I started a secondary account and wanted to start a Shaman to box with my Zerker. At the time, my BER was low- to mid-80s, and SHM was high-60s, low-70s, when I started grouping them. It was okay; my shaman was buffing and slowing, which is the basis I had in mind with them. Then, my zerk high-80s, whereas shm low 80s, and soloing DH was getting harder and harder. Without being able to pull, I was restricted to snaring and training zone with my zerk, then AA rooting the snared one on my shaman. And then, around 90+, my zerk stopped being able to even solo the mobs because they hit so hard. Now my zerk is 98 and shaman is still 83. Primarily due to unease when creating DH HAs groups, I would just use my zerk. But I've talked a lot about this and it seems my shaman has only disappointed me. I realize a SHM is a Priest class but I wasn't expecting a shaman to play main heal... That leaves my main, the Berserker, moreso a secondary, as when I play them together, I am sending him in and auto-attacking, while switching over to heal with the shaman. Honestly, a ranger or another dps class would be more suited. When DPSing, I have 2 mag-based, 2 dis-based, 3 poi-based, and 1 nuke loaded. I've looked at the spells later on (which seem like a good increase in damage), but the DoTs I've been using take so much longer to kill things -- My Zerk died in a DH at Lv.88 with a mob at near full health; it took my shaman all his mana, and 5 full rounds of DoTs to get the mob down, at level 82. Green trash mobs in Sleeper's Tomb even take over a minute to kill with 3 dots and a nuke. I'm just disappointed in the class. I wasn't looking at having a strict-utility class. I assumed, at this stage of the game, every class could hold their own. And my shaman, at Lv.83, I'm skeptical on soloing anywhere. Additionally, the Shaman slow spell has essentially bottomed out with Turgur's Insects at 51 due to it being the best slow % high spell duration. I've refrained from putting much more money into Slows, but after reading them on ZAM, some even have a heal for the Target's Target (although lasting only 1.5mins). Although, I'll strictly use Turgur's, Turgur's AA clicky, AA AoE clicky, and seldomly Tortugone Drowse AoE. Do any of you shaman use these healing slow lines instead?
Your shaman's spells are suuuuper under powered in HAs when running alongside characters like your berserker 15 levels higher. The damage spells don't line up versus their hp, and the heal spells don't line up against their dps. "Red con mobs", understood to be very challenging, are only 3 levels higher. Your feeling of what shaman is like would be very different if fighting appropriate mobs.
Very true. If you look at just your Breath of **** DoTs you can see the difference below that those 15 levels will make. Breath of Queen Malarian Shaman (81) Decrease Current Hit Points by 422 per tick Breath of the Shiverback Shaman (86) Decrease Current Hit Points by 775 per tick Breath of Silbar Shaman (91) Decrease Current Hit Points by 969 per tick Breath of Natigo Shaman (96) Decrease Current Hit Points by 1336 per tick
Shaman @ 105 is a lot different than shaman @ lower levels. Your dps gets much, much, much, much worse (ow), while your healing and ADPS/buff utility gets much much better. I would not plan on DPS'ing with the shaman.. at all as he gets higher. Even hotswapping in sets of dots, nuking, casting roar, and whacking things in the face, your DPS will be lackluster at best. When going it solo on my Shaman @ 105 I root rot with 12-16 dots and barely clear the damage of a DPS merc on balanced. That's max AA and not having to worry about healing others. I could probably squeeze some more dps out of that by optimizing the cast order. For slows, I use crippling counterbias in group content. Slow + ToT heal + cripple. And then Malosenite goes on *everything* (the spell, not the AA! Stacking conflict there, once you use AA malo you can't overwrite it with spell malo, and spell malo is 10x better! Note that you can *can* use Wind of Malo and overwrite THAT with spell malo. Too weird). Feral line on anything it can land on. Then it's just lots and lots of HoTs, with the reckless line filling in the gaps. Click epic 2.0 (must have for every shaman) and talisman (or ROAR! at 101!). Line the Epic up with zerker burns and watch your dps woes disappear. I'm really not a good shaman, it was my main waaaay back in the day, now it's a 4th alt and doesn't get much attention. Someone else with more XP can probably fill in/correct any gaps I've left Edit: And what these guys are saying about the level discrepancy is so true. If anything, the fact that your shaman can keep your squishy, chain-wearing, suicidal Zerker up despite being 15 levels lower should be a testament to its healing prowess. It's a good class, but it's definitely meant for a healer/utility de/buff/ADPS role.
