Shaman is better for more situations if you will put the effort in for the extra key presses. As future xpacs release, they really help with dps and their heals catch up. It will be a lot of canni and small heals if you're starting from classic, though. On Phinny, shaman are already great dps due to panther proc, champion, dots, etc. Cleric is great for maximum healing, with minimal keypresses (CH). This is particularly beneficial if you will play with others who will pick up the dps/utility slack. If you want to kill a boss and hard/unslowable guys with help from friends, cleric will enable you to do more. If you want to be able to handle grinding a higher # of moderately difficult mobs as a standalone team, go shaman.
My rule of thumb, if I’m gonna box, might as well roll 3. War/shaman/bard is an amazing combo and personal fav. War/druid/enc is very strong post velious and viable in classic-kinark. war/clr/enc if you want to do everything in a group and be to do anything you want alone. If you’re just duoing war/clr is the go to cause res helps when you have no cc.
Raiding or group content? Raiding as a tank requires a lot of attention so youd want to box something requiring low attention if you want to maximize effectiveness.
You dont need snare with warrior, since DoDh you can purshase ability for 9 AA insta cast 10 sec cooldown 30 sec duration that prevent mobs to run away on low hp.
Not to steer you towards a cleric, but to say that a cleric doesn't offer utility is a misrepresentation, a cleric can easily single pull, has 2 stuns for healing mobs, and does offer a fair bit of dps in classic especially versus undead, camp choices matter, but as a duo, a cleric is a lot more than a healer, and if a dark elf, also has snare.
If your only duo then shaman is obvious choice. I would main the shaman and box the warrior as the shaman will be a lot busier. You just need to establish agro with the warrior and give him a few second lead time before start the slow/dot process. I think you might find those with slow/dots/heals warrior might have a hard time with agro lock. But with slow shaman can tank most things. Just go ogre and your golden. Shaman+warrior only gets better as xpac releases and maybe only 2nd to monk+shaman it terms of being fluid and maximizing dps for group content. Cleric would a far second. Still doable but you lose dps/slow/sow/melee bufs+haste and soon torpor ... much later on panther. The only downside is no rez. I wouldnt even consider druid.
I box a warrior with my shm on Agnarr, so if you're on a different server in another era things might be different. The more traditional pairing would have been a monk or SK with the shm, but we were short warriors for raiding. Pulling aggro off the shm from a slow isn't difficult. There's no reason to sit back. Gear your shm with hps, he isn't a druid. It becomes more of a challenge as you dot, but again the shm should have the hps to take a bit of a beating. Torpor changes the duo dynamic quite a bit. At that point it's more efficient to off tank with the shm and pull singles off the pile for the warrior/pet/dots to beat down. It sucks to not have snare, but if you keep multiples engaged you won't have a runner. The snare proc whip helps but isn't guaranteed, root is an option but can fade quick at times. Healing mobs suck, you can bash/slam to try to interrupt but the shm has no reliable method to handle the healers. Dot's aren't fast enough and the DD's are pitiful. It's a solid duo in most instances, but recognize the couple areas where it's limited. Snare is workable, the healing mobs though you'll be cussing. I added a wiz to the group to fill in needed areas.
First off, warriors are not a class meant to be in a duo. In general, Warriors / Bards / Clerics* are not meant to be in duos because they lack something. *Note - clerics can duo with enchanters quite well. Warriors are just such a 1-dimensional class that no other class really brings every other thing needed to make a duo prosperous: Primary - CC / Heals / DPS / Tank / Slow Secondary - Mana regen / travel (run speed / evac) / snare However, if you ARE dead set on making a warrior, you will need a priest class. Warriors take damage and therefore will need to be healed. 1. Shaman - By far your best option. Checks most of the boxes above, but falls a bit flat on CC. It's also not super efficient to use your shaman for CC, heals, slows, AND dps. So, you have the ability to do all 4 of those, but not exceedingly well. 2. Cleric - Second best option...but by a fairly wide margin. WAR-CLR group is just going to be a slow painful griding process. You can't slow mobs, can't really CC other than rooting, and have weak DPS. It's doable, but just slow and clunky. 3. Druid - Gives you all of the less-important traits of a good duo character, but you still are without CC, slows, or great DPS. Damage shields are great until about lvl 15, but they scale like crap.
If you are asking about effectiveness as a duo, Shaman 100% As far as snare - troll / inny shaman can do the snare clicky neck, very easy quest. Regent Symbol of Innoruk With this duo you will be playing your Shm as the main more than the War, using root for CC, slowing, healing, DoTs, etc. The warrior while you may want to pull with him, well, it's a warrior, turn on atk and back to the shaman. My real question is why a warrior? If you intend to play 2 toons as a Duo, I'd drop the warrior and go SK/Shm. You get FD for splits as well as lifetaps, mana taps and a few others. It's just more utility, and a bit more DPS, which is going to make a big difference if you are just duoing. Or if you prefer a Pally. Buffs match nicely with a shaman, you get Ress, Paci to help single pulls, again a lot more utility than a warrior. Although I think the DPS might be an issue if you arent fighting undeads =D If you plan on grouping a lot and just want a healer to drag around with you, cleric all the way. And you can still do the snare clicky neck on a DE cleric. So very handy.
