Shaman One-on-One PVP Technique

As a shaman, you have the ability to both cast offensive spells and melee, and you should divide your PVP tactics up appropriately, based on your target. Against casters and ranged classes, such as mages, priests, and hunters, you’ll want to try and close in, using your melee abilities to dish out damage and interrupt their spellcasting. You have quite a few instant-cast damage spells which can be seamlessly integrated into your battle strategy, so use those liberally. Totems are also useful here, with Earthbind being good for preventing them from running, while Tremor and Grounding Totems can be used to avoid damage and status effects from spells.

Against melee classes, though, such as warriors, rogues, and paladins, the opposite tactic should be used; stay away from their heavy melee damage capabilities and use your ranged attacks to take them down. Your best friends here are the Earthbind Totem and Frost Shock, which will limit your opponent’s speed and let you kite them while casting your nukes. If you do drop an Earthbind, try to kite around the edge of its radius of effect so that they can’t easily run in and knock it out. (Most enemies won’t go after your Totems, though, since they’ll know how easy they are to cast.) You can also use your Searing Totem to passively deal damage to them while kiting them.

Tips

Your Shocks are going to be your primary tools in PVP.
Frost is great against melee opponents, as it’ll allow you to kite them with your nukes.
Use Earth against casters to interrupt their spells and temporarily silence them.
Don’t forget the Magma Totem, though; its near-constant damage will prevent rogues from stealthing.

Group PVP

As in group PVE, your primary focus here is on healing. You’ll want to avoid damage as much as possible, so running into melee range isn’t advisable. You can, however, feel free to use your nukes against fragile enemies, such as mages and priests, as well as melee them if you happen to spot a good opportunity. Totems are just as useful in PVP as in PVE, so try to lay them down where they’ll have maximal impact on either your frontline troops or those of the other team. Earthbind (which, if you haven’t gotten clued in yet, is good in just about every situation) can screw up enemy positioning or prevent weakened melee participants from retreating.

Tips

You can use your Purge spell to eliminate the popular priest spell Power Word: Shield from melee participants, allowing your melee teammates to kill them off much more quickly.

Equipment

Shaman equipment can usually be emphasized into one of three areas, depending on your playing style and talent allocation.

Casting Specialization: Magic-heavy shamans will want to focus on getting large bonuses to Intellect and Spirit, as well as finding items that increase their healing or offensive magical spells.
Melee Specialization: Strength, Stamina, Agility, and pure armor become more important for shamans who focus on using their weapons.
The Balanced Approach: If you want to achieve maximum flexibility, then, well, you’ll have to balance out your stat bonuses between a number of stats. This is kind of liberating, in that any piece of equipment will be useful, but can also be difficult to manage.

Luckily, you’re not locked into one of these roles; feel free to switch out your equipment for different stat emphases if you find that your approach isn’t working for you.

For weapons, most shamans go for a shield and a one-handed weapon to increase their defense. If you intend to go for a melee build, though, then you do have the option of using a two-handed mace or axe for extra damage.