Pal + 3 sham + mage or shaman?

Need some opinions:

I got a 70 decently geared pally that I multibox with 4 elemental shamans that are now 69, 70 tonight.
I also got a 70 mage with tailored / instance gear (on the same account as the pally).

For 70-80 I plan to do as much instances as I can get away with, and questing for the rest - all 5 at once. I'm in no super hurry as my schedule don't really allow raiding anyways.

Question:
- Would it be beneficial to replace one shaman with a mage?

CONS:
- Haven't boxed with mage, so would take some setting up
- Looses a ankh, a heal and a set of totems
- I bet character transfer would be down if I tried transing to :P

PROS:
- Higher dps (?!?)
- Ports
- Summoned water/food
- Another CC (I think the shaman CC is a 80 spell, isn't it?)

I suppose I do think that the mage would be easier to solo level once the team is 80, and a 70 shaman probably never would get solo leveled with 3 80 shamans sitting around - So using the mage pretty much means retiring one of the shamans.

I think I'm fairly set on doing the 4 shamans, but looking for advice and input here ;)

cheers!

Ditch 3 shaman and get a mage, priest and warlock! :thumbup:

AI is a nice buff for synergy with the elemental shamans and the resto one too. You won't be losing out since the totems no longer stack. I'm currently awaiting a character transfer to put my mage in.

Actually considering Pally + 2x Mage + 2x Shaman. I want to be able to stagger the tremors and think that two shamans able to drop grounding totems will be plenty of protection on that front.

I actually currently run a pally, 3 sham, mage setup. On paper this looks like an awesome team, but the problem I find is micro management for both PvE and PvP. What I mean here is that I basically have the mage setup to spam a dps spell at th same time as the shammies LB, so in reality I am getting a toon with slightly higher dps, but who is very squishy. I have setup a sheep macro, but for various reasons, I find it difficult to use unless it is setup using focus before the fight begins. I find sheep useless for PvP. The big value the mage brought to my team however was ports, water and buffs. I am also thinking that a mage leading a 4 shammy team will be awesome for PvP. Having the mage as leader gives me access to all the class skills and if I am fire specced, some insane AoE capabilities. Something to think about anyway.

Cheers

thanks for the input so far - keep them comming!

I should have specified that I'm 97% about PvE and play on a PvE server; so Better or Worse in PvP don't matter much.

mage brings a 10% spell crit debuff to the table. I might be switching out one of my shaman for a mage if I can get it to level 70 before I start leveling the team.

nice link, thanks!

Ok, so assuming I decide to go for the mage - How "much more difficult" would that set up be MB-wise in you guys opinion?

My main is a 70 mage, I leveled a pally + 4 shamans long after my mage was 70. For the past week I have been running stuff with pally+mage+3 shamans (one poor shaman has been abandoned) and its no problems.

I'm not exactly using all my mages abilities, I have a macro that is something like this (servers are down so can't tell you exactly):

#showtooltip
/stopmacro [channeling:Arcane Missiles]
/use 13
/use 14
/castsequence [target=focustarget,harm][] reset=combat/target Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage, Arcane Missiles

Its on the same key as lightning bolt for shammies and consecrate for pally. Basically I just spam it all day until stuff dies, the other key I use is chain lightning on shamans (which casts Arcane Explosion on mage, kind of a waste usually lol).

Its by no means the most efficient use of my arcane mage, in fact I could probably get better macros if I went ice or frost (which I will do after level 75 probably) but I really enjoy arcane on my mage, especially solo.

I don't plan on sheeping anything ever, afaik you don't need any CC really in any of the 5 mans or heroics in WOTLK. Heck there are people who are 2 manning the first instance.