Shaman Stats & Melee Dmg Cap

[Drakul]

My Shaman just hit level 10 and I'm looking for some input on a few specifics.

Note: I don't have any plat and my main is level 20 so high end gear is out of the question...

First, I've heard Shamans root rot at lower levels and don't get mana conversion tools until the 20s, so should I be stacking +mana +wisdom items until I get mana conversion spells and then switch to +hp? Should I always shoot for a certain level of wisdom at higher levels as well?

Also, I read somewhere that there is a damage cap on melee until certain levels, but I'm not sure if this is the case. Is there a level where my melee damage can exceed 20? Some folks have recommended getting a one handed weapon and using a shield. Should I be looking for a high damage one handed weapon and high AC shield, or should I be looking for weapons and shields with other stats?

Third, what level do shamans get dodge or anything else worth running all the way back to Grobb from the commonlands to train up?

Thanks in advance

[Reiker]

Damage is capped to ~20 until level 20 I believe.

Imo always look for HP gear, not worth switching at later levels. You probably won't really have money to invest in good gear anyways so get stuff that will last or save up for the stuff that will.

Everyone's playstyle is different but when I play a shaman I generally ignore wis completely and go for HP/Sta, maybe AC. The problem is that shamans are really awkward until Kunark, you don't have class defining slow yet, your heals are weak, your 1 mana conversion spell isn't that great, and you only get hp regen from a couple mediocre spells and a rubi bp if you can happen to find one. Also, classic itemization for a shaman isn't too good, it's fairly easy to max out wis but good HP gear is hard to find in a lot of slots. Nearly all the best shaman gear (Bladestopper, BCG, etc) is also fairly unobtainable. Since it may be awhile before we see Kunark, it may actually be beneficial to keep a mix of wis/hp (didn't think I'd ever say that) to help cast 100 single target buffs in a row.

It isn't until Kunark where shamans really come into their own, and then you should completely eschew wis for HP/Sta/AC, due to how awesome tank soloing is as well as Turgurs/Torpor/Canni3.

You may have to experiment a bit but remember that mana regen > mana pool, never sacrifice the former for the latter.

Shield AC > any other slot AC, so this is one slot where high AC will help.

All of the above reasons is why I don't play a shaman on P99, although I've mained one for years on live and it is easily my favorite class. I'm not trying to steer you away from the class, shaman are decent and are as "bare bones" as basically any other class in classic, but the playstyle pre-kunark doesn't really interest me. It's also too bad that we'll never see Luclin or PoP, two expansions where shamans really shine.

[Skope]

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

Damage is capped to ~20 until level 20 I believe.

Imo always look for HP gear, not worth switching at later levels. You probably won't really have money to invest in good gear anyways so get stuff that will last or save up for the stuff that will.

Everyone's playstyle is different but when I play a shaman I generally ignore wis completely and go for HP/Sta, maybe AC. The problem is that shamans are really awkward until Kunark, you don't have class defining slow yet, your heals are weak, your 1 mana conversion spell isn't that great, and you only get hp regen from a couple mediocre spells and a rubi bp if you can happen to find one. Also, classic itemization for a shaman isn't too good, it's fairly easy to max out wis but good HP gear is hard to find in a lot of slots. Nearly all the best shaman gear (Bladestopper, BCG, etc) is also fairly unobtainable. Since it may be awhile before we see Kunark, it may actually be beneficial to keep a mix of wis/hp (didn't think I'd ever say that) to help cast 100 single target buffs in a row.

It isn't until Kunark where shamans really come into their own, and then you should completely eschew wis for HP/Sta/AC, due to how awesome tank soloing is as well as Turgurs/Torpor/Canni3.

You may have to experiment a bit but remember that mana regen > mana pool, never sacrifice the former for the latter.

Shield AC > any other slot AC, so this is one slot where high AC will help.

All of the above reasons is why I don't play a shaman on P99, although I've mained one for years on live and it is easily my favorite class. I'm not trying to steer you away from the class, shaman are decent and are as "bare bones" as basically any other class in classic, but the playstyle pre-kunark doesn't really interest me. It's also too bad that we'll never see Luclin or PoP, two expansions where shamans really shine.

I don't think that's the case necessarily, though i suppose it helps having planar gear. I can tank quite comfortably with slow and full rune-etched, but it isn't anywhere as good as it is in kunark due to torpor, fungi, etc.

Generally speaking, shamans don't solo nearly as well as they do in kunark. But keep in mind that one of the main reasons shamans are such good soloers (behind a few classes, if i'm honest) is because of the awesome gear/spells they get in that expansion. Shammy is a very very gear dependent class that requires quite a bit of micromanagement and a lot of plat to maintain. You won't be as good as a necro or enchanter when it comes to adds or splitting rooms, but shammies are incredibly efficient and are probably the best and only class for taking down summoning, slowable mobs with loads of HP.

