Sustaining DPS?

[Noxin]

Hi, I'm fairly newish here, and I'm converting over from a Beastlord to a Shaman, who's now 58. I'm enjoying the class, and I feel really powerful compared to my beastlord when he was this level, but I seem to have a hard time sustaining very high DPS with DoTs. I've read on here about root rotting DPS being very nice, and even saw a thread with some nice group DPS... and in both I see it being said that this damage is sustainable with canni. I'm not doing alot of either of those yet at my level, but I am able to pump out pretty impressive damage while I'm tanking for the dog. My problem though is that canni isn't quite cutting it for me. I'm a level and a bunch of AAs away from canni AA, and I still need to find canni 4, so I know it's about to get alot better, but as it is right now I'm staying waaay behind on mana. I burn 50% just casting slow and 3 dots, and then I'm chaining canni the rest of the fight. I can cast less dots and be FM when it's over, but then I just replace med time with longer kill time. Is this the nature of the beast the whole way through? Or once I get the new canni spell and AA should I expect a drastic change in my mana regen capability?

What I mean is, at what point will my sustained DPS be limited by how many DoTs I can stack before they wear off, rather than by my mana pool?

[Yesak]

The Canni AA will change your life, end of story. You also seem to have low mana pool if 4 spells is hitting you to 50%. The canni AA will change that all though as it will regen around 30% of your mana if not more in one blast. Just be careful you dont kill yourself with it.

Also, if you want the shaman to be an offensive juggernaut, you will be sadly mistaken. Out DoTs can be pretty powerful when soloing but are dangerous and not worth it when grouping. Unless you have a good tank, you pumping out max DoTs will draw agro to you. Also, in any halfway decent group, the mob will be half dead if not more by the time you land all your DoTs to get any sort of meaningful DPS.

Just want to give you a heads up that things WILL get better, but also temper your expectations. The shaman power is not in raw damage

[Finori]

Utilize potions! Clarity, Spriritualiy, Celestial ! Then use Affinity potions: Efficiency and Toxin. Make sure you have detrimental mana preservation equipped!

[Noxin]

Eh, yeah, I realize the damage I do in a group is going to be pretty limited compared to my beastlord... due to playing a different role if nothing else. But I solo nearly all the time I play, so that's my big concern. I'm hoping that the shaman, at least soloing, will be able to churn out a faster kill rate than my beastlord without being so gear dependent. Maybe a lofty goal, but because I play so little my beastlord gear is always going to suck and I'm hoping the shaman will not feel the effect so harshly. I just don't want to kill even slower, which is what's happening now because I end up medding so much.

[Veril]

The high 50's is hard for a shaman. Get to 59 or 60 IMO. then do some AA. you could stop at 59 and do the AA to get MC3, CanniAA, or you could go to 60, get some more spells and then do the AA - I would goto 60 personally as 59 is no longer the hell level it used to be, and so much more unlocks.

You don't have Malo and Torpor, CanniAA and Canni4 spell. Once you have those 4 things turn around dramatically and your mana useage pattern changes totally.

You should have the curse dots from LDON (researchers can make them now - much easier to get that way) and poison dot's. Don't use disease dots on mobs.

You should get the ornate legs from PoP (you should be able to buy ornate chain legs pattern in bazaar along with all the other bits). The click root on them is an irreplaceable effect. At 80 with max AA's I equip these when soloing for root rotting, nothing comes close to these for sheer uber continual utility. Getting the PoP chain BP is good, it gives you mana free SLTW, great for saving a bit more mana keeping haste up on yourself and dogdog.

You need the Lucklin AA's as well that reduce mana cost (2/4/6 = 12 AA total). These are the most powerful AA's in the game, due to their omnipresent and pervasive nature. You can also get 2ndary forte on conjuration to help dots.

The beneficial extension AA's are incredibly powerful as well - another 12AA who's effectiveness cannot be overstated. These improve your HoT healing by 50%, and reduce mana useage rebuffing, and make your panther line of spells 50% more mana efficient.

