Troll Shammy or Ogre Shammy?

[Malrubius]

And why?

EDIT - Oh, and I will almost exclusively be duoing this character with an Ogre SK.

[Lady_Omelia]

though it's been beaten to death..

ogre, channeling through melee stun from the front is a ridiculously OP thing for a caster.

[Savok]

I went Ogre. Troll regen steadily looses its value as you level vs always having frontal stun immunity for the Ogre.

[Nebi]

ogre as you will rape in velious

[Slave]

Trolls get awesome clicky deity tools, look better, are smaller, and have that amazing regeneration which actually gets more effective the higher you go. Better Cannibalize + higher regeneration as you level leads to something utterly astonishing like the equivalent of at least FT5.

[Pyrocat]

Trolls get 18 sitting regen / tic, 12 standing regen / tic at 60. Ogres get 7 sitting, 4 standing. 11hp/tic diff = flowing thought 6 for a shaman.

[SupaflyIRL]

If you're asking which race to pick you're probably not gonna be good enough to solo velious dragons anyway so go troll.

[amaterasu]

Once you are level 60 and have torpor you will seriously regret not picking Ogre for the frontal stun immune, trust me.

[greatdane]

If you're kinda casual and sure about always duoing with an ogre SK, go ahead and roll a troll. It'll help a lot while leveling and you should never have to tank anything.

If you think you'll become a high-end player some day and/or don't know for sure if your SK buddy will always be around, go ogre. Best race for the self-sufficient shaman.

[Athosblack]

These threads ALWAYS end the same, ROLL AN ELF RANGER YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

[whippetofspades]

If you're asking which race to pick you're probably not gonna be good enough to solo velious dragons anyway so go troll.

Was under the impression people used the JBB to solo dragons? So why does frontal stun immunity matter if you can cast from a distance anyway? I don't know how people go about soloing Velious dragons, am just curious.

[Wildas]

Any race of shaman can solo WW dragons (although I never saw an iksar shaman do it in velious, but I'm sure it's possible). Ogre is by far the best suited to it due to the lower frequency of JBB and torpor interrupts. However this doesn't mean non-ogres can't do it. Trolls and iksar regen 800 hp more in a 10 minute fight than ogres, not huge but beneficial. Iksar will absolutely have the hardest time, as they will need to rely on pet/melee damage alone.

The math works out to a shaman needing to sustain less than (1200 + regen) damage / 24-30 seconds. Two canni 4 casts are going to be necessary to offset the mana cost of torpor. If a shaman can sustain less than 35-40 incoming dps, they can torpor heal nearly indefinitely and rely on pet/jbb/melee dps to drop well, whatever they're fighting.

Doing some quick calculations, a shaman can probably kill a 32k hp mob doing less than 50 dps to them. If they have a big enough mana/hp pool that could jump to 50-60 dps.

Iksars aren't going to be able to put out 32k hp damage fast enough to drop something doing more than 40-45 dps to them unless they have some top end hp/mana gear.

Easier dragons such as yeldema any shaman can kill, some of the harder ones, might require a non-iksar or a very well geared char to kill (due to having to dot or sustain the fight for a longer period of time)

[greatdane]

Was under the impression people used the JBB to solo dragons? So why does frontal stun immunity matter if you can cast from a distance anyway? I don't know how people go about soloing Velious dragons, am just curious.

Shaman high-end soloing involves tanking. It's part of why they gear for AC/HP. With good enough gear, you can tank some really beastly mobs if you slow them and torpor yourself, and then deal damage with epic clicky, JBB, pet and maybe a disease DoT while spending most mana on staying alive. Stun immunity becomes really crucial then because getting bashed could otherwise mean your death, and while other races can do anything an ogre can do, ogres have a huge advantage and can do it with less gear and more safety. It's also very nice in all other aspects of gameplay because you will occasionally get hit when you're debuffing or root-rotting, but it's not as critical when you're just soloing or sitting on your ass in a group while leveling. Since barbarians have no advantage and iksar/troll regen becomes largely obsolete once you get torpor, ogre is widely considered the best long-term race.

