Shaman or Cleric non twink
 

So I am thinking of making a Barb Shaman or Dwarf Cleric to mostly group with. This character won't be twinked at all and would only solo a little bit (levels 1-5ish and if I play at weird times and can't get a group). I feel like both are great options but I can't make up my mind, one con I can think of for doing cleric is they seem to only fill the heal roll which I'm happy to do but will that make groups harder to find if they don't need that roll filled? Any suggestions or points of view to weigh in? Thanks!

Untwinked and primarily grouping? Cleric over Shaman every time. You literally don't need any gear to level a Cleric in groups. I leveled one into the mid 40s without a single piece of WIS gear. You lose basically nothing in terms of efficiency, you just have shorter med times.

Roll cleric if going untwinked with a lean toward grouping. Yes the primary job of a cleric is to heal in a group but shaman fills the same role as well; bit more utility with slows and buffs but you aren't grouping on a shaman for a DPS role either.

I just made a halfling cleric and he's awesome. No twinkage but in misty got to like 5 in about an hour due to passing damage shields

+1 for cleric. I have a 60 cleric on red who is still wearing bronze pants, among other garbage gear. You can essentially level a cleric naked. Shaman also don't need a ton of gear, but do need more than a cleric. Other downside to shaman is you get gimped at high level because of how rare/expensive spells are.

A friend and I are currently leveling a cleric that is fairly twinked from most people's perspective, and the gear doesn't make that big of a difference compared to the one I leveled on red. Was able to solo some things a couple levels earlier due to larger mana pool, but was ultimately limited by resist rates. In groups the only thing gear would really help with is 'oh shit' moments when you over pull or something. In a good and steady grind group, mana regen rate is far more important than total mana pool size.

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'll be working on the cleric then, he's currently sitting in Gfay ready for some orc hill groups whenever I play him.

I say shaman over cleric. Despite what most people say on here you don't need gear to level a shaman, I'm doing it right now. Also, I played a cleric on Live and almost gouged my eyes out it was so boring, that was also when you had to look at your spell book to med so it was quite a bit worse. Shaman is an extremely enjoyable toon to play with lots of different roles to potentially play in a group, and the roles change as you level.

Another thing to think about, not only do you need to save pp for spellz you need to save pp for regeants. My cleric on Live was untwinked as well and I found it difficult to keep up with a groups needs.

But that was 17-18 years ago... just my 2c

I was worried about the single role that the cleric could fill possibly holding me back if groups already had healers, the no improved mana regen method also worries me a bit haha!

If unlucky with drops you'll need a "bit of plat" for the shaman:
Torpor 100-120k
Bane 15k
Pox 15k
Malo 15k

Etc...

This is true, but this character would be played for a couple hours a week max. It would be a very long time until those spells would be needed.