Next gear for druid and shaman

[bcbrown]

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

None of that changes the fact that OP won't notice a difference if they upgrade the gear to get +5 more in a stat, or even if they upgrade their melee weapon. Instead of dying in 50 seconds, the mob will die in 49.4 seconds [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

FWIW, I got the poison wind censer and silver chitin hand wraps, and I did notice a difference. How much of that is "I want to believe I made the right choice" and how much of that is "fights are ending faster with fewer deaths and more health remaining", I do not know. I (now) agree that getting +5 more in a stat won't be noticeable.

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

For the druid:

Thanks, added most of these to my list.

Is there any reason not to get a Lumi Staff now? Like, I know I can't use the clickie yet, but the stats look as good/better than the current Smoldering Brand + offhand, and might as well start training up my 2hb now.

And I appreciate the advice, and understand the reasoning, but I'm not going to reroll. Eliahu is the highest level character I've ever had in Everquest, so I'll let him reach his potential, however capped that may be.

[Toxigen]

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

FWIW, I got the poison wind censer and silver chitin hand wraps, and I did notice a difference. How much of that is "I want to believe I made the right choice" and how much of that is "fights are ending faster with fewer deaths and more health remaining", I do not know. I (now) agree that getting +5 more in a stat won't be noticeable.



Thanks, added most of these to my list.

Is there any reason not to get a Lumi Staff now? Like, I know I can't use the clickie yet, but the stats look as good/better than the current Smoldering Brand + offhand, and might as well start training up my 2hb now.

And I appreciate the advice, and understand the reasoning, but I'm not going to reroll. Eliahu is the highest level character I've ever had in Everquest, so I'll let him reach his potential, however capped that may be.

They say Lumi staff is pretty solidly solo plvl for a few levels.

I never bothered. Couldn't pay me to quad. Charming is where its at.

[Byrjun]

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

FWIW, I got the poison wind censer and silver chitin hand wraps, and I did notice a difference. How much of that is "I want to believe I made the right choice" and how much of that is "fights are ending faster with fewer deaths and more health remaining", I do not know.

I think people are generally undervaluing shaman melee in this thread. I've been leveling a shaman recently on green and my melee was still parsing for around 40% of my total solo damage well into my 40s (it was about 40% melee, 40% pet, and 20% from a dot to make sure I was > 50% damage).

The whole pet exp issue hasn't been mentioned yet either even though that's also a pretty big factor while you're leveling. Even with a PWC my 34 pet was often exceeding my damage without a dot, which was why I was parsing in the first place to monitor the whole situation and make sure my pet wasn't nerfing my exp.

The SCHW are pretty good value. If your melee makes up about 40% of your total damage, then the SCHW will increase your total dps by about... 9-10%? In other words, every mob you kill dies about 9-10% faster. That's honestly a lot of free damage every single fight for only 1500 plat.

I started camping ice giants at 44 with banded armor and a PWC. It was doable but some of the fights were way too close for my liking. That's when I bought my SCHW and the results were very noticeable; I was ending each IG fight in a much more comfortable position. These are the kinds of upgrades that let you do camps a bit earlier and you can't get that from a bit of wisdom or HP (although you'll want that stuff eventually since it all adds up).

Now on the topic of root rotting, there's a few problems for shamans:

1) If you don't use your pet you're abandoning most of your dps. This means that you need a way to efficiently root rot multiple enemies at once (aka your epic).

2) If you are using your pet you'll likely need to cast slow anyways so it can survive, unless you're still fighting low level enemies.

3) If you're using the pet then you're still unlikely to out-damage it with your dots alone. You could send the pet in and out while using a parser to make sure it stays just below 50% of your damage, but that's a lot of micromanagement (especially without dot damage reporting).

4) All of your dots (until you get epic) have a root-breaking DD component on cast.

This is why root rotting never feels great to me. At least at 34+ you're almost always better off just face tanking the mob while you either melee it or JBB it.

There are some exceptions but they're rare. One example would be solb imps and elementals in the high 50s. Great spot to root rot for exp, but as I mentioned before you'll need your epic.

Some tools came later that made root rotting more effective for shamans (Virulent Paralysis!) but those won't ever be on P99 unfortunately.