Shaman Advice

[yraapt]

I am level 9 and I thought with the new spell line that my exp would start to flow, but it seems to be the contrary.

I am killing Aviaks (blue - yellow) in Lake Rath. Most of the time I have to med after each fight. I pull with tainted breath, slap on sicken, and cycle fleeting fury. Is there a better approach at this level? I get 1-2% per kill. At this rate I estimate 5-6 hours for level 9. Unless I gain some super ability, I'm afraid of what things will be like in the 20s.

Am I going about this wrong or is this par for a solo shaman?

[pickled_heretic]

get the best weapon you can afford and pretend you're some kind of mdps hybrid until you are in your 20's or 30's. Hell, some shamans keep meleeing until 60.

[liveitup1216]

it'll pick up by 24 when you get canni and regen, just open with slow, then posion, and pretend youre a melee til either 19 or 24, then start getting used to root/rot

[yraapt]

So 5-6 hours for shaman lvl 9 is normal. I just need to suck it up and grind. I have an ykeshan war club and some banded. I thought that was pretty good. Is there something better, and affordable, that I should shoot for?

Thanks for the replies!

I'm on a business trip this week. Think I'll grab some take-out tonight and just grind away. Sadly grouping is not an option with this crappy laptop :(

[skorge]

You are in the right spot to level, can go 9-14 there; i recommend investing in a Poison Wind Censer, a very awesome yet cheap 2hb weapon that simply rapes all the way up until it starts to proc (level 50 I think). Forget about using the level 5 disease dot, just use your level 9 poison dot, and throw in a frost rift (the 15 damage DD) to help you kill them.

The key part of this: Grab you a Poison Wind Censer (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=551) on the cheap...best investment you will ever make to help you level up to 50, trust me.

[pickled_heretic]

i was writing up a post recommending the poison wind censor as well, but it might be a bit out of range for a newbie at 1-2k.

[liveitup1216]

i solo'd in blackburrow collecting fangs til level 14 with a fine steel spear someone gave me when i first started, banded/war club should be more than enough to sustain you for a good while.

i wouldnt even bother with your nukes, theyre terribly inefficient, just slow/poison and save mana for heals or rooting unwanted adds.

at 19 you can start root rotting in karanas with your new disease and tainted breath, by 24 you'll be a soloing machine with regen and cani.

[yraapt]

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll try to fill out the rest of my slots with banded and start looking for a poison wind censer.

[Daefuin]

Shaman are so awful until 24. Then slightly less awful, but still disgustingly bad, until 34.

To put this in context, this was my solo'ing experience on red99:

I did levels 34+35(hell)+36 faster than 32+33.
I did 35 (hell) as fast as I did most levels 19-23.

I can do a level 34+ significantly faster than I could solo a level 24-33.
I could solo a level 24-33 slightly faster than 16ish-23.

The life of an untwinked shaman.

[Galelor]

Make sure you are using Inner Fire as your heal. This will help your mana consumption. It shouldn't be 6 hours for level 9. That is much too long imo.

[Trelaboon]

I actually quit my Shaman for two brief periods of time. Once in my late teens, and again in my late 20's. The class, prior to level 34 is awful....at 24 it gets more enjoyable to group, but is still really dreadful playing solo. The best advice I can give you, is to find a Monk friend who will level with you the entire way. Even at 34, as easy as it got to solo, I didn't bother, I grouped with a Monk friend from 34-50 in Guk and it was so fast it felt like WoW. I wish i'd have thought of finding a Monk to duo with a lot sooner, would have saved me a huge headache.

Just stick with it and grit your teeth to 34, I promise it's worth it. I love my Shaman more than any class i've played thus far.

[mwatt]

Do not despair. What has already been said is right. Shamans are horribly under-powered 9 to 23. The only real saving grace is SoW - you should not have to die too often.

From 24 to 33 you are better off - I wouldn't say terribly weak, but nor would I say terribly string.

At 34, suddenly you become a strong class. It remains this way through 59.

At 60, if you can get Torpor, you become very strong indeed.

So, grit your teeth and grind out the lower levels, it gets better later.

[liveitup1216]

not having the extra regen from rage and the possibility of your pet doing more than 50% damage could be solo issues post 34, but you'll still be a strong soloer.

[Muchew]

i solo'd in blackburrow collecting fangs til level 14 with a fine steel spear someone gave me when i first started, banded/war club should be more than enough to sustain you for a good while.

i wouldnt even bother with your nukes, theyre terribly inefficient, just slow/poison and save mana for heals or rooting unwanted adds.

at 19 you can start root rotting in karanas with your new disease and tainted breath, by 24 you'll be a soloing machine with regen and cani.

Basically did the same. Fangs were such good exp, I just stayed there and killed light blues / greens to get fangs for exp. Lot safer when your hunting with no gear...

