fairly new shaman

[Trenolis]

Hi. I've recently started playing a shaman. I've levelled him to 81 with a pause to work on AA. Can anyone give me some advice on playing this class?
Also my magelo profile is listed below.

[rildoen]

hmm, thats a fairly broad question. How to play the class? what are you having difficulties with? what is your preferred playstyle?
grouping? soloing? Shammies are very diverse and can do many things. these boards are full of great information on just about every aspect of shamanism. narrow down your question a bit and im sure you will get some good responses or at least pointed in the direction of the answers you seek
as for a generalization, I myself have adopted a bit of Snoww's philosphy somewhere on these boards is Snoww's advice for shaman
or something like that . check that out, it might or might not be of use for you.

[Trenolis]

I'm well aware that shaman are capable of a lot. I play a bst as a main and have seen how diverse a class can be. I do want to use him as a healer and some back up dps. I was wondering if there were any reccomendations for AA outside of the set that I have started working on. Later I might replace my bst with the shaman as a main if I can get enough knowledge of the class.

[Samanna]

Review the AA recommendations at viewforum.php?f=12 bearing in mind that a few newer AAs may not be mentioned.

I'd list what order to get stuff, but Brohg will just come by and correct me anyway.

[Kumudil]

Had a brief look at your magelo.

Whatever playstyle you prefer "cannibalize" rank for most shaman as a musthave. We are hard penalized because we have it and can get near our max capabilities only if we use it whenever possible.

"Union of Spirits" is an almost instant heal followed by some hot-tics. Befor the times of Ancestral Intervention it was the only possibility to fastheal someone. Still today its really nice.

If you group: "Anchestral Aid: is a shouldhave. a groupversion of Union of Spirits.

If it ever happened that you ran low on mana befor that named was down than "Spiritual Channeling" is a musthave. While this ability is running, all your spells are feeded by your HP- and not anymore by your manabar. This ability is best combined with "Rabid Bear", a long running selfonly Hot with bear-illu.

I would get Pet affinity early as well, if you group. Our pet is now far behind of all the others classes, but allover shamans dps is not very impressive. Panther your group is going to get anyway, so your pet atleast can participate some. On challenging content when I am most defensive my pet can deliver over 30% of my total dps, on trivial content still over 20% (talking about grouping).

Lateron I would try to get Combat Ability and Combat Stability upto rank 18.

[Trenolis]

I'm actually quite comfortable now with my shaman. He has impressed me with his healing abilities. 3 times this past weekend he has proven what kind of healer he is.

1. He assist healed in an underfoot group task. Did very well often crit healing for 12-23k. On several occasions managing to avoid total wipes with his in the nick of time crit heals.

2. (this one is very impressive to me) He grouped with a ranger necro warrior and 2 mercs a t4 cleric and a t5 tank (his own). The warrior was db to him so he didn't tank. The cleric merc healed the tank merc nicely with spot heals from my shaman. We were doing fine until an add came down the hall (we were in kaesora library at the librarian camp) The walker spawned and agroed. The db warrior fell almost immediately followed by the cleric merc. We managed to get the first mob down to near death when the ranger fell. I used call to bring back the ranger then the merc tank fell. We just managed to kill the first mob when I ran oom (only have a 20k mana pool buffed) I was using canni repeatedly but couldn't keep my mana up. I popped staunch recovery and we managed to kill the walker.

3. Later that same day I was boxing my bst and shaman in FoS. I was roaming around slaughtering animals for exp. Out of nowhere Darkcoil agroed. I started to tank it when Jrazcra the Feral added. I was able to manage fighting both even with bst completely oom at the start of the fight.

[Kaisung]

Virulent Paralysis as soon as you can as well, higher ranks better, awesome Crowd Control device, or useful for root-rotting. Pair it with your highest disease-based debuff spell and early breaks are almost non-existent.

[Trenolis]

I think I have VP up to my level. That ability has proven its worth to me several times. Last weekend I was grouping with a pally guildie friend who was pulling in Brell's Rest. A couple times he accidentally pulled 2 mobs. My shaman Vp-ed the adds and kept us from wiping. Except when the other bst in the group who was boxing a wizzie or mage and nuked the add.

[Trenolis]

I've just completed my 1.5 and am now working on my 2.0. I'm up to the bloated girplan part in rcod. Any suggestions about the rest of the epic? I have the Alla guide printed out but if there's anything particularly rough please feel free to let me know about it.

