Elemental or Enhancement for PvP

[Oldlemon]

Well you can ask all the people I constantly wreck about my build. I have tried a build like the one you posted but at least in my experience I just ended up just playing elemental because with out the damage bonus to WF and the added weapon damage, your melee hits / crits dont hit hard at all. Without those 2 talents you lose about 300ish WF crit damage. With my build you have full windfury damage + elemental level spell crits.

Sure you dont have stormstrike, but if your stormstrike doesnt proc WF then you just wasted your mana. 20% extra nature damage to an earth shock (assuming you go glass cannon SS spec with atk power / crit) is going to make you ES do like 600 - 700 damage. My earth shocks already do 600 - 650 without stormstrike. Plus what if you need to frost shock or flame shock a rogue, the SS buff gets wasted. If you crit with a shock unless it is with ES and SS it is quite underwhelming since you will probably have no spell power and you end up hitting like a wet noodle or a hurricane.

Also SS is a 20 second cool down, so that is basically one use per fight in 1v1. No WF from it and no ES crit then its just not very useful.

[Aethelwulf]

This is Nost. Nost is known for garbage PvPers. Beating them doesn't mean you have a good build. If anything, good players frequently run circles around enhance shamans (literally - you get kited to hell since you have no intercept, no abilities to remove immobilizes or slows, and no sprint unless you count NS+Ghost Wolf).

Anyhow, you don't go ele for bigger spell crit. You go Ele for 5/5 Reverb and Eye of the Storm (and Clearcasting) or you go Ele for Lightning Mastery because it increases your DPS by 50%. The spell crit capstone is insufficient for a Shaman who spends most his time in melee. A Stormstrike is better. If it procs it's beast, and even if it doesn't proc it's still a lot more damage than you would have gotten from a better multiplier on the occasional crit. In all of 20 seconds the odds are still against you critting a single Shock when you're running enhance gear. A Stormstrike contributes better damage in addition to the extra WF chance. If your Earth Shock does 625 damage on average without SS, then with SS it will do an extra 125. It also increases the damage on Lightning Shield by 20%. And it adds the damage of a free hit, which is another couple hundred, assuming no proc.

Simply put: You will win more fights from stormstrike, especially with lucky WF SS procs, than you will from spell crits. You can also go SS+Dark Iron Bomb+Chain Lightning for a SS burst damage combo (or you could save that stun for a self-heal instead).

If you want more dependable burst to go with your 30 points of Enhance, you can also just go 0/30/21 which gives you the benefit of Nature's Swiftness which lets you throw up a NS+CL, NS+LB, NS+HW, or even NS+GW when needed. 0/30/21 is usually one of the stronger enhance specs.

As for the ele/enhance spec I mentioned, I know the WF weapon damage is lower, but the crit rates should be 9% higher thanks to Elemental Devastation and if you put a Crusader Enchant on the weapon or just swing an Earthshaker for those 3 second knockdowns to cast out of, you're going to have some dangerous melee. And if you are swinging a Sulfuras, it's safe to say people will die to WF even without the rest of enhance.

[Oldlemon]

"In all of 20 seconds the odds are still against you critting a single Shock when you're running enhance gear."

Which was my point in saying you need spell power gear. I dont run "enhance" gear, I have a lot of everything.

To each their own, 21/30/0 is a completely viable spec which personally i find very fun as I can get big shock crits + big WF crits.

And being kited is part of being a shaman no matter what spec you play.

[Aethelwulf]

First, just because 21/30/0 works for you does not mean that it is a good build. I already elaborated above that with the average level of Nost PvP, there are tons of disaster specs that are successful for the wrong reasons. Also, even if you have +10% crit you still have a less than 50% chance of critting a single shock over 20 seconds. Those crits you do get aren't powerful enough to make the kind of difference that a Stormstrike swing does.

