Opinions about only 2 shamans

[Xtr3medx]

I curently dual-box a Pally and a Druid and is working out quite fun a friend of mine did Pally and x4 shammans. However, I am very limited in hardware and cash so I can only run 2 characters at once. I know this has been previously asked but I dont feel the topic has been really adressed.
Is dual-boxing ONLY 2 shammans worth it?
I been reading a lot of comments and 2 shamans wasnt widely supported and generally 4+lead or 5-box was the best option. However, actual game play of the 2 shamans was not discussed at all.
(If I missed a post on the matter please refer me to it)
to make things clear:
I dont plan on soloing instances
I dont plan to run solo arena
I dont expect to own everything
Just for the fun factor
I do expect to do BG's
5-10 mans
Grinding
Fast Leveling

[Ken]

I would always select 2 different classes when dualboxing. That makes the game a lot more interesting and varied for me.
Personally I would prefer this type of setup:
- a class that can be a DPS and has a pet tank (hunter/warlock),
- a class that can be a DPS and a healer

[Svpernova09]

If you're only going to run 2 I wouldn't do Shaman. I run 3 shaman and it takes 2 volleys (CL + LB) and an Earth shock to nuke something down. With 2 shaman you may be taking more incoming damage while you kill something. You might want to look at 2 hunters or 2 warlocks, something with a pet that can tank a mob for you. I also agree that with just 2 usually a tank/healer combo works best for little downtime and has been a better experience for me.

[Fef]

I would always select 2 different classes when dualboxing. That makes the game a lot more interesting and varied for me.
Personally I would prefer this type of setup:
- a class that can be a DPS and has a pet tank (hunter/warlock),
- a class that can be a DPS and a healer

Exactly.

I would go Warlock + Shadow Priest. Synergy !

[OogaJiggaWooga]

Dual mages ftw :)

[pengwynman]

Dual mages ftw :)downtime and squishiness ftl :(

[elsegundo]

Dual mages ftw :)downtime and squishiness ftl :(and the boredom of casting only fireballs or icebolts for 60+ levels.

[Ualaa]

To the OP:

Warlock + S.Priest work well together - a lot of spells with the same cast time, and both deal shadow damage primarily.
Dest. Warlock + Fire Mage has strong synergy.
Demo Warlock + BM Hunter could work well; hunter pet has taunt on (its the much better tank).
Tank + Healer is an option - DK has highest dps of the tanking form tanks.. add in say Resto Shaman - Windfury Totem, Strength of Earth, Healing Stream Totem, Flametongue Totem... E.Shield the DK and W.Shield the Shm.

Almost anything will work, with two toons. I like the idea of different toons if you're doing just 2.


Addendum:
Well shaman's have fast cast spells, which means you get a smaller portion of your spell power applied to each nuke.
Per 3.5 seconds of untalented cast time, you get the same as anyone else.
Naturally, with less bonus spell power per nuke, you'll need to nuke more often to deal your damage.

Boomkin scale better then the Elemental Shaman, but the principle is the same with Wrath.

Slower cast spells such as Fireball or Shadow Bolt get a larger coefficient per cast, but still have the same amount per 3.5 seconds of cast time.
If you want to drop things in one cast/volley, you need either slower casting spells or more casters to cast simultaneously.

[sturat]

When I first tried multiboxing it was with 2 shaman and while they worked well together I found that they weren't nearly as OP as I had expected given that there were two of them. I think shaman have a serious synergy when you start collecting more and more in your group due to the different totems piling up.

I then tried a pally/mage combo and they're amazing, definitely my favourite especially when it comes to AoE killing. The pally runs around gathering aggro and starts consecrating and puts on his ret aura then just stands there healing himself while the mage drops AoE death on the mobs. Works amazingly well.

Then I tried a Druid/rogue combo. . . tough combo.

Now I'm running a lock/priest combo and they work really well together. I use my voidwalker to run around an gather aggro like the pally while the lock/priest drop DOTs on each mob in sucession and watch them all fall over dead.

[Kaynin]

Druid+anything really.

Basicly, as a druid you can be a healer when needed, you can be ranged dps when needed and you can tank when needed and all pretty damn good too. Yes you would respec a lot, but tbh, if I was dual-boxing I would go druid+something else (Probably paladin, shaman or priest).

2x hybrids = win, imo. :p

When you level two pure dps classes, you will still be limited to do pure dps only in endgame. And tbh, the fun with multiboxing is being able to take care of more then just the dps, or just the healing, or just the tanking.

Im a quadboxing ele shaman, tanking is out of the option in wotlk, only few bosses are earth elemental farm nukable, but most do require a tanking class. But I can still cover dps and healing 100%, and ofcourse able to keep standing in PvP. Whilest overall it is not -that- hard to control. Still, pve wise it doesnt matter if you go multiclass or 4x shaman in my experience. The hard part for pve is moving about and spreading out during encounters while being as effective as possible. And that's a feat to overcome regardless of the box set up you have. (having more then 1 melee adds yet another dimension and toughness to it, I would not suggest to go more then one melee ever on your first box, and maybe try it out as an alt box some other time.)

