Tips for Shaman

[Gloriana]

Originally started by Gart Egilsson

TIPS FROM SHAMAN OF THE SHAMAN'S CRUCIBLE

The server wide shaman channel is
/join serverwide.crucible:crucible

Alchemy:

1) Put the bag you want the herbs to go into on the top left inventory slot. Then buy your herbs. Control-click buys one herb, shift-click buys a stack of herbs.

2) Then move your bearskin potion bag to the top left inventory slot.

3) Make your potions. As each is made, simply drop it into your auto inventory window. It will land in your bearskin bag. After 10, open the bearskin bag and combine. Repeat endlessly until you lose 15kpp and get your skill to 180 max at level 58.

4) Once you hit 103 skill, just make Grow potions to get skill increases. At 10pp a shot, it appears to be the cheapest avenue these days.

5) Carry ITU potions all the time. Just this alone makes alchemy worthwhile imho. DS and shrink are also very useful. The gate potions are decently useful for tanks, but too expensive still.

Guilds:

10) If in a guild, don't immediately spam your /gu with screams for ports and resses. Always check your zone first. Send polite tells offering a payment for what you want to the right classes in your zone. If no one can help, then move to a druid ring/wiz spire BEFORE screaming for ports or CR help in /gu. It's terribly unfair to expect folks to waste THEIR time to save YOUR time. And don't abuse it, and don't EXPECT help if you solo in out-of-the-way places and die. If you get it, be happy. If not, you figure something out or suck it up.

11) Organize raids to get OTHER people loots. Constantly asking for help getting yourself loots is a good way to get ignored eventually.

12) Don't flame people who chose to leave your guild. It's their dollar and their time. If they aren't happy, that's fine. Wish them well. Sure, epic-hoppers are lame, but it's still silly to blast folks who simply want to try a different style of play or a new dynamic.

13) Guilds are fun, if it's a guild with reasonable people. It's a social game, and harder/tougher/better items/zones require you to be social if you want to see/do/get them. Normal human interaction carries it's own frustrations and rewards. Don't spazz when folks have a bad day.

14) Don't join guilds that ask for members through /ooc or /shout. 9 out of 10 times it's just a couple of screwballs with a stupid guild name. Ones that offer to make you an officer sight unseen are probably more like 10 out of 10.

15) Try to find nice manaburn wizards to join your guild.

Raids:

20) You need resist gear. Get a Froglok Crown. Get a Cloak of the Ice Bear. Insanely cheap and still extremely useful items. At 60 I still use them for resist gear. If you can't afford blue diamond jewelry, it just means you have to carry more of the cheaper stuff to end up in the same place. Lots of resist items are out there and aren't too hard to get.
Conas – additional tip
Resist Gear: Stone of Morid. Every shaman can use it and every shaman should have one
21) Don't duel. No one can buff you, and it's just a pain in the ass if it delays folks. There's enough delay built-in with 20 - 30 people, don't complicate things.

22) Don't spam the raid channel, don't say silly things, and don't argue with raid leaders. It's their show, head out if you are unhappy or form your own raids. Until you put the time in, you have no idea what leading a raid is like. The people who bitch the most about raid leaders are the ones who get the most pissed off about folks bitching on raids they lead.

23) Healers make /assist keys. You can target the mob and type /assist to see who's getting pummelled. If their hit points are dropping fast, you better help heal. Sometimes clerics lag, or they're taking a much-needed whizz, or they just are slow - you are a part of the team and you have to chip in. You can also set hotkey to /tar -name of main tank or cleric or wild-eyed nuker- for quick spotting of someone who needs a heal. Best hotkey is:
/sit off (just in case you are sitting, won't matter if you are standing)
/tar -name-
/cast 1 (or whatever spell slot your heal is in).
Silvergun adds
modify the hotkey a bit to attempt the heal cast at least three times, as backup in case of fizzles. This can be done by substituting the line:

/cast 1

with three lines:
/pause 3, /cast 1
/pause 3, /cast 1
/cast 1

this will insert enough time between each cast to allow a fizzle. If a cast is successful, you'll just have the remainder of the casts throwing up a little "You have not recovered yet' spam, but at least it's good insurance. It's pretty rare to fizzle three times in a row with maxed casting skills.
24) Casters need to watch /sit aggro. You really shouldn't be sitting down when a mob is incoming, because many times they will run over and pound you - and you've already screwed up the aggro. If you don't believe me, sit on the beach when Faydedar is spawned. Don't sit during the fights either, unless you are pretty sure you won't be shoved to the top of the mob's hate list.

