World of Warcraft®

Hey guys,


I have been seeing many threads regarding the same questions about Enhancement PvP lately and I thought I will try to help new players a bit and summarize some things they should know.

I am no pro in any way, I just like Enha shaman PvP, know a thing or two, and want to help.

Feel free to ask anything or comment on my mistakes, I will try to either fix them in this "guide" or disprove your statement. I will also try to update it based on your feedback and my newly gained experience.



ENHANCEMENT SHAMAN PVP GUIDE FOR CATACLYSM 4.3


TABLE OF CONTENTS
(pages in brackets)

1. GEAR (1-3)

■ Gear pieces (1-2)
■ Gemming (2)
■ Reforging (3)
■ Enchanting (3)
■ Weapon imbues (3)

2. SPEC (4)

■ Talents (4)
■ Glyphs (4)

3. GAMEPLAY (4-6)

■ Keybinds (4)
■ Macros (4-6)
■ Totems (6)
■ "Rotation (Priority)" (6)

4. ADDONS (7)

5. HANDY TIPS (7-11)

■ General (7-9)
■ What to Purge (9)
■ What to Trinket/Shamy Rage/Strategies (9-11)
■ Basic arena tactics (11)

6. ARENA TEAMS (11)


LEGEND
CP - Conquest Points (best PvP gear currency)
WF - Windfury, either weapon imbue/its proc or a totem
FT - Flametongue, weapon imbue
FB - Frostbrand, weapon imbue
LL - Lava Lash
MW5 - Maelstrom Weapon talent stacked at maximum for instant heal or spell
ES - Earth Shock
FS - Flame Shock
LB - Lightning Bolt
UE - Unleash Elements
HS Totem - Healing Stream Totem
LS - Lightning Shield
GHW - Greater Healing Wave
HS - Healing Surge
SoE - Strength of Earth Totem
SS - Stormstrike or Static Shock (talent or build)
SR - Shamanistic Rage
DMG - Damage
AP - Attack Power
Proc - Chance of something happening, like Windfury attack
CC - Crowd Control, taking control of a player with Hex or other spells
Peel - Helping teammate from being bashed by an opponent
Kite - Slowing an opponent and dragging him/her around without yourself being attacked on melee range
BG - Battleground
DOT - Damage over time attack
HOT - Healing over time heal
GCD - Global Cooldown
CD - Cooldown
UA - Unstable Affliction
DF - Deep Freeze
HoJ - Hammer of Justice
VT - Vampiric Touch
PW:S - Power World Shield


GEAR

SIMPLY PUT:
■ ~4k resilience is good place to sit at at least, 4,5k is better.

■ 4% (3% if Draenei) spell hit, melee hit is capped speccing Enhancement

■ Spell Penetration - 195 soft cap

■ Reforge everything to Mastery, but keep Spell Hit cap

■ Gem Agility (Red), Agility/Mastery (Yellow), Spell Penetration (Blue), increased Crit dmg or Stun reduction (Meta)

■ Enchant for Agi>Mastery>Crit

■ Weapon speed 2.6, enchants: Landslide>Avalanche/Pyrium Weapon Chain or Landslide>Avalanche/Landslide>Avalanche if you are not disarmed often.

■ Imbues WF/FB or WF/FT, depending on your teammates' snares or your macros usage (see details below).

IN DETAIL:
1. GEAR PIECES

You need PvP gear of course. Enhancement is very squishy without it, ~4k resilience is what you are aiming for at least. As we are very squishy though, we should be around/over 4,5k resilience (especially for 3v3 against melee cleaves), which is full Cataclysm PvP gear with PvP trinkets. This all depends on your comp, etc. (you may use PvE trinket/weapons if better).

All gear you need to start playing can be bought for honor points (from Battlegrounds, Tol Barad), and if you win enough arena/(rated) bg games during WoW weeks to cap your CP cap, you will be also able to buy very nice epic weapons and other stuff for you.

What to spend your Honor/CP on first?
I would say set pieces, as they give you the most stats, by this time you should have enough earned to afford weapons, so both weapons, then boots, waist, wrists, cloak, rings, amulet, relic. When you upgrade from honor gear to CP, you should probably upgrade your oldest pieces (like from two seasons before, etc.) first.

WEAPONS:
Always 2.6 speed, always. Never use any caster weapons, nor any daggers.

The reason after this is you need the slowest possible weapons for higher chance to proc your powerful weapon imbues/enchants/abilities. Your hardest hitting attack, Lava Lash, has higher dmg with slower weapons too.

In patch 4.3 you may want to use 2x No'Kaled, the Elements of Death (or its RF/HC versions) instead of the PvP ones. The dmg is crazy with these and it's probably our BIS due to scaling with our Mastery! You should have a PvP trinket with resil if using these though. =)


PVP SET GEAR:
You need all pieces of a PvP set.


PVP OFFPIECES GEAR:
As there are no racials that reduce spell hit chance anymore, you need only 4% spell hit in Cataclysm. You will get melee hit from speccing to Enhancement via Dual Wield (only gives melee hit!).

Check your character tab ingame, you will see if you are missing against lvl85 targets with spells (do not worry about melee normal hits, you will not cap them without losing too much of other stats, so it is pointless).

To reach the cap you can buy e.g. Wrists, Ring (plus the Gloves from the set). If you are a Draenei, you can omit 1 piece (or reforge the excessive amount to Mastery) with Hit Rating because of the racial.

Other offpieces to buy are, as said, Mastery ones and Crit ones (Haste is close to useless for us).


RINGS AND NECKS:
Well, you need the Resilience, so I recommend PvP pieces.


TRINKETS:
You need Ruthless Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity or Cataclysmic Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity as for one trinket and for the second either the Ruthless Gladiator's Badge of Conquest or Cataclysmic Gladiator's Badge of Conquest (the ones with proc suck, it can be wasted when CCed) which you can bind as an execute-like ability which we kinda lack.

Or there is a possibility to use some nice PvE piece of course, though I have yet to test/gather more info on some of them:

Vial of Shadows - more dmg and healing from Agility, procs do very high dmg and proc quite frequently.

or

Matrix Restabilizer - passive Agility and great Mastery proc for additional burst.


