if 2 shm are both casting swell can both versions of swell land if the targets need healing? they don't overwrite each other? can 2 shm stack the same dot on a mob? i know this is noob shm stuff but my cousin is adamant about adding a second shm to our box team. /boggle
I haven't tested swell stacking, but DoTs should stack. However, your cousin is almost certainly wrong about having two shaman in the group. Much of a shaman's contribution is wrapped up in their non-stacking buffs and debuffs. If you post your current box group I can give you my opinion about what better options you have.
staggered Ruchus are good times. Going from 1/3 uptime to 2/3 uptime on its powerful effect may already be worth it if you're rocking war/ber/rog/mnk dps in the other 4 group spots. Full coverage on Roar of the Lion is good times -- but it's not twice as good since solo shm has ~2/3rd coverage already. Only dots that include debuffs won't stack. That's a dru/nec prob, shm dots are just dots. So if shm dps is what you want, you'll still get shm dps. Swell works fine, that's just healing. And it's a great heal, especially paired with Frostbitten Gift. So yay for that. Cloud of Renewal does not stack. The follow-on healing of Eyrzekla's Recourse does not stack, so that'll just be the instant portion for one of the shm. Naturally no bonus from double-Focus or double-Talatak-ing or whatever, but long duration buffs can be hauled down from the lobby if you care about them, so they're not even really a solo shm power.
the Swell line is a rain type AOE heal. it's a direct heal that hits multiple times, so as brohg said there's no stacking issues with it at all. however, using it in a group setting is kinda bleh. if you have multiple healers (ie cleric/druid/healer merc and a shaman) then you're better off throwing alliance on the tank so you don't have to worry about heals on your bots / dps. adding a second shaman is a waste IMO. beyond what brohg pointed out with the few stacking issues you would have, our DPS is not as good as all that (that is to say, there's better options for DoT and/or caster dps), and the ADPS bump you get from double epic and a little extra time on lion is likely not enough to compensate for having a another actual dps toon in place full time (bst, necro, mage all make good boxed DPS). if a little extra healing with a DPS supplement is what you're after then a druid would probably serve you better, plus it brings the added joy of extra buffs, porting, and at least one truly wicked dot line (which by itself outdps's us). Also, lets not forget that awesome druid pet =).
