Shaman PvP Gear, Enchants, and gemming

[asonimie]

One thing, I would recommend NOT going over 130 spell pen. Personal opinion here, but I feel being slightly low with 100-125 pen is better than going over at all (135). A lot of people roll around with 85-100 pen and seem to do fine, only reason I have 129 was because it worked out that way and I'm an extremist with theorycrafting. I just don't want you to feel like you have to be that high. You might want to change one of those gems to pen/stam or maybe just say screw it and go with pure spellpower.

[Altsoba]

One thing, I would recommend NOT going over 130 spell pen. Personal opinion here, but I feel being slightly low with 100-125 pen is better than going over at all (135). A lot of people roll around with 85-100 pen and seem to do fine, only reason I have 129 was because it worked out that way and I'm an extremist with theorycrafting. I just don't want you to feel like you have to be that high. You might want to change one of those gems to pen/stam or maybe just say screw it and go with pure spellpower.

Can't thank you enough for your continuous support and feedback asonimie .

Yesterday I didn't do a lot of matches but it went pretty well. We're now at 1356 rating and need to farm honor to get relentless boots . Going to get Furious shoulders today too.
I think that for the time being I won't (also, I cannot ) go over 115 pen.
I have a few questions:
Regarding hit, so with talents I'm at 6.28%. Isn't it enough? I'm not doubting you, just want to understand a bit more hit mechanics in pvp.

I'm at 800+ resilience and 21k hp unbuffed (playing with priest healer). With this gemming and keeping 2.7k sp self buffed I have no way of getting higher. But those are two stats that "naturally" grow with the gear. What do you think?

Another question is, is there a way to include bloodlust in our kill htem all macro without preventing the rest of the sequence from being casted when it's on cd?


Thank you!

[asonimie]

Can't thank you enough for your continuous support and feedback asonimie .

Yesterday I didn't do a lot of matches but it went pretty well. We're now at 1356 rating and need to farm honor to get relentless boots . Going to get Furious shoulders today too.
I think that for the time being I won't (also, I cannot ) go over 115 pen.
I have a few questions:
Regarding hit, so with talents I'm at 6.28%. Isn't it enough? I'm not doubting you, just want to understand a bit more hit mechanics in pvp.

I'm at 800+ resilience and 21k hp unbuffed (playing with priest healer). With this gemming and keeping 2.7k sp self buffed I have no way of getting higher. But those are two stats that "naturally" grow with the gear. What do you think?

Another question is, is there a way to include bloodlust in our kill htem all macro without preventing the rest of the sequence from being casted when it's on cd?


Thank you!

No problem, and I'm glad you're seeing some success
I'll work in reverse,

Bloodlust/Heroism: It eats a GCD, so no, there is no way for you to combine it with Elemental mastery. I have it bound to the same keybind on all characters, therefore no matter who is charge stunned, sap'd etc... ONE of the shamans will get it off. A note: As you climb in rating, good teams will attempt to "bait" your heroism, and then LOS you for 45 seconds til it's gone. Against high rated intelligent teams, MAKE SURE they are commited (not just 1 person charging you, but healers stepping out into position etc.)

HP and Resil: Absolutely correct, Stam and Resil just come with gear. No major enchants/Gems to boost them (other than WG helm/shoulder chants of course). For people starting out, you can only really focus on one stat - I still maintain that Spellpower should be the first stat you concentrate on. Your gear may not be awesome starting out, but with boosted Spellpower you can practice being a defensive cannon, instead of a defensive impotent dmg sponge.

Gear comes at a set rate... practice does not. Practice the correct rythmn and you'll be ready once the gear shows up.

Hit% for PVP: Another topic that is debatable as where to draw the line. To achieve basic PVP hitcap for spells you need against most toons is 4% total hit (5% if you are a melee class, which most of us are not). Don't forget to account for Draenei racial here, because it does not show up on your spell stats. However BElves and similar racials/effects increase chance to miss by 2%, so that pushes the "hard cap" for spells to 6% hit. But there's more, there are additional talents/effects that increase chance to miss even further, such as Ret Pally's Divine Purpose etc, which increases spell miss by 4%. So worst case scenario is a BE Ret Pally, who has a 10% chance to be missed by spells.

Obviously 10% Hit is too high to shoot for in pvp, and is usually a waste of stat allocation. For the more casual world PvP/BGs, I would say the 4% is probably fine, for serious arena - 6% is accepted to account for 2% miss racials. I wouldn't advise going any further than 6%. With my new gear upgrades I bumped up to ~6.3%, so I'll be moving gear around to try for flat 6% again.

BTW, the best way to achieve PVP spell hit% is through the gear itself. Use "ascendancy" pieces (neck, cloak, one of the rings always has hit etc). That way you are trading crit for Hit, which is a good stat to lose. Don't gem/enchant for hit%, because then you are sacrificing potential spellpower stats that can be achieved by Runed gems. Losing Crit > Losing SP.

[daviddoran]

So i'm gearing my relatively new 80 shamans at the moment, leveled in AV, and now have 5 of the set pieces, 3 ele 2 resto for the extra resil. I'm still using the BoA staves now, what should I go for for a weapon and shield? Are my only options earned in PvE? I see a lot of shaman with the old badge shield, with the badges now, it seems like a waste to downgrade badges for that shield.

Do I have to pony up 5k gold for 5 BoE caster shields?

[asonimie]

Run some heroics and grab these from the badge vendor.

www.wowhead.com/?item=Protective Barricade of the Light

Great starter shields and should take you all the way to relentless shields at 1800.

[Altsoba]

I'm currently 150 Hit Rating (5.72%) and 115 Spell Penetration.

I attained that hit just with gems (+16 hit), Deadly ring of ascendacy (+38 hit) and the legs from WG (+64 hit).
It makes 8.72% hit with EP (talent).

So, I believe it's better to move to relentless dominance when upgrading (relentless ring to replace deadly included - minus 1.45% hit), or you have another opinion?