Best 4 person all caster/priest group

[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:
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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.]

[fortior]

Flipping from 'having a player [tank] maintain correct positioning is much easier' to 'the solution [to not having a cleric] is to get better and not die' in the same post, and wondering why people think you're a tedious debatebro playing for points.

[bcbrown]

Oh man, I massively respect that post, DSM. You put a lot of effort into that, I can tell. You deserve an equally thoughtful response. I'm sure you'll want to make some revisions in response to critiques - do you want to put that on the wiki somewhere? If nowhere else, maybe under your "talk" page? For example, here's mine: https://wiki.project1999.com/User_talk:Bcbrown

I'm going to give you a full thoughtful response later, but here's a couple of quick points of feedback:

On level 39, you mention CH efficiency against a monk, but it should be calculated against a typical enchanter charm pet - probably more like 2-4x the hp? You mention CH at 40% - my experience (City of Mist, goos, high 40s, tank with 2.5-3.5k hp), I start casting more like around 30%, with the aim of it landing around 20% hp +/- 5% - if it lands at >25%, it was too early, if it lands at <15%, it's playing dice with my tank's life.

Second, the regen line isn't very compelling in a caster group. Solo or duo/trio with a tank, it's the best, most efficient way to heal. Solo on a shaman, you obviously always want to keep regen up for canni. Solo on a druid, you can use regen to heal on the occasion you get slapped around while charming or root rotting, because sow/snare/gate means you're rarely at risk of dying from a damage spike. But when you're healing enchanters with hasted torched pets, they need to worry about damage spikes, so an immediate heal is better than a more-efficient, slower regen over time.

HP buffs while leveling - you're talking about Symbol but I don't think you're taking into account Daring/Valor/Resolution.

Dot clicky/dps: dot's don't help if you're chewing through mobs. Better comparison would be shaman/cleric nukes if there's spare mana.

[Vexenu]

DSM really just dropped a 3,000 word effort post extolling the virtues of Shaman stat buffs, regen, DoTs, tanking and pet DPS in the context of a dual Enchanter charm group...

...thus proving my point that Shamans contribute basically nothing to said group from 1-59.

Thank you for conceding, DSM.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Oh man, I massively respect that post, DSM. You put a lot of effort into that, I can tell. You deserve an equally thoughtful response. I'm sure you'll want to make some revisions in response to critiques - do you want to put that on the wiki somewhere? If nowhere else, maybe under your "talk" page? For example, here's mine: https://wiki.project1999.com/User_talk:Bcbrown

I'm going to give you a full thoughtful response later, but here's a couple of quick points of feedback:

On level 39, you mention CH efficiency against a monk, but it should be calculated against a typical enchanter charm pet - probably more like 2-4x the hp? You mention CH at 40% - my experience (City of Mist, goos, high 40s, tank with 2.5-3.5k hp), I start casting more like around 30%, with the aim of it landing around 20% hp +/- 5% - if it lands at >25%, it was too early, if it lands at <15%, it's playing dice with my tank's life.

Second, the regen line isn't very compelling in a caster group. Solo or duo/trio with a tank, it's the best, most efficient way to heal. Solo on a shaman, you obviously always want to keep regen up for canni. Solo on a druid, you can use regen to heal on the occasion you get slapped around while charming or root rotting, because sow/snare/gate means you're rarely at risk of dying from a damage spike. But when you're healing enchanters with hasted torched pets, they need to worry about damage spikes, so an immediate heal is better than a more-efficient, slower regen over time.

HP buffs while leveling - you're talking about Symbol but I don't think you're taking into account Daring/Valor/Resolution.

Dot clicky/dps: dot's don't help if you're chewing through mobs. Better comparison would be shaman/cleric nukes if there's spare mana.

Thanks. I might put it on the wiki later, that's not a bad idea.

The CH mana efficiency values are just rough values to show that CH isn't as efficient as people imagine in the lower levels, due to lower max HP's. It's going to vary based on how risky you are playing, what expansion you are in, and how good your equipment is. Classic is going to have lower HP mobs than Velious, for example. 40% health CH'es are often the norm. You can go lower, but honestly a death in the party or charmed mob is probably going to set you back more than the slight loss in efficiency. People cannot claim Shamans are vastly inferior healing-wise for a good majority of the 1-59 leveling process when looking at the rough numbers.

