Arena and positioning..

[Dominian]

So i guess this is for 4 shamans but i was wondering on WERE you position yourself in order to get a best possible start. Im looking to improve my own and was wondering if someone had a few tips.

Here is normally ours:

Nagrand:

We decided that going to the spot were the Stealth detection buff is best in 9/10 cases since hugging a pillar benefits the enemy team more.

BEM:

Up by the pillars on the ramp.

Lord ruins whatever the name was:

Out the gate and 15 yards to the left, only spot to los now is our OWN starting spot.

Dalaran sewers:

Out of the pipe and just up in the stairs, maybe abit futher up depending on how much ranged there is.

Orgrimmar arena:

I start in the middle of the platform and my healer abit behinde me, usualy just nuking.

Were we are struggeling the most from hardest to easiest: BEM,Nagrand,Orgrimmar,Lord,Dalaran Sewers

[magwo]

First I'd like to say this: Don't underestimate the power in destroying the teamplay of your opponents. Usually this can be achieved with a slowly increasing pressure by gradually advancing towards the enemy team. This increasing pressure induces stress and will in many situations lower their ability to get all team members to stick to the plan and play at their best.

In TBC you could wait out your opponents, let them come to you.. but I find that in WOTLK it doesn't work very well anymore. When you do this, you are making sure that they have a very good plan and strategy, and you give them time and room to execute it properly. The reason this doesn't work in WOTLK is due to the vast amounts of AOE CC that is available to teams to use against multiboxers. Used properly, your team can be totally shut down for 10-15 seconds. It is VERY important to avoid this situation, and deny them this opportunity, in my opinion.

I find that I'm losing against most team that I "wait out".


And shaman have been given some awesome tools to take control of fights: Thunderstorm and Fire Nova stun.
This can be heavily abused in several arenas: Lordaeron (at the grave), BEM (on bridgeheads), Dalaran (at the edges).



So my general tip would be: Make sure you pressure teams into making mistakes, destroy their coordination. Don't let them set up AOE CC rotations. Make them panic and waste their cooldowns.. LOS objects are your friends now, because you can get people out of them by rotating TS.
The key thing to note is that, when you are chasing people that are hiding in LOS, they are spending time running rather than killing your shammies. Push them out of LOS and kill with LVB + Shock.
Also, pre-charge Elemental Oath buff with heals or flame shocks. This is especially good on Orgrimmar arena.

[Ellay]

Interesting strats :)

Whats the benefit to taking the Grave btw? They are able to LoS you at will by stepping 2 yards in either direction.

[magwo]

The grave is handled with TS and focus nukes. Knock people out with TS, frost shock, another TS knock, LVB, Shock, dead.

[magwo]

BTW I still wonder why TS can be spell reflected. Can the other knockback aoe spells be reflected?

[Ellay]

Nope, it's a TS exclusive :)

[mrmcgee21]

No, its the only AoE or KB in the game reflectable, and it happens to be our 51 pt talent ... gg blizz. I get so increadibly angry when I see a warrior reflect that in arena's, it can easily lose a match for your team, even if your not multiboxing.

[Tizer]

i had a warrior in AV use spell reflect on me a few months back, i went in to blow everyone up on Galv...i killed myself and all my shaman in under half a second. I couldnt help but laugh.

[Dominian]

Ticketed this a few months ago and questioned it on the shaman forums but the GM response was pretty much "working on intended" and since no one play elemental shaman in pvp no one seem to actually care.

Would like to see the what happened if our grounding totem started to absorb frost nova,aoe fears etc.

[Bresquad]

How do you prefe to use your TS.

4 X BOOM , High DMG + Far Knockbacks (possible milke them to 50% health burning it and beeing able to kill or panic them)
or
Castsequence 1 at the time for beeing able to knockback more often. + Earthbind totem for slowing them on new attack :P not really a killing tool

[EaTCarbS]

How do you prefe to use your TS.

4 X BOOM , High DMG + Far Knockbacks (possible milke them to 50% health burning it and beeing able to kill or panic them)
or
Castsequence 1 at the time for beeing able to knockback more often. + Earthbind totem for slowing them on new attack :P not really a killing toolI've got macros for each, so whatever works best at that particular moment.

[magwo]

Actually I might take back some of my statements. My playing style works against scrubs who aren't CONSTANTLY LOSing you, regardless of whether you target them or not.


Some teams play very smart and constantly play as if they are about to get nuked, and don't open up until I am driven to make a mistake.. they wait for cooldowns, especially on their Rogue.. and never open up when they don't have cooldowns up.
So.. all-in-all.. results in 20+ minute games that end when someone makes a tiny mistake in the LOS game.