Shaman slow Tagar vs Torgor vs Turgur

[daxchunjae1912]

Hello I am currently lvl 49 and have been using Tagar's insect for many many levels. I have 2 questions:
1) Is the slow % difference significant enough to use Togor's or should I continue to save mana and use Tagars?
2) Does using the lower version of slow have any increase in resistance because it's against a higher lvl mob or does it not matter?

I know I should malo and then slow but for the sake of simplicity just focus on the different versions of slow, thanks in advance and if this question has been beaten to death before I apologize!

[loramin]

I have no idea what the min/max answer is, but I've always just used my highest level slow and never had a problem. As for the malo line, it's largely pointless until you actually get Malo itself at 60, because all the other spells in that line have the same chance of landing as slow does (so you're better off just making two slow attempts instead of say a malosini and a slow).

[Yuuvy The Destroyer]

Use a down ranked slow on everything except raid mobs.

[Danth]

If you want to play it easy, use top rank slow and don't give it any thought. I prefer not overthinking things so that's the approach that works for me. If you prefer to min-max, use the lowest-rank slow that keeps damage intake low enough that whoever's on heals isn't running out of mana. I don't particularly like the level 29 slow. If downranking beyond the 39 slow, I typically favor going all the way down to Walking Sleep. The 29 slow costs a lot of mana for its relative effect.

You don't really need to malo before slowing until level 60. Prior to then, none of the malo-line spells have resist modifiers, which means if you can land a malo, you can land slow. The level 60 malo is different since it's unresistable. As for spell level....I've never noticed it to have any difference.

Danth

[loramin]

Use a down ranked slow on everything except raid mobs.

Interesting: that sounded like bad advice to me, so I stopped being lazy and did the math. It turns out you have an excellent point: from 51-60 the difference between Togor's and Turgur's is always exactly 5% slow and 75 mana (and I suspect the ratio is similar for the lower level spells).

At 51 Togor's gets you 61% (vs. Turgur's 66%), which means that you're paying 175 mana for 61% slow, or 0.34% slow per mana spent. In other words, you get 0.34%/mana for Torpor's, and only 0.06% slow per mana spent for the extra mana spent on Turgur's. Definitely less efficient.

Now compare that to Superior Healing (which you also get at 51), which heals 583 for 250 mana, or 2.3 HP/mana. This means that for a Togor's to be better than a Superior Heal it has to prevent at least 409 HP of damage, which (at 61% slow) means whoever is getting hit would have to take at least 671 damage (pre-slow) to justify it. Comparatively Turgur's would need to prevent 575 damage, or 872 damage pre-slow.

In other words ... efficiency-wise it's pretty clear Togor's is better: a mob would have to deal A LOT (I'm too lazy to calculate how much) of damage for the extra 5% from Turgur's to justify its extra 75 mana.

But here's the other thing to consider: efficiency isn't necessarily the most important consideration. If you're soloing, or running out of mana in a group, then you should absolutely use Togor's. But in a group I often found that I had extra mana, if the group had a cleric at least. Given how inefficient Shaman group DPS is (whether you DoT or DD), it's not like you have a lot of great options for that extra mana (and with a cleric you likely won't need it for healing either).

So, if you're in a group with a cleric, using Turgur's to slow mobs an extra 5% ... which might be really helpful if you get some adds ... still might be the best use of your mana, even if it is less efficient. But it does seem like most of the rest of the time Togor's is the smarter choice.

[Troxx]

Tagars 125 mana for > 50% slow standard duration, shorter cast time
Togors 175 mana for 70% slow standard duration, longer cast time
Turgurs 250 mana for 75% slow long duration, shorter cast time.

It’s a mistake to always use Turgurs once you get it. Mobs die fast enough that the duration difference is meaningless. 75% vs 70% is a wash on most content. Prior to Torpor at 60 mana is always a balancing act and Turgurs just isn’t worth it.

Until you have unlimited mana with torpor best to save Turgurs for the exceptional fight. I used Togors 80-90% of the time until I got torpor. I even used Tagars a lot more than Turgurs.

[Jimjam]

Again, a mob slowed 70%, is doing 20% more DPS to your tank, than a mob slowed 75%. That's how broken slow is in EQ...You need to account for the standing regen of the tank.

A slowed mob might do 20dps at 60, or 17 if superslowed.

With a fungi iksar tank under the effect of regrowth that translates to 13 or 10 net hp loss persecond. Once you include time spent establishing aggro, waiting for pulls, or moving between spawns (which is going to happen because in this instance you'll probably be somewhere like CE and not focusing on xp) the tank is taking very little damage from slowed mobs at all.

The real damage seems to come in if the tank manages to establish aggro before slow lands, or to the dps as they fail to evade/fd/die like a good ranger/wizard.