Buy the panther line of spells - 51 and 59 I think from the DoN vendors (no faction needed to buy from vendors, you can invis to get to them). These really help dogdogs DPS, they are more mana efficient that dot's.

If you have plat to burn use the Avatar line of spells on dogdog.

I remember at 60 soloing Sebellis, I would have 3-4 frogs all slowed and rooted, each with 2-3 dots on them. Now that's good DPS total.
Pull mobs with Malo. After that pretty much nothing resists any spell you cast. Root with ornate legs as mobs runs towords you, or just tank for dogdog with torpor up. lay down 2 poison, 2 curse dots on a mob, canni away.

[Noxin]

I reckon I'll just keep plugging away till I've got my canni AA. I was considering either doing it at 59 or waiting till 61 so I can mow through Nadox with the new pet. I'd thought about skipping torpor all together and just grabbing the 65 HoT instead, because I hate snaring myself.

Is there any way for me to camp my own canni 4 spell though? Rare in the bazaar, and when I do see it it's like 5k. I see WW dragons drop it... is it common enough drop to be worth sending my beastlord to farm? Or should I just wait for it in the bazaar? Or is there a better place to get it from?

[Noxin]

[Kianor]

See how you get on with Torpor. At the time, I didn't mind the snare so much, the heal was so nice. But the 65 one is even better! Also, in the 60s, you will start getting the poison and disease DoTs that don't have the initial damage. This makes a difference too - you will have far fewer root breaks from the DD portion.

As someone said, high 50s is a tough time for a shaman, particularly a soloing shaman. Hang on in there, it gets easier from here!

[Veril]

Canni4 is a pretty critical spell IMO, unless you are going to level to 68 (or 65 ancient from god) pretty quickly. 5K for a spell now that's going to last all the way to there seems very worthwhile to me. That's what my plat is for, making the game more fun and easier for me.

Your main problem is lack of mana and Canni4 gives back noticably more mana than Canni3. The time taken to hunt it, bleh, you might level up 4-5 levels before you get it.

In the area of important spells I always believe you should get them NOW.

[Unmei]

Even the canni AA won't -really- do it for you. When the magic starts to kick in is level 68 when you have the PoP (or better, GoD) HoT, and the OoW canni. Being able to do 18 seconds worth of canni-ing in 4.75 is freakin' incredible.

[Noxin]

Got 60 (and then 61), memmed torpor, and fell in love. My mana regen issues aren't gone, but I can canni way more before I have to heal now. I definitely need to farm some plat and buy canni 4 I guess. In the mean time, I'll get the AAs for canni 5 and enjoy the root pants I just paid 200pp for the pattern for.

But about those 66+ spells... how hard are those to get? With the difficulty I've had even finding some of my spells for sale, and then the fairly high prices on them, I'm starting to worry a little that I'm going to run into a position where I can't get all the important spells I need. Is that a problem later on without a guild, or even time to group often?

[riverwindd]

Whow.. i remember back in those days where i didn't do the quest for canni 2... solo all the way to 60 and with pathetic canni1 then to canni 3.. sigh.

Anyway Noxin, i think you have to get group to farm for runes. I see those runes in my server (BB) selling rather expensive for even a minor muramite rune. Do frequent your local baz and check out for cheap spells too. I am still missing some of the spells also... but dont care so much, level up as you go as past 70 you get those spells upgrades already.

Ahh.. do remember to cast regen buff on yourself for the canni thingy.

And with regards to 'sustaining DPS'.. when you have sufficient aa next time, work on those aas on critical affliction. Do also work on melee-ing while in group or if mobs are trying to run away. Those weapon skills are also good for us shammy Hehehe, i love tanking...

[Unmei]

Make friends with your local researcher, and you'll find that your spells come to you at surprisingly reasonable prices. Don't, and be prepared to suffer long and tedious rune camps or pay through the probiscus.

