First things first, let’s examine the differences in Shaman specs.  Unlike Paladins, shaman can either be a handful in 1 on 1(enhancement) or a cakewalk(resto, but annoying!).  This isn’t to say that any 1 on 1 battle against another opponent will be more or less, it largely depends on their skill and your awareness.  Let’s jump right in!

Enhancement

You’ll be able to spot these guys easily, they sport two weapons!  Most important to watch is that they have below 8k mana.  This is an important area to watch for one simple reason!  MANA BURNZ!  That’s right folks, you’ll be juggling three tasks to bring down these dual wielding punks:

1. Mana Burn
2. Totem Killing
3. Fearing

You’re best defenses don’t work against a good shaman.  Don’t bother putting up shield or renew (unless rank 1, be mindful of global cooldown) it’ll just get purged.  Juggle AE fear and mana burn.  Drop the AE bomb after killing their tremor totem if any.  Juggle mana burn and healing as you need to.  The trick will be fighting on your territory… that’s at range against enhancement.

Summary:

1. Kill grounding and tremor totems.  You should have a fast melee weapon, right click it.
2. Constantly move, Shamans are really good once they get their totems up, if you can kyte em, you’ll win.
3. Drain their mana.  Enhancement shamans have low mana reservers.  It’s to your benefit to take this resource from them.
4. Do not let your health drop below 50%.  Those windfury crits will burst you down before you can say OMG I JUST GOT BURST DOWN REALLY QUICK BY AN ENHANCEMENT SHAMAN 3 times fast.

Elemental/Resto

These guys are very similar.  In 1 on 1, you’ll do the same routine as above!  Burn burn burn!

Resto will have access to Tide and Ele will be constantly lightning bolt spamming you.  You don’t want to wait for either.  The great aspect of fighting Ele and Resto shaman is that you CAN use you’re regular defense.  Shield up, drop a renew and cast through the first lightning bolt or two.  Get in both of their faces in 1 on  1.  Keep them on their toes and they’ll make a mistake.  Again you’ll fear bomb, burn their mana, top off your life and finish them off.

Note: Against elemental shaman it is particularly important to be IN THEIR FACE!  They will destroy you in a casting contest, don’t let it happen.  Force them to use their shocks!  It’ll force a gcd and interrupt the lightning spam.  Always remember you can win!

Summary:

1. Get in their face.  Lightning bolt is a longer cast than spec’d mana burn.  Use it to your advantage.
2. Don’t let them chain spam.  You can hide behind your shield for about 2k damage, that’s roughly 2 casts.
3. Mana burn until you’re blue in the face.  Keep their mana low.

This has many implications.  The addition of a traditionally high pve stat to the pvp set means you likely will be able to keep less extra equipment sets on your person.  This isn’t to say that new PVP gear will be a suitable substitute for regular PVE gear.  Only that as a primarily PVP player, you will be able to pick and choose which pieces you want to wear.  That is a huge distinction from previous tiers.

While its true, I don’t raid anything beyond the occasional TK/SSC run. What I do know is that I wear my PVP set all the time and I have a PVE heal set with plenty more MP5 and spirit in my bags. With the addition of spirit to my pvp set, I can at least perform moderately well in guild heroic runs without having to store an extra set of armor on my person. In addition I’d like to point to the extra talent palette each character is likely to have post expansion.  Which will make having a PVP talent spec in Disc and a PVE holy talent set possible without much hassle.

Doesn’t this excite you?

As my rogue friend and I were waiting for our mage to log in commence with the evening of 3v3 prep, we decided to warm up with 2v2. Holy COWTHULU and a bucket of bolts we owned! We ended the evening 11-2 with a rating of 1611! Items galore! Ugly purple chest here I come… maybe!

We made one major change in our tactic and it proved fruitful. We flocked.

Flocking: The ability for an arena team to stay close enough together that help/support/burn down can occur within 2 seconds. Basically for all you disc priests out there, remain mindful of LoS to control ranged DPS, and stay close to your team mates.