25) If you do get aggroed, for God's sake don't run about. If they can't get the mob off you, then you die and get your rez. And that is your fault. Don't blame others.

26) If you want to hit something, make sure you are assisting on the main tank. Furthermore, wait until he's clearly established his target. Sometimes folks assist too soon. The main target may have mistargetted while rushing, or he's simply trying to get all mobs on him before he turns back to the primary target. Wait a bit and /assist several times to be sure of your target.

27) Don't break mez. People scream (sometimes unnecessarily or too loudly) when that happens.

28) Be patient. Raids are slow, it doesn't mean everyone but you sucks.

29) Don't get frustrated by a wipe out. Everyone wipes out. What separates the wheat from the chaff is the willingness to smile, loot up and try again. I'm always amazed how folks just give up after 1 defeat. I was in a raid where we lost to Phara Dar 3 times, but we could quickly see each time where a little different buffing or nuking or healing pattern would help. We got him the 4th time with fewer people than we had the first time, and it was a glorious victory, and not that close either. You learn by doing, so do it.

30) My theory is that every first time (or even second time) raid to a new place will have a wipe out. You just got to do it, and get a feel for the mobs, the terrain, the pulling, etc. If you don't, you probably just overpowered the raid spot.

31) Don't expect or demand loots. If you get it great, if not, well that's actually normal. If you have gone to 20 raids and still been boned, then maybe you need to hang with different folks if it really bothers you.

32) Do Fear and Hate as soon as you can. I still find them fun actually. Shaman drop rates in Hate totally blow imho, so don't get your hopes up. These zones are different from other zones, and represent a challenge for level appropriate characters (level 60s who crow about "owning" Fear or Hate are sad, like me, but I understand one reason why they may say it). That's why they are fun. Glare lords suck, btw.

33) And do Sky also. A lot of people hate this zone. Not me, I love Sky. In Sky, you do have to have lots of time. Sky is also best if you maximize your time there. Try to limit the raid - if you are in a position to do so - to 24 initally at least. Although I'm a hypocrite because any guild member who wants to come certainly can. Camp out and be ready to log in the next day if you want to keep progressing, don't jump off to bank or buy food if possible (ie, be prepared). And know what you need for your own quests.

34) Special Sky instruction 1. You are limited to looting 24 keys (see the relationship to the above tip?). You can also buy keys to Island 2 and 2a (monk quest/djornn island). Anyway, have everyone keep their keys, don't let them destroy keys as you move from island to island. It's really helpful to have a revive capable cleric camped out on Isle 1. You will most likely need to bring up replacements soon enough (or someone will fall off an edge). Many different scenarios can arise, but fundamentally you need:

a) someone with summon corpse (and coffins typically) and a wizard;
b) make folks bind at or near a wiz portal spot, preferably the same one;
c) wiz needs to be leader of the group with the Necro/SK;
d) wiz drops off (don't hit a chain), and ports to Dead Guy(s)/New Guy(s);
e) wiz invites Dead/New Guy(s), and ports group to Isle I;
f) kill one guy at a time in a duel (away from Sirran or Keymaster or the guest givers underneath);
g) cleric on Isle 1 revives Dead/New Guy(s). Revive has a 10 minute timer, don't screw around;
h) Dead/New Guy(s) do(es) NOT loot corpse(s);
i) necro/SK summons corpse to where the main raid party is;
j) another cleric or paladin revives Dead/New Guy's corpse at main raid party site;
k) Dead/New Guy loots and life is good.

