Gimped not taking a Shaman with this setup?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Arlien, Nov 4, 2021.

  1. Arlien New Member

    Looks like the top end druid persistent damage shield adds 5k per hit on it.....add that to the SK and the bard ones....seems like it could actually be semi useful. And definitely awesome for clearing old content quickly., no?




  2. Tucoh Augur

    Damage shields are useful and the druid ones especially should be used to their fullest. Wrath of the wild is no joke. It's just not a first order benefit to choosing a druid.
  3. Tucoh Augur

    Just to add to this, I found a stretch of random playing where I killed about 80 mobs I did with a mage in the group who kept the 5k damage shield up. Over this stretch I did 3,189,337,206 damage total and 9,437,329 came from the damage shield with the mage doing 742,276,137 of it with nukes / pet. That amounts to DS being 0.2% of my total damage and 1.2% of my mage's damage. Enough to keep that DS up on the group, but the damage the mage did from nukes + pets outclasses it by far.

    caveat: It's possible that I had died or dropped DS or something silly in this set of mobs, but this result is about what I expect. If someone disputes this ratio I can get a fresh dataset.
  4. Tappin Augur

    There’s a misconception with dmg shields - the reason they have been updated is because of mob HP mudflation. I wouldn’t use my bard for that. Your better off with DoTs and ADPS or AC.
  5. dubblestack Elder

    for me would be more about the heals, buffs are alright as already mention, but, you can basically go through most of the game (if not all of it except for a few cov missions) with a sham and a sk. Probably the best duo out there provided you aug the sk out as much as you can, anything u add on that is icing on the cake. I like druids too, but doesn't seem as if they can heal near as well as my sham despite being better geared, druids also have mana issues. I didn't actually start playing my sham much except for hitting slow until recently, and that is probably the most fun I have had in a while, and you never run out of mana.
  6. Galamann Journeyman

    I box Warrior, Shaman, Mage, and Bard. Shaman and bard add significant ADPS for the entire group, and the shaman's DPS is excellent with very little effort. In addition, the heals are excellent for named or missions that have nasty AEs.

    I love having the mage box as well because it's good DPS for low effort and you get COTHs.
  7. Schadenfreude Augur

    As has been stated a good few posts ago, SK and Shaman is the strongest duo in the game and you don't to run sad panda third party add-ons to get things done.
  8. Alnitak Augur

    Again, speaking for my beastlord - almost any class in the group is better than a shaman or cleric.
    (reservation - except special cases when nameds/quests do some nasty AE or curses)
    And I am not comparing shaman vs nothing. I am talking about some other class instead.
    Mage - far better dps, DS, coth, summoned gear for when pets die.
    Wizzy - far better dps than shaman dps or adps, even though wizzies are struggling now.
    Necro, rogue, zerker, warrior, SK, Pally, monk - much better dps than a shaman.
    Druid, ranger - extra useful buffs, better dps
    Chanter - much better buffs (Cekenar really adds dps to a BST) as well as mana regen. Decent on-par dps, CC and extra auras.
    Bard - hands down best adps, and a reasonable steady dps.
    Second beastlord - higher dps than a shaman, extra useable tank and paragon and instant bump with 100K+ steady dps via coalition (2 beastlords do trigger coalition every 30-35 secs with ease)
    In the end - a beastlord IS a hybrid between a shaman and a monk.

    Again, for a beastlord a shaman in the group is meh. Meanwhile for any other meleeing class a shaman is a gift from above.
  9. dubblestack Elder


    You haven't grouped with many halfway decent shaman then. There is a lot of content you just cannot do unless you have an actual healer, or the tank (sk) is raid geared.
  10. Alnitak Augur

    Vulak'Aerr and The Crusaders are the two missions I've never done without a real healer in the group.
    All other CoV and ToV missions done without a healer and with a group-geared SK tank (merc healer was enough). Non-mission content done with BST tanking and a healer merc.
    And I have all the group content checked from RoF through CoV.
    Sooo... what is that "a lot of content" are you writing about ?
    VP mini-raid in RoS does need a real healer for tanking dragons, but only because it's a raid with no merc allowed, and any healer does just fine.
  11. dubblestack Elder

    so, u can deal with multiple adds, which you will always get in dn and almost every zone in cov, All of the names etc, with a group geared sk and a healer merc + a beastlord? What names are you soloing with a beastlord?
  12. Alnitak Augur