2. GEMMING

RED SOCKETS:
Agility (boosts your dmg, crit and dodge and provides healing via our specialization talent that increases spellpower)

Delicate Inferno Ruby or its better version


YELLOW SOCKETS:
Agility/Mastery (mastery is the most sought-after secondary stat, so you should have it in yellow gems, but not pure Mastery, Agility is still the prime)

Adept Ember Topaz or its better version

If dying too often, try resil gems

Mystic Amberjewel or its better version
Lucent Ember Topaz or its better version


BLUE SOCKETS:
Spell Penetration to 220 (you cannot afford to miss or lose any CC/dmg to classes with resistances, and the Spell Penetration enchant on cloak and 3 blue Spell Penetration gems are the best way to reach the cap, because the highest common resistance is 195 and this is the closest combination even for the hard cap = 240 for Mages). There is also an option to get soft cap with 4 gems and no cloak enchant, depends on you.

Stormy Ocean Sapphire


Always gem right to get most of the socket bonuses, they are really worth it in Cata.

META SOCKET:
You need a dmg or a survival:

Agile Shadowspirit Diamond - for dmg for all races but Orcs (who may prefer the anti-stun one below, depends on you, your team, etc. though) - recommended

Powerful Shadowspirit Diamond - survival if you are an Orc (stacks great with our racial), not recommended for other races that much

3. REFORGING

Reforge the following:

■ All Crit to Mastery

■ All Haste to Mastery

■ Always remember, you have to keep the spell hit cap of 4%!


Explanation of above reforging:

■ Mastery increases dmg of our hardest hitter - Lava Lash. You need the mastery for it is reliable increase in burst for us --> LL, MW5 LB, ES, all aligned can do huge amount of burst dmg and all are increased with Mastery.

■ Haste increases only sustainable sources of dmg, white hits, WF procs, weapon imbues, Avalanche procs and similar. BUT the Haste is so bad stat for us at the moment (after the 30% melee Haste buff taken away) for its bad scaling with our abilities. Also, we have Flurry + Unleash Wind for increased sustained pressure, both increase our Haste significantly (opposed to Haste rating from items).

■ Crit is pretty good, but it is too rng and flat dmg increase from Mastery is preffered. You have "enough" Crit from gear and Agility.

■ Expertise - the Dodge is so high for some classes, it is close to useless to stack it in PvP, BUT there has been some discussion whether to "cap" it at 20 in 4.3 or not...check out for yourselves, it may be better than Mastery in some cases (and 20 is not that hard to reach for Orcs or Dwarfs due to their racials).


4. ENCHANTING

HEAD: Arcanum of Vicious Agility

SHOULDERS: Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal for dmg or Greater Inscription of Vicious Agility for survival or if Inscription - Agility imbue

CLOAK: The Spell Penetration one Enchant Cloak - Greater Spell Piercing, Enchant Cloak - Major Agility or Enchant Cloak - Greater Critical Strike

CHEST: Enchant Chest - Mighty Resilience or Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats

WRISTS: Formula: Enchant Bracer - Agility or if Leatherworker - Agility imbue

GLOVES: Enchant Gloves - Mastery if you are cheap, or Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery & http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82175 > http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82180 if you are an Engineer (you can have both, the Engineering enchant and the Enchanting enchant at the same time)

BELT: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle (do not forget to put a gem there then) & either http://www.wowhead.com/spell=84427 or http://www.wowhead.com/spell=84424 , depends on you. You can use these only in NON-rated battlegrounds and world PvP. They also stack with the Blacksmithing Bucklet as said above about gloves.

LEGS: Twilight Leg Armor if you are cheap, or Charscale Leg Armor

FEET: Enchant Boots - Major Agility or if you are cheap Enchant Boots - Mastery

RINGS FOR ENCHANTERS: Stamina/AP (survival, dmg)

I suggest getting cheaper enchants for your worse gear, and the costy ones for epic as they will last longer. =)


WEAPON ENCHANTS:
MAIN HAND:

Landslide>Avalanche>Hurricane

Enchant Weapon - Landslide (cloth killer, also helps our healing/dmg for the duration)

Enchant Weapon - Avalanche (scales with our mastery, very high proc chance, ignores armor)

Enchant Weapon - Hurricane (not that good as Haste is pretty bad for us)


OFFHAND:

Pyrium Weapon Chain if your are being disarmed (which happens more often now with our hard hitting Lava Lash than it did in WotLK)

■ Or Landslide>Avalanche

Enchant Weapon - Mending , well, "useless" 500hp healing every now and then...you would do better with any other enchant.


5. WEAPON IMBUES

■ Windfury + Frostbrand

■ Windfury + Flametongue if your teammate has reliable (undispelable, quickly re-appliable) snare

■ Or if you are hardcore, you can try swapping offhand weapon imbues on the run to maximize your potential even without a teammate's reliable snare. You can find the swap macro in Macros section. This is the most recommended usage of our imbues, very versatile for every fight.

SPEC

1. TALENTS

The following are prefered specs, feel free to experiment with your own though!

Generally prefered. You can change Spark of Life for Elemental Warding if mostly facing casters:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhbMZf0GzsbGRGo0h:aRkobr

2v2s (double dps) prefered, can be used in 3v3 (exchange SR glyph for LS one for 3v3). Hex CD reduction is vital in arenas:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhbMZf0GckbGRGo0h:qRkdbr

Survival spec, nice for world PvP, bgs or 2v2 (double dps):
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZf0GckbGRGoMhcb:aRkdbr

■ Toughness vs Totemic Reach vs Static Shock, well, Toughness is somewhat decent with better gear, TR is good only for Tremor and Grounding Totem as you can and should always redrop all other totems near your target, and SS is great for burst (but you "need" the LS glyphed for it to be effective).

■ Spark of Life vs Elemental Warding, Spark is better unless you are facing tons of casters. Consult your healer what suits him/her better.

■ Seasoned Winds, bad placement of the talent, Spark of Life or Elemental Warding provide better PASSIVE results. We interrupt heals most of the time, so the talent becomes pretty useless... =/ We also have to sacrifice our Mana Spring/HS Totem ALL of the party members benefit from to get a little unreliable defense against Fire/Frost Mages, Ele Shamans, Destro Warlocks, Balance Druids and some CC.

