming purge because grounding totem absorbs purge.

Spec vs Spec

vs Resto - Same thing as a priest or a paladin. Conserve your mana and wait for him (he will use it) to use Nature's

Swiftness. If you're quick you can purge his Nature's Swiftness right off him. Go straight for dps close range and you will have him. Earth shock any of his heals. Searing totem is preferable for slowing down his heals.

vs Elemental - Same thing as a mage. Earth shock every move he does. Purge any of his buffs and stay very close range.

Earthbind Totem soon as you're next to him.

vs Enhance - Interesting Fight. Depending on Gear, keep him kited while using most of your mana. Once it's close to gone just go straight to melee. If you pile on a Stormstrike with a few Earth shocks as soon as you see a Windfury pop he won't have time to do a quick heal.

X. Arena Strats

Taken from forum posts of high ranking enh shammies (note that the first person used in the speech isn't me, it's the gladiator title holder)...

- My 5v5 strat revolves around CCing DPS and killing weak DPSers/Healers, my 3v3 team is based on the same concept.

Your goal is to limit the other team's damage while keeping pressure on the other team, putting them on the defensive. It's about playing aggressively.

Going full burst mode on somebody doesn't work against teams in the top 20. It's fun to do against teams below 2000, because there's no doubt the damage is usually there, but doing that leaves your team too open since the Mage is sacrificing his GCDs to do damage and not CC.

A good example of our philosophy in play is RMP (meaning rogue/priest/mage, a top team that has won tournaments). Here is how we typically approach things:

Our Mage focuses his efforts on CSing the Priest, slowing/Polying the Rogue, and damaging the Mage with me.

I devote my time entirely to the Mage. I'm Earth Shocking and Grounding Polymorphs and Frostbolts as well as I can. The goal is to limit the damage and CC from the Mage. My Priest is in Dispel Magic mode for my initial Novas, making sure our team is always topped off.

So how does this end up working? The concept of our 3s, no matter what we're facing, is that that the damage we deal and the damage we avoid through our CC forces the other team into defense mode. This accounts for the lack of CC and damage on healers.

- It's all about staying on the offensive. By doing this, the Priest on your team has such an easy time healing, he can get Mana Burns, early Dispels, etc.

- against mage rogue priest, you need to do a few things

1. frontload a lot of pressure on the mage so the priest cant mana burn
2. spam purge the mage
3. always have windfury, tremor, frost resistance, poison cleansing down
4. if you are getting bursted cleanse poison on urself
5. get battlemaster's determination
6. do bloodlust early

- against warlock, rogue/warrior, priest/druid

1. kill the warlocks pet, its incredibly easy with 2 melee dps
2. if its a druid, attack him when he pops up and u should be able to kill him quickly, if not get on the warlock

- As far as the initial engagement, your team should kind of travel together. Harassing the other team with Purges and Dispels helps, but when it comes to getting in combat, the only person who should ever stick ahead of the rest of the group is the Mage

- People under estimate shields. For the most part enhance shamans are always focused on, and if you are up against a rogue half the time you are in a stun lock so might as well have the extra armor and extra chance on hit due to the 5% miss rate vs 24% DWing not to mention you can still burst out tons of dps on MH WF procs. You can hit hard and shock hard, but sitting there with 13k armor and then if things get bad, pop shaministic rage and have 84% dmg reduction from melee.

- Attack in waves, mages can spam their abilities that slow people down. This way the mage is slowing 1 person at a time while the other is waiting to go in and wtf pwn him.

- I myself hit Gladiator in the 2v2 bracket, with a Rogue/Warlock/Priest. Switched it up depending on what was thrown at us, and after 2200, the Warlock/Priest kinda finished the rating off (Mainly because I could not play anymore, however I did get 2 games in at 2300 and won both of them with the Warlock against a Warrior + Druid team, farmed 'em)

I played a very aggressive rush down team, basically it was choose a target, DPS it, Control it, Switch (Unless it was 2 DPS then we just blow up the target). Against team with a healer this gave us alot of control because we knew how the healer would have to play every game and it was always 100% defensive without much room for reaction on their end. The reason this worked is because we were very good at forcing our opponents into close proximity with LoS. In addition to this, we rarely had a flawless victory, I do not like wearing resilience. Since my Matrix after 1900 was 100% Enh Shaman / Warlock, we kept to the ideology that if one of us died, as long as we killed one of them it was a gaurenteed win. This idea worked, through and through. We only lost 3 games to 2193 due to my lock trying out demonology and having his pet bug out in the Nagrand Arena (YAY FOR PETS MAKING LOVE TO POLES).