Basically, ubermob soloing goes like this:

1) Pull with Malo because it's unresistable
2) Slow asap
3) Optionally cast the resistable Malosini or whatever it's called afterwards because it reduces resist more than Malo
4) Torpor yourself
5) Put epic clicky and Pox of Bertoxxulous (optional but recommended) on the mob
6) Spamclick JBB whenever you're not refreshing Torpor
7) Cannibalize when your HP is high enough to do it safely
8) Re-apply Malosini and slow if the fight lasts that long

You're simply tanking the mob the whole time. With good enough gear, Torpor out-heals its slowed DPS plus enough cannis to sustain mana. If your gear isn't good enough, you'll take more melee damage from the mob and resist less of its nukes/breaths (if applicable) and your lower HP will make it unsafe to canni etc. Getting bashed can either mean your death since you couldn't get an important spell off, or simply getting behind the careful balance of keeping all those spells up and timed correctly, and eventually you'll lose. An ogre can do it pretty safely and with a lower gear requirment while another race would probably have to have unreasonably good gear and will occasionally die due to bad luck with interrupts where the ogre would have been fine.

[Brawk]

Lrn2fakecast

[Malrubius]

If you're kinda casual and sure about always duoing with an ogre SK, go ahead and roll a troll. It'll help a lot while leveling and you should never have to tank anything.

If you think you'll become a high-end player some day and/or don't know for sure if your SK buddy will always be around, go ogre. Best race for the self-sufficient shaman.

Thanks, that's just what I was looking for and I think I'll go with the Troll.

I won't be soloing with this guy, as I mentioned in the OP. I guess I should have explained that that includes not soloing Velious dragons. :rolleyes:

[Pyrocat]

All of this posting about soloing dragons in velious is cool and all, but for pure mana regeneration troll/iksar wins every time. How often are you going to be soloing velious vs. how often will you be grouping and raiding? If you're raiding the mana regeneration means less downtime, faster mob kills, faster wipe recoveries. If you're grouping the mana regeneration means faster exp, less chance of group wipes.

[greatdane]

Yeah, but once you have Torpor, you pretty much have endless mana. Regen becomes almost useless at that point because Torpor removes the need for it. Instead of maximizing your regen to offset canni's damage, you start being able to just canni down to half HP and recovering it all with a Torpor. The spell completely changes the shaman playstyle and you never have to sit down again. It simply makes regen obsolete because it gives you a new tool that's better and mostly eliminates the need or even benefit of regen. You can stop caring about paying close attention to ticks and making sure you don't sit at full HP wasting regen, you just canni whenever you need mana and Torpor the HP back for less mana than you gained from the cannis. That's also why mana pool is so irrelevant for shamans while HP matters much more, as well as other survivability stats. That's only at 60 with a rare spell, though. Until then, regen is great.

[Ring]

All of this posting about soloing dragons in velious is cool and all, but for pure mana regeneration troll/iksar wins every time. How often are you going to be soloing velious vs. how often will you be grouping and raiding? If you're raiding the mana regeneration means less downtime, faster mob kills, faster wipe recoveries. If you're grouping the mana regeneration means faster exp, less chance of group wipes.

Are you 60 Pyro (don't remember, not being glib). If you have torpor and still think regen is this important, I'd be shock.

I want to see a troll shaman solo juggs. I know it's possible, but it's annoyingly harder than what ogres have to deal with. Juggs are the gauge of what mobs become in Velious and ogre shamans solo them with no issues currently. Mobs on here stun so much more than classic, I don't know if it's an issue with defense skill or what, but it feels like you're stunned on cooldown if you try to cast. Imagine casting epic or JBB on a 50k+ hp mob and being stunned over and over (or even just stunned trying to cast malo / slow and eatting unslowed melee for 20 seconds). Ogres don't have this issue. It's so huge and people who don't think it is haven't had to deal with it.

I'd reroll if I were a troll shaman at 60, not even kidding.

[baub]

Are you 60 Pyro (don't remember, not being glib). If you have torpor and still think regen is this important, I'd be shock.