2. GLYPHS


PRIME:
Glyph of Lava Lash - nice boost for your hardest hitter

Glyph of Windfury Weapon - for "burst", also helps with stacking MW charges = more healing.

Glyph of Stormstrike - more crits for spells

Glyph of Feral Spirit - more dmg for your wolves, helps you survive little longer, less useful if you use focus Bash macro

Glyph of Shocking - for more burst


MAJOR:
Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem - nice little bubble for us, helps a lot to survive things.

Glyph of Shamanistic Rage - perfect addition to our repertory, removes all the negative magic effects you have on yourself every minute. Not exactly that necessary in 3v3 after patch 4.1 due to crazy UA dmg (and also our healer's dispels).

Removes Hammer of Justice (Paladins) and Deep Freeze (Frost Mage) while stunned so you do not have to use your PvP trinket.

Be aware of certain abilities you do not want to remove in some cases (if you are low on health or need to do something more important than run around silenced/feared). The ones I can think of are: Warlock's Unstable Affliction (does great deal of dmg to you and also silences you so you are unable to heal and die) and Shadow Priest's Vampiric Touch (jump before you do that, you will avoid the Fear).

Glyph of Hex - helps a lot with CC.

or

Glyph of Lightning Shield - Hex is for more control pressure, LS is good for SS build or if being focused a lot (and great for bgs).


MINOR:
Glyph of Water Walking - bgs and against dispellers.

Glyph of Water Breathing - against dispellers.


GAMEPLAY

1. KEY BINDINGS

YOU CAN JUST SKIP THE KEY BINDINGS PART, IT IS NOT REALLY THAT IMPORTANT

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1498670884?page=6#115


2. MACROS

I really suggest to get your macros on, I have almost all my skills macroed, you really need them to be effective. =)

My macros consist of /stopcasting for Windshear/Hex spells and all important totems (Grounding, Tremor, etc.) for a faster reaction, then I have my Windshear macroed to interrupt either my target or my focus with a modifier key.

All your attacks should probably have /startattack for it makes it easier to target someone then.

Create macros for all 3 important wolves abilities, you will need the stun macroed, Twin Howl will help you with pet classes, and the speed breaking roots is priceless.


THE MACROS I USE:

■ WOLVES' STUN:
#showtooltip
/cast Bash
■ WOLVES'S SPRINT:
#showtooltip
/cast Spirit Walk
■ WOLVES'S PET AGGRO:
#showtooltip
/cast Twin Howl
■ CHAIN LIGHTNING:
#showtooltip Chain Lightning
/startattack
/cast Chain Lightning
■ EARTH SHOCK:
#showtooltip Earth Shock
/startattack
/cast Earth Shock
■ EARTHBIND TOTEM:
#showtooltip Earthbind Totem
/stopcasting
/cast Earthbind Totem

■ FERAL SPIRIT (with it you will start attacking your target, cast wolves and they will attack the target you have targeted after pressing the button again - /petattack part, so you have your wolves under control all the time):
#showtooltip Feral Spirit
/startattack
/cast Feral Spirit
/petattack
■ FLAME SHOCK:
#showtooltip Flame Shock
/startattack
/cast Flame Shock
■ FROST SHOCK:
#showtooltip Frost Shock
/startattack
/cast Frost Shock
■ GROUNDING TOTEM:
#showtooltip Grounding Totem
/stopcasting
/cast Grounding Totem
■ HEALING ALL-IN-ONE (I press the button with MW charges up for GHW and I hold the CTRL modifier and the press the button without MW charges for HS, this is because if I wanted to cast Greater Healing Wave without MW charges, I would be interrupted 10 times before I got it finished, heh, 1,5sec cast is harder to interrupt, especially when you are fake casting it):
#showtooltip
/cast [mod: Ctrl] Healing Surge
/cast [nomod] Greater Healing Wave
■ HEX:
#showtooltip Hex
/cast [target=focus] Hex
■ LAVA LASH:
#showtooltip Lava Lash
/startattack
/cast Lava Lash
■ EXECUTE/BURST (this is for Orc, feel free to replace with Troll racial or other dps on-use trinket):
/use Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Badge of Conquest
/cast Blood Fury
/use Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Linked Gauntlets
!!!Remember the 10s cooldown between the possibility of use of on-use trinket and hands, you have to press the macro twice - after the 10s to get both working). I suggest placing the hands on your bar to see the cooldown as well (you will see trinket's with the macro)!!!

■ LIGHTNING BOLT:
#showtooltip Lightning Bolt
/startattack
/cast Lightning Bolt
■ PARACHUTE (Engineering only, change the name to your cloak):
#showtooltip Wrathful Gladiator's Cloak of Triumph
/use 15
■ SHIELD SWAP MACRO (this one has really very high usefulness against many melee classes and hunters, it is lots of additional armor = physical dmg reduction and also some block chance, change the name according to your shield and weapon):
/equipslot [noequipped:shields] 17 Elementium Stormshield
/equipslot [equipped:shields] 17 Vicious Gladiator's Left Ripper
■ STONECLAW TOTEM (glyphed):
#showtooltip Stoneclaw Totem
/stopcasting
/cast Stoneclaw Totem
■ STORMSTRIKE:
#showtooltip Stormstrike
/startattack
/cast Stormstrike
■ TREMOR TOTEM:
#showtooltip Tremor Totem
/stopcasting
/cast Tremor Totem
■ UNLEASHED ELEMENTS:
#showtooltip Unleash Elements
/startattack
/cast Unleash Elements
■ WIND SHEAR (this will interrupt your target once the button is pressed and if you hold Shift, or any other modifier you set in its stead, it will cast Wind Shear on your Focus target, VERY useful in arena or when you encounter two classes against you anywhere):
#showtooltip Wind Shear
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus,exists,mod:Shift] Wind Shear;[target=target,exists,nomod] Wind Shear
■ MOUNT:
#showtooltip
/cast [combat,nomounted] Ghost Wolf
/cast [nostance,nocombat,flyable] Veridian Netherwing Drake
/cast [nostance,nocombat,noflyable] Swift Razzashi Raptor
/dismount [mounted]
/cancelform [stance]
■ GHOST WOLF (this will cast Ghost Wolf once no matter how many times you press the button to prevent shifting out of it when you press the button many times in panic situation, hehe. I am not sure though if it works without the mount macro above, I have always used Mount macro to cancel my Ghost Wolf - which is probably the “cancel form“ command in the last line of the mount macro, so you can put it to your GW macro for the same effect):
#showtooltip Ghost Wolf
/stopcasting
/cast [nostance] !Ghost Wolf
■ PARTNER'S CLEANSE (change "player" to your partner's name):
#showtooltip Cleanse Spirit
/cast [target=player] Cleanse Spirit

