State of the Crucible - submissions for Casters Realm

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State of the Crucible - submissions for Casters Realm

Postby Gloriana » Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:05 am

Includes posts by Blazz, Korelen, Samanna, Snoww, Tordail and Chutoi

Blazz

The Shaman Class made its first real appearance as a "Powerhouse" in Kunark. The spell Turgurs Insects (75% slow a mobs attack speed) totally changed the game forever. Adding in spells like Torpor (a heal-over-time) and Malo (an un-resistable debuff of a mobs resists) created a class that was not only powerful, but almost as required as the Warrior-Cleric combo we all know and love in EQ.

After Kunark, though, that changed. Shaman started to become "nerfed by ommision", in effect, we were gradually made less and less powerful because the "advancements" we got were relatively small compared to other classes. There was a time when we healed as well as a Druid, nuked as big as a Mage, and DOTed as large as a Necro. Gradually, we watched these abilities diminish over the course of the next few expansions. Shaman remained powerful, however, basically because Turgurs was STILL a massively effective spell. No other single spell in the game could come anywhere near the damage-saving aspect of Turgurs.

PoP introduced a new factor into the equation, Slow Mitigation. It also introduced new spells for other classes that suddenly made the Shamans slow seem less important. As a result of a combination of those factors (lower heals, lower DPS, slow being diluted to other classes and less effective overall through mitigation), the Shaman class began to lose its effectiveness in cutting edge content. We just didnt have enough to contribute to a group anymore. There were FAR FAR better choices. LDoN introduced the "Kill As Fast As You Can" mentality, and Shaman just didnt fill a big enough role in that style of play. Until a large number of shaman had the spell Quiessence, which basically allowed them to be primary healers in LDoN missions, Shaman were hurting.

Then came Gates, which almost made the Shaman class totally extinct. 30 second fights became the norm, and Shaman slow was almost not worth bothering with anymore. It simply landed too late in a fight for it to be worthwhile. Gates had a new spell, Balance of Nihil, but it was difficult for all but the higher Raid Style players to get. Shaman had very little to offer groups in the way of fast healing, fast DPS, or crowd control, and that is what was the primary focus of Gates. Shaman were basically 6th wheels in ANY group, and as a result, many quit, especially higher-end Shamans.

Shaman became known as the "Kings of Trivial Content" because of our ability to make "less than cutting edge" content seem easy. However, at the upper end of the game, advanced groups, raids, etc, Shaman had very little to offer. Our nukes and heals were "spit in the ocean" affairs. Our buffs were meaningless. Stats buffs were made completely obsolete due to gear mudflation. The stat portions of our best buff, Focus, had no value at all, and Focus became "just another HP buff".

OoW changed all that. Shaman were finally given respectable utility to make up for the diminishing effectiveness of Slow overall. While OoW has MUCH more slow-mitigation than any other expansion, Shaman were given a few new tools to make up for it. With the introduction of new, bigger HoT spells, a decent fast-heal, a new fast-nuke in the 1K range, a fair AE nuke, a respectable pet, some new buffs that have "meaning" (seemingly, for now, until we get more hard-data from parsing), overcap buffs for STA, STR, and DEX, new AA like "Call of the Wild" (summon player to their corpse, like a rez) and "Ancestral Aid" (a group HoT, similar to the druids Spirit of the Wood), the effect on Epic 1.5 (a second group HoT), with all these new factors, Shaman were once again restored some of the power they have watched slip away since Kunark.

One of the main problems Shamans have as a class is centered around the huge diversity of our spells and abilities. Some shaman want to be better healers. Some shaman want to be better DPS outputters. There are a lot of shaman who would like to see our pet given MUCH more overall power. Still other shamans like the de-buff and crowd control aspect of our class. Many shaman like to be "Buffing Kings" and many hate it. Overall, there are almost as many possibile ways to play a shaman as there are spells in the book.

However, OoW has given us the ability to do all these things better, to the point that Shamans are no longer a "6th Wheel" in any group. We have regained much of the lost utility that was so apparent in Gates. A lot of this utility is because of the type of mobs in OoW. Fights last a bit longer, some resist a bit more making Beastlords "Slow but no de-buff" more difficult to depend on, etc. New levels and gear in OoW have made gaining access to the BEST Gates spell, Balance of Nihil, a bit easier. This has also been a large factor in our value.

Overall, I think the Shaman class is fairly well balanced at this point. Perhaps we could use a bit of a bump on our fast-heal (one of our OoW Ancients is a bigger fast heal), perhaps our fast-nuke could have just a bit more beef, or our new curse DOT could have a bit more of a bite, maybe we should be given something in the way of "emergency survival" similar to Stonestance or DA, but overall, these are minor issues that are similar to the balance "list" that almost every class in this game has. At any rate, even without these things, I feel pretty optomistic about the Shaman class, even in the most cutting edge content. While many shaman disagree with me about this, they are mostly from the "Shaman as Main Healer" faction of our class, and speaking for myself, being a Main Healer in a group is not that important. I like the utility I bring to a group as a buffer, debuffer, some DPS, and back-up support healer.

OoW gave me a respectable amount more power. Its my opinion that no other class in EQ got more of a "bump" in OoW than Shamans. We are back, and while there will always be a "perfect min-max" set up to any situation in EQ, and shaman MAY not be a part of that "min-max" due to a lack of absolute specialization (warrior=tank, cleric=healer, rogue=melee DPS, wizard=spell DPS), Shaman can now contribute much more to a group or a raid with what we have been given, be it new Spells, new Buffs, new AA, or a new Item (Epic 1.5). We are back, in a fairly big way.

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Korelen

Objective:
The purpose of this statement is to address various concerns that the Shaman community has regarding content and utility: general, raid and group.

Content:
As SOE releases new content, we are always challenged by new encounters, new spells, and new items. Some content has been Shaman friendly while other zones have proved most difficult. I will discuss three expansions: Planes of Power, Gates of Discord, and Omens of War.

