[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Penish [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So outside the general information from people that have basically 0 clue about the mechanics of p99. hybrid DPS is horrible. I mean like holy fuck horrible. Roll a warrior or a monk.

Also if you're using anything other than your level 14 shaman root (30 mana) to CC with. Chances are you don't understand what's going on with your shaman anyway.

In a nutshell if you're looking to mow down content and not feel gimped, get that monk or warrior going.

If you want cool spell effects with no dps whatsoever, that SK is gonna rock it.

Insulting people is not an argument, nor does it validate any points you have made[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When you want to level up, the only thing that matters is kills per hour. DPS is only one factor that determines how many kills per hour you can do, especially in a duo situation where you do not have a truck load of DPS just melting mobs.

A duo Shaman is going to be healing, buffing, debuffing, and damaging. All of that takes time and mana. Even an extra 30 mana per 3 mobs per 48 seconds adds up very quickly when you are doing all of these other things.

You are mistaken that Shamans only use their lowest level root. That is not always a good move, because it is a waste of casting time to keep having to re-root a monster every 48 seconds or so. If you have 3 monsters CCed, that means you need to spend about 8-10 seconds every 48 seconds to re-root, or you will get a break. That means you only have 38 seconds in between root casting to do other things. Shamans tend to be a casting heavy class, with a lot of spells having longer cast times. Boxing yourself in to a shorter cycle of casting reduces a Shaman's effectiveness, and requires them to split their attention much more frequently.

If you pull 3 tough mobs that can chew through your duo quickly, you root AND slow, so you do not take a chunk of damage if root breaks early. If the mobs are magic resistant/higher level as well, you root, malo, and slow. One set of Root, Malo, and Slow at level 34 is Enstill (60 Mana), Malaisement (100 Mana), and Tagar's Insects (125 Mana). That is 285 Mana per mob initially, and 245 mana every three minutes (1 slow and two roots), assuming no resists, until the monsters are dead. That will drain any Shaman quite quickly.

By consistently pulling one mob at a time, a Shaman doesn't even need to cast root (unless you need to stop a monster from running). They can just slow and let you tank the mob down, while doing damage of their own. If you are able to kill 30 monsters per hour, you are saving at least 900-1800 mana per hour on root alone, depending on the root you use, and assuming you do not need to cast it more than once. That means less down time and more killing.

That is why a Warrior is often going to be harder to play with in a duo situation, because your Shaman will need to do a lot more CCing whenever a pull contains multiple monsters. So even though a Warrior will do more damage, the Shaman will do less damage, and have more down time.

Originally Posted by radbeard [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

one thing people seem to keep ignoring is that I already have a high level monk, i'm not making another. So i'm asking specifically about SK vs Warrior for sub-level 50 with ~20k budget to twink.

I know SK DPS is garbage on post-50 content, but is it very different from warrior at 42?
If both classes are wielding a 32/38 2-hander at lvl 42 is that a huge dps gap? Or are people just responding to how bad SKs DPS is in 51+ content in Velious?

Ah I didn't read the part about you having a monk already, my bad[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] On a 20k budget you can buy Silver Chitin Hand Wraps and a plethora of great SK weapons for pretty cheap, so you should be fine on DPS. Shadowknights also get a pet and DoTs/Life Tap to help with DPS or reduce how often you need to heal. On top of that, they can fear kite, further reducing how much mana you need to use on healing. This means the Shaman can probably DoT more anyway. As I mentioned above, your melee classes white damage is not really the primary factor in kills per hour when you are duoing. If that was the case, you would actually want to do a Rogue/Shaman combo, where the Shaman tanks and the Rogue backstabs[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]