One thing that is under looked by most teams is positioning in the arena. My partner and Myself always kept in mind where we wanted the fight to be and were we wanted to take it, fighting in RoL was my favorite due to the stairs at the beginning area causing a LoS on heals.

This season I plan on focusing more on 3v3 rather than 2v2, although I would like to take 2v2 to gladiator status again. However this time around I am going to focus more on Frost Mage and Rogue. In 2.3.2 with Icy Veins, I can't imagine how amazing this combination is going to be. I joined a 2v2 with a Frost Mage but we haven't done anything, however my 3v3 is a Hunter, Paladin, Enh Shaman first night we went 10-0 to 1649; we were beating up on RPM and Double Melee Teams. With AR/Prep being nerfed, I don't believe the Rogue + Enh shaman combination will be as powerful however, 0/17/44 with Shadowstep giving 70% haste it will be interesting to see if some very well executed stuns/saps will make a difference.

- Grounding Totem isn't about using it every time its cooldown it's up, it's about using it in anticipation of a cast.

Between your target and your focus target, it's easy to find something worth grounding, especially things like Fears, Cyclones, Frostbolts.

Also, casting Grounding Totem well forces the other team to use a GCD as well.

Using Grounding to anticipate a Curse of Exhaustion or even Death Coil is not too difficult. For example, when my Mage Counterspells the healer when I'm DPSing hard on the Warlock, I can almost 100% guess the Death Coil is coming.

Having Grounding ready for the Death Coil, first Drain Life, or perhaps the Curse of Exhaustion they'll use to start kiting means much more than any of the other talents available.

- The key to beating Druid healers is to avoid their CC by making them have to heal. Killing Druids is typically a bad idea with an Enhancement Shaman.

Everything obviously depends on your combo, of course. I can't shed too much light on Warrior/Shaman/Healer, but Mage/Shaman/Healer can use Mage CS and any available Healer CC (HoJ, ES, Scream, Cyclone), then focus remaining efforts on the other opponents.

As long as you're putting out enough damage and you're limiting the other team's damage, the Druid will fall behind on healing because Enhancement Shaman can Purge Druid healing so well.

- I find a disc priest/enhance/rogue setup to be very good. Last season we peaked at 2012 with basically the same setup except that our priest was the standard disc/holy setup at the time. We started off this season winning about 2/3 of our games until our priest decided to quit playing WoW.

There are two big advantages that this setup has over a lot of others. The combination of crippling poison, earthbind totem, and frost shock make it very difficult for anyone to stay out of melee range of one of us for any length of time. Constant, sustained dps with constant interrupts from fear, earth shock, blind, and chastise (if you are fortunate enough to have it) generally has pretty good results.

The second feature of this setup is the interaction of pain suppression and shamanistic rage. You effectively get what I like to call, shammy shield wall, when you time pain suppression and shamanistic rage, which is given staying power by the dispel protection given by pain suppression. I've seen mages/priest combos doing this with iceblock to make it much more difficult to dispel. Since people often go, "Enhance lol, focus him he'll explode" this is a pretty big advantage when the shaman proves pretty difficult to bring down.

As mentioned earlier, we have really good results against anything with a warlock and pretty much anything with a pally healer. The biggest problems we had were with groups that had frost mages and druids.

Something a lot of people might overlook is the strength of enhance shaman vs. a rogue. While in a direct duel the rogue will likely destroy the shaman, the shaman can effectively neutralize the rogue's healing debuffs with a combination of poison cleansing totem and direct cleansing. I have yet to see a rogue that I couldn't cleanse faster than he could apply poisons, but I'm not 100% sure I've tried that against a mutilate rogue. Keeping wounding poison off effectively doubles the amount of healing your healer can do, and since it's all instants you can still maintain most of your dps while spamming cleanse.

In summary, the primary advantages I see for enhance are the ability to interrupt, cleanse, and purge while still doing large amounts of damage. Enhancement basically comes into arena with more or less all the damage they can do in a raid as the spec changes generally drop group support capabilities in favor of survivability.

