The best Elemental build for PvP

[Thatoneguy]

31/7/13 might be the best build you can use in WPvP as an Elemental Shaman. This is the build I'm talking about: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hiczAcMqoV0bZVbI

Concussion
This gives a direct increase of 5% dmg to your major spells and it stacks with your spellpower. The more damage you do the higher threat you are and the easier it is to force out defensive cooldowns from your opponent. Convection on the other hand does not do this, it makes you last longer but it doesn't put more pressure on your opponent. The importance of pressure is quite big which makes Concussion the superior talent over Convection.

Elemental Warding
Mages and Warlocks are formidable opponents duo to their strong CC and range. You can play with them but sooner or later you will catch a fear or sheep that you won't be able to dispell, when that time comes you will need all the dmg reduction you can get, this talent helps with that.

Some people don't see the value of this talent but I can only assume that it is duo to their lack of experience in fighting against geared Mages and Warlocks. They are a serious threat and this is the only talent in the Elemental tree that helps to reduce their dmg, so get it.

Eye of the Storm
You will recieve a crit and when you do your opponent is in a world of pain, casting 3 LBs will deal serious dmg. You can also use this to heal back up without getting interrupted. Not to mention you can simply force out a crit and get free casting that way.

Storm Reach
Extra range is mandatory. You don't want to be in a position where your opponent can attack you but you can't fire back and this talent helps with that.

Elemental Mastery
100% crit on your cast means that your cast won't be resisted, 100% mana free means that you basically have another 500+ mana. If you have 5K mana then this talent basically gives you another 10% mana, it's better than Ancestral Knowledge if you think about it like that. While the potential is lower than NS, the reliability is higher.

Shield Specialization
Once a melee class catches up to you it can be very difficult to escape and escaping will take some time. This talent will reduce the amount of dmg you, which in turn translates into having more time to do the things you want to do. The extra 5% mana is near useless anyway as it only gives about 250 mana if you have 5K, which is something you might not even reach as a PvP Elemental Shaman.

Imp Ghost Wolf
I've played with and without Imp Ghost Wolf, but not having it makes Shaman way too immobile, combine this with the lack of (innate) hard CC and you have a very hard time winning any positional battle.

Not having Imp Ghost Wolf makes you basically a turret which is bad for several reasons, such as that your opponent as an easy time kiting you and yours opponent can easily se the terrain to LoS your casts. I consider this talent a must have for any serious WPvP'r.

Using this in combination with PvP boots means that it takes you 1 second to increase your movement speed by 55%. This is very useful for chasing opponents down or simply running away when things don't go as planned.

Improved Reincarnation
You will die and when you do it's quite predictable that you will self ress. Ressing with only 20% health makes you an easy target, if you use your mana to heal back up you're be (near) oom. If you don't you're near death. Getting back up with 40% health and mana gives you enough time to recover.

Not to mention that this talent is fun as fuck when you turn losing battles around with a self ress.

Totemic Mastery
You'll be using your totems constantly, if you don't like Imp Re I would take this up to 5/5.

Nature's Guidance
You don't want your spells resisted and getting that 4% hitcap is a must. As an Elemental Shaman you will be dealing most of your dmg through spells but a fair bit will be done through melee. This talent is incredible as it gives both spell and melee hit, leaving you with only 1% spell and 1% melee hit that you can fill up with items. I consider this talent to be a must have.

Aside from the fact that getting hit capped in PvP is basically a must, getting your spells resisted is also frustrating. I can't count the amount of times an opponent ran away because my Frost Shock resisted, or a Rogue could vanish because my Flame Shock resisted, or my opponent won with 10% health left because my Earth Shock resisted. If I lose I want to do so because I made a mistake in my playstyle, not because the dice rolled a 'resist'.

[Aethelwulf]

It's not. 30/0/21 is the best spec.

There's a couple of talents that are weird.

1. I wouldn't recommend investing in enhance. Improved Ghost Wolf is not where it's at. If you're really going 7 deep into enhance for PvP, the best argument is putting those 2 points into Grounding Totem, not Improved Ghost Wolf. Ele Shamans don't get kited (you shoot bolts at distance) and if you get LoS'd that's good for you because you just self-heal and come out ahead.
2. Trading 5/5 Convection for 2/5 and 3/3 Elemental Warding is weird because the only classes Elemental Warding helps you against are Druids, Mages, and the very rare Firelock (Warlocks are more likely to firecast thanks to Earth Shock though). Neither Warlocks nor Druids are likely to inflict much of their damage with an element you reduce by 10%, so really this just affects the Shaman v Mage matchups at the expense of going OOM faster on a class that doesn't have amazing int yet has heavy mana consumption, which affects all your matchups.
3. You traded 5/5 Reverberation for 3/5 and 2/2 Storm Reach. It's an unusual trade and you could do it if you love long distance bolting, but 5/5 Reverb is simply a must-have for PvP. Faster shocks means more frequent spell interrupts and more damage.
4. You picked up 2/2 Reincarnation on a PvP Shaman. This is a terrible investment all around. In PvE you should not wipe that often and in PvP the cooldown is simply too big to matter. If you love reviving from death in PvP, go equip Darkmoon Card: Twisting Nether. You should have gone 3/3 Ancestral Healing and 2/5 Totemic Focus instead.
5. +3% hit and spellhit. It's nice but this is PvP so you cap out your spell hit easily enough without this. Totemic Mastery and Healing Focus are much more valuable.

