Lets talk about dedicated healers (shamen)

[blbjtb]

Whats the real benefit of this and how would you set this up? Obviously you are going to have a tank (pally in my case) 3/4 DPS or make one of them a resto. What are your thoughts on this? Is it needed to do a great deal of the content or can you do just as much having 4 dps and then when the tank needs health have ALL of the shamen heal at the same time?

If you make one of them resto spec what type of key combinations would you use for this and what type macros are needed? Thanks for the help!

[Crel]

Its very simple actually, earth shield and riptide can do all your tank healing easy mode. The advantage, and the reason I adopted it, was when you first start out ie fresh 80 its much easier to do MOST heroics. After you get some gear you can all dps just fine. Some fights are dps race and some are more sustained movement/control battles.Its the encounter really.

Duel spec for the win!

I have my heal keys around my movement, E(riptide) and Q(lesser heal). Have functionality for the other shamans to still heal when you need, like the R button have them all spam lesser or whatever. I also have a group heal button that causes each sham to target another and chainheal.

Also nothing is stoping your Resto from still dps'ing, most tough fights mine throws EarthShield on and starts a dps rotation.
Boss's just drop alot faster with 4 dps. This is all assuming you are running 1pal and 4sham, mix teams with other healers I would only pick Shaman over Druid heals, this is perhapes my own preference. The sham just adds so much to a mixed team, both melee and caster.:D