Elemental Shaman PVP Guide (5.3)

[UR1L]

First 2 patches warriors were absolute gods, rogues had there patch as well and BM hunters have been absolutely OP the entire expansion. And those same players complain then about elemental. No doubt broken things like echo needs to be fixed, but seeing things in perspective is a quality as well.

I know Warrior was op as hell at the start. I played Warrior then but got bored of the "Gather 5 stacks and win" playstyle. It felt like I wasn't doing any of the winning. Just like elementals playing Echo+mastery should feel. Now I play warrior again when the gameplay has changed. Warriors are among the weakest classes for PvP now but I don't mind. I like the gameplay so I enjoy it even it's weak.
But I can't say "Well it's fair for elementals to be op because x was op before and they were weak." Everytime something is op such as early MoP Warrior/hunter and elementals now it's just wrong. I wish I had a way to slap the developers everytime this happens but that would be too much work.

while he silenced beam/earthgrab his healer? I don't know, but if they silence my healer on pretty much every spec I play and I'm close to a pillar, I duck behind. Regardless from an ele playing with echo or not, you know that UF/EB/LvB is gonna hit like a truck. Standing cocky in the open is just bad/arrogant play, gladiator or not.

Lets break this down shall we?

0:02
The Shaman casts his last LB.
Hunter gets rooted before Disengage CD finishes but uses Master's Call to free his priests from roots inside solarbeam. Hunter is at 276K hp.
- So the Hunter is not standing cocky in the open. He frees his healer from the silence which is more important.

0:06
Elemental Blast is just about to finish casting. The Druid gets feared full without trinket and no Tremor either by the looks of it.
The Priest is free to heal and the Hunter is at 276k HP still in roots.
-The Hunter feels safe as he has plenty of HP and his healer is free to heal. Deterrance here WOULD be bad play.

0:07
Elemental Blast hits the Hunter for 43k leaving him at 265K after a 34k Penance tick.
Hunter gets out of roots when Lava Burst is already been casted. Too late to Disengage away but Heals are incoming.
- Still no reason to panic. Hunter has plenty of HP and two ticks of Penance is left aswell as a incoming Prayer of Mending.
- Deterrence here would still be bad play as there's no imminent threat of death. (unless you can predict the overflow of skill incoming)

0:08
The Hunter dies. He gets hit by 6 Lava Bursts totaling 299787 Damage of which 17k was overkill. That's 300k Damage from one cast and pure luck. The Shaman didn't even have time to cast the Fulmination.
- Time for Deterr.....jk elemental.

So tell me please how did he play wrong?
You say he should've ran behind a pillar or disengage away? He couldn't because he was already rooted and it was more important to Master's Call the healer to get him out of the root silence.
You say he should've used Deterrence? There was not a single moment where he SHOULD have used it. Deterrence is not a cooldown you use "just in case elemental shoots 6 lava bursts in a second". Especially not when your healer is FREE and already casting heals on you.

Are you really telling me that an Unleash Fury / Elemental Blast / Lava Burst combo is not a clear sign of incoming burst

Unleash->EB->LB can happen every 15 seconds. No class has enough abilities to avoid them all the time. And the Shaman only has to get one off that procs and suddenly someone dies.

The Hunter played just as he should have but he lost because of stupid game design. It's as simple as that.


edit;

Arena Master Elemental Shaman

hehehehehohohohhahahahahahehehehehahehahehah ;P

[zenga]

Lets break this down shall we?

Start of movie:

- shaman has a 7 stack lightning shield
- druid is another 2.5s in a trap
- earthgrab is down, hunter is not rooted, priest is rooted

1s in
- priest gets beamed+rooted: you could argue to some extend that it was a defensive use of beam to avoid that the priest could follow up the trap with a fear/mc, but as an ele you have an interrupt and tremor to deal with that.

