RESTO PVP questions!!!Follow

Personally, I feel that the 8/x/x spec is not worth it. You basically spend 8 talent points for 6% more hp. Those 8 talent points can be better spent on other things.

I am a fan of the 0/18/53 spec. Really, any variation of the standard 0/1x/5y spec will work, as long as you have the basic required talents. There is some leeway in different variants of the PvP resto spec, but the differences are so minute (except toughness) that it really doesn't matter too much.

The main variant is toughness, but ever since its conception back in Burning Crusade, I just don't think it's worth a 5 point investment for what it brings. The biggest thing that it helps with is reducing chains of ice's initial slow to 70%. Other than that, warriors and rogues will still have very little trouble staying on you. The 10% stamina helps if you're undergeared but is otherwise too inefficient of an investment.

My Spec

Gear
Shaman
Crit or mp5?

Because your partner is a DK, you will have many, many opportunities to drink due to chains of ice. This means that you should go for the crit gear ("of dominance"). I have not regretted going crit from the start. With that being said, crit will also obviously boost your healing throughput as well as proc ancestral healing more often. If you're worried about ancestral awakening making you sit up from heal-drinking, don't. It only happens if you crit heal yourself right before sitting down. It will not make you stand if you crit heal your partner. With that being said, always go into arena with a LOT of water in your bags (60-100 minimum)
There have been hints that mp5 gear may receive a buff in an upcoming patch, so investing in a few mp5 pieces may not be a bad idea. However, I will still be sporting mostly crit, unless the buff is very good. This comp mainly relies on high burst to kill an opponent, not outlasting (some comps require outlasting though). You want to spend as little time healing as possible and instead use that time assisting your partner or dropping totems. The only way to do that is to get a lot of crit heals so you spend more globals doing other things.

What about hit?

Before you start stacking too much crit, you need to make sure you have at LEAST 4% spell hit (105 rating for non-draenei, ~79 rating for draenei). This allows you to hit the soft PvP cap, which means under most circumstances, none of your offensive abilities will miss. This is very vital for several reasons. First of all, since Shamans have Hex, it is imperative that this ability does not miss because of its 45 second cooldown (war stomp is also affected if you're a tauren like me!). I remember one specific game where we lost because both my hex and my war stomp missed the same rogue, and I have learned my lesson since. Second of all, you do not want to miss your damage spells when you burst an opponent down for a kill attempt! Assisted burst from the shaman is very critical, and is one of the strong points of this composition.

You may have noticed from my armory that I have opted for 6% spell hit. I have an extra 2% spell hit to negate night elf, tauren, and blood elf racials. It's a good investment if you really hate seeing "miss" on hexes and shocks. I absolutely refuse to play with less than 6% hit. Note, however, that -hit% talents cannot be negated by stacking more hit. 6% is the absolute max you should use.

So what do you wear?

I plan to wear 4 piece mail (crit) set gear and 1 piece ringmail (mp5) set gear. I wear both pvp rings, the spell hit pvp necklace and cloak, and every other piece has crit. I gem mostly for resilience and spell power, but I make sure to make up the hit deficit from gear with hit gems. However, gemming for stamina is always a good idea if your health is not up to par.
Enchants
As for enchants, I opted for the spell power/resilience head and shoulder from Wintergrasp. All other enchants are fairly standard spell power enchants and all of the enchants will of course vary depending on your professions.

The best in slot for weapon is obviously Val'Anyr. Second best would be Constellus or Furious Mageblade or Salvation (Aesuga and Guiding Star are OK too). For shields, you want to either use Wisdom's Hold, PvP shield, or maybe Ice Layered Barrier (Voice of Reason is good too). The PvP totem is also a must.
There are a lot of options as to what trinket combinations you can use. Most people will probably opt for a combination of Medallion of the Horde/Alliance with a Battlemaster's trinket or a PvE trinket. I use Living Ice Crystals from Malygos 25 and probably will continue to use it until Icecrown. Other great PvE trinkets include Pandora's Plea, Soul of the Dead, Sif's Rememberance, and Scale of Fates to name a few. In general, anything with mana return, spell power, and/or intellect will make for a good PvP trinket.
You can always opt for a Platinum Disk / Titan-Forged Rune combination if you don't have enough honor or don't raid. If you are very low on resilience you can go Platinum Disk/Medallion.

Resilience... how much is enough?

In the old versions of my guide, I said that you only needed 800+ to be successful. Not anymore. Unlike other healers, shamans need to stack as much resilience and stamina as humanly possible. There is very little room for using PvE gear outside of weapon/shield/trinket. I would say you now need at least 1000+ resilience to be a formidable healer, but I honestly feel that not even getting resilience capped (1200+) would make a difference in some situations. In particular, melee classes with lvl 239 weapons will destroy you if you are not geared to the teeth.

Glyphs

There is no more debating on what the best PvP healing glyphs are. Lesser Healing Wave, Earth Shield, and Stoneclaw Totem are the only ones you should ever consider. None of the other glyphs are even close.

Addons

Keep in mind this is not recommended only for Shaman/DK, I recommend these for ALL Shamans in ALL brackets of arena.

You need to have a focus frame with a focus cast bar. This is for the opposing healer or mage/warlock. Any standard unit frame mod should have this; I personally use x-perl, but other mods like pitbull or AG unit frames work fine too. Make the focus cast bar gigantic.

You need to have a spell alerter mod. The best one I've found is Kollektiv's spellalerter mod (fitting name). The only downside is that you have to add a lot of definitions to its list because it's missing some critical spells, namely things like divine shield and other miscellaneous cooldowns. I think I've at least doubled the original definition list in size - I put just about everything in there.

You need to have a mod that shows totems and their timers, as well as a mod that shows your shield charges. My personal favorite is totemtimers. It'll show the totems' durations, when totems pulse, and shield charges all at the same time. It will also alert you when totems and shields are destroyed or faded.

You need to have an announcer for grounding totem and shocks. This is to help relay the information with your teammates so you can better coordinate your abilities. Shaman friend is a good candidate.

You need to have either gladius or proximo to keep tabs on the other team's health, mana, and cooldowns.

Other helpful addons that I use include Cooldown Timers 3, Afflicted 3, and SCT.