Ele or Enchant for PvP (your opinions and tips)Follow

In the early level's (prob till 49) Enhancement is actually probabally the best because it is hard to get good gear for Elemental and WF is a beast when people don't have unreal amounts of stamina. But apparently at end game Enhancement is sucking big time (especially in arena) and most are going Resto or Elemental.

Edited, Mar 22nd 2007 3:23pm by MalaclypseTheYounger

Matters on your personal style of PvPing and what your intending to do. Each tree can be played very effectively in PvP's, tho IMO I think some have strengths in some situations over the other.

If your into BG PvP's, then Elem and Enh I think have the upper hands. Elem is great for blasting groups of clustered enemies, its not uncommon to kill 3 targets at once, not to mention since your at distance, its usually a blind shot, and you can go uncontested in sniping ppl for a while :) Hard part is once someone notices you and gets into your melee range, its kinda impossible to go toe to toe with dedicated melee classes. But range firepower is usually king in ambiguious battles. And with 2 sec casts to blast, and a accurate long range "AoE" nuke, this combination is deadly.

Enh is the bane to almost everyone, once they get into melee range on things, big advantage is that in BG's, u don't really need to be a rogue to "sneak" up on someone when its a big cluster fight. 1 good WF crit, basically means death once it procs on someone. Enh has enough close quarters punch to give war's and rogues a good scare, and a clothy's can take a quick dirt nap rather quick if they we'ren't smart enough to keep a Enh at bay. Especially if the clothy thought that their "shield" was going to be there once the hammer falls....its a rude surprise when its gone, right before the SS hits :) Hard part is that, against jobs that have CC or range, its easy to get stuck in the kiting game, and these classes see you coming, chances are ur dead before you even get a scratch on them....assuming they are "good".

Resto is nice for PvP 1 on 1's I think. Its compriable to a "Healidin", and can out last many melee classes. While it lacks the sheep power of Enh, or the nukes of Elem...the ablilitiy to have a unstoppable BIG heal, "self-repairing" shields....it a pain in the butt to opponents. Resto has its uses to in BG's obviously. Any job that can support heal anyone is a big plus, not to mention "group" healing in places like Alterac can be very useful.

Personally, I prefer Elem for BG's, and either Resto or Enh for Arena's. On a side note, I have the most fun playing Enh, but currently playing Elem for BG pvp's and occationally Arena. I absolutely HATE playing Resto, but have no disrespect to the spec nor its effectiveness. I just hate that style of play.

I have a bit of a different slant on PvP play for shammys. Before I get into that though, I want to mention two caveats:

1) My shaman is a lvl 38 twink, so my advice is based on and applies best to playing that level. Others' recommendations and experience in the higher lvls should take precedence over what's written here when the two contradict. Similarly, I basically stick to the BGs. While I can't see why this would not apply to arena play as well, that is not the laboratory I use to put my shammy through his paces.

2) As my twink, I have geared him to the teeth: Ardent Custodian with Crusader enchant, The Green Tower, Gloves of Holy Might, etc... (you get the idea). I mention this because certainly some of the toon's effectiveness is linked to top of the line gear. I don't think that this gear (or any gear, for that matter) makes one a better player. However I do think it gives one more room to make a mistake now and again and not always get creamed for it. (OK, when I stand toe-to-toe with a warrior and outslug him, that's the gear.)

With that out of the way, I want to profess that I LOVE LOVE LOVE playing PvP with my shaman. The class's versatility not only makes it ideal for handling every situation, but also a heck of a lot of fun. I can melee with the best of them, hang out on the side of a skirmish and pick off unsuspecting enemies with shocks, LB and CL, or just chill in the back healing, providing teammates with near-unlimited health while letting them do the hard work.

Which leads me to my somewhat alternative view - I am mostly in Resto and wouldn't have it any other way. (The rest is Enhance, with zero in Elemental.)

As I see it, with PvP there are two concerns - killing the enemy and staying alive, not necessarily in that order. As a shammy you need to use both, and can do both at once better than any other class, IMO. When facing a melee class like rogues and warriors, I know I am looking to outlast them. I will stay alive long enough that even with their superior DPS they eventually run out of health. On the other hand, when facing a caster I am primarily looking to bash them before they link together some crits and blast me. So there I am focusing on the damage aspect first, but still conscious of my superior ability to muster HP. Pallys are tricker and require some of both, plus ideally some ranged attack.

To create this endurance shammy, I want talent points to do most of the work. With Rank 5 Healing Focus, a great majority of my heals go uninterrupted. I can sit and spam Lesser HW and there ain't too much someone can do about it. With some other helpful Resto talents and a healing-friendly armor item or two, I can last a long, long time.

In any situation my ace in the hole is Nature's Swiftness. What a thing of beauty this talent is. When outlasting an opponent, tossing in an instant HW among the timed & [mostly] uninterrupted ones is darn near like starting with full load of HP while your opponent can only stand by and watch. (Again, pallys have a similar ability so it's not as clear cut with them.) Similarly NS can be used with LB and CL to generate some quick damage at the beginning of a fight. A personal favorite of mine is to get in to range of an unsuspecting foe, hit with a CL, then an instant NS/LB combo, and immediately follow with a shock (also instant). Quite a way to soften up your opponent, eh? [Note: Offensively I use NS mostly with LB, which is the slowest spell to cast.]

However you must consider that, at this lvl, reaching NS has to be a planned objective. It takes a bunch of points to reach this talent, but it is oh so worth it. I don't know if I will lvl this toon up and if so what changes that will bring, although for now this set up is working very well for me.

Hope this helps.

dunno about elem, but it's prolly better for pvp, with the ranged spells and shocks. but shamans have a rather shallow mana pool.

enhance, prolly o-k with 2h wep, but dual wield usually doesnt work too well in pvp because you can't deal a large amount a damage quickly. well sometimes. but not really.