Finally, two REALLY awesome macros from Dedaliadon (you can change imbues on the run, oh yeah!!!):

■ FROSTBRAND OFFHAND IMBUE CHANGE:
/cast [@none] Frostbrand Weapon
/use 17
/click StaticPopup1Button1
■ FLAMETONGUE OFFHAND IMBUE CHANGE:
/cast [@none] Flametongue Weapon
/use 17
/click StaticPopup1Button1

3. TOTEMS

■ Basically:

1. Searing, SoE, Healing Stream/Mana Spring and Windfury as default Arena set (+ with HST for world PvP and bgs), depending on your healer.

2. Searing, Stoneskin, Healing Stream/Mana Spring and Windfury against melee/Hunter heavy combos.


■ Then I bind all the important totems (all for a different key of course) I need to exchange/drop:

1. SoE, Tremor, Earthbind, Stoneclaw and also Stoneskin (Earth Totems)
2. Grounding, Windfury (Air Totems)

SoE is really big dps gain, Tremor must be cast when Feared/Under Sleep (Hunter's Wyvern Sting), Earthbind is your best friend (and your teammates' too) when there is some class with snares (almost all), Stoneskin helps against melee classes if going defensive.

Glyphed Stoneclaw is your very good friend against all classes. When you are focused, you drop it. When your Grounding totem and/or Windshear is on CD, you need to drop it to avoid the big nuke when you are low on health. You also want to drop it against bad Rogues before they focus you from Stealth (the good ones wait until the buff disappears), or once their first stun ends (even against good Rogues), etc.

As said above, do not drop it with your default totem set! Also, do not forget, you do not have to keep it dropped to get shield from glyph, you just have to drop it and then can drop other Earth Totem.


■ Some hints:

After I use Grounding (after it absorbs something and is destroyed), I almost always try to redrop Windfury totem (if there is a sec for GCD), it makes my MW charges and procs happy.

Use your Grounding totem properly, NEVER EVER drop it with your default totem set. Same goes for Stoneclaw Totem.

Ground the big nukes (Chaos Bolt, Lava Burst) and you can also ground CCs (Deep Freeze-tough one to ground, Sheep, Cyclone, Hammer of Justice, etc.). Do not forget you can ground Hunter's traps too!

You should always try to interrupt spells that lock their spell schools rather than to ground them (e.g. Lightning Bolt of Elemental Shaman, it keeps him/her locked down for a while, because most of his/her dmg/healing is Nature spell school and you can ground the Lava Burst easily with Grounding then).

After Tremor is dropped and all Fears/Sleep effects are removed from you and/or your team, drop SoE for the loss in dmg is quite high without the SoE and no friendly DK/Warrior/Hunter around (who have the buff also, if that is the case you are using Stoneskin Totem instead of SoE!). You can have InterruptBar addon to watch the cooldown of enemy Fears, it helps a lot (though it is less useful with 1 minute cd of Tremor after patch 4.0.6).


4. "ROTATION (PRIORITY)"

There is NONE, you have to adapt on different situations in contrast to PvE. =)

However, there are few things that may help you if you are not sure what to do.

Opener (mostly):

■ Totems (see TOTEMS section above)
■ Unleash Elements or Frost Shock depending on range of the target
■ Stormstrike (for debuff and faster MW charges)
■ Lava Lash
■ Earth Shock or Flame Shock (keep FS on a Mage or a Rogue, unless being CC target, then use ES for more dmg against them with SS debuff)
■ If MW5 - Lightning Bolt or Greater Healing Wave, depending on what you need
■ If trying to keep yourself alive - Feral Spirits, Shield Swap macro against melees/Hunters, Stoneclaw Totem, Shamanistic Rage, hide behind pillars/boxes, Spiritwalker's Grace and heal while running, drop Grounding Totem, etc.

Going for a kill (mostly):

■ Feral Spirits + Bash (to keep target from running away), you can/should use Bash against healer though!
■ On Use Trinkets/Offensive Racials/Engineering Tinkers (macroed in one button in the best case)
■ Stormstrike (for WF proc and MW charges)
■ Lava Lash (the more Searing Flames charges on the target, the better)
■ Lightning Bolt (if MW5, which you should have after SS and LL)
■ Unleash Elements (not to let target run away with the 75% speed debuff)
■ Earth Shock

ADDONS

Do not forget the less addons, the less distraction on the screen! Some addons may come in handy though.

If you are into addons, I must recommend The Ultimate Shaman UI for Enhancement from "suicidalkatt" or Syronius, as known ingame, it is the cleanest and the best UI ever made (imho). It is kinda hard to update if you want to do it on your own, but the updates come quite frequently from the guy. The only problem might be the resolution for which it is done. Well, see for yourselves:

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info14256-TheUltimateShamanUIv4.0-1920x1080169-WIDE.html


My UI looks almost identical to one posted above, but I will post it as it was requested:
http://img547.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot012711190525.jpg/
My Addons list:
http://img829.imageshack.us/i/addonst.jpg/


GREAT ADDONS FOR ANY UI:
CLIQUE:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/clique.aspx

For easier healing of your teammates.


DECURSIVE:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/decursive.aspx

For taking curses of you and your teammates.


DOOM COOLDOWN PULSE:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/doomcooldownpulse.aspx

Awesome tracker of your cooldowns.


