Enhance PvP Help

[asharia]

I've been playing an enhance shaman as an alt for a while. And the last couple of weeks i have started mucking around in pvp, as i didn't get a chance to really do any this season, and want to gear something up next season so i can play.

My gear is still bad, i get that. 61% resil and only 22% power. i have no pvp weapons, so i get that the damage will be low until i get them, but that's not my problem.

Basically, i get hit like a truck.

I know the gear is bad. But i've been finding people with bad gear in BGs and picking fights with them, and it's no better. Most recently i found a ret pally with worse gear than me (even some greens..) and got a few 1v1ish fights with him. One time we were just attacking each other, no CDs, no stuns, and i still lost easily. I could have won, if i popped a couple of little CDs and did a little kiting or whatever, but i just wanted to see what his damage taken vs mine was like, with no CDs to influence it.

In patch notes i see a spirit walk buff, then a bunch of nerfs.

I guess what i'm asking is, does Enh take more damage than other specs? Am i supposed to be doing something differently? My boomkin has slightly better gear, yet he can survive a shockwave with barkskin, while my shaman dies almost every single time with sham rage up...

I love my enhance shaman so much, and i would love to play him next patch. But it's just crazy how quickly he falls over.

[forwards1ca]

i don't play a shammy, but I do pvp almost exclusivley and here is what I see from eng shammies: If you blow every single one of your cd's, you have decent survivability and great burst. Without cds, you're a free hk. I seriously think blizz has given up on shammies, because they are so under-represented in pvp, ESPECIALLY rbgs. I don't think I have ever seen one in a rbg. Thry can do well in arena, but the skill cap is very high, and the silence nerf is extremely punishing.

With the state enh is in for pvp right now, there's no way I'd ever play enh, although I really want to try one out. THey get wrecked nonstop, and that ain't fun

[Asphyxiate9]

I love enhance PvP though I'm no pro

-Use Ghost Wolves as a healing CD
-Frozen Power(Talent) is your best friend when a melee dps hits his CD's (Keep away from them! used unleash elements to make that gap even further)
-90% of the time we have to use our malestrom proc for an instant healing surge
-Most enh shamans dont use healing stream, the heal it does adds up so use it
-Don't forget Capacitor, or stormlash totem
-Give windshear an easy to hit keybind, I think it has the shortest CD for an interrupt in game so make use of that fact
-Purge everything
-Spirit walk breaks snare (which is getting a buff next patch )
-I usually tie ancestral guidance and ascendance together to make the most of the 40% heal


I find that when I kite a melee when he uses his CD's I have much better odds, it seems cheap but most of the time we have no other option unless we want to die

Enhance is really fun to play but I dont see many around, whether we are good as a class or not mostly comes down to the player. We are also primary targets in most situations so heading in head first is usually a bad idea.

[Hypnozis]

Enhancement shaman actually does pretty well in pvp, the problem is there are just not to many of them out there, most of the old enhancement shaman, I knew went DK, however I'm still managing to stick it out. I also like to sometimes take primal elementalist, i know you lose the speed boost with the 4 set and some damage, but when your against a range and there just gonna kite you, that strong elemental will def help you from them just free casting on you. They hit pretty hard. But exactly what orange is saying is 100% true, enhancement is a tricky class to play, you have to get used to just not spamming 1 or 2 buttons like you do with most classes.

Also the change with pvp power giving a buff to healing, it will help enhancement shaman with surivability

[aldreya]

Enhancement shaman actually does pretty well in pvp, the problem is there are just not to many of them out there, most of the old enhancement shaman, I knew went DK, however I'm still managing to stick it out. I also like to sometimes take primal elementalist, i know you lose the speed boost with the 4 set and some damage, but when your against a range and there just gonna kite you, that strong elemental will def help you from them just free casting on you. They hit pretty hard. But exactly what orange is saying is 100% true, enhancement is a tricky class to play, you have to get used to just not spamming 1 or 2 buttons like you do with most classes.

Also the change with pvp power giving a buff to healing, it will help enhancement shaman with surivability

Erhmmm no, u are completely wrong. Enh shamans are not in a good spot right now. Yes, u can reach 2,4k, but because we are carried by warriors or shadow priests. Vanguards and Swapxy played enhancement (turbocleave) in the last tournament without success. Vanguards got owned most of times and swapxy had to change the class or the specc to get better performance anytime they face kfc or similar. Unfortunately, 3vs is full of KFC. Any comp with a warrior is a PITA for enhancements.

I´ve got 2,4k playing turbocleave and beastcleave this season, and I´m multigladi (over 2,8k rating) , so i know what im talking about. Yes, u can get glad this season, but only if u are playing with very very good players. Rets are really bad too, but some greats players are able to reach 2,5k and it doesnt mean the class/specc is viable.

Forgive my english.

[CHRONICGODX]

enhance vs cleaves is absolute shit. it was good in S11 because of all the wizards you could counter with 5s shock, vs all the KFC this season though, so frustrating. i stopped queing halfway through the season because even 1800 KFC all CDs popped opener needs a god of a healer to keep an enh alive. so dumb.

[aldreya]

enhance vs cleaves is absolute shit. it was good in S11 because of all the wizards you could counter with 5s shock, vs all the KFC this season though, so frustrating. i stopped queing halfway through the season because even 1800 KFC all CDs popped opener needs a god of a healer to keep an enh alive. so dumb.

You are right!.

