Spell pen: Really that needed?

My partner and I keep getting to the cusp at 1900 only to just miss it, so looks like no helms for us this season. Lately its been either 1500 rated teams and 2200 rated teams with nothing in the middle (so we win 2-3 points only to then lose 2-3 points).

Anyhow, I'm rethinking my strategy - currently I use +43 spell pen x3 on each shaman and +23 spell power for the other gems.

I've already got dreadstones ready to go to replace all of the +23 spell power with spell power / stamina gems and I'm debating about replacing my spell pen with stamina gems.

Currently each shaman has 23,850 HP unbuffed which seems really, really low.

Changing out the 23 spell power gems will yield around 900HP more per shaman at a cost of around 60 spell power (currently at 3251 with totem).

If I replace spell pen gems that will add another 153 stam, or 1530 HP per shaman, bumping me to 26,280 unbuffed stam - with gift of the wild, around 27k which would add some survability.

I don't think 60sp will make a difference but I'm hesitate to give up all of my spell pen (I use only those 3 gems for that).

Thoughts?

80 spell pen is a good number to shoot for on a shaman.

You can make up some of the spell penetration with the cloak enchants.
Assuming you don't already use that enchant.

Spell pen is absolutely needed, and more so when you are playing multiple shaman than just one. But if my math is right you must have over 160 spell pen with that setup, which is overkill. When multiboxing I always shoot for ~100 spell pen, up to about 120 maximum.

I would not gem stamina at higher gear levels - ever. Surviving in arenas is about killing the dps, not having more stamina or resilience. You will simply delay the inevitable. At thsi point once you pass 21k hp you should not be using stam gems anymore.

Yeah, your hp is really really low, but so is mine, and so is the case with every other shaman because it's a gimp class in this expansion. Unfortunately due to the class mechanics, stacking more stam or resilience doesn't help the situation. We were given the same or less hp than other casters, with none of the survivability. Given this, we would've needed the same stamina allocation you see on plate, to make up for that.

Taking a look at your gear setup, i would recommend:

- Swap out a crit cloak for a hit cloak. I know you're draenai but you will still miss blood elves, night elves, and especially blood elf ret paladins like crazy. I don't consider a ton of hit in pvp to be overkill due to the fact that the stat you exchange it for (crit) is overkill. Your main damage dealer is a guaranteed crit, and with elemental oath and totem of wrath your crit rating is high enough no matter what.

- I would put the +3% crit bonus meta in place of the stam one

- 100-110 spell pen is fine. You can use the cloak enchant instead and use your 3 JC gems for spell power

- Dump the 24 crit on your boots for tuskarr's vitality or icewalker

Honestly though these are just very minor tweaks. To get the rating you will probably need to adjust your play style

Another suggestion:

Instead of using 1 pure spellpower gem and 1 pure spell pen gem, use two of the hybrid +SP/+spell pen gem.

Pure spellpower: +23 SP
Pure spellpen: +25 spell pen
Pure total: +23 SP, +25 Spell Pen

Hybrid: (+12 SP/+13 spell pen) X 2
Hybrid Total: +24 SP, +26 Spell Pen (also covers more ground socket bonus and meta-wise)

I don't run any spell pen on my 4x mages for PvP. Casters are so ineffective against me anyway I don't target them until everything else is dead and most non-casters don't get any resistances above the 75 for MotW if they have it. Are shaman seriously having trouble bursting people down because of spell pen?

Granted I have a bit more of a survivability challenge being mages so I don't socket damage. I'd go either 70-80 spell pen or 0.

I was stuck under 1800 for what seemed an eternity until I changed my spell pen from 50 to 123. After reviewing the combat logs for some matches, it was clear that enough of my spell damage was being resisted to make or break a match. In addition, I went with all the ascendency gear for the +hit, so now i'm sitting at 150 hit (before precision), 123 spell pen, ~3450 SP with ToW glyphed, and just over 24k HP (tauren racial).

We were on the cusp of 1900 (1895) and xferred, and seem to be in the same boat. We can get crazy close to 1900, but just can't seem to break over it. I blame part of it for being this late in the season, but the reality is that most high level teams that have faced us, know what works against us, so it's very hard to move up now. In order for us to win, we have to play close to perfect.