Elemental Shaman PvP Guide for TBC Classic

Elemental Shamans are, unfortunately, relatively weak in 2v2 and 3v3 Arenas. This is due to their reliance on high cast times for their damage, which leaves them vulnerable to being interrupted or line-of-sighted by the enemy team.

That being said, 5v5 and battlegrounds are where a Elemental Shaman thrives, as the extra amount of players involved makes it much more likely that you will be able to cast as the other players in your team will also be important targets for the enemy team to disrupt. You can also often get surprise kills in World PvP due to your high burst damage.

This is a burst-damage-focused talent setup, which skips Totem of Wrath due to its low impact in PvP, getting Nature's Swiftness instead for its versatility when you need a quick heal to stay alive.

There are no real alternatives in terms of talents, as you are very stretched out as is, so the most important thing with these talents is learning how to use them, and your spell kit, in PvP.

Rather than a fixed rotation, Shaman gameplay is about treading a fine balance between casting damage spells, utility spells, healing, and even drinking, if given the chance. Here are some basic pointers:

• Keep yourself alive and out of crowd control with Frost Shock, Earthbind Totem, Grounding Totem, and Lesser Healing Wave.
• Pressure enemies with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and also with Purge, Bloodlust, and Earth Shock.
• Keep an eye on your Mana pool, as it is also easily possible to lose due to running out of Mana. Make sure you drink if enemies are trying to hide away from you, in order to force them to return, and keep your totems behind pillars and similar line-of-sight blockers in order to make them harder to kill.

You can find our recommended gear, gems, and enchants for PvPing as a Elemental Shaman in the link below.

Elemental Shaman does not have a lot of viable compositions in 2s and 3s, unfortunately, but it does very well in 5s:

In 2v2, Shaman + Rogue, Shaman + Warlock, and Shaman + Mage are your best compositions. The idea is to have a partner who can crowd control enemies, allowing you to deal damage uninterrupted and avoid line-of-sight issues.

In 3v3, you want to pair with a Rogue / Warlock / Mage for the reasons stated above, and a healer who can follow up on crowd control chains: either Disc Priest or Restoration Druid. Such compositions will grant you the most opportunities to get casts off.

In 5v5, Shaman can fit into just about any team, and does not have any specifically-favored composition. Matches tend to be quick and explosive, which makes Bloodlust a must, and Shaman's burst with Elemental Mastery-powered Chain Lightnings are a great way to get a quick kill in.

In order to become the best Shaman possible, you should understand what your talents and spells are for. The amount of details that can go into this section of the guide is endless, but we will try to keep things brief in order to give you a general idea which you can use to jumpstart your PvP experience.

Totems can be destroyed by totem-stomping macros. These are basically pet commands for Warlocks and Hunters which try to target and destroy all totems with the pet. While these are extremely annoying to deal with, they also force the enemy pets to run after your totems, which can be exploited by killing the pets behind line of sight when you coordinate properly with your team.

Due to your reliance on cast times, learning and mastering fake casting is fundamental. This is the act of starting a cast, just to cancel it at some point before it finishes, hopefully baiting enemy interrupts while you were not casting and thus wasting them. The main difficulty with fake casting is timing it correctly, as canceling too late means you get interrupted, and too early means enemies see you stopped and do not waste their interrupts.

Bloodlust is the main reason to bring a Shaman to any team. This makes all of your team attack and cast much faster, allowing you to quick overwhelm your opponents, especially when combined with Purge and Earth Shock pressure!

Grounding Totem allows you to instantly nullify incoming enemy spells, which is of great value against any caster team. Earth Shock serves a somewhat similar purpose, but has a shorter cooldown and requires line of sight to the enemy caster in order to interrupt.

Purge allows you to remove up to two beneficial magic effects from enemy players. You should generally strip kill targets clean of their magic buffs, paving the way for kills to happen, especially against the magic heals-over-time and shields of Priests and Druids! Beware of spam purging Lifebloom, as it does a large healing burst in the process.

Tremor Totem pulses every few seconds, removing charm, fear and sleep effects from nearby allies. This is amazing against fears especially, but beware of totem-stomping macros or Priests fearing at the same time they attack your totem!