Second, ele shamans do not get kited. You keep them at a distance and they just cast lightning bolts into your face. You keep them even farther (over 30 yd) away and they can back up a little and toss self-heals or step up and shoot some bolts. If they are 31+ Ele they could even have Storm Reach at which point they have 36 yd range on lightning. 5/5 ZG set will also increase your Lightning Bolt (but not Chain Lightning) range by 5 yards so if you want to go out of your way a Shaman could actually shoot Lightning from a 41 yard range.

Now, what you are playing is not a hybrid build. You are playing an Enhance shaman with some ele gear who traded away his Stormstrike for Elemental Fury. 20/31/0 is an Enhance build, switching 1 point from Stormstrike to Elemental Fury doesn't suddenly make you a great hybrid shaman (You need Lightning Mastery for the 50% DPS boost if you want to be a caster Shaman). It just means you're a gimped Stormstrike Shaman without the Stormstrike. A gimped Stormstrike Shaman who wins fights against bad PvPers, sure. But a gimped build all the same. You come closer to being a hybrid Shaman by going 0/30/21 where you keep a Nature's Swiftness up your sleeves for a clutch instant cast which lets you unload the kind of spells people do not expect out of enhance shamans.

[wiseoldenemy]

That 21/30/0 build is trash, as the other guy pointed out. Enhance is complete garbage for PvP, any decent PvPer will laugh at you as he kills you at 25 yards. Think about it. Mages will just ice nova you, run 25 yards, start casting. You can't rely on totems because people will take them out, totems are just things to delay and give you a second or two. Anyways, warlocks will just kite you with curse of exhaustion, warriors are better at melee than you for sure 100%, so you will be playing like ele anyways, rogue you wont hit with evasion, hunters will kite you for days, druid with outlast you and soak up all your damage, priest will kite you cause they can dispell frost shock, Paladins will simply outlast you.

Enhancement is complete trash. Like you are literally a mob, with frost shock. That's it. Look at the spell tree, what do you get? 10% weapon damage? little bit better windfury, and a bonus auto attack every 20 seconds? lol.

Now for elemental.... 30/0/21 is the only viable shammy build. you get to actually use your lightning spells, 100% bonus crit, eye of the storm, reduced shock CD, natures swiftness. On top of that, as elemental you get range, can't be kited, and if you have a fast dagger (which you should) you can literally prevent locks and mages from ever casting with spell knockback, if you use rank 1 searing totem constantly + ur dagger.

It's literally the only option. Do not go enhance PLEASE.

[Aethelwulf]

I agree that 30/0/21 is the best Shaman PvP spec but I have a hard time fitting Storm Reach into that, so I can see why some people might favor 33+ Ele for battlegrounds. It's worse in up close fights, but it's better at shooting lightning bolts from a distance. Play a Tauren and you still have War Stomp for casting in melee (along with +5% health) too. The 6 yard range can be dealt with though and NS is still amazing for clutch casts in battleground PvP (including GHW on a near-death ally). Basically 30/0/21 is better for high skill players than 33+, which is better for people who prefer to just sit in the back and shoot lightning bolts.

Enhance to me is a spec that relies heavily on gear, War Stomp, and consumables to close the gap. Engineering Boots for a sprint, Swiftness Potion for a sprint, Nifty Stopwatch for a sprint, Swiftness of Zanza for movespeed, Goblin Rocket Helm for a charge and CC, Grenades to squeeze in a spellcast, Free Action Potion for kite immunity, Spider Belt to escape immobilize and get 5 sec immunity (but you still eat slows), Gnomish Net-o-Matic for immobilize, Restorative Potion to remove Warlock debuffs (toss a buff instantly once you pot or the Felhunter will eat your potion), Gnomish Cloaking Device to sneak up on people, Discombobulator Ray for a bigger slow, etc. It's stupidly dependent on items like that but you can cover many of the weaknesses of enhance doing it, especially if you're a 0/30/21 spec Tauren Shaman.