[Retron]

[Unmei]

Interestingly, I forego the HoT in the spell lineup on my shaman when I'm going whole-hog DoTs. Admittedly, this is pretty much only when I'm solo root-rotting. I use the Arcstone clicky BP and potions to keep my HPs up, along with the occasional GoM direct heal or GoM quick-memmed-hot. The lineup is usually:

Direct Heal
Putrid Decay (Or malicious, I forget.)
Malosinatia
Pocus
Juju
Rancor
Nectar of Agony
Canni
Nectar of Pain
Vengeance of K.

That's not really sustainable for my kitty, but I can do a nearly nonstop 30 minute lesson burn of it.

[anaskesia]

I typically use this spell set when soloing:

pocus rk. 2
vengeance of kerafym rk. 2
rancor of agony rk. 2
nectar of agany rk. 2
nectar of pain
juju rk. 2
direct heal
hot
root
canni

I start casting from the top, and any gift of mana procs that I get let me cast the next spell in the list for free. While I could easily sustain an additional two dots... I don't really have an additional two dots that are worth casting. This setup gives me time in between casts to canni, and a short break between pocus wearing off and vengeance wearing off so that I can do whatever (like re-root). The setup works well for me.

I don't keep any form of malo up becasue I have the clicky malosinia necklace from VT -- which is uber-useful to this day. I can't be bothered with using a spell gem for putrid decay. If VP root breaks... well, I can either cast it or if I'm really desparate I can use the clicky root pants.

EDIT: I should mention I rarely "solo". Usually I'm duoing with my bard, and when you have a bard then the mob loses around 86 disease resist anyway so VP rarely breaks. YMMV

[Noxin]

Hah! Researched canni 4 with my little chanter alt. Turns out if you had some level of research skill back in the day, somehow or another it can get, umm, "alpha"ed over the years of not playing. Go, go 252 research skill!

[Valdemar]

I wish I'd seen this post when it was current... because I would've asked, "Why is root rotting your only tactic?"

When I was in my hellish 50s, I rarely soloed because I either doued with my wife or boxed one of her 'toons if she wasn't available, but I would sometimes get the urge to solo. My tactic was never root rotting - I let my pet tank for me. This was much faster and more continuous killing than root rotting, because like you, I had the same problem with a slim mana pool and poor mana regen. There were a couple of important caveats...

1) I always went out with a fully geared pet. This makes a HUGE difference in these level ranges (50s and early 60s). Our pet can tank surprisingly well when geared. My best HP regen and Stoicism were sufficient to keep the pet near full health. I RARELY had to use a heal spell.
2) I soloed only for XP and cash/tribute. Nothing hard. If you're going for drops or quests, then root rotting becomes the primary tactic.
3) I stayed within old world content. Because any level-appropriate content from GoD onwards would turn your cujo pet into cujo sausage faster than you can say, "WTF".
4) Tried to have a KEI or better on. This wasn't a necessity, but it equaled more XP per hour.
5) Scaled Avatar legs (rooty pants) and Breastplate (SLTW) are also highly desirable.

In fact, the last time I root rotted XP mobs was when I was level 45. I was lucky enough to be handed a JB Bracer at level 45 and that ended me tanking for the pet and root rotting entirely. From then on, it was the pet out front when soloing. Again, I stress that I was limited to old world content, but it was much faster and more mana-efficient than root rotting. The level 61 pet is a HUGE upgrade and you can use that pet to tank in Luclin and PoP content on your way to 65. You still load DoTs, but your primary DoT is your pet w/ panther. SCR will exten this to 45 secs, IIRC, and it is common to get 10-12 procs in that time. "Say hello to my leel friend".

I assume by now that the OP has passed 70, but for the sake of any others who have similar questions, I say "Let the dog out".

Regards,
Valdemar

[Yesak]

Pet loses effectiveness to tank RAPIDLY once you get 65+. There is very little he can tank, even with the best gear and buffs. Also, your DoTs will outclass any DPS dogdog can generate and hence will not be able to handle the agro you generate. I find he's decent use when I'm soloing in RSS (with it being a hotzone, the AA isnt bad for a lesson burn) as a 1 cast, mana free DoT and an "oh shit" speedbump. Nothing more.