Iksar Shaman - Solo Challenges?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I experienced JBB until (I think) level 56. Mob hp got higher and it was a choice between standing there clicking JBB (+/- adding my own dots) and either trying to let dog tank or simply face tanking. Dog would not be reliable in holding aggro, so it meant the mob was on me.
...

Lets set a basic scenario. You are a level 58 Shaman. You spend 30 minutes in combat, and 30 minutes pulling/recovering/waiting for respawns.

Average mob DPS at that level after being slowed is around 10 DPS at worst I believe, looking at some quick fights. 10 x 1800 seconds = 18000 HP if you are face tanking.

A level 58 Iksar is going to be regenerating at +17 HP over Barbarians/Ogres, assuming you canni dance perfectly for 30 minutes straight. This is 5100 HP.

This means an Iksar who is root/rotting and never gets hit is saving 23100 HP in that time frame at best, assuming perfect play. Using Cannibalize 3 (better before Torpor due to faster cast rate, easier to canni dance with), that means an Iksar is saving 11781 mana at best.

If you click JBB 6 times per minute, that is a total of 180 clicks. 180 clicks = 47340 damage.

47340 / 1648 (damage done from 1x Bane of Nife) = 29 casts x 425 mana = 12325 mana saved from casting damage spells.

A Shaman who is face tanking is also saving mana by not casting root. Assuming you are fighting 1 mob every 2 minutes, that is an additional 1500 mana saved minimum by not spending 100 mana per root on paralyzing earth.

If you are having your pet tank while you sit and recover, you'll need to slow the mob, just like when you face tank. If you don't you'll need to spend time controlling your pet by backing it off, which lowers DPS.

Baseline you are looking at 11781 mana saved (Iksar Root Rotting) vs. 13825 mana saved with a Shaman who is face tanking with JBB. The JBB + face tank strategy is easier to use than perfectly canni dancing at all times (less APM and worrying about server ticks) and never getting hit while root/rotting. Realistically you probably will miss some server ticks, so the 11781 mana value will be lower in practice. The number of root breaks is going to be greater than 0, so JBB is realistically saving more on root costs too.

Now, you will say "but spell resists". I can tell you from experience that JBB rarely gets resisted on trash mobs while leveling. I honestly stopped maloing while leveling because it wasn't necessary. The opportunity cost of getting a single resist from a Bane of Nife is also higher than JBB. A resist on JBB costs no mana, a resist on Bane is 425 mana.

JBB + Face tanking is giving you a 15% boost in mana over an Iksar root/rotting without Epic assuming perfect play. Realistically it is higher since perfect root/rot play with perfect canni dancing is harder to do.

As I said, trivial to disprove.

[Penish]

if you're casting a jbb instead of a canni, you're a bad player

thnx

[DeathsSilkyMist]

As a small addendum to the previous post:

https://project1999.com/forums/showp...&postcount=411

If you want to take into account the Iksar regen for the 30 minutes of pulling/recovering/waiting for respawns, that is another 2601 mana assuming you canni dance for an hour straight without missing a tick somehow.

That is 14382 mana saved per hour on an Iksar Shaman who is root rotting if they canni dance for an hour straight without missing a single server tick, they never get a root break, and they never get hit.

A JBB Shaman is saving 13825 mana per hour. It is a nearly impossible task to get the 500 mana over a JBB Shaman in the same hour. The JBB Shaman simply needs to cast slow, spam jbb, position the pet behind the mob, and pull.

Realistically speaking the JBB Shaman is saving a significant amount of mana compared to the Iksar Shamam who is root rotting without Epic in the same hour.

[bcbrown]

Are you taking into account mana gained from meditating while root rotting? 30 minutes at 10 ticks/minute and 21 mana/tick adds 6300 mana.

[Toxigen]

here is where DSMs shit falls apart

rdy?

2 freshly dinged 56 shaman, 1 ogre spamming jbb and 1 lizard w/ no jbb playing smart

guess who hits 57 in less time /played?