With the release of PoP, SOE introduced slow mitigation, a means of limiting the effectiveness of our slow line of spells. With the increased attack rating of mobs as well as slow mitigation, the paradiagm of Shamans thus was changed. Many solo Shamans, who preferred to tank mobs, found it quite difficult. Hence, solo Shamans were subjected to root-rotting, the technique of rooting a mob, debuffing its resists, and stacking various damage over time spells which are normally referred to as DoTs. SOE also developed a flag-based progression in which new content would be open to a player if they completed an event or killed a raid mob.

As people raced to 65, the player level was increased to 65, they were limited to certain zones if they were unable to progress. In PoP, there are various tiers, and if players did not complete the Plane of Justice trials, they could only gain experience in Tier One zones ( Plane of Nightmare, Plane of Disease, Plane of Justice, and Plane of innovention ). Many classes found it difficult to complete the PoJ trials since these trials required you to kill a set number of mobs in a certain time frame. For a Shaman, slows were not required for these mobs since they were killed fast, and a Shaman was not capable of quick damage ((in the form of dots or nukes), so we were passed up for classes that would prove success.

While slow mitigation proved to be a new challenge for a Shaman to overcome, PoP did provide with some improvements with spells and alternate advancement ( AAs ). Shaman were given an upgrade to torpor which removed the snare component, a new focus line, upgrades to our Malo line, and Ferine Avatar ( the bane of many Shaman ) to name a few of the new spells that were released.

Gates of Discord introduced fast encounters because mobs had high dps but low hit points. The holy trinity, Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter, was reintroduced because content proved to be quite challenging. Many groups were designed with dps ( damage per second ) which left many Shamans groupless for GoD content. Slow was ineffective because of casting time of Malos and Turgurs. Also, Shaman did not have the ability to use their dots or nukes because mobs were killed very quickly. SOE introduced a new slow spell, Balance of the Nihil, which added a resist adjustment and fast casting.

To make matters worse, most of our stat buffs became useless if group members had max stats. Most Shaman were subjected to buffing groups without the promise of a spot to complete a sewer or mountain trial. The Shaman morale was at an all-time low. Many people still were bitter about the slow mitigation, and with the release of GoD, they felt the sting as their other cheek was slapped.

There was some benefits we experienced from GoD. The Shaman Community was instrumental in removing a new disease dot and having it replaced with a new heal, Daluda's Mending. The spell changes continued with Breath of Tushar by increasing the healing per tick.

The latest release of content is Omens of War. This expansion introduced a new level limit, 70, new AAs, and new spells. Our stat mobs had benefical abilities associated with them such as avoidance, increased damage modifier, and stat overcapping. Also, SOE released 1.5 epics and gave the Shaman class a group heal over time AA, Ancestral Aid. Melee players found many of the new stat spells as useful again, and the desirability of Shamans begun to increase again. Fights seem to take longer now which means that many of our dots can run their full duration or able to nuke multiple times per mob encounter. Most mobs in OoW mitigate slow. As you progress through the zones, the mitigation increases.

While Omens breathed some new life into the Shaman class, there is still a lot of work to be done. One area that need improvement is DoTs. The aggro generated with stacking DoTs is enormous, especially poison based DoTs. For example, take a look at this scenario: while grouping in Muramite Proving Grounds, my group had a Shadow Knight tanking. A friend of mine asked me why I wasn't DoTing a lot, and I told him that I did not want to steal aggro and tank these mobs. The SK laughed and said that would never happen. I stacked three DoTs: Yoppa, Bane, and Blood of Saryrn, and true to form, I ended up tanking the mob. This has happened to me more times than I can count.

Another improvement, which I heard is coming soon - innate dual wield, is our pets. SOE stated that our pet spell is really a companion, yet we get partial pet AAs. On top of that, a Shaman's pet does not dual wield and does not have innate Spirit of the Wolf. Lastly, while Shamans received helpful spells, there are still somethings left to be desired such as: Point Blank AE Malos, add shielding to Wunshi line, and having a group version of FA is great, but shaman are still subjected to the short duration of the buff. When raiding, I ask the raid leader to create dps groups to limit the casting of Champion.

Utility:
The challenge I faced, as do many Shamans, is the versatility of the class. A Shaman can be a healer, a debuffer / buffer, and is capable of cc'ing mobs in certain content.

Shaman as a healer. In PoP tier 3 content and lower, a Shaman can be an effective main healer ( MH ) for her group. The dps and slow itigation of these mobs is not as severe as in newer content. With Heal Over Time spells ( Torpor Line ) and our patch heals, we can heal the main tank. Add in AAs or focus effects, and our ability to heal increases. The problem a Shaman experiences is the paradiagm of 100(cleric)/75 druid)/47(shaman) on the healing scale for priests. Because Shamans have a powerful slow, we were penalized in how much we could heal, and if you add in slow mitigation, our heals become pathetic in higher-end content zones such as KT. We could no longer be a support healer since a Shaman's healing was not fast or big enough to keep a tank afloat. The Shaman class has been penalized with healing far to long because of slow.

Shamans are most noteworthy for the ability to reduce a mob's attack
speed or commonly referred to as slow. As I mentioned before, GoD introduced Balance of the Nihil. This spell enabled a Shaman to cast slow faster than the traditional method of Malos followed by Turgur's. Many Shaman felt SOE should increase the resist adjust, currently -40, on Balance to something more appropiate along the lines of Malos ( - 55 ) or Malosinia ( -70 ). There are still occassions in which Malos is still required for even Balance to land.

In higher-end content, a resist means certain doom for a Shaman. Survivability is important, and the Shaman class does not have an effective way of ensuring their longevity in the case of a resist. Many people has suggested ideas of enabling survivability, and I will not list them here. One can review these ideas at the Shaman Crucible.

While many people may not know this, but Shamans can Crowd Control (CC). Slowing a mob for aggro (the mobs attention is on you), a Shaman can root-park or off-tank the mob a safe distance away from the group. In higher-end content, we lose this ability because we cannot heal ourselves fast enough due to the dps of the mob.

Another utility Shamans have is their ability to buff players. With Omens, SOE introduced overcap stat buffs and a group FA to name a few.