GLADIUS:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/gladius.aspx

Priceless arena addon, does not work anywhere else. Shows usage of important enemy cooldowns, trinkets and their hitpoints/mana.


MIK'S SCROLLING BATTLE TEXT:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/mik-scrolling-battle-text.aspx

Very adjustable replacement for Blizzard's scrolling combat text. Must be set properly to avoid mess!


OMNI CC:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omni-cc.aspx

Another great cooldown tracker, can be used along with Doom Cooldown Pulse, for both show things differently.


POWER AURAS CLASSIC:
(the ones from The Ultimate Shaman UI Enhancement are the best)

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?s=da6b712ccf81120b9c18ae75f9bb9e14&id=14761

or default ones you would have to customize:

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx


QUARTZ:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/quartz.aspx

The best castbar addon ever. Set up your target and focus target castbars to interrupt them with ease (increase their size, drag them to some visible place, somewhere near your character, etc.).


SHAMAN FRIEND:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/shaman-friend.aspx

Shows what is being purged, grounded, etc. Awesome thing.


SPELL ALERTER:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/spell-alerter.aspx

Alerts spells that are being cast near you and at what target. UI might get little messy with it though, beware!


TIDY PLATES: THREAT PLATES:
(the ones from The Ultimate Shaman UI Enhancement)

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info17854-TidyPlatesThreatPlatesCatacylsm.html

Awesome thing that shows enemy nameplates with better graphics for easier recognition. Also shows castbars on it.


TOTEM TIMERS:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/totemtimers.aspx

Better Totem castbar with many other useful features.



SOME HANDY TIPS

1. GENERAL:
■ Set your keys to work on press rather than release of a button, you can find this option in Menu/Interface/Combat.

■ Try not to ever use your Lightning Bolt (MW5ed) or Earth Shock against target without Stormstrike debuff, your spell crit is too low without it.

■ Keep Earth Shock debuff on melee classes and Flame Shock debuff on Rogues and Mages to prevent Stealth/Invisibility.

■ Bind your Bind Elemental skill, it is just awesome against mages' elementals. =).

■ Spiritwalker's Grace is looked upon as useless, but I found it vital key in survival against Warriors and other classes you cannot go toe-to-toe and have to kite. The healing you can do while kiting is just great with it.

■ If there is a caster/healer and melee around, always put the caster/healer in your focus target for easier interruption via Wind Shear focus macro from Macro section above. It will help your defense 1000 times until someone comes to your help.

■ Also remember you really do not need to wait for Searing Flames 5 stacks to kick a$$ with Lava Lash, I use it immediately when the fight begins to get the charges on my target and then I fire it depending on how the enemy healer behaves (if he/she is dispelling it, use Lava Lash at 3-4 stacks, they wait most of the time for the 5th and then dispel).

■ Usage of Unleashed Elements depends on what weapon imbues you have.

Use it immediately when you start autoattacking your target (you do not want to waste any precious seconds of the buff you have from your WF Unleashed while running towards the target).

You can also use it to peel off of your teammates, the slow from Unleashed Frost is very useful.

Also, when you sit on some target, they just will not run away from you if you have the FB and you use Unleashed Frost, the slow is just gorgeous (75% slow).

If I remember correctly, the UE does not put you into combat, so it is useless in arena against cloaked Rogues who are about to open with Sap. Damn bug! =(

■ Stoneclaw Totem Glyphed is just to be dropped and then any other Earth Totem can be cast in its stead, you will still receive and keep the buff from Stoneclaw.

■ When healing yourself without MW charges against a class with interrupt near you, try to fake cast. It can be done two ways:

1. You start casting the Healing spell and stop immediately hoping they used their interrupt (this addon can help with that http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/interruptbar.aspx). Always try to stop the cast in different part of the cast bar when playing against same teams in arena over and over, people learn your style fast. =)

2. You start casting Lava Burst (fire school) and hope they are stupid enough to waste their cooldown on it so you can freely heal yourself (nature school).

If it is a Mage, do not forget to drop Grounding Totem before you start casting it to prevent silencing. Once the Grounding is down, you do not have to fake cast.
That is how I do it and it works sometimes. I really need someone to let me know how THEY do it if there is some other/better way.

■ After you survive Rogue's first stun, drop down Stoneclaw Totem (glyphed) and use your Shield Swap macro, then Earthbind totem and Ghost Wolf away to get out of their range, Frost Shock them in place and start kiting if they used their defensive cooldowns. Once the cooldowns are down, they are almost dead. Stoneskin Totem is pretty effective against Rogues too (combined with Shield Swap).

■ Always use Shamanistic Rage (glyphed) on Hammer of Justice (Paladin's magic Stun) and Deep Freeze (Frost Mage's Stun), do not waste your PvP trinket on it.

■ When there are many pets around attacking you, use your Spirit Wolves' Twin Howl ability to aggro them to your wolves.

■ Earth Bind Totem removes snares only (slowing effects), not any kind of roots or anything, remember it.

■ Use your Hex soon to have it ready later and to force the opponent to use their Trinket and waste its cooldown so you can stun them with Wolves for the full duration and then Hex them again.

Always Hex the classes that can dispel Curse (= Shamans, Mage, Druids when not shapeshifted!) or you would waste its cooldown because it is just one click for enemy to take it off.

If both classes (speaking of arena or 2v1 in other PvP) can remove Curse, just use it on Healers, DPSers are unaware of having it and very often focus on killing you rather than working for their team in a more useful way, like decursing their Healer. =)

■ Watch your opponent's buffs so you know when to Purge. You can also Purge them while running towards them when the fight begins (Shamanistic Rage helps a lot with that) so you will have it easier without the trash buffs later.

■ If you are not focused and you need to Purge something important, pop Shamanistic Rage and Purge for free until you get the desired thing off the enemy. You may be VERY vulnerable to switch after that though, keep that on mind!

■ After I use Grounding (after it absorbs something and is destroyed), I almost always try to redrop Windfury totem (if there is a sec for GCD), it makes my MW charges and procs happy.

■ Use your Grounding totem properly, NEVER EVER drop it with your default totem set. Same goes for Stoneclaw Totem.

