Does a fungi "fix" Barb shamans?

[loramin]

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

As I understand it, a 60 sham isn't going to be sitting at 100% hp hardly ever, especially not on non-trivial content, and therefore that regen is helping most all the time even if the amount pales relative to the healing from torpor.

You understand it correctly great sage Tecmos. But the emphasis is definitely on the "the amount pales" part. When you compare the numbers of Torpor and Cannibalize IV to the bonus an Iksar/Troll gets from regen, it quickly becomes apparent why no one with Torpor cares about regen:

Torpor: 200 mana for 1500 HP
Cann IV: 148 HP for 82 mana
Iksar/Troll Sitting Regen Diff vs. Barbs/Ogres: 12 HP

The regen diff is literally a small fraction of both what Cannibalize consumes, or what Torpor replenishes.

Oh, and you're also correct about the sitting thing. The live advice for Shaman was to "Cann-dance", and that did involve lots of sitting, but Shaman here understand the mechanics of clickies refreshing spells (eg. Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring), and they've realized that it's faster to just spam Cannibalize while standing than to bother with the dance.

I used the sitting numbers for two reasons. One, lower-level Shaman do sit a lot (whether or not they Cann-dance), and this discussion was very much about not just level 60, but the path to 60. Also, I was trying to make a point (that the regen wasn't a big deal), and I didn't want to "cheat" to make that point by using the less impressive standing regen numbers.

[Troxx]

The road to 60 is long and the price of torpor is steep.

I spent about 60-70x longer NOT at 60 than I have at 60 on my shaman.

Prior to 60 and torpor racial regen is clutch.

[Polixa]

I had fun playing a barbarian shaman to 57.

Now I am playing a troll shaman and hit 50 today. I am having even more fun this time around.

1. Evil races get the best Antonica dungeons nearby. I levelled to 48 in Upper Guk, Najena, Sol A and Sol B, almost exclusively (except see #3) - I prefer dungeons, and they are close to Grobb/Neriak so I could spend less time traveling to and from vendors/bank/playground and more time having fun.

2. Snare necklace. Got it at 19 by using a higher character to kill the Steamfont mob. Snare has been fantastic for the past 30 levels. Right now I am leveling in a spot which was good for the barb, but somewhat annoying when the mobs start deathmarch mode - to the point where I would sometimes have to gate out from adds if root resisted. With snare, it's a night and day comparison in terms of efficiency, safety, and enjoyment.

3. I took 4 levels out in Overthere L37-41 and got myself the Hammer whilst xp-ing and saving myself a future 2k. OK for some folks that's pocket change, but the point being an evil can do this quest legit, I believe a barb has to pay for MQ.


Versus ogre: Never once on either character have I noticed stuns being a big deal, in fact I barely notice them at all, and I tank everything I kill solo. I get the big timpani crash and duration stun maybe one fight in 10. Then I recast whatever spell and get on with it. I guess if it matters at all it might be at L60, but I can't speak to that.

[NegaStoat]

Troll shaman = regen, slam, exceptional base physical stats, snare necklace, repeatable Halfling illusion for quest faction hacks, an amazing smile and a scratchy butt. It blows my mind that people overlook the fact that the Halfling illusion item is repeatable.

[Rathnir]

Originally Posted by E-Queue

Apologies anyway for an annoying topic.

Do you see what you've done? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Originally Posted by E-Queue

I ended up rolling a Barb shaman a couple weeks ago. Fungi has trivialized everything through level 19, so I have no regrets!

Glad to hear it! The early levels are a poor expression of what you grow into. Canni and pet are, of course, the big breaks. Fungi gonna keep everything easy mode, especially when you get Canni.

Ultimately I think you'll push 1-54 much faster then the other races. 54-59 might be a toss up - but you got there faster anyway. 60 all the leveling advantages don't matter anymore. As 60 barbarian shaman, I sometimes wonder if I had the regen advantage. Sometimes I wear fungi, and while it helps, it doesn't change what happens a ton. It's a small edge. Racial is the same, just even smaller.

Originally Posted by Tecmos

It was my understanding that 60 shamans only sit if they're lazy or some kind of gaming god who actually catches ticks sitting.

