Best 4 person all caster/priest group

[Troxx]

He says puppet strings would make it easier. He did not use puppet strings. His wording actually indicates that he did not use them.

Shamans are not the only class that can solo WW dragons.


Now imagine that instead of having multiple pets lined up …

Imagine if you had a way of completely healing them on demand when necessary …

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

He says puppet strings would make it easier. He did not use puppet strings.

Shamans are not the only class that can solo WW dragons

I have videos showing how Shamans solo 6+ Dragons on current P99 after recharge nerfs.

https://youtu.be/oPxeOVuX0G8?feature=shared

Provide a video of an Enchanter doing the same. Then we can compare which class is better at doing it. This is how you prove me wrong.

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by pasi

If you have a wand or strings, it would be even easier since Boltrans is a ton of mana for a few seconds quicker cast time.

He didn’t use strings. If he had, it would be “even easier”.

Sorry Charlie

I don’t need to watch a video of you soloing the same target I’ve solo’d many times with my own shaman in gear worse than yours.

You aren’t impressing anyone.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

He didn’t use strings. If he had, it would be “even easier”.

Sorry Charlie

I don’t need to watch a video of you soloing the same target I’ve solo’d many times with my own shaman in gear worse than yours.

You aren’t impressing anyone.

This is Troxx's problem, we see it over and over. It was the same with the JBB debate and the Mage DPS debate.

He thinks a 7 year old post about velious beta is somehow better evidence than an actual video made 2 years ago, after the recharge nerf.

He doesn't understand quality of evidence. It shows he doesn't actually know the answer, he is just blindly searching for things that he hopes will support his point.

[Penish]

any knowledgeable player would know dsm is shit 20 seconds into his vids

also lol

[Vexenu]

We have reached an impasse, where neither side of the debate can provide an example of a mob where the four man group NEEDS either a Cleric or a Shaman. I think everyone can recognize that this is because a group that already consists of ENC/ENC/XXX has the horsepower to kill just about anything possible with EITHER a Shaman or Cleric as the fourth man.

That being the case, we must consider the additional utility that each class provides. Given that Enchanters can already slow and Clerics can obviously heal, the only relevant unique ability the Shaman contributes from 1-59 is literally SoW (which you could easily get from potions). In contrast, the Cleric provides DA, ranged stuns, CH and rez, all of which are highly useful and synergize well with the group.

From this perspective, it becomes clear that the Shaman basically contributes nothing to the group besides limited healing and SoW until he acquires Torpor, at which point he can FINALLY start carrying his weight. But if you'd have gone with the Cleric, you have someone substantially contributing from 1-60. And the fact is, any group that is pushing the envelope is inevitably going to wipe on a regular basis, which makes having a rezzer in-group almost a necessity. This further tilts the argument in favor of the Cleric and against the Shaman.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

From this perspective, it becomes clear that the Shaman basically contributes nothing to the group besides limited healing and SoW until he acquires Torpor

This shows you know very little about Shamans. I'll post a more detailed rebuttal later.

[bcbrown]

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

Pocket Cleric is more than capable of handling the occasional res and pet CH.

I'd like to hear more about using a pocket cleric for pet CH.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Here is a more detailed explanation for what a Shaman does compared to a Cleric. Please note that people claiming Clerics are better for this group composition haven't done this type of detailed explaination.

First, let's look at levels 1-59:
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In reality this level range doesn't matter much, as leveling from 1-59 is easy in a four player caster group. It has already been admitted by opposition posters such as Troxx that the Enchanters can already solo the content up to 60. It's not really necessary to optimize for this level range as you are already going fast, and if you don't plan on reaching 60, group composition doesn't really matter. However, Shamans are doing a lot for this group when you want to measure performance in this level range.

1. Healing - Let's compare a few level ranges to see how Cleric and Shaman healing compares:

Level 29 - Both Shamans and Clerics have Greater Healing. This means mana efficiency on their heal spell equal for the two classes. Shamans also have +5 HP Regen that they can apply to other group members, giving them the advantage over Clerics.

Level 39 - Shamans have Greater Healing and +10 Regen, while Clerics have Superior Healing and Complete Heal. My level 52 Monk has 1800 HP. This is with 130 STA, HP items like 6/65 Rings, Epic, etc. Cloth Casters and Shamans will have less base HP at this level range. Symbol increases HP by 300 at this level. This means your characters probably aren't going to have more than 1800 HP at this level. Generally speaking you start CHing around 40% HP, which means CH's mana efficiency at 39 is around 2.5. Superior Healing's mana efficiency is 2.33 and it's cast time is faster, so you are still going to be using Superior Healing over CH. Greater Healing's mana efficiency is 2, but Shamans have +10 Regen (Chlorplast). This will make up for the slightly lower mana efficency of Greater Healing. Clerics and Shamans are basically even at this level in terms of healing.

