Tips for arena?

[Elemental]

Hey guys, I've been doing arena for the past few weeks and I've finally harvested ~700 points, hopefully I can get some BG dailies done and get my first relentless piece.

Any who aside from all of that, could anyone tell me some tips for getting to 1000-1800 for arena? From the games I've played I've won two by myself, but those were fairly easy games since the teams allowed me much time to cast. With the games I've lost, the teams seem to swarm me and completely blow me up in a matter of seconds. So what I currently do right now when I step out of the gate is go by a pillar and drop my totems. When a melee comes up I pop my thunderstorms and I attack them.

Now the reason I think I am doing so poorly is because I'm not utilizing all the aspects of my class as I should. So I was wondering if any other shamans teams have a "Purge" macro or a "Windsheer" macro they could hook me up with. I'm not sure if these macros will help, but they will add some more spells into my current fights. One last thing, should I make it so I pop my Thunderstorms all at once, or should I spread them out?

Sorry for all the asking questions, I normally prefer to BG, since that allows me more errors than in arena. So thanks for the help.

[remanz]

Rather than talking about specifics about shamans, I am gonna give you a tip that IS NOT always considered. Record your matches with fraps. Watch them afterward. Slow them down. See how they were able to blow you up in seconds.

1. What you could've done to prevent getting swarmed in seconds.
2. Were there something going on the screen that you have missed
3. Did you spam cast on a unkillable target.
4. Above all, put it up in the video section so we can all discuss it.

[asonimie]

Rather than talking about specifics about shamans, I am gonna give you a tip that IS NOT always considered. Record your matches with fraps. Watch them afterward. Slow them down. See how they were able to blow you up in seconds.

1. What you could've done to prevent getting swarmed in seconds.
2. Were there something going on the screen that you have missed
3. Did you spam cast on a unkillable target.
4. Above all, put it up in the video section so we can all discuss it.

Great advice, not enough people do this.

[Budkin]

Hey man you should get on my ventrilo again i can help ya some ,I'm no arena pro but a good healer that noes how you play is key,Gear gear gear lol .
Think i'm doing better now that i have done 500+ games .Learning to dps somebody tell the healers have to focus on them then change to a new target knock them out .
Main thing i learned don't get bummed out ,
Allot of these teams have been working together for years and there's so much info and vids on boxing arenas.
My main problem is bad habits from fighting in the bgs for years.What works great in bgs to kill ,Don,t work in arena,Try to help your healer the first rush they put on you,
Thunder storm guys away from there healers to get the kill in Fight where you can guard body's if they die no use killing them where they can be los rezed,
All the maps suck for boxers,so just find a spot ya like and work it.
Be ready to die allot there's a big learning curve with arena. My Main beef i have with arena is the rezing ,WTF the game changes to a pole humping rez chasers game.I ask my self are we hear to fight of hide lol .
you can use stuff like this in you reg dps macros /cast [target=arena1] purge, or /cast [target=arena2] purge,I use this with wind shear when ever i drop grounding totems,I'm sure there's allot better advice out there but hope that help's some.

[Acidburning]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthrea...ghlight=shaman

asonimie's shammy post.

Very useful on adapting some new macros in your arena setup.

Also, this thread has some juicy info

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?p=256074

Personally, I started doing areans 3 weeks before the end of last season. Have only played 20 games with my RL healer buddy this season.

However, in between bgs, wintergrasp, I have a 3's team for my 4 shammys. I focus on the main 3 for now. My initial goal is 1300 for the gloves. Sitting at 1100ish. I use this 3s team to test new macros, make minor tweaks to my setup, etc. I find it very useful. Even practicing against setups. Gets you into a rhythm, and I find that useful for 5s.

Though, I am not very good hehhe, those are just some quick thoughts.

Cheers,
acid

[heyaz]

Are you running 5 elemental with no healer? If so my first recommendation would be to run 4 with a dedicated healer. Shaman die too fast otherwise and if you stop to heal you won't kill anything. Even fully geared, my shaman are toast once the priest is dead.

[Kicksome]

Obviously, keep farming your 5's for points. If you really want to get good at arena, I'd recommend playing one of your ele's solo in a 3's or 2's team.

This will let you see what different classes do to your shaman and who's a good first target, and who can get away easily. Who will LOS you etc... You'll find that it's almost impossible to kill a decent healer with interrupts etc.. It's like playing in slow motion.

[SmartJelly]

I finally stepped into the arena a couple of weeks ago and took 4 ele and 1 resto. I've kept my basic pve set up, no knock back on thunder, no iwin button, but i did have a full set of low lvl pvp gear. I'm up to 1400 now (dps+chainheal spam), so I'd imagine a proper set up and some pvp skill (which i lack) could get one further.

Like you I have about 700 points for my two weeks (didn't do dailys) and access to the 1400 set piece but it costs a whopping amount of points! Without access to large point pool (large rating) I just can't see it being worth me saving up when I could get twice as much relentless without requiring rating.

I think if I wanted to get serious about arena, I'd need to get someone to heal me up, but I don't so I'll save up for my relentless and try to be content with it.

That said, my only (amature) tips are...

Play at the end of the week when people are just doing it for the points.. I've won a good % of my games by people not even joining the battle. (that's not really my tip, I just rememeber reading it elsewhere on these forums so that's what I do)

Knockback on thunderstorm... I glyphed to remove it on all chars when I was raiding, and a nova+thunder combo is great for a little aoe shocker, but I do think getting a little space to heal would be nice. I'm tempted to get the knockback on just one char so I can still do my big aoe first.

I do a little purge (or 4) when Lava Burst leave my fingers, I like to think it helps.

All the AoE stuns/silence upset me, and watching my chars die as the healer spams completely the wrong person.

I was wondering if it would be nice to have a little button to hex the other team, but I'm out of space on my icon bar and just cba.

Anyway, just some ramblings from a pvp newb who just fancied something a little different from pve.