Level 1-70 Shaman Guide

[Gnomersy]

Well since I asked and was promptly told that if I wanted information on Shaman-ry at lower levels I should go poke around and figure it out myself(before kinder people came around and lent me a hand) I decided to make a short guide for anyone else who finds themselves rolling an alt or returning to the game or anything of the sort. If anyone has anything to add or suggest or things they think I should remove just mention it and explain why I will gladly do so and note your participation in making a useful resource for new faces.



There are several methods of xping available to a Shaman root rotting, tanking and dotting, tanking and nuking, groups, dual boxing, and my personal beloved Molo-ing. Generally speaking this guide will be written under the assumption that until you reach your 50s you are making use of a Journeyman L1 Tank Mercenary. The reason is that until level 50 or 60 even the J1 Tank is an unstoppable unkillable monster compared to mobs and will allow you to deal with very red mobs with ease. I will not refer people to pling opportunities because these are rarely available to legitimate returners and for those who can PL they most likely don't need my guidance for where to do so. There is one factor to having a Tank Mercenary which new players should note and that is their "confidence" T1 Mercs have a very low confidence score which means if you pull 4 or so red mobs they decide that they would obviously die (not true) and they stop fighting and try to flee or stand dumbfounded. As a player you should always be aware of this because once confidence is lost you're going to have trouble sorting things out.

Current Hotzones can be seen as well as a listing of what augments are dropping in those zones.

Level 1-20 Lots of options here from level 1-10 the tutorial is a very decent xping opportunity and can help you get a handle on some game mechanics if you've forgotten them or never knew them. If the tutorial doesn't appeal to you I'd suggest the newbie area in Crescent's Reach it has a fairly acceptable difficulty and the mobs scale as you move on so it can last you until 15 or 20 rather handily.

Level 20-30 Sparser pickings however Blightfire Moors is quite good and can serve you well into the mid 30's or 40's, Other options are the current hotzone assuming it isn't in an inconvenient place (my general rule is that if it requires more than 4 zones from PoK it probably isn't worth the bother). You can also go to the old stand by Paludal Caverns from 15-25 and do fairly well also.

Level 30-40 Again Blightfire alternatively the lower level mobs in Gorukar Mesa are an option, High hold Keep is acceptable if you're looking for some nostalgia, Overthere is still pretty good, check your current hotzone for it's viability also on the plus side going to a hotzone increases the odds of finding others to group with.

Level 40-50 Gorukar Mesa, also Velketor's Lab, at 46 you gain access to the Planes which means you can go into Plane of Justice and begin the long dreary attempt to get spell parchments. The hotzone is again an option and the hotzone quests offer very decent equipment for the shoulder, belt. and back slots offered by Franklin Teek in the Plane of Knowledge.

Level 50-60 The world opens up a bit here Acrylia Caverns is excellent xp and fairly good loot if you need to make some platinum, Blackfeather Roost is good xp with the opportunity for some good loot drops which sell well to vendors but can be difficult, also Plane of Justice as well as Plane of Innovation are excellent and offer the chance for parchments and on the later end of the 50s the Crypt of Decay is good. At this point I strongly suggest going to the hotzone if it is at all convenient and attempting to get into groups because you need to learn how a shaman works in a group as well as build the connections to make your later EQ life less of a hassle.

Level 60-70 Bastion of Thunder is a bit of a favorite at these levels although after 66 Walls of Slaughter is also good (and gives 66-68 spell runes), Dragonscale Hills is easy to get to and great xp and often has at least a few people around, another option is Plane of Fire but I've never really liked it, you can also check out the hotzone. This is the point at which you may wish to drop the Merc and begin actual soloing or grouping as his relative power compared to the mobs decreases somewhat.


: See Also:
Level 1-20 But your spells from the merchants in your home city or Crescent's Reach or Plane of Knowledge

Leven 20-60 Pretty much all of your spells can be purchased in the abysmal sea(hail the magus in guild lobby ask for nedaria's landing hail the magus there and ask to be sent to the boat or whatever) excluding a few quest spells and a few drops off of old old mobs which you might wish to buy if you have enough money or camp but you can live without. Supposedly Blood of Nadox is a crucial spell for the rest of your shaman career but no one has actually explained why to me and I've found that just having one level of the AA radiant cure seems to do well enough for me in a group setting. The merchant to look for is Hatem as well as the nearby general spells merchant.

Level 61-65 Extremely difficult to get the spells for these levels because the turn in for the quest did not lock out spells you got already which meant repeats up the wazoo buying them is also hard because they are terribly inflated I suggest doing however many hand ins you can and hopefully if you have joined a guild by this point you can ask a master spell researcher to do the combines for you at cost or simply by providing your own research materials for the spells you have not gotten hold of.

Level 66-70 See:
Some hunting in Walls of Slaughter can get you the spells between level 66 and 68 relatively quickly but 69 and 70 are off of harder mobs which may be difficult for you at this level, again you may be able to purchase them or seek out a talented researcher. After these levels I believe spells switch over to vendor purchasable again for quite a few levels (if not all of them?) so if you miss a spell and don't feel it is terribly necessary to you just push on and get the next set.


- Between level 51 and 70 you gain access to Alternate Advancement points which is essentially a mini level which offers the ability to gain nifty spells and other stuff.