Somewhere on these forums, I saw a bard link a youtube of how he came up with a program to detect, and visually display both server ticks, and personal ticks. I can't find the link, maybe some kind soul would post it, but it was pretty neat. All sorts of applications for knowing exact moment Fear, Root, Charm, HoT spells etc were going to potentially wear off. It was fairly impressive. But in the mean time: any Heal over Time that does 100 HP or more/tick is an indication of your actual tick, and lines up with meditate checking if you are sitting. Cast torpor, sit until it says healed for 300, stand for canni, sit, wait for heal tick, repeat.... gives you 4 guaranteed times to get your meditate tick (possibly 5).

Originally Posted by Tecmos

As I understand it, a 60 sham isn't going to be sitting at 100% hp hardly ever

Good ones aren't. 100% mana doesn't happen either, if you're doing it right.

It's been hashed to death, but if you want to fill your face with a bunch of ranty math:

 

Starting at 54 you have at least Cannibalize 3. You gain 34 mana at the cost of 74 hit points, or a 1:0.46~ ratio. For the sake of math, you never sit, and only have standing regen, which is a 4/tick advantage. If you purely convert this to mana, you gain 1.84 Mana/tick, so slightly under FT2 boots. In the "real world" you wait 19 ticks (1.9 minutes) for your 76 HP, then cast canni 3 for 1.25 seconds to gain 34 mana, fizzles pending.

So, as a shaman, if you play longer then 2 minutes, with less then full health, and less then full mana, at level 54+ as iksar or troll it's like having FT2. Except as Hp. Kinda. At 60, the racial difference is 8 Hp/tick, and you use Canni 4 instead of 3; It ends up being close to 4.4 mana/tick that you didn't have to do anything for. Real world considerations: If I wanna Canni down and AFK, the troll and iksar come back faster. If I canni to 1/2 then run somewhere, troll and iksar heal while I run.

Originally Posted by Tecmos

that regen is helping most all the time even if the amount pales relative to the healing from torpor.

You're correct, Tecmos. As cool as Torpor is, all races get it, so its the same value to all races. The extremely flat answer is racial regen ends up being worth about 4.4 Mana/Tick standing @ 60.
Anecdotal Evidence: How many times do I canni a minute? If I cast Canni 4 ~26 times in 10 minutes, my mana/tick purely from canni and nothing else is around 22/tick (twice the value of C2). I have to torpor 3 times in 10 minutes to heal this damage (3600 + possible extra ticks, of 3,834 canni damage), so a few extra cannis on top of the 26 to make up the difference. Does 3 or 4 canni's per minute average sound low, spot on, or high to you, for a 60 shaman? Sounds low to me, personally - and thats only 22/tick mana, and the standing racial advantage is worth ~22% of that value. Add in Meditating(22/tick), Clarity II (11/tick), POTG(6/tick) you are now comparing 4.4 Mana/tick to 61 mana/tick (~7%) and that is not including bards, FT gear, casting canni more then 3 times a minute.. the efficacy plummets quickly.

Time to supplement a Cannibalize IV Having 82 mana, or 148 Hp is essentially the same thing to me, with small nuances. Assuming these are equal value:

• 51+ Iksar/Troll standing bonus takes 37 ticks (3.7 Minutes) to equal 148 hitpoints
• Ceremonial Iksar Chestplate takes 30 ticks (3.0 Minutes) to equal 150 hitpoints.
• Tunare earring takes 28 ticks (2.8 Minutes) to equal 84 mana.
• 60 Iksar/Troll standing bonus takes 19 ticks (1.9 Minutes) to equal 152 hp
• FT6 takes 14 ticks (1.4 Minutes) to equal 84 mana
• Sitting Level 60 Trolls and Iksar take 14 ticks (1.4 Minutes) to best their Ogre/Barbarian counterparts by 154 hp.
• Protection of the Glades takes 14 ticks (1.4 Minutes) to equal 84 mana.
• Fungi takes 10 ticks (1 Minute) to equal 150 hp
• Clarity II takes 8 ticks (48 Seconds) to equal 88 mana

Originally Posted by Loramin

Shaman here understand the mechanics of clickies refreshing spells (eg. Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring), and they've realized that it's faster to just spam Cannibalize while standing than to bother with the dance.

