Shaman Tips
 

Hey there. Was wanting some quick shaman tips for when I am solo; like, for example, when should I frenzy? Frenzy is so interesting that I kinda wanna use it a lot when I’m not casting.

Also, which weapons should I focus on? What are some good weapons and shields etc. going Barbarian.

you probably wont really end up using frenzy at all as you will want mana for other things and shaman melee really starts to drop off in the late teens / twenties. I'd recommend grouping those levels.

You should be able to do the wolf fang quest in Halas to get a magic weapon. Screaming mace or something similar is probably a reasonable target after that.

You will also want to save up for a spyglass so you can canni dance starting at 24

Don't nuke, like ever if you're soloing. Also using dot's is fairly mana inneficient at low levels. If you are like under level 34 or so, just use a cheap slow spell and melee down. Your heals are more efficient than nukes and dots. So that means find the best ratio weapon you can afford, 2hander preferably. Just keep up the necessary buffs, dont bother with crap like agility or dex. IMO the mana spent keeping up those buffs does not pay off. Would rather just use that mana for more heals or slows.

I disagree. Different scenarios require different parts of your kit. I've found some of your best soloing is nuking.


People always remember shaman with twink gear or in their power spike. You don't have a lot of mana, so you to consider how to engage each mob. Envenomed breath (EB) is a 2.19 damage to mana ratio. Frost Strike (FS)is 1.37. Root is 40 mana. If you add the mana cost of Root to EB, it becomes 1.56. At 24+ you need to consider your HP as mana. You will kill a mob much faster Nuking vs root rotting. I've found the amount of incidental damage taken and cost of root at low levels Spam nuking to be more efficient than root rotting.

I was able to keep more mobs down in upper guk by Nuke spamming with my back to the wall, then I am with either Root Rotting or face tanking with a slow using melee/dots.

Same thing applied when I was soloing treants or hag tower.

This only changed when I got Doggo. He is a beast. He has soo much hp, does great dmg and his regen is insane. But, solo it is easy for him to take 50% xp if you let him tank with slow. So I only do this when I'm trying to take down a tough mob and don't care about xp.

Against a healer mob I root rot, as mobs don't heal themselves if they are rooted with nothing in melee range. Other mobs might heal them, but they don't heal themselves.

Against wizard types, nuke spam wins. You can generally two shot a wiz mob with nukes if they don't have rune up.

But yeah, never use frenzy, the idea might be cool but I've never found a scenario where the mana drain was worth it. I wouldn't focus on weapon/shield. Shaman are great tanks to 20. You have amazing aggro using drowsy on every mob and good enough mitigation. But, this strat falls off hard. Play a knight or Ranger if you wanna melee with good aggro.

Ehhh, I probably just play it safer personally. I would prefer to have a longer fight but have more resources (health / mana) at the end of it then go on to the next with less downtime than kill something quicker and have more mana regen time. I understand there are situations where maybe you wanna blast it down faster like if facing a caster or whatever. Root rotting really shouldnt be an option until you have both canni and regen.

I actually agree with your desire just disagree on how to get there. Around that level, you'll end up with more resources spam nuking than slowing and meleeing. Unless mob is Green. Slow costs too much mana, as does healing. I found I'd end the fight with more resources nuke spamming then face tanking with a slow. AND it was faster.

Once you get to 20+ content, mobs hit too hard and shaman melee dps- relative to mob HP pool - drops hard. I'm 45 now, I melee for 2 more damage a swing than I did at 12. But I nuke 25 times harder.

Fwiw, my sham is 37 now on green and I've primarily leveled solo by: disease dot, slow, poison dot, melee. Depending on the exact hp of mobs and damage they do to me and resists, I'd add in another poison dot or a nuke, perhaps staying in melee or perhaps rooting to med for several ticks while dots tick.

Any of that has seemed pretty similar to me. Nukes are good vs casters but probably poor vs melee enemies unless it'll hit them down into fleeing range so you can med while dots/pet finish then off. Roots stick pretty well against blues as long as they aren't like -1 (or -2/-3 at higher levels like 20+), and REALLY well with malaise on.

This comes from me using banded by the teens + bloodforged hammer, buffing my AC and STR and regen as able.

Since 34 I still mix like 50/50 tanking with melee vs root and medding while pet tanks. Melee can seem unimpressive when you whiff 6 swings in a row at 5 second delay, but I also can hit for nearly 40 now, and it's nice to take some hits sometimes so my pet doesn't have to tank something from 100-0.

Lower blues will barely scratch you most of the time in melee, so it's close whether your unimpressive melee damage is more efficient than roots+medding for more spell damage. Maybe the next session I have ill try playing with 0 melee to see how it works though, and ill add a post to the thread then.


Based on a thread I made earlier and chats with players ingame (admittedly I don't talk to a lot of different people ingame), my shaman soloing is not faster than grouping overall, though it's equal to or better than a bad group.

I solo mainly because it's always at my pace, which I prioritize over faster exp. Afk when I want, log in and out as I want, fighting in locations that are quiet so there's no waiting lists or other people taking your mobs. I always have friends list and/or guild to chat with if I want to even without a group.

You are probably right on that last part. Ranger seems more up my alley because I want to go melee and casting. :(

Thank you all for your help, I'll keep this pinned for later use.

I'd have to wonder if it would ever be worth meleeing post venom of the snake since all those HP lost could have been converted to mana. it's not like people have PWCs or GFGs here or anythiing.

When I played my shaman back in the day I stopped melee altogether in my teens. I just couldn't stand listening to that swish; it was psychologically damaging. Until I got my pet and soloing was fun again I would just rent a pair of fists by having every near-level monk on the friends list and I would just /follow them from mob to mob as their personal buffer.