With these utilities, Shaman are capable of many things. In groups, within certain content, Shamans can be a main healer. Or, they can provide dps for group if their DoTs are able to run for their full duration. The Shaman's main role in a group is to debuff mobs: malos, slow, cripple if needed. In raids, the main problem for a Shaman is that they do not stack well.

Closing:
In closing, with the release of Omens, many Shaman have found some improvements in areas that the class needed help with, but the class needs more. Because the class is so versatile, we need to have a clear description of what a Shaman is, what is his role in a groups, and the ability to stack in raids. The Shaman class has been neglected for so long, the class is behind in a lot of things. I do not expect us to be the best in healing or dps, but I would want to leave an encounter and say, wow, I made a difference. It's been a while since I said that.

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Samanna

The State of the Shaman in EverQuest.

General:
Omens of War has been good to the Shaman. It has been good to many classes, and there is much debate about who got it better than whom, but this is a nice switch from the normal debate of who got it worse than whom. We got a relatively easy Epic 1.5 (some say too easy), with a clicky group HoT; we got an AA HoT, and AA HoT Crits. We got an AA call-to-corpse to get the Cleric or Paladin back to start rezzing, and lots of other cool stuff that I haven't even looked into yet.

Shaman Utility:
With buffs that have percent damage and avoidance mods, Call of the Wild, and group Cures and HoTs, Shamans are beginning to reclaim some of the utility that was so coveted years ago, but has recently been considered less desirable than specialists for tanking, healing, and damage dealing.

The Grouping Shaman:
While the numbers may look to some like a Shaman isn't the best choice for most zones, with slow mitigated to be no better than that of an Enchanter, Beastlord, or Bard, much of the population doesn't feel this way - especially with Call of the Wild, fixed-duration invisibility, disease-based AA Root, and several group HoT options, we are again being seen as a valuable grouping class. I've been in several NC and even WoS groups where a more able (gear/AAs/spells) Shaman was the main healer, and I was the debuffer/dotter.

The Raiding Shaman:
Honestly, I don't raid cutting edge content, and defer to a more experienced opinion.

The Soloing Shaman:
See above.

Snoww

The State of the Shaman

An old bear looks up from the cold tundra wastes. Looking across the ice and snow to the past and the present. Looking towards the future.

Many know my name. Many have heard my words over the years. I am as old as recorded history on this world of norrath. I have walked the lands as a leader of friends and alone with only my spirit wolf beside me.

I sit today with the chill finally seeping into my bones. The winter of the ages are layed before me. Never in all of my days has the cold touched my spirit like it does these days.

A shaman in this day and age is much different than when I first picked up the hammer. In the olden days when adventure ruled the day a shaman was a glorious sight to behold. The rage spewing out from blood flecked lips. Weapons brandished in a fury the likes of which had only been seen in the drawings of the god of war himself.

In the olden days a shaman was a warrior of spirit. Clothed in chainmail and the spirits of brother bear and sister wolf enveloping him in a warm embrace. The shaman could walk into a battle secure in the knowledge that the spirits would aid any that walked by. Making them stroger, faster, more able to withstand the rigors of combat. In the days long past a shaman would slow the attack of the enemy to a pitiful crawl. Watching with hidden laughter as the monster swung pitifully at the stinging insects of togor and his clan.

When the world was new and the fabled ice comets of the wizards were but myth and legend Shaman walked the land with poisen and disease spread before them. A monster died with every casting, and hammer in hand shaman strode into the heart of battles. Healing when needed but primarily crippling the enemys ability to damage our strengthened comrades, while our poisens rotted them from within.

Now I look at a battle in a different manner. I look not with the eyes of a youthful battle hungry wolf, but instead with the tired gaze of one bear who has seen too many winters. Too many friends long dead and gone.

Instead of standing tall at the front of a battlefeild. I now walk with a nervous care. The monsters of chaos and taleosia would kill poor old Vox as fast as I used to kill a splitpaw gnoll. Instead of walking as a warrior of spirit and justice I instead walk as a dog who has been beaten one to many times for raising it's voice in a joyous howl.

I am ashamed to say I walk slightly scared, instead of carrying the fight to the monsters, instead of wading into the battle lines proud and unstoppable, I first cast a spell of malos to insure my once dibilitating insects will have a chance at affecting the monsters.

Then I notice that the effects of my spells are ineffective to say the least. Thier attacks are still fast coming and powerful as before. If they do resist the lure of the insects and are angry with me for my gall, I now have to hold my breath and hope the skills of another will save me, I have to hope a cleric or warrior will step in to help me handle the monsters attacks.

As I speak of this I feel the anger of days long past surface. I long once again to feel the bloodlust rise, but I am an old bear now and with the continual suprise of the old; I look down and realise the mind is willing but the body, is tired so very tired of the beatings, the abuse, the neglect, the uncaring ways of the world.

A shaman has a job that is simple to describe but complex in nature. Our job is to make every else better able to compete with the challanges of the world around us. In this with the new spells of chaos we are once again useful to call into battle. Just not as useful as another more suited to the narrow tasks laid before us.

With the spirits of wunshi at our call the sword swingers and knights of renown once again want a shaman close at hand, but it is different than the olden days. The luster of a newly polished sword held in the hands of a warrior does not sing the way it used to.

The warriors know thier craft better than ever before, they weigh and measure all that stand or fall before them, and instead of being eager to test thier strength against a foe, they wait for a cleric to ensure thier heals will be strong and plentiful. A shaman is nice to have around, Like the old faithful dog that makes the hunt brighter. But in comparasion the cleric is the daylight.

A shaman can make the sword arm sing, chanting out a cadence of swish swish swish. It is a steady beat, even soothing in it's measure and timeing. An enchanter, however, is an addition of the war horns, the drums of doom punding upon the backs of the dead. We are nice to have around but to get the blood truly pumping you require an enchanters majiks.

Shaman are a sum of many things. We do control the ebb and flow of a groups heartbeat, but we are generalists in a specialist age. We can make a group better in almost any aspect, but there are specialists who will do better still at any one thing.

Perhaps another should speak of the state of the shaman, a younger wolf, one who travels in the pack still. For I feel as the old and tired bear that shaman, and all of norrath are weakened.

