What is the purpose of pvping as an Ele Shaman?

[Rawfury]

Outside of ascendance we're nothing but a free kill to pretty much any class. Our flame shock can be dispelled by healers. Everytime one of these posts are made people say "you should learn to play" or what glyphs/talents your using. Elemental shaman is just in a terrible place in general(like always with cata being somewhat ok). its kind of aggrivating every season in pvp to HAVE to go resto to be any good

[Stormspellz]

elemental really isn't that bad, just war/mage/hunter is just that op

[Deleted]

You pvp as shaman when you want to take a break from your hardcore PVE.

[Deleted]

I am pvp'ing as enhance. I think overall, I am doing better than the ele shammy in my guild.
+ Warstomp as a tauren is a real tide turner ( even better when you time it right together with our totem stun <3)

[Deleted]

Tried Elemental Shaman PvP all throughout Wrath, and a bit of Cataclysm. Don't think I dare try it now because it will probably be exactly the same, Ele Sham does bring good sustained burst, but if focused even for a second they die immediately. They have no real defensive CD's and no way of getting away. "Just use eartbind + ghost wolf, duh", isn't really a good argument since every class and their mother has a ton of gap closers. Another problem is that Elemental Shaman has to hard cast almost all of their spells, and almost all of them are on the nature school, which means interrupted? Completely locked out... Compared to a mage who I never see hard cast a frost bolt unless I'm stunned, polymorphed or silenced.

Everything an Elemental Shaman can do, a Mage can do better. I suggest you spare yourself the pain and reroll for pvp, that's what I did. =/

[Rawfury]

Tried Elemental Shaman PvP all throughout Wrath, and a bit of Cataclysm. Don't think I dare try it now because it will probably be exactly the same, Ele Sham does bring good sustained burst, but if focused even for a second they die immediately. They have no real defensive CD's and no way of getting away. "Just use eartbind + ghost wolf, duh", isn't really a good argument since every class and their mother has a ton of gap closers. Another problem is that Elemental Shaman has to hard cast almost all of their spells, and almost all of them are on the nature school, which means interrupted? Completely locked out... Compared to a mage who I never see hard cast a frost bolt unless I'm stunned, polymorphed or silenced.

Everything an Elemental Shaman can do, a Mage can do better. I suggest you spare yourself the pain and reroll for pvp, that's what I did. =/

I agree with everything you just said and im really considering it. it sucks though because i love the class and spec

[Deleted]

Tried Elemental Shaman PvP all throughout Wrath, and a bit of Cataclysm. Don't think I dare try it now because it will probably be exactly the same, Ele Sham does bring good sustained burst, but if focused even for a second they die immediately. They have no real defensive CD's and no way of getting away. "Just use eartbind + ghost wolf, duh", isn't really a good argument since every class and their mother has a ton of gap closers. Another problem is that Elemental Shaman has to hard cast almost all of their spells, and almost all of them are on the nature school, which means interrupted? Completely locked out... Compared to a mage who I never see hard cast a frost bolt unless I'm stunned, polymorphed or silenced.

Everything an Elemental Shaman can do, a Mage can do better. I suggest you spare yourself the pain and reroll for pvp, that's what I did. =/

Most of your dmg will come out from earth shocks and instant lava burst procs, so not much to hard cast except ele blast and few lighting bolts. As for school lock outs you can always use flame shock + lava burst if nature is locked, or lighting bolt + earth shock if fire is locked. I totally agree with the poor defensive and getting away skills..

[Rork]

Everything an Elemental Shaman can do, a Mage can do better. I suggest you spare yourself the pain and reroll for pvp, that's what I did. =/

Good summary, you can play a ele shaman and be good at it, but you would be better and more useful if you played a mage

silence vs kick
blink vs Gost wolk
Frost novaX2 vs earth bind & thunderstrom
sheep vs hex
frost armor vs earth shield
deep freeze vs ...
Ice block vs ankh lol?

But but but we have much much better burst with ascendance if we can cast freely.

[Dundebuns]

Good summary, you can play a ele shaman and be good at it, but you would be better and more useful if you played a mage

silence vs kick
blink vs Gost wolk
Frost novaX2 vs earth bind & thunderstrom
sheep vs hex
frost armor vs earth shield
deep freeze vs ...
Ice block vs ankh lol?

But but but we have much much better burst with ascendance if we can cast freely.

Erm k. Some of those aren't even comparable. For example GW is arguably better because you can use it all the time and it provides immunity to slows, while blink has a hefty CD.