I recall the consensus regarding wisdom being around 175 as the magical number. Come kunark, you'll want +hp as your main stat, followed by a mix of wis/ac/dex/sta in whichever order you'd like. It wasn't uncommon to see a shammy with 3-4 different sets of gear, for example: If you main-heal then you'd need more wis, if you're tanking then more hp/ac, and a different +charisma set for charming animals.

EDIT: it is 2x weapon damage past lvl 20, factoring in only pure +str (perhaps attack rating, never checked with wolf form) as damage modifier. With a darksea harpoon you will be swinging for 20 dmg per swing until you get upwards of 170/180str where the strength tacks on to the damage cap. Remember, you're a priest class, your damage doesn't come from melee hits but procs, wolfie and DoTs.

[utenan]

canni + self buff + chloro is enough to out mana regen anyone else, + bard songs or clarity and your made in the shade. + you can sit and get a med tick between cannis, so I dunno what your talking about Reiker "the 1 conversion spell and mediocre regen spells arent that great" of course thats your opinion, and I respect that, just disagreeing : D

The damage cap seems strange to me, every since 35 my darksea harpoon ( 10/28) has hit for 20, which seems to be the final damage cap for shaman 1h ?? Or maybe shaman can only do 2x weapon damage? I really have no clue. But at low levels, if your 2h dmg is capped, then it would be more efficient to get a 1h and a shield. You get better stats that way, as well as the shield ac, and you probably wont hit the dmg cap with a 1h. Generally all shields have similiar Ac, but some have nice stats, same goes for shammy 1handers until you get higher up.

Once I hit the 20s, i never melee soloed anything, even with decent hp and AC, i got hit way too hard. Of course that was before the AC fix, so maybe it would be worth it now, but things hit me way too hard back then for that to be efficient. Plat fire wedding rings would be something to save for, 5ac 55hp, gonna cost about 250pp each though. Could also quest totemic in you upper 20s, it would be free + high ac, but I guess both of these are a ways off if your lvl 10 : /

There are indeed damage caps, I don"t recall the levels though, or the damage : / they play more of a factor at lower levels

[Reiker]

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

canni + self buff + chloro is enough to out mana regen anyone else, + bard songs or clarity and your made in the shade. + you can sit and get a med tick between cannis, so I dunno what your talking about Reiker "the 1 conversion spell and mediocre regen spells arent that great" of course thats your opinion, and I respect that, just disagreeing : D

I'm not saying that shaman regen is horrible, it's always the best in any expansion. But what I was trying to say is that a vanilla shaman has just a fraction of the power as a kunark+ shaman. If the question was asked "what is the most powerful class in classic," shaman would never make the list among enchanters and magicians. But in Kunark they would probably top it. A good shaman can keep all 4 nameds down in seb crypt solo, I don't know very many other classes that can do that, and if they can, it's not nearly as efficient/easy.

The power increase of a shaman from classic to kunark is larger than any other class in any other expansion.

[girth]

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

The power increase of a shaman from classic to kunark is larger than any other class in any other expansion.

BOLD statement.

[davedeck42]

rogues and warrior get huge upgrades in kunark

[Reiker]

Well yeah, all classes get big upgrades in Kunark, that's a given.

Rogues: They get more dps. It's a lot more dps, but it doesn't change the way the game is played. You stand behind a mob and hit backstab. Same as vanilla, only the numbers are higher.

Warriors: More dps: see above. Better aggro: Great, allows warriors to relax a bit more. However, the warriors who have the best aggro in classic get even better aggro in Kunark (they'll be the first to complete epics, etc). If you can fairly easily maintain aggro now (and most warriors with yaks are at that point) then you can fairly easily maintain aggro... a little more. Another "it's nice but not game-changing." Defensive: This is of course awesome, but is limited. You gain a "oh shit I can't believe that idiot pulled that" or "oh shit they want me to tank this badass shit" button you can click every once and awhile. It is indeed awesome and perhaps "game-changing" but lets compare it to what shaman get. Notice how just about every shaman upgrade has a large synergy with all the other upgrades. A few upgrades is nice, but what if every upgrade you get exponentially makes every other upgrade better? That's what you get with shaman.

* Superior Heal: Shaman/Druid healing blooooows until you zone over to Firiona/Overthere and pick this up. Now you can main heal, combined with...
* Turgur's Insects: Very close with Complete Heal as the most overpowered ability in the game. Decreasing a mob's attack speed by 75% should never have been in the game.
* Regrowth: Minor, but almost 4x more efficient than Torpor.
* Canni 3: Less efficient than Canni 1, but speed is obviously better. The carpal tunnel spell that will forever make wisdom useless when combined with...
* Torpor: Sweet jesus, you can restore nearly your entire HP bar for 200 mana. That's like, 5 casts of Canni which leaves you with 830 more HP to... canni even more.
* Malo: Unresistable resist debuff. Compared to the above, not as exciting but still amazing on its own.

