I was messing around with [Althor's Abacus] and was using it in arena for lack of a better trinket. The intresting thing is that when i cast ghost wolf i get a 33% chance to proc the item everytime i regen health as a wolf (even when not using [Glyph of Ghost Wolf]).

I found this makes the trinket potentially very handy in pvp as usually shifting to GW is due to being put under pressure. Though perhaps it may be more useful for the ele spec shamans where quick large heals are harder to come by.

It's got 30% proc chance and 45 seconds internal cooldown. Due to PvP being less spammy than PvE it should be pretty good as the internal cooldown is ticking away even when crowd controlled or running and it will proc quite soon each time. Probably worse than Solace still, but if you haven't gotten your hand on one of those this is a good choice.

I run 2v2 with an Unholy DK (being a Resto Shaman myself) and we've just started out in Season 8. Now a question to the high end Resto Shamans. Is gearing towards mp5 or crit more beneficial? More crit = more Ancestral Fortitude and more Improved Water Shield procs.More mp5 = more LHW spam. I don't want to spent arena points on Relentless gear, only to find I should have bought mp5 over crit or vice versa. At the moment i'm thinking of piling on more crit than mp5, but then will the story change in 3v3? (As I have very little experience in 3v3, I do not know which of the two stats mentioned are more beneficial).

I don't believe there is a single answer to that question. Even with water shield proccs mp5 will provide more mana. However, as long as you don't die from running out of mana, crit will provide a higher healing output and damage reduction through Ancestral Fortitude while still providing some mana benefit. Personally I went with the crit gear since against double dps teams and in 3on3 the games will often be over quite quickly before mana becomes an issue, plus this allows you to easily swap to an elemental specc if you should want that.

For the set pieces, You want to be using dual 2-set bonuses so three pieces from one set and two from the other.

I've been seeing a lot of MP5 stacking in the midrange (1000-1800 MMR). I run a feral/disc comp and Shammy/DK is our toughest match-up right now. We haven't been able to overcome the mana pool, even with mana burning. Shammys with high mana regen actually make my cyclone work against me when I'm using it to buy time for maims when bursting the Shaman down after my priest partner has mana burned him, he usually comes out of the cyclone with enough mana to get a few heals off (maim and cyclone only stop so many of your near instant casts heh) and fend off my burst until my next berserk timer.

I play my resto shaman in 3v3 currently and we've recently hit 2105 in the Nightfall group.

Mage/warlock is the team I'm running with, and for this team or any team that was a considerable amount of peels (Mage/warlock arguably being the best what with fears, shadowfury, poly, deepfreeze, frost nova etc.) it would most likely be best if you stacked yourself to the resilience soft cap (1414.5).

I'm still in 3 pieces furious so, my gear is certainly into question, but I've managed to hit 1369 resilience with the 2 set bonuses as well as 1 wrathful piece, relentless with full wrathful off pieces. However, once I'm geared in full Wrathful I have managed to get around a 150 something increase on resilience, allowing the soft cap as well as enabling you to roll into 4/5 resto and 1/5 crit, getting the 4 set bonus with 11.5 cd on grounding totem and a bit of extra spell power. Assuming, of course, full wrathful and 2200 spellpower weapon.

I gem mostly for resilience and spell penetration to hit me to 110 at least and honestly I've mostly been using Alesya as a guideline for stats and talent points etc.

From what I know, if there's one thing that will save you, it's grounding totem and stoneclaw. Almost try keeping that stuff on cooldown if you're being focused. Essentially adding 4k non-dispelable shield to you each time and a missed spell. It's just wonderful for your survival.

Windshear and grounding totem alone can pretty much lock down an enemy caster almost 60% of the time. Use your grounding for those really messy spells like Chaosbolt, frostbolt shatter and other such pain. Just a note, if there's an arcane mage, DON'T use it on arcane missiles. It will only absorb 1 or 2 bolts and the rest hit their target.

However, this being said, don't let anyone die either. Focus or mouseovers work really well in arena, so use them to your advantage.

It's early in the season and it really looks like shamans are being one of the most powerful healers this time around, which is a nice step up from previous seasons.

As MatsT stated your question doesn't really have a right/wrong answer, you will need to get a feel for your battlegroup and your standing in group before you should worry about mp5 over crit or vice versa.

Just try and play as much as you can with your comp, try and nail your gameplay flaws before worrying about your gear; if you're inexperienced in the 3v3 bracket you'll be running into trouble getting counter-comp'd before the finer linings of your gear starts to become an issue. Essentially, you'll need to break 2k first, then let your preference decide your gear choice.

Resto shamans running speallcleaves, and at least having a solace - that could be viable. Then once again, you have to check how many of your games are decided before Bloodlust runs out. In my experience, majority of high rated Resto shamans hang with mp5 pieces.
Anyway - it's a matter of preference. Faster purges could be gamebreaking. But if the game drags, you will be in trouble.

From what i experienced in the 2v2, 3v3 arena matches played, i can say that in order to be prepared for any type of team you encounter (be it burst, outlasting or a mix), idealy, you'd need a balance between crit, mp5 and haste. In that way, no team would be able to overwhelm you and every team you encounter will pose a relative challenge. Balance makes you flexible in order to adapt to the opposit's team playstile.
We're talking here about hypothetical situations in which teams are equaly geared.
I know that we all like stacking our favourite stat alot but ultimately, i believe balance between stats is the winner.

After not seriously pvp'ing on my shaman for about a year, I had a question regarding a focus macro for wind shear that I haven't been able to find a clear answer for. Any insight or suggestions for a better means of what I could do for the macro would be much appreciated . It used to, wind shear your current target if your focus was dead, i think.

/clearfocus [noexists]
/cast [target=focus,harm,exists] Wind Shear
/cast Wind Shear

The comp of Shaman/Death Knight itself is not weak; on the contrary, it's actually a pretty well designed twos team. Together with purges and massive casting interrupts, the team can be a hassle for any team who runs with a Discipline Priest, Frost Mage or the like that rely on things like shields (which can be purged) or hard casts to get off any reasonable damage.

Druid/X comps are realistically a counter, however: while you can purge to your delight, your death knight (unless wearing some serious raid gear like Shadowmourne or other 277 weapons) isn't going to be doing enough pressure to make the druid really heal. Combined with the fact that the druid can't be hexed, all your crowd control is basically useless and you're left with trying to damage something that refuses to die with druid HoTs (and purging is out of the question if the druid can cyclone you at any time). You really need to hardswap, and hardswap often to different targets to force HoTs on both with aggressive purges from yourself. Somehow force the druid in the open and pray you can get the innervate off, otherwise it's another five minutes of the same thing until you can eventually get it off and run the druid out of mana.

Priest/Warlock is something that you should win. Power Word: Shield is basically the only defense that the priest has, and with tremor, antimagic shell, lichborne and the like the warlock will have an exceedingly hard time peeling the Death Knight from his priest. With Chains of Ice on the shadowfiend, he will go out of mana and have to be extremely wary. If his shield is purged, he's left to hard casts (unless he renews, which also should be immediately purged). You as a shaman have superior regain (if you're geared correctly) and can outlast them indefinitely until the priest goes OOM or your Death Knight can kill the priest in a Mind Freeze > Strangulate combo. Remember, this combo can't remove Hex so it's a nice, long duration crowd control if they trinket it at all.

As your Death Knights gear improves, it should get better, but their damage isn't exactly warrior like and games will always be long.