(spell) Malosenete Rk. II lv102 803mana cast time 3.25s resist Magic -5 1: Increase Base Spell Damage Taken by 1% to 10% 9: Limit Resist: Magic 2: Decrease Cold Resist by 145 3: Decrease Magic Resist by 145 4: Decrease Poison Resist by 145 5: Decrease Fire Resist by 145 (AA) Malosinete V cast time 1.125s resist Magic -200 2: Decrease Cold Resist by 150 3: Decrease Magic Resist by 150 4: Decrease Poison Resist by 150 5: Decrease Fire Resist by 150 AA malo is super harder to resist, casts faster, can cast between spells, and debuffs for more. The spell version has the small upside of adding 5% on average to magic-type nukes/dots. Only use the spell Malo for raids. Crippling Counterbias Rk. II cast time 2.5s (<this is not long enough to engage spell haste focus/buff, so actually 2.5s) 2: Decrease Melee Haste by 75% 1: Decrease DEX by 100 2: Decrease AGI by 100 3: Decrease STR by 100 4: Decrease AC by 39 Targets Target 2: Increase Current HP by 3952 per tick Regenerating Counterbias Rk. II cast time 3s (really 2.2s) 2: Decrease Melee Haste by 75% Targets Target2: Increase Current HP by 6319 per tick but the cripple bit! you say: Turgur's Swarm VI (AA) cast time 0.6s resist Magic -50 1: Cast: Turgur's Diminishment IV 2: Decrease Melee Haste by 80% ...Turgur's Diminishment IV Magic -2000 3: Decrease STR by 321 4: Decrease AC by 132 5: Decrease DEX by 321 6: Decrease AGI by 321 7: Decrease Chance to Dual Wield by 18%
Thanks for the input guys. I've just noticed more and more that I probably will have to main him over my melee to keep heals going, instead of setting up hot button macros
before i start let me tell you i am bad with stats.... so no numbers from me. that being said my shaman 105 TBM raid geared still has trouble killing in DH, i know other shaman who can solo nameds in TBM, no clue how. my shaman is a healer/slower/dps boost - i duo with my ranger and can kill pretty much anything i want/ i use a macro for the shaman and concentrate on the ranger. here is what helped me most: the wind of renewal line of spells! if i always keep a HoT on my partner/group mates i have less healing to do. so my macro is something like 1 -assist player 2 -pet attack (a geared up shaman pet can do some good dmg) 3 -counterbias/ slow (again heal component helps hugely) 4 -leopard / roar 5 -shear of renewal after that i might put some dots if i can look away from the ranger, but mostly i don't dps i use my AAs, spells and epic to boost the ranger's dps hope that helps
Trying to box a zerk and get the most out of them with any class other then a bard is pretty difficult as is but as others have said the level gap is probably whats making it so much harder. also remember it scales to the highest level. You might be better off killing in a static zone until you can handle HA's/missions
I just read in vet lounge somewhere that shaman are disappearing and no on knows why, I don't know if this is really the case or just one persons mistaken opinion. I do know though that if it is true, there are several factors that could be causing the problem, First I will preface this by saying I have always been a shaman main. and will remain that way till the lights get turned out. I remember offtanking sometimes even being main tank in a group if no one more able could be found. it wasn't always pretty but it was always fun. trying that in eok now I think would be a quick trip to the corpse summoner in the lobby. I remember being able to agro more mobs than I could handle, then in wide open spaces being able to run around and root rot them down, that used to be a blast. with many more mobs now summoning that is no longer an option in most places. even then, a shaman would never come close to winning a dps parse but could do some meaningful