Decision Time: 5x shaman or 4x shaman + 1 pally

My 5x shaman team hit 70 about a week ago, and I'm really loving them. However, I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I have the ability to roll with 5 shaman, or alternatively use a pally tank that I already levelled to 70 some time ago with 4 shaman. I'm having a very hard time deciding which way to go. Drop a shammy from my team and go "holy trinity" or go all nuking all the time?

For sake of background, my primary desire is to PvE...instances AND heroics. I understand that both are possible with both group styles, but haven't heard which is generally easier. I tried to PvP a bit, but just can't get my head around BGs or arenas. (got 1 piece of S2 gear and stopped) I guess I'm just not a pvp guy :). I can see that for PvP, 5x ele shaman are the way to go. Howver, I'm not so sure with PvE.

Has anyone experienced this choice? If so, what did you decide? I don't want to make the big push on one team, and realize that I should have done the other.

Thanks in advance for any advice :)

Roll with the paladin. It should make instancing a little more easy and also the loot factor. You won't be wasting any paladin tanking loot, you can collect pally healing and ret gear as well, and you'll basically gear up the pally really fast.

for primarily PvE having a real tank lets you play the game "as intended" meaning lots of encounters will be easier to do. And you can later spec one shaman resto and have holy trinity. And like said previously, you can get all pally healing tanking and ret gear, and spec him to suit whatever occasion you come to. Ret as leader for 4ranged dps would be pretty cool, or holy for healing

not to mention you can power lvl other toons with him. Truth is though, that 5 shaman teams do very good in heroics regardless of missing that mt.

You should watch Toned video guides on heroics with 5 shaman. I can assure you doing a healer, tank, 3 dps bosses do not drop that fast. You have both setups so my suggestion would be to go 5 shaman and see how it goes. If you think they are lagging try the tank. When you do the tank it makes heroics slower and more of a PITA because you are tanking healing and dpsing at one time. Its much easier to just nuke.

Or maybe, tanking will become obsolete and you will have to do 5dps combos otherwise it won't work for wrath :thumbsup:

Ya that sure ain't gonna happen, but i think at the end of the day i wil ldo both, i want my pally to have decent prot gear by the time wrath comes out because i plan on leveling him with my friends group, he already has 3 pieces t4 so some badge gear would kick ass. anyways id do both over time

I've tried to level a pally (solo) and just couldn't do it. So my new plan is to RAF for 3 more accounts (closing/xferring toons off 3 of my current accounts) and level a new 5-boomkin team, then gift-level my pally to 60. And a rogue while i'm at it, just for opening those pesky lockboxes.

IMO you can never have too many shammies or druids laying around.

imo: (I have 5 shaman and 1 pally by the way)

If you like to PVP mostly - 5 shamans. there's really nothing like 5x CL. 4 is nice - but 5 will knock 2-3 people out a lot of times. You can either make them all elemental or make 1 resto. Play the elemental in a 5's with a dedicated healer and play the resto in 2's 3's or 5's solos for fun. When it's BG time they can all group together.
You can use them all to do heroics, probably a bit better and easier than with a pally tank for the most part.

If you like PVE mostly - and want to do some non-multiboxing raids, it'll be really nice to have a pally tank. they are usually in high demad and can get good gear fairly quickly by raiding. Also, you can do ok in instances. I actually did kara this week using my pally tank to tank, and my 5 shaman to DPS with. It wasn't that bad at all.
It's also nice to have crusader aura and it's probably a bit easier to level up everyone with a pally. That's how I leveled 4 of my 5 shaman.

Why decide on one or the other? Why not choose 'both'. Use the shammy team for the most part until you need to use a pally and bring it in. That is what my plan is.

I've been using the 5x shaman myself but I have let a friend join me once or twice with his warrior and this is what I've noticed in general.
the play style is different but not impossible to adjust for. I did not make a resto shaman, I always used 4x dps or 5x dps.

almost all bosses are easier with 5x dps shaman.
almost all crowds (in particular large group pulls of 4+ ) are easier with some type of pally/warrior.

I wouldn't rule out using the pally, I'm working one up myself.
You will probably have to have a pally for any type of Kara runs.