On another note:  Holy crap!  Lock, Druid, SPriest is one tough cookie to crack.

PURPLE GOODNESS

Amazing! Simply amazing! We dipped as low as 1478 yesterday. We came back and conquered. The second to last fight we ended at 1548. In an attend to not jix it, I yelled “2 POINTS!”. We were all in agreeement and queued again. We rocked the next team.

We ended at 1562! What an epic night!

It seems we’re in for some interesting news. I for one am following this story.

Defeating a Warlock as a disc priest is alot like defeating a shadow priest. The main difference is the shear amount of running and line of sight you’ll have to do. I think defeating a warlock 1 on 1 is a trial and error training. At worst you’ll learn to not freak out at the shear amount of fears that will hit you. At best, you’ll pull out on top every once in awhile.

I had the privilege of having an affliction lock friend to practice with. He later went SLSL for spell eating puppy(SEP) goodness and the duel dynamic changed. All my old tricks for survival are nearly useless against a SEP. Here are some pointers to help keep you, and your team alive against warlocks.

1. Shield and Renew only before engaging. Any buff will be useless against the SEP target. He’ll just eat it, you’ll waste the mana and more than likely, that target will be burned down.
2. Good warlocks tend to fear one target, and insta-dot other folks. Affliction warlocks don’t really have a place in the arena, but can be deadly if not handled properly. Affliction locks bring Unstable Affliction(Shiny Red/Orange debuff) and insta PBAOE horror.
3. You’ll want to be heavy on dispel. Against locks, when you’re target is above 75%, dispelling a DoT is better than a greater heal IMO. Know when to switch to a flash heal.
4. Get used to using binding heal. Everyone on your team will be dotted, binding heal is a good way to keep you and your target’s health in tip top shape.
5. If you have silence, save it to counter the locks fear. You’ll thank me later. When you choose to time that silence, will be dependent on your make up and skill level. In my RMP, I play with an undead M and undead R. The first couple fears are usually ignored. We save my silence to prevent 3v1 bust down interruption.
6. As above, only shield and renew the SEP target at the beginning of the fight. While the mana for healing and damage prevention is wasted, SEP eats it, you’ll protect the valuable SW: F and Shadow Protection for at least another 10 seconds. 10 Seconds in arena is huge!
7. Never ever, ever, ever, ever, leave you’re healer to fight a warlock by him/herself. Its a death wish for your healer and a uphill battle for your team. For that matter, you really don’t want your healer disc tanking very many targets. When your healer is tanking, they aren’t dispelling, healing or fearing.
8. Be careful with ProM. I’ve found in 2v2, its a life saver against locks. In an odd way, ProM is less useful in my 3v3. I’ll usually get one or two bounces out of it. I can’t explain why, its my anecdotal evidence.

Overall, in the early parts of our 3v3 and 2v2, I was using the standard healer tricks against locks. Shields, renews and ProM supported by the occasional flash heal. Using that old tactic, we were having a tough time defeating lock teams.

Lightning struck my brain, (maybe reading Out of Mana helped) and I realised I had been playing poorly against locks. I switched to mainly flash heals and binding heals. I would use mana burn and mind blast when the SEP was on me, so it would counter my shadow spells and leave my holy alone. I also started to really manage how often I would dispel.

The result? Immediate change. We started wining consistently against lock teams. 2v2, 3v3, whichever. Lock as first target or third, it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that the result was more consistent. And that’s a medal you can pin to my robe.

A couple notes: I play a BE Priest, no matter what happens, I have a 2 second silence and a free small mana burn. What racial talents help you in your fights? What other tactics do you use against locks?

