So I'm an alt-aholic and decided to lvl up my SK to 105 and gear him up as I've been relying on Mercs to tank or my BL pet to tank (which only has EM 18 item). I don't really plan on raiding; I'd like to grab the highest tier of group gear I can. I already have a 105 shaman that is halfway geared in T1 EoK gear. My original plan was going to be to play the SK and shaman together. I figured I could use a DPS merc and cleric merc, and my shaman can spot heal, buff, and slow. Virulent Paralysis is a great cc for the shaman (wish I had my other pushback/root that got consolidated, though). However, I recently got lucky and found the Golden Knight's Belt that procs slow, which would be perfect for my SK, and it made me think that Druid would be a better fit than the shaman. With the belt proccing slow, that's one area I wouldn't necessarily need from the shaman. I've never played a high level druid, but I would be getting ports, some buffs (maybe not as good as shaman buffs), and tracking, which should really help when taking down named mobs. I'm not sure how well the druid heals or adds DPS in comparison to the Shaman. I know many folks would suggest I 3 box to maximize my potential in the group game, but that's just not my cup of tea. I'd like to hear some feedback on what people suggest between the druid and the shaman as a box for my SK. How does the Druid fare for heals and DPS? Does it make sense to pair with the SK? Thanks for the advice!
SK + Shaman + Healer merc + Rogue merc: Great thing about Shamans are their buffs are amazing when it comes to melee toons. From the haste, then, stat enhancers, procs, and there's always the panther/lion line. SKs have great self healing as is, so you may not even need to spot heal with the Shaman. Just let the cleric merc do it all. Then you have the SK, pet, merc, shaman pet all benefiting from the Shamans buffs/procs. And then you have the Shaman adding in their pretty darn good dps with their DoTs. SK + Druid + Healer merc + Wizard Merc: Now I do not know much about Druids, but if I recall correctly, a lot of their burn AAs deal with spell damage and spell crit. Thus their great synergy with casters. So again you've got spot heals, decent buffs, regen, tracking, ports, evac, and good damage. There's also their debuff line which should stack up with belts slow. Either choice would work. I think you could get a bit more damage out of the Shaman group, but I think you'll get more utility and survivability out of the Druid group. And I may be bias as I want to try out a druid with my SK personally.
I play an SK/Druid at 105 and recently played an SK/Shammy on Agnarr (only to 60). @Treiln's assessment is pretty much spot on. The shammy will really make melee shine while the druid will synergize with casters a little better from a DPS stand point. If all you want is DPS and you have a melee-heavy group, shaman is the way to go. If DPS is less of a concern than minimizing the time you spend traveling, tracking, evacing, etc., while still offering great heals, decent buffs and solid DPS, go druid! The druid's utility really stands out if you are questing or doing anything besides sitting in one place and beating on things. Porting and tracking are huge time savers. The druid's remote heals (Remote and Dicho) coupled with the SK's inherent self-healing can pretty much negate the need for a healer merc while still letting the druid nuke the crap out of things. Dots are fine for long fights (and my druid has a couple mem'd), but I rarely cast them unless I'm fighting a named. With druid nukes and a couple of caster DPS mercs, mobs are dead before dots would be worth casting. Druids are also AMAZING power-levelers I really enjoy the shaman too...honestly either one is a good choice.
Thanks for the feedback. Something else I was thinking about is pulling. The SK is a decent puller with FD, snare, and Hate's Attraction, but a druid can pacify outdoors, right? A shaman does not help much there. What are your thoughts on pulling with this group?
SK is all you need for pulling...and is such a good tank that you shouldn't be afraid to tank 3-4 non-named at a time (assuming level-appropriate gear and AAs). SK is one of the best pullers in the game.
The power of a shaman's slow is in part the addition of cripple. Druid attack debuff would stack with the slow proc on the belt, where the shaman slow would over write it and add a cripple component; this would make the druid-belt debuff superior overall. I'd still go shaman, unless you want track/ports. SK-Shaman duo is pretty unbeatable, and has a solid synergy.
Slow, cripple and other attack debuffs are powerful, but I try to remember to only use them if I need to. If the tank isn't dying, it's more efficient to cast another nuke instead of the slow/cripple. If your SK is geared appropriately for the content, a merc healer doesn't need slows to keep your tanks alive and it's more important to focus on increasing DPS. Slows and debuffs are a huge help when you are under-powered and I still cast my druid's AA attack debuff all the time, since it is a free cast between nukes. But as the toons transition from "under-geared" to "appropriately-geared", I think the shaman debuffs may become less important and the druid's better/faster DPS might become more valuable. I would really like to see a more concrete comparison of druid and shaman dps and adps in various group makeups and against various encounters, to see which shines more in different situations.
