Races for Shamans

[captnamazing]

Hi there, I'm rolling a shaman to level alongside my buddy who is rolling a monk once he gets a fungi. I'm led to believe shaman/monk is an OP duo, and theoretically it makes sense. Anyway, I'm pretty torn about what race to do. If he chooses human, it would make most sense for me to roll a barbarian, but barbarians seem the least cool of all the shaman choices.

Can any shamans report about their experiences levelling as a barbarian, troll, ogre, or iksar? I'd say i'm probably leaning between troll and iksar...

Thanks!

[Calypso]

I'm sure someone would be willing to port you. It's nice to have a human friend as an evil race. He can do all the vendoring for you.

I played troll, choose Innoruk if you want the snare neck. Troll regen is nice if you are grouped often, but if you tend to play more solo then a stun immune Ogre is probably the way to go.

[Ephirith]

I played iksar because I absolutely love iksar. They are slightly worse at solo content than other races though, especially in Kunark. They can't use jaundiced bone bracers... ever. That may frustrate you later. Many of their stats are significantly lower than the other shaman races, and they miss out on ogre fontal stun immunity.

Leveling an Iksar shaman to 55, I never once regretted my choice of race. The way I see it, if being iksar means I can't solo things an ogre can, that's fine. At least I'm not a fucking ogre.

Play what you enjoy. If you enjoy "optimizing" your race and class, take that into consideration.

[Byrjun]

Well, since you mentioned "leveling experience," Barbarians and Iksars get the best newbie zones out of the options. The Feerrott and Innothule kinda suck. Some people hate Everfrost, but I think it's kinda nice, and you can do a quest for free patchwork armor. Also, you have the Initiate Tribunal quest for a free neck and magic weapon, and you can run the first stage of that quest over and over for the first few levels if you prefer to do that instead of kill things.

But you also start next to Qeynos with the OP gnoll fang and rabid pelt quests, which will net you a lot of exp and money until you get SoW. Then you can travel anywhere and do whatever normal leveling route as anyone else.

Field of Bone has the curscale quest along with many others, and it's also one of the best if not the best place(s) to start in, and there's some really nice natural progression up to Kurn's and other Kunark leveling spots.

As far as the race itself, as always play what you think is the most fun. Ogres have the best stats and are melee stun immune from the front which is really nice, so they're most likely the best option. Trolls have second best stats and regen. Iksar have the worst stats and can't use plate, however they're actually a bit nicer leveling up since they have access to some gear that large races don't (sebilite scale and kylong for example). This stuff tends to be very cheap for how nice it is. But yeah, no JB BP or JBB clickies, ever. This will always be a hindrance but slightly less so in Velious.

[Scratch&Sniff]

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

I'm sure someone would be willing to port you. It's nice to have a human friend as an evil race. He can do all the vendoring for you.

I played troll, choose INNORUK if you want the snare neck. Troll regen is nice if you are grouped often, but if you tend to play more solo then a stun immune Ogre is probably the way to go.

fixed

[Estu]

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

The Feerrott and Innothule kinda suck.

The Feerrott is one of the best newbie zones in the game. Lizardmen and frogloks drop the most money any newbie is going to find in the form of armor and coin loot, and you can stack up huge amounts of lizard meat to turn in for XP and more money (in the form of a rusty two-hander to sell) to the ogre SK or warrior guilds. You'll find yourself having a lot of plat for spells and basic equipment by the time you're level 5 or 6.

[Tenlaar]

I think FoB beats Feerrott as far as starting money. When I started my iksar shaman he made enough just killing newbie mobs there to afford all of his spells through level 9, eight large sewing kits, and had some left over...by level 4. The skeletons drop tons of weapons that sell for 2-3 gold each, the occasional shields that sell for over 1p, and bone chips you can turn in without even leaving the zone.

[Tippett]

considering you can pull a spectre with the snare, then undead fear it (extremely low mana cost) the snare neck is awesome for that alone in reference to your clr and has many, many uses by people who are smart

also i thought u wrote on eqmac forums u were quitting p99

[Fuzzhead93]

I play a barbarian and am level 17 currently. I love Halas, but almost immediately went to Crushbone, then Unrest. At this point, still happy I'm a barbarian and glad i'm not super ugly when I zoom out the camera view.

[Tippett]

ghouls are specifically MR resistant

u bad at eq dog