As far as the diff between playing for example 4 or 2 shamans. I personally find it boring to play only 2. You give a lot of responsibility to others in parties, whilest with 4 you, and you alone, are a great deal responsible for what happens. And the harder the fights get, the more I enjoy myself trying to beat them. With two it's almost the same as playing one. There is little extra dimension by tracking two characters, movement wise. It does add more then playing one, but hardly. So yeah, for dualboxing, two different classes would be most fun.

[robtest]

I have a relatively good time on my dual-boxed shammies!

They are currently 73.5 and just finished the two starting areas in WotLK, getting ready to go start the dragonblight map.

One up front is spec'd as Enhancement, and the one in back is an elemental. The elemental's main spam macro has two /castrandoms with extra commas in them. First /castrandom is for DPS, the second /castrandom "sometimes" throws a heal to the front guy.

When I occassionally run with my Mage buddy, I do notice that he out DPS's me by quite a bit. The enhancement shammy seems to out dps the elemental, but last level or so, it has been very close...

If you like shammies, I don't see a reason not to play a pair !!!

[Littleburst]

If i had to lvl 2 chars i would probably try a warrior/DK/ret pally/ enhancement shaman or Feral + healer. since the melee can keep doing damage, preferably a fury warrior / DK, since they don't need mana breaks. I think a resto shaman would add most as the healer.

If you prefer casters i would not take shamans either, burst damage with just 2 isn't that great. I would try a hybrid + dps. Lock + Shadow Priest sounds like a great option, since the pet can tank, Vampiric Embrace from the shadow priest heals. Because of the heals the pet should be ok and if needed the Lock can heal the pet just fine since he/she gets healed by the Spriest aswell.

2 mages can be fun for AoE, good CC(sheep), but are indeed squishy and require manabreaks.
2 hunters, pets are good tanks and with one BM and one MM you can surely have some fun. Same goes for BMx2, big burst damage.

I think it's most about what you think is fun to play, if you want to have fun. If you only box 2 characters i think you won't gain a lot in pvp, since the disadvantages are quite big. Having just one slave following you you don't gain that much from it.

[oMek]

ret pally + lock

[hendrata]

Dual mages ftw :)downtime and squishiness ftl :(I disagree. I have a friend who dualboxes double frost mages and she's having a blast! (both are 70 now).

Downtime: It's true you still have downtime, but think about it, you only need 1 downtime, but you kill stuff twice as fast. For illustrative purposes, say you kill about 10 mobs with a full mana bar, so after every 10 mobs you need to drink. But because you have 2 mages, you only need half as much mana to kill the mob. So you can kill 20 mobs when both mages have full mana bar. But once you drink, both mages drink. So you only drink every 20 mobs. What's more, is that chances are you can use evocation almost every single time you need to drink. Cooldown on evocation is 5 minutes, so it's not that long.

Squishiness: But you have two frost nova. If you set up your macro properly, you can hit one button and just have them alternate who's frost novaing. This way, the mob should never get to you to begin with. Of course keeping an eye whether the slave's frost nova is up or not could be painful.

The thing with dual mages is that you still need to pull intelligently and use sheep (of which you ahve 2 now). When you're dualboxing a tank and a dps / healer, you can pull aoe like crazy and still survive, but not with dual mages. But that's part of playing a mage. My main is a mage, and when I leveled him up solo I need to consider each pull carefully, who gets sheeped, who gets "tanked" by my water elemental, etc.

[bodefeld]

I believe 2 druids would be fun. You can go dual-doomkin for questing, they've got stealth, CC, travel form, rezz. If you want to go crazy you can always spec one to be a tank and the other as a healer. Should be easy to fill up your group with pugs.

[Smahs]

I only can afford two acccounts also, but you don't want to do two shamans, you want to maximize CC, so with only two accounts I would go with this:

2x hunters, set your pets to one target and kill the other, this would be quite fast.

2x mages, set frost nova as round robbin to use it at different times, same with sheep. You might want to go fire while levels to 60 then respec to your desire.

2x warlocks, use the tagndrag method and take down 4-6 enemies at ounce easy. Set your pet attack at round robbin so your pet can tank 2 mobs, also set fear as round robbin.

2x druids, go balance, set entangle roots as round robbin to maximize CC, also I find if you set your first one as healing touch and the second on just hots (rejuve, lifebloom, maybe rejuve) for good heals, and after the second one casts it hots have it use starfire or wrath at your target, works great (so I hear, saw my friend do it).

I'm just giving my opinion, I've tried doing multiple classes and screwed up. maybe I just suck at it. But 2x shamans might not be the best choice :0

[an0mali]

I personally run 2x Frost Mages and I really enjoy them (almost 71 now). With frost, single pull mobs die before they even reach me because of the slow on frostbolt. Downtime is really not a big deal with frost because frostbolts and ice lance are pretty mana effecient, which is about all I use while questing. Having two sheeps is suprisingly handy because you can poly two different mobs in large pulls (thinking of named quest mobs with additional guards). Frost AoE takes a bit of practice with two but can be done, and works quite well now that Blizzard can crit. And because both of my mages are spec'd frost, they are not really squishy because of ice barrier and 2x frost novas. I personally would recommend two mages =D

[glo]

Lot's of good advice here. I also would not do dual shammies, if I were limited to two characters it would be my warrior/druid combo. Another fun possibility is rogue/druid for the stealth runs and the ability to get away when people decide to mess with the boxer.

[suprafro]

lock + priest, IMO(demo and shadow)