Instance help-any advice for me?

[TheBigBB]

There is really no speed advantage from 3 - 5 shaman because mobs will die so quickly outside of instancing that by the second spell rotation they're all dead anyway, and the tank really doesn't do terrible damage anymore. A paladin tank puts out high damage at times, especially single target if you do that glyph which gives Avenger's Shield a 100% dmg boost or when you're fighitng a lot of undead. The only advantage to a 5 DPS team is in PVP.

[OzPhoenix]

Nic,

Your plan is basically what I'm doing.

My 5xShamans are at 80 and generating large amounts of gold/mats etc. My Paladin is now just off level 73 (having been boosted 1-60 in /20hours using RAF and instances). Two things though:

1) Wrath needs tanks as others have said. 5xShamans just doesn't seem to cut it anymore for most, maybe not all, but most instance content. I'd start leveling that Paladin now (at least intermittently).

2) I'm leveling my Paladin as prot-spec to get used to the spec. Amazingly enough, I've also found it a really effective leveling strategy. Any time I need to go into combat, I make sure to gather up as many mobs as I can and AoE tank 'em down. Generally she kills multiple mobs hardly any slower than 1 mob, and with full rested she's getting 1600xp per kill. With my lvl80 Shammies she's being fed gold, potions, food/water to use without a second thought to speed up combat (though usually all I need is food/water after combat even). End result - questing is easy, and often she's topping over 500kxp/hr.

[Ticks]

I used Fire Resist pots for the last boss in Ramparts. A little expensive but it did the job.

[Vicker]

I've found that the key to this fight is to NOT spread out. Keep everyone on autofollow and use only fast casting spells. Constantly move the whole group to avoid fires. Sure every fire bomb will land right on your group, but you can react much more quickly if you don't have to figure out which individual character to move. When you see the dragon land, that's when you want to hold down your spread out button and get everyone as far apart as possible. I was able to clear this fight consistantly using this strategy with my pally/priest/mage 3box team + 2 puggies at level 61. Trying to spread everyone out in the beginning and deal with fires individual is a nightmare and makes the fight ten times harder.

[puppychow]

Dailies are a bit messy in WOTLK, there is no central hub like The Isle in TBC to knock out a dozen dailies in 30 mins. You have some scattered all over Icecrown, others in Sholozar, others in Storm Peaks, and then 1-2 dailies in random spots all over.

Still, just doing quests and maybe 5-6 dailies a day generates crazy gold -- I spent 3k gold on one of my shamans a few days ago to level LW from 420-440 (damn), and just in 3-4 days of doing regular quests, dailies, and selling some of the items I crafted from leatherworking I've made back the full 3k gold. You can easily make insane amounts of gold with 5 80s, doesn't really matter what classes they are -- having epic flying mount is really helpful though

Oh, for shields -- there are good shields that are as good as offhands, so no reason for your shamans not to wear one. Most trash in heroics will kill your shamans quickly, but the shield gives them the 2-3 seconds for the tank to taunt. I run with a mage in my group and he dies 3-4x more than anyone else, simply because the second he pulls he pretty much dies instantly.

[Hachoo]

IMO - the only reason to have 5 shamans in WotLK instead of 1 tank + 4 shamans is if you plan on PvPing a lot (and even then tank + 4 shamans might be as good or better).

For leveling, dailies, and PvE, tank + 4 shamans is by far better then 5 shamans. having an extra shaman will not speed up leveling or dailies at all as 4 shamans will still do damage to kill mobs just as fast, and if you have a tank as well it will make the 5 man quests easier also (I can say there are some 5 man quests that would be tough for 5 shamans in WotLK, but not undoable).

Anyway, if your primary goal is money and PvE, theres no reason to stick with 5 shamans. If your primary goal is PvP then you probably are as good off or better off with 5 shamans, but overall I think in WotLK a tank is almost a must (and DKs have all sorts of nifty PvP utility and make great multiboxer PvE tanks as well!)