Since the spending caps at different tiers have been lifted and based on advice from the AA Recommendation thread here I'd suggest ignoring Run 3 and Regen 3 and instead dumping your first set of points into getting Mental Clarity 1 2 and 3 and then Cannibalization this provides you a large change of hp for mana every 3 minutes and is extremely useful in many situations you can do this at level 59 if I remember correctly.

Afterwards Virulent Paralysis is very handy although in this level range I found it being resisted rather often. Virulent Paralysis is a disease based spell and as such will not stick on completely disease immune mobs like those in Crypt of Decay however if you're having too many resists Malicious Decay is our unresistable disease debuff. (Thanks to Dohrian and Tordail for this info.)

Other good AA's are Mnemonic Retention or however you spell it which gives you a new spell slot I also rather like the Gate AA for giving me an escape mechanism without wasting a spell slot on it. I got Radiant Cure and find it to be ... useful but not really crucial as a solo or mid level grouper probably will prove to be much better in the late game or if I ever go raiding.

Other great AA's are Spell Casting Mastery 1-4 it is just about a universal boost to your character and I'd go for it asap. I hear secondary forte is good I like the dot crit AA's although there are probably better points to return investments, Pet Affinity is useful but probably not worth the 12 aa points until later, pet discipline is much more worth it because pet hold is like being handed a bag full of awesome, shamans really need the healing AA's apparently so maxing those is a choice. Natural Durability 3 is a 10% boost to your Hp and more HP = more Mana with Canni, Spell Casting Subtlety is nice to not get agro and punched in the face when slowing early.
If you take care of those I highly suggest looking through for other possibilities.


- Between level 1 and roughly 50 gear is of negligible importance don't waste money buying appropriate gear because you will level fast enough that it isn't important use whatever you find while hunting for the most part. At level 50-60 gear becomes necessary because the Merc stops being quite as much of a god try to get a set of defiant around here if you can often people simply dump them in their banks or sell them to vendors so poke around and maybe mention you want to buy some in general chat but don't spam. And the set that you get now will last you until you reach level 70 so if it's a little more expensive than you'd like it might still be worthwhile.

Generally speaking gear is divided into two categories visible slots such as Chest, head, arms, wrist, wrist, legs, boots, and gloves. Non visible is used to refer to the rest of it, occasionally people also separate jewelry from the other non visible slots and jewelry consists of the fingers and ears. Most armor sets are only the visible slots afaik.

As I said the gear at 70 is just dandy a set of Elegant Defiant can be had for a pittance and is a very good starter set for later content and in the non visible slots excellent required level gear becomes available that is often very cheap as in less than 1000 platinum several very decent pieces can also be had by hunting at the farm in Dragonscale Hills for a few hours if you don't have the money.

Defiant Chainmail

Some DSH named loot: Some of the mobs might be a little hard to start with but if there is anyone else in there you'll probably see a few things rotting or you can work your way up to them, also these tend to be cheap on the bazaar on my server.






I would also welcome information on which Charm items are useful for mid level Shamans since the game refuses to actually show the stats to you and I don't know how troublesome it is the max out their stats.

Lastly regarding power sources I believe that up until level 65 or 70 they are all player crafted and subsequently are available from merchants in Katta however I have no personal experience with them or information on which one is most useful to a Shaman. Regardless the jist of the power source is that as you move on into later sections of the game your armor will have a stat called it's purity the purer the armor the larger the effect of the power source upon it, armor without purity is unaffected by power sources. Every power source has a different effect of stat gains and losses and I think a proc for weapons when the power source is worn it continually loses energy until it is depleted therefore it should only be worn when you are actively hunting and are making use of the bonuses.

To all you aspiring shamans good luck and I hope this guide can be of some use. And to you venerable elders please add anything you think could be of use.

[Tordail]

[Gnomersy]

I don't disagree that research and experience result in better Shamans at the end of the day however EQ is huge even to someone who has been more or less playing for 10 years like me. Keeping track of everything is nigh on impossible and for someone who hasn't been involved in the game they're going to be confused I like to think of this as putting the right foot forward instead of kicking them when they're down. Also thank you for the note on Virulent, so it is disease based then?

[dohrian]

[SurrealNight]

[Brohg]

Visibles just mean what you can see looking at the character. Armor. Head/wrist/arm/hand/wrist/bp/leg/feet. There's either one or two other categories, nonvisibles and sometimes people separate jewelry. Nonvisibles would be neck/face/shoulder/back/waist/range/charm, jewelry ears/fingers.

[SurrealNight]

Thanks! Was thinking there was some other set of item slots I was missing or something.

Might want to talk about Power Sources too, I noticed I have a slot for that now and it's quite empty at the moment...

[Gnomersy]

Alrighty difference between visible and non visible added as well as an open space for the Charm slot items which are good for Shaman and a place for specific information about power sources which to be honest I don't have.

[Brohg]

No power source does anything special for shaman. They're just for a little extra ac/hp/mana. No need to 1-900-MixALot with them while grinding shaman level 70-. Different for tanks, wizards, or raiding, all of which are outside the scope of your guide.

[SurrealNight]

Well I just hit 70 last night so now you can start on your 71-90 guide!