Can a 5-man Shaman team handle Heroics?

[Multibocks]

With B, you have even more firepower when you want to kill things.
However, when you need heals, there is no dps.

Both methods work, its basically a preference.

Not true, the best method is weaving heals in with dps. Your shaman will get out of sync while spell casting on a boss. If you spam LHW button while they are casting you can stop hitting the heal button when you see 2 (or whatever you want) LHWs casting and then continue mashing your dps button. I really liked 4 dps, but the choice is up to you.

[Fef]

I levelled to 80 with Paladin + 4 x Elemenal Shamans.
Once I first tried Heroics, I found that having a dedicated healer made things much easier. I really like earth shield. Now that my gear is a bit better, on heroic instances that I farm (not that many yet), I even DPS with the healer too to makes things quicker. It makes her a bit thirsty, but that not too bad.

Globally, I think hat having a dedicated healer makes my run much easier in the sense that it is less stressful, and I don't wipe as much on stupid mistakes ("I have time for another round of lightning Bolts before I start healing ... OOps, I didn't, tank dead ..." kind of thing).

You should probably try both ways and see what works best for you.

[Otlecs]

I think the original question has pretty much been answered, so here's my tuppence worth on the resto-specced healer question...

With improved earth shield (resto shammy) and the glyph, I literally don't have to heal my pally tank on heroic trash.

My resto guy doesn't DPS by default, but if I hold down CTRL whilst mashing my DPS button then he does. That way I can involve him as much or as little as I want to.

So I have 4 DPS for quick trash clearance and a dedicated healer when needed. Definitely my favourite setup

[Ualaa]

Ya..

My group is Paladin + 4x Shaman.

The Paladin is Prot (7/58/6) but dual spec'd to Prot/Holy (19/52/0)
Three Shammies are Elem (57/14/0), one is dual spec Resto (0/15/56)

Most of the time, I run Prot and 4x Elemental.
When its harder stuff I run Prot, 3x Elemental, and 1x Resto.

And then in PvP since I cannot force people to attack my tank...
I run Prot/Holy healer using Grid/Clique to click heal, and 4x Elemental.

Everyone will find something that works for them.
Experiment to find your preference.

[blast3r]

I was starting to try heroics with my 1 prot/4 ret pallies and it didn't work out that great. Tried once with my shaman and that was a total disaster so I decided yesterday to just use 4 shaman and my prot pally. Haven't killed a boss yet but the more I learn the better I am doing.