35) Special Sky instruction 2. Remember the part about keeping keys? It's really important for the clerics, a sower and the necro. In a total party wipeout scenario:

a) port necro, cleric and sower to Isle One;
b) necro summons cleric's corpse and sower's corpse;
c) rez up, sow up and get invis;
d) then just run quickly through the various islands until you reach your tpw spot;
e) consent, drag if necessary, and rez folks.
f) avoid all this by having a necro with at least 1 essence emerald FD, then rez cleric.
g) TPW? NBD!
Conas adds
When the raid leader calls CAMP!, g.t.f.o. and log in an alternate to rejoin the raid channel so you can hear when the coast is clear. Dont wait around to see if he really means it.
Other:

40) Go to the bazaar, and find the merchant who sells the Traders Satchel. Costs about 2pp each. They hold 10 giant sized items, ergo they are very good for bank storage. They weigh 20 lbs, so not good for character use. They are convenient because they are so close to the bank for swapping out your stuff. Deluxe toolboxes from the gnome camp in Iceclad hold 10 giant-sized items and cost like one plat. Weigh 3 pounds, just like backpacks. Addendum offered by SwordMage: most starting cities, like Qeynos, have 8 newbie armor quests and you can get 8 FREE 10-slot boxes for the bank. The only problem is having to tell a small, inconsequential white lie to the quest giver - so what if Karana is looking over your shoulder at the time rubbing clouds together.

41) Get some weight-reducing bags. They are surprisingly handy. Rallic pack is terrific, Box of Nil Space, Evil Eye bag, etc.

42) Do the shaman epic quest up to the SoW boots stage as quick as possible. Insta-cast SoW is an amazing item. Saves a spell slot, and you can cast while running. Hotkey it and never die because sow runs out again. Also helps protect buffs when fighting dispelling mobs outdoors.

43) Buy Planes of Power and bind in Plane of Knowledge. Otherwise, think about binding in Timorous Deep on the pillars over the Firepot room. The Firepots are located in the SW corner of Timorous Deep. At lower levels, this may not be as good an option in that you are typically more responsible for your own CR then. When raiding, that's less of an issue. Velious is the primary headache as you have to pot to Greater Fay, port to Nexus, then grab the port down to Great Divide and run whereever you need to go. Or train pottery and make Thurgadin gate potions for yourself. Lore though.
Frekkels adds
My recommendation:
If you are going to be raiding/grinding heavily in PoP, bind in PoK or PoT itself. PoK is more convenient for non-raiding activities, but regrouping from a PoT bindpoint will shave a minute or so off your times for re-attack. If you are in heavy competition with others, PoT might be bettter. I'd imaging PoK would be sufficient for most people. The Nexus portal from PoK makes the old Nexus bind spot passe' in my opinion.

If you are heavily into tradeskills, shopping vendors, or city travel, then I STILL recommend binding in/above the TD firepots room. Despite the wonderful variety of tradeskill vendors in PoK itself, there are still certain supplies that can only be found in specific old world city locations. Vendor mining NPC's by newbie zones is also still one of the best sources for collecting spider silks, spiderling silks, and pelts for leather padding, etc.

While the PoK firepots offers more variety, almost all port you OUT of the cities itself, requiring a minute's extra travel (plus a bit or orientation) to get to vendors. The WFP tunnels are less convenient to me than the EFP docks for example. Permafrost igloos (PoK) is less convenient than right by the vendors (TD) is another. YMMV.

The Timorous Deep firepots all take you right to the city, usually very close to a city zoneline. Binding above the firepots room itself offers the convenience of a gate to TD for quick Faydedar rallying as well. Binding inside the room shaves 10 seconds off travel time as you don't have to swim to the entrance and take a bit of minimal falling damage; it takes a gravity flux to get out of the room itself to access the TD zone itself if you do that though.

The fact that you can quickly run from a city zone to a PoK portal in the old world means that remaining bound in TD may offer you all the convenience of the original firepots, plus quick access (after a quick run) to the new PoP portals as well. I don't see spires getting used much anymore, as very few people will want to wait 15 minutes after enjoying the convenience of the PoK.
44) Hunt in dungeons when you can. The gameplay is different, and you can learn things that are good to learn. Be prepared to die the first time you go into any dungeon, maybe the first several times. However, once you learn the cadence and layout, this happens less and less. The experience is better, the loot is better and it's far less boring.

