Level 24 Shaman, Critique please.

[Matthalas Winterheart]

So I dinged 24 on my shaman last night and I have a few questions.

First off, When it comes to DOT's or Root Rotting in specific. At my level, I'm using 3 DOTS when the mob is rooted. Sicken, Envenomed Breath, and Affliction. Now being as EB is the spell I just got at this level, that damage is decent. But Sicken and Affliction? They don't do crap for damage, Per tick.. I have the following damage per DOT being done.

Sicken (2)
Envenomed Breath (27)
Affliction (6)

Now again, that's with mob rooted so they are doing max damage, my concern is this. Am I using the right DOT's? I have gone over the spell lists up to level 24 multiple times in order to verify that I am maximizing my DPS per tick or whatever and thus using the correct spells.
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The 2nd part of my question is running into the above situation.

Of the 8 spells that a caster can memorize, I have it set to be this setup.

1.Healing
2.Spirit Strike
3. Frost Strike
4. Sicken
5. Envenomed Breath
6. Affliction
7. Root
8. Canni
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I would like some input on what other shamans use, At this point I want to move forward with the Shaman as my main toon and want to make sure that I am doing the right thing's in order to succeed. Much appreciate whatever insight can be provided!

[Songla]

I always had the best luck using as few DOTs as possible. It will depend on how you are at managing your mana/down time. If it were me I'd probably cast EB and just keep it parked while I cani/sit/regen. More time to make mana and med rather than casting slow ticking spells that aren't doing much damage at all anyway. As for spells to have up... I would trade out sicken for gate and a DD for regen/sow. This is my opinion of course and I'm assuming you're not wearing a fungi, or much in the way of fancy items.

[Estu]

For root-dotting, you should compute each DoT's efficiency (total damage per mana) to determine whether it's worth casting (well, this is one of the factors you should consider, anyhow). Here are the DoTs you have currently sorted by efficiency:
1) Envenomed Breath (2.19 DPM)
2) Affliction (2.08 DPM)
3) Sicken (1.67 DPM)
4) Tainted Breath (1.65 DPM)
5) Infectious Cloud (1.60 DPM)

As a shaman you have to ask yourself which of these stack and to what extent they're worth using. If one spell is way more efficent than another, the less efficient spell will make you pay more mana for each point of damage; however, the flip-side to that is if they stack, then you can kill the mob faster, which means you don't have to root it as many times. So you're juggling the mana cost of root versus the efficiency difference in spells. There's also the issue that DoTs can cause root to break, which causes you to reroot and possibly take damage, so that's also something to take into account - for instance, Sicken may not be worth casting because it doesn't do very much damage and is not very efficient, and it may break root when you cast it.

Anyhow, you can analyze it carefully or you can just experiment and work with whatever seems most effective. One good way to test a strategy is to start with 100% HP and mana, start a timer, kill a monster, and then see how long it takes you to get back up to 100% HP and mana - this length of time (from right as the battle starts to when you are at full HP/mana again) is really what you're trying to minimize on average, because this length of time is directly proportional to how much time it will take you to level.

In terms of what spells to keep memorized, at level 24 I'd probably go something like this:
1) Heal
2) Nuke (should be used very sparingly, but may be useful in emergencies or against casters; honestly, this may not be worth keeping memorized)
3) Root
4) Canni
5) Regen
6) Gate
7, 8) DoT(s), extra buff slot (always wanna have SoW up, can also help to have HP/STA buffs if you're getting into tricky situations where your HP actually gets low)

Also, of course, you should always be targeting low dark blue con mobs. Light blues will give much less EXP, and high dark blue cons or higher con mobs will resist stuff too often to be worthwhile.