FWIW: If you sit on all 4 ticks of Torpor, you gain the 22/tick meditate x4, which is 88 mana - slightly over the value of a Canni 4, as well as not costing the 148 hp to cast the 5th time. Not to mention, even the measly barbarian sit advantage is 3 more/tick sitting. All said and done, Torpor with 4 cannis and 4 sits is: +1200 HP (Torpor) -200 Mana (Torpor) -592 HP (Canni x4) + 328 Mana (Canni x4) + 12 HP (+3 Sitting Regen(Barbarian) x4) + 88 mana (Meditate) for a net gain of: +216 Mana, +620 HP. Or you can Torpor, Cannix5, and never sit: +1200 HP (Torpor) -200 Mana (Torpor) -740 hp (Canni x5) +410 Mana (Canni x5) + 4 mana for a net gain of: +214 Mana, +460 hp. So if you do an extra canni instead of dancing, for one torpor, you lose 2 mana and 160 Hp. This isn't a massive loss to a shaman with torpor, but it is a loss, and the gap widens if you have racial regen figured in. This is 40 HP/Tick value (160 hp on 4 Torpor ticks), and we can slop it around without noticing it - that should be the exclamation point of this post. It's also worth noting that Canni x4 + Torpor takes 5 ticks (1 tick to cast Torpor, 4 more for the full ticks) and we gain 21/tick mana for those 5 ticks, not including meditate, not calculating mana preservation for specializing alteration. While gaining 620 hp (or 124 hp/tick). If all the hitpoints are consumed with 4 more cannibalizes (~2 more ticks) we have a net positive of 656 mana over 7 ticks.

The math begins to break down as you go into specialization checks, fizzles, spell orders, theoretical vs practical application and other such things, but the basic principals and figures should be a a reasonable guide. 4 mana/tick? Any other caster class would pimp their mother out for it. And they should, its massive for them. For shamans? If we make the numbers dance a little - its less then 1% of your capability.

Take away points:

1. Shaman HP -> Mana conversion is outlandishly powerful.
2. Shaman Mana -> HP conversion is outlandishly powerful.
3. Level 60 Shamans regain so much mana and HP with their kit (Torpor + Canni 4) that other forms of mana/hp regen are comparatively weak.

Fungis, Regrowth, Racial regen - these aren't drops in the bucket - they're buckets in the ocean (at 60). Now Pre60, especially 54+, its very enjoyable. But not necessary. And since you already have fungi, it's a very small gap.

TLDR; Mid 50s or above Troll/Iksar Shamans gain the equivalent HP value of somewhere around 1.8 mana/tick to 4.4 mana/tick over Barbarian/Ogre shamans. This value is based on standing regen figures, and improves in the favor of Iksars and Trolls even more when sitting. Sitting or standing, this decently powerful advantage is severely eclipsed by Torpor at 60.

[Trzzle]

Ogre stun immune is hugely overrated.

Iksar is HAWT!

Troll snare neck is super nice.

Barbarians are aids race.

The only true reason to pick one race over another is fashion. Just say you picked barbarian for polar bear hat and illusion and we can move on and not laugh at you. These silly stretch reasons like faction and xp penalty are sad. Every race can fix faction super easily, and can bank in any city even without fixing faction.

My shaman is Iksar for sweet robe graphic and racial superiority. Have access to friends Ogre and another friends Troll. No reason to ever play the Ogre, the Troll is nice because of snare necklace.

[Crede]

Play what you want to look at the most. If you like all equally, troll is the best shaman. Regen, snare neck, and jbb. FSI on ogre overrated. By the time you hit 60 and get torpor and don’t want to make a new alt? Still would take Regen over FSI.

[loramin]

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

Still would take Regen over FSI.

Genuine question (not an edgy insult): have you played a Torpor Shaman? I ask just because I honestly find it very hard to believe that anyone who has would give a crap about regeneration. They might only give two craps about FSI, but that's still > the less than one crap they'd give about regen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Think of it this way: how many Torpor Shaman do you see wearing fungis? Not many, and if you asked I'd guess most are still wearing them from their pre-Torpor days and just haven't gotten anything better yet. A fungi adds more regen than Iksar/Troll racial adds, and yet the vast majority of Torpor Shaman I know don't wear one because the regen is less useful to them than some stats or a clickie (eg. the one from the Velious Armor chest piece).

