The journey to 60 is long and should be rewarding. If you're going into this to play a single character and grind to 60, then I think the major consideration should be the path from 1-60. Maybe when you hit 60 you'll want to raid, or roll an alt, or keep playing at 60 to farm cash and gear. Personally, I really enjoy single-grouping in dungeons on my 60 toon, which lots of raiders never seem to do.
Shaman and Cleric are both highly desired in groups. The major con to a cleric is that you can't solo almost anything after the Ass/Sup camp in Lguk...so around 45. Up until 45, if you wanted to, you could solo using undead nukes - but it is a very slow process. Clerics shine in groups, avoiding any aggro at all and keeping up heals and buffs. Really good clerics keep up stuns for casters and gaters, and truly exceptional clerics can pull well if there are enough back-up healers, using lull and DA/DB.
The 'pro' for a cleric is that you are like, not gear dependent at all. All of your usefulness comes from your spells, and there is no way besides super raid gear (FT, the VP clicky heal staff and DD weapon, and some velious few proc weapons) that can improve either your mana regen or group utility. You can easily level to 60 in bronze. You will want to steadily build up your wisdom, mana and svm, but for grouping your mana pool just isn't a big deal in most cases.
Shamans are a lot more versatile. They get more utility spells than a cleric (no lull, but invis, levi, EB, Sow). They get mana-efficient dots. They get slows, which are absurdely overpowered, and they get haste, and they get malo. They can regen mana with canni, and they get regen spells to speed that process along. Oh, and they get a pet, which does respectable damage too.
So shamans can solo a lot better, but are also very desired in groups because of slow. Druids can't solo heal 50+ dungeons that effectively, but with slow, a shaman can, even without torpor. The problem (or benefit) for the shaman is that there is a lot of gear that can make a shaman more effective, and you will want it. Worn-hp regen is the first thing that every shaman wants. A JBB is another highly desired item. The epic, of course. That alone will set you back 100k+ on blue, assuming you don't camp them yourself, and that's before we even talk about the 55+ shaman spells: Torpor, Bane, Pox, Malo.
A 60 shaman with all his spells and gear is EQ god mode. It makes encounters trivial that a 60 BIS Velious cleric couldn't do solo (unless you count puppet strings). I've leveled both to 60, and I don't have any desire to touch my cleric, but I'm always looking for dungeon groups and duos on my shaman.
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