Shaman tips?

[Vefru]

Howdy guys, I just recently started here on p99 and i have managed to get lvl 5 solo. im basically useing cloth armor and a rusty spear however i was able to save up enough gold for my lvl 1 and 5 spells.

Once i hit lvl 5 i figured i would attempt Blackburrow and man was i wrong, the zone in had yellow con mobs who hit me for 12 dmg per hit and thats alot for some shaman who has a little over 100 hp.

Are there any good solo spots for a shaman? Thanks in advance.

Vefru Barbarian Shaman of the North!

[waldo]

if its not crowded kill right out front of blackburrow, you get fangs and decent xp, just watch out for the rabid grizzly.

[Vefru]

Actually i just started trying this but i dident have a clue to the grizzly so thanks for the information. :D

[fugazi]

Team up with someone else until you're 8 or 9. Then, solo green and blue gnolls for fangs. Farming fangs on your own at that point is way way WAY better xp than any group could give you.

So, anyone got tips for a duo of lvl9 trull shamans? The kobolds and frogloks in Innothule are no longer decent xp and entering Lower Guk is still a death sentence. The lizard camps in Feerrot are a bitch without a luller, as the mystics make life hell. South Ro is an option, but here too the orcs come in groups of 3 and often with one being yellow and or a healer.

We follow Innoruuk and I got no idea if the FP guards would insta gib us or not. I guess they will.

[Noselacri]

Assuming that you level up by killing mostly humanoid-type mobs, you should by level 10 or 12 have enough plat for a suit of banded armor. You'll probably wear that until level 30-40 or even beyond. It's probably the best investment you can ever make regarding the cost vs. the benefits. That suit of banded will make the difference between struggling to kill dark blues and being able to melee them down with ease.

Also, if you can make a bit of extra money, try to buy a cheap but decent weapon. Something like a Cold Iron Morning Star which is a 9/35 magical 1hb and shouldn't cost you more than 30-50pp if you can find someone selling it. Up until about level 20, most of your damage will come from melee and you really want to have a decent weapon. A magical weapon is also crucial if you end up fighting a ghoul or something and run out of mana before it's dead.

As for fighting, don't bother trying to kite or root-nuke or anything like that. It's just not worth it until higher levels. You're a shaman, not a wizard, so you can afford to tank and melee blue mobs (if you're not using cloth armor and a rusty weapon, anyway). Cast Sicken and Tainted Breath and just beat the mob to death, there's no sense in spending a full mana pool nuking stuff down.

When healing, use Inner Fire until you get Healing at level 19. Inner Fire is a 20hp buff that costs 10 mana, and when you cast it on someone, they're also healed for the 20hp increase. Light Healing heals for about 30 and costs 25 mana, far less efficient; only use this if you need to actually save someone's life and you have to heal them as fast as possible, since Light Healing is a 2 second cast instead of Inner Fire's 3 and heals for 50% more. When healing groups, do your best to avoid situations where someone gets so low that you need to spam the healing spell to keep them alive. Keep people topped off with the Inner Fire heal. +20 hp for 10 mana is far better than +30 hp for 25 mana, and it's the only way you'll be able to single-handedly heal groups without struggling immensely until you get the 100hp heal at 19.

Also, don't buy all your spells. You'll never use most of them, and certainly not in the early levels. Only the following are really necessary:

Level 1
Strengthen
Cure Disease
(Burst of Flame and Dextrous Aura are optional, can be helpful but not really necessary)
Level 5
Frost Rift
Gate
Sicken
Level 9
Light Healing
Spirit of Wolf
Tainted Breath
(Serpent Sight might help barbarians)
Level 14
Bind Affinity
Root
Spirit Strike
Turtle Skin

[Cogwell]

I would say work up to level 9 on gnoll fangs, although you'll struggle and go slowly until they go mostly blue/light blue/green. Once you get to lvl 9, pick up as many DoT spells from your special vendor (because I'm not sure you'll be able to buy them anywhere else) and make your way to the freeport area. Grouping is much more prevalent there, in the commons/no ro and oasis.

[Estu]

Assuming that you level up by killing mostly humanoid-type mobs, you should by level 10 or 12 have enough plat for a suit of banded armor. You'll probably wear that until level 30-40 or even beyond. It's probably the best investment you can ever make regarding the cost vs. the benefits. That suit of banded will make the difference between struggling to kill dark blues and being able to melee them down with ease.

Also, if you can make a bit of extra money, try to buy a cheap but decent weapon. Something like a Cold Iron Morning Star which is a 9/35 magical 1hb and shouldn't cost you more than 30-50pp if you can find someone selling it. Up until about level 20, most of your damage will come from melee and you really want to have a decent weapon. A magical weapon is also crucial if you end up fighting a ghoul or something and run out of mana before it's dead.