AND all of this is again amplified by shaman-centric itemization. In Kunark it becomes much easier to pump HP (couldn't grab a Bladestopper? No problem, go get a Sarnak Battle Shield). You even get an additional 15 regen from an item.

When you add all this together (you acquire enough HP and the required spells) there's no such thing as downtime, which is huge in a downtime-based game like EverQuest. You go from barely out-healing a Paladin to being one of the best healers in the game, even beating out clerics depending on gear and content.

You become a solo god. There's a simple formula that goes like "does this mob do enough dps to affect my mana regen." Most likely if the mob is slowable, the answer is no. And if the answer is no, you can kill it. Eventually. A mob has to do retarded amounts of damage with a 75% slow to cut into your "hp canni reserve."

A shaman's world opens up like no other class in Kunark, which is why I can easily say something like "The power increase of a shaman from classic to kunark is larger than any other class in any other expansion." To argue otherwise is to just argue for the sake of arguing.

[Gorroth]

Shamans are fine in classic, if a bit frustrating at time. Necros, encs and magicians just waltz around anywhere and start rocking the place. I have a hard time soloing frenzy camp in LGuk with full planar and ac/hp gear (breaking is the hardest part, granted).

Reiker has a point, you'd be hard-pressed to find a class that has a larger increase in power than shamans when Kunark comes out, it's like ascending to godhood.

[Wenai]

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

Well yeah, all classes get big upgrades in Kunark, that's a given.

Rogues: They get more dps. It's a lot more dps, but it doesn't change the way the game is played. You stand behind a mob and hit backstab. Same as vanilla, only the numbers are higher.

Warriors: More dps: see above. Better aggro: Great, allows warriors to relax a bit more. However, the warriors who have the best aggro in classic get even better aggro in Kunark (they'll be the first to complete epics, etc). If you can fairly easily maintain aggro now (and most warriors with yaks are at that point) then you can fairly easily maintain aggro... a little more. Another "it's nice but not game-changing." Defensive: This is of course awesome, but is limited. You gain a "oh shit I can't believe that idiot pulled that" or "oh shit they want me to tank this badass shit" button you can click every once and awhile. It is indeed awesome and perhaps "game-changing" but lets compare it to what shaman get. Notice how just about every shaman upgrade has a large synergy with all the other upgrades. A few upgrades is nice, but what if every upgrade you get exponentially makes every other upgrade better? That's what you get with shaman.

* Superior Heal: Shaman/Druid healing blooooows until you zone over to Firiona/Overthere and pick this up. Now you can main heal, combined with...
* Turgur's Insects: Very close with Complete Heal as the most overpowered ability in the game. Decreasing a mob's attack speed by 75% should never have been in the game.
* Regrowth: Minor, but almost 4x more efficient than Torpor.
* Canni 3: Less efficient than Canni 1, but speed is obviously better. The carpal tunnel spell that will forever make wisdom useless when combined with...
* Torpor: Sweet jesus, you can restore nearly your entire HP bar for 200 mana. That's like, 5 casts of Canni which leaves you with 830 more HP to... canni even more.
* Malo: Unresistable resist debuff. Compared to the above, not as exciting but still amazing on its own.

AND all of this is again amplified by shaman-centric itemization. In Kunark it becomes much easier to pump HP (couldn't grab a Bladestopper? No problem, go get a Sarnak Battle Shield). You even get an additional 15 regen from an item.

When you add all this together (you acquire enough HP and the required spells) there's no such thing as downtime, which is huge in a downtime-based game like EverQuest. You go from barely out-healing a Paladin to being one of the best healers in the game, even beating out clerics depending on gear and content.

You become a solo god. There's a simple formula that goes like "does this mob do enough dps to affect my mana regen." Most likely if the mob is slowable, the answer is no. And if the answer is no, you can kill it. Eventually. A mob has to do retarded amounts of damage with a 75% slow to cut into your "hp canni reserve."

A shaman's world opens up like no other class in Kunark, which is why I can easily say something like "The power increase of a shaman from classic to kunark is larger than any other class in any other expansion." To argue otherwise is to just argue for the sake of arguing.

Honestly like the perfect post in describing the shaman's position upon the release of Kunark.

Although Sup Heal sucks.. Give me Chloroblast [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Although the stats for Chloroblast on Alla are wrong. It should heal ~500 for like 175. But the big thing with chloroblast was I believe it had an extremely quick casting time. I used Chloroblast+Torpor for a long time.

One thing that wasn't mentioned in this post was JBB. A single item changes the shaman class so much it is almost ridiculous. On my shaman on live pretty much every solo went the exact same way.

1. Pull with Turgur's
2. Root with Paralyzing Earth.
3. Send Pet.
4. Click Epic.
5. Cast Poxx of Bertoxx.
6. JBB until mob down to 40% health.
7. Canni up my mana.
8. Torpor myself.
9. Go pull.

That set up pretty much allows you to solo anything. I soloed the West Wastes jank dragons like that (except Torporing my pet a whole lot).

JBB completely changes the way you solo.