Shaman - Choosing gear

[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.