I Surrender

Everyone has already stated enough. If your tank is dieing, you need to work his defensive abilities into not only taking hits better but since he is an SK stacking his offensive aas at the same time to sap life from the mob. If you are being dotted ... recognize it and cure with sham or compensate with healing which shams can do very well. If the mob has too much hp maximize your mages output and learn how to spike those numbers to get em down. People become stagnant and content with what their classes do, because it gets them by. You need to evolve with your toons and learn how to get better results. Basing your mage's dps on a wiz merc, means you are doing terrible dps. Any real player should be able to at minimal sustain twice a mercs dps. You cannot get by in NEW content with OLD playstyles.

I agree, as far as I knew, content was supposed to be tuned around 6 REAL players playing 6 toons, each having appropriate gear and AA, concentrating on only 1 toon.

Everquest is all about socializing. Play 1 toon at a time, get 5 friends, and knock it out. If you want it for an alt, too... do it again.... for another alt... do it again. Mix and match your alts with your friends alts/mains, and get everyone through it, no problem.

The fact is, you just cannot play 3 toons to their max, at one time and mercs DEFINITELY stink, compared to their real player counterparts.

Mercs and boxing should be for when your friends aren't currently on, and for grinding easier content.

If all tasks/missions were tuned for 3 boxing/3 mercing, then that would make them trivial beyond imagination for a real group of 6 players.

See my name? For the moment, just remove your SHM and add a real dps class.

What's wrong with shaman? I mean, aside from being near invincible and impossible to run oom and have the best slows and cripples.

I was under the impression that y'all are in a good place.

We are.

I agree they are broken... they stole our Cripple

Commin for yer haste ....

Oh... you can have that! Buff requests during events is killing my DEEPS!

Does that include GoD, SoF, UF and VoA?

Your pants don't go on your head. Shamans are in a good place. If you don't think so...you are wrong.

Hmm, good times were had boxing the Sep monster mission and/or Triunity? ^ . ^

Sigh.

His complaint is that he's not also a druid.

Seriously, his list of grievances is somewhere in the priest forum, and it's a wishlist of druid abilities.

I believe the frustration is in the group game, for shaman. Their heals are too good for group content, and they don't have enough to do, and be productive, in the group environment, besides heal.

The problem is overwhelming DPS is much, much greater than Slow/cripple in group content. Has been that way for a long while now.

No need to slow or cripple a mob that dies in 30 seconds or less, pretty pointless...

If a tank can make themselves nearly invincible to a named mob for a full minute (or longer)... if your group can kill that mob in that time or less, there's no need for slow or cripple for that mob, either... Even a chanter usually serves their group best by hitting their burn stuff and nuking - if not tanking - a named mob, rather than debuffing.

Shaman need a bump in personal DPS comparable to what enchanters received a few years ago. Add another ice or poison nuke, and greatly increase the damage of their current ones. Make them high mana to damage ratio, if want, but at least give them an option for group content.

If by "fun" you mean an out-of-body experience looking helplessly down at my corpse in 3rd person? That sounds a lot like VoA. Regarding the original post, OP should recognize "undercon" as being a thing since early EQ.

Some named mobs will straight up curb-stomp you while other named will die without anybody realizing you killed a named until they see loot on the corpse. I do think there's a semi-recent trend where it's unclear whether these situations are intentional or accidental. The reality is the beta process is getting shorter and less collaborative every expansion.

Decesses, I've gone all the way thru progression to Crypt of Sul partisan boxing with group gear. In the last expansion I used Cleric Ranger Mage and Wizard with cleric wizzy wizzy merc. (had to have the back up heals on some of the TDS namers.) This expansion I swapped out the cleric for my enchanter and had no problems with the namers. I thought some of the TDS namers were more brutal than anything in this new expansion. Always used mage pet to tank, even after the nerf bat. CC is where its at boxing this expansion. Maybe level up an enchanter and let the shammy take a little vacation.

Um.... comparable? That's really pushing it. Boost? Sure.

^That. Box groups expecting miracles with little to no CC or ADPS are going to hit a wall most likely IME. I mean... the Enchanter alone can significantly drop a named's HP by popping ITC+IOG+CI+Haze+Dichotomic with auras running. That doesn't even require good gear or skill to do. Plus, with spellshields etc. it increases survivability a lot.

Lot's of content this expansion can be trivialized for the less-than-optimal setups (low end groupers, boxers,...) with crowd control.

Is this thread really surprising to you?

Yes, CC all the way. Yesterday I was camping the last non-HA named I needed in Crypt of Decay, Xhut Adan (alllll the way in the far-reaches of the zone, past many SI and SIVU) with my mage main, my chanterbot, and my new druidbot, plus 3 (yes, 3) healer mercs up as insurance. While I certainly could have killed my way back to the PHes, I wasn't in the mood so I CCed my way back. Everyone except the enchanter died, and I had to use all of her tricks, but in the end I made it to a safe spot. It was kinda fun, really, but--aside from a ton of trash killing--not doable without the chanter. Plus so many mobs are sociable in there, making the enchanter invaluable.

Long story short, if you want to win at TBM, roll a chanter!

Better stop talking about Enchanters or next patch:

- Reviewed the majority of enemies in Call of the Forsaken and The Darkened Sea The Broken Mirror zones with regards to immunity to runspeed changes, mesmerization, stun, lull, charm, and fear, and removed or relaxed restrictions on most NPCs.

We don't need more Argin-Hizzing up in here!

Whoops. Does it help if I emphasize how many times she almost died too? (It was a lot.)