    Almost in all places in ToV and CoV names can be singled by a careful splitting with a ranger and a mage. No, the beastlord does not solo, but there is no plated tank in the group, warder is the main tank with 2 other pets for a situational offtanking.
  13. dubblestack Elder


    so you have tanked all t2 names aside from the shade with a beastlord pet? if so thats painful, yes it may be possible but i know you died a lot.

    I have ran basically every single combination of group, with no tank, and or a tank, with no healer with either a shaman, cleric, or druid, caster/melee, or a combination of all both raid and group geared. And frankly the best combination, with two classes has always been a shaman and an sk, i always basically build from that point, and usually at least one mage (i prefer casters). Yes it is possible to do it with a pet and no healer, but it is not nearly optimal.
  14. Zarniwoop New Member

    I've played both (albeit only up through HoT - not sure if anything really changes from that point on), and both are completely viable. My experience was the shaman adds more power to the group, but the druid requires less attention and provides conveniences. This is not to be undervalued when boxing three.

    Both classes have valuable buffs.

    Shaman gives you the best slow, resist debuff, efficient heals over time, and great ADPS with the Avatar and Panther lines. The downside is keeping avatar and panther up requires some attention, and slowing/debuffing/dotting also take time and attention.

    Druid gives you ports, a better damage shield, and evac. In combat it's probably one button per mob (dot or nuke depending on how quickly stuff is dying) and heals as necessary. Evac will save your bacon.

    Haste isn't a factor because the bard is maxing your haste and overhaste. If playing with a Druid, the bard has to slow, which is one less song available to melody, but bard slow has the advantage of requiring no extra attention. Mobs in range just get slowed.
    code-zero likes this.
  15. Dragnath Elder

    But have you considered that halflings can be druids?
  16. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    I don’t know how people heal with Druids, they just feel like they’re missing another group heal. It’s like an incomplete class.
  17. Dragnath Elder

    Their heals are pretty much the worst, I would not recommend for a main healer. They are still a very fun well rounded class though.
  18. Randomized Augur

    I'm not disagreeing with you, but I am definitely going to have to agree with:

    Shamans dps is a lot better than you're giving it credit for.

    But, it also all depends on group make up. Melee oriented, the adps on top of Shaman dps would make them more desirable than say a Mage would.
    dubblestack likes this.
  19. Chorus Augur

    meh...once you reach a saturation point DPS wise, more of anything is over kill. It's easy to hold down all the spawn in an area with pretty much any 3box combo you could imagine. I don't even use all my abilities or epic except on named these days because my 4 box has been at that point forever, and I'd rather have 0 downtime rather than waiting on respawn when I'm doing something. I don't even use mercs anymore, except in missions because that's the only time I want to speed things up even a little.

    So, although you're seeing a LOT of argument about what's best blah blah blah, that sort of thing really only matters in the raid game where max/min truly applies. In the group game, current target for the group is roughly 1mil dps, give or take 15%. If you're firing around that range when fighting a named, your group make-up can handle anything in last 2 expansions. In other words, build any group combo that fits your interest, the rest of this stuff is just epeen flexing and isn't relevant.
    Dragnath likes this.
  20. Tucoh Augur

    Hey, some of us only play this game for epeen flexing.

    But what you said is only true if:
    • You aren't trying to hold down as many spawns as possible. I know when I'm doing hunter or farming I'm always killing or moving to somewhere to kill. If I'm holding down a single named camp I'm doing a *lot* of house work in the meantime.
    • You're not attempting the harder group content like the Crusaders where that 1 million DPS or sparse healing from not having a priest is going to make things a lot harder
    Also note that IIRC you're using one of the most powerful and optimized 4box group combinations.