Here's an in-depth guide on how to PvP as an Enhancement Shaman. The guide focuses mostly on helping you play your class to its best potential, keeping you up-to-date on the best talent/glyph choices, and general tips on how to improve your skills. It will be based around 2v2 and 3v3 arena mainly since that is where most PvP happens:
Table of Contents
1. Talents
2. Glyphs
3. Stat Priority/Reforging/Gems
4. Enchants/Professions
5. Rotation
6. Bursting
7. Crowd Control
8. Defensives/Survivability
9. Keybinds
10. Macros
11. Addons
12. Viable comps
1. TALENTS:
Tier 1:
Nature's Guardian
Whenever a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, your maximum health is increased by 25% for 10 sec, and your threat level towards the attacker is reduced. This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 sec.
Stone Bulwark Totem
Summons an Earth Totem with 10% of the caster's health at the feet of the caster for 30 sec that grants the caster a shield absorbing (Spell power * 0.875 * 4) damage for 10 sec, and up to an additional (Spell power * 0.875) every 5 sec thereafter. 1 min cooldown.
Astral Shift
Seek haven by shifting partially into the elemental planes, reducing damage taken by 40% for 6 sec. 1.5 min cooldown.
This is our survivability tier.
Nature's Guardian
Nature's Guardian was our go-to talent in 5.3. Now that Stone Bulwark is more viable, they are almost on par with each other in terms of survivability. This talent was great last patch and still is today. It will proc no matter what situation you are in so you don't have to manage it well to make good use of it the way you do with SBT. It procs every 30 seconds for 10 seconds, which is incredibly often. Think of this as a passive self Rallying Cry, only it doesn't have a 3 min cd, and is even 5% more effective!
Stone Bulwark Totem
Stone Bulwark Totem gives a great defensive absorbrtion shield. The downside to it is that it can be dispelled. However during a burst phase from the enemy team (that's when you should be using this totem), it is very unlikely that you'll lose this absorbtion shield to a dispel. Stone Bulwark works best with your own cooldowns/cds (dancing steel or trinket proc), because the more agility you have, the more spellpower you have, and spellpower increases the amount absorbed by the shield. Tip - you can place the totem before engaging in combat to avoid the first absorbption shield being affected by Battle Fatigue.
Coupled with Call of the Elements, a double Stone Bulwark shield can absorb more than enough damage to keep you alive. You have to bear in mind that you cannot use this totem while silenced or stunned, or while under any other form of cc for that matter. This means you'll have to time your totem well enough so that it actually has a chance to keep you alive. - Stone Bulwark has been hotfixed and now is affected by Battle Fatigue properly so doesn't absorb as much as it used to. It is still a viable talent though!
Astral Shift
Astral Shift... Ugh. I don't even know why anyone would use this talent and I've never really seen it used in PvP (maybe in RBGs as a 'don't touch me' button, but nowhere else). While the damage reduction is great, the cooldown is still too long and it doesn't stack with Shamanistic Rage (caps at around 60%~) and it only lasts 6 measly seconds. It's easy for the enemy team to just wait out those few seconds until your biggest defensive is expires and then go for the kill. I'ts just not worth it.
Tier 2:
Frozen Power
Your Frost Shock now also roots the target in ice for 5 sec.
Earthgrab Totem
Summons an Earth Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 20 sec. The totem pulses every 2 sec, causing roots to ensnare the legs of all enemies within 10 yards for 5 sec, preventing movement. Enemies that have already been rooted once by the totem will instead have their movement speed reduced by 50%.
Replaces Earthbind Totem. 30 sec cooldown.
Windwalk Totem
Summons an Air Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 6 sec, granting raid members within 40 yards immunity to movement-impairing effects. 1 min cooldown.
Frozen Power
Frozen Power is usually used so that you can catch up to your target. You can also use this to peel for your teammates by rooting the enemy that is attacking your partner. This talent can also be used in smart ways such as catching an enemy healer in a bad position, rooting him in place so that he LoS's (Line of Sight) your kill target. Or if you are playing with a druid and have Symbiosis, you can root the enemy in place, and the Solar Beam them, leaving them potentially silenced for 5 seconds unless they have a means of escape. So as you can see, this can work as a strong cc aswell.