I want to see a troll shaman solo juggs. I know it's possible, but it's annoyingly harder than what ogres have to deal with. Juggs are the gauge of what mobs become in Velious and ogre shamans solo them with no issues currently. Mobs on here stun so much more than classic, I don't know if it's an issue with defense skill or what, but it feels like you're stunned on cooldown if you try to cast. Imagine casting epic or JBB on a 50k+ hp mob and being stunned over and over (or even just stunned trying to cast malo / slow and eatting unslowed melee for 20 seconds). Ogres don't have this issue. It's so huge and people who don't think it is haven't had to deal with it.

I'd reroll if I were a troll shaman at 60, not even kidding.

I solo Juggs with ease as a Barb, its not hard to time a fucking bash. Sometimes I even stop spamming JBB and sit on their face inbetween the special attack cycles to lul at them.

My advice: If your intention is to solo WW Dragons, roll an ogre if you dont have a brain, roll a troll if you want that little bit of extra regen (which is still incredibly useful, even with torpor lol...), or roll a barb and be a fuckin man

I swear most people giving shaman advice on this server have very little to no experience actually playing one and are just theorycraft specialists. or they suck.

[Ring]

Roll a barb if you don't care about performance, but are a roleplayer who needs to look pretty in a video game.

[gnomishfirework]

Roll a barb if you don't care about performance, but are a roleplayer who needs to look pretty in a video game.

[visage]

Well an advatage iksars have over the others races??? You never have to leave kunark. You look way cooler. You also get a shot at the cudgel quest
(once fully released). Regardless the regen while leveling is nice , but endgame it really means dick with torpor.

[Motec]

Baub is terrible

[Rhambuk]

Ogre has the only worthwhile racial ability, frontal slam immunity is amazing for a shaman.

Troll/iksar only have regen which means dick after torpor.

barb only have the barbarian spiritist hammer which is nice but a jbb is probably just as good if not better, which iksar cant wear.

You will never get frontal stun imminuty from anything but being an ogre. Everything else you can make up for

[Tewaz]

This stupid thread made me reroll my my shaman. Thanks guys.

[baub]

Baub is terrible

the worst

[Anger]

though it's been beaten to death..

ogre, channeling through melee stun from the front is a ridiculously OP thing for a caster.

[insertname]

So for raiding, still oger?

[Rainflush]

Well, there's pros and cons to each race, and one may ultimately have an advantage over another when you're maximum level and you've got all kinds of fancy gear and what not, though I'd think you'd probably want to play whichever race you like the best (unless you're indifferent to anything save for optimizing your playing performance in some abstract capacity).

[Malev]

Hell I'm ready to to roll an ogre shaman just reading this thread!

[Moonzi]

I'm ready to reroll an ogre :(

[Messianic]

Reroll after 31 levels? Don't do it...

[Phallax]

Ogres might have an advantage, but a skilled player shouldnt have any trouble soloing WW dragons or juggs at all, no matter the class.

[Moonzi]

Reroll after 31 levels? Don't do it...

I'm easily convinced :P Barbs for life!

[Messianic]

I'm easily convinced :P Barbs for life!

At 34 you're in the clear for soloing as a shaman. Don't waste all that progress, esp since it'll be longer with an ogre or troll... ;P

[greatdane]

The journey to 34 is painful, though, god damnit. I leveled a shaman to 27 before the Affliction nerf and it was a breeze. Leveled another one to 30 in the past couple of weeks and it was pitiful. Until 24, your best DoTs tick for 6 and 8. You just can't root-rot with that, and it's only because I geared correctly and was able to melee to 24 that it was at all tolerable. You can always group, but that's equally dreary when you don't get your group-centric spells until 29. The shaman class doesn't really become decent until 29, and doesn't become good until 34. Then it just keeps getting better and better, of course.

[Brut]

Boils down to wether you wanna be a dragonslaying plate-and-chain-mixing veritable badass (ogre) or a leather-cloth-donning buff-vending-machine (barb). Or something inbetween the two that has an extra limb protounding from either it's rear or above it's upper lip.

[Orruar]

barb only have the barbarian spiritist hammer which is nice but a jbb is probably just as good if not better, which iksar cant wear.


Because clearly you can't use both. Oh wait.

[Orruar]

A barb spiritist hammer, if used properly, is a very powerful tool, especially while leveling. There are non-obvious ways to use it that make the grind to 60 much more bearable. It becomes slightly less effective at 60, but is still a good dps boost.

