Should be noted that zuranthium does not have a 60 shaman and quit red because no one would play with him.

I do have a 60 shaman, and I quit red because it's a waste of time, there's no real PvP and no real guilds to play with at all. Only a tiny group of small-brained people are on the server (which sucks, as I much prefer red to blue). p99 in general is something that's not worth much of my time, I've never played for more than 1.5 months at a time. Reminiscing about classic EQ and thinking of ways to improve it are more interesting than p99 itself.

Are you sure you have a torp shaman?

What part did you not understand?

Torpor is powerful but it isn't free and it isn't a complete heal. If you aren't timing Cannibalizes perfectly inbetween med ticks in situations where your health is being heavily pressured, then you are simply being less efficient. Cannibalize isn't an infinite generator, rather something that converts a resource you don't always need (health) into one you usually need more (mana).

You give up 210 mana and 30 health during a minute of not hitting sit ticks (more health if a regen race). This is a free resource that should be used during times when you can't cannibalize non-stop. Torpor is a finite amount of healing, an average of 2,700 per minute we could say. If you come out of a fight with 20% health for example, then after a minute of spamming cannibalize + 2 torpors, you will only be at about 50% health still. There are situations where it's definitely relevant to not want your health total to be so low (particularly under Torpor, as you move slowly). As such, you instead should have been staggering cannibalize with sit ticks, since this gives the most optimal combined rate of health and mana regen at the time.

Or for example if you are root rotting a bunch of mobs and taking hits as the roots break, or from adds. The damage you're taking from the mobs + thoughtless canni spam might exceed the amount that torpor + regen heals (and it's important to note that Torpor is rarely ever perma-maintained, there's almost always going to be gaps between it ending and being re-applied). As such, you are eventually going to have to slow down your canni usage anyway, which means that whole time you were missing out on the gains from natural sit ticks. If you don't manage your resources perfectly, then you might end up having to zone from not being able to handle adds, which means you lost instead of winning.

Well after all that let me just say ...

Just kidding.

I thought you were on the right track by trying to contextualize things with real world examples, so I decided to try and break things down to a spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

There are three rows for three different approaches (all right-click spam, all meditate, and a mix). The first two columns count the number of Cannibalize IVs cast and Med Ticks that are caught. The next two columns show the net HP/Mana gain, and the "Efficiency" column combines those two columns (but only counts HP as .554 of a mana, to match the ratio from Cann IV).

After that every column is half a second, and I've laid out what a Shaman following each strategy would cast or do during that half second interval. All three start out with a Torpor to keep things simple. I also drew borders around each tick to make that clear. I'm not sure my methodology is perfect ... in fact, I strongly suspect I'm missing or forgetting something, so I welcome any criticism (if you see anything wrong PLEASE feel free to copy the spreadsheet, fix it, and link your sheet back here).

Even so, I think the spreadsheet shows what everyone has been saying. Yes, the more you med the more efficient you get. BUT, it's also true that the more you med the less mana you wind up with, and again in a fight you generally want quick mana more than you want efficiency.

However, as the spreadsheet shows throwing a few perfectly timed meditates in-between the spam is pretty optimal (you wind up with only about 20 mana less, but about 150 HP more) ... but that assumes that you follow the pattern perfectly and hit every tick exactly. I'm not so sure that's realistic.

Polar bear is pretty sweet.

This also neglects mobs that summon, efficiency of slow duration vs root recasts, and the fact that every damaging ability you will cast on a mob besides epic dot has a very high chance of breaking those roots that already last half the time of a slow, even if they lasted full duration which they never will.

What mobs are you killing with your torpor shaman that both require high efficiency and can be rooted? Are you in a group? 150 hp or 20 mana over a minute will be completely irrelevant if you are.

It’s a ridiculous premise set in a vacuum of grinding on seafuries or something equally non-consequential.

You're also neglecting the benefits of potential mana/hp. The HP that you lose by sitting at full hp or mana. There is no reason to be 100% hp or mana at any time. Every tick that you are not regenerating a resource, you are wasting the potential hp/mana that you would have gained in that tick. With HP, this is quite a lot, and even with standing mana with no mana buffs, it adds up.

If you guys are worried about that 20 mana/150 hp per minute, then you should also be considering the 360 hp per minute that an ogre receives while standing, even more so with regen races.


Maybe you guys should try using your torpor shaman on something besides ice giants before you weigh in on this.

Farming isn't "non-consequential", it's the majority of the game actually, and the question is if you want to maximize your efficiency to get the most out of your time. Sometimes the answer might be no, because as I said, it's extremely annoying to play perfectly when it comes to these tedious game mechanics.

It's not just a question of farming though, but survivability as well. If you are in a dungeon with a group and you die or run out of mana, well that might ruin the entire run. Putting the effort in to get the gains from sitting ticks might make the difference with being able to handle adds at a certain point in time (which could also mean PvP). I've definitely seen situations of Shaman failing because of lazy canni-spamming and having less resources to work with.

You're correct about generally not wanting to ever be 100% hp/mana (although again - PvP), because that means you aren't using your maximum power at a given point in time. It's certainly relevant to not want to become too vulnerable though, and there's also this thing called "time". High-end spells especially take a lot of time to cast. If you're in the middle of a long and difficult pull, you will likely be trying to put slow and root on many things, torpor on multiple people, and reapplying buffs that happen to be dropping. There are situations where Torpor alone isn't enough of a burst heal either and you need to Chloroblast as well to keep someone alive.

In those situations, you don't have the time to spam Canni and keep Torpor on yourself 24/7. If you are playing ideally, then you will be watching the 6 second tick timer and trying to find times to quickly hit a sit tick before casting the next spell on your endless list of things to do. The majority of the time it may not make a difference, but you are incorrect to say it's always irrelevant.