DKs do all that while they deliver stupid DPS.

I suppose you could use that build in 5s as a utility, but there are other classes who will do it better and deliver superior dps. I'd recommend you embrace the burst, cause that's what elementals do well (aside from getting locked the fuck down). Play with comps and midsets designed to leverage your burst.

I'd love to go back to playing arena as elemental, but I think it's still a pipedream. Were I to try it in 3.1 (and I may), a frost mage and disc priest would be pretty good partners in 3s. The mage and shaman together will have reasonable success holding people in place to burst them. The disc priest adds instant cast CC, great healer burst, etc.

The problem with that combo is: What frost mage and disc priest combo want an elemental shaman when they could just get a rogue and run pmr? Sap, blind, stun lock down, and wound poison are all things the elemental shaman can't bring to the table. While PMR can grind down another team, the elemental shaman version needs to burst them successfully - the grind won't work without wound poison and solid lock down.

I did ok in 2v2 on the PTR like I said earlier. I'm really hoping I can try to run an elemental shaman / Something comp. I've gotta work through the various comps But I'm thinking eleShaman/Hpally or Discpriest/Eleshaman. Though resto druid would give me lots of cyclones and more then enough time to nuke down one of the 2.

I really want to try it out, but I also know its going to be hit or miss and I'll never get as high as I would as resto, since next patch I think we may be the best healers as far as 2v2 goes. Paladins mite be better but I'm not sure yet

This is exactly the issue I see as well. I do honestly think that elemental shaman will be a hell of a lot more viable this season than last. I don't honestly see them being a part of any of the top 10 teams come the next arena tournament. There will be a slightly better option for any team we're on.

I can't think of any healer/elemental combos that will be worth a shit in pvp. Elemental might do something in double dps, but that will be iffy and likely inferior to any similar comp with a rogue or feral druid instead.

I'm not sure how an elemental and a holy paladin could be viable against any real competition.

I kept it pretty simple with my live PVP spec (link included for armory being down). All the standards plus improved range on EB. It really does make all the difference. Escape mechanisms now for us are plentiful (EB, fire nova, instant ghost wolf, hex), survivability really isn't bad (astral shift/elemental warding/glyph of stone claw [which I don't have yet]).

While I doubt -- simply based on history alone -- we'll be much of anything in arena beyond what we were pre-3.1, battlegrounds are definitely a lot better. I felt like a more well-rounded caster.

edit: After another day of battleground PVP I'm really impressed. Tstorm from stun and SE&F earthbind was exactly what the doctor ordered for us, in my opinion. Again, take it for what it's worth with regard to arena play, but I feel much more well rounded with a couple of great escape mechanisms.

However, one complaint is that Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem seems extremely difficult to find, if it's even dropped on my server yet. Using Glyph of Thunder in the meantime.

With the advent of 3.1 and a new arsenal of PvP abilities at our disposal, I think it is no surprise that many of us are now monitoring PvP specs with greater interest.

Here is the spec I arrived at after careful contemplation in comparisons of talents for MY own personal playstyle:Mexullus' PvP Spec

Generally, I prioritize the following: burst damage & roots/stuns > escape/damage mitigation talents > sustained damage talents > mana conservation talents. I will describe here in detail my reasons in selecting these talents:

Elemental (arranged into tiers)
1. Concussion always before Convection, always. Damage >> mana conservation.

2. Call of Flame and Elemental Warding in the next tier, needless to say Elemental Devastation is worthless.

3. Elemental Focus and Elemental Fury, I could see some with a Shock-oriented playstyle taking Reverberation, but I myself didn't see how 5 talent points to reduce cooldowns on shocks outweigh the other talents in this or following tiers.

4. Improved Fire Nova Totem and Eye of the Storm. The stun and additional burst potential from fire nova totem is too good to pass up. Spell pushback can severely limit elemental shaman output so it is wise to reduce it as much as possible.

5. Elemental Reach and Call of Thunder. The greater the area of reach between you and your opponent, the more damage you will be able to do in most movement scenarios, period. Call of Thunder is an obvious must. Again no need for Unrelenting Storm, mana conservation is not a priority.

