OK, so I started my mage with the plan to duo up with my shaman
friend, but the sword selling season got to me, and my employee's
didn't show up to help make weapons near as much as I'd planned,
so our play schedules didn't sync up much.  I Plowed thru levels
when I could, and with her baby back from the premie ward her
play rate dropped down to near nonexistant for  awhile, so we've
been wildly different levels.  

Her play rate went up while mine went down, though, so she's
catching up fast, now at 36 to my 40, we are definately in range
of each otehr, in fact we went on an LDoN run a couple days back,
recruiting the rest of a group to come with us.

So, initially I thought this would really rock as a duo; my pet
plus nukes, her haste and buffs and slow.  Then I decided I'd
been a fool to think that, I have my own pet only haste and rely
on DS to do a fair amount of my damage output, slow wouldn't
really complement that style.

But that was in our 20s; as we level up things seem to be
changing again, just in time for us to finally get some real duo
play time.  Haste is a pain to maintain, her not having to haste
my pet isn't a bad thing really.  She's got her own pet now, and
if both our pets are fighting then mine can easily hold aggro off
hers, which means we can both heal him as needed.  I'm also using
my fire pet now, with her HP buffs and even her relatively sucky
AC buff he's a lot more survivable as a main tank, and his DS is
much better than my cast one plus costs us no mana.

SOW, well what can I say, SOW is an immense boost to my
survivability and to pulling.  I can Expedience my pet, but not
myself, so thats an enormous benefit when I get unwanted aggro or
when I -want- aggro to hate kite with.  

Funniest thing is that she can end up going thru a lot more mana
than I do on some pulls... in which case I can supplement her
regen with bandaging.  I need to catch that skill up, its only 75
or so at the moment, hasn't been useful since I generally need to
be sitting for mana regen.  If we can swing a mount, though, that
will go up markedly... and it would help if I could get the skill
up to make it even more so.

Shaman also gives me something else important; root.  Plus she
literally triples our tanking ability; shaman plus pet plus my
pet can all tank mobs if they have to... as a mage, I sure can't,
haven't been able to since about 10th level honestly.  Between
root parking and off tanking, adds aren't nearly the concern
(read "death warrant") that they are to me solo.

Thats all stuff she can do for me, though, what about me for
her?  Well, my pet is a better tank than either she -or- her pet,
and that will be more true as we level up.  While my shaman waded
in and melee'd just to let the pet live long enough to kill the
mob, she can hang back and cannidance (at least till we get that
mount).  Plus I supply a DS, either via fire pet or cast if I
have to, and cut her need to haste to a third (haste my own pet
plus she's not tanking so no haste for her), and I have pretty
good damage output on my own, dropping a few nukes in per mob
depending on our pull speed.  And there's the gear, she's lacking
most focus items, I can fill a few of those gaps at least, and
put her pet in plate armor and give him weapons to activate dual
weild (haven't tested that out actually, when does shaman pet get
dual weild anyway?)

I still think the duo is a bit lacking compared to some, but its
not bad.  And the fact that we've been working together thru
three different sets of characters (druid/cleric, monk/bard,
paladin/enchanter) means that we're very accustomed to trying
things out and making things up on the fly, trying to learn the
intricacies of a given pairing or how we can work as core of a
group.

More later after we've tried it out further

Splendid One, 40 Gnomage, Firiona Vie