Level 52 - Shamans have Superior healing and +15 Regen (Regrowth), while Clerics have Remedy and Complete Heal. Superior Healing + Regrowth easily keeps pace with Remedy when it comes to mana efficiency. As said before, my level 52 Monk has 1800 HP. With the newer Cleric Symbol spell giving 500 HP, players will have HP in the low 2000s. Let's say 2200 HP at best. CH has gone up to 3.3 mana effiecncy at best when healing at 40%, but Remedy is still going to be the spell of choice most of the time for the faster cast speed. Clerics have a small advantage if using CH often, but I don't really see needing to do so at this level range.

Level 59 - Shamans have Superior Healing, Regrowth, and Chloroblast, while Clerics have Complete Heal and Celestial Elixir. My level 60 Shaman with Raid Gear, 255 STA, and FoS has 2600 HP buffed. Even with the 700 HP symbol I don't see a group of Cloth casters going higher than that. Celestial Elixir has a 4 mana efficiency, and CH is roughly 4 as well when healing at 40%. You'd use Celestial Elixir over CH, except if healing a high HP pet. Clerics have the clear advantage here, but remember that this is level 59, and Shamans get Torpor at 60.

Clerics don't actually have a large healing advantage over Shamans until the upper 50s. You can't really use the argument that Shaman healing is worthless until 60. It's generally on par with Clerics for the majority of the 1-59 leveling process. When doing XP groups, you typically aren't getting heavily AoE'd, so group heals don't really come into play. They aren't as efficient as single heals unless the entire party of 4 can fully benefit from the group heal. Even healing 3 players with Word of Vigor is only 2.36 mana efficency.

2. HP Buffs - Lets compare the HP buffs at a few different level ranges:

Level 34 - Shamans gets their first Talisman spell and they get Health. You'll get at least 50 HP from the STA buff, and 150 from the Talisman Spell, so +200 total minimum. Clerics get Symbol, which is +300. So you are looking at a difference of 100 HP.

Level 44 - Shamans get their second Talisman spell, and they get Stamina. That is 250 from Talisman, and at least 75 from Stamina, for a total of 325. The newer Cleric Symbol gives 525 HP, so the difference is 200 HP.

Level 55 - Shamans get their third Talisman spell, and Riotous Health. That is 380 from Talisman, and at least 100 from Riotous, for a total of 480. The newer Cleric Symbol gives 700 HP, so the difference is 220 HP.

The HP difference between Shaman buffs and Cleric buffs isn't that large when you factor in Stamina for most levels. Shamans can also stack Inner Fire with Talisman for +20 more HP if the group cares.

3. Stat Buffs - Shamans get Stat buffs like STR, DEX, and CHA. All of these buffs improve group survivability. More CHA for the Enchanters means less lull fails. More STR means slightly faster kill speeds. Extra DEX means more procs.

4. Cannibalize - Shamans have more available resources than Clerics due to Cannibalize and Regeneration. With Regrowth and Cannibalize III alone, the Shaman has around +3000 Mana per hour over the Cleric. This is the equivalent to Flowing Thought V. This means the Shaman can easily share other group member's duties, so they can save mana and spell slots for other things. This reduces group downtime, and will be covered in more detail below.

5. Slow - Having the Shaman slow rather than the Enchanters has multiple benefits. Due to Cannibalize giving the Shaman a large amount of extra mana per hour, the Shaman can take over Slowing duties for the most part. This means Enchanters can remove Slow from their spell bar if they want, giving them an extra slot for something else and some extra mana. This also allows the Enchanters to focus more on Stuns, Charm Breaks, and CC. This will reduce the odds of bad things happening. You can also have the Shaman and the Enchanters have Slow on their bars, so they can slow multiple times simultaneously. This is good for multiple mobs causing trouble, or trying to land a Slow on a highly magic resistant mob.

6. Malo - If there are any mobs that need to have their resistances lowered, having the Malo line of spells will save the group mana due to less resists. It also stacks with Tash.

7. Pet DPS - Shamans have a pet, which adds DPS to the group for free. A level 55 Shaman pet with Shaman haste is doing roughly 17 DPS. If two Enchanters have 80 DPS pets, this is a free 10% DPS boost.

8. Shaman Slow Tanking - Shamans can tank the mobs, rather than the Pets. This offers a number of benefits. The first benefit is all pets will be attacking from behind. This means the pet that would have been tanking is increasing their DPS. Last time I checked my SK is dodge/parrying/riposting around 10% of the time, so you are getting at least a 5% DPS boost from the pet that was supposed to be tanking just from this. The second benefit is mobs prioritize players over pets when both are in melee, so it's easier to keep the mob's back to the pets. Having a player maintain correct positioning is much easier than trying to use pet commands or other methods to reposition pets when they are no longer in an optimal position. The third benefit is doing this removes the need to heal the pets generally speaking. The Shaman can focus on healing themselves. This has a bigger role at 60 with Torpor, but it removes the need to occasionally CH higher HP pets for the most part.

