Shaman Slow/Dot/Melee.... till what level-ish?
 

Hey all, I have a twinked lvl 29 shaman (fungi, granite face grinder, high HP/AC items). I'm noticing my ability to solo facetank multiple mobs at once is going away. I noticed it in Guk near LGuk. My strategy is to pull one mob with slow, using poison dot and meleeing away. If I get an add, I root and backup.

My question is, how long does this strategy hold up? Is there a point at which root rotting becomes more effective? Pretty subjective I know but just wanting to understand your experience around this strategy.

I've read, but not tested, the twinked melee works till the late 40's. Could be wrong.

My shams weren't geared like that so I started root rotting once i got Mr. Wolf

I have an untwinked shaman, lvl 28.

My strategy is to pull with root. Hit mob with tainted breath then spam frost strike until dead. If root breaks then melee (using a 13/51 two handed hammer; like I said untwinked!).

The strategy is to minimise fight time, thus minimise incoming dps and also maximise the opportunity to catch med ticks.

I've been doing this in permafrost since the teens, slowly moving deeper to find new blues as spawns green out close to the zone in.

If you feel your melee dps is becoming lack luster try throwing in a few nukes as you melee?

I'm focusing on low blues where possible, and haven't had to cast heal since 24 (regen). I often run an excess of hp with my strategy so do a lot of Canniing to boost med times and cut my afk breaks shorter.

I imagine with fungi/gfg you probably don't even need any breaks?

I tanked "in teh face" as we used to call it on the crucible, on live till around 50. New server at the time, so i was untwinked. Really you can do it to 60, but rotting seemed more effective at that point.

I still face tank at lvl 48, with your highest level slow+pet+dot its still a viable option.

Dependent on the mob of course, like giants/specs etc are not viable, but solb kobolds and the like are absolutely no problem. I also don't have a fungi

I face tank solo'd in CoM from 41-44 ish. Wasn't THAT good tbh. Similar gear to you. Would mix it up with grouping. Then got 45 and did 45-47 or 48 in CoM with jbb face tanking. Felt like I was PL'ing myself. Power of jbb leveled out at around 49-50 and became merely very good and not crazy good.

Your mileage may vary

In my experience this is important, because it's not just the level but the situation. You have to weigh the melee/JBB/pet damage you get from tanking (either by yourself or by rooting and having your pet tank) against the downtime you'll have after the fight from having to heal you/your pet and then med the mana back. The situational part comes from the fact that that downtime varies depending on how hard the mob hits (and how many HP it has, ie. how long it keeps hitting you).

Mobs that hit really hard for their level (or cast) should be root/rot-ed (and for the casters you want to do it from around the corner). Alternatively, when fighting weak mobs (eg. when farming greens/light blues) you don't want to tank those either, because casting one root and then letting your pet (with his fast NPC regen) tank makes more sense. At 45 that can change though and you might want to face-tank weak stuff if you have a JBB, because it breaks root and makes pet tanking impossible.

But if a slowed mob hits/casts hard enough to kill or nearly kill your pet, but doesn't hit/cast so hard it kills you too quickly, or if you're in a small space and can't make your pet tank, that's a sweet spot for face tanking. You don't want to root/rot those mobs because you'd lose your pet's DPS and your melee/JBB DPS , but you don't want to pet tank them because your pet would require too many heals.

But all that being said, I can't even remember the last time I face tanked on purpose without Torpor, because above a certain level (55?) very few if any mobs fall in to that middle category. If you try to face tank in Howling Stones for instance you can do it, but between the casters, harm touches, and hard-hitting mobs you'd need so many heals you'll take twice as long to get to the next mob, so it's better to just lose your (minor, compared to your DoTs at that level) melee/JBB damage and in return not need tons of healing/downtime.

What race? You can fear kite undeads (spectres, spectral keepers in TT) pretty easily if you worship cazic and do the initiate quest.

I slow tanked without a fungi even at level 54 including a spell at the spectres. I just avoided casters. Slow is so OP it doesn't really seem to drop off much for a long time.

You could do it all the way to 60 but it'd be far less efficient than grabbing a melee duo partner from around level 40ish onward. I solo'd while lfg well into my low 50s without a fungi. Your dog pet is actually very consistently decent dps. The down time comes from making sure you actually out-dps your pet. As hit points = mana for shams, every hit you take effectively robs you of potential mana - and you then have to spend mana to get back that hp. I tended to get creative and have my pet tank while I juggled enough spell damage to beat out pet.

Higher levels the pet has 30 innate regen a tick (+10/15 regen buff).

monk > warrior >= ranger (if you need split pulls with harmony) > knight/bard

If your gear is legit and personally tanking is not a problem - snag a rogue.