XI. Add-Ons and Macros

Shaman UI Guide:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=108217926&sid=1

Very nice guide for all your ui and addon needs, definately give it a look

Arena specific add-ons:

Quartz
A nifty looking cast bar mod which can make latency work to your benefit by showing you when you can cut your spell off (caution to use this if you have pushback). While cool, nothing special for an enhance shammy since we don't cast a lot, but it does have a GCD and swing timer which can help. Has a nice focus bar and arena timer countdown for even more goodness.
Read more here:
http://www.pvpscene.com/index.php?topic=366.0
Download here:
http://files.wowace.com/sw-q.html

Note on the swing timer: Instants do NOT reset your swing counter, shock and totem without fear of have to time them perfect with your swings. Things that have a cast with them DO reset your swing timer, so heals, bolts, and even the tauren racial warstomp will start your swing over again, even if you are .1 sec from landing a hit.

Proximo
A mod which shows your opposing team in a convient unit frame. Some form of arena unit frame is almost essential.
Read more here:
http://www.pvpscene.com/index.php?topic=84.0
Download here:
http://files.wowace.com/sw-p.html

Gladiator and Tattle
Gladiator is another arena unit frame. It works well when the rest of your team all have different arena unit frames as this one will conform with them all. Tattle is a small addon that integrates data from Armory into the game. The information can be used with Gladiator, and put into your tooltips. Can really give you an edge on your opponent.
Read more here with links to download:
http://www.pvpscene.com/index.php?topic=170.0

General PVP add-ons:

NECB (Natur EnemyCastBar)
Shows Debuffs (e.g. Sheep timers), Casts, Gains, Stuns, DoTs, BossTimers, Cooldowns, Diminishing Returns by lovely colored CastBars - Peace :D Supports 'target' and 'focus'. Recognizes unknown spell casts, stops and delays...basically a ton of must know stuff in one attractive looking package.
Natur Enemy Castbar allows you to know when to shock and how to best use your cooldowns because you can see the timers on their CDs as well as what they are casting and any buffs/gains.

From Gladiator Republic:
In combination with Natur Enemy Castbar, I love to abuse focus macros. If you don't use them you aren't PvPing.

Macro 1

/focus

Macro 2

/cast [target=focus] Earth Shock

This is the easiest way to lock down a healer without actually being on the healer, just glue your eyes to Natur Enemy Castbar.
Download here:
http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/2786/

Itemrack and Outfitter

Their main use in pvp is to be able to equip and shield and go back to DW with ease. There are macros for this situation but it is easy to use and can distinguish between similiar items, such as DWing season 1 axes at the same time. It also serves a good use to go between pve and pvp item configs or easy trinket swaps for certain situations (like mount speed trinkets).

Here are the links:

Item rack

http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/1482/

Outfitter

http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/4784/


Shaman specific add-ons:

Totemtimers
This addon displays four timer buttons one for each totem element. If you cast a totem it's icon will be set to the appropriate timer button with the totem's remaining time underneath it.
Download here:
http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/5492/

Shaman friend
- Alert if no Elemental Shield is present in combat
- Alert if no Weapon Enchant is present in combat
- Show total Windfury damage on screen with crits/misses
- Show buffs removed by Purge and/or broadcast the buffs to the chat window
- Show spell interrupted by Earth Shock and/or broadcast it to the chat window
- Show a message when Lightning Overload procs
- Show how the duration of Frost Shock on your target are affected by dimnishing Return and showing when diminishing Return goes off.
- Show when your Grounding Totem aborbs a spell
- Show when one of your T5 bonuses procs
- Option to select which sound to use when notified (or turn it off completely)
- Can print messages in MSBT, SCT, Parrot and a few others.
Download here:
http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/6330/

WF3sec
Time those stormstrikes with your windfury cooldowns with ease!
Download here:
http://files.wowace.com/sw-w.html


Macros:

Macro guide:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3907976959&sid=1&pageNo=1

If you have questions concerning macros, see the above link. The author Jindwaha is really good with macros and can even help you make them if you are looking for something specific.