If any young barbs want advice on how to use the hammer, send me a tell in game.

[greatdane]

I can't imagine there'd be many situations where meleeing with the hammer is better than spam-clicking JBB, except for the fact that the hammer procs earlier. You could maybe do something sneaky like standing up between ticks to swing at the mob, but that's pretty situational. For straight swing-swing-swing DPS, there's no way you'll get a high enough PPM for it to rival the guaranteed 8-second cast on the bracer, and your plain melee damage is pretty unimpressive without double attack and with a lower weapon skill cap. The hammer is nice, but once you can use JBB, the two become kind of mutually exclusive because you can't really use both at the same time.

[Phallax]

I can't imagine there'd be many situations where meleeing with the hammer is better than spam-clicking JBB, except for the fact that the hammer procs earlier. You could maybe do something sneaky like standing up between ticks to swing at the mob, but that's pretty situational. For straight swing-swing-swing DPS, there's no way you'll get a high enough PPM for it to rival the guaranteed 8-second cast on the bracer, and your plain melee damage is pretty unimpressive without double attack and with a lower weapon skill cap. The hammer is nice, but once you can use JBB, the two become kind of mutually exclusive because you can't really use both at the same time.

Leave auto attack on, between casts youll swing and possibly proc. Its what all shamans do with torpor tanking(or should be doing i should say). Use a proc weapon and just equip the epic to cast the dot then re equip the proccer

[Orruar]

I can't imagine there'd be many situations where meleeing with the hammer is better than spam-clicking JBB, except for the fact that the hammer procs earlier. You could maybe do something sneaky like standing up between ticks to swing at the mob, but that's pretty situational. For straight swing-swing-swing DPS, there's no way you'll get a high enough PPM for it to rival the guaranteed 8-second cast on the bracer, and your plain melee damage is pretty unimpressive without double attack and with a lower weapon skill cap. The hammer is nice, but once you can use JBB, the two become kind of mutually exclusive because you can't really use both at the same time.

As another posted pointed out, you can swing between JBB casts to get extra damage. Also, if you do the math, it's more dps to forgo the JBB altogether and canni/dot more, on mobs where you can canni nonstop without killing yourself.

[Slave]

The journey to 34 is painful, though, god damnit. I leveled a shaman to 27 before the Affliction nerf and it was a breeze. Leveled another one to 30 in the past couple of weeks and it was pitiful. Until 24, your best DoTs tick for 6 and 8. You just can't root-rot with that, and it's only because I geared correctly and was able to melee to 24 that it was at all tolerable. You can always group, but that's equally dreary when you don't get your group-centric spells until 29. The shaman class doesn't really become decent until 29, and doesn't become good until 34. Then it just keeps getting better and better, of course.

Good information in here.

Boils down to wether you wanna be a dragonslaying plate-and-chain-mixing veritable badass (ogre) or a leather-cloth-donning buff-vending-machine (barb). Or something inbetween the two that has an extra limb protounding from either it's rear or above it's upper lip.

Hilarious, I get it!! Iksar tail or troll nose! :P

[Orruar]

As for stun immunity, have any of you who are championing ogres actually played a shaman? Slowed mobs bash once every 20 seconds or so. If you have such a severe case of ADHD that you can't figure out how to cast around that bash, which will miss half the time anyway, ogre is probably a good choice for you. For the rest who want to be as effective as possible in both solo and group situations, go barb. Troll is 2nd best option.

[PurelyElf]

What's with all the min/maxers? Pick a race you think is cool, not one that has a very slight advantage over the others.

[Orruar]

What's with all the min/maxers? Pick a race you think is cool, not one that has a very slight advantage over the others.

Some people think being as effective as possible is cool. Or are you saying we should only consider what our character looks like?

[Phallax]

As another posted pointed out, you can swing between JBB casts to get extra damage. Also, if you do the math, it's more dps to forgo the JBB altogether and canni/dot more, on mobs where you can canni nonstop without killing yourself.

Its not effective at all to canni/dot when youre tanking stuff like WW dragons and such.

[Orruar]

Its not effective at all to canni/dot when youre tanking stuff like WW dragons and such.

Did the ADHD kick in? Could you not keep focused long enough to read the second half of my sentence?

