Thanks for the replies, everyone. I've been nervous about the time investment to gear up for pvp and didn't want to gimp my team.

The gold thing I was talking about is the particle effect from casting chain heal.

I spent most of yesterday writing macros for my 2 resto 3 elem setup and for the most part it works. Since I have pve gear it allows me to take a beating for a few seconds longer than normal. Basically the elemental have the standard click macros on buttons 2 and 3, while the resto have dps on button 2 (shocks, lava burst, chain lightning) and a click heal rotation on button 3 (riptide, lesser heal, chain heal). It's kind of like managing boomkin procs.

The nice thing is the dps doesn't stop for heals.

So you can dps with all 5 when you need or start throwing around riptide, chain heal and lesser heal (rotating off the leader) when you're swarmed. The resto dps is pretty sad but it helps. Plus, with the resto talents you have an instant crit chain heal that tops off the whole group. Earth shield on your lead guys is pretty nice too.

I like the idea of 5 elem and will try that next. I was concerned that 5 lava bursts is overkill since 3-4 seem to get the job done, but I can see now how 5 shocks or 5 chain lightnings can work.