Short answer: Play what you like the look of. Gear and levels trivialize any racial advantages/flaws in EQ.

Long answer: The troll exp penalty sucks but if you are a filthy casual soloer for the most part (like me) the regen and JBB access are great. Also can stack more Stamina than most races. If you anticipate having 200k’ish for an epic tear, fungi, and torpor it really doesn’t matter. I’ll likely take forever to hit 60, will take about that long to buy a fungi, even longer for torpor, and never have an epic. The snare necklace is quite nice.

If instead of a 53 troll I had a 56 (?) Barb I wouldn’t complain. It wouldn’t change what I can kill and wouldn’t slow down the grind much at all. Not shrinking would be really nice as would playing in unrest and HHK without burning pots. I’d prob be rocking a Barb Spiritalist Hammer. If I had a 53 Iksar that would be hardmode and I’d be grouping more...again no epic or JBB. Ugh...

So it's decided then, Barbarian is actually the min-max choice due to polar bear skin helms. Glad we were able to come to agreement on that! (Kidding obviously)

So, on a semi-related tangent, is Arctic Wyvern Skullcap the BiS polar bear skin helm for casual shamaning? Assuming I did my fashion search correctly (Fashion: Leather, Shaman Equipment, Head), this might be the item to eventually aim for. Doesn't really matter as I'm sure this leather helm will be perfectly serviceable til 60, but I'm just curious. Velious seems to have largely abandoned the concept of helm graphics for some reason. I disapprove...

A bunch of live forum nerds complained they couldn't see their characters face when wearing helmets so now we have to deal with retarded invisible helms 20 years later.

Spirit Talker's Headdress gives polar bear view to the wearer. But not to others.

And its awesome.

Yes, you used the fashion search perfectly (always nice to see that stuff getting used).

That's probably BiS for casual. For raiding I think Custom Crown of the Kromzek Kings and possibly even Custom_Frostreaver's Velium Crown are better. A runner up for BiS casual would be Custom Cowl of Mortality.

Thanks for the Spirit Talker's Headdress suggestion. Definitely BiS leather look for a non-raider. I missed it somehow during my search.

It's an awesome tool! Back when I was more active, I was struggling to find a decent high end plate helm for my erudite paladin. Invisible helms were a non-starter for him, so I looked through ZAM data for all the Velious era helms to see what would work. It was a huge pain. This would have saved me a lot of time!

Wow I disagree a lot with what’s being said in this thread.

I think at 60 the racial difference for necro won’t account for much more of an effective necro whether you’re iksar or not. I think the difference is much bigger on shaman and actually can make a difference in a lot of places.

Regen is always a big deal. Even at 60 after you have torpor. If nothing else, it’s such an awesome quality of life thing to get away from torpor after torpor after torpor.

Judging by this thread and what people say I’d judge ogre the worst shaman class but I think the FSI is invaluable. I’m also jealous and wish I had some of the troll perks of extra regen and snare. That stuff matters and I would really enjoy having it. Compared to my dark elf necro... with level 60 lich and life taps, I’m not really missing racial regen.

This is an interesting perspective and argument (quality of life wat?)coming from a class where choosing the right race effectively eliminates health loss from their lich lines of spells.

That said I agree regen is always important. I still find myself wearing a fungi, casting regrowth and bear form because an extra free hp in canni ever 30 sec is nice for someone who compulsively/passively cast canni all the time.

Is an extra 9 hp a tick (Barb 3 standing, Troll/Iksar 12 standing) at 60 game breaking? No but it’s an extra 90 hp over a minute which is nice too.

FSI is cool because it’s not accessible in an any other way and so it’s unique (if ridiculously overrated).

At 60 when you boil it down, it’s basically FSI vs 9regen standing/12sitting and snare clicky vs white polar bear. Not game changing. Play what you like.

One other thing worth noting: on TAKP snare is absolutely critical. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it has to do with unaggroed mobs on P99 preventing their compatriots from running, e.g. when you camp at the brain room nothing will run if the ilis shaman is up in the closest jail cell. My biggest regret with my Monk/Shaman combination on TAKP was not having that snare clicky necklace. Even after I got the VP spear, procs are inconsistent and and switching around weapons is even more APM on an already high APM class.

I am hopeful that at some point Haynar will come fix all of the numerous mechanics problems on P99: push/interrupt, NPCs fleeing, flee stuns, procs for >400 hate, linger timers, increased blur chance, rogues sneaking everywhere, NPC aggro delay after standing up from FD, and so on. When combined, its a massive nerf to P99s overpowered melee and I think it would nearly perfectly balance melee/hybrids/priests/casters/npcs (with the exception of Wizards who don't have a Rend/Conflag robe).

Returning to on topic, the obvious winner after these changes is Troll (snare clicky neck, slam interrupting casters) while all other shaman races lose.

One of several reasons why Shadow Knight/Shaman was well-regarded historically, in spite of the P99 culture's tendency to dismiss the hybrid types. My experience here mirrors your own in that doing dungeons here with no snare is no big deal while historically it was a risky proposition at best. Marginally related (in the sense of affecting Shaman solo) is the inability of a single person to keep more than 4 things at a time rooted, another P99 nonissue which benefits the solo caster.

Danth