[Troxx]

Let’s agree that:

-pet is about 15dps buffed at this level
-mob hp is 4500hp
-mob will do 10dps slowed
-the shaman doesn’t suck so it is slowed before “impact”
-both shamans will be slowing, so remove that from the equation
-both shamans have racial regen/fungi and regrowth

JBB shaman:
15 dps pet + 32.875 dps JBB (48dps)
Fight takes 94 seconds
Mob does 940 damage to the shaman
Shaman regenerated 600 health over 94 seconds
Fight ends with shaman at a net negative 300hp
It will take 45 seconds to regen the lost hp and will recover 150 mana during that time.

Dot shaman:
15 dps pet + 2x ebolts (not bane) will take 133 seconds (pet has to do 2k damage)
30 mana root (Pe not needed)
Mob does 1330 damage to pet
Pet regenerated 1000hp
Shaman regenerated 1019 health
Shaman meditated back 19 ticks = 380 mana passively
Shaman turned that 1019 health back into 500 extra mana
Shaman spent 2 years bolts and 1 roots mana = 670 mana
Shaman ends up with the same net health and 210 surplus mana while pet is down 330 health.

JBB fight? Faster.
2nd fight? Slower but with net gain vs loss. Pet will be regen a good portion of the net deficit back by the time you pull the next.

Interestingly, since you had a net mana gain vs JBB, you can alternate ebolt x2 fights with fights with a single bane and a single ebolt. Every other fight is faster. Bringing down average time to kill a mob and you still squeak closer to a break even point.

This is precisely how I did it. Remember when you’re focused on efficiency you just need to do more total damage than your pet for full xp. As soon as I realized I could kill more mobs over a unit time by not spamming JBB - I sold it.

Then I got epic and none of this mattered anymore.

It does average out faster … well … at least for a troll or iksar.

here is where DSMs shit falls apart

rdy?

2 freshly dinged 56 shaman, 1 ogre spamming jbb and 1 lizard w/ no jbb playing smart

guess who hits 57 in less time /played?

I just showed him the math.

If you want to see the results for an ogre - subtract 7 hp/tick which over a 94 second fight is a net negative of 109 hp … which adds another 24 seconds to the recovery time.

[Troxx]

God I hate napkin math, but it’s the only language he speaks.

I can promise it is so much more obvious when you’re actually doing it.

[Toxigen]

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

I just showed him the math.

If you want to see the results for an ogre - subtract 7 hp/tick which over a 94 second fight is a net negative of 109 hp … which adds another 24 seconds to the recovery time.

now add in a little oopsie daisy here and there where things dont go mathematically perfect and lizardpeepul get better and better

[Tann]

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[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Are you taking into account mana gained from meditating while root rotting? 30 minutes at 10 ticks/minute and 21 mana/tick adds 6300 mana.

A fair point! I did not actually. We can take a look again.

This is the scenario: You are a level 58 Shaman. Let's get some real mob data in as well, to ensure we are using the right amount of DPS/Mana spent per kill. I'll look at https://wiki.project1999.com/A_Ratfink as the example, as PoM Rat Maze is a good spot to XP at 58. They have 7000 HP according to the Wiki, and looking at my SK's data when he was up there, the amount of damage needed to kill this mob matches the wiki.

I will not be taking into account the mana spent on Regrowth and Haste, since both Shamans are going to spend this mana anyway. First let's look at combat, where we assume the mob is doing an average of 10 DPS after being slowed:

The level 55 Shaman pet does 17 DPS while hasted on average. If you cast 2x Bane of Nife and 2x Envenomed Bolt, you will kill the mob after 96 seconds. This is because 96 x 17 = 1632 damage, and 1278 x 2 + 1648 x 2 = 5852. 5852 + 1632 = 7484 damage, which is close enough when taking into account mob regen. The Iksar Shaman is spending a minimum of 320 x 2 (EBolt) + 425 x 2 (Bane) + 100 (Root) + 175 (Slow) = 1765 mana per mob. In 96 seconds you are realistically getting 10 ticks of sitting, as you will probably miss the ticks while casting spells. Bane is 5 seconds of cast time, and Ebolt is 6 seconds of cast time. Root + Canni 3 and Slow + Canni 3 is also going to end up being 5ish seconds each. You are getting 210 mana back from the 10 meditation ticks, 160 HP from sitting ticks, and +42 HP over Barbarians/Ogres from the 6 standing ticks. This reduces mana cost by 311. So you are spending 1454 mana per mob.