3s in
- druid is out of the trap
- ele is at 60% health
- ele his lightning bolt lands
- ele unleashes

4s in
- ele starts to cast elemental blast, still having the buff from unleashing and a full stack of lightning shield ready
- priest is free from cc
- hunter does not have a shield, nor divine aegis, only grace, no prayer of mending

5s in
- full fear on druid

6s in
- ele starts to cast lava burst, still with a full stack of fulmination ready

So tell me please how did he play wrong?
...
The Hunter played just as he should have but he lost because of stupid game design. It's as simple as that.
...
Unleash->EB->LB can happen every 15 seconds. No class has enough abilities to avoid them all the time. And the Shaman only has to get one off that procs and suddenly someone dies.

1. He got rooted in the first place. Give me one good reason why you should get rooted as a hunter when the root was meant for your healer and has a 10y radius? It's the same as getting cross feared in the open yourself when your healer was feared.
2. You know that ele's have roughly 50% chance to overload elemental blast and lava burst. And you know that ele crits for 150%. A beam on your healer, UF, ele blast, lava burst followed by a full stack of fulmination is not a combo that you see every 15s. Regardless from echo this setup will hit for a ton and is very easy to spot.
3. On top of that he had no shields at all on him, while this ele was setting this up.
4. All the time he kept standing in his face, with FD available.

The point is not about the hunter dying due to echo, that is a retarded mechanic, completely agree. The point is that the hunter could've died even without echo if ele blasts crits/overloads and fulmination crits. It's the biggest setup an ele can do. And he did nothing to avoid it, without any shields on him.

[UR1L]

The point is not about the hunter dying due to echo

That's exactly the point. It's why I even linked the video. I was joking that you dont need a guide for elemental when speccing echo will win you games.
And the Hunter died from Lava Bursts. There was no fulmination because the Shaman was on a global after shooting two Lava Bursts in a row. So yes that damage is doable every 15 seconds if luck is on your side. Unleash has a 15cd, elemental blast 12sec and lava burst 8sec + free procs. It's not setting up burst it's doing your normal damage rotation. If he had used Fulmination that would've killed him from full hp which still makes it retarded.

You could argue all day how it could be avoided by running behind a pillar but with that logic nothing is OP. Warrior 5stack oneshot? Its fine just avoid the warrior. You can easily see he has 5 stacks and is going to burst.

If they just removed/reworked echo of elements I believe elemental would be fine. Currently it just provides too much random pressure without any cooldowns or set up.

[CHRONICGODX]

hehehehehohohohhahahahahahehehehehahehahehah ;P

well played lol

[CHRONICGODX]

Hi. I made a 3v3 movie an an accompanying talkthrough video when 5.3 was still live, but I, and my team ended up quitting before the season ended, and I never ended up posting them or updating this guide. The team is back now, and i'm painfully gearing back up. Hopefully updating this guide for other brackets and the current patch soon (probably too late >< ). I hope this isn't too outdated, but i'll try and get things moving to update for 5.4 as i play more.

I'm not sure which of these videos is more helpful, personally i think skype with gameplay is fine and i can learn a lot from it, especially from a team and composition perspective, but maybe the talkthrough will provide some additional insight. Whichever is better for you, the links are below, and I'll update my OP as well.

3v3 movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqKS-cxl8ZM

3v3 movie talkthrough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGWCWEKpIkk

[Booniehat]

Considering the state of PVP now especially for ele shamans, we need people like you to guide us through these dark times.

I've just returned in 5.4 after a decent 5.3 experience (admittedly a bit too strong RNG burst for our damage) and warriors are completely bending me over in PVP :\\\\\ Halp!

[PPN]

Hey man, really nice thread. I decided to roll an ele shaman and when i saw your guide i was so eager about trying the stuff i powerlevled my shaman in 9 days (for me its pwerlevling). Now i have ilvl 480 and did my first tries in "real" pvp (not counting low lvl bg). Ofc with the low gear its hard and when i go gor a geared healer its like targetdummy praczice in shrine

My question: when, or do i even really use unleash elements? Its nice to have 10% or 20% more dmg, but sometimes especially when im hoping for the kill it seems like a waste of gcd, what buys the others time to save their asses