45) Don't kill yourself just trying to experience. Control your obsessive-compulsiveness.

46) Print out maps. I use maps in real-life, and I have more sensory feedback in real-life. I don't buy any roleplay reasons against maps myself, but that's your call. When I lead a raid, it pisses me off when people can't find zones and can't get around. You just waste other people's time when you can't travel. Learn to travel, use /loc and train your sense heading skill.

47) Get your spells when you can. Don't quibble over small amounts of plat, especially when dealing with key spells like Cann IV, torpor, malo (although Cann IV isn't that rare, it really kicks Cann III in the ass). All other spells, including Bane of Nife and Pox of Bert, qualify as nice to have, but not key. Plat is replenishable,finding rare spells for sale isn't so easy. Don't miss your opportunities.

48) Work on AC/hp at the low levels - and get the best weapon you can afford. Start working in resists as you level up. At some point, you will be most concerned with HP, but it takes a bit to get there.

49) Try to avoid silly spawn arguments with folks. It's not worth it ultimately, everyone looks like crap and it's not fun. It's supposed to be fun. Reputation does matter, it's better to have a good one.

50) Don't bitch in /ooc or /shout about trains if you hunt at zone-lines. Folks who camp zone-lines and then howl about unannounced trains are, well, lamers. It's *your* job to be alert. Shut up, loot up and take your medicine. Then find another place to go if you can't tolerate that. Obviously /report and /petition if deliberate harassment is occurring.

51) Explore zones. I met a guy who at level 55 had been to 8 zones. I don't understand that.

52) Don't believe that you have to be in a high end raiding guild to do "fun" stuff. You will see more and get more more quickly, but it's definitely possible for casual guys to do the same - it just takes longer. That's reasonable frankly, and it's pointless to fight that. If you can't handle having "poorer" gear than the "other" guy, then play more. It's really not about skill beyond the-ability-to-breath level, just time. If you don't have time to play more, then you are setting yourself up for massive frustration if you continue fretting about items. And....

53) ... Items don't mean that much. A plus 10 item v. a plus 5 item? Plat-cost wise the difference might be enormous, but you won't notice any real difference. Certain items can alter gameplay - chiefly ones that let you do stuff without costing mana, or help regen you. Don't get caught in those little loot games.

54) It's ok to want loot, but don't be obsessive or obnoxious about it. Make it easy for folks to help you by knowing the mob and location and firepower needed for it. People will happily help if you aren't ignorant about what you are actually asking them to do.

55) It's a game, do what's fun. Surprisingly, people will stay in guilds they aren't happy in, or do things they don't want to do and then complain about the game. That's not the game, that's you. Don't do what's not fun.

56) Learn to make fish rolls. Trivial at 135, and they last forever. You can buy bat wings and fresh fish off a few merchants. I just trained up on fish rolls myself. Look up eqtraders.com for a full list of merchant locations. If you want to do Coldain Shawl or PotC quests, you'll need some baking skill anyway.

57) Buy Ping Fuzzlecutter's 5000 formula in West Freeport. He's the little gnome out by the tents outside the gates of West Freeport. They are an enduring drink and last forever also. I also buy Paladin Pickles from the Ogre merchant in WFP to eat around my paladin friends. He's got a nice inventory of fun food.

58) If you loot your corpse before a rez, but are still locked over it /q out. Or you can just remain locked on the corpse for 3 minutes. Loot timer expires and you stand and the corpse remains. No one told me this until I was 60, after I looted my corpse in 54, 55 and x2 in 59 (and all the times earlier too). The bastards!

59) Don't be afraid to die. Life in Norrath and Luclin is short, brutish and violent. Anyway, dying is normal and when I hear of folks who have only died 4 times in their career I have to wonder about them. That's actually the part of the game that makes it fun. If it were easy to win all the time, then it gets really boring. Dying is NBD.

Hardiman’s Tips for Raid Buffing:

Buff Targetting:
Don't try to look around for the person who just sent you a tell asking for Riotous Health so you can left-click target them, use /rt or just /tar playername if you are lost in tells for buffs. I often sit in a clump of 50+ players all asking me for buffs and I used to try to stand and look around for the person because I was stubborn, don't do that!

