Shamen Vs. Druids as Soloers

[Estu]

After playing through a bunch of classes, I'm trying to decide between my ogre shaman and my wood elf druid as my soloing class (I have a paladin and a cleric for grouping; decided to go for a WIS caster partially since research seems like a giant pain and I'm neurotic about getting every spell). I'm leaning toward the shaman at the moment, but here are my pros and cons:

Shaman:
Pros:
- High strength makes carrying things easier
- Better armor
- Pet at 35 apparently makes life much easier; I have heard that this makes them one of the best soloers at 50, beating druids.
- Like the idea of root-rotting better than quad kiting; seems more versatile and somehow more pleasant
- Spells not interruptible by melee attacks, bashes from the front
- Better DoTs than druids? (I like DoTs since they're a very efficient mana-damage conversion, without making you get hit like thorns do.)
- Evil faction (can kill good NPCs, which are more plentiful than evil ones (by 'evil' I mean those that are friendly to evil races/classes) and not being killed as often; also, more novel). I intend to pretty much stay within the bounds of my factions for both characters and not try to farm up faction to get friendly with X or Y faction that hates me, or attack NPCs that would ruin factions that like me.
- More useful in groups (I'm planning to solo to 50, but I might want to group at 50.)
- Less represented on the server

Cons:
- Evil faction (not as many safe cities, boats are dangerous to get onto).
- No ports (I like the idea not only of porting myself, but of porting others. Both classes are helpful to other people since they have nice buffs, but the druid is clearly more helpful because of ports.)
- Low charisma (worse merchant prices). Presumably not as much of an issue later on when most money is made by player economy, though I don't know much about the validity of this point. Shamen do get a charisma buff, though.
- Slower to solo until 35.
- No forage, no hide, no tracking.
- No snare; have to rely on root or snareless kiting, take some hits in either case until I get the pet.
- No lull/harmony; have to avoid multiple-mob camps or break them through other methods (have considered doing multiple root-rot to break camps, though haven't reached 14 yet to try and put this into practice).
- 15% ogre EXP penalty.

Thoughts? Any points I missed? Any inaccuracies in the points I listed?

[Eternal-Elf]

Shaman > Druid. Especially when Kunark comes out.
I loved Shaman.
and I am not saying Druid is bad by any means, because they are awesome too....but it just seems you can't fart anyone on this server without a druid smelling it. they're everywhere.

[Estu]

Could you elaborate, Elf? Why do you like shamen better? What makes them better when Kunark comes? Keep in mind I'm mostly interested in soloing and I haven't ever had a character past around level 20.

[Eternal-Elf]

it HAS been a while.
In short-
Shaman has slow. This can make fighting ANYTHING a large ammount easier.
Shaman has better buffs IMO.
Shaman get bear form which i think > wolf form in looks.
Shaman gets Canabalize. What's better than unlimited mana......
Shaman gets best DoT's in the game in the end.....however I'm sure if that's pre-live status now.
Shaman also gets all the utility stuff of druid such as regen, SoW, heals, levitate, invis.....just no ports.


Don't get me wrong druid has an equally long list of great stuff.....but I just think you'd be happier as a shammy man.

Not to mention....try being a druid when Kunark comes out and they are wanting their epic. 500 druid wanting 1 drop....while 30 shamans are wanting theirs

[azxten]

I made a Druid for power leveling alts with my girlfriend. In my opinion Shaman is more interesting when raiding/grouping but Druid is a more enjoyable solo class and utility class. You can port all over the world for farming items, checking spawns, can power level people 1-20 in a few hours, etc. It's the ultimate "buff bot" type class whereas Shaman falls short in this respect. Of course, they have tons of buffs but nothing compares to thorns/regen for low level buffage.

Like I said.. Shaman is more interesting grouped/raiding and it will enable you to kill some harder boss mobs (more useful in Kunark+) that Druid can't handle but overall I like Druid as a more rounded class.

[yaeger]

Why is everyone concerned about soloing and picking the "best" class? The worst thing about picking the "best" class is you'll always have second thoughts while playing it.

Just pick one that you have the most fun with, and damn anyone else's opinion about it.

[Estu]

Fair point, azxten, but I don't plan on doing any power leveling. I'll hand out buffs to noobs just for the hell of it, but I'm probably not going to actually follow someone around for several levels buffing them.

[Estu]

Yaeger: I'm not really concerned with picking the 'best' soloing class, as it seems to be widely accepted that necros and mages make better soloers than shamen. I am in fact trying to figure out what class I'll have the most fun with. But at this point it's hard to tell, as I've only leveled them to 10, and their play styles will continue to change as I level.

[yaeger]

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

Yaeger: I'm not really concerned with picking the 'best' soloing class, as it seems to be widely accepted that necros and mages make better soloers than shamen. I am in fact trying to figure out what class I'll have the most fun with. But at this point it's hard to tell, as I've only leveled them to 10, and their play styles will continue to change as I level.

Their play styles will change, their role in group encounters, and their role from expansion balance changes. You might decide to roll a druid now because they rock in Classic, but they might get steadily weaker in later expansions.

That's why so many people urge people to play what they will enjoy. Once it changes down the road, and your casual mage solo class can't break camps and solo into dungeons, it's just a lot of wasted time on a class you really didn't enjoy playing.

[Eternal-Elf]

Eh I think he asked a pretty simple question, and wanted an answer to that question....not a pep-talk about blah blah blah.

He's already narrowed it down to druid and shaman.....seems like he knows what he wants.