■ Ground the big nukes (Chaos Bolt, Lava Burst) and you can also ground CCs (Deep Freeze-tough one to ground, Sheep, Cyclone, Hammer of Justice, etc.). Do not forget you can ground Hunter's traps too!

■ You should always try to interrupt spells that lock their spell schools rather than to ground them (e.g. Lightning Bolt of Elemental Shaman, it keeps him/her locked down for a while, because most of his/her dmg/healing is Nature spell school and you can ground the Lava Burst easily with Grounding then).

■ After Patch 4.1 use your Grounding Totem properly, its cooldown is terrible for Enha now. =/

■ After Tremor is dropped and all Fears/Sleep effects are removed from you and/or your team, drop SoE for the loss in dmg is quite high without the SoE and no friendly DK/Warrior/Hunter around (who had the buff also, in that case you are using Stoneskin Totem!). You can have InterruptBar addon to watch the cooldown of enemy Fears, it helps a lot (though it is less useful with 1 minute cd of Tremor after patch 4.0.6).

■ Remember, you are not the main source of dmg or healing for your team, you are there for support mainly. If you cannot get that, stay out of Enhancement spec, it is not for you probably.

We can do everything, but we are not great in everything, we are great support though and kinda Jack-of-all-trades. You can help healing your partners, but you will be oom faster than the light. You can also tank some dmg for a while with Wolves up, you Shield Swap macro and Shamanistic Rage on. You can do dmg like hell when the stars align and Wolves are up.

And last but not least, you are here to PURGE. After 4.0.6, this thing sucks hard though. The mana increase hit us harder than other two Shaman specs and we have to think when to burst-Purge now to get some important buffs off.

■ You can ground DK's Death Grip. =) Once you see DK running towards you or someone from your group and his backup allies are around him/her, just drop the Grounding Totem down to ensure he/she will grab no one to the angry mob around him.

■ You can ground the Hammer of Justice the same way. Its range is very low, so it is good for us, especially against Holy Paladins who have to run towards you and you will just feel it when to drop the totem. Just practise the PvP a bit.

■ If you ever happen to run across Mage's Ring of Frost (for whatever reason), that has just been cast, always stay in its eye (in the middle), you will not get frozen there and can cast defensive totems, heal, Windshear and Shocks from there until it disappears.

■ Kite Warriors and other melee classes you have problems with (or when they use some defensive cooldown, Evasion, Combat Readiness, Shield Wall, Shamanistic Rage, etc., as you cannot hurt them much and can take bunch of dmg from them).

Drop down your Earthbind Totem, use Frost Shock, Unleashed Frost and once the Searing Flames stack to 5 (if the target cannot dispel it), run towards and melt their face with Lava Lash, then repeat.

Do not forget you do not want to root Warrior with Frost Shock, unless it is absolutely necessary (via Frozen Power talent) for you would heal them and gave them rage for their attacks, just keep within their dead zone, which is 7 yards range, no more.

■ Remember you can side-jump when Warrior is charging you so you will land a few yards away from him/her and can recover from the stun sooner, which can help you avoid their burst dmg during that stun. (Fixed in 4.3 if I remember correctly - need to check)

2. WHAT TO PURGE:
(only Major ones recommended, the rest is pretty much waste of mana due to Purge nerfs..)

■ Paladin:

Major: Hand of Protection, Hand of Freedom, Avenging Wrath
Minor: , Hand of Sacrifice, Divine Favor, Blessing of Kings, Holy Radiance, Beacon of Light, Holy Shield

■ Priest:

Major: Power Word: Shield, Power Infusion
Minor: Power World: Fortitude, Grace, Chakra, Archangel

■ Shaman:

Major: Tidal Waves, Elemental Mastery, Bloodlust,
Minor: Maelstrom Weapon, Hots (Riptide, Earthliving Weapon), Spiritwalker's Grace

■ Druid:

Major: Innervate
Minor: Hots (Rejuvenation, Regrowth), Mark of the Wild

■ Mage:

Major: Ice Barrier, Time Warp
Minor: Arcane Power, Arcane Brilliance

■ Hunter:

Major: Ancient Hysteria

■ Warlock:

Minor: Dark Intent, Sacrifice


3. WHAT TO TRINKET/SHAMY RAGE/STRATEGIES:

All credits to Clous (US forums), my Enha hero! /love

■ Mage:

SR: Deep Freeze

Trinket: Deep Freeze

(Yes, Im only covering Frost because the other specs will flop over like bananas no matter what you do)

General Advice: Purge intelligently. When you sham rage the first DF, spam purge like a madman since it is free for the duration. After that, only bother getting off Ice Barriers, but keep in mind mana. Try to use grounding totem for things that matter (such as deep freeze, or you are stuck in a frost nova getting lance spammed to death). Instant Hex is wonderful for resets to help you catch up on healing.

■ Paladin:

SR: Hammer of Justice

Trinket: Hammer of Justice or Repentance.

General Advice:

Holy: Don't bother purging for the most part, except of course when you Shamy Rage the first HoJ. Only buffs you should care about are Divine Protection and Wings. Ground the HoJ if at all possible. Do not bother interrupting unless they are under 70 percent. At this point, interrupt then follow up with an instant Hex while you Searing Totem stacks get up, then pop Wolves, Lava Lash, then Bash. This should force a bubble or kill them, assuming you are Static Shock spec'd. If not, you probably won't have enough pressure to kill them in duels.

Ret: Similar strat as Holy, except you kite instead of chopping. Save Trinket for the second HoJ, unless you Ground one in which case use it on Repentance to keep pressure rolling. Spam Purge when Wings are up or you'll die instantly. Just abuse your kiting prowess and they should drop. Use Wolves whenever you feel you need them.


■ Warrior:

Trinket: Charge/Intercept/Throwdown. Depending on spec. I tend to Trinket the first Charge since im a huge jerk.

SR: Colossus Smash. No it doesn't free you from it, but it does ensure you don't get globaled.

General Advice: Kite. Remember Earthbind Totem is a freedom of some sorts, and combined with Ghost Wolf can make you escape his wrath several times. Save Wolves for an Imp. Hamstring if possible, since Spirit Walk can remove the root. Kite, kite, kite. Swoop in to Lava Lash when searing totem has 5 stacks, and ensure Searing Totem uptime.