JBB does 32.8 DPS, and the pet does 17 DPS. This means the JBB Shaman will need to cast 2x Ebolts in addition to JBB to kill the mob in the same time. The JBB Shaman is spending a minimum of 175 (Slow) + 320 x 2 (EBolt) = 815 mana per mob. Assuming the mob is doing an average of 10 DPS after being slowed, this Shaman is also taking 960 damage, which is converted into 490 mana. So you are spending 1305 per mob.

A few extra factors need to be taken into consideration:

1. If a mob is doing 10 DPS, that means a tanking pet is going to need to back off of the mob every ~200 seconds to recover some HP so it doesn't die. Fights last 100 seconds each, which means your pet is going to be out of 1/3 fights roughly speaking, as they will need to spend time recovering. This means you will need to cast an extra DoT like Plague in 1/3 fights. This adds another 100 mana to the amount spent per mob. Now we are at 1554 mana spent per mob on the Iksar vs 1305 spent per mob on the JBB Shaman.

2. Realistically speaking root breaks occur, so you will not get away with 1 root per mob always. I don't have an exact figure on root break percentages, but let's just throw a random number out and say 1/10 roots break. This will add another 15 mana per mob roughly speaking when looking at mana spent, a meditation tick lost, and damage taken. Now we are at 1569 mana spent per mob on the Iksar vs 1305 spent per mob on the JBB Shaman.

3. Spell resists are a bigger problem on Root/Rotting Shamans. They do not occur often, but let's say it is 2% of the time. The root/rotting Shaman has 6 spells that can be randomly resisted, with an average cost of 228 mana. This means you have a 12% chance of losing 228 per fight. This is another additional cost of 27 mana per fight on an Iksar. A JBB Shaman is casting 3 spells with an average mana cost of 271. This means you have a 6% chance of losing 271 mana. This is an additional cost of 16 mana for the JBB Shaman. A resisted JBB costs zero mana. Now we are at 1585 mana spent per mob on the Iksar vs 1321 spent per mob on the JBB Shaman.

4. A face tanking Shaman can melee in combat, allowing them to proc weapons. https://wiki.project1999.com/Blight,...of_the_Scourge is 4 DPS when it procs. Assuming an average proc rate of 1 per minute, the mob is taking an extra 2 DPS total, assuming it gets half ticks in. That means the mob is dying a bit faster, which reduces damage taken. Assuming you can kill the mob roughly 6 seconds faster, you will save 30 mana from damage. Now we are at 1571 mana spent per mob on the Iksar vs 1291 spent per mob on the JBB Shaman.

Next let's look at the recovery out of combat. A Barbarian/Ogre with Regrowth is getting 24 HP and 21 Mana from Canni Dance with Regrowth. An Iksar with Regrowth is getting 41 HP and 21 Mana from Canni Dance with Regrowth. This means 33 Mana per tick on the Barbarian/Ogre vs. 41 Mana per tick on the Iksar. It takes ~38.3 ticks to recover the mana from spending 1585 mana per mob on an Iksar. It takes ~38.6 ticks to recover the mana from spending 1291 mana per mob.

As you can see, they are essentially equal on paper when taking into account the number of ticks it takes to recover from a fight, assuming you just keep pulling mobs back to back within an hour. It's a difference of 0-1 ticks per encounter. The JBB Shaman doesn't have to worry about root breaks, pet management, and perfect canni dancing during combat. They also have to worry less about spell resists, due to the opportunity cost of a single resist being lower. This is why JBB Shamans end up being more efficient by a significant amount. They have less things to do per fight, and have less opportunities for RnG to screw you over.