Did Oasis groups and such til like 20, then went to EK. Usually I would root / rot the crag spiders 2 at a time until 24 I think it was. Then at 24 I was root rotting up to 4 at one time (rather than do one and try to keep a constant kill rate, I would blow all my mana and take 10min afk/med breaks in between).

I was a barb though, I assume playing an ogre your intentions were not to root and rot. If you melee'ing spiders, getting poisoned may make them inefficient.

28-33 I did in Everfrost killing Mammoths. Believe it was about 3-5 hours per level, but made so much money selling tusks it was certainly worth it.

If you want to go crazy, you can do 34-50 all in HK like myself.

[Galelor]

Do not despair. What has already been said is right. Shamans are horribly under-powered 9 to 23. The only real saving grace is SoW - you should not have to die too often.

From 24 to 33 you are better off - I wouldn't say terribly weak, but nor would I say terribly string.

At 34, suddenly you become a strong class. It remains this way through 59.

At 60, if you can get Torpor, you become very strong indeed.

So, grit your teeth and grind out the lower levels, it gets better later.

I would say a bit underpowered from 14-24, but it really is not that bad until about 20ish. Also, malo+torpor+jbb at level 60 is more than 'very strong indeed', it is so strong that it was/is overpowered (ala Velious dragon soloing in WW...) This said, I love my shaman and wouldn't trade it for any other class!


You need to go the group or partner route. IMO, your best bet is going to be to level in Blackburrow. Fangs are great xp even when the mobs are LB and green.
Then Oasis because you can fight crocks and find groups.
Then Lake of Ill omen because you can solo the gobs that don't cast, or find groups. Eventually, you can charm tigers which are good dps. (Regen yourself, and learn to Canni Dance. Make it a hotkey!)
Then FM/OT because there are more groups, and you can charm mobs in OT.
After that try DL, old world, whatever.

Honestly, if you solo, most of your soloing is going to be root rotting until you get torpor. Self healing is a waste of mana (even with slow) if you can root rot because shaman melee is not that great.

Keep in mind that some spells you get along the way are game changing. SoW, Bind Affinity, Canni, later level Slows, Pet/Charm, Torpor. Each of these spells is going to redefine how you play a shaman when solo and in groups.

Keep at it and don't be scared to try new things! Good luck!

[yraapt]

Level 11 and 12 went much faster than 10 for me. I was probably trying to fight to high con mobs and died too much.

Any suggestions for 14-19?

You guys paint a pretty bleak picture of the road to 34. I can't imagine root rotting at this point. My dots seem horrible.

[douglas1999]

I've leveled like 6 shaman to at least level 50 since I started playing everquest, and at 14 I basically always go to north karana and just root\nuke dark blue-white con mobs. Depending on the mob you can even get away with just tanking them and timing your nukes so as not to be interrupted. Seemed to work just fine for my shaman on p99. Sometimes I slap on a dot, but in that level range they are kind of weak. I like outdoor zones cause theres plenty of room to run around, plus there are guards at the SK bridge, and once you level up you have convenient access to EK and SK which are both adjacent zones.

Other than the pincer\borer beetles, most of the mobs you can kill will run when low on HP too, which can be a godsend in a close fight. A good general strat for any mob there I think is to root it and start nuking. If you get lucky, you can nuke it all the way to death without root ever breaking. If root breaks, don't bother using more mana to re-root, just use that as an opportunity to start tanking\nuking and you should have enough of a headstart HP-wise to win easily.

[Trelaboon]

I soloed those Derv sisters in Lfay from 14-19, but to be honest, they're so heavily camped now, it's almost not worth it to camp there. That being said; they're for sure the easiest money and exp you can get at that level.

14-19 Sisters in Lfay
19-24 Bard at NK spires (boring and fairly slow camp, but safe)
24-34 Sisters in OOT

That was the path I took, the camps were all pretty slow, but I just bit the bullet and suffered through it. At 34 I started grouping almost exclusively in Guk and stayed there until 50.

[Trelaboon]

Also, I didn't root rot until 24, before then I just pulled with slow, used my poison DoT, and then melee'd the rest of the way. At 24, you can start effectively root rotting. If I did it over again, i'd make a Monk friend from day one and become his best pal.

[Messianic]

Also, don't consider leveling as consistently taking longer in a linear fashion. EQ is weird - during some levels, it might take 4-5 hours to level, others it might take 1-2 hours. Depends if there are exceptional places to level around your current level, how twinked you are, your class, etc...

[Lazortag]

Also, don't consider leveling as consistently taking longer in a linear fashion. EQ is weird - during some levels, it might take 4-5 hours to level, others it might take 1-2 hours. Depends if there are exceptional places to level around your current level, how twinked you are, your class, etc...

Or what spells/abilities you have. For example: level 7 on red99 for me took about at long as levels 8-16 because I only got my Stringed skill at level 8.