■ Druid:

Trinket: First Stun/Cyclone.

SR: Tigers Fury/ When smothered in Boomkin Dots/ Entangling Roots

General Advice:

Feral: Typical Kite strategy

Boomkin: Chop them a new one. Ground things that matter, and interrupt with the same goal in mind. SR can be used defensively on eclipsed dots or offensively on roots. Use Wolves near the start but save Spirit Walk for a root. Pretty easy to murder.

Resto: Good luck


■ Shaman:

Trinket: Hex

SR: Flame Shock/Wolves/5 stack of Searing Totem

General Advice:

Elemental: Similiar to Boomkins. If you lose to an Ele Shaman you should feel bad. Remember you can purge Spirit Walker's Grace

Enhance: Pretty much 100 percent skillless duel. Whoever WF procs more, wins. Chop hard and strong my friend. Try to ground his Hex, and use all MW procs for healing/Hex. Have your Wolves taunt his Wolves to give you a boost.

Resto: Good Luck


■ Priest:

Trinket: Psychic Scream/Psychic Horror

SR: Dots, don't be afraid to use this when VT's on you, just make sure you are set to survive 3 seconds when you do.

General Advice:

Disc/Holy: Good Luck

Shadow: Easy. Do not let them get a VT off. Ever. Ground them, interrupt them. The only time VT should be on you is during a Psychic Horror and the second Psychic Scream (which they should be dead by). Save SR for the one VT that gets through. Tremor the first fear. Pop Wolves after the first fear. Don't bother purging unless you have Shamy Rage up, or they have a PW:S up with little/no buff fodder. Make sure and self heal with MWs and use Stoneclaw Totem on CD. When they Disperse, Spirit Walkers Grace and heal yourself. Remember you can still use totems while silenced.


■ Death Knight:

Trinket: Strangulate or Gnaw

SR: When you are getting murdered

General Advice: You are pretty much screwed. Use the kite strategy and pray they don't Death Strike Totems/Wolves. Use Wolves when things are getting hairy.


■ Rogue:

Trinket: Kidney Shot/Blind

Sham Rage: During first stun, be it Kidney or Cheap Shot.

General Advice: Kite and let your totems do all the work. Usual business of swooping in to clear Searing Totem stacks. Forcing Trinket with a Hex early on makes your life significantly easier so you can Hex later to catch up on healing. Put your Wolves on passive during Combat Readiness, and stop attacking if you are. You can still cast Shocks and such, just nothing physical. Hard, but doable.

■ Warlock:

Trinket: Fear/Howl of Terror/Felguard Stun

Sham Rage: Shadowfury/Dots

General Advice:

Destro: Tremor Totem the first Fear/Seduce. SR out of Shadowfurys and beat the lock to a pulp. Use Wolves whenever. Trinket when you don't have Shamy Rage up and he Sfurys to Howl you and the pups. Interrupt it and continue chopping. Should be a breeze.

Demo: Turtle like a man. Use Wolves to counteract his Demon Form, and Hex him during it. Use whatever you have to survive Demon Form. Never let him get a Hand of Guldan off. Once he's out of Demon Form he will die ridiculously fast.

Affliction: Pray they don't know what Fel Flame is. Similar strategy as other lock pets, except you CAN NOT let UA go off. If they get a UA off, you are basically boned because they will spam Fel Flame on you while Curse of Exhaustion you to make sure all their dots stay up while you slowly die. Remember Earthbind Totem's bonus for Enhance, and try to kill this kid fast.


■ Hunter:

Trinket: Freezing Trap, Entrapment.

SR: Entrapment, times of heavy damage.

General Advice: Use all your freedom like abilities to keep as much uptime as possible. Use Wolves as soon as things look like they are going south. Use Stoneclaw on cd and use all MW to heal yourself. You need Frostbrand on a weapon for this fight. Save Trinket for when they try to get a jerky reset on you or Aimed Shot charge while you're ScatterTrap'd.


4. BASIC ARENA TACTICS:

(WIP, feel free to add some, correct on issues, pls)

■ You basically need to keep pressure on lower armor dps and focus interrupt their healer.

■ Combine your CCs to score a kill (once a target gets low on health (e.g. 50%), chain CC their healer and you can have your kill).

■ Ground/Tremor/Wind Shear their CC chains against your healer.

■ LOS (run out of line of sight)! You can force enemy to go after you behind pillar/boxes where you will have an advantage as a melee. If you have tough times against melee, kite them (around pillars/boxes or even on clear ground). Always try LOSing enemy CC or dmg spell if you are near some obstacle. You can even kite melee attackers from their healers there, provided they are stupid enough to follow.

■ Use your Shield Swap macro if you are being focused by melee/Hunters and your healer needs to heal you up with more ease.

■ Never ever get out of LOS for your own healer for too long (unless it is Druid, you can stay up with Hots longer). Coordinate this over Xfire, Ventrillo, etc.

■ Peel dps off your partners if they are focused, your slow is the most efficient (Frostbrand + Unleashed Frost = 75% slow!).

■ Switch targets if some undispelable defensive cooldown is popped, once it is over (Gladius addon helps with this), get back to your last target to score a kill.

■ Switch targets against Druid comps (or any healer for that matter!) to keep them busy casting new Hots/Heals = deplete their mana faster, and to make their heals less efficient. It takes them quite a lot of GCDs to apply new Hots, etc., so it gives you more space for taking someone down.

■ Keep your eyes on enemy buffs that can be Purged, always try to Purge healers' important spells (Shaman's Tidal Waves, Disco's Power Infusion, Paladin's Divine Plea, Druid's Innervate, etc.).

■ If you are going for a kill against Resto Druid teams, do not bother Purging Hots if enemy is low on health, keeping pressure with your damage will give you more of a benefit with Purge nerf.