Asking for Buffs:
Always make sure you can /target the person you are about to ask for that next KEI or other buff. If you can't target them, they probably can't target you and you'll just piss them off. Also, make sure you turn of invis when you ask for a buff! Can't /target invisible people unless you have see-invis up, and not everyone does!

Stamina/Fortitudei]
Cast on EVERYBODY on a raid or in an exp group! This spell give most people at least a hundred HP's, and tanks get a couple hundred from this buff alone, so share the love!

[i]Raid Display Settings:
Unless you have a DSL/Cable type connection, you probably have some lag issues on large raids. I do the following before every raid in order to minimize my lag:
/Showname 1 - still be able to see first names, but you don't need a huge cloud of blue text over the raid blocking your view.
/serverfilter on - filter stuff at the server level to reduce your lag
Go to the Options -> Display and turn your particle effects off & clip plane down to about 25%
Go to the Options -> Chat Filters thing and Turn off NPC Spells, PC Spells, Bard Songs, Damage Shields, Others hits and all that other crap. All you really need to know is the effect of your own spells, hopefully everyone will anounce in /gu or /group what they have cast.

Caffeine:Drink lots of soda pop and/or coffee during raids, the worst thing is when you wake up at 4 AM with keyboard face, a.k.a. a nice grid-shaped imprint over the majority of your face. Also, drool is very gross once it congeals and can hinder your ability to type properly when it has hardened underneath several keys on your keyboard.

Additional Tips by Vorpatril

TRADING & MONEY

1) There is no one price for an item. Laughing at people or arguing with them in auction over their price is bad form and foolish. EQ is a free market economy - each person can name their own price. Calling someone greedy is rude and does not accomplish anything.

2) If someone offers you something that is far from what you want, either politely decline or make a counter offer. Making rude comments or laughing at them is bad form and likely to ruin a potential trade. Do a public PC to show your client that their offer is way off - or perhaps what you are looking for is way off.

3) If you cannot reach a compromise with the person you are negotiating with, just write it off and don't get angry. The other person might change his mind later - or you might. Arguing with the other person, particularly in auc/ooc, is bad form and will annoy everyone around.

4) Prices for items, with a few exceptions, always drop over time. Don't let items sit in your bank for extended periods of time, since they will usually lose coin value.

5) Be generous. It's not fun to be stingy.

6) Keeping #5 in mind, do us all a favor and discourage beggars.

7) Know the uses for the stuff that drops in the spot you are hunting. If you can, collect everything you can. Meat, runes, words, weapons, all add up at the end of the day. This is particularly true for low levels - there is a lot of money to be made collecting items for high level chars. Bone chips, pelts, batwings, spiderling silk, etc. are all worth a lot to high lvl characters.

8) If no one appropriate is around ( or in the zone ) to loot a quest item, loot it. You might be able to MQ it for big bucks or as a favor for a friend.

9) Keep your auction spammage to a moderate level. Yes, you have to get your message out, but if you send out 15 auctions at a time, things will scroll by so fast that no one can read what you are selling.

10) If you are having trouble selling an item, mention the stats and what classes or situations it might be particularly good for. Educate your marketplace!

Vorpatril


A big tip by Gikk

1) Learn to canni-dance. Everyone should at least know how it works and have a hotkey set up somewhere... love it or hate it, theres times it will be the difference between winning a fight and losing it. Typical set-up might be:

/sit off
/cast 4 (or whatever spell slot cannibalize is in)
/pause 11 (or whatever lets you cast it and leaves time to sit)
/sit

Bruzza's Big Tip

1) The 'Tab' key is your friend. Hitting 'Tab' targets yourself. Hitting 'Tab' again returns you to your previously targetted target. This is VERY handy when you want to toss a quick Torpor or Heal on yourself and retarget your previous target quickly. No mouse, no fuss, no muss.

Very very useful when you have a stack of mobs with no name labels or a stack of the same mobs (like shrooms in the Deep or Fungus Grove!). I pretty much use this whenever I want to target myself. Makes swapping back and forth between me and my monk very easy too. Use it, love it.