Focus macros:


See the General PVP strats for more info on these

This one sets your current target as your focus target
macro 1) /focus target
macro 2) /cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(rank 1)

This one sets your focus to whoever you hover your mouse over
macro 1) /focus [target=mouseover]
macro 2) /cast [target=focus] Earth Shock(rank 1)

This one isn't really a focus macro, but Earth Shocks whoever you're hovering your mouse over
/cast [target=mouseover] Earth Shock(rank 1)

Dynamic Purge

/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [target=harm,exists] [target=targettarget,harm,exists] Purge

GoA/WF Totem Twist

/castsequence reset=7 Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem, Stormstrike

keep SS separate to time it with the WF cooldown if you wish.

Failsafe Stormstriking

I usually rely on stormstrike to start my attack sequence since it starts autoattack right after being used, but sometimes it's in cd, and I can't always right click on the mob, so I made a stormstrike button that stormstrikes when possible and manually starts autoattack when not.

#showtooltip
/cast Stormstrike
/startattack

One Button Totems

Just change around the totems in that with the exact name and punctuation of your totems you want on the macro.

/castsequence reset=6 Searing Totem, Mana Spring Totem, Grounding Totem, Strength of Earth Totem

Cure Poison/Disease

The below macro has many fallbacks to cover what happens if you're not mousing over a target. In order, it tries to cure your mouseover target first, then it attempts to cure your target if they're friendly, then the target of your target if they're friendly, then finally yourself.

/cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [target=help,exists] [target=targettarget,help,exists] [target=player] Cure Disease

Both of these macros work for Cure Disease and Cure Poison.


There's a lot more too, but I tried to list some of the enh/pvp specific ones. If you are looking for more check out Jind's thread above, it's really awesome.

XII. Credits

Thanks to wowwiki and wowhead contributers where I took a ton of info from.
Thanks to everyone's contributions on the EJ forum.
Thanks to all the forum posters who post constructively and we can all learn from. Your posts are reflected here, sometimes verbatim.

If you have any info to add or add change, post and I will edit my post and mark your contribution here.

Edits:
Thanks to Slickkittie for nice link to a PVP video.
Thanks to Khruschev for some good ideas on PVP builds and wrist enchant.
Thanks to Diivide for another sweet PVP video.
Thanks to Caroticus and Squidfury for the lifebloom info.
Thanks to Zagine for a sweet PVP video and Montyx for letting me know it exists :)
Thanks to Jindwaha for your talent in making macros.

XIII. Outro

I hope this guide can make us all pvp'ers. I would like to keep this guide constantly updated and greatly desire your imput.

I've always felt that the forums are a great place for players to communicate with each other instead of an open letter to blizzard.

If you have a slightly better way to kill a mage, some great insights on arena team makeup, or a more fitting gem combination let us all know and we'll be better players because of it.

XIV. Bonus Arena Strats!

My 5v5 is UA Lock, Shadow Priest, Frost Mage, Enhancement Shaman, and Holy Pally. Interestingly, I almost never receive Blessing of Freedom. The philosophy of our team is to CC the DPS of the other team completely, which is why it's so easy for a healer to heal our team, and for us to deliver our massive damage that compensates for our lack of healing reduction.

As a matter of fact, our Paladin has disappeared on us for the last week, so we were forced to play with a Druid friend of ours, and we had the same success last night (couple games off #1 now). You heard me: a Resto Druid healed a 4 DPS team with an Enhancement Shaman and UA Lock.

This may sound ridiculous, but the use of our CC is the means for our survival. In addition, we depend on our anti-CC to avoid getting our damage broken up.

The biggest advantage an Enhancement Shaman has in 5v5 is the ability to cast Purge and Tremor Totem while damaging. Nearly no Fear lasts for longer than 2 seconds on my team, and naturally Polymorph isn't a problem with so many dispels and Blessing of Sacrifice. Also, the well-timed use of Earth Shock and Grounding Totem is caster CC in itself.

2h sucks. DW adds more white damage, Stormstrike damage, burst, Flurry, Shamanistic Focus, Unleashed Rage, interruption on casters, among other things. Even owning a 2her on your character is trivial--it's never better.

- Speaking specifically to the hunter/priest/warlock setup, you're going to be dealing with the frost trap no matter which target you go after against a team that's any good, so we generally have to stay on the hunter full time to keep Mortalaimedshot off. As a shaman, your primary role is still support, even if you're enhancement, you have watch the warlock and tremor your druid the moment he finishes his fear cast, otherwise you run the risk of him getting feared out of totem range.