Ele shaman share the niche with boomkin of being turrets. Leave them alone and they will devestate the enemy. Focus them and they fall like wheat to a scythe. Ele was a little better before hand, but that was before the multitudes of slows and CC. I would only PvP as Enhance, because it's my native spec, and Resto, because well, healer. I don't think I will ever go back to Ele unless someone wanted one for a RBG. Also, gearing up 3 times? No ty.

[Rork]

Erm k. Some of those aren't even comparable. For example GW is arguably better because you can use it all the time and it provides immunity to slows, while blink has a hefty CD.

It is a way to put distance between you and the enemy so yes it is comparable, blink is the speed spell for mages so is GW for shamans so yes you have to compare these. is GW better? no it's not because while running you can't do anything not even drop a totem.

[Dundebuns]

You can act while in GW, it just shifts you out. If you're kiting you wont be spending every single CD on spells anyway so it wont really matter. And you can GW constantly. a Mage can blink, what, every 20 seconds? You can cover more ground than a mage in that time with GW. Also, when you've blinked and got gripped back to that pesky DK, you'll have an easier time escaping with a shaman.

[woopytywoop]

Erm k. Some of those aren't even comparable. For example GW is arguably better because you can use it all the time and it provides immunity to slows, while blink has a hefty CD.

Stun the shaman and GW is nothing and only enhance can use SR while stunned, ele can just use thunderstorm and hope he doesn't die in the stun as there is no baseline def cd and the new astral shift is an active shieldwall ability while the very old one was passive damage reduction while cc'ed/stunned. GW can be dispelled and not used when silenced, and requires a glyph and is useless when hunters use their conc shot glyph (got to love blizz logic). It also opens you for more cc (scare beast, hibernate).

Stun the mage and he blinks (15sec cd)... If mage was so stupid to use blink before the stun/grip/charge or they are chaining stuns/charges on him, he can block even while silenced (except if he was really stupid and is locked out in frost school). Shaman can't use SR or AS when silenced....

Now which one is arguably better?

GW only functions as mobility, blink is a whole lot more and far superior imo.

[Deleted]

Most of your dmg will come out from earth shocks and instant lava burst procs, so not much to hard cast except ele blast and few lighting bolts. As for school lock outs you can always use flame shock + lava burst if nature is locked, or lighting bolt + earth shock if fire is locked. I totally agree with the poor defensive and getting away skills..

Flame shocks are dispelled, which I believe were the ones that gave instant lava burst procs? Earth shock only dealt real damage if you had lightning shield charges, which you only gained by hard casting lighting bolt? Both flame shock and lava burst has cooldown of 6/8 seconds? and lava burst should always be on CD anyways. You get locked out on nature, the only thing you even can do is possibly cast one shock that barely deals any form of damage at all anyway.

As for the comparison between ghost wolf and blink, I would take blink any day. Sure, ghost wolf is permanent instant cast toggle ability that makes you "immune" to slows (not really immune since it only disallows you from falling bellow 100 %), problem is most classes that chase are faster than this anyways, or they don't need to chase you because they are ranged anyways. Blink only has a 15 second cooldown, and I would say the best thing about it is that it can be used to remove stunns, which is a huge survival tool.

Shaman's Wind Shear is great if you're trying to keep an opposing healer away from getting too many heals off, but I would take counterspell any day over that as well. Longer CD sure, but also a silence and a longer school lockout which gives you more room to burst down your opponent.

Mage's also have Ice Block, Ice Barrier, Frost Nova, Mirror Image and Deep Freeze, plus barely ever having to hard cast Frostbolts because of fingers of frost + ice lance. Shaman has what...? Grounding totem with a 45 sec cd, ghost wolf which is nothing compared to blink, and earthbind totem which is nothing to the amount of novas mages have?

To top it off, as you said a Shaman is like a turret, a glass cannon if you will. If left unchecked they can be deadly, but the thing is nobody ever leaves an Elemental Shaman alone. They are the first to fall, because people know how easily they die. I tried quite a bit of arena during Wrath but got so sick of the fact that I was always instantly targeted because they knew how easily I died. Even happened in Battlegrounds, the only really fun times I had in PvP was when I used Thunderstorm to kill people. All other times I was lying dead in the dirt...

[Deleted]

I used to PvP as an elemental shaman since back in early vanilla back when it was practically unheard of. I rolled with Natural Alignment Crystal plus zandalarian hero charm before the nerf for those of you who still remember how it felt to one shot someone with a chain lightening.