ARENA COMPOSITION


Good partners to have fun and play with (not in any specific order):


2v2:
■ Frost Mage/Enha
■ Any Healer/Enha (very frustrating though)
■ Arms Warrior/Enha
■ Feral Druid/Enha (pretty good in 4.3)
■ Subtlety Rogue/Enha (pretty good in 4.3)
■ Demonology Warlock/Enha
■ Any Hunter/Enha (with Beastmaster pretty good in 4.3 aka beastcleave)
■ Retribution Paladin/Enha (pretty good in 4.3)
■ Affliction Warlock/Enha


3v3:
■ Healer (Priest prefered)/WarriorArms/Enha (pretty good in 4.3)
■ Healer (Priest prefered)/Feral Druid/Enha (pretty good in 4.3)
■ Healer (Priest Prefered)/Frost DK/Enha
■ Healer (Priest Prefered)/Subtlety Rogue/Enha
■ Healer (Priest Prefered)/Retri Paladin/Enha (pretty good in 4.3)
■ Healer (Priest Prefered)/Beastmaster Hunter/Enha
■ Resto Druid (or Holy Paladin)/Affliction Warlock/Enha


And that is probably it, feel free to ask anything, I will try to answer. Sorry for bad English and many grammar mistakes that are almost certainly there, I will try to fix them all.



Enjoy playing the best spec and cheers!


Intsanius

Good guide, but I won't reccomend reforging Crit to Mastery, since Resil no longer affects crit chance&damage.
SS buffs spell crit, spell crits proc 9% melee crit, so, well, I think that Crit is good :3

Also it's a bad idea to go without FT on off-hand - it gimps our LL damage, our shock damage, our LB damage, our LS damage, our Unleash Weapon damage.
With high mastery I prefer FB+FT, since 50% snare from auto-attacking and +10% elemental damage on FB'd targetds (yay free mastery). And it's great if you need to catch someone - FS, get close, Unleash FB = PROFIT.

Good guide, but I won't reccomend reforging Crit to Mastery, since Resil no longer affects crit chance&damage.
SS buffs spell crit, spell crits proc 9% melee crit, so, well, I think that Crit is good :3

Thank you, I did my best. =)


Well, I have 20% crit with "crappy" blue pvp gear, +6% crit for melee from talents which is almost always up and additional 35% chance to crit with spells. If I am couting right, that is:

Melee: 26% chance to crit - considering our fast hitting attacks...a lot, check other melees.
Spells: 55% chance to crit - no class has that much

I think that is a lot of crit and once the trinket is up, I crit almost always with anything. =)

You know, this is just starter gear, we will see a lot more after few seasons I guess (not that much as in WotLK, but still a boost and as I say, I am critting a lot even now).

The other reason is, Crit is unpredictable, Mastery boosts flat dmg and by a lot. I prefer reliable source of dmg (lol, tell me once more why did I start playing Enha shaman then?).

Also it's a bad idea to go without FT on off-hand - it gimps our LL damage, our shock damage, our LB damage, our LS damage, our Release Weapon damage.
With high mastery I prefer FB+FT, since 50% snare from auto-attacking and +10% elemental damage on FB'd targetds (yay free mastery). And it's great if you need to catch someone - FS, get close, Release FB = PROFIT.

Yeah, as I said, there is going to be a long discussion about this, hehe. =)

40% is not THAT much, loss of SP is a lot, and the release weapon is not almost at all (I sometimes saw higher crits with FB than FT if I am not mistaken).

I tried that option too, but I really cannot live without WF on main hand and therefore FB on offhand for the slow (for I prefer utility over dmg), especially in longer fights. You just need to constantly heal yourself and WF helps your MW charges to charge up significantly lot faster than the combination you use, especially with Unleashed Wind, it is just a must imho.

But as I said, it is a matter of preference, if you like it, I cannot tell you otherwise. =)

So much useless information and misguided stuff ... Dunno where even to start here, lol. xD

No "sane" beginner person would bother to read even half of that... Cut half of your spaces, useless info out and own preference stuff out... It gets a lil shorter & more readable.

So much useless information and misguided stuff ... Dunno where even to start here, lol. xD

Thanks for very constructive post.

No "sane" beginner person would bother to read even half of that... Cut half of your spaces, useless info out and own preference stuff out... It gets a lil shorter & more readable.

As far as I know, "sane" people can use search function in their explorer, and the beginners like all the details. But it may be just me.

I will keep it that way though, unless more people complain.

07/01/2011 11:27 PMPosted by Intsanius

Spells: 55% chance to crit

Your armory says only 7.7%+35% = 42.7. Spell crit =/= meelee crit :)

07/01/2011 11:27 PMPosted by Intsanius

You know, this is just starter gear, we will see a lot more after few seasons

After a few seasons we'll be in a big you-know-what because of awful scaling (WF, Stoneclaw), so, enjoy while it lasts :)

Your armory says only 7.7%+35% = 42.7. Spell crit =/= meelee crit :)

Hehe, you got me. I was counting with Melee crit chance, my bad. But still. =)

After a few seasons we'll be in a big you-know-what because of awful scaling (WF, Stoneclaw), so, enjoy while it lasts :)

Nah, it will be good, you have to believe. =)

They still have not shown our class changes for next patch, there is going to be something big. =))

As a person who is mostly playing WoW cause of its pvp (especially arenas) i must say that u did great work!:)

I read all and i found lots useful infos about my specc (especially about macros and addons!)

And I would like to recommend 2v2 team made from enha/resto shama- this squad can beat almost every combo (pally/dk and pally/warrior take hours but can be done),all totems,hexing 1 person for over 12 secs and nice offhealing by enhancement!



I

As a person who is mostly playing WoW cause of its pvp (especially arenas) i must say that u did great work!:)

I read all and i found lots useful infos about my specc (especially about macros and addons!)

And I would like to recommend 2v2 team made from enha/resto shama- this squad can beat almost every combo (pally/dk and pally/warrior take hours but can be done),all totems,hexing 1 person for over 12 secs and nice offhealing by enhancement!

Thank you. =)


Is it really that good? Well, I saw some more people playing it and some of them quite high, true..

The problem about double Hex team is, the spell shares diminishing returns. But with all the buffs, I can imagine it can play well, especially against caster teams (double Wind Shear, haha).

I will add it to the arena section, thanks.

You can add Demo+Enh too - according to my friend, it's "like beastcleave but with demons" lol. They are at like 2k now with this setup.