[Kefit]

A shaman with a granite face grinder can melee just as well as any other class with a good weapon until level 30 or so. Things start to fall off sharply after this point, as mobs start to deal more damage and as the shaman's own melee damage output begins to stink more and more compared to real melee classes.

Like I guess a level 40 shaman could face tank with slow, but why would you? You're not dealing significant enough melee damage to justify the use of HP. That HP is better used for canni dancing. While I know that SK's and Pallys aren't dps kings, I'm sure they're still dealing way more melee damage than a shaman at mid and high levels thanks to things like double attack and riposte.

Anyway, the real answer to this thread is to make a monk with HP rings, SCHW, and some Wu's weapons (maybe nicer weapons if you can afford it or if you find yourself enjoying the class after 10-20 levels). A fungi is extremely nice for reducing downtime, but isn't really a requirement to simply kill stuff.

I know there are tons of monk lizard twinks out there, but there's a reason for that. Instant feign death is one of the most game breaking mechanics in Everquest, and will allow you to solo dungeon crawl through level appropriate dungeons with relative safety. All those dumb Kunark dungeons with one way entrances? A monk can just jump in, and if you don't like it or get overwhelmed then you can just flop your way out. And if you do like what you find, then a monk's offensive and defensive skills and ready access to cheap powerful weapons will let you kill whatever you find.