Resto Shaman PVP Guide

Post by Rekijan

After the succes of my previous guide on warriors I decided to this one aswell. Like when I started writing the warrior guide, I am still learning the class in pvp, hence this guide is subject to change and requires your input to make it great.

Talent tree
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZMGghoZxcfuIostkbIRt:LqjVc
Enhancement tree.
First tier is mostly to get to the higher ones.
Earth's grasp to make your snare reach a bit further.
Ancestral Knowledge to give you more mana (and some healing power).

Guardian totems to make your grounding totem more available, the bonus on stoneskin is a nice plus.
Thundering Strikes better then Tidal Mastery which only increases healing and lightning spells, TS increases all crit chances.
Improved Ghost Wolf is a must to get out of reach fast.
Improved Shields helps making your earth shield heal more, or when you are not focused on regen your mana faster with water shield.

Shamanistic Focus helps a lot not to burn your mana when you have the oppurtunity to go offensive.

Resto tree.
Improved Healing Wave while it is not a often used spell its still a better option then totemic focus.

Healing Grace is needed to not get your two hots and earth shield dispelled to often.
Tidal Focus is a filler to get to the next tier.

Improved Water Shield is debatable. While usually focused you can have times where you are free to cast without getting attacked. In such a situation this helps with mana.
Healing Focus must have.
Tidal Force good panic button to ensure some big heals.
Ancestral Healing is a bit underpowered now, but with the change in 3.2 very worth while.

Restorative Totems needed for Mana Tide totem and good on its own.
Tidal Mastery mostly filler, get more points in this if you dont like Imp Water shield.

Nature's Swiftness good to make a Healing Wave instant cast of even hex.
Focused mind helps with the shut downs.

Purification extra healing and opens up Cleanse Spirit.

Nature's Guardian 1 point as filler, 10% isn't all that great with the internal cooldown.
Mana Tide Totem gives a lot of mana back.
Cleanse Spirit to remove most debuffs with one spell.

Blessings of the Eternals more crit heals and a 100% chance of earthliving when a target is low on hp.
Nature's Blessing gives you more healing power for a stat you should be focussing on anyway.

Ancestral Awakening is basically a free heal for who needs it the most every time you crit.
Earth Shield a very essential talent to surive attacks.
Improved Earth Shield to buff your essential spell.

Tidal Waves makes those LHW almost instant and HW's worth the time to cast.

Riptide our only instant cast heal besides nature's swiftness which has a long cooldown.

An alternative tree would probably look like this

Post by Rekijan

Gearing up
First of get the Stormhide set.

First piece you should grind battlegrounds for is the pvp trinket,
After that fill in the places where you don't have any pvp gear yet.
Also take into account that you want two pieces of the sp/crit mail pvp armor so you can get two +50 resil bonus which is worth more then the 4 set bonus.

Statwise you want resilience, stamina, spellpower, intellect, mp5, crit, and some haste and hit (hit to not always miss on shocks and purge).
If you drop dead to often go for more resil/stam. If you are not healing enough go for sp, if you run oom go for more int/mp5.

Glyphs
There are only two usefull minor glyphs which are Ghost Wolf and Water Shield.

For major ones there is some room for choose.
The Stoneclaw one is the only one that you really cant live without.
Earth Shield is also good.
Lesser Healing wave is nice because the one getting the most damage is usually the one you put Earth Shield on.
Healing wave has its uses, but in pvp usually one target is focused upon making this one minimal. You already have a talent for extra target healing.
Mana tide gives 4% more mana, which is nice...if it survives.
Riptide while riptide is a good spell, I dont think the glyph is since you will refresh it before the duration has expired anyway.
Water Shield provides mana when you can afford to have it on instead of Earth Shield which isnt often.
Hex with some coordination shouldnt break at all due to damage.
Earthliving will proc 1 out of 4 instead of 1 out of 5 spells. Nice but not worth a major slot.

Gems
Meta: Insightful Earthsiege Diamond
Red: pure sp or sp/resil
Yellow: Pure resil or sp/resil
Blue: Pure sta or sta/resil

Enchanting:
Head: Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator, Arcanum of Dominance and Arcanum of Blissful Mending are all fine choices.
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Gladiator or Greater Inscription of the Crag
Chest: Exceptional Resilience
Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs: Earthen Leg Armor or Sapphire Spellthread
Feet: Tuskarr's Vitality
Wrist: Major Stamina or Superior Spellpower
Hands: Precision
Rings (if enchanter): Stamina or Spellpower
Back: Haste
Weapon: Spellpower
Shield: Resilience or Intellect

Post by Rekijan

Matchups
Note: All matchup are based on the idea of one-on-one combat without using pots/bandages and using above stated talents and gear.
Also you should not be trying to go 1v1 as you are a support unit, the tactics are more pointers to use when those classes are around.

General tactics
Whenever you can drop your totems, in 3.2 this will be easier but thats no excuse for not using them now, although dropping a totem has a lower priority then casting heals.

When there are melee classes around keep Earthbind totem up, preferably after casting Stoneclaw (the shield will stay active even if the totem is not). If Earthbind doesnt get them before they are slowed and/or its still on cd use frost shock. Then use Ghost Wolf to get out of range.
Use Grounding Totem for big spells or CC's.
Also most melee (rogue, dk, warrior for example) have an interrupt. Fakecasting (canceling your cast bar by moving) can help avoid the spell lock down if your timing is lucky. Because an interrupt only locks spells when you are actually casting. This is subject to luck though, you cannot possibly know when he will use his instant interrupt but neither can he guess when you cancel your cast.

