Soloing Shaman looking for help.

[Tonden_Ockay]

If 255 is max then I would only need 105 more STA (150 unbuffed + 105 = 255) to max it if I put all my starting points into STA.

On the other hand I think a Barbarian Shaman can only have a max of 126 STA (unbuffed) if they put all their starting points into STA. So they would need 179 more STA to max it out. How easy/hard is it to get the 179 STA?

As for Wis I would only have 79 Wis (unbuffed) if I did this so there for I would need another 121 Wis to breake 200. How easy/hard is it to do this?

[Snaggles]

I think ogre is the best choice. Stats are much better and stun immune vs regen is a toss up depending on the situation. Group with a non-uber tank and you will want the stun immune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. Ogres also level a bit faster than trolls/iksars with a lower penalty.

Definitely get 5 agil so you have 75. The rest for most players is better spent in wisdom. Raiders and topor owners get more out of hps but those folks rarely sweat starting points.

Shame your friend made an inky tho, jk.

[mokfarg]

Originally Posted by Snaggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think ogre is the best choice. Stats are much better and stun immune vs regen is a toss up depending on the situation. Group with a non-uber tank and you will want the stun immune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. Ogres also level a bit faster than trolls/iksars with a lower penalty.

Definitely get 5 agil so you have 75. The rest for most players is better spent in wisdom. Raiders and topor owners get more out of hps but those folks rarely sweat starting points.

Shame your friend made an inky tho, jk.

The cat buff will take care of the agility issue though

As for a 2hdr weapon, I think you will want a gloomwater harpoon, but someone can correct me and I will be okay. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Snaggles]

Yea good point. I was just thinking of avoiding the mana cost at lower levels for dots.

At some point agil will be added randomly. The first 20 levels in banded tho.

[bakkily]

blah ogres...makes good meat to a iksar though =}

ogres make great shamans from what ive seen, no way i can melee on my shaman, but overall on playing alts grouping with a ogre shaman, they're tough! but no matter what for what ever race playing a shaman, the first 20 lvls suck...

[greatdane]

First of all, if a class can do something, they can do it no matter what race they are (excluding shit like tinkering, of course) and your race choice will at most make it a little easier or harder. The legendary guardian wurm-soloing shamans could do so regardless of race, but ogre's frontal stun immunity made it noticeably safer to do so. Play whatever you want, and if what you want is to have a minor edge in the absolute endgame of soloing, go with ogre. For the entire leveling process, troll would probably be a lot easier.

Apart from that, I can't recommend soloing through the lower levels if you're not twinked. The shaman class is pitiful until the 20s and early 30s, and especially awful until level 24. If you can't suit up in top notch twink gear, soloing through your teens is going to be an exercise in frustration. Your dots are almost completely useless, your spells are already expensive even though canni's compensating role isn't available until level 24, and you just suck until you get your key spells at 24, 29 and 34. It was marginally tolerable for me with a full kit of ikky bp, SBS, JBB pieces etc., and I can't imagine anyone starting from scratch will have the sanity to do it. You'll be meleeing most of the way to 20+, and doing that with crap armor and weapons will suck.

As for which stats to focus on, you can almost completely ignore wisdom, especially for soloing. You should never need a full mana pool for a fight, and your mana management is so flexible that sacrificing anything for wisdom is a mistake. Just get it where you can't get AC/HP and you'll be fine. If you're leveling through meleeing, AC will help you the most, and second focus should be HP because it doubles as mana with canni. Getting hit when soloing is unavoidable as a shaman, and you'll simply benefit more from taking less damage than you would from having a uselessly large mana pool

With good enough gear, you can continue to tank when soloing past the point where root-rotting becomes a viable option. My shaman is level 34 and has about 750 AC and 1000 HP unbuffed, so tanking a slowed mob is absolutely trivial. This allows me to solo effectively with just slow and disease dot while my melee and pet kill the mob. It's about as efficient as root-rotting, but it's a lot less annoying because you don't have to deal with as many resists or the randomness of root. Allows me to tab out and browse reddit while grinding, making it tolerable. If you don't have the gear for this, just root-rot, it's a perfectly fine way of soloing all the way. In that case, the only gear that'll make a noticeable impact on your exp rate is regen and, at relevant levels, Jaundiced Bone Bracer. Being a troll helps a lot when root-rotting, not quite so much when tanking. Also, don't use the malo line when leveling. It's for situations where you have to land a certain spell as fast as possible, most commonly slow on raid mobs. When you're just leveling, it's less mana efficient to malo every mob to reduce its resists than it is to just accept the occasional resist. You shouldn't be fighting mobs that are near or above your level anyway, you should be going for the lowest dark blues you can find.

