Shaman Meleeing?

[Noselacri]

On the second point: people say this a lot, but I wish they would justify it. If I'm soloing and I'm not tanking, I'm presumably not too worried about taking large amounts of HP damage at a time. With canni, I get about 1 mana for 2 hp, so if I want to maximize my overall amount of mana, it seems far more efficient to go for WIS and MP than to go for STA and HP (especially since casters get low returns for STA). I'm willing to buy that HP is more important, but you've got to give me some reasoning for it, and this reasoning has got to take into account that I'm going to be soloing and presumably (according to this thread, at least) not tanking until I've been 50 for a while and gotten myself the best gear. I might also start raiding at 50, at which point maybe I can see HP being more important, if I'm worried about pulling aggro from really powerful mobs with my slows, but I'd like clarification on this as well, because unless I'm in danger of getting killed by these mobs for the presumably short amount of time they're wailing on me, MP still seems to be the better choice.

There's two reasons, really.

1) Mana pool, and the classic caster itemization in general, is shit. It's worthless 90% of the time. The only thing is that most other non-melee classes have nothing else to go for; a wizard can't focus on other stats to any significant extent, for example, so he'll get that great big mana pool simply because nothing else helps him much. At this point in the game, you can't get raw HP in very many slots as a caster, so while that's worth getting, it's not something you can "build" for, and stamina to HP ratios are terrible for casters. Look at how you solo; if you're like most people, you med up to the amount of mana it takes to kill a mob and then you do so, rinse, repeat. You don't med to full between every single kill, and even if you do, you don't use all that mana except perhaps if you're quad kiting. In any group situation, you probably fluctuate between 0 and 50% mana. In other words, that extra mana pool size means absolutely nothing the great majority of the time.

2) You will get hit as a shaman, you can't snare or really CC in any way besides root, and of all the traditional solo classes, you're the one that ends up getting beat on the most. This makes AC/HP more valuable to you than to, say, a druid or a magician. You're also the only caster class that can actually go in and tank a mob for any length of time, so making yourself capable of doing so is a good thing. It gives you an extra option that others don't really have. On top of that, your health translates directly into mana whenever you need it, so that makes health worth more to you than it does to most other classes. And finally, again unlike the other solo classes, you can actually build up an amount of AC that makes a significant difference in survivability. An enchanter can't do it, so he ignores AC altogether because sacrificing anything for the absolutely tiny amount he might gain from going for the few cloth items with decent AC makes no difference. Again it's a matter of having an option that you can strive for, at the expense of very little.

[Estu]

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

There's two reasons, really.

1) Mana pool, and the classic caster itemization in general, is shit. It's worthless 90% of the time. The only thing is that most other non-melee classes have nothing else to go for; a wizard can't focus on other stats to any significant extent, for example, so he'll get that great big mana pool simply because nothing else helps him much. At this point in the game, you can't get raw HP in very many slots as a caster, so while that's worth getting, it's not something you can "build" for, and stamina to HP ratios are terrible for casters. Look at how you solo; if you're like most people, you med up to the amount of mana it takes to kill a mob and then you do so, rinse, repeat. You don't med to full between every single kill, and even if you do, you don't use all that mana except perhaps if you're quad kiting. In any group situation, you probably fluctuate between 0 and 50% mana. In other words, that extra mana pool size means absolutely nothing the great majority of the time.

2) You will get hit as a shaman, you can't snare or really CC in any way besides root, and of all the traditional solo classes, you're the one that ends up getting beat on the most. This makes AC/HP more valuable to you than to, say, a druid or a magician. You're also the only caster class that can actually go in and tank a mob for any length of time, so making yourself capable of doing so is a good thing. It gives you an extra option that others don't really have. On top of that, your health translates directly into mana whenever you need it, so that makes health worth more to you than it does to most other classes. And finally, again unlike the other solo classes, you can actually build up an amount of AC that makes a significant difference in survivability. An enchanter can't do it, so he ignores AC altogether because sacrificing anything for the absolutely tiny amount he might gain from going for the few cloth items with decent AC makes no difference. Again it's a matter of having an option that you can strive for, at the expense of very little.

Excellent reply. Actually, I med up until I'm full mana and HP, or nearly so, because you never know when a mob will resist you an abnormal number of times, or you get an add, or something. I thought everyone did this. But yes, unless I'm taking on yellows or reds, having a large mana or HP pool doesn't generally make a difference. I think, then, my gear goal will be AC first, HP second, and MP/Wis third, until I start grouping in earnest or start regularly taking on tough mobs that require large mana pools (at which point I'll need mana/wis gear).

[Extunarian]

Just a couple quick things:

- You can skill up on anything light blue, or even greens that give experience. AFAIK you won't get more skillups because you are fighting something thats db/even/yellow/red. When I got my blued 2-handed hammer I skilled up on the gnolls outside splitpaw since they were green/lb to me and got plenty of skillups. Dex buffs are your friend.

- With the crazy amount of regen you get with chloro+fury/rage, and racial regen if you're a troll, you'll find yourself ending up with full HP a lot more often than full mana if you aren't CONSTANTLY canni'ing. Therefore I like to let that HP have as high a ceiling as possible on my shaman.

- Last, the thing about full DoT damage only being realized while meleeing is from an old mechanic on Live that dictated DoT's would only do something like 2/3rds of the damage if the mob is chasing you. In order to get 100% damage the mob had to be either standing still or running away from you. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe this mechanic has been implemented on p1999.

[Skope]

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

Just a couple quick things:

- Last, the thing about full DoT damage only being realized while meleeing is from an old mechanic on Live that dictated DoT's would only do something like 2/3rds of the damage if the mob is chasing you. In order to get 100% damage the mob had to be either standing still or running away from you. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe this mechanic has been implemented on p1999.

no, it hasn't.

[RandonActs]

I mele'd a lot in groups when I was leveling, mostly if I was canni-ing anyway, you can get a swing in most the times when canni is on CD. As far as soloing, rooting or kiting are better options than meleing, except that last 5% when the mob is running away from you, you should get some swings in.