[asharia]

i rarely arena, so this is mostly BG experience. I'm thinking maybe enh just can't handle being focused by more than 1 person at a time.

there's no CD really that lets you live. astral shift and sham rage are just not strong enough. wolves heal is almost unnoticeable. HTT is weak too, and heals others half the time anyway. basically my only effective CD is to pop ascendance and kill them before they kill me.

i realise it isn't true, but it really really feels like there is something missing. like enh is suppose to have some sort of passive damage reduction (boomkin, spriest, defstance etc). we don't have the shields and armour that ele and resto have, yet we're melee, so we can't exactly kite other melee like a ranged spec does.

what would be great would be some CD that just stops damage. something like pally bubble, deterrence, iceblock, dispersion, vanish. or even a lesser CD like die by the sword, evasion, disarm, a stun that works, anything :P

I love enhance PvP though I'm no pro

-Use Ghost Wolves as a healing CD
-Frozen Power(Talent) is your best friend when a melee dps hits his CD's (Keep away from them! used unleash elements to make that gap even further)
-90% of the time we have to use our malestrom proc for an instant healing surge
-Most enh shamans dont use healing stream, the heal it does adds up so use it
-Don't forget Capacitor, or stormlash totem
-Give windshear an easy to hit keybind, I think it has the shortest CD for an interrupt in game so make use of that fact
-Purge everything
-Spirit walk breaks snare (which is getting a buff next patch )
-I usually tie ancestral guidance and ascendance together to make the most of the 40% heal


I find that when I kite a melee when he uses his CD's I have much better odds, it seems cheap but most of the time we have no other option unless we want to die

Enhance is really fun to play but I dont see many around, whether we are good as a class or not mostly comes down to the player. We are also primary targets in most situations so heading in head first is usually a bad idea.

- i've never seen wolves be an effective CD when i'm taking 'real' damage. i took that glyph out too, but even when i had it, they didn't do enough imo
- yeah frozen power would be great to keep melee off me. but without windwalk i get kited to easily, it's very frustrating.
- i do use MW on healing most of the time.
- when i have a free global i drop HST, which is rare. it heals for like 7k? a tick? it adds up, sure, but it's not going to turn a fight.
- without totem projection, it's impossible to hit a decent player with cap totem
- wind shear has the same CD and all the other melee interrupts. it is ranged though, which is nice.
- i purge every free global i have
- i know
- the problem with that is, what do you do for the next 3 minutes without your 2 strongest CDs?

[Asphyxiate9]

- i've never seen wolves be an effective CD when i'm taking 'real' damage. i took that glyph out too, but even when i had it, they didn't do enough imo
- yeah frozen power would be great to keep melee off me. but without windwalk i get kited to easily, it's very frustrating.
- i do use MW on healing most of the time.
- when i have a free global i drop HST, which is rare. it heals for like 7k? a tick? it adds up, sure, but it's not going to turn a fight.
- without totem projection, it's impossible to hit a decent player with cap totem
- wind shear has the same CD and all the other melee interrupts. it is ranged though, which is nice.
- i purge every free global i have
- i know
- the problem with that is, what do you do for the next 3 minutes without your 2 strongest CDs?

if you are doing all that i'm not sure what you are doing wrong because I seem to be having an okay time on them, I'll admit warriors are pretty much impossible if they have gear and same goes with demo and BM. Everything else should be do-able to some extent.

[shokter]

I play Enh mostly only in random BGs and a bit in RBGs so I think I can relate to your trouble. Yes, survivability is our biggest problem. We have some def CD but they aren't that great. orangelemonrain gave some good basic info for enh pvp, but I would add it is crucial to play with your teammates. We can do some good things in BGs (killing FCs/healers with our burst especially) but you are going to have a real hard time before you get some gear (and even after) if you don't stay close to at least a few teammates. The change to Spirit Walk will do a lot for us in BGs i think, so there's that at least.

[Starsinn]

I dont know if we need another defensive cd. What needs to happen is damage needs to come down across the board. As much as 35% in some cases. This game is all about cd usage right now and not skill or outplaying someone. If you get caught by a warr with cds and yours are down, there isnt anything you can do. Thats broken game design, you should be able to at least kite or run away instead of die in a charge shockwave stun combo.

[CHRONICGODX]

i tweeted to GC several times about giving dps shaman spark of life, 10% dmg reduction while casting (for ele) and elemental warding. no response. much better solutiont than adding another CD or nerfing everyone else in the game.

[Starsinn]

i tweeted to GC several times about giving dps shaman spark of life, 10% dmg reduction while casting (for ele) and elemental warding. no response. much better solutiont than adding another CD or nerfing everyone else in the game.

Sounds good to me. Refresh my memory, ele warding was a flat damage redux passive or magical only?

[CHRONICGODX]

Sounds good to me. Refresh my memory, ele warding was a flat damage redux passive or magical only?

12% (3 ranks) magic damage reduction. this was something ele shaman would only typically spec, and that iteration of the talent wouldnt help us at all against cleaves though, which is where we need it most. its sad because GC said he likes where enhance is right now defensively.

pvp power back on our heals will make life slightly easier, and natures guardian not taking your health away is good too, but i dont think thats going to stop any average melee from being able to push your shit in and take your lunch money.

[Starsinn]

, but i dont think thats going to stop any average melee from being able to push your shit in and take your lunch money.

Stack parry?

Ps: I subbed your channel, fellow enhancer.

[Tactic6995]

Hey, I make enhance videos - ranging from high mmr arena, bgs, guides, and compilations. I have 2 enhance shamans, where both have reached 2200 this season in arena. Anyways here is the link: youtube.com/tactic1048 - link also in my sig