Seriously, go 30/0/21. NS is more flexible and powerful than EM.

[Thatoneguy]

30/0/21 has a flaw that's overlooked. NS is flexible but also very restrictive precisely because it can be used for many things, it's duo to the 3 minute cooldown.

You can NS:

- On Ghost Wolf to get away. (Which you don't really need if you had it on a 1 sec casting timer.)
- On NS for a heal. (Which you don't really need if you had a healing potion, which are 9 silver each anyway)
- On an offensive cast for extra dmg. (This has a higher burst potential but you don't really need it because EM gives high reliable dmg, you will use this to finish your opponents off.)

The problem with NS is that you sacrifice ~10% mana and on demand mobility. You have to choose how to use NS, for healing, mobility or dmg but doing so locks you out of all 3 options for the next 3 minutes.

[*]+3% hit and spellhit. It's nice but this is PvP so you cap out your spell hit easily enough without this. Totemic Mastery and Healing Focus are much more valuable.[/list]

How do you easily cap out on the 4% melee and spell hit without it? I have not seen a single Elemental Shaman running around who has this, but if it's easy I'd like to know how.

[Aethelwulf]

No offense but that's possibly the stupidest complaint I've ever heard about NS. "It's bad because it's a cooldown, so not having it at all is better than risking it cooling down." Using NS+Heal or a potion are not mutually exclusive either. Being able to heal more still gives you a better edge in PvP. EM only contributes a strong burst and only if you get to cast. NS lets you cast in positions that would otherwise be untenable and whenever you could drop an EM cast you could just cast Chain Lightning and follow it with NS Lightning Bolt for similar damage, only with NS both casts can crit (with a +10% crit chance from talents) on top of the doubled lightning. NS Ghost Wolf is only done if it's truly necessary. Generally you don't want to be in Ghost Wolf form during combat.

As for spell hit, go run ZG for that 4% cap:

Rings: (3% spell hit total)

• Zanzil's Band (ZG drop off High Priest Venoxis)
• Zanzil's Seal (ZG drop off Bloodlord Mandokir).

Necklace:

• Soul Corrupter's Necklace (ZG drop off Hakkar) - 1% spell hit

Hands:

• Bloodtinged Gloves (ZG drop off Jin'do) - 1% spell hit

Staff:

• Jin'do's Judgement (ZG drop off Jin'do) - 2% spell hit

Head:

• Bloodvine Goggles (Requires 300 Engineering, also BoE) - 2% spell hit

If you are willing to get Revered with Cenarion Circle, you can just grind out Rockfury Bracers (1%) which is a solid pickup.

Back to your new edits about Elemental Warding, if a Warlock has you feared (which indicates you failed to interrupt, ground, or tremor his fear) he's not going to cast fire spells at you. The only circumstance where I could see Elemental Warding having some impact is if he gets you Seduced and casts Soul Fire or if he's actually running the rare conflag spec. Also, 3/3 Ancestral Healing is easily superior to 5/5 Totemic Mastery, fyi.

Anyway, since this is a thread about PvP Elemental Shamans, here's a PvP video of a vanilla 30/0/21 Shaman (Part 2). Guy is playing an Orc (so no War Stomp or +5% health) and avoiding the use of any consumables.

[Thatoneguy]

Come on. Don't say 'you cap out your spell hit easily enough without this' and then:

- Only give 3% spell hit (instead of hitting the required 4% to cap out)
- Recommend items that are not even in the game yet.

If you want to convince anyone that it's easy to cap out your hit% at least do so with items that are currently available. Recommending items that come out in patch 1.10 or later you're basically saying that it's not easy, which defeats your point against Nature's Guidance. The point of Nature's Guidance is to reach both Spell and Melee hit cap and reduce the RNG factor that can only screw you over as much as possible.

On NS I see that you're not grasping the importance of mobility in WPvP. NS does gives you the option to do all 3 (offense, defense and mobility) but at the cost of the other 2. 31/7/13 gives you mobility and secure burst. This leaves you with 1 option that you have to make up for with items and coincidentally it's also the easiest as you can use a wide variety of trinkets and potions to do so.


The Twister Nether card though. Improved Reincarnation is valued because you ressurect with 40% health and mana instead of 20%, Twisting Nether is not viable (not only because the proc chance is only 10% making it not reliable but also) because it resurrects you at 10% health. If you used it on a Rogue or Warrior (which might also be a terrible idea) you at least have the surprise effect, but players know that Shamans can self ress and if you pop up with 10% health (which is only 10% of the time) you're dead again. Twisting Nether is so unreliable for a Shaman I would never recommend it.

[ceen2]

Let the forum wars begin.

