I'm trying to figure this shaman thing out

[Coltimar]

I am a paladin at heart. I have played one since release and, to be honest, the idea of playing a shaman was akin to the idea of kissing my sister. But after my first group nearly gave me a brain tumor (2 pally, 1 priest, 1 mage, and 1 warlock YUCK!) I decided to roll a pally 4x shaman group. The shaman are quite fun, but I recognize I need some help along the way.

My pally is prot, obviously, and I am going for 1 resto and 3 elemental shaman. They all dinged 20 today (yay) and my question is, at what point do I need to start gearing/speccing my resto shaman as my main healer? Currently they are all cookie cutter elemental and they just all do low rank heals on my tank, since I'm not getting nailed just yet. I've done DM and started Stockades. Some of the posts I found on this topic say to make him resto right away, others say I can wait until ZF or even Outlands. What is the consensus?

[Duane]

I've only leveled one pally/shaman group up from 1-20 so I'm no expert. However, the consensus I've read is that you don't need a dedicated resto shaman until you want to run heroics.

[Drizzit]

i would say make them all elemental. You will be able to quest far faster all elemental. I have 4 shams and a pally at lvl 62 now they are all elemental. I can clear up to the first boss in ramps (haven't tried the boss yet), but like everyone says don't underestimate
4 x lesser heals. Even though they are dps gear the +spell also go to healing (just not as much as a healing item goes). My pally would be at almost 0 health. I hit the lesser healing and he is at full health. I don't know if this will be true when i get better items later down the road though.

[Awbee]

One of the reasons for not need to go full resto in early levels is that most of the gear you will find for elemental will almost always be +heal/dps. Allowing your dps shaman to always have a higher +healing. You will not see alot of straight dps gear until outlands. I still haven't respected one of my shaman to resto.

[Naysayer]

I am a paladin at heart. I have played one since release and, to be honest, the idea of playing a shaman was akin to the idea of kissing my sister. But after my first group nearly gave me a brain tumor (2 pally, 1 priest, 1 mage, and 1 warlock YUCK!) I decided to roll a pally 4x shaman group. The shaman are quite fun, but I recognize I need some help along the way.

My pally is prot, obviously, and I am going for 1 resto and 3 elemental shaman. They all dinged 20 today (yay) and my question is, at what point do I need to start gearing/speccing my resto shaman as my main healer? Currently they are all cookie cutter elemental and they just all do low rank heals on my tank, since I'm not getting nailed just yet. I've done DM and started Stockades. Some of the posts I found on this topic say to make him resto right away, others say I can wait until ZF or even Outlands. What is the consensus?

Why not roll 1 pally 4 priests, or 1 pally 4 mage, or even 5 pally? Pick a group you'll enjoy, don't go for something that will make you want to reroll later.

[Marathon]

5 Pallies would be nutz :thumbsup:

[Coltimar]

Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying the shaman. It's just the one class (well 2, I've not leveled a rogue), that I haven't played extensively. I am really enjoying figuring it out.

I was thinking that I could stick with 4x elemental, just maybe be conscious about gear. Here is a stupid question. If armor has + nature damage that doesn't affect my healing spells does it? In theory it should, but I doubt it does.

I also have a Shocking question. When I picked up Frost Shock I swapped Earth Shock out of my rotation macro but it seems to cause some aggro issues in instances. Is that something I'll grow out of or is Frost Shock a bad spell to rotate with LB?

[gigauae]

seems to me we both running in same situation, right now am playing 1 pro pal and 4X shamans, shamans now at lvl 39, atm 3 of the shamans are untalented but i plan to dedicate one healer for the higher lvl instances to take advantage of my ae as paladin, i can assure u until u reach SM u wont need serious heals, am not sure how far i can go with that but i assume soon ill be needing heals since mobs in other instances in in different league, and usually i pull a pack and just ae them to death
again i think u wont need serious heals until u reach outlands since 4X healing waves or lesser heals will keep u going
as for frost shock i think u might have agro issue later on with it, i would advice removing it from your rotation if u having ur paladin tanking for u in instance
gl

[Drakkun]

You shouldn't need a resto shaman until heroics if you get your macros setup. I messed around with your setup to about 40 and this is the sequence I would use...

Pally pulls group of mobs in instance and consecrates. Shaman are dropping totems while pally pulls (4x healing stream important). They cast lightning bolts until pally is at half life, then they all cast a healing spell that puts him right at 100%, then back to lightning bolts. Rinse/Repeat.

I was getting about 2-3 bolts per heal in the early levels. Once my pally got better gear (mostly stamina) I was getting 4-5 bolts per heal. The healing streams really helped, plus they give him a constant flow of mana. Also, experiment with the lowest heal you can cast from all your shaman that does around half the pally's health on 1 cast. This saves mana and reduces cast time.

[twobztwop]

I've never needed a resto spec shaman. I use 5x shaman and all of them have been spec'd elemental through level 70. Pre-BC instances I never ran into a problem and could manage pulls with stoneclaw totems (on round-robin) and grounding totems. Only tough instance that I recall was that section of sunken temple where the dragons are nature spell immune.

BC instances I learned 1. I needed to wear a shield, 2. Needed a /stopcasting macro /cast lesser healing wave macro to have all 5 characters heal a specific target when needed, and 3. Earth elemental totems made most boss fights easy as cake.

FYI 5 elemental shamans can do heroics. I just spec'ed out of my PVP spec of 40/21 (Natures Swiftness) and back into 41/20 (Totem of Wrath).

I have heard it's easier to level up shamans as enhancement.