Shaman - Choosing gear

[Nokio]

Hi all,

Question about gearing my Shaman. I have started to look at the Pre-Planar Gearing section of the shaman wiki page.

When there is multiple option for a specified slot. Do I take whatever I think is best? Or is there a general rule as to which is best?

For example, the face slot. I am not near the level required to be able to go get Polished Mithril Mask, which leave me to the 2 other choice( Platinum Ruby Veil, Bloodstone Eyepatch).
One give a lot of str and wis but no ac the other gives a 4 ac but less wis and some agi.

Sub question, How do I choose between more AC but less wis and vice versa or another stats?
for example, the chest piece says (Bloodstained Tunic, Foreman's Tunic, Totemic Breastplate)
totemic(when available) gives more AC but no wis.

Thanks for taking the time to instruct me!

[magnetaress]

go for easy to grab + mana stuf like hollowed bone bracers or + wis stuff like split paw hide gloves, then once u hit 45 - farm HGs or something and buy some decent velious +wis+mana items,

later on u can solo farm stuff like totemic if you want some AC for *hard* dungeon stuff

the only gear that seems to matter for a shaman is JBB, epic, and Torpor

[chevy79bu]

So for a shaman the soft cap for wis is 200. Early on raw mana helps more than wis but in the end you will want to try and get to 200. So when choosing the best option from the wiki when you have several to choose from you just need to consider where your at with stats. Also to note that HP and AC are also important to a shaman as you will use your hp to cannibalize into mana as well as needing hp and ac for tanking a few hits from time to time.

[dragoonJ]

Shamans are tough enough to take a few hits but won't be tanking a whole lot. Your spells are what will keep you alive (and rocking it)

imo wis > everything else until you hit 200 wis
(although at lower levels raw mana can be better than wis)

[loramin]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Equipping_a_Shaman

Don't worry about stats, because they're all but meaningless. Instead, care about every non-stat effect an item can give you. Flowing thought, regeneration, procs, right-click abilities ... heck, even haste will do more for you than +5 Wisdom or whatever. Only care about stats for the slots that you can't (yet) fill with more meaningful items ... and even then don't actually buy such items, just fill those slots with things you pick up along the way, so you can save your plat to buy the meaningful stuff.

To anyone who disagrees: I challenge you to a competition.

You and me both go somewhere like Droga or Sebilis or Skyfire, and see how many goblins/frogs/dragons we can kill in an hour. You wear the absolute best stat gear a Shaman can possibly obtain ... but no Fungi, no JBB, no Epic, no mage focus item, no Goblin earring, etc. I'll wear only items that have a non-stat benefit, and leave myself entirely naked in any slot that I can't fill with such items.

20 plat says I kill more, because all your stat gear will do is let you go slightly longer initially without medding ... whereas my gear will be helping me kill many more mobs constantly throughout that hour [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Stat gear (IMHO) is for raiding.

[Nokio]

Really interesting to read all of this.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer!!

Most of those item you speak of are for kunard and velious(I think). I am playing on green.
Since I don't really care about raiding, I could just pick what I find as I go and be successfull.
I was asking myself because I don't want to be a burden in group if I am not properly geared.
So far level 30 it has not yet been the case and did not want to become one.

Thanks a lot for the information!

[loramin]

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

Most of those item you speak of are for kunard and velious(I think). I am playing on green.

Well, Green will get them someday [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] But yeah, I left out perhaps the most important rule of gear acquisition, on Blue or Green, which is: don't spend time on gear, because levels > gear.

For nearly every item in the game, the time it takes you to acquire the item > the time it will save you while XPing.

Really, pre-50 on Green I'd say the only item worthy of a Shaman's time is (ironically) a mage focus item. Anything else will just be meaningless stat gear: it certainly won't hurt to have it, but if you spend any time/effort to get it, that time/effort will be wasteful. You could have instead focused on XP, gotten to 50, and then gotten that item (or a better one) much faster overall.

In other words, just focus on XP and get to 50, if you want to be efficient. Go for gear if you're bored leveling and don't mind being less efficient ... although, again, I'd recommend saving your plat for future stuff that's worth spending it on (in classic that's mainly your future spells, but the JBB and more is coming).

P.S. In regards to:

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

I was asking myself because I don't want to be a burden in group if I am not properly geared.

Everything I said is actually way more true for grouping shaman than soloing shaman. Keep in mind, all stat gear does is give you more maximums ... but maximums aren't relevant over time. When you group, you decide when to cast, when to med, and when to cann, and it's that which determines whether you have enough mana to (say) slow and root when the puller screws up and brings five mobs at once in. It's not whether you start at 1000 hp/mana or 1200 hp/mana ... it's "did you keep enough while playing for the last half hour that when the shit hits the fan, you still can do your job?"

The only time stat gear would ever matter is if you started out at full mana/HP, the puller pulled a massive overpull ... but not so massive as to completely wipe you .... and you survived with less hp/mana than the tiny difference gear would have provided (and at low levels we're talking sub-100 of each). How many times can you remember where something bad happened, your group didn't just wipe, you started the incident at max, but when the smoke cleared you were at < 100hp? I'm guessing not a ton.

So really my point is, being a good shaman in a group has virtually nothing to do with gear, and everything to do with how you play them.

[Attos]

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

Really, pre-50 on Green I'd say the only item worthy of a Shaman's time is (ironically) a mage focus item.

Wat?

Also, I would say you're mostly right. For the most part I think casters don't really need gear. That being said, the better the gear you have the easier it will be to break camps when soloing. Sometimes being able to get one extra nuke/root/heal out can make the difference when breaking a camp.

[loramin]

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

Wat?

Also, I would say you're mostly right. For the most part I think casters don't really need gear. That being said, the better the gear you have the easier it will be to break camps when soloing. Sometimes being able to get one extra nuke/root/heal out can make the difference when breaking a camp.

I'm not trying to say stat gear is worthless outside of raiding, just that it's more efficient to go for levels instead of gear while you're leveling.

If you're wearing twink gear, even just stat gear (no fungi/JBB), you absolutely will notice some differences vs. wearing looted armor from Blackburrow or wherever. I agree that you'll be better at breaking camps, and safer in general because you have more "buffer".

But when you're leveling you never need to break a super hard camp: there's always alternatives. If you take them you might not get quite as good loot, but you level just as fast, because "buffer" doesn't help you kill any quicker and thus doesn't increase XP gained.

But the mage focus item does. It adds a spell to your spell list, Reclaim Energy, which not only can save your life by converting your pet into a shot of mana in a pinch ... it also can give you a max level pet, which will do significantly more damage, and thus help you kill significantly faster.

Your pet is your best DoT, but its damage varies by level. With Reclaim Energy you can summon a pet, reclaim if it's not max level, and repeat until you get a max level pet. Then you can use that same pet for the next however many hours you want, killing faster that entire time because of it.

If you don't sit and grind for long periods of time it's less valuable, so I'm not even saying every Shaman should get it right away, but the differences in pet levels will absolutely affect your killing speed, and again, you'll keep using it even at 60, so unlike a +5 to stamina that you replace in 15 levels, this is an "investment" that lasts.

[Cen]

Its not a hard rule but on a lot of the gear sections they are A) best to slightly less best and B) in no particular order and even some missing some great options

I try to edit when I can but I don't want to make them too large either.