As for fighting, don't bother trying to kite or root-nuke or anything like that. It's just not worth it until higher levels. You're a shaman, not a wizard, so you can afford to tank and melee blue mobs (if you're not using cloth armor and a rusty weapon, anyway). Cast Sicken and Tainted Breath and just beat the mob to death, there's no sense in spending a full mana pool nuking stuff down.

When healing, use Inner Fire until you get Healing at level 19. Inner Fire is a 20hp buff that costs 10 mana, and when you cast it on someone, they're also healed for the 20hp increase. Light Healing heals for about 30 and costs 25 mana, far less efficient; only use this if you need to actually save someone's life and you have to heal them as fast as possible, since Light Healing is a 2 second cast instead of Inner Fire's 3 and heals for 50% more. When healing groups, do your best to avoid situations where someone gets so low that you need to spam the healing spell to keep them alive. Keep people topped off with the Inner Fire heal. +20 hp for 10 mana is far better than +30 hp for 25 mana, and it's the only way you'll be able to single-handedly heal groups without struggling immensely until you get the 100hp heal at 19.

Also, don't buy all your spells. You'll never use most of them, and certainly not in the early levels. Only the following are really necessary:

Level 1
Strengthen
Cure Disease
(Burst of Flame and Dextrous Aura are optional, can be helpful but not really necessary)
Level 5
Frost Rift
Gate
Sicken
Level 9
Light Healing
Spirit of Wolf
Tainted Breath
(Serpent Sight might help barbarians)
Level 14
Bind Affinity
Root
Spirit Strike
Turtle Skin

I have some issues with this advice.

First, I disagree about most of your damage coming from melee. Unless you're twinked, you're better off (IMO) dot kiting yellows starting at 9 with sicken and tainted breath (i.e. cast the dots, run away with SoW, recast when necessary). This gives you a good deal of exp for not much mana, and you save mana you'd use healing yourself. At 14 you get a nice nuke (Spirit Strike) that's better to take down blues with in conjunction with Sicken and melee than just meleeing.

The Inner Fire thing is a good point, though given the amount by which it's slower to heal, I would ask whether you might be losing out on meditation mana; maybe it would be in fact more efficient to use Light Healing in a group situation since you can heal quickly and med up instead of heal for a long time without medding. I've also run into the problem in groups that people will sometimes have better HP/AC buffs than inner fire (e.g., Center, the Cleric spell) and your inner fire won't take hold.

As for the spells mentioned, there are totally others that are worth it. Feet Like Cat is an excellent buff for soloing and grouping, especially if your base agility is under 75, since it will give you a huge spike in AC. Drowsy and Walking Sleep are often in demand in groups where you already have a healer and are taking on tough monsters. Spirit Pouch is an excellent item for holding high-weight loot so you don't need to run to town as often. Summon Food/Drink are cheap and save you the money and bother of buying food and drink, and will often be appreciated in groups.

I mostly soloed my ogre shaman to 19 without any twinking, and shaman soloing during those levels can be pretty slow. I would recommend trying grouping out and seeing if it's faster or more enjoyable than soloing with the character (for me, soloing was faster, but not by much, and grouping would sometimes be a nice change of pace). My basic strategy would be to dot kite yellows from 9 until you hit 14, and to sicken-nuke-melee blues until 19. Gnoll fangs are excellent EXP early on as well.

[Noselacri]

Well, it's perfectly possible to cast an Inner Fire between ticks. I did that all along. Wait for a tick, stand and cast Inner Fire on the tank, and sit down before the next tick. Just like canni dancing. It is by far the most effective way to heal, to the point where it's pretty much the only way for a low-level shaman to be a group's only healer without constantly having to ask for med breaks. It's almost twice as mana efficient as Light Healing - 20h:10m vs. 30h:25m.

As for kiting, it takes forever. Absolutely forever. Sicken ticks for 5 and Tainted Breath ticks for 8, so taking down even a dark blue mob is going to take minutes that way. If you can get a weapon with a reasonable dmg/dly and have banded armor, soloing by slapping on dots and tanking'n'spanking is much more effective until level 19. It's also generally safer than having to kite a mob around half the zone.

As for the spells, agility is a pretty worthless stat and absolutely not necessary to buff. I listed the spells you need, in case there's not enough money for all of them. It's not like you can give up any of the listed spells in favor of an agi buff. Walking Sleep is sort of an alright spell, but at the level you get it, it's too costly and the mobs too weak for it to be crucial. Slowing generally isn't worth it until you get the insect line; it still causes huge aggro, still costs 20% of your mana, but when mobs hit for 15 and die in a dozen seconds, slowing them is not at all important, probably not even worth it. I venture to claim that you'll get more net value out of casting the six 20hp heals you're exchanging in favor of a single cast of Walking Sleep.

[Tork]

As a troll, head over to The Feerrott and grind on the skeleton camps - they spawn in groups of 3 or 4, with the occasional zombie, and are dark blue.

They frequently rusty weapons which you can sell or skill up on, not to mention bone chips, the other white meat for necrii.