If you're having problems taking out the hunter before getting oom'd, have your shaman switch to pets and start ganking them while they're around pillars. Once pets are down your druid will have more than enough time to drink when the only dps present is a kiting hunter and a petless SL warlock. It's also best against those teams to test all three targets at least once to see who doesn't kite you. Most teams have at least one person that's just not as good at kiting as they could be, and that can give you the 2-3 second window you need to burst them down.

Any 3v3 you play with a hunter in it is going to require adaptation, the fight is going to basically revolve around the frost trap, and who's in it/not in it at the time. So keep flexible.

- Keeping people up against a hunter/warlock with no MS up is a trivial task, the biggest and most compelling arguments for staying on the warlock in just about any matchup with similar setups (double melee/druid) is Fear. If you're on top of tremoring your druid, suddenly the warlocks biggest tool is rendered (somewhat) useless, combine that with the fact that druids are basically unaffected by CoT, and you're just dealing with a watered down mage.

And yes, your druid must LoS mana burns, however if you play correctly (and don't get horribly unlucky on entrapment procs) their priest should be under enough pressure to heal that he won't be able to spend a very long time burning. Also, if you haven't already figured this out, having 3/3 imp hamstring on your warrior is absolutely critical, have your druid help out with roots on your dps target as well to keep it from going anywhere.

Every immobilizing effect allows your shaman to stay closer to the 'center' of your target, which means a much greater margin of error on snares (60% clip vs. 50% hamstring, for instance, occasional roots allow you to stick close.)


PMR: This fight is predictable, and there's only one way to finish it. You have to stay on the mage, run him out of mana, and at absolutely all costs stop polymorph on your warrior. When your warrior gets rooted/polied for any length of time, it's vital that he waits to get out of combat and uses charge to get to the mage instead of intercept. Many mages assume any charge is an intercept, and will blink immediatley afterwards. Using charge allows for an immediate intercept, which puts important pressure on their priest.

Putting the warrior on the rogue will result in far too many polies getting through, and ultimately result in none of their damage getting shut down, and you eating multiple 5k shatters to the face. furthermore, you want to develop a rhythm on the mage where only one or the other of you eat his novas at a given time. We currently have our warrior charge in while mauro sits back and purges until the first nova (which happens very quickly every game.)

Low rated PMR is an easy fight from the perspective of the druid. You don't really need to worry about positioning, just keep a full round of hots + abolish up, and cyclone the rogue every now and again to allow your shaman to both kick ass and take names. Playing against high rated PMR is a goddamned nightmare for a druid. You cannot trinket fear, if you trinket a fear, the game is over, because you're about to eat a blind to sap to mind control to fear to counterspell chain. You also can't be within counterspell range of the mage at any time, you can bet that the moment you start casting a cyclone or root (both of which are necessary to keep pressure on the mage) you'll eat a full 8s counterspell. You will also constantly be running from mana burns, fear, chastise--> fear, chastise --> mana burn, and mind controls.

So the druid's game against well played PMR results in an elaborate bid for position, to keep most of them out of LoS/range, and all of you in LoS/range.

Your job as the shaman is to drop your first tremor in the general vicinity that your druid is going to start from (you have that planned every match, right?) keep poison cleansing up at all times, and at absolutely all costs stop polymorphs and frostbolts. Nothing ends a game faster than imp KS --> PI shatter combo, and it only takes one slip up (and sometimes not even a slip up) to let them get it on you. This is one matchup where I definately feel /ele is a stronger sub to enhance, reduced shock time and -10% frost damage is absolutely huge, whereas half the time when I get caught in a fear, I'm way, way out of tremor's 40 yard range anyway.

There's more to it in terms of specifics, but that's a pretty solid baseline for how we beat PMR consistently.

- I would definitely like to emphasis keeping poly off your warrior, and you cannot do this if your warrior isn't on the mage. It's already really hard to get in range of the mage between nova's and kidney shots, so if your warrior isn't putting pressure as well on the mage, then there is no way you can keep polies off all on your own. It will look like this instead: You ES polymorph, mage casts polymorph, you GT polymorph (assuming this actually works), mage casts polymorph a 3rd time and you stand there watching your Warrior get polied. The mage then get's Pi'd, icey vains, damage trinket, and you get kidney shot so you have no way of stopping the incoming shatter combo and you die.