damage, now I think we are at the absolute bottom dps wise. part of the joy of being shaman was the option to play so many different ways. I never preferred to be the primary healer in a group setting, was always happy in the backup healer spot but it seems now that shaman have been pidgeon holed into primary healer role. I would theorize that many shaman liked the versatility before and likely miss it now. I know I do. If I had wanted that role I would have rolled a cleric back then. all is not gloom and doom for today's shammy our healing nowadays is top notch. our trusty dog dog has received some upgrades and can be relied on to keep a current trash mob busy so long as you pop all his helpful aa and remember to heal him. I personally like our new dot line. it is a small step in the right direction. for the time that ive spent so far In the new expansion I am enjoying it, but part of me is still looking to be a little more than just a cleric. no offense meant to the clerics out there. (and I'm pretty sure they are out dpsing us too) I guess that was about all I was wanting to say, and I'm holding out some hope for the dot revamps to come that we will see a nice boost and allow us to contribute a little more. thanks for reading if you did
I play a shaman as main since 1999 , raiding and group game . our healing got a big improvement over the years , while our dps took a serious drop ( compared to other class ). ( I play a free to play druid as box ( level 105 with 10k + aa;s ) and he can out dps me ( with my rk 3 spells ) pretty easily... with black wolf form aa x2 , my free to play druid can crit dicho dd and aa storm strike, can do over 500k + damage in 4 sec or so, combined with all other dd.... I don't have a chance . sometime on raids we can see some cleric doing much more dps than we can ..same for chanters. we are pretty much at the bottom of the dps now. like you , I will play my shaman as main until EQ die , there are fewer who play shaman now . I used to raid with 5 or 7 shm avail in raids, to being the only one now , most rerolled or just left EQ. * the new instant dot line is a nice one, but still not enough to our * dps * boost
Sorry to say, "backup healer" is not an actual role, and it never was. Further, if it were a role, it would be better filled by rangers, beastlords, and redundant paladins, since they are much higher dps while also having heals available in a hypothetical crisis. The very rare times shaman (and druids) lacked the tools to appropriately handle content as the only healer were design lapses. As a main shaman from Luclin through Underfoot, and whenever I've logged on that character since switching my focus, I functioned as the group's only healer. I (quietly, don't want to be rude) lamented that my group was weaker than it could have been if for social reasons it included a cleric or druid that could have been another, higher damage class. As for versatility, that's not gone. If anything shm have better utility than they ever did with the combos of AA roots & blurs and the much better group dps with Lion & swifts & nukes and the busty evolution of Doggo. Content is certainly different. A shaman's relative power is sure different than when Turgur's Insects was 3/4ths of a mez that couldn't be broken by melee. Fewer mobs are as bizarrely vulnerable to killing them without fighting them. Couple other relevant things. My overall feeling, though, is that shm is a powerful class. Their abilities have been so robust for years, even, that it's tough making new stuff for them. And without fancy new stuff, the class is less attractive to players, regardless of how powerful it it. The same second-order "problem" of basically being in too good a spot afflicts bards as well.