[Samanna]

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=307
http://samanna.net/wiki/index.php/Shaman_Epic_2.0

[Trenolis]

The Bloated Girplan is being a pita.(more like hiding well enough not to be found) I may or may not get the chance to camp him this weekend. If I do get the chance to then I plan on making him land on the extinction list.

[Trenolis]

Well I finished his 2.0 this weekend. More of a pride thing I guess than having the weapon cause he has a better weapon already. But the clickie is nice to have too. I'm going to work on his healing aa lines again.

[Trenolis]

My bst/shaman combo was more than capable of handling Quarm this morning w/ our 2 t5 mercs. 1 85 t5 merc cleric and 1 81 t5 merc tank. My shaman patch healed my bst while my bst fed her merc w/ paragon. The whole fight took close to an hour.

[Trenolis]

I need some help with the cripple line and slow (aa slow vs. grezan's drowse). How does the highest level cripple work if it is called feralize? I understand aa slow is single target and grezan's drowse is ae but how does this work? What situations should I use each?

[Hollierth]

Well for the poster above, your epic will continue to part of your arsenal as long as melees know if it effect. As for the Feralize line, they discontinued cripple(thus far) in favor of feralize, both are similar except that feralize is so situational as to be almost useless. So stay with crippling spasm for everyday use and pull out feralize when you have a non-animal mob and a group of folks who like blunt weapons

[Trenolis]

My main uses 1hb all the time. But when I hunt with them, it's mainly in FoS where there are a lot of animals so feralize is useless. I didn't know about crippling spasm so I went out and farmed the runes for it.

[Trenolis]

Is it just me or did we not get a t4 weapon in SoD?

[riou]

[Brohg]

In SoD?




yeah, nothing in 4


It didn't really upset me at the time, since the Bowbender is really easy to get.

imo, it shouldn't upset anyone now, because they should really be getting , which is better than any other weapon in game since Time's Antithesis was obsoleted by AA.

[Finori]

[Brohg]

[Trenolis]

I knew about the evolving weapon but for me its a bit of a pain to get since I've never ranked higher than 4th with the exception of once when my main hit 3rd cause someone was botting. Another thing that causes me a pain is that I can't play any except the weekends.

[dohrian]

[Brohg]

I suppose I wouldn't. Shawl+spear+aug, though.

[Retron]

[Trenolis]

It is actually easer for me to obtain either the Envoy's Statement from Envoy Gorta in Underquarry or the Hive Nurse's Corrector from The Hive Nurse in Arthicrex. Which should I try for?

BTW Ding 82.

[Trenolis]

[Trenolis]

Haha, I made it to T8. Both Trenolis and my bst are in T8.

I've gone back to levelling now that my aa are straightened out. Once Trenolis hits 85, I'll do aa like I do with my bst. 10/90. 10% reg exp and 90% aa exp.

I plan to cap:
Healing gift
Healing adept
Healing boon
Planar power
Earthen sagacity
wis/int cap aa in archtype tab
Mnemonic retention
Cannibalize
Ancestral intervention
Union of spirits

This is not in any specific order. Feel free to add any recommendations.

[Brohg]

That list isn't in order, right?

[Trenolis]

[Ughbash]

[Zann]

[Trenolis]

Yes any static zones are open to mercs but instanced raid zones such as CoA are not. My reference is to the Dragons event recently re-opened during the anniversary event.

[Trenolis]

[dohrian]

Dont bother with earthen Sagacity, but I saw that you do not have Malosinete, take it

Doh

[Trenolis]

Is it better than the level 80-something spell? I hardly ever get a resist on that spell.

[dohrian]

[Trenolis]

Ok. Does anyone know the alt activate # for both the aa slow and aa malo? I can tie them together as a single hotkey. Since I box this toon as a debuff/healer, I live on hotkeys.

[Ughbash]

[Trenolis]

I don't melee with this bot. In fact I tend not to box 2 melees. (too much of a pita to keep both positioned) I primarily use this toon as a debuff and a back-up healer.

As such I have his heal counter in a hotkey with cripple and malo. In my second hotkey I use frost gift with 2 casts of dannal's mending. If the fight is going to last a while, I use aa slow. I agree with you about the runedust spell. I find it's too awkward for use as a bot.