Not sure I have a good answer for you - I've not done it myself. But theory crafting would tell us that if you are swapping a warlock for a shaman there a few pros and cons. Which ones outweight the others may be more personal preference than raw numbers though.


280 Spell Power -> Elemental Shaman -> Totem of Wrath (Fire) vs 10% of Casters Spell Power -> Demo Warlock -> Demonic Pact is probably about equal.

5% Haste -> All Shaman -> Wrath of Air Totem (Air) is a small improvment over 3% Spell Haste -> Balance Druid -> Improved Moonkin Form

You loose - 5% Chance to be Crit (debuff on boss) -> Destro Warlock -> Improved Shadow Bolt, but if you have a fire or frost mage then you're good.

5% Crit -> Elemental Shaman -> Elemental Oath doesn't help you because you already have 5% Crit -> Balance Druid -> Moonkin Aura

You can gain another source of 91 MP5 -> All Shaman -> Mana Spring Totem (Water) allowing your paly to use some other buffs (kings?)

The biggest pro for the shaman is probably 30% Haste for 40 Seconds -> All Shaman -> Bloodlust. Nothing else like it in the game.

If you already have some other clothies in your group, kicking out the warlock may free up some of the drops and now you'd get some use out of the spell mail that drops. But if you were mostly tailoring stuff for 3 clothies and now you loose one, you'd have to bring up a leather worker (spec'd for mail), or just shop the AH some more.

You may loose some of the versitility of the demons, but you gain another char that can off-heal when needed.

Overall, I think the individual DPS of the shaman and warlock are pretty similar, although it may be slightly ahead for a well played warlock. But shaman seem to be very multi-box friendly as far as casting rotations - so it may be pretty close or even slightly ahead for the shaman. The party buffs look a lot better for the Shaman and that'd be one less class of gear that you're sharding.

Overall - if you don't already have a shaman, I'd drop the lock and start getting friendly with totems.