[greatdane]

And the game is just littered with cheap barb spiritist hammers that come up for sale every few hours at prices any leveling shaman can afford, right? Regen becomes significantly less valuable, in fact almost irrelevant, once you have Torpor, so it's only really an asset while leveling. Barbarians is a terrible race unless you have that one item, and it isn't even that amazing now that they've reduced proc rates across the board and introduced shields with awesome stats that are accessible to anyone. Frontal stun immunity is always useful, often great, and you strongly exaggerate how inconsequential bash is for a caster that often has to tank things. There are many scenarios where it'll save your life, the whole group's life, or just make leveling more efficient because you didn't have to take two extra rounds of melee damage from being stunned while trying to get off a spell. Mobs have the same cooldown on bash as players do, and it isn't 20 seconds when slowed. Being immune to it is a huge benefit, moreso while leveling, and when you're 60 and soloing dragons, regen won't help you very much anyway. It's also just as likely that the occasional bash (or having to maneuver your casts around bash) will cost you as much DPS from JBB-spam as you would have gained from the hammer's base PPM of 1, which is less than 5 DPS and assumes that you're constantly auto-attacking, so more like... 2 DPS or something if you're just swinging once between each spellcast? Add the raw melee damage of your swings and the slight increase in PPM from dex and I'm guessing the ability to swing your barb hammer once between each cast adds maybe 5 DPS at the very most, and less in the lower levels when you can't buff your stats a bunch.

[Orruar]

Mobs have the same cooldown on bash as players do, and it isn't 20 seconds when slowed.

[Sat Jul 30 21:13:51 2011] A goblin depredator kicks YOU for 19 points of damage.
[Sat Jul 30 21:14:23 2011] A goblin depredator kicks YOU for 11 points of damage.
[Sat Jul 30 21:14:55 2011] A goblin depredator kicks YOU for 20 points of damage.
[Sat Jul 30 21:15:27 2011] A goblin depredator kicks YOU for 11 points of damage.

You're right, it isn't 20 seconds. It's 32. This would indicate that the base delay on slam/bash/kick is 8 seconds. So I spam clicked slam to see if that's the case.

[Sat Jul 30 21:21:57 2011] You must first click on the being you wish to attack!
[Sat Jul 30 21:22:05 2011] You must first click on the being you wish to attack!
[Sat Jul 30 21:22:13 2011] You must first click on the being you wish to attack!
[Sat Jul 30 21:22:21 2011] You must first click on the being you wish to attack!

8 seconds apart.

So even on an unslowed mob, you have time between bashes to get any spell cast that you need to. And once it's slowed, you have 32 seconds between bashes to do whatever you need to.

I'll do some parsing later or sometime tomorrow to similarly destroy your 8 dps from hammer hits claim.

[Phallax]

Did the ADHD kick in? Could you not keep focused long enough to read the second half of my sentence?

Nope I focused perfectly and responded perfectly. Did your holier than thou attitude get the best of you or did you just not read any of the entire discussion actually going on?

[Orruar]

Nope I focused perfectly and responded perfectly. Did your holier than thou attitude get the best of you or did you just not read any of the entire discussion actually going on?

Yeah, I noticed how the topic drifted to what is most effective at soloing WW dragons while the OP stated they will be almost exclusively duo'ing with an SK. I'm sure a stun immune ogre will be really useful when the SK is taking 99% of the hits. I just hope the OP didn't go make an ogre based on the pages of derailed comments.

[Phallax]

Yeah, I noticed how the topic drifted to what is most effective at soloing WW dragons while the OP stated they will be almost exclusively duo'ing with an SK. I'm sure a stun immune ogre will be really useful when the SK is taking 99% of the hits. I just hope the OP didn't go make an ogre based on the pages of derailed comments.

truth

[Lady_Omelia]

I replied to the unedited version!

[Orruar]

I replied to the unedited version!

Yeah, based on timestamps, you and Savok are the only ones with that excuse. =p

[Curmudgen]

I got a 3O troll shaman and the exp penalty has me pulling my hair out.

[nalkin]

I got a 3O troll shaman and the exp penalty has me pulling my hair out.

Gonna suck even more when you reroll after you realize how much you want stun immunity.