As for Wis I would only have 79 Wis (unbuffed) if I did this so there for I would need another 121 Wis to breake 200. How easy/hard is it to do this?

It doesn't even matter. You shouldn't be trying to reach 200 wisdom, you should just take whatever wisdom comes from slots that can't provide AC, HP, resists or regen. That said, I put my starting points into wisdom because stamina eventually becomes maxable between ogre's extremely high stamina and the huge stamina buffs you can cast later on. Natural starting stamina is 127 and the level 57 buff adds 50, so it certainly becomes maxable in Velious with relatively modest gear, possibly with endgame Kunark gear as well. Mana pool is almost completely useless to classes that have anything else worthwhile to focus on, and especially classes that can manipulate their mana as fluidly as shamans (and necromancers, though they won't get much out of gearing for AC). As a class with almost exclusively high-aggro spells and soloing methods that guarantee getting hit, it's worth gearing for survivability not only because it helps you out more than it would for, say, a wizard, but also because it's a general benefit throughout all aspects of gameplay. Shaman is the only caster that actually can gear to take a thorough beating, so it pays off to do so. Most other caster classes just have nothing else to focus on and go for wis/int because it's the only thing available for most gear slots.

Traditionally, the unspoken rule for shamans has been that around 175 wisdom is all that you need to be able to cast spells unrestrained at level 60, and anything more than that is largely pointless due to how easily you can get mana back. AC and resists make you take less damage, and that translates into mana gained. HP translates directly into mana while also serving as survivability when that's what you need. It was completely common to see fully raid-geared shamans with under 200 wisdom, and if they ended up with more than that, it was because gear eventually came with +20 to all stats and such.

Oh, and put 5 points in agility, you don't want the hassle of keeping your agi buff on yourself every minute of your life. You'll have enough to do buffing other people. I'd put the rest in wisdom, but stamina will be just fine as well, there's no wrong choice there. It mostly depends what you think your final goal will be, and if you don't think you'll ever get great gear, it might be worth investing in stamina. Otherwise go with wisdom since you'll be gearing for other things.

[mgellan]

I can't recommend soloing through the lower levels if you're not twinked. The shaman class is pitiful until the 20s and early 30s, and especially awful until level 24.

Baloney, as soon as a Shaman gets SOW and his DOTs he can solo red mobs - I prefer Barbs so I can easily access Everfrost and BB. Trash til 5, BB til 9, kite mammoth calfs until they go light blue then go right to mammoths until 32. Easy peasy. Go barb!

Regards,
Mg

[mokfarg]

Originally Posted by mgellan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Baloney, as soon as a Shaman gets SOW and his DOTs he can solo red mobs - I prefer Barbs so I can easily access Everfrost and BB. Trash til 5, BB til 9, kite mammoth calfs until they go light blue then go right to mammoths until 32. Easy peasy. Go barb!

Regards,
Mg

But how efficient is that? I could see tons of resist and it taking forever and all your mana to do so

[mgellan]

Originally Posted by mokfarg [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But how efficient is that? I could see tons of resist and it taking forever and all your mana to do so

Less resists than I expected, and as the reward diminishes the resources expended do also. For example a red calf at level 9 will run you almost dry on mana but also give a ton of xp, at 18 will be 20% of your mana for decent xp.

Regards,
Mg

[Snaggles]

Soloing reds is almost always a horrible exp path. If (big if) you have massive twink gear, a 30ish pt DS, or Regen/Clarity it might make sense.

Low levels your spells flat suck so melee is half or so your damage. Dot/running and hoping not dying isnt as wise as mauling through dozens of blues/black cons. IMHO that is so maybe I don't have the gear or grind spots down to do it.