Regen is fine for healing in a Caster/Priest Group. If your group doesn't end up needing it, you can save mana of course. But then that shows you didn't need the more efficient heals from a Cleric anyway. The Shaman is doing just fine healing-wise already. Damage spikes aren't as bad in the lower levels, which is what we are discussing. Regen also helps more in lower levels. There's a reason why people put Fungi Tunic on every character they can, and that is +15 HP regen. +10 HP Regen is pretty nice for lower levels.

DoT DPS helps when you root/rot. It doesn't matter if you don't like it. It is a valid strategy. Nobody has proven otherwise. Trying to pretend it isn't a valid strategy is not helpful. It is the same thing with Pocket Characters. Pretending they don't exist is doing a disservice to the readers who don't care about people's personal opinions of them. Give people the options and let them decide how to play.

JBB works well as a DD spell. Clerics do not get a JBB equivalent to my knowledge. Mana DD spells from a Shaman work too if you prefer that strategy, but DoTs are more efficient, and root/rotting is valid.

Yes, I did forget the Daring/Valor/Resolution line. The HP gap widens by 130-250 HP depending on level, but this is still not enough of a gain to use it as a strong point against Shamans. Plenty of people start fights well under 100% HP, because they know they don't need all of their max HP to survive a generic XP mob encounter. This is especially true considering the other buffs Shamans provide that Clerics do not. I'd rather have less crit fails on lulls via CHA instead of a bit more max HP. Especially in higher levels when mobs will chew through 200 HP in 2 hits. If you are at a point where you are at 200 HP remaining, things have already gone sideways. Having a CHA buff also means the Enchanters can put on more +HP gear instead of +CHA gear, which will reduce the gap.

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

DSM really just dropped a 3,000 word effort post extolling the virtues of Shaman stat buffs, regen, DoTs, tanking and pet DPS in the context of a dual Enchanter charm group...

...thus proving my point that Shamans contribute basically nothing to said group from 1-59.

Thank you for conceding, DSM.

As you can see, Vexenu has been utterly crushed by my post, as he cannot rebut a single point. This is the real concession. I thank you for it. You have proven you don't understand the Shaman class.

Simply mimicking me just makes you look bad. But I appreciate you flatter me with mimicry!

[bcbrown]

I want to point out a couple forms of bias in your argument. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be be biased when arguing a position - I just want to take the time to emphasise that this is a subjective argument, not an objective scoring. I also want to underline that this is not the substantive argument in favor of including a cleric that you deserve, but just a few quick thoughts I wanted to jot down.

structural bias - the top-line points are all about shaman benefits, not mentioning any cleric unique abilities (as compared to shamans). No mention of stun, lull, atone, DA. This is fair for a subjective argument - but not for an objective assessment.

selective bias - level ranges provided are the ones where shamans are comparatively equal on heals. Here's an alternate perspective. From 24-29 clerics will have Greater Healing(290-300) while shamans will have Healing (100hp). Up through 51 shaman is limited to Greater Healing(270hp), while from 34 on clerics have Superior Healing (565-585) - that's double the healing per cast from 34 till 52.

redundancy bias - slows are redundant, but there's an argument about why that's still a point in favor for shamans. Stuns are redundant, but the benefits of that redundancy are dismissed.

healing metric bias - mana efficiency is not the only metric. Time efficiency matters as well.

To re-iterate, everything you wrote is perfectly reasonable as a subjective argument in favor of a position. But we've had a recurring side-discussion on whether this topic is objective or subjective and I thought it was worth noting some relevant thoughts.

[fortior]

1 throwaway line about pet CH, nothing about the DA/ae mez synergy of necro/clr, and of course pocketing. Still no reply on how pocketing a cleric works in ST but whatever. You can only come up with this stuff if you’ve never enc/clr’d

E: to explain, DSMs huge post doesn’t reveal any interest in collaboratively discussing the best 4 man group. He has a conclusion and is now repeatedly arguing for that conclusion. There’s no evenhandedness, there’s no honest pro/con list, etc.