This is interesting. I'm soon to spec restoration for 3v3, and cant decided on 8/9/44, 8/7/46 or the traditional 8/0/53.
Instant ghost wolf should be very handy to help us get away. I guess the question is "Is elemental warding worth it".
Still I've got lots of time to mull it over.

I'm in pretty much the same situation with my Shaman/Rogue 2v2 (currently 1750). Finding ourselves very vulnerable to CC with little CC of our own. Switching to Shadow Step from Muti seemed to help a lot with countering enemy kiting, along with forcing myself play more offensively to force enemy onto the defensive.

1850 is definately possible (and players im sure have gone much higher with it) but we really have to use everything weve got to compete. As do the other classes of course but it just feels like Shaman do much more to "use everything" when you are nuking, healing, counterspelling, LOS'ing enemy CC, purging and keeping tabs on totems. Even when you do go all out you still have to pretty much accept that if skill is even the other team will probably have an advantage in most scenarios.

From experiance i do find we have a slight advantage vs healer/lock combos which are more prevalent at the higher ratings and i've heard Sh/Rog teams tend to do better after breaking the 1850 barrier because of this but i cant attest to that personally :P.

My shammy rogue team is in exactly the same situation. We've been bouncing from 1680-1800 for the past month (much to our frustration). For every day we run into teams we can beat, we'll have a day full of Druid/warrior or pally/warrior which just destroy us. The only upside is the 20+ point games against lock/healer.

yeah, lock/healer is no problem for us pretty much if not for our own mistakes. also in my battlegroup atm i tend to stumble on mage/rogue, war/druid, war/pala a bit too often. and cc is a big pain in 1 place, getting tired of it rly. also mana burn imo is a bit op.
and as for the patch notes, is it US patch notes?, can't find them on EU page, maybe just not yet updated though, last update 19 feb. can't find anything about ghost wolf, trmor totem, etc. and ofc one of the most interesting things - resilence effecting all sort of mana draining.
Glad atleast to know that not only me has troubles with the set up

Not to derail the thread too much, but i have a couple questions...
Do you guys think with the MSD is still worth taking with the change its recieving? I dont know if this was brought up, i read like up to page 9.

Also, say your totems keep getting knocked out and you want to redrop them, i run with a warrior doing 2's, do i keep redropping max rank windfury? Or do i drop rank 1? Same for Grounding Totem / Windfury Totem twisting..

Also, what do you guys think about a Ret Pally / Ms Warrior / Resto Shaman combo? Or Frost Mage | Felguard Lock | 20/0/41 Rogue | Shadow Priest | Resto Shaman combo?

And finally, is it best to use max ranks on your shocks? Because the extra damage is nice, but its also mana inefficient. I use max rank frostshock, rank1 earthshock atm.

Thanks.

Shock ranks really vary with playstyle. Personally I like to be shocking something pretty much every time my cooldown is up, so I use rank 1 shocks but keep max-rank ones keybound. Sometimes you do want to be doing damage.

Right now you should grab the new Season 3 honor gear which is called "Vindicator's Ringmail [Insert Specific Slot]." There are three(3) armor pieces to obtain, such as:

• [Vindicator's Ringmail Bracers]
• [Vindicator's Ringmail Girdle]
• [Vindicator's Ringmail Sabatons]

You should also pick up the healer's neck as well as the combination of rings, too:

• [Vindicator's Pendant of Salvation]
• [Vindicator's Band of Salvation]
• [Veteran's Band of Salvation] (The "Veteran's" title indicates it's from Season 2.)

As for trinkets, I would recommend purchasing:

• [Medallion of the Alliance] (This is an essential item considering it removes any CC/ability that makes you lose control of your character every 2 minutes. Always have this on.)
  
• [Battlemaster's Perseverance]

This should be your shopping list for now. Hopefully, this helped you.

I have guildmates that hit 2k with Resto Shaman/Rogue, but I'm not sure exactly what the spec of the Rogue was. Shs hemo I think.

While I'm not a shaman, I do run with a Gladiator shaman in my 2v2, he uses rank 1 windfury to conserve mana.
Ret/war/resto is very weak vs. coordinated caster dps teams, awesome vs. double melee/druid teams, and average against other teams. Frostmage/felguardlock/resto is extremely strong, I currently play with two players who got gladiator with that comp in season 2, and have seen it in action when I played pal/rog/war. With good communication it's basically a strong 2.5dps team with absolutely colossal burst damage potential, and significant outlast potential.

Before I go, I had a quick question for any shamans with experience at the 2100+bracket in 2s running outlast comps (warlock or warrior, pref. warrior however): Assuming you have access to all possible gem cuts, and unlimited cash, what's the best way to gem for a 2s outlast setup? Consider that the 1900-2k range on bloodlust is flush with two-dps teams, so that must be taken into consideration. Also consider full season 3 (everything, totem, shield, shoulders etc.). Currently my partner is gemmed with all +15stam(and one 18stam) but for two +10 resil gems, we generally have no trouble outlasting druid/warrior, etc. but I'm wondering if I supply gems for him to re-gem, whether he should bother, and if so, with what gems? Thanks in advance.

After the failure of my latest 5s I've decided to give restoration PvP a try. Only problem being I'm currently sitting on a full set of elemental gear and have no idea where to start the conversion.

I'm wearing
S1 Elemental Helm/Gloves/Shoulders
S3 Elemental Chest/Legs
S1 Spell Damage Mace
PvE Shield.
Full Elemental Vindicators.