[Troxx]

I’m not sure how a well played shaman 51-59 has a lot of extra mana lying around in a busy group. In general you have:

-2-4 melee to keep stat buffed
-standard stam/hp +/- sow to all
-2-4 hastes to keep up
-1-4 regens to potentially maintain

All of that is background noise on top of

-125-250 mana per mob per slow attempt
-rooting to assist with cc if you’re worth your salt
-possible main healing, realistically (and hopefully) assisting with patch heals
-last ditch if still rolling in mana, contributing dps.

51-59 as a troll with ikky bp and later fungi, it was very rare that I had down time. It was always a canni-dance weaving rhythm of activity. If I found myself with extra mana, it was applied to a fresh round of hastes/regens so I never found myself having to play catch up.

Mana was always a balancing act until I figured out using turgurs as primary slow was idiotic. Togors was always my work horse. I kept Turgurs loaded for Cc’d Mobs and chaotic moments, but Togors was the go to.

The functional difference between the two is minimal. 75 less mana per cast, however, is huge. A chain pulling group (averaging 1 a minute) works out to 4500 less mana per hour simply by settling for 5% less slow. That’s 20.5 minutes worth of meditating hitting every med tick.

Super fast killing? Tagars vs don’t bother slowing.
Steady killing? Togors > Turgurs
Hard group named? Alternate Togors/Turgurs casts until one sticks
Long fights or lots of mobs in camp? Turgurs > Togors for duration

[Kaera]

What about tigur? Group slow and reduce hate counter built in.

[Danth]

What about tigur? Group slow and reduce hate counter built in.

Odds are you won't have it memorized when you need it; Shaman life means not having a lot of spare spell slots available. The group slow might occasionally see some use when you know in advance you'll be going into a situation with lots of opponents, like fearplane and hateplane breaks. As a general rule though it isn't great. It doesn't slow all that well, doesn't last very long, only hits four targets and if one (or more) resists you can't tell which. Mostly the single-target slows end up getting used anyway.

Danth

[Troxx]

In 60 levels I can’t think of any practical, level appropriate situation where I wish I had Tigirs loaded. Low duration lower percentage slow where you now have 3-4 mobs now beating on you and not the tank.

In a multi sutuation without mez I’d rather pop a real slow on one extra at a time and then root park it quickly before moving on ... or root one have tank back up root again etc until all are cc’d and slowed.

[loramin]

In 60 levels I can’t think of any practical, level appropriate situation where I wish I had Tigirs loaded. Low duration lower percentage slow where you now have 3-4 mobs now beating on you and not the tank.

In a multi sutuation without mez I’d rather pop a real slow on one extra at a time and then root park it quickly before moving on ... or root one have tank back up root again etc until all are cc’d and slowed.

In my entire Shaman career I think the only time I've used it was when I had to pull a room full of mobs, like when I had to pull one of the adjoining rooms to basement in HS. I think I've also maybe used it once for a quest that spawns a bunch of mobs (eg. like many of the ring quests, although I don't think I used Tigir's for them specifically).

As others said, most of the time when it might be useful you don't have it memmed. The times when you know you'll need tend to be times when using it would be a bad idea: I often died trying to pull four (five?) mobs at once with Tigir's in HS basement, and for most quests if you use Tigir's you'll also agro some quest mob you're trying to protect.

Just like our AoE rain line I wish Tigir's had a good use, but I have yet to find it.

[Boyblunder]

Togor gets resisted quite often while Turgurs does not.

[BlkCamel]

If you are killing fast enough that Togor's isnt falling off and you aren't 60 with Fungi and Torpor use it over Turgurs. If you have Fungi and Torpor you will probably always use Turgur's, just because its up by default. If you are getting enough resists that you have to use Malo I would switch to Togor's, unless again mob isn't dying before slow wears off. If mob cannot be killed before slow wears off and your using Malo line you might as well use Turgur's to prevent fizzle/resist/untimely wear-off. If it is a raid mob you are probably always using Turgur's as other classes at the raid will have the smaller slows down, IE rangers/chanters/necro/warrior's and others. Shaman is about being efficient for the situation so they all are different, but you should be considerate of how much mana total you spend per mob and see if there are ways to reduce that.

[Troxx]

Togor gets resisted quite often while Turgurs does not.

They get resisted at an equal rate. Neither has a -MR component.

[Whicks]

There's one time that I ended up using Tigirs a good bit. Trio with a Chanter/Cleric. Get the Kobold Champ from the upper camps in Velks as a pet. Bring him back to spiders. Train all the spiders you can get to the top ledge of velks were you have some room to move. Have the chanter aoe stun/mez everything then you slow everything with Tigirs. Then start making a conga line of rooted mobs. After you have some separated start epic clicking as many of them as you can to get the damage started. Mulch through them with your champ, reapply slow en mass when it saves mana. Super fun to have 15 mobs going.