But in contrast if you're soloing a Western Wastes dragon, or a named in the Crypt in Seb, or any other hard mob, reducing the chance of being stunned does matter. Even if it doesn't reduce that chance by that much (there's still other ways Ogres can be stunned), stuns are scary. When Torpor Shaman solo they need to keep re-casting Torpor periodically or they die, and a single stun can be all it takes to turn a successful solo for some phat lewtz into a long annoying corpse run.

And I say all this as a Barbarian Shaman with zero skin in the game (of Iksar/Troll vs. Ogre).

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

Level 60 Shamans regain so much mana and HP with their kit (Torpor + Canni 4) that other forms of mana/hp regen are comparatively weak.

Fungis, Regrowth, Racial regen - these aren't drops in the bucket - they're buckets in the ocean (at 60)

First off, let me say that I appreciate you taking the time to crunch the numbers and trying to look at this objectively; most posters are fine with saying more or less "I feel this way so I must be right" [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] And the stuff you wrote above is absolutely correct. But I do want to point out just one small thing I think you're missing:

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

FWIW: If you sit on all 4 ticks of Torpor, you gain the 22/tick meditate x4, which is 88 mana - slightly over the value of a Canni 4, as well as not costing the 148 hp to cast the 5th time.

...

If all the hitpoints are consumed with 4 more cannibalizes (~2 more ticks) we have a net positive of 656 mana over 7 ticks.

You're looking at long-term efficiency ("If ... 4 more cannibalizes"), but that's not what matters in a fight. In a fight if you take the time to cast four more cannibalizes your're going to lose a lot more HP than you're accounting for: you're going to lose however many HP the mob beats out of you while you spend the time to cast those 4 cannibalizes.

This is why spamming Cann with a Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring (or similar clickie) is so much better than Cann-dancing for a Torpor Shaman (and arguably even before). Dancing is more efficient, but spamming gets you more mana to win the fight when you need it. To put it another way, in a fight speed matters and efficiency doesn't, and after a fight when you have infinite time it really doesn't matter if you spam, cann-dance, or just sit on your ass and meditate [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[E-Queue]

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

Do you see what you've done? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hahahaha. I had no idea what I was starting...

I really just wanted to to get a sense of the importance of racial regen relative to a fungi tunic for a shaman. In hindsight, this is easily obtainable information on the wiki (+15 for fungi vs the standing/sitting regen table on the shaman page), but this has been a fun, informative thread regardless.

I did enjoy how one person listed all the pros for troll shamans and included their goofy smiles and butt scratching, when those are the two biggest cons I can think of (along with the way they run). Just so cartoonish... To each their own!

[Troxx]

If a shaman had a fungi, they’d wear it.

They all have regen spells and only the worst of them don’t keep it up constantly (caveat being the 60 shaman who has torpor and isn’t super worried about min/maxing.)

Regeneration is clutch to the shaman classes. We all know and acknowledge this but the discussion always breaks down with people doing mental gymnastics trying to rationalize racial regen not being important.

1-50 troll/iksar regen is double. After 51 it takes off exponentially. Make no mistake, it’s a big deal. Twinking out with a fungi mitigates this difference but does not eliminate it. Fungi or no fungi racial regen stacks and this still has value. For those who only care about performance at 60 with torpor or for those who’ve had torpor for longer than they can remember just know that lv 1-59.99 takes a long time. Balancing mana and regen while being expected to drop expensive slow bombs pull after pull all while buffing and healing is an art. Racial regen makes this job so much easier especially for those not supertwinking at a low level.


At the end of the day the most important thing is liking how you look. There are other reasons to pick other races (faction, leveling speed, FSI). They’re all right reasons.

That’s cool and all, but don’t be obtuse and try to strip away the logical value of racial regen with mental gymnastics. If regen wasn’t important, you wouldn’t fork over huge cash for a fungi and you wouldn’t obsessively refresh your regen buff every time it fell.

EQ is a game of small but mounting incremental gains. Racial regen isn’t a small gain.