1. Be ready for a 5 point combo hit.  You must do your best to maintain shield and renew on you at all times.  Rogues are burst melee dps and as such can deliver multiple 1000s of damage in 2 seconds.
2. Reflective Shield, Focused Will and Blessed Recovery all help.  BR returns critical damage, FW reduces damage taken.  Reflective Shield when properly geared will return 1000 points of damage back to the rogue.
3. Use Fear every time you can.  While feared heal yourself with flash heal and reapply renew and shield if down.
4. Try to keep power word pain applied.  Your key to defeating a rogue is to outlast them.  Remember they can’t re-stealth if dotted.
5. Above all, keep moving, try your best to make them chase you.  Do your best to not give them your back.

This will be an edge of your seat fight.  You can win!  Gear will definitely be a factor here.  Keep your buffs on, heal when possible and maybe, just maybe you’ll create an opportunity for mind blast + shadow word:death combo for the win!

If you’re a priest, how have you handled fights versus rogues specifically?

1. If you are a DPS class and you have lower honor then me on the BG stats page, you’re wasting my time. I’m looking at you folks out there in FULL GREENS that can’t be bothered to buy the FREAKING ALMOST FREE blue pvp set that you earn by QUEST GRINDING to hit 70. You’ll notice I am criticizing your gear and not your skill. You can’t learn to get better if you are constantly eating dirt. O rly? Ya srly! Believe me, I want to heal you. I really really do. Its why I’m a disc priest. What I don’t want is to use half my mana keeping 6k hps from the dirt while that alliance rogue that you can’t see is stabbing out my kidneys.

Because of the above, I’ve resorted to improving my own game. The reason I BG is to compete in the arena. That’s my motivating force, my raison d’etre. As such, I’ve found I REALLY like beating paladins, especially Retadins and tankadins.  By improving my 1v1 skills against priests, I’ve learned how susceptible I am to eating dirt. I’ve seen my weaknesses. Most importantly, I’ve learned from them! Without further ado!

Paladins!  Whoo hoo!

Retadins:

1. Stay at ranged, when they catch up to you(they have faster run speed) run through them.
2. Shield + Renew at all times
3. Drain Drain Drain.  When you’re done draining, them apply SW:P
4. Dispel all the time

Look out!  These bundles of shiny gold joy will surprise you!  Getting into melee with a retadin is BAD business.  Their burst damage is incredible!  Stay at ranged.  The question to dispel or drain first is up in the air.  I’m unsure of their mechanics, so here’s some ignorance-crafting:  The paladins burst is in the form of extra hits.  The base extra hit % is fairly low.  Dispelling their buffs slows there DPS.  On the other hand, they have quite a few stuns and other mana based abilities that will stop you dead in your tracks(<- humor).  Draining their mana will reduce that effectiveness and stop their heals.

In either case be ready for a long fight.  Trust me, you can do it!

Tankadins:

An object in motion remains in motion.  Think inertia!  Always be moving around.  Drain, dot.  Be ready for the long fight.  Tankadins are a joke in pvp.  Great tanks!  Horrible player killers.  Follow the above rules.

Healadins:

Longest… fight… ever…  Not really.  These fights are much quicker than retadins.  The main difference?  As you drain the ~din there are two reactions; they will try to melee/stun you, they will heal.  Heal-bots usually prefer to heal themselves while you drain them.  The solution is then simple.  You drain, they heal.  End result = paladin without mana.  Paladin without mana = +20 honor.

General thoughts:

1. As with priests, there is a general trend against paladins.  You will need to drain their mana in order to succeed.  Its your job!
2. Conserve your mana in PVP.  When you are low against a healadin, use your fiend.  They eat gold for breakfast!
3. I notice a large majority of paladins are keyboard turners.  The reason for this is reaction time when casting a heal is super important.  Paladins are generally spam healers, they use flash of light.  Remember this.  There’s a subtle difference between someone that moves with the mouse + keyboard, and someone that uses one or the other.

2v2 ended 7-3 for a 1612 rating.

3v3 ended 16-4 for a 1750ish rating.

I have lots of work ahead of me.  I’ve managed to capture 22 of the matches.  My reactions to DP SLSL and RMP to follow in the coming days!