The Spirit Realm

Did not mean to imply that I meleed with the shaman, I don't. He is grouped with my monk which is what I meant by if I am the only melee.

My group is usually either Monk Shaman Cleric Wizard in which case I don't use Lynx, or Monk Shaman Ranger Mage Merc Healer in which case I do use lynx.

Presently I group with a pally (who boxes a cleric) a chanter (who boxes a wizzie) and me who plays a bst and boxes the shaman. We're fairly effective as a group. Usually the pally pulls with the chanter doing CC if he gets adds. If not the chanter pre-slows then adds his own debuffs as I lead in with heal counter cripple and malo. While my hotkey fires off the 3 spells, I switch over to my bst and get her into position for melee. I listen to my shaman voice macros (uses a skelly ilussion so I can tell when he casts a spell). While spells are casting from the shaman hotkeys I do dmg with bst. I switch over to shaman for heals. Most named fall easily when we group... at least in fungal forest.

After looking up Union of Spirits and Ancestral Aid, I see why so many are advocating it. I've bought 6 ranks in Ancestral Aid and 1 in Union of Spirits. AA come fast for me in UF at least so I should be able to max both soon... I hope.

I feel like I'm forgetting something AA heal-wise.

Healing adept: Complete
Healing Gift 17/21
Healing Boon 6(?)/15 (might be more)
Ancestral Aid 6/15
Union of Spirits 1/12
Call of the Ancients 2//8
Abundant Healing 8/15
Cascade of Life 1/3

Also does anyone have any idea how many aa per rank of any of these AA?

Fortified Intervention isn't on that list, and needs to be. It's major.

What is that and what does it do?

It's an AA that decreases both the cast time and recast time of and, I believe, . Those are our emergency rescue heals.

Yes

I haven't bothered to test it either, just assumed they were. No way we'd get two emergency heals that could be cast back-to-back.

I really appreciate the time everyone is taking to answer my questions.

If anyone is on the Erollis Marr/The Nameless server please feel free to send me a tell if you need any help with anything. I can box or handle most content up to Korafax and maybe some of UF t6 stuff.

Ooh, you're on E. Marr? I used to play on that server before I came to Tribunal/Bristlebane. Lot of good people there.

It's hard to let go of my bst but I'm leaning more towards being a full-time shaman everytime I play. My bst has been around since I started playing back in July of '02. Maybe one of these days I'll settle on one or the other but for now I play both equally with my bst getting only a very little bit more time.

I haven't updated my magelo but I've bought more ranks of Union of Spirits. Nevermind, I had a momentary brain laspe. Stupid me forgot there was a hastened aa for union.

I still feel like I'm forgetting something...

I feel like a fairly new shaman, returning to an advanced game. Ancestral Intervention looks to be an important tool. One more level to go to get it.

Btw, besides Lucy, what was the name of that other site where spell details were listed... something like "kumbaya.com"... Thanks.

raidloot.com/spells

I love Healing Counterbias (though I really wish it had a "wear off" message). It's SO nice in Convorteum groups when the cleric needs an AFK. Between that, Halcyon Whisper, Frost Gift and AI in case things get funky, I have little problem healing.

Thanks for the mentions Ughbash. I have the Spirit Walk AA. Bobino yesterday ran me through the tasks to get my T5 merc, and a hotkey invis was super handy. Between the Malo AA and hotkey bandoliering my TA in and out, that frees up spell slots.

AI is high on the list. I'm a ways yet from 83, but what's the mechanics behind Counterbias? Is it a buff you cast on your MT, which then procs a slow on mobs that attack the MT, while also proccing a HOT on the MT? Or do you cast it on the mob to slow it, and then anyone the MOB hits gets the HOT? And so how do all these HOTS stack now -- Anc Aid, Languor, CB, epic, Halcyon... Seems to me between all the stacking and AI that healing is solid now, as Tordail is saying.

You also didn't mention Totem. That to me looks to be a game-changer =) I never did get my FD ring from Sky (nor the clicky shield root, for that matter). So having some way to shed aggro sounds great to me.

How could I forget about spell casting subtly? I realized that mistake during a BB raid.

Anyone know roughly how many aa to buy it? I mean to max the line.

Glad to hear someone else thinks along the same line.... I started to get subtlety, back when I was forming Creator grps, then realized, "wait, why?!" There were more useful times when that snap aggro was useful, to save others in the group, as Jara was beefier than he looked.

I used to make a game out of trying to gank aggro from some overconfident necros. Fun times. Of course, for those times when you didn't want aggro, there were plenty of options available... knowing the mechanics of the game is 110% more productive than blind reliance on certain AA's, yes?

Actually I would do that if Trenolis was more like my bst. However, I'm treating my shaman as a healer/support/dps rather than melee/tank like my bst. (my bst has actually out-tanked some plate classes at times) Until I beef up Trenolis to where he can survive longer than a wet noodle in a hurricane, I'm going to play him as a non-attention grabbing caster.

Totem is an AA from UF expansion (85 required maybe) that allows you to take form of a totem for 30 secs and drop aggro (but you can do almost nothing in this time, only thing is pop a merc), at the end you revert to your form (and so may aggro mobs is they are near...
Very handy AA, but 10 or 15 minutes recast.

Yes, the full name is Inconspicuous Totem. Wonderful AA.

Ahh very nice. I had glossed over that, reading the title and thinking it had something to do with our idol spells for some reason. Every time I open the AA window I find ones I had not noticed before.

Too bad it is level 85, friends and I are taking it slow to experience the lower level content. I wish there was a cool list of "interesting / high risk vs reward things to do" in each expansion. It's a struggle to find all the neat/required things after leaving in PoR.

I love Totem too. It' saved my group from complete wipes many times. One of the nice things about it is that it's a fade aa rather than a FD aa. The only real problem I have with it is you're unable to take any sort of action for 30 seconds and has a 15 mins recast timer. My bst has her play possum aa and it's nice EXCEPT for the high failure rate and 30 second recast timer.

Now that the NDA has been lifted I can ask questions and maybe answer a few about HoT.

I didn't pay as much attention to our new aa as I should have since I was mainly trying to beta test for my bst, however isanyone who was in HoT beta able to answer a question for me? Aside from the new levels of heal aa (which is what I'm mostly interested in cause my shaman is mainly a healer/buff/debuff type) are there any aa I really should focus on getting?

There are several nice new AA going in with House of Thule, namely a massive Cannibalization AA and Hastened Cannibalization. Those are tops on my list, along with a new AE cripple, extended pestilence (it'll become a passive ability with HoT!), another rank of Inconspicuous Totem and another rank of Turgur's Swarm. We also get the usual "boost" AA such as the ones you mentioned.

Our new group spell Qirik's Recourse, is it able to be subject to our twinheal spells? I don't know if it's a fluke or what, but I seem to crit heal with it a lot. I've been testing it only in the lobby since I haven't gotten any groups after getting the spell. My heal gift is 17/24 atm.

I've been playing with Qirik's Recourse and just love it. With an 18 sec recast timer and a 1 sec cast time and able to hit all group members, it's making me feel like a cleric. The spell is a welcome addition to our healing repetoire. I still haven't tried to play with the spell along with frost gift yet.