Anyway i raided and pvpd withthe spec ever since. It's pretty much always been shit except for a select few time where our burst was over the top and we could make due with instant killing people.

I have recently totally given up on this spec (fun as it is) for pvp as it's still terrible and still after ALL THESE YEARS play pretty much exactly the same. I swear if you rolled a vanilla shaman and did some battlegrounds you'd be right at home. Contrast that to virtually any other class. (Well warrior and rogue plays the same too).

I actually feel bad attacking an elemental shaman on my warrior and as long as they are not attacking me i skip them and let someone else do the dirty work. It's just not fair for them. I've got a counter for everything they got and can totally shut them down for as long as i want to.
A mage on the other hand is still an absolute nightmare. (though easier than before)

[Deleted]

Flame shocks are dispelled, which I believe were the ones that gave instant lava burst procs? Earth shock only dealt real damage if you had lightning shield charges, which you only gained by hard casting lighting bolt? Both flame shock and lava burst has cooldown of 6/8 seconds? and lava burst should always be on CD anyways. You get locked out on nature, the only thing you even can do is possibly cast one shock that barely deals any form of damage at all anyway.

Yes flame shock is dispelled, but i don't think that anyone will bother cleaning them, except maybe healers. Cause if they focus too much on dispelling flame shock they ll die anyway. Lighting shield charges comes from incoming hits too. Read the (4) set pvp bonus. http://www.wowhead.com/item=84483
Plus you forget about Elemental Overload. When I started playing ele almost everything was instant and double. One time I released 6 lava bursts in i dunno, 5 seconds?
Of course i dropped ele cause i love enha, plus ele pvp problems are more..

[Rawfury]

The point im trying to make is there is no point, none. We have to cast for a while to do anything. Lava burst(unless it procs or hits twice for lol "30k" twice) and lightning bolt hit like a wet noodle.

Astral shift is a joke 6sec for 40% damage reduction and CANNOT be used while cc'd?
Anyone that sees ascendance just cc's you and they should.

After that we're virtually screwed. Windshear is basically 15 seconds now too. Boomkins you can atleast make a case that their dots cannot be dispelled(i dont think they can i could be wrong), they have a damage reduction in moonkin form. They have Barskin, and they can shapeshift and run away or pop survival cds. Oh im sorry i forgot to add... the other hybrids have a instant HoT they can cast IN form, while yet again we need to cast.

When i ask about ele pvp we just get ignored also(ghostcrawler, pvp feedbacks, etc etc). Just going to level up my mage or something else solely for pvp, as sad as it seems thats the only way to go nowadays. Everyone else just looks at us as a freekill might as well. **** this game for making me have to do this

[Kazot]

Kicking people off cliffs obviously.

I think Elemental will be in a okay place once the classes who are over the top right now will be toned down.

[Deleted]

Knocking people off high cliffs

Some of the issues the spec have i believe is a bit related to certain melees and ranged being too strong. Frost shock needs to be on a different cooldown then earth shock and flame shock, flame shock needs a dispel protection and ele needs a anti zerg cooldown like iceblock, lava burst being castable while moving could also work.

[Deleted]

Yes flame shock is dispelled, but i don't think that anyone will bother cleaning them, except maybe healers. Cause if they focus too much on dispelling flame shock they ll die anyway. Lighting shield charges comes from incoming hits too. Read the (4) set pvp bonus. http://www.wowhead.com/item=84483
Plus you forget about Elemental Overload. When I started playing ele almost everything was instant and double. One time I released 6 lava bursts in i dunno, 5 seconds?
Of course i dropped ele cause i love enha, plus ele pvp problems are more..

Haven't played anything on my Shaman during MoP, but my destro lock completely wrecked an Elemental Shaman earlier this evening, there was really nothing she could do, I didn't even have to use any of my cooldowns...

She casts:
Flame shock, lava burst, attempts to cast lightning bolt.

I fel flame away her grounding totem, interrupt lightning bolt, cast immolate, chaos bolt, conflagerate, blood fear, inscinerate like three times, mortal coil, immolate and then shadowburn as she's bellow 20 % hp and she's dead...

I still had so many defensive CD's and even offensive CD's I didn't even need to use, whilst she didn't stand a chance, I just felt sorry for her...

[Roose]

Ele shaman could bitch before cata, but they are nasty in the right hands. Definitely more of a BG spec, though. I play my shaman now and it is miles from where it was when complaints were very much legit.

Some specs simply require more skill to pvp. Ele is one of those. Does not mean it is broken, just takes more time to master.