The shaman of old are gone. An in it's place is a spirit caller who is content with the stories and history of power. But the present of mitagated circumstances, and spirits who while strong seeming are in effect the gauzy whisps of the meek who have comprimised away all glory or valor.

We no longer walk in the days of legend, we walk in the days of celebrated mediocrity and the shaman class seems to now be its champion.

I no longer feel the power of the spirit talker. Of the ghost walker. I am no longer a rock upon which the tides will break. I am just an old bear looking across the cold tundra, remembering when there was hope in the world for the days ahead. I wander the lands looking for purpose for a story, for charecter. And instead I only see the headstones of the mighty now falling to the wayside. And the lords of the world walking past uncaring, as the color itself drains out of the land before me.

Snoww Silverhammer Old tired bear E marr

P.s. Depressing I know. Sorry. There is fun left in the game. But look to yourselves and see if the fun is with the people or the land around you. I used to have fun just playing the game. It didnt matter if my friends were around or not. Now the only goal is the accumilation of loot and power. And it is a hollow path to walk.


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Tordail

THE STATE OF THE SHAMAN CLASS

The state of the shaman class: we again stand on our own two feet and we are getting stronger.

It is a widely held consensus that the Shaman class was virtually ignored between the Shadows of Luclin and Gates of Discord expansions. The advent of Omens of War, however, has allowed our class to again stand on its own two feet. Certainly, the sun is not shining in a clear blue sky, but there is a break in the clouds.

Per their request, SOE has been presented with a list of ten Shaman-class issues that players would like to be addressed. You can view the full list here at the SOE Shaman Boards. Thanks to class correspondents Sudedor and Grimbear, several of the items on our list have been addressed in some way, and others continue to be examined. Two items are currently in the process of being reexamined by players and possibly resubmitted to SOE for their perusal.

We are fighting the uphill battle every day, and we are gaining ground.

To put it simply, to be a Shaman is to be flexible. Shaman contribute to their groups in ways that would give other classes a headache. Shaman slow. We buff. We heal. We are not afraid to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the tank and take a beating if it means the good of the group.

The Grouping Shaman:
A Shaman is the glue that holds a group together. We stand quietly in the background gnawing our arms to fill our mana pools ... and we make everyone else shine.

Slowing: Shaman offer the most powerful slows in the game. We bring both magic and disease-based slows to a group, enabling us to slow very nearly anything we wish. Our ability to slow is, by far, the most important advantage we offer to a group – but it’s also our most frustrating ability. There are times when it seems the whole class was balanced around that one single ability with no consideration given to anything else, and it’s incredibly frustrating. To complement our slows, we come fully equipped with a nice range of debuff spells. Even then, our slows have trouble landing – and that’s frustrating. Shaman cried out for help ... and were offered Balance of the Nihil with GOD, a magic-based preslow with a debuff component. For a great many shaman, however, the spell was and remains unattainable – another frustration. Our slows are mitigated almost constantly in GOD and OOW – yet another frustration. We have asked for some kind of ability – be it AA or otherwise – that would allow our slows to have a greater chance of landing with lessened mitigation as compared to other slow classes, enabling Shaman to again be the kings of slowing. Our request has repeatedly fallen on deaf ears.

Healing: Samanna's Reference Desk offers more hard data on our heals than I have space to relate here. Go read it.

Our heals are widely believed to be sub-par. To be sure, there are reports of Shaman serving as main-healers in zones like Kod’Taz (GOD) and Muramite Proving Grounds (OOW), but we were not designed as main healers, and Shaman who can main-heal comfortably in such zones are rather few and far between. For the masses who must serve as a backup healer to a cleric or druid, our heals are paltry. They are a mere drop-in-in-the-bucket on a tank with 9-10k HP, and even worse on an 11k+ tank. We have repeatedly asked for help with our heals, and were answered somewhat. We now have access to heals that offer a base heal of 1550 HP (Daluda's Mending) and 1785 HP (Yoppa's Mending) and, with the right AA abilities, become 1984 HP and 2225 HP heals, respectively.

We have received nice upgrades to our heal-over-time spells, Quiescence in particular. Q now heals for 420 HP per tick, and Breath of Trushar offers 630 HP per tick. That's still a paltry amount when one is fighting mobs that hit for 800-1000+ easily, but it's better than what it used to be. Our cry for a group heal of some sort was answered – we have been offered an epic 1.5 that offers a 400 HP per tick group heal.

In short – we have gained some ground when it comes to healing, but there is still an incredibly long way to go.

Buffing: It used to be that folks would sniff at our buffs. Focus of the Seventh, for example, offers 544 HP and a handful of other meaningless stat buffs. That used to be a staggering amount. But now, to a great many players, 544 HP is such a paltry amount as to be worth more to the player as an empty buff slot. Stat buffs – yes, the kind our spell book is rife with – have been parsed and proven to be useless time and time again. Shaman cried out for attention ... and were ignored. Until recently, that is.

Now, Shaman offer buffs that force a player to surpass his stat caps – our new Stamina buff, for example, pushes a player 40 points past his stat cap. We offer buffs that include damage modifiers – our Ferine Avatar upgrade, Champion, includes a 10 percent damage modifier. We have been given a new line of buffs that increases a player’s damage avoidance. Wunshi's Focusing (and Talisman of Wunshi), our Focus upgrade, offers 680 HP and a 85-point increase to the Strength and Dexterity buff caps. The hit point component of the buff is nowhere near the likes of Conviction or Steeloak Skin, but it is better than it used to be.

Obtaining spell runes in OOW is rather difficult, to be sure. Instanced zones have been modified in several ways, and drops have been slightly scaled back in other zones. Our most desirable spells are rather far down the turn-in list for each level of rune. But for the vast majority of Shaman, obtaining OOW spells is not as difficult as obtaining GOD spells was – and our class is better for it.

In short, our buffs are easier to obtain and are again considered powerful and desirable. Music to our ears.