Sure you are correct Brohg, officially backup healer was never a role that had a designated spot in a group. However as a shaman who frequently found myself in a groups that had a cleric in them it quickly became a role. And to be perfectly clear no where in my post do I state that shaman lacked the tools to appropriately handle content, (if appropriate means the only way for a shaman to kill a mob is heal others and let them do it lol) Perhaps I was a bit unclear in my post about the versatility, I was not stating that they don't have utility because they do, always have and been excellent with that part. what I was trying to express was that I used to be able to play my shaman depending on my mood, if I wanted to sit a mount and heal for a group I could, if I felt just like doin my own thing I could go with the dog and tell him to sit and if I was feeling adventurous I could agro a bunch of mobs and run my boots off trying to keep em all locked down and dotted, if you think there was no danger in that then your not doing it right =) If I felt like living and frequently dieing dangerously I could do the up close and personal bashin on mobs tanking myself, I honestly feel like a chain class with our healing power should be able to get in and beat one trash mob to death. especially when you watch other classes getting beat on by an entire target window full, one trash mob not a named shouldn't be too much to ask. in the capacity of primary healer yes we are in as good if not better place than we have ever been and that's wonderful, but there was a time when there used to be a lot more to us than that. that's all I'm trying to say.
If the spell doesn't land after a few casts I just use the AA Although I could probably just use the malo totem, but moving around that's a bit of a PITA
I do not know why anyone would play a Shaman over a Druid to be quite honest. I recently played them both to see what it was like and found the Shaman to be wanting. Admittedly I only went to level 70, nevertheless, it does give you an indication of what the class is like and what the future holds. The shaman seems to be worst healer of the priest classes (Close to Druid, but below it.) All it really has is slow, but this is not unique to them as other classes and items can do it. Perhaps not to the same level, but close enough to marginalize it. The pet is comical and of little benefit. Even when I got one close to my level, buffed it, mage toys, did everything i could to improve it, its accuracy was horrendous. It missed at least 2 of 3 times even on light blues. Now, perhaps at level 101, Shaman's get a useful pet, that could be, but I really enjoy the game 1-80, and from this viewpoint, the Shaman is at the bottom. Finally, my last big complaint was the Shaman always seemed to be out of mana. Before she got to a level where she could receive a decent clarity, it was very frustrating. The first couple lines of cannibalize returned such little mana, it hardly seemed worth the effort, but it didn't make sense that the Druid would finish most battles with 3/4 bar of mana and the Shaman 1/4 or less when both of the same level, wearing comparable gear and casting around the same amount of spells. Plus having to stop to cast cannibalize to try and recover mana when a mob is beating on you seemed silly to me. Do not enjoy that mechanic at all. To be honest, I do not what the Shaman class is suppose to be. Stat buffing is nice, but when I see level capped players with maxed out heroic stats, is a stat buff going to return to them any benefit ? I wish EQ had gone in a different direction with the Shaman class, as the true ultimate debuffer. Perhaps that might have encroached on the necromancer class, I am not sure, but at present, the Shaman seems to be a ship travelling without a rudder.
You obviously invested in the class you play, and I am sorry for you, but I do have other characters at level cap that raid and not a single time have we had to call one off because no shamans were around. They are simply not needed.
What? Raids don't have to be called off if any one of sixteen classes happened not to be there. Who are you answering, and what does that have to do with character power?
I am giving you my opinion of what I thought of the class. You said it has no merit because I didn't play to 105 ? Forget the raids for a moment. Before mercs, when a healer was required, a shaman would only be taken as a last resort. They were useful for slow but little else. Not much has changed as far as I can see as too their desirability in a group or raid environment. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think EQ could have done much better with this class. They did so in EQ2 which I admit has little relation to EQ, but presumably was worked on by the same company. The whole witchdoctor theme with curses, debuffs,animism, ancestral spirits has tremendous appeal in Lore. Unfortunately, the EQ shaman is not it.
Shaman from the very beginning have been seen as the pinnacle of what you could be if you chose to be something. While from time to time I may have been jealous of the druid's ability to port and apply damage instantaneously, for a second I have never doubted the shaman. Each time I have returned to everquest, with the exception of the first time I went to World of Warcraft and went from hunter to ranger, I went with a shaman or shadowknight. I've played this game on and off since 2000 and at no time were Shaman ever considered to be weaksauce. There was a patch where the doggo got buffed, in the same patch shadowknight pets also went from useless to marginally good. Put the dog against the druid pet from level 55 and we'll see who wins.