Keep Earth Shield up on whoever is getting attacked, and if that is not you (and you dont suspect a rogue coming in) keep water shield up.

Any hope of killing someone is by outlasting them with Flame Shock ticks and Searing Totem.

Death Knights
List of purge-able spells:
Bloody Vengeance
Freezing Fog
Acclimation
More?
Cleansing totem helps with all their diseases. Use grounding totem against their death grip. Otherwise threat them as a melee class.

Druids
List of purge-able spells:
Healing over time effects (lifebloom, rejuvenation, wild growth, regrowth)
Barkskin
Innervate
More?

Boomkins.
Use grounding totem for cyclone or starfire. Interupt their cast with Wind Shock if you can.

Feral.
Treat as a melee, be sure to have earth shield up on you so you dont get killed in their stun lock. Trinket the second stun. Try to cast riptide on you in between stuns, if you succeed you might not even have to waste your trinket.

Resto.
Same as boomkins only easier since you can negate their heals and your damage is higher. Also keeping them purged means they spent more mana, that will force them to innervate which is also purgeable.

Hunters
List of purge-able spells:
?

Use line of sight against them. Other then that not much to do against them.

Mages
List of purge-able spells:
Ice Barrier and other damage preventing effects (except ice block)
Fireball!
Fingers of Frost
More?

Grounding totem when you think they will use Deep Freeze.

Paladins
List of purge-able spells:
Holy Shield, Sacred Shield
(Greater) Blessing of X
Beacon of Light
Divine Plea
Divine Illumination
The Art of War
Divine Favor
Righteous Fury
Hand of Protection
Divine Sacrifice
Hand of Freedom
More?

Holy
Wind Shock their heals every cd, use grounding totem when you think they will use hammer of justice, usually when you are below 20%.

Ret
Dispell their wings so you dont get instantly killed and purge their Hand of Freedom to keep them from closing you. Threat as melee.

Priest
List of purge-able spells:
Power Word: Shield
Renew
Stamina+Spirit buff
More?

Wind Shock and Grounding totem their mana burns every cd and purge a lot. Tremor totem if they havent used their fear yet.

Rogue
List of purge-able spells:
?
Treat as a melee with cleansing totem against poisons, be sure to have earth shield up on you so you dont get killed in their stun lock. Trinket the second stun. Try to cast riptide on you in between stuns, if you succeed you might not even have to waste your trinket.

Shaman
List of purge-able spells:
All type of shields
Elemental Oath
Elemental Mastery
Nature's Swiftness
Riptide and Earthliving
Maelstrom Weapon
More?
Also melee down their most important totems when you have the chance.
Elemental.
Use grounding totem and wind shock for Lava Burst.

Enchantment
Treat as melee.

Resto
Everything he can do so can you. Use purge and wind shock like against every healer.

Warlock
List of purge-able spells:
?
Tremor totem against their fear and grounding totem against choas bolts.

Warrior
List of purge-able spells:
?

Like hunters not a nice class to face. Mortal Strike and Unrelenting Assault will cut down your healing and charge will keep them in your range. Counter their charge by running around a blocking object if you can.

Post by Rekijan

Macro's

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=4 Mana Spring Totem, Stoneskin Totem, Wrath of Air Totem, Flametongue Totem
To setup normal totems, I keybind all other totems.

#showtooltip Reincarnation
To keep track of the cd and reagents remaining.

/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Healing Wave
Instant cast Healing Wave

/cast purge
Purges focus instead of target.

User interface
I highly recommend watching the entire guide at this website. Not everything is that usefull but a hell of a lot is.

Movie
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=116247 Nice movie about a well played resto shaman.

Post by Rekijan

Any additions (especially concerning purgeable spells) are very much welcome.

Post by 324033

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Post by Rekijan

Thanks for the compliment.

I see to fail how anticipation would help much. 3% dodge? Fairly low number point for point, and while casting you are unable to dodge anyway.
Toughness I could understand, but anticipation needs some clarification.

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Post by Rekijan

Falsegod
Thanks for the advice I editted in.

devented
As a shaman your keybindings arent soo stressfull like say a warrior, so I rather have two seperate so I can spare a cd for later but it is indeed an option.
I'll add the fakecast in general tactics. I usually forget this myself so thanks for reminding me.

Post by synthetique

DK purge-able spells:
Bloody Vengeance (+9% dmg after scoring crits)
Freezing Fog (free howling blast)
Acclimation (resistance to spells)

Post by Rekijan

Thanks for the addition synthetique

Post by Salali

Continue providing constructive feedback guys. It can only improve if the author knows where to improve!

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Post by Rekijan

Added a movie: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=116247

Post by Mangea

Just remember that some healing classes (druids, priests) have talents that counters dispells: Subtlety and Silent Resolve.

Also, purging Lifebloom will heal the target, (maybe worth it anyway?). Although, purging away 2 out of 3 stacks (leaving 1) will not heal the target. :)

Post by Atik

Wow... I think I'll actuallt start with this and Dual Spec for Enhancement later...

This is sweet!

Resto Shaman PVP Guide

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