True: pre-Topor any form of regeneration (spell, racial or Fungi) is awesome for Shaman.

I think the problem is that you're talking in absolutes, but this stuff isn't absolute, it's relative. It's not "is Iksar/Troll regen good?" (I agree that it is), it's "is Iksar/Troll regen better or worse than FSI or a significantly faster leveling?" And relative to the Shaman XP bonus (and faction), in my opinion the regen is just not as good for getting you to level 60 (and then it's not very useful once you have Torpor at 60).

But people can crunch the numbers to argue either way, and ultimately it's subjective because people level differently, die at different rates, spend more/less time AFK recovering, etc. All I can say is that based on my many years playing a Shaman both here and on live, my best subjective-but-trying-to-be-objective assessment is that the XP bonus gets you to 60 faster.

Even so I freely admit that both regen and the XP bonus help you get to 60 faster, and both give a fairly close benefit ... it's just that (again) exactly how close depends on your playstyle.

With a fungi, a Barbarian at low levels will perform almost as well as a troll/iksar/ogre, and probably level faster due to the racial penalty being stronger than the boon of innate regen. Racial regen v. no racial regen loses a bit of its luster if you throw a fungi into the mix, especially at low levels. Below level 20 a troll/iksar with fungi regens standing at 17/tick, a non iksar/troll at 16/tick. At level 60 with fungi, Troll/Iksar 27/tick versus 19/tick. Throw in Torpor and it's pretty small.

I picked troll for my shaman because I preferred the look anyway, and racial regen was nice. It was also my first character so I feel like it helped. But for my first twink character I went human monk. With a fungi the racial choice didn't really matter much until 60, but it's very likely I got 60 faster specifically because I went human.

The only fix is the delete button

I think most will agree that a barbarian shaman (all other things equal to include gear, available groups, skill, etc being equal) compared with other races. On the flip side, the shaman with racial regen will perform more effectively in and for their groups. That much is more or less undeniable, especially if the shaman(s) in question don't have a fungi. More regen = more available mana which translates to more spell casts, less down time, and more effective healing/slowing and other additional duties.

Well put.

I remember discussing this with Orruar (barbarian) and his logic on the fungi was 'just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you don't want more'. Shaman are an active class that takes a lot of damage when played well and you have to recuperate somehow. And the mana regen is great, but Turgur's, Malo, Bane of Nife, and Chloroblast spam are all tremendously expensive. IMO the fungi and Vindi BP are very close despite the latter's massive advantage in literally every statistic.

OP: you have to ask yourself whether you are going to be OK with being say 3-5% worse than a Troll (or Iksar) for the sake of fashionquest. Personally I like the Iksar models, so going Iksar shaman was easy. If only Monk/Shaman wasn't so so so terrible on TAKP . . .

That's a great way of putting it. In my case, the answer is yes. I'm okay with being less efficient as long as the difference isn't huge. My main concern was whether the difference for shaman was as dramatic as the difference between Iksar and other races for necromancer. I think this thread has convinced me that the difference is not insignificant, but it is nowhere near as big a deal for shaman. Given far easier access to regen items and regen spells for shaman, this makes perfect sense.

Thanks again for all the replies. Great info here.

And that’s really the take home point/question. I personally am not min/max across the board. My monk I willfully made a human. Sure I leveled faster but I acknowledge that I will forever be less powerful in a big way by not choosing iksar and giving up that crucial regen and the ac bonus. My warrior? I made that a dwarf and gave up the FSI and huge stat bonuses on ogre. I regret neither of those choices because I wanted to play the races I ultimately created. I knew the consequences and made my choices and am happy with them.

For shaman there is a case to be made that FSI is worth giving up regen. I don’t agree and have never personally come across a scenario where FSI would have helped other than avoid a mildly annoying, infrequent inconvenience. The discussion of barbarian vs other - there’s no argument to be made other than a head nod to the same decision I had when rolling my monk.

Point is, if you want to be a barbarian ... be one! Play what you want. As long as you know why you made the decision you did; the choice for you was a good one.

Any class of any race can be wildly successful in this game with skill, knowledge, attention to detail, and gear. This is especially true for shamans. A sub-60 barbarian shaman with no fungi but played skillfully can and will function more efficiently than a troll shaman with a fungi who is played poorly with a fungi.

Remember that ultimately this regen thing is about mana. Regening more is always good but I’d argue that more important is how you use that mana. My favorite example relates to the slow choices a shaman has starting in the low 50s. The best costs 250, the next lowest almost as good is 175 and the one below that (by far good enough for a standard xp group) is 125. Dropping 250 mana per pull gets really expensive really quickly. Prior to fungi at 57 and later torpor at 60 my favorite trick for juggling mana was to use a lower level slow more often than not and save 75-125 mana per cast. As long as the healer isn’t struggling for mana, it keeps the buffs up and the xp train rolling.

Play what you want, but no a fungi does not comparatively “fix” the racial problem barbarians have. It helps mitigate it but all races can wear it so the power discrepancy will always be present.

Canni-dance is very important pre-Torpor and still relevant even then. If you're not doing it, then you're usually playing sub-optimally. Canni twice inbetween every med tick creates a better mana/health expenditure ratio. If you are a 60 Shaman with Torpor and not taking any outside damage, then sure there are times you can just spam Canni 4 (or even before Torpor if you happen to be full health at a certain time, then you can Canni-spam down first, before you start the Canni-dance chain). However, if you are taking other damage or don't have the time to keep Torpor on yourself constantly, then missing out on the regen from sitting ticks is a less efficient way of playing.

Granted, it's annoying as hell to play a Shaman perfectly, constantly clicking non-stop with exact timing, but it is better.