The Raiding Shaman
Shaman do not stack well on raids. It’s irritating. Once there is a Shaman to take care of slows and debuffs, and perhaps another to back him up, one Shaman is usually assigned to take care of rebuffs on the freshly rezzed. That leaves the boring job of chipping in Velium Strike here and there on mobs for any other Shaman on the raid. All too often, guilds employ Shaman buff bots on raids, and instead use Enchanters or Beastlords as slowers. There have been a great number of Shaman leaving the game in the last few months over frustration with the game and SOE’s lack of attention to the class ... and for this reason, a great many guilds find themselves again recruiting for Shaman.

Along with our once-again desirable buffs, however, comes a problem for the Shaman whose job it is to buff a raid. Shaman are now expected to keep Focus of the Seventh / Talisman of Wunshi (or Wunshi's Focusing by individual cast on certain classes) up on a raid, in addition to our host of OOW stat buffs. With no AA for hastened MGB refresh, it quickly becomes a mana-intensive nightmare. Discussion on the Crucible has sought the combination of Focus and Spirit of Might, Spirit of Sense and Spirit of Fortitude, and the extension of the base duration on Ferine Avatar and Champion. The problem has not yet been addressed by SOE. Some guilds use the one-shaman-one-buff method, others limit the number of buffs Shaman are required to cast on raids. Either way, Shaman sanity hangs in the balance.

Conclusion
Certainly this is a cursory look at the state of the Shaman class. There is simply not room enough to address or explain everything. But even the problems of the game and SOE’s indifference cannot change one simple fact: the Shaman is an enjoyable class to play.

************

Chutoi

I figured I’d better start this dissertation with a warning—I’m long-winded! If you decide to read this, be ready to stay a while.

A number of us shaman have been asked to discuss the current status of our class, and I was one of the ones so asked. As a quick bit of background, I play an iksar shaman in a raiding guild that raids 3 days a week. We’ve done pretty much everything except vex thal in pre-PoP expansions (just say no to shard camping!). We’ve done PoTime, GoD up through Txevu, and we just got anguish access in OoW about 3 weeks ago. Raid buffed, I’m around 11,400 hp, 9500 mana, and 2000 AC. I’ve been playing since the original EQ was released (though changed to the shaman with Kunark). I lead most of the raids for my guild, so I have at least a reasonable familiarity with the capabilities of the other classes.

Please note, the majority of my analysis will be related to the level 60+ crowd, though I will be discussing the lower levels a little bit.

First, what is a shaman? Originally, through at least the first 3 or 4 expansions, the shaman was considered a healer for the tribal races. This explains their choice of races in Norrath—troll, barbarian, ogre, and iksar. In more recent months, SoE has published descriptions that are substantially less flattering; in large part, after all the flowery language is deciphered, SoE seems to consider shaman a buffing class.

In more practical terms, a shaman is lowest rung of priest classes. The shaman class (in the high end) is built around the shaman ability to slow. Supposedly, our ability to slow a mob by 75% accounts for our ability to heal only 47% as well as a cleric. Shaman damage output is typically done through four venues: slow-acting damage over time (DoT) spells, inefficient direct damage (DD) spells, direct melee damage, and pets. All of the above will be addressed further below.

As with any analysis, usually the best place to start is with some basic definitions or assumptions. I’ll be using these definitions as a base for my analysis. I’ll go over it briefly; most of this isn’t rocket science, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it.

Effectively, there are four active roles in EQ. Tank, healer, dps, and crowd control. Note, I said active roles. Utility roles, such as buffing hp, stats, resists, or SoW/SoE, may easily be done by a relatively inactive character, or a character outside the group (a “bot”), with no detrimental effect to a group. As with any good group, the roles may change between characters, or may be shared among players. Some classes can fill more than 1 role. However, those are arguably the only roles that require active participation. For the shaman, our role in groups changes with group composition and level. I’m going to spend a couple of pages discussing group roles (with an eye towards shaman in particular), and then I’ll get into the actual state of the class. Skip ahead if you like. Keep in mind, for this part of the analysis, I’m talking in generalities, not specifics. There are always exceptions to most of what I’m saying, if you tailor pick a group and/or situation to make something untrue (don’t be ‘that guy’ and try to cherry pick arguments!).

TANKING:
Tanking, or offtanking with more than 1 mob in camp, is a function of 2 variables. First, the ability to suck up large amounts of damage (without dying!), and second, the ability to control agro on mobs.

Shaman, originally appeared to be some kind of battle-priest. We were given a pet, and our hit point pools made us effective tanks during various parts of our careers (this is especially true compared to the other priest classes, as shaman can go with a hp load out rather than a mana load out due to our ability to covert hp to mana). Almost all classes at lower levels can tank a bit. Shaman, if they solo, basically have to tank for their pet, giving rise to the expression, “tank in teh face” from several years back. We used our DoT lines (damage over time spells), and got up in the face of a mob and let the puppy chew on their rear. With level-equivalent gear, shaman ability to tank begins to take a nose-dive around level 44 or so, and goes steadily down hill to 51 when we get our primary slow, Turgur’s Insects. Levels 51-60, shaman can again tank mobs. In kunark/velious, this was the shaman heyday, where shaman solo’d some mobs that were considered appropriate for groups.

Although shaman do offtank some mobs due to slow, a shaman will never be a better tank than an equivalently geared/AA’d hybrid or melee on a slowed mob, to say nothing of an unslowed mob. All priests share the same dodge skill cap, as well as the same defense skills. All melee and hybrids have higher caps, as well as having certain other skills that can further decrease damage, such as parry and block. A well geared shaman can tank in most zones, but it’s generally inefficient if a tank is available.

To a large extent, the usefulness of shaman as offtanks was dependent on our heal over time (“HoT”) spell line and slow, and not due to any actual ability to avoid hits or mitigate damage taken. As mob damage output increases in comparison to our HoT spell line (especially given the prevalence of slow mitigation), shaman use as an offtank drops sharply. Obviously, the nexus where mana spent on healing starts to outpace the usefulness of a shaman offtanking is dependent on the gear/hp/ac of the shaman in question, and the needs of the group. However, for most shaman, that point tends to have been reached by level 60. Generally speaking, for any mobs past tier one of PoP, you’re better off offtanking with a melee/hybrid class.

