Quote:
Originally Posted by JDeth
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If my memory serves Enchanters mesmerize, and Shamans root and enjoying aggro.
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On a basic level, this is true. But there's some more to it:
When leveling up, enchanters can do dungeon crawls, but shamans can't really. Without high-level spells and hp/mp levels (even without uber gear), a shaman just can't handle the process of aggroing 3+ things at a time and rooting them and killing them, and few dungeon crawls involve only single or double pulls. A chanter though has lull/calm, mezzes (including an aoe mez), mem blurs, all from pretty low levels, plus both invis and invis vs undead. By the 30s, a chanter can realistically aggro an entire room (like 4-5 mobs) on purpose and walk out of the fight having gotten full xp for 2-3 and partial xp for another 1-2, and with spawns now broken up to handle more easily next time around, or snipe out just one of the mobs that you want while leaving the rest standing there like idiots, or skip past a room that you don't want to deal with, etc.
At 50+, a sham has more ac and hp, buffs rolling on himself, canni, hopefully is a troll or iksar for even more regen, has a pet for distraction and maybe a bit of damage, MR debuffs to help his roots actually stick for a long time with paralyzing earth, etc. He can aggro multiples and kill them all, though without being 60+torpor or 50+ with epic, it's still not quite easy. At 50+ for chanter it's ridiculous the kinds of fights you can take and walk away from unscathed.
At the real max, like velious raid gear max, a shaman gains a lot of ground on a chanter because that amazing gear benefits the sham relatively more (a lot more) than the chanter. The chanter is still pretty paper thin when he is getting wailed on, and still needs to rely on a charm to do serious work, etc. The sham gets tough as nails with velious gear besides the slow and heals and whatever else he had before. At this point the sham is far and away better at killing a single, very tough target (think WW dragons, velious nameds, stuff like that), and probably pretty comparable most anything else too... though some stuff they still will have a harder time with than a chanter because of the different tool sets. Like, all the gear in the world wouldn't make me want to farm loot in HS south or the bigger camps in sebilis, or crawl through a zone full of see invis stuff, because even if you can do it, it's a pain.
While already typing a small book... shams and enchanters are similarly useful in duos, trios, groups, raids, beyond soloing. They've got somewhat different duo/trio partners since the sham can be a healer for a couple melees, but they're both great in small groups and regular groups, and they're both more-or-less buff bots in large raids.
Necros are more like enchanters than shamans, and are the 3rd and only other class, imo, that really can count as a solo dungeon crawler. They generally have more crawl-ability imo than a sham but less than a chanter. Harmshield, feign death, a pretty-tough summoned pet, invis and ivu, undead charm and lulls, one kinda-mez, roots... let's them get single pulls with effort, lets them handle bigger pulls, lets them move around in nasty areas, lets them AFK as desired, gives them different options for killing things. They generally can't do anything that a chanter also can't though their damage spells and summoned pet give them an edge when dealing with stuff that's quite a bit lower than they are. They generally still can't handle the super-tough nameds like a shaman can, though I think there are some ways they can deal with level 60+ stuff in Velious in limited circumstances that a chanter couldn't. They're less desired in most all grouping situations though.