Shaman questions

Hello forums,

I will be returning to the game after some years away and I have a few shaman questions. I will be starting fresh from scratch 2 boxing, and I am undecided on a BST or Shaman main. For context, I will have a friend playing with me as a paladin, but he won't be playing as often as I will so I may have to power level him time to time to help him catch up. I have played shaman before, but only to 50-ish or so back during omens. But if some shaman experts could offer insight and advice, it would be much appreciated.

1. Race/Diety - I do know there are some old religious/race clickies, such as the clicky snare item from way back when. Are those still worth chasing? If I am a shaman main, I will worry about runners if root breaks.

2. Root rotting - how effective is it and how far will it carry you? I seem to recall during Omens a lot of things begin to summon. I wouldn't mind having a leisure pace of root-rotting but I am uncertain how far you can get that way or if its even effective from 60-120.

3. Best box? - I expect most of the time I will be alone 2 boxing with mercs. The problem with all the shaman 2 box advice is that most seem to assume you are boxing the shaman, when I want to main the shaman and box something else, and I can't really find much advice on boxing in this manner, especially all the way to level cap. Most posts seem to be Sk+Sham, and play the SK. So what would be the best box option if I wanted to main the shaman?

4. Mercs - how far can you get with a shaman and a merc? Granted I will be 2 boxing, but I am not sure if a pocket merc tank will struggle in POP and beyond or not. As I mentioned above, I will have a paladin friend, but he is a family man and won't be playing as often as myself.

5. Are there any major shaman changes or difficult spots expansion/level wise?

6. Any final bit of advice?

There just doesn't seem to be much out there for boxing shaman as a main, not the box. At the moment I am deciding between BST main + Bard box, or Shaman main + ? box, and I am unsure which would be better from 1 all the way to 120 starting fresh.

Thank you kindly in advance.

PS - I forgot to mention, it will be on the live FV server, which I expect matters on box options/advice.

1. Ogre. If you are a solo shaman you absolutely want to be an ogre for less spell interrupts from melee.

2. Root rotting, and later mass rotting will get you to 120 no problem. Shaman roots are extremely effective as CC tools in modern play.

3. If you are maining a shaman, and you want to go the rot route, your best box is either a bard or a necro. Bard is incredibly easy to box and gives you the extra oomph to 1 round most mobs throughout the expansions up to the last two.

4. Merc is always cleric, every other merc will walk up to rooted mobs and either kill itself or break root.

5. AE heal is a big change, as well as Beam Root. Additionally, the dot revamp has made shamans a multidotting monster.

6. Around the 105-110 era your pet will begin to be able to tank named mobs. Begin to start experimenting with how much you can get away with healing and dpsing with a pet tank (and cleric merc). Shamans are currently the most powerful class in the game throughout all situations. Probably #1 in raiding, #2 in grouping and #3 in soloing.

You will find that in most cases you will be able to effectively kill mobs easier by yourself than with your Paladin friend. Take that as you will.

This is much better than what I was expecting. I was a bit apprehensive at making a shaman main, but this sounds very promising. Especially the pet tanking which is completely new information for me.
Thank you very much. I am defiantly leaning towards Shaman main now. I have heard about slow-tanking and the like (slow + enfeeble mobs, use pet and dps merc as additional dps) but wasn't sure how viable that was.

“If you need independence when you're friend isn't online, you'll need Tank, Healing, DPS, and CC”

MAGE cover all this ( cc via call of heroes ) if you have another player in group * [/quote]

shaman is a great addition for a mage as well
2 group ovrtime heals ( usually all it need to keep pet alive ) and a rain heal and 2 more aa overtime heals via AA ( these at higher levels tho ** ) who is matter since you can level fast at lower levels anyway .

dd proc via roar line , great aa and ae roots , hard to resists , combined with call of heroes it rock.
more pets from shaman procs, and regular and aa pets , my mage love it .........best mage nuke doing more damage when more pets are on a mob , i like to see a million + dd nuke ( non crit ) here and there , specially with shm being able to add some decent amount of pets .

and list goes on .

***** from your post in newbie zone . you can't go wrong with shm + mage ,
mage bring great tanking ( via pet ) dps, and CC ( combined with your shm ) .

i always had a shaman as main character ( raider ) , and my best duo is shm + mage who are low maintenance = easy to box,

shaman got good dots as well combined with mage nukes.

shaman is a great addition for a mage as well
2 group ovrtime heals ( usually all it need to keep pet alive ) and a rain heal and 2 more aa overtime heals via AA ( these at higher levels tho ** ) who is matter since you can level fast at lower levels anyway .

dd proc via roar line , great aa and ae roots , hard to resists , combined with call of heroes it rock.
more pets from shaman procs, and regular and aa pets , my mage love it .........best mage nuke doing more damage when more pets are on a mob , i like to see a million + dd nuke ( non crit ) here and there , specially with shm being able to add some decent amount of pets .

and list goes on .

***** from your post in newbie zone . you can't go wrong with shm + mage ,
mage bring great tanking ( via pet ) dps, and CC ( combined with your shm ) .

i always had a shaman as main character ( raider ) , and my best duo is shm + mage who are low maintenance = easy to box,

shaman got good dots as well combined with mage nukes.[/quote]


Might I ask how a mage CC's? You mentioned it involves call of the hero, but I amnot sure how summoning a party member to you can be a form of CC. Would you mind explaining it, because that one is new to me.

mage call of hero ( level 55 for spell ) and later single cast coh from aa and group COH spell .
* call of hero ( coh ) clear all agro , if you didn't cast a dot on the mob and if you are not too close to your mage .
so if i want to kill a named in a room filled with 12 + mobs in it , i start to cast COH on my shaman and i switch to my shaman and cast ae root ( hard to resist root if they are not immune to run speed change ), mobs are rooted and coh cleared agro .

root last 4min + and ae root or single root from aa refresh is 30 sec, if i got a mob who can't be rooted i just pull that mob , run away toward the mage ( not too close ), cast coh and many times the mob you pulled take a little longer to run back, so you can tag him,

so you can go back to that room and do the same thing, cast coh and cast ae root again from shaman .

many or most mobs should be rooted . now you can tag the named there run closer to the mage and get coh again to get the named or mob you want who should be single pull.

or if you just killing you can pull mobs with your shaman and ae root and just kill one after the others ( root last 4 min so you can refresh the aa root as you wish .

or cast malo on the mob you want , run away toward your mage , get coh , then your mob might be alone to grab , can still root them if you want too, send pet and start killing.


this is when you get some levels 85 + , anyway at lower levels you should leveling pretty fast anyway .

i prefer having some class being powerfull later in the game .

i helped many players in FV ( 200 + ), with plats , fastest group mount , bags , so if you need help there , i could help. ** knowing your name in FV ** , have fun.

BTW shaman at higher levels got a fade agro ( totem ) and can do a quest for instant cast feing death item ( can have FD potions later too ), that add some more tools for pulling ,

sometime i pull a mob and check how many mobs are inc, if i dont like that pull and dont want to use COH , i cast ae root and cast aa totem to clear all agro, , so i can drop the effect and cast another ae root not long after if i want.

shm can get a snare item too depending on the diety , i dont have it but i never had any problem ( specially at higher levels ) with mob running away, they dying before they can. , and mage earth pet can root and the air pet can stun anyway.