You can easily do 10-11 there, at 12 they start wearing thin, but you can take your earnings, buy your spells and move to SRO.

PS: <3 Trolls

[Sareil]

Actually i just started trying this but i dident have a clue to the grizzly so thanks for the information. :D

When you can kill him that grizzly is awesome, especially since youre a shammy and can cure disease. He almost always drops a putrid pelt (Ive never had him not drop it) and the turn is worth 2p plus some gold, and the spell from the turn in sells for just shy of 2p. Basically every kill is 4p, so yeah, awesome.

[fugazi]

As a troll, head over to The Feerrott and grind on the skeleton camps - they spawn in groups of 3 or 4, with the occasional zombie, and are dark blue.

They frequently rusty weapons which you can sell or skill up on, not to mention bone chips, the other white meat for necrii.

You can easily do 10-11 there, at 12 they start wearing thin, but you can take your earnings, buy your spells and move to SRO.

PS: <3 Trolls

Thanks, we'll try that out. We got our asses kicked by 3 lizards, seeing as the mystic always blinds one of us. And yes, blind in EQ means your entire screen turns black. Who ever thought that up?

Btw, when you turn in a rabid pelt, the questgirl also casts cure disease on you :)

[Estu]

Well, it's perfectly possible to cast an Inner Fire between ticks. I did that all along. Wait for a tick, stand and cast Inner Fire on the tank, and sit down before the next tick. Just like canni dancing. It is by far the most effective way to heal, to the point where it's pretty much the only way for a low-level shaman to be a group's only healer without constantly having to ask for med breaks. It's almost twice as mana efficient as Light Healing - 20h:10m vs. 30h:25m.

As for kiting, it takes forever. Absolutely forever. Sicken ticks for 5 and Tainted Breath ticks for 8, so taking down even a dark blue mob is going to take minutes that way. If you can get a weapon with a reasonable dmg/dly and have banded armor, soloing by slapping on dots and tanking'n'spanking is much more effective until level 19. It's also generally safer than having to kite a mob around half the zone.

As for the spells, agility is a pretty worthless stat and absolutely not necessary to buff. I listed the spells you need, in case there's not enough money for all of them. It's not like you can give up any of the listed spells in favor of an agi buff. Walking Sleep is sort of an alright spell, but at the level you get it, it's too costly and the mobs too weak for it to be crucial. Slowing generally isn't worth it until you get the insect line; it still causes huge aggro, still costs 20% of your mana, but when mobs hit for 15 and die in a dozen seconds, slowing them is not at all important, probably not even worth it. I venture to claim that you'll get more net value out of casting the six 20hp heals you're exchanging in favor of a single cast of Walking Sleep.

RE casting Inner Fire between med ticks: there is weird lag between the server and client for medding, so I'm not sure how you'd determine exactly when the med ticks are. You can see this lag from your hp/mana jumping up and down every tick, or from you being at 0-ish mana, medding a tick, starting to cast a spell, and it saying the spell was interrupted because you didn't have enough mana, and your mana suddenly jumping down. This is because that tick you saw wasn't the actual tick on the server. If you manage to figure out when the actual server tick is and then time your inner fires that way, I'll grant you that it's a better way to heal, but that's a pretty involved process and for a player just starting out it might just be better to light heal and med.

I've had more success dot kiting yellows than tanking and spanking blues to get from 9 to 14. Just sayin'. I was in South Ro, where you can easily find safe places to kite, you don't need "half the zone" at all, you just need to run in a small circle. You take hits when recasting your dots, that's it. The yellows give you a lot more exp than the dark blues, which makes up for the extra time spent. Of course if you're killing dark blues it's better to tank them because you'll be taking a lot less damage from them. I'd also note that I was making use of the fact that my ogre shaman couldn't get spell interrupted from the front, which since the last server restart he can, so that might make it a bit tougher to do this. I just think that the original poster should try both methods and see what works better for him.

Agility is not at all a worthless stat if your base agility is below 75 and you are not twinked. You get a huge AC penalty for having agility below 75, and so Feet Like Cat can eliminate that penalty and give you a big AC boost. For someone that advocated getting Banded as an important thing, I'm surprised you're ignoring this big AC boost. This is just as important in groups when your tank has agility below 75, which untwinked low level tanks may well have.

You're probably right about the low level slows not being worth it, although I'd argue that it depends on the kinds of mobs your group's taking down; if you're taking down a tough red mob instead of a bunch of easy blue ones (or if the red is a boss mob in your camp of blues), it's going to be dealing a lot of damage and the group may well get annoyed at you if you don't have a slow in your spellbook.

[Noselacri]

I like to think that most people know about the <75agi penalty, and very few races are even subjected to it. It's a bit of a stretch to call a spell crucial on that basis, so while it isn't the kind of spell that you'll literally never cast (like True North) I would never list it as a "if you can't afford most spells, at least get these".