Good afternoon everyone.

My purpose of this thread is more of a pro/cons discussion, or even me just writing it out and maybe in that process I'll make up my own mind. Happens sometimes.

A little history. I have 5 accounts. 4 of the accounts already have 70's on them. A protection paladin, holy priest, BM hunter, and Boomkin druid. All of which are geared at least through Kara. Dealing with all the keys and different macros has been frustrating to me so I've started leveling 5 shaman.

The shaman are finally all at 30. I've been wondering though if 5 is the right set to go with or if I should level 4 with the assumption of doing PVE with my protection paladin.

My goals are PVE and PVP on the side but I don't want to gimp the pugs I end up getting stuck with (and arena - gimping myself).

For PVP - those of you who have 4 shaman do you wish that you had 5 or is 5 overdoing it since you'll need a dedicated healer for arena? Or those of you with 5 do you think that 4 would be more than adequate in BGs?

With a 5 shaman group would a tank be helpful or do earth elementals work just just as well?

To drag this thought out a little further. For heroics, with 5 shaman which has been proven as very doable would it be faster with a protection paladin and 4 shaman or would it be about the same or slower with less DPS output?

Darn. I didn't answer my own questions by putting this out there. Oh well. Anyone have any wisdom that they could share on their experiences?