In sheer terms of agro generation, there are very few classes that can compare with a shaman. There are almost none that can compare with a shaman that is actually trying to generate agro. DoTs, especially poison DoTs, have disproportionately huge agro. Essentially, a shaman is more likely to be tanking whether they want to or not, if they generate any substantial dps. I will discuss that further in the class analysis section.

CROWD CONTROL:
This section can be a little hard to define. Any class with certain basic spells can double as crowd control. Obviously, the kings of crowd control are enchanters. Really good bards can do very well with pulls of 7 and under (1 tanked, 1 offtanked, and 5 mezzed), especially with a little bit of group support. At various levels, other abilities may be used. Necros and their screaming terror line is very useful in the 50-60ish range.

The next type of skill for CC is the root line of spells. Basically, for any mob that’s rootable or snareable, any class with root can operate as CC. Druids, wizards, and rangers are very effective with snare and root combinations, or snare and kite. Shaman, clerics (who aren’t main healing a group), paladins, etc. can all agro and park mobs. Mobs that summon offset this ability, of course.

Shaman have a small advantage in terms of crowd control over the other root classes. They can slow the mob, and root. If the mob has been damaged and summons, the shaman can HoT him or herself and back out of range repeatedly, or, damage permitting, offtank the mob in question. Slow makes that possible, where the damage of an unslowed mob may make it difficult for a ranger, wizard, or druid. Further, a shaman is at a slight advantage due to slow on unrootable/unsnareable mobs. Paladins have a similar ability in regards to single adds—they can offtank better than shaman, and also chain stun. Shaman are generally more effective in multiple pull situations than paladins (in terms of crowd control). Paladins excel as CC in groups with 2 tanks and a 2 pull. Still, nothing compares to an enchanter or a bard for crowd control.

Having any other slow class in groups puts shaman at essentially the same level of effectiveness as any other root class for crowd control, and below those classes that also have snare.

DPS:
I’m not going to spend a lot of time here. DPS is relatively straight-forward. Shaman use DoTs, nukes, melee, and pets for damage. This area is best discussed below in terms of actual state of the class, rather than a general explanation. The only thing I want to mention here is an analysis of what constitutes DPS.

When comparing relative DPS, you need to have a consistent method of calculation or the numbers are meaningless. For any DPS discussions, the following will be base case unless specifically stated otherwise: in a solo situation, the time of engagement (the denominator of the calculation) is from the time the first detrimental spell is started casting on the mob (beginning of spell cast time) until the mob dies; in a group situation, the time of engagement will be when a single specific mob arrives in camp and parsers can pick up all group damage. Maximum DPS in 1 tic is basically meaningless except where a party needs do go full burn—though some people like to toss that number around like it means something in comparisons. DPS is an average over a fight, and becomes meaningless when you shorten the time frame to pick out relative maximums.

HEALING:
Healing may seem to be the easiest of the four, but it’s more than hp/second calculations. Using a heal over time (HoT) spell and a blast heal in conjunction with each other can give higher numbers, but you can’t take the time to cast a HoT first in emergency healing situations (adds, agro control problems, tank death, etc.). Still, in a general sense, hp/second, timing, and mana management are the keys for healing.

STATE OF THE SHAMAN CLASS:
As before, let me caveat the following analysis with a few statements. First, it’s designed primarily for the higher end of the class—level 60+. Second, I don’t think anyone can argue that the game is built around grouping. Ability to solo is not a factor in class balance, or any kind of analysis. The developers have said several times that ability to solo is simply not a factor in any kind of balance.

So, that being said, I’ll start off by saying that things are better for shaman that they were in GoD. Basically, on a scale from 1 to 10, we went from a 1 in GoD to maybe a 4 in OoW.

What is it that makes a character groupable? It’s the character’s ability to do any or all of the four active tasks—tanking, crowd control, dps, and healing at a reasonable level of ability (everyone knows rangers get heals, but I wouldn’t want one healing my group as main healer!). That statement, of course, is under the assumption of like skill between players.

Barring excellent equipment, shaman simply cannot tank well anymore in challenging content. As I noted above, the ability of a shaman to offtank is a function of mob dps (after slow) and the shaman ability to HoT himself. Quick heals or cleric heals are going to be extremely mana inefficient for a shaman tank. Any melee/hybrid class has better mitigation than a shaman.

Heal over time spells were introduced in Kunark. Shaman (the only class who got a HoT back then) received torpor, which healed for 300 hp/tic, but also slowed and snared the target. Keep in mind, the high end trash mob (as opposed to raid mob) damage in Kunark was generally 150s for each hit, and normally doubled. Occasionally you could find a 200 hitting mob. Trash mobs did not flurry or rampage, or triple/quad and have a chance to double attack each hit as well for rounds of up to 9 attacks with bash. Mob damage in Luclin, PoP, and GoD has increased progressively. Tier one of PoP had mobs hitting 400s. Elementals have mobs hitting for 800s. GoD has mobs hitting for 1400s. OoW has actually had mobs scale back a little, hitting mostly for 1100s in the harder areas. Essentially, mob damage has gone up by a factor of 9.3 and 7.3 from Kunark to GoD and OoW respectively on a PER HIT basis. Shaman HoT spells have gone from 300 to 820, or a factor of 2.7. When you include flurries, rampage, double attack, tripling/quadding mobs and mitigated slow, the net effect is that a shaman becomes a mana sink when tanking mobs, rather than an offtank. Only the best equipped shaman can tank at all, and then not well in challenging zones. Shaman are NOT good tanks any more; most shaman will get creamed in short order without a healer spending a lot of mana on them.

