5x ele shamans vs 4 ele shamans+1 druid tank

[CokeZero]

They're also (IMO) better than shamans in world PvP. Shamans don't get strong until TBC.

I have to say this one (IMO) is a toss up. Mages are indeed strong in world PvP, but my preference would be shamans over mages. Shamans have spell interrupt, grounding totems, slows, and tremor totem. Tremor is just so useful vs fear, even though mages have their ways of breaking fear especially if you roll undead, multiple tremors constantly pulsing are a great fire and forget defense.

Ele shaman can have some nasty burst damage, you just don't see it much because they are a one trick pony and go oom so quickly. 1 ele shaman ready for burst can nearly "one shot" anything but a tank class, nevermind 5 of them round robin. That chain lightning can many times take out multiple people and is so fun to watch. Catch a group of 5 enemies outside a dungeon, blow your burst macro x5 and you can drop their whole group instantly lol.

But like you said mages are way better for PvE content overall as well as for farming gold, shamans don't hold a candle to them in this regard, at least as far as Classic is concerned. I'm mainly leveling a 5x shaman team for fun since I'm pretty set with my other team, gold is not an issue anymore. Also a bonus, if TBC ever does come out, I'll be ready to rock my shamans right off the bat assuming they allow character copy to a TBC server