3.3.5a Enhancement Shaman PvP Questions

Hi,

now that i got 1.4k Arenascore and got Equip for open world PvP, a looot of questions arise. Yes i have read a LOT of enhancement shaman pvp guides including the board on Molten but in have thought and considered a lot so...

1. Proffesions:

Depends on how far you want to get with one char. I would suggest starting with tailor / enchant as one provides the other with materials for easy leveling.
Enchanters got unique enchants for rings and the 80 additional AP or 600 more HP are nice, besides you dont need to pay a fortune for your enchants.
Tailors have swordguard which is more or less like berserking for weapon just for the back and without 5% armor malus. You could say an extra 400 AP. A must.

Later, when you got these on final gear i would suggest chaning to mining / blacksmithing for more sockets and later jewelcrafting for the real good gems.
And if you want to go even further skip both and go for skinning (40 critrating) and keep mining (+500 hp)

2. Weaponimbue:

2 x WF - why? As i see it, the Offhand weapon deals much less dmg then mainhand (dualwieldmalus so only half weapondmg) WF got a 3 sec internal CD so can only procc each 3 secs. Now if it procs on Offhand the dmg will be quite a lot less than if it proccs on mainhand, and if proccs on offhand it cant proc on mainhand for 3 secs...
Besides if Main and offhand have same speed (as i suggest to have) then WF wont even procc more often...
Since you get a lot of boni to dmg when using frostbrand (any enh shamn should use frozen power skill for freezing targets anyway) i would say wf main and frostbrand off is better damagewise and gives additional dmg boni

3. Weaponenchant:
2x Berserking? Why? In Arena and 1on1 Surviability comes first. 2x Berserking may reduce your armor by 5% for roughly 30 more dps. Thats not rly worth it...You die 5% faster for 2% more dmg? No good deal...as Shaman you are likely the maintarget so i would prefer weaponenchants like Black Magic for fast heals if needed (you sadly cant rely on MS Proccs all time) + it should (havent yet tested) increase your attackrate as well and hitting faster is always nice
While the AP from other enchants is crappy compared to berserking you wont die faster though...but then again 60 AP compared to 400 AP -5% armor is also crappy

I would actually suggest to use mongoose as enchant on both weapons as it grants 120 agility (120 AP. +armor + evasion + melee crit) + slight haste without any negative sideeffect besides being a procc (but same goes for black magic and berserking)

4. Gems:

a) Red
Again a lot of ppl say "40 AP on red!" again why? 40 AP isnt THAT great, its around 2 dps more, 20 Agility give you 20 AP, + Armor + dodge Chance + Critchance. Sounds better to me then one additional point dps.

b) Yellow: Hitrating? ah...here guides have such a huge range of viewpoints that i dont get it. Some say 100 HR is good enough (80 for Draenei) others say you need at least 7% (Hr around 200) HR 200 is very hard to get (impossible with pvp gear) if you dont gem for it and i dont think its really usefull...besides you also need around 24 Expertiserating which may also use a lot of gemplaces and in my oppinion Expertise is > HR since even if you hit all time you will be dodged and blocked a LOT
Again i recommend a different approach - Resilience. around 100 additional resil with yellow sockets makes a nice difference in survivablity as its crit resistance and some dmg reduction (against ALL player dmg and ist not penetrable unlike resistance or armor)
Besides resilience stacks with shamanistic rage and that elemental skill. With sr you will get 66% dmg reduction from ALL sources which makes a HUGE difference in special vs casters. In theory, you can have above 100% dmg reduction vs melee (in practise i never seen 100% redcution, there seems to be a minimum dmg, but i have seen melees doing 2 - 5 points dmg with one hit....but it would be superawesome if you would get healed from attacks if you have above 100% dmg reduction like it happened in diablo 2)

c) Blue: Survivability first. Ok....why Stamina? As shaman you can and will heal yourself often so resilience is >>> Stamina. If i start 1on1 with additional 2k from sockets its nice but once gone its gone. Resilience on the other hand will provide you with additional dmg reduction which, at least vs casters and with heals, will for sure reduce dmg by much more then 2k over the fight (in special as you sue stoneclaw glyph for a shield)

5. Skills

a) Flurry
There is NO guide i found that said "save 5 points flurry" actually i am asking myself why i should use 5 Points in flurry
- Flurry ONLY proccs after a crit. In PvP Critchance is reduced between 20 - 30% which makes crits rather rare
- In order to procc it sometimes in PvP i need to spend another 3 points in elemental and there the 9% additional crit chance to melee attacks again only proccs after a spellcrit, which most likely is even less then your melee critchance.
- 1 SS already eats 2 Flurry procs for NOTHING as SS doesnt interrupt the attack intervall at all
- Flurry grants, in practise, 30% additional speed on 1 attack (if use stormstrike) which will lead to...
-- WF likely proccing less due to timer (depending on weaponspeed (i got 2.60) haste and stuff
-- your offhand hitting more often for pathetic dmg increase
-- 5 Points invested for a skill that barely makes a difference even IF it proccs. (Rember 1 SS eats 2 stacks for nothing and with equip you will ss each 6 seconds)
I agree that flurry is a must in PvE and if you have a 2 handed weapon but if you use Stormstrike...ah...well...no.

b) Toughness
ok the 30% reduced slow time is completly uselesss as your earthbind totem gets rid of slows anyway. But 10% more hp at lvl 80 make, at least for me, 4k additional hp. 4k hp is quite a lot, considered that 10 gems of hp (which would be lke all slots you have) would grant 3k. At least i find 4k additional hp very usefull, at least much more usefull then 1 faster swing procc or 1 second faster windshear (actually the only enemy where i realised that 1 second faster windshear is usefull are ele shamans to windshear heals. Against others i didnt realise any difference as they will cast much faster anyway or use instant casts)

My approach is simple - the longer you live the more dmg you can do (PvE example - as enh shaman i could always easily down elite bosses of same or higher level without problems. As mage i always had to struggle - sure as mage i did more dmg but i got down quite fast. As shaman i survive like forever)
If you enchant / gem for dmg you will have nice crits for sure, but of what use are those if you die faster then your enemy? What use is a 9k WF crit if it gets dodged / parried or you die afterwards? As enh shamans a long battle is what you want - you will almost never run out of mana (stormstrike shamanistic rage) while your opponent WILL run out of mana on some point. Without mana most enemies are dead and cant do much.
You can heal instant with MS - most others cant heal (windshear)
Your good cds replenish rather fast (1 min for rage, 3 min for wolves and best 21sec for 4k shield)) while others have to wait 5 - 10 mins
If you use BT its also usefull to have a 45 sec battle ahead where your dmg increase is HUGE (and again makes flurry useless as, at least its my experience, the effects dont stack so you dont have 60% faster but still 30% but i also may simply reach the speedcap with blackmagic)

in 1on1 and often Arena its about living longer then your enemy. Sure more dmg means he goes down faster. But if you think dmg is first, then do PvP in full PvE equip...there you got more dmg but i bet you will be down much faster then your enemy.
If PvP is about surviving i dont see why one would place AP over Resil or Stamina or as i suggested agility which improves armor and evasion as well as ap and crit.

So how you put it its the same result - the longer the battle the higher your chances of wining. You will not be oom. Enemies will. (who have mana) and even if not your usefull cds are faster avalaiable then theirs. So everything that helps you to lasting in battle is usefull.

I may have no idea about some bugs on molten that make other suggestions superior (like 2 WF would be awesome if there wouldnt be an internal cd of 3 secs) but just from thinking i dont get why some ppl suggest such stuff...

So what you guys think?