If your warrior is on the mage however it will look like this: You ES polymorph, your warrior hits the mage twice before he blinks/frostnova but still manages to take off half his health because you had already purged, frost shield, frost armor, pws etc. Your warrior intercepts the mage, the mage takes another beating and uses ice block. Your warrior scoots away and kills the mage pet, or hits the priest while waiting for block. You lay into the mage soon as block is down making him blow blink/nova and of course keeping poly off. Warrior intercepts and with some support, purge, WF, an ES, mage dies and the fight is yours.

Oh and if this wasn't already a given, you should have a shield on the entire time the rogue is on you, if he switches off or your druid has him locked down for a good length you can switch to DW. But you need to make healing as easy as possible for your druid, and you need to focus more on purge, ES and totems. Look at your damage as being useful in the sense of utility for pushback. With a 1hander and shield you still provide tons of push back and you can actually WF quite hard, I've had WF's for as much as 3.5k with my shield on, but the important part of meleeing a mage is the pushback because frost mages have 0 pushback protection and you'll often be able to catch nova's and polies that you wouldn't otherwise be able to catch simply because of pushback preassure.

If a mage is silly enough to try and cast polymorph while you are meleeing him there's a good chance he's going to die trying to get the poly off, I've seen this happen several times.

Anyways goodluck, remember to kill hunters when you see them and use a shield often even if there is only 1 physical dmg class. Most of what you bring to the fight is facilitating damage, purge, totems, bloodlust, Earthshocks on CC. If you do all of these things right, you'll notice that you really don't need to contribute very much damage, and sometimes no damage at all for your team to kill someone.

Reserved for future use.

---

Q u o t e:
16 Reserved posts. No subject could possibly be so complicated.

---

Reserved: for wondering how a nubance Shaman PvP guide could possibly take
up so much space?

Edit: Guess that answers that question, quite comprehensive.

Some things I'd like to add:

Vs Warriors, if you want to go toe to toe with them pop SR, fire nova and lightning shield.

Keep a Tremor totem down so they can't fear/bandage or fear/intercept. Typically I use
Frost shock over Earth shock todo damage so that they cannot get away to intercept.


Vs Pallies, if you really want to 1vs1 a pally you win by doing 1 thing. Recasting Water
shield every time it drops. As long as your gear is similar you can't lose. This will take
a while however.


Vs Frost Mages, (really is there any other type?)

Purge first, then move in. Typically you are now frost nova'd. I'd trinket here to avoid
2k Icelances myself.

Where by the mage will typically pop there pet. Drop there pet
asap. Its free nova's and steady damage you can negate in about 4seconds.

Next will come the iceblock (all the while they'll be recasting ice armor, you don't want
them to have this on, so purge when not in range). For the love of baby jebus don't stand
next to the iceblocked mage, he's waiting for his frost nova cooldown. One fun thing todo
is hover just near him. If you find a noob mage they'll often drop iceblock frost nova nothing
then blink away. Rejoice because the noob frost mages are relatively few.

If you need to close range with a mage don't be shy to use a frost shock. But only do this
if you have GT up. As soon as you frost shock them they will attempt to polymorph you, 80%
of the time. Drop GT and move in, by the time you get to them they'll attempt it a second
time and DW pushback should buy enough time to Earth shock it.

Around about now its time for the mage to pop Cold Snap for round two. Typically they will
eventually get you in a nova, however they should be hurting more then you. Faking a heal
to have the mage silence you or your GT while not casting is a decent way to let yourself
heal. If the fight goes perfectly you'll only take Icelance and Frost Nova damage. Typically
you'll have to eat at least 1 frostbolt and 1 or 2 shots from the pet.

If you are low on health the mage will often go for the kill, don't be afraid to pop SR for extra
mitigation at the end of the fight. However make sure to drop GT and put Water Shield up
as buffers straight after. If the mage likes to spellsteal alot let them spellsteal Water Shield.
It costs them more mana to spell steal it then it costs you to purge it just before you hit them.

Hmm, guess I got a little carried away on the Frost Mage thing, problem is thats typically
what my role is in 5vs5. If there's a frost mage he's mine to duel. Not to kill but to mitigate
and prevent sheeps. (though if you do manage to burst him down well done).

reserved for future QQing