Very Demanding Followers...

I remember a much simpler time, not that long ago, when I had followers at my beck and call.  I would send them out on dangerous missions and they would bring me back some loot or gold... lots and lots of gold!
I've left those followers behind now, even Garona the legendary follower, to rest after their exertions in Draenor... or maybe they are stuck in a different timeline or something. Who knows?!
Fear not though, I quickly started gathering more followers to my cause back on Azeroth! 
Despite my notable achievements on multiple worlds, I could only muster a grand total of 8 followers so they will have to work extremely hard to match their Draenor counterparts.

Off you go guys, bring me some loot!
Oh, you've brought me an egg!  Where do I equip it?
What... you want me to go and raid with it??
Ok, I suppose I am raiding anyway so just this once...

But it didn't end there!

Dungeon after dungeon, raid after raid, I am being sent out to gather my own loot!
Every time I get back, they have another vicious beast for me to kill.
I am an adventurer though, killing vicious beasts is my speciality!  Well... killing vicious beasts and collecting squirrels, apparently.

So the cycle continued... I sent my followers out, they came back and sent me out...

Until... they decided to up the ante.  They sent me out to do PvP!!!

Four days that quest sat in my quest log but I couldn't ignore it forever so, with more than a little trepidation, I queued for a random battleground.

My PvP experience consists mainly of a brief foray into 2v2 with my friend playing his Fury Warrior towards the end of MoP.  We were routinely slaughtered, usually whilst stunned, and finished with a rating... well, I can't remember exactly what it was so let's just call it a low rating.

My biggest problem was dealing with melee, it felt like I was constantly stunned or interrupted and barely got a cast off before I died.
It wasn't much fun to be honest, I like to actually play my shaman.

So this time round I devised a fiendishly cunning plan for dealing with melee... I was going to stay away from them!

Not really possible in 2v2 arena but in a battleground I can just hide at the back!

And it worked!  Sometimes.
PvP as an Elemental Shaman is great fun but it is definitely not easy!

It works as a strange game of cat and mouse...
I would stay at max distance and just tickle them with a Flame Shock and a couple of Lightning Bolts. 
If that didn't attract too much attention, I would start to unload the Lava Bursts.
This would hopefully build up enough Maelstrom for when their attention inevitably turned my way.

At that point... I would run away!

Blizzard has blessed us with some great tools for running away.
Icefury is fantastic, hugely buffing Frost Shock, giving us the ability to simultaneously run away, do some decent damage and slow the enemy!
Stormkeeper gives us 3 more instant cast spells which actually hit for a decent amount too.
The crowning glory though, the spell that has actually led to me immensely enjoying my latest foray into PvP, is Gust of Wind.
For those of you poor, non-shaman types out there, this is basically a forwards version of a Hunter's Disengage.


It might not seem like much, Mages and Druids have better, Disengage is arguably better itself, but it is the movement spell we have been crying out for... and it is so much fun to use!


I have been using it everywhere all expansion long but, in a PvP context, it gives us the ability to run away.  I don't always make it, I've been stunned in mid-air more than once, but I feel like there is at least the possibility of escape when those pesky melee catch up with me.


Don't expect any guides popping up in this neck of the woods any time soon but I'll be sure to let you know how I get on next time my followers send Brave Sir Robin here out to PvP again.