9. Shaman DoT/Clicky DPS - If your group wants more DPS because it is already chewing through mobs without a lot of healing, the Shaman can provide more DPS via DoTs, Epic, and/or JBB.

10. AoE Slow - Shamans get an AoE slow, which is good for quickly applying Slow to multiple enemies, and also pulling agro away from the other group members.

11. Power increases from items - Shamans can make use of Fungi Tunic and Fungi Staff, which will significantly improve how much mana they can utilize per hour. As it stands, Donald's BP of morning is at least twice as expensive as Fungi Tunic on Blue.

12. SoW - You get SoW, which increases the groups run speed, and saves the need to get JBoots or SoW Pots.

You'll get plenty of use out of a Shaman from level 1-59, and the differences between Shamans and Clerics when it comes to HP buffs and Healing is not that large for the vast majority of this level range. The Shaman's other abilities more than make up for this discrepancy and then some.

Now let's look at level 60:
================================

1. Healing - Let's compare a Torpor Shaman and Cleric healing:

Torpor's mana efficiency is 6 or 7.5, depending on if you get 1200 or 1500 HP via the server tick. Shamans also have Regrowth. Celestial Elixir has a mana efficiency of 4. Divine light has a mana efficiency of 2.6. Word of Restoration has a 3.3 mana efficiency if it heals all four group members for the full amount. Torpor has a higher mana efficiency than Cleric healing spells, excluding Complete heal. For complete heal to get above 6 mana efficiency, you need to be healing a minimum of 2400 HP, or 3000 HP when Torpor is at 7.5. Cloth Casters and Priests are typically not going to get healed for this amount, as their max HP is on the lower side, and you don't want to wait until the absolute last second to start casting CH. Pets will generally be the only target where CH is more efficient than torpor in this group composition, but Torpor tanking removes the need to CH pets for the most part, which will be described later on. This group is all casters/priests, so the attack speed slow from Torpor is not affecting them.

2. HP Buffs - Shamans get FoS and Riotous Health. Clerics have Symbol or Aego. FoS + Riotous Health is giving cloth casters +525 HP. This is only 175 HP off from Symbol. At level 60 that is really only 1 extra hit from a mob, which is providing only a very small boost to survivability. FoS + Riotous Health is 575 HP off from Aego, but the group may not want to spend the money on constantly Aegoing the whole party. That is the downside to Aego. While the HP boost is considerable compared to FoS + Riotous Health, the PP cost adds up. When you want to be cheap, the difference between FoS + Riotous Health and Symbol is minimal at 60.

3. Stat Buffs - Shamans get Stat buffs like STR, DEX, and CHA. All of these buffs improve group survivability. More CHA for the Enchanters means less lull fails. More STR means slightly faster kill speeds. Extra DEX means more procs. Shaman's also get access to Avatar. This spell is also expensive to cast, so the group may not want to spend the PP on using often. But it will provide a damage boost to pets whenever you need to maximize kill speed.

4. Cannibalize - Shamans have more available resources than Clerics due to Cannibalize, Regeneration, and Torpor. Last time I checked I was averaging 4 cannibalizes per Torpor. If you Torpor twice per minute, you are getting around 27,000 mana per hour. This is something like Flowing Thought 45. Shamans aren't always going to be Torporing non-stop, so you can say the more realistic number is around 15,000 mana per hour, or flowing Though 25. This isn't including extra Regen from Regrowth and/or Fungi Tunic. Shamans have a massive mana pool thanks to Torpor. This allows them to take on other duties so the other classes in the group can save mana and spell slots. This also allows them to be able to sustain longer than a Cleric, as a Cleric would run out of mana when needing to spend a lot of mana in a short time. This reduces group downtime, and will be covered in more detail below.

5. Slow - Having the Shaman slow rather than the Enchanters has multiple benefits. Due to Cannibalize giving the Shaman a large amount of extra mana per hour, the Shaman can take over Slowing duties for the most part. This means Enchanters can remove Slow from their spell bar if they want, giving them an extra slot for something else and some extra mana. This also allows the Enchanters to focus more on Stuns, Charm Breaks, and CC. This will reduce the odds of bad things happening. You can also have the Shaman and the Enchanters have Slow on their bars, so they can slow multiple times simultaneously. This is good for multiple mobs causing trouble, or trying to land a Slow on a highly magic resistant mob.