[Aethelwulf]

Last I checked ZG, Strat, and UBRS are all in the game. What the hell are you on about. Anyhow get both Zanzil rings and the amulet. The set bonus from double rings gives you another 1% spell hit and 6 spelldmg. You have 4% spell hit now. Enjoy. If you're willing to raid just BWL, you have more options, like Neltharion's Tear and Bracers of Arcane Accuracy. The other issue is that Healing Focus is simply a higher priority than Nature's Guidance. So is Totemic Focus if you understand positioning.

Taking 2/2 Reincarnation is your prerogative, but it says something about your ability to determine which talents are useful when you invest 2 talent points in something that will only come around once every 40 (30 if you burn your totem slot on it too) minutes. I find it hilarious you consider Twisting Nether unreliable but Reincarnation solid. I guess you really plan on PvPing once every half hour or so? Also, Ancestral Healing is not the same as Healing Focus. Ancestral Healing is the talent that gives a 25% increase in armor for 15 seconds on a crit heal. And yes, you should get both 5/5 Healing Focus and 3/3 Eye of the Storm. I'm not sure why you're such a big fan of going suboptimal and risking more healing interrupts but you're definitely not becoming a better player for it.

Now with regards to combat Ghost Wolf, I guess I'll have to spell it out more plainly: If you think Ghost Wolf form is good in combat (as ele spec, no less), you're probably an idiot. GW is used for running. You already have NS+GW for those moments where you really need a fast GW (ie. WSG) in which case NS > IGW. In terms of offense and defense, NS > EM. It's better burst damage and instant self-heals. Having NS and a potion is still better than having just a potion, so your argument that people should use a potion is still dumb and if you want to bring up potions I can just as well say that NS Shamans with Healing Focus are much better suited for utility potions, and I know a Swiftness Potion beats Improved Ghost Wolf if you want that movespeed in combat.

[Thatoneguy]

I don't think you've ever tried 31/7/13 because your arguments don't match up to what the spec is actually about.

Your arguments range from PvE to BG PvP while I clearly stated it's about WPvP, in the first sentence no less. Have you ever done any WPvP? Because it doesn't look like you have.

Last I checked ZG, Strat, and UBRS are all in the game. What the hell are you on about. Anyhow get both Zanzil rings and the amulet. The set bonus from double rings gives you another 1% spell hit and 6 spelldmg. You have 4% spell hit now.

Yes UBRS is in the game and yes Stratholme is in the game. But no, Diana's Pearl Necklace is not in the game. Here take a look at how many people have it on Nostalrius: http://realmplayers.com/ItemUsageInfo.a ... 403&page=1

Oh that's right, exactly 0 people have that item.

You think that getting Zanzil's Band, Zanzil's Seal and Soul Corrupter's Necklace is easy? Spoilers: it's not. It should be very obvious why these items are not easy to get as an Elemental Shaman, but just in case you don't understand why it's hard to get Zanzil's Band, Zanzil's Seal and Soul Corrupter's Necklace I'll explain to you why:

Elemental Shamans are generally not accepted in raids, you won't go LFG ZG Ele Shaman and expect an invite every 3 day after the reset. This brings up the next point, you can only kill each boss once every 3 days, you can't farm any of these items in a relative short time period. It's going to take weeks to see the items drop. When the items drop the chance is high you can't roll for it as it's considered 'offspec', if you can roll for it there will be about 6 other people also rolling for it which makes the chance of you winning it small... and don't suggest that you should organize your own ZG raids for a couple of weeks/months while reserving 3 items, that completely defeats the argument that it's 'easily enough'.

If you still believe that it's easy to get 4% hit chance I can only challenge you to go out and actually obtain these items, you'll see for yourself how hard it is to get there.

[Aethelwulf]

Okay, I expanded the list of ZG items that have spell hit some more. Bloodvine Goggles requires 300 engineering but if you're a PvP Shaman then Engineering is the best profession to have anyway. Anyway, go roll on items with spell hit. Don't run in ZG groups that won't let you roll. Easy. You can cap spell hit with ZG runs.

If you do raid, your best bet is probably to go do BWL and hoard DKP for Neltharion's Tear. There are a lot of better spell hit items for raiding Shamans.

Also, you can talk about world PvP if you want but I'm not sure how this matters. Is this why you like the 40 minute clock on Reincarnation? Your idea of a PvP build involves running into a random person in an hour and dying first to get that mileage? And you want Improved Ghost Wolf for world PvP why exactly? Do you anticipate running away a lot or something? Frankly, I'd rather have Ancestral Healing, extra crit, interrupt avoidance, and NS.

[Thatoneguy]

Nice, I've been running ZG for 2.5 months and obtained both rings to give me 3% spell hit. While Zanzil's Seal is good because it gives 3 important stats: stam, int, spell dmg and it seals the deal with that 1% spell hit. I'm still hesitant to use Zanzil's Band with it because it has no stamina. I'm still after that last 1% spell hit, then Nature's Guidance won't be necessary.

I WPvP roughly 20 hours a week. Running around the world searching for 60s and killing them is what I like doing most. I often find myself in 1v2 and 1v3 fights where high mobility required in order to create favorable situations. A 3 second cast on GW is too long. With Imp GW you can chase down any class but Druid as it makes Shaman the second fastest class in the game. But without it Shaman is the slowest class, the difference is noticeably big.