Given that shaman are no longer well designed to take a beating, it provides an excellent segue into a discussion of agro management and survivability. Slow is a huge agro spell. Healing is fairly significant agro, as any cleric can tell you. DoTs, especially poison and magic DoTs are also huge agro. Shaman are the only priest class with no ability to shed agro or use some kind of defensive skill/spell. Clerics have 2 spells in the DA line that not only reduces agro, but renders them invulnerable. Clerics also have a nice new AA to drop agro. Druids have a new spell that lowers hate by 400, and absorbs 75% damage up to 5000 damage sort of like a mini-DA (1 sec casting time). I will discuss it more later, but essentially shaman are probably one of the single largest hate-generating classes, yet do not have a single hate reduction ability. Consider—DA, DB, Oaken Guard (new druid ‘DA’), concussion, jolt, FD, memblur, atone, fade, evade, escape, visage spells, etc. There are a lot of agro shedding/eliminating skills out there. Shaman, who generate insane amounts of agro, have none. This becomes a real issue in terms of how shaman do damage. Our DoTs frequently generate agro, but even if the shaman pulls agro off the tank, the shaman likely cannot shed the mob until the DoT runs out 30-45 seconds later. Most other classes can just not nuke for a few minutes, but the shaman agro generation keeps going for the duration of the DoT.

In terms of DPS, shaman are close to the bottom of the heap. Clerics are usually below shaman, of course, but as the primary healing specialists who also conserve mana for healing, that’s not surprising. The problem is, on paper, shaman look like they have good dps. Most of our spells are stackable. Stack on Blood of Yoppa, Curse of Sisslak, Bane, Pox (from clicky elemental pants), toss in a few rain spells and nukes, and you’ve done a massive amount of damage. On paper, before focus effects or crits, that’s around 15,000 damage in about a minute, or 250 dps. Add in a pet at 30-40 dps, and a shaman looks like he could do 300 dps easily with the occasional crit or focus effect. It looks great!

On paper.

Shaman have a number of hindrances on their dps. First, unlike necro and druid DoTs, shaman DoTs have no resist modifiers. The professed thinking of SoE is that shaman can malos (-55 to resists excluding disease), so our DoTs don’t need resist modifiers. Just as a comparison, many of the necro/druid DoTs are -100 check or -200 checks. So, even with malos, necros and druids are often at a -45 or -145 resist advantage. So, to even land most DoTs, a shaman MUST malos the mob. Please keep in mind that malos is a single target spell with no AE version, takes 5 seconds to cast, has a 10 second recast, and the only spell haste that affects it is general spell haste or cleric spell haste (not detrimental/beneficial). So, that’s generally 7.2 seconds before a shaman can cast any damage spells on a mob. Most shaman slow as well, so that’s anywhere between 3 and 5.2 more seconds depending on type of slow used (clicky vs turgur with recast). I will also add that even with malos, the resist rates on our DoTs is pretty high, as is the mana cost. A resisted DoT does not land. There are no partial resists on DoTs—it’s simply lost mana.

However, cast times and ability to land them aside, DoTs have one other huge problem—they have significant agro as I mentioned above. Poison DoTs especially are insane agro. There are actually 2 factors associated with DoT agro—first, the landing of the initial spell, then the actual tics of damage. The initial spell itself is bad. The shaman 65 poison DoT will take agro precedence over a wizard critting for 8k damage. I’ve seen the 70 poison DoT pull agro off a warrior with the mob at 70% health. Supposedly, the spell casting subtlety AAs work on the initial DoT cast. However, the SCS AA appears to do nothing for subsequent tics of the DoT. Further, each point of damage appears (via parses) to generate some .87 hate. (There has been some argument over this, but one parse showed good example of the issue using a shadowknight as a tank and casting a pure hate spell with no DD component.) A single crit of our top poison nuke seems to be able to generate 783 hate before considering focus effects. With a 45% focus, that can be up to 1135 hate for a single tic. Stacking DoTs, let alone adding nukes, is a virtual death sentence for shaman, because they can’t lose hate/agro until a DoT runs its course. If the tank can’t hold agro, the shaman will be tanking—with the effects noted above.

DoTs have also become steadily smaller in comparison to nukes. Originally, the idea behind a DoT was to make it do more damage than nukes, but spread out over time. For some reason SoE thinks that DoTs should now take longer than nukes, do less overall damage than instant nukes, and cost at least as much mana as nukes. They’re comparatively less efficient, slower, and less damage than ever before in comparison to nukes.

Shaman nukes have substantially less agro than DoTs. Shaman nukes, however, are also the lowest damage of any caster class, as well as the most mana inefficient of any casting class. Basically, we spend more to do less! Rain spells, though higher in mana efficiency, still appear to have a coded resist rate that makes them very inefficient. Even with a malos’d mob, it’s rare to see 3 waves land for full on a mob. The net effect is that shaman nukes are sadly inefficient, to say nothing of being very low dps.

Shaman melee damage is laughable—even with rabid bear (arguably the second worst AA ever, right behind the paladin Act of Valor).

Our pets are situational. They’re essentially a long term DoT, best applied from the back. A pet on the back of a mob (to avoid parry, blocks, or riposte), can do between 30 and 40 dps on lower level blue con mobs with low AC. Shaman pets do not have the hp to tank, often dying in 2-3 rounds of attacks by a mob.

Essentially, what looks great on paper is severely limited by excessive agro. Most shaman will be generating no more than 150 dps with focus items, if that. As a comparison, a well geared wizard or rogue will do well in excess of 300dps easily. Shaman are, by necessity of agro, a low dps class.

At this point, I’d like to step back and address shaman healing.

At the inception of PoP, shaman healing was deemed to be sufficient at 47% of a cleric. Clr/Dru/Shm healing was 100%/64%/47%. Officially, shaman were given weaker heals because of their ability to slow a mob and decrease the damage it could do.

In PoP, SoE introduced slow mitigation, or the ability of mobs to moderate the effect of slow upon themselves. Thus, a mob might only be slowed for 50% of what it could be slowed before for a net effect of 75% x 50% or 37.5% slowed. There are 5 levels of mitigation. Fully slowable (75%), mostly slowable, partially slowably, slightly slowable, and immune to slow. In terms of gameplay, this was an excellent change. SoE had the ability to make mobs that were challenging to a group with a slower, and at the same time, the unslowed version wasn’t insanely difficult for groups without a slower. There was a benefit to shaman (and other slow classes) as well—the ability to reduce the effectiveness of slow allowed SoE to code fewer mobs immune.