6. Malo - If there are mobs that need to have their resistances lowered, having the Malo line of spells will save the group mana due to less resists. It also stacks with Tash. Malo specifically is unresistable, which makes it an even better pairing with Tash. You can land Tash, land Malo, and then try to land Malosini for large MR reduction. This makes things like slowing easier on resistant mobs. This is even more important at 60, as many mobs hit hard. You want to get slow landed ASAP.

7. Pet DPS - Shamans have a pet, which adds DPS to the group for free. A level 55 Shaman pet with Shaman haste is doing roughly 17 DPS. If two Enchanters have 100 DPS pets, this is a free 8.5% DPS boost. With the Shaman pet being buffed with Enchanter Haste and Shaman Strength, this will increase a bit more.

8. Shaman Slow Tanking - Shamans can tank the mobs, rather than the Pets. This offers a number of benefits. The first benefit is all pets will be attacking from behind. This means the pet that would have been tanking is increasing their DPS. Last time I checked my SK is dodge/parrying/riposting around 10% of the time, so you are getting at least a 5% DPS boost on the pet that was supposed to be tanking just from this. The second benefit is mobs prioritize players over pets when both are in melee, so it's easier to keep the mob's back to the pets. Having a player maintain correct positioning is much easier than trying to use pet commands or other methods to reposition pets when they are no longer in an optimal position. The third benefit is doing this removes the need to heal the pets generally speaking. The Shaman can focus on healing themselves. Torpor + Slow is an incredibly effective tanking tactic. You don't need to Torpor the pets, which causes them to become slowed. The Shaman can sustain this type of tanking for a very long time too.

9. Shaman DoT/Clicky DPS - If your group wants more DPS because it is already chewing through mobs without a lot of healing, the Shaman can provide more DPS via DoTs, Epic, and/or JBB.

10. AoE Slow - Shamans get an AoE slow, which is good for quickly applying Slow to multiple enemies, and also pulling agro away from the other group members.

11. Camps where Shamans are better - Shamans have advantages over Clerics in some endgame camps. West Waste Dragons and Fungi King are two camps that come to mind. There is a reason why Fungi King camps generally prefer a setup like Shaman/Enchanter/Monk, and use pocket clerics for the occasional res. People understand that Shaman healing power is very good on most slowable mobs, which is most camps that this group composition would do. We cannot include camps that need a Cleric CHing a Warrior, as Warriors are not allowed. As you saw in the healing comparisons, Shamans are no slouch when compared to a Cleric. CH is the exception, but CH is only superior in some circumstances, depending on how much HP is healed. Shamans provide other utility besides healing too, which has been explained. Shamans also grant the group more flexibility, as they can solo things without the need to charm. If you are in an area where you don't want to charm for whatever reason, you can rely on the Shaman instead.

12. Farm crews - If you want to build a farm crew with a Wizard porting the group around, you also have more flexibility. When big targets are not up, the Enchanters and Shaman can all invidiually solo money camps. Clerics are not as effective at soloing money camps, unless the group is willing to spend a lot of money on things like Puppet Strings.The Wizard can pick everyone up when a bigger target is nearing it's spawn. This allows the group to maximize it's money gain.

13. Pocket Characters - Shamans take a lot more time and money to level to 60 and get Torpor than pocketable classes like Cleric or Mage. You want to level the Shaman with the primary group to save time in the long run, and also provide maximum utility to the group. If you want pocket characters to give your group conveniences, it takes less time to level a Cleric to 49, or a Mage to 55. This is especially true with a group of four level 60s. This will cover things like Res and CoTh. On the rare occasion where things go bad and your Enchanter Pets somehow take massive damage, you can pop onto the cleric for a quick CH. Pocket characters are a common practice on P99 and have been for years. Planning around using pocket characters is a great idea when you want to maximize your group's potential.

14. SoW - You get SoW, which increases the groups run speed, and saves the need to get JBoots or SoW Pots.

Thus far the pro-Cleric camp has not explained why a Cleric is better to any satisfactory degree. If you have 2x Enchanters, Stuns and lulls are covered. Both Shamans and Clerics have root. Pocket Clerics cover Res and the occasional CH quite easily. If your group is dying a lot, the solution is not to have a main Cleric. The solution is to get better and not die. Shamans can Torpor multiple group members too, even in AoE situations. I can keep a WW Dragon group alive without a Cleric AoE Healing. You can see my current rebuttal of Troxx and Bcbrown here: https://project1999.com/forums/showp...postcount=4808

Hopefully people will stop spamming and trolling the thread, and actually try to have a dialogue. But I am not holding my breath.

[Swish]

Shamans are great, and the best unmentioned point here is you don't have to deal with the CH chain in a raid [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]