I have a bit of honor/arena points saved but my resources currently feel very limited. Would I be harming myself unduly by trying to keep the vindicators/s3 I currently own and try converting the rest to Ringmail gear? How much +healing should I be shooting for before I stop being useless in 2s/3s?

among a bunch of relatively useless cloak enchants (for the Resto Shaman in Arena), I am considering these three: +120 armor; +15 shadow resistance; or +20 spell penetration. Which should i be picking?

There is actually a lot of +spell critical rating on the Vindicator's Ringmail set, I believe the resilience ratings on both Ringmail and Mail sets are identical. Therefore, I don't think you'll be hurting yourself too much by keeping your Vindicator's Mail set at the moment. I'd probably try and obtain some Season 3 Vengeful gear, and get the Vindicator's Ringmail gear as you go. There's not much you can do, but eventually replace all your pieces. Obviously, you'll be lacking the extra +healing. I have about over 1800 +healing in full Vengeful gear with mostly socketed [Dazzling Talasite] and [Royal Nightseye] in my gear.

Source: MMO Champion

First off: most of this stuff is for buffing enhancment in arenas. However, the first point is much more interesting for us as healers than for enchancers and propably especially interestung for elementar shamans in PVE (providing a significant DPS boost).

Especially in arenas I often struggled to plant totems when I needed them, becuase between all the healing, purging and shocking there seldom was time to invest a gcd. Reducing gcd on placing totems will help this alot.

Also very intersting in my eyes is point 2. As a restoration shaman while duelling I mostly use flametongue as a weapon enchant. While noone ist interested in how a class buff works out in duels, this will make for some intersting situations in arenas. Especially when combining a restoration shaman with some dps without healing reducing effects (such as warlock) I can see this buff shine.

Last, but not least I ask myself if the buffed Toughness talent together with Improved Ghostwolf will be worth investing 20 points in the enhancement tree. I doubt it though. 9 Points (invested in Shiled or Mana and Imp. Grounding Totem and Imp Ghostwolf) might be worth it, however, you'd skip far too important talents in the resto tree too get to Toughness.

Post PTR I could see something like this beeing worth it if you play 2v2, 3v3 without alot of buffs (eg Warrior / Shaman or Warrior / Shaman / Paladin) or something like this if you go 5v5 or 3v3 with alot of buffs.

Edit: Changed Armory Links to englisch Armory Version

I dont know, i currenly play 8/7/46 in arena. Going to a 0/20/41 build wouldnt be too painfull considering the gains. For me its a choice between Focused Mind (or natures guidance) + Elemental Warding vs 50% less snare time +10% AC/5% dodge.

I'd say the melee dmg mitigation talents compare pretty close to the caster dmg mitigation. So its down to wether i prefer to give up Focused mind, Natures Guidance or Toughness. Given Hamstring DR and insta cast GW next patch i'm inclined to drop one of the resto options.

Giving up Focused Mind doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Thanks to all the interrupt and silence effects in the game (SPriests, Felhunters, Rogues, Warriors/Pummel, Hunters, Mages and so on) I feel this talent is almost a must.
Not to forget Healing Grace in 2.4. Because it will add a 30% dispell resistance chance. I wish Blizzard would clean up our talent trees. Honestly, is there any other healing class that has to spend as much talent points into one tree as us in order to become effective as a healer? I don't think so.

I'm not completely sold that we *have* to spend those points to be effective. Rather, I'd argue that they represent viable choices for improving our healing which are not, by default, mandatory. I won't argue that Nature's Guidance is frivolous or that the dispel protection of Healing Grace is unappealing, but I will argue that neither is crucial to our success as healers in PvP. There are other classes that would love to have more viability in their poorer talents.

Furthermore, I would argue that the real culprit for the complaint about bloated talents is that our base capabilities have been arguably underwhelming heretofore, especially in 2v2 arena. The GCD change for totems and the healing debuff for flametongue seem to address those issues rather elegantly given that they are applicable for all shaman specs. Elemental might not get as much out of the flametongue change, but I think that's more because their abilities are better suited to 5v5 than 2v2, where flametongue seems more likely to shine.

I see the flametongue change as providing a unique new boost to resto in 2v2, especially when paired up with a DPS caster. No other healer has a mortal strike effect in their toolset, and even with its limitations I see a fair amount of potential.

I'm most likely changing to Enhancement in PvP after this patch, but I was looking at the talent trees.

I came up with Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Note:

• You lose Focused Mind. Obviously, that's huge.
• Everyone but a Draenei will have a hard time capping hit on Earth Shock.
• You lose 2 dispel protection buffs.
• No Lightning Mastery or Totemic Focus.

I'm interested to see if it's worth it.

There is no way Mana Tide is better than Focused Mind. Maybe in 2s, but you get more points for spell hit and trash buffs too. I'd also get Shamanistic Focus over Thundering Strikes, or even just another point of dodge.

You need to dump one point in either Shield Spec, Improved Lightning Shield or Thundering Strikes to get further down.

Mmm, that always gets me. But maybe it's worth blocking 1% more gouges?

Blocking pummel or hamstring does make me grin, even if it only happens once every few matches.

Yeah, for Resto Shamans I highly recommend Focused Mind. I wouldn't drop that talent. There are many times where I've had to eat a spell lock/counterspell/etc. because some things are going on, and I don't always fake my heals on point.