Arena: 6/44/11 Warlock and Resto Shaman

[Derryl]

A friend that I like to do 2v2 arenas somewhat casually with used to play a Warlock as his main. Needless to say, as a 2-warlock team, we never got much higher than 1650-1700ish, especially in the later seasons of the arena.

So now, he has rolled a Shaman, and we think we'll have a much better chance of surviving in the arenas with this setup instead of a 2-warlock team.

My guild is currently raiding T5 content, so I'm planning on going Felguard raiding spec soon, as soon as I get the right drops.

/breathe

So my question is, what do you all think of a Felgauard/Resto Shaman team? My thought was that we could do pretty well since I'd have pretty decent survivability, and wouldn't suffer too much from not having the Felhunter since the shaman has Earthshock. If he got good at using focus macros for it and watching healer castbars, we could make it work pretty well. Between that and purge, anyway... Granted, that's a lot for an arena healer to be worrying about, I guess.

Anyway, I wanted to see what ya'll though about it, and perhaps see if anybody else has tried this combo.

Be brutal, I want to see if there's anything I missed while brainstorming this team =)

[doogless]

SL/SL works better for basically every comp. The huge advantage of a Felhunter is that you can dispel CCs like Polymorph or Fear off you/your partner if your Shaman can't shock/ground them. Additionally, SL/SL will put out more damage than Felguard if you're being focused, and you will be a focused a lot of the time.

[miyouki]

shamans are bad when it comes to better teams in arena,
sorry to say.
you'd do better as SL/SL IMO.

[Theleb]

Beleive me, as a Resto Shaman in arena they have enough to worry about - being able to ES every single cast is secondary to juggling totems/heals/purge/shields and not being dead because he will be focussed...Shaman are notoriously easy to deal with with some set-ups and you'll almost certainly need the Felhunter out to provide some modicum of control vis a vis Spell Locks and Devour Magic.

Once he trinkets he's very vulnerable to Fear (Don't count on Tremor totem) Poly/Hammer of Wrath/Counterspell and will need you to devour debuffs as well as everything else.

Remember, asisde from some limited ability with snares (Earthbind, Frostshock) Shaman have no CC so you will need to be using fear/HoT/DC in rotations to ensure you're not hitting DR on one target.

*** Information added 1 Minutes and 14 Seconds later... ***

Originally Posted by miyouki

shamans are bad when it comes to better teams in arena,
sorry to say.
you'd do better as SL/SL IMO.

They're not "bad" but they're in the category of "Requires some ability and gear to make viable" compared to Resto Druid and Disc Priests who really can produce outstanding results with far less demands on a player...

[Derryl]

Well this is extremely disappointing so far =P

[Gritz]

Shaman are very offensive healers, with purge and ES. Unfortunately, they are also very easy to lock down since they lack the instant cast heals the Druids and Priests have. I think you would have the best chance if you focus on burning down the DPS while you rotate fear/spell lock/ES/intercept on the opposing healer. Use Shadowburn every cooldown, DoTs, searing pain, and have make sure your Shaman is Purging liberally, keeping down Earthbind (vs melee), poison cleansing (vs rogues), grounding totem (vs casters), tremor totem (vs locks/priests).

Check out this link for the AJ guide to lock/shaman: Shaman/Warlock Strategy - Arena Junkies

[Theleb]

Gritz hit the nail on the head - sadly, even with Mana Tide/Spring Shaman go OOM quite quickly so being adept at Power Drinking is a handy ability (Its something I definately have to learn!).