6. Lightning Mastery with 1/3 Elemental Precision. Lightning Mastery is another no-brainer, must-have. 1 point into Elemental Precision because we need to get to the next tier, the 1% is nice and it beats 1 point into any other available talents.

7. Elemental Mastery and Storm, Earth and Fire. Obvious no-brainers. The 100% root from earthbind is a must-have.

8. Booming Echoes, Elemental Oath, and Lightning Overload. As mentioned earlier, Booming Echoes is a solid PvE and PvP talent. It gets my vote for PvP because, as said earlier, if we get locked out of our Nature spell tree, it is advantageous to have harder-hitting and more frequent flame/frost shocks. Elemental Oath is a damage increase of 10% with Clearcasting with 5% crit on top of that, worth taking. Lightning Overload is arguable, however, I reason that if 20% of the time when you cast either LB or CL, you get a 50% dmg increase on that spell, that's enough burst to really throw someone off and could be the difference in a win-loss scenario. The potential for burst damage is a big positive for me.

9. Astral Shift, Totem of Wrath, Lava Flows. This is the best damage mitigation talent that shamans have in PvP. It is essentially 30% less damage from rogues. Totem of Wrath is debatable, because Fire Nova totem takes precedence and even Searing or Magma totems when kiting, but I like to have it in my arsenal for use in certain situations. Lava Flows gets a big applause for being the talent where enemies now must question dispelling it. Whether they do or don't, it's still a win-win situation for shamans.

10. Shamanism. Enough said.

11. Thunderstorm. Perhaps the best spell in the Elemental Shaman repertoire with tremendous utility and now useable while stunned.

Enhancement
1. Earth's Grasp and 3/5 Ancestral Knowledge. Earth's Grasp is the new must-have. The roots can take a rogue out of stealth, the range is magnificent, and boosting Stoneclaw totem now that the glyph is available mandates taking this talent. Ancestral knowledge, because again mana is not a priority for me in PvP.

2. Thundering Strikes and Improved Ghost Wolf. I've seen many builds that don't max thundering strikes and I read above that crit is not what you want to stack in PvP. While resilience has considerably nerfed the impact of critical strikes, I still see this talent as an addition to burst potential and I think it warrants taking over some of the other talents in this tree. Improved Ghost Wolf is my hit and run move. It gives me a huge advantage to increasing or decreasing the gap between me and other players.

3. Elemental Weapons. It adds more damage, better than other talents in this tree.

4. 1/5 Toughness. My only regret is that I didn't have more points to put into this talent, which would warrant me pulling points out of deep elemental to get.

Thundering Strikes? Really? No. Waste of 5 points. Well 6 really b/c you have 1 pt in toughness.

I would think the options/preferences would vary by comp or playstyle.

[Glyph of Thunder]
[Item not found!]
[Glyph of Hex]
[Glyph of Elemental Mastery]
[Glyph of Totem of Wrath]

They all seem like they would be somewhat useful/appropriate to some, but I can see where others might skip one or the other based on their play style.

Stoneclaw / Thunder / Flame shock for me. On the ptr, those are what I found the best combination. There are too many times where you get controlled after casting a flame shock and not being able to cast a lava burst 'til the tail end of flame shock. Without the glyph, you'd have to cast it again.

Why would you not put your leftover points in thundering strikes? What's better than that?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?sham...0&version=9767

That's the build i went with for about 6 hours of pvping yesterday, and I absolutely loved it.

Hmmm, Reverberation?

Totally agree and my dual spec is nearly identical to yours but I screwed up and put a point in Unrelenting Storm rather than Elemental Precision like a moron but hey it can be fixed. Now I have seen a definite bonus to having astral shift and so i fought to keep it by losing some points in LO and going 4/5 toughness. Survivability is awesome in this spec, I actually can kite and not worry about dying instantly and if someone actually heals me in a BG then someone is going to get butt hurt really fast.

I am having trouble with casters but i've only done very very limited testing but the good news it really takes a lot for them to take me out and they end up being much much closer fights than before. Going against melee is just great, I used to hate DKs with their counter like everything i've got but that is definately a thing of the past. FS > Chains. I can't wait to get Stoneclaw and Thunder glyphs, Shaman will be a force to be reckoned with.