Melee as shaman

[demokatt]

What I liked as ranger was the ability to use some magic (dots and ds) and then meele the rest of a mob. I was wondering if you make a tanky shaman can this be done o shaman too? If I slow the mob and haste myself would I be able to dps as a ranger in meele? Also can you recommend any armour for like 10-15 k preferböy plate lookING I will probably go Barbarian.
Thanks for any help

[Pyrion]

You can melee as a shaman. That said, since you wont get dual wield or double attack, don't rely on it as your only source of damage. Slow is incredibly usefull and that's basically the reason why shamans can still tank even at higher levels. It's another question if that is the fastest way to xp or if root rotting is better (since you can med in that time).

[Jimjam]

I've seen people use this strategy on a shaman with heavy twinking.

Typical set up is a fungi, a bit haste and a plague wind censer. On the same budget you could perhaps do it with an iksar ceremonial chestplate, 20% haste and a good weapon, but of course it will be much less effective.

If you are lucky, perhaps it will be enough to carry you to a high enough level to canni and regen, and if so that should allow you to keep pursing the strategy even further.

[lurk]

Never played a shaman but I did mess around on the beta buff shaman during velious and I don't think I could have solo'd Lodizal without the blaze cudgel from VP. When you're solo and can barely keep up just healing and slowing then that melee dps is a real nice welcome.

[fragmaster]

I did 1-30/34 (can't remember when it stopped being worthwhile, but it was one of those spell levels) as a primarily melee shaman with gear my rogue was wearing (some filler slots for what the rogue didn't provide) and no haste. AC/HP/STR. Poison Wind Censer makes it really easy. My shaman is an Ogre, but I don't think you're experience will be much different. After 30/34 I switched into wisdom gear for root rotting and healing while grouping.

[Shodo]

I have heard some shamans suggest "melee dancing" (as opposed to canni dancing) as a viable way to add melee damage when root rotting. Basically just root joust between med ticks while the mob is rooted. So that might be an option for you as well post-30 if you can afford a high-damage two-hander.

[brecon]

Melee Shaman works well, and Shamans can slow tank very well once you get your good slow in the 30s. I slow tanked MM and COM. You are a force if you duo with a rogue or monk and just slow tank. Also if you roll a Barbarian, a BarB spiritits hammer makes a melee shaman a blast from 35 (when it starts proccing). You will use this your entire life, I still use it when soloing targets at 60. Other shaman races can get a VP weapon, smoldering cudgel, which serves the same purpose.

Of course, if you are in a group, often you will be too busy casting, canni dancing, and medding to melee, and your DPS output from melee outside of proc weapons won't be huge since you never get double attack or high weapon skills.

[demokatt]

Cool! The pet must Also count for some dps compared to a ranger or sk? Is it hard to keep its damage below 50% so that xp is not split?

[Xaanka]

you can smash stuff with melee if you have haste and a pwc censer until root rotting becomes better. usually around level 30's to when you get epic depending on your level of twinkage. later on you can tank group content with slow + root + torpor, you won't be doing much damage with your weapon but you can tank stuff with spells in melee range. great for duo/trioing summoning mobs without a tank class.

i dont mind shaman tanks at all when i'm playing my rogue, they hold aggro great. cost of entry for torpor is pretty high on blue tho.

[brecon]

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

Cool! The pet must Also count for some dps compared to a ranger or sk? Is it hard to keep its damage below 50% so that xp is not split?

Depends on the level range. Again remember, in what I described, a lot of your actual DPS comes from procs on the Barb Spiritists Hammer (250dd). That procs at 35. Assuming max dex, you are only going to do 500damage/minute from that. Pet is probably like a 35 damage / tick dot, so like 850 damage a minute plus whatever melee damage you deal. When mobs have like 2k hp, that's competitive: 2 minutes for a solo kill. When mob HP steps up to 6khp, you're looking at a 6 minute solo kill. But at that point if you have an epic, a 6-minute melee kill makes no sense.

The problem with grouping in this is that procs are very unreliable. Maybe you get two right away and steal aggro from the tank. Maybe you get none until the mob is at 1%, in which case you waste most of the damage. Because of the variability in procs and the aggro issues, most DPS classes don't rely on proc weapons. At 50 Rangers get a proc weapon that is a 1-hander and does 688 damage per proc. But I don't see rangers use that, because (1) procs are unreliable, and (2) because of aggro problems, and (3) I'm assuming someone has parsed it out and found that a solid ratio 1-hander is better, but I'd need a ranger to chime in here.

Again, where this works is if you are a group tank. Slow is going to give you a lot of initial aggro. From there you can attack with the Hammer and hopefully generate procs. With a mob shaman slowed, a wizard could tank it. You can canni a bit during the fight and get topped off by the healer if mana runs down. And if you have a JBB, you can corner cast, spam JBB, and still get procs off the barb spiritist hammer. I don't see nearly enough Shaman tanks and I kind of think it's a shame, but it's understandable why.