Slow-Malo are both AA; and therefore can be woven between dot casts. Shaman nukes are terrible dps, and would not be beneficial to use in a boxed duo situation. Not using slow/cripple (free dot AA) is just lazy playing. Pull 3-4, ae malo, slow (with dot proc aa), 2-3 dots on each mob starting from the bottom of the x-tar list. I have a 105 sk, shm that I trio w/ either a bard, or a druid. I'm a terrible druid, and the druid is undergeared compared to the shaman. As far as ADPS, I consider the comparison is mostly between black wolf and shaman epic/spire. From my experience/parses the shaman is superior for ADPS. Druid Cast: Group Spirit of the Black Wolf VI This ability, when activated, transforms your party into a black spirit wolves which reduces the mana cost of their level 105 and lower detrimental spells by 10 to 15%, increases their fire resist by 150 points, increases their mana regeneration by 65 points, increases the chance that their direct-damage spells will land critically by 10%, and increases the damage of their critical direct-damage spells by 100% for 2 minutes. Shaman 1: Increase Max HP by 30 2: Increase STA Cap by 3 Cast: Third Spire of Ancestors IV This ability, when activated, increases the chance for your weapons to trigger their combat activated spells by 25%, increases your melee accuracy by 60 points, and raises the lower bound of your melee attacks to 45 for 1.5 minutes. This ability passively grants you 30 hit points and increases your Stamina cap by 3 points. [6273] Prophet's Gift of the Ruchu Target: Caster Group AE Range: 100' Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Focusable: No Casting: 0s Duration: 60s (10 ticks) Song, Dispelable: Yes 10: Increase Critical Hit Damage by 110% of Base Damage (Non Stacking) 11: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 65% 12: Increase Current HP by 500 per tick Text: You are blessed with the gift of the Ruchu. As far as overall self dps from the shaman versus the druid. I believe the upper potential for druid is higher, but the steady dps of a shaman is superior for a grind situation.
I agree that not using them when they are free is just lazy. I was trying to point out that more DPS is generally more useful than more debuffs, in non-named scenarios. ^^This is exactly why I think the druid is generally better in multi-mob situations: 4 mobs with 3 dots is 12 casts, and the only way that dots are efficient/do damage is if the mob stays alive long enough for the dots to affect them. 12 casts of druid AE nukes and those 4 mobs are dead, no waiting needed. And if I need to toss in a heal, a remote/dichotomic single-target nuke will usually do the trick while doing DPS. I think shaman is better ADPS for a melee-centric group and druid is better ADPS for a caster-centric group. I think the druid is generally better self DPS in most situations (in my experience). I think the shaman may make fights generally "easier" and is stronger for tough single-target encounters, but that's not generally the most efficient way to play.
Either is good, IMO shaman is better. I wouldn't worry about the debuffs that much, they both work out to be similar. I recommend considering three boxing, because you can add pure DPS to your group. A sk/sha/ber +mercs group should have triple the DPS of a sk/sha + mercs group. And a sk/dru/wiz + mercs group can get a little crazy with wizard alliances.
I had a little play with a sk/dru/2 wiz mercs and sk/sha/2 rogue mercs to check out how the mercs performed. The 1st key difference I saw was the damage done by each merc, what I saw was:- - Rogue merc = ~20k dps (shaman buffs) - Wiz merc = ~29k dps (cleric haste) With Roar of the Lion running the rogue mercs each had 10-11 procs but I saw very few crits if any (pita working out if there was a crit). With Wildspark aura running the wiz mercs had 12-14 procs a min but a lot were crits of 13k (again a pita to work this out). - Rogue merc = ~22k dps with Roar of the lion - Wiz merc = ~31k dps with wildspark running My shaman does not have his epic (/hides head in shame) so I could not work out the impact. With Grp Black Wolf the wiz mercs max hit went from 150k to 200k - Rogue merc = could not parse /blush - Wiz merc = ~34k dps with wildspark + black wolf. The above was an interesting exercise but keep in mind that I did not spend too long trying it out and no shaman epic. I would also recommend running a 3rd toon as that really opens up what your team can do.
Rogue mercs also use an ability every so often that give a melee accuracy bonus that lasts about a minute ^.^
Ultimately, you should play the class (or, classes) you have the most fun playing. I went with a shaman for my boxing buddy because shaman are total badarses and super fun to play...plus have fun roleplaying potential. Me and Hissteria can kill just about everything in the game.