Earthgrab Totem
Earthgrab Totem is an okay choice in this tier. It's more suitable for Elemental and Restoration shamans. It can be useful when trying to kite someone, but most of the time you'll be trying to catch up to someone instead of running away, so it's not exactly the best idea to take a talent which does the opposite of what you want. A helpful tip if you decide to use this talent is that if someone gets rooted, you can replace the totem with Totemic Projection and root the same enemy again.
Windwalk Totem
What Windwalk Totem provides is just beautiful in my opinion. You already have a 1 min root breaker (Spirit Walk). With this talent, you have the potential to have 3!! Say goodbye to sitting in roots waiting for the next expansion to come out. Windwalk Totem is off the global cooldown, so you can use it without wasting a GCD. The totem benefits your party members too, which means you can also use it to peel for your teammates. Slow your enemy with Frost Shock/Earthbind totem, pop Windwalk Totem down, and voilla! - Make sure to communicate with your teammates so that they know when you are using this ability so that they can make the most of it.
This totem's cooldown lines up perfectly with other classes' offensive abilities, so you should think twice about using it just to break a root because it might save your life, for example:
You can get out of a Mage's Frozen Orb (1 min cd) preventing the Mage from getting a stack of Fingers of Frost.
You can use the totem to escape from a Death Knights' Remorseless Winter (1 min cd) so that it doesn't stack enough on you to stun you.
You can also drop the totem down when a Warrior activates Bladestorm (usually with Bloodbath because both are 1 min cd), and Spirit Walk away from the Warrior to avoid all of that damage.
Tier 3:
Call of the Elements
When activated, immediately finishes the cooldown on all totems with a base cooldown shorter than 3 minutes. 3 min cooldown.
Totemic Persistence
Summoning a second totem of the same element no longer causes the first totem to be destroyed.
Only one totem may benefit from this effect at a time. Does not affect Fire totems.
Totemic Projection
Relocates your active totems to the specified location. 10 sec cooldown.
Call of the Elements
Here's the list of totems that get reset using Call of the Elements:
Grounding Totem
Capacitor Totem
Earthbind/Earthgrab Totem
Tremor Totem
Stone Bulwark Totem
Windwalk Totem
Healing Stream Totem
The thing you have to have with Call of the Elements is totem awareness and good totem management. It would be a waste to use CotE just to reset Stone Bulwark while all of your other totems from the above list are off cooldown. If it will save you, then do use it by all means. Just do remember to make the most out of all those totems before you use this talent to reset them. This talent brings a lot of utility and defensives, but it is up to you to put it to good use, depending on how you choose to use it. I like this talent because you can use it on demand. If you see your partner get Scatter Shotted, but your Grounding Totem is on cd along with many of your other totems, you can always CotE and still get a chance to save your partner from the Freezing Trap.
Totemic Restoration
With Totemic Restoration gone (okay maybe it was a little OP), we have a new talent now called Totemic Persistance. In my opinion it's a joke of a talent and I don't know why anyone would use it in PvP. It lets you ground while windwalking, or tremor while earthbinding, or healing stream while healing tiding, but how often do you find yourself needing to do both at the same time? Most totems act on instance, they fill their purpose the moment you put them on the ground and that's about it. For example once Grounding Totem eats a spell, it's gone, so you don't really need to worry about setting down another air totem. Overall - bad talent!
Totemic Projection
The main use of Totemic Projection will be so that you can put your Capacitor Totem to good use. As shamans, we don't have as many cc's as other classes do. But with this talent, we can have enough to let us score kills much easier. Once your totem is down, you have to either countdown the timer yourself, or use an addon like myself such as TotemTimers. Just before the totem detonates (provided it hasn't been destroyed yet), you switch it's position to whoever you wish to stun. The ideal scenario would be to pop the totem down, root your target with Frost Shock, and then replace your totem next to them. There are other uses that Totemic Projection can be put to such as moving your totems out of harm if for example they are being destroyed or to re-root with Earthgrab.