In PoP, mitigation wasn’t that bad. Relatively few mobs mitigated slow. Most of them were raid level mobs. However, in GoD and OoW, nearly every single trash mob mitigates slow. Let me take a moment to analyze that further.

Before mitigation was implemented, shaman were deemed balanced at 47% of a cleric’s healing. After mitigation, shaman healing was not changed by SoE and was left at 47%. Now, let’s assume for illustrative purposes, that the average mob mitigates slow by 50% in OoW and GoD.

A hypothetical mob, X, does 100 dps. Before mitigation, it would do 100 dps unslowed, and 25 dps slowed. After mitigation, X does 100 dps unslowed, and 62.5 dps slowed. Thus, the SLOWED mob is doing 250% more dps after mitigation was introduced. After mitigation was introduced, shaman heals were left at 47%. Essentially, we’re expected to heal for a mob that is now doing 250% more damage than when we were originally balanced.

I think there is little doubt that SoE tries to balance the mob dps based on an unslowed mob and ties it to the clerics healing ability. Thus a cleric, the measuring stick for all other healing classes, should be able to heal for an unslowed mob. Mitigation is good for the game in that it allows SoE to make mobs hit for a reasonable amount unslowed, and yet not be completely trivialized with a slow class in group.

What is the target role for shaman in healing? Emergency healing? Main healing? Shaman have the equipment for neither. Emergency healing does not allow time for the shaman to land a HoT on a person and then chain heal. A shaman has to heal hard and hope they can keep the person alive long enough for the clerics or druids to start healing. As I noted with main healing, the shaman now has mobs that do on average 250% more dps. If the cleric is balanced for unslowed mobs at 100% healing, then a shaman is decidedly UNbalanced when their mobs hit for 250% more but their heals are still 47% of a cleric.

So, we’re not tanks, we’re not dps, and we’re poor healers. Our crowd control is less effective now too, now that we no longer have the ability to take a beating and park mobs. So what do we do?

Well, as so many people tell us, “You have the best slow!” Let’s take a moment to address that issue. If slow if mitigated 50%, then shaman slow better than enchanters by 2.5%. If slow is mitigated by 75%, the difference is 1.5%. Basically, there is no discernable difference. With a 1000 dps mob (which is a LOT of dps), a 1.5% difference is 15 dps. 15 dps is the equivalent of a complete heal every 8.3 minutes. Needless to say, it’s not significant.

Okay, let’s compare to beastlords. 1.5% for enchanters would be 3% for beastlord slow. That would be 30dps difference, and a complete heal every 4.15 minutes. Again, that’s pretty darn low damage.

Bards are down from a 25% difference in slows to a 6.25% difference with a mostly mitigating mob. Mitigation makes most slows the same.

Bottom line, the other slowing classes can bring a lot more to the table than a shaman can. Mez, haste, buffs, mana regen, charm, dps, damage enhancement songs, pacify, fade, etc. The question is, what does a shaman bring to the table that makes a group want to get us? SoE is trying to tell us it’s buffs, but buffs that need to be refreshed once every hour or two are not a reason to group someone. Active participation is the key. Shaman cannot add the same level of dps as an enchanter, BL, or bard. We do not increase the dps of a group enough to make a shaman worthwhile. Our healing is poor enough that a group with a slower is better off getting a cleric or a druid.

The buffs themselves are a question too. They’re not bad if you have them, but they’re not by any means critical to have. Stat buffs (except stamina for HP) have been parsed as doing nothing past the cap. Focus adds some hp, but little other benefit. Strength past 280 has been parsed to do nothing for dps. The avoidance is parsing out at about a 3% increase to avoidance. The damage mod is parsing out to about 2% increase in damage for our +damage mod spells.

So, what has changed for shaman from GoD to OoW? Why has a shaman gone from a 1 to a 4? What is good about grouping a shaman? The primary reason we’ve jumped up on the scale of playability is the generic increase in mob hit points, strange as that may sound. Shaman are an endurance class. The longer the mob lives, the more we shine. Our DoT can build over time (not quite as much agro if we can spread them out). We can use disease DoTs if the mob lives long enough (really rare). Our mana regen capabilities are more effective if we aren’t trying to cram in a certain amount of damage in a short time frame.

Shaman are still broken at the very high end. We have an artificial cap, like a lot of the generalist classes. High end encounters take specific group make-ups with typically maximized dps/healing/crowd control/tanking combinations. Specialist classes get more benefit from focus effects because they do percentage increases of a larger number. What a shaman can do, however, is take a poor group and make it okay, or take a middling group and make it decent. The slower the dps, the more effective the shaman becomes. Our damage offset with slow and avoidance both become more effective in saving man as the damage they offset builds. Our proportional damage increases are larger on low dps groups, etc.

Basically, a shaman is a very powerful class until a player reaches high end content. At that point, their groupability takes a nose-dive. Ironically, fixing shaman is relatively easy with a few small tweaks, but SoE’s lead spell designer is wedded to making the shaman class into buffbots. If SoE can be persuaded, shaman could potentially be fixed with as little as 3 changes. An unresistable fast-casting, low-mana DoT-type spell that reduces hate each tic (or some other kind of hate reduction), addition of some -45 and -145 resist checks to our DoT lines, and a 10% bump in healing might very well be all it takes to make the shaman competitive again. The general shaman consensus, however, is that the lead spell designer is so wedded to his self-delusional notions of godhood, that he refuses to admit any error unless someone up the food chain from him stuffs a change down his throat.

Being a shaman can be a tough, fun, and interesting job until you reach the high end zones. At that point, be ready to return to trivial content or spend a lot of time with /lfg on. Shaman are, of course, “currently being evaluated,” so everything may change in 3 or 4 years when they finally fire the lead spell designer or convince him to quit. Enjoy the class while you may! It gets worse from there on out! The future is rather bleak for shaman at the moment with Rytan involved in any part of the decision-making process on spells. A ‘4’ is about as good as it’s going to get. You should have a lot of fun getting to the point where you’re of marginally utility. The trip is a lot more fun than the destination! In the meantime, enjoy the trip and maybe someone will wise up and fire Rytan before you arrive.

/leezard hugs from your friendly iksar,
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