Oldlurk added to the above with
Actually i use this trick to keep a target for later use, usually a MT that i know i might need to patch heal / buff / cure later. I would target the guy and then TAB to keep him in 'TAB memory' after this you can change target, and do your stuff. When the fight starts you can debuff the mob and then a quick F1-TAB restores the saved target.


Twoflower Tourist's Pet Control Guide

1) When soloing, use /pet guard here and pull to the dog to control where the encounter occurs. Use a /pet back off hotkey constantly while running in to prevent premature aggro. Telling him to guard also makes it possible to move far enough away from him that his howls don't drive you crazy, hehe.

2) Alternative method for soloing with pet: park dog with /pet guard here, pull mob to a location far enough away to prevent his aggro. Root, DOT, and slow the mob. When root breaks, pull it to the dog. I used this quite a bit in OT where there was plenty of room and my dog and I needed the "edge" to be taken off the mob before tanking it.

3) Your pet can't tank for long, expect to tank for him. An HP buff will extend his tank time. Use /pet health.

4) If you are nonstop killing low blues or greens, regen will keep Fido healthy. If you're XP grinding, his natural regen is better than yours, so it's probably not necessary.

5) If more than one mob has aggroed on you, sic Fido on one, park the add, and then tell fido /pet back off to clear his aggro. You can /pet attack immediately on the original mob. That way when mob 1 dies, Fido doesn't hurl himself at mob 2 instantly.

6) If you're low on health, run away and let Fido chew on the mob's rear end. SOW will keep you from getting hit by most mobs and hopefully you'll have enough aggro to keep the mob from turning on Fido. If it does turn, slap another DOT on it and run away some more.

7) SOW your dog. Helps with /pet back off and with pet-kiting (see #5). (Why you need to cast Spirit of Wolf on a Wolf Spirit I'll never know.)

8) To get Fido through an area with bad pathing, get up Summon Companion. Park Fido, run to destination, cast spell. (This is not so important now that pets don't aggro mobs by themselves.)
Conas adds
My backoff hotkey looks like this:
/pet back off
/pet report health

Lets you backoff the pet, check pet buffs and health all in one key.
Haleice's Corpse Dragging Tip
Here's my tip for pulling a corpse
set up a hot key with the following lines.

/corpse suggestion by Gart: add /corpse, /corpse, /corpse too
/loc

Then as you run along you can whack the button and pull it along behind you and if you lose the corpse (like up a mountain in FM ) you have the last location where you last had it.

I've just had a thought but cant test it as I'm at work. Can you do /target dead_person ? if so you could add that line to the hot key and pull two corpses at once.

/target dead_person_01
/corpse
/target dead_person_02
/corpse
/loc


Spellbooks and Hotkeys, by Jestice

SPELLBOOK
I arrange my spells in different categories i.e. Heals, Buffs, Debuffs, Offense, Shields, Utilities, and Pet. Then using the /book # command (i.e. Offense is on page 17 so command is /book 17 and hot key is labled Off) I set up hot keys which enable me to flip directly to the page where that particular spell type is located. Then at spell scribing time I take the lowest spell on the page and move it back to the end of the section (I leave about 6 - 10 pages between spell types in the spell book) and replace it with the new spell. This allows me to replace spells on the fly - adding that 3rd dot if needed or bring up cure disease/poison spell - which I don't normally keep loaded. The hour or so it takes in the beginning to set this up is definitely worth the time spent.
Molgar added this to the above tip
Another idea: to each of your /book hotkeys, add a line "/em is looking up a spell." That way people know you won't see what's going on for the next few seconds.

HOT KEYS
I use different banks of hot keys depending on the situation. I have banks set up for traveling, soloing, grouping, JB buffing and raiding. I have a hotkey bank set up for spellbook, auctioning, and the quest I happen to be working on. If you need to change the function of a customized hot key you simply right click on it. I use this often in my raid bank - when changing the MA or what chat channel I am on. It is also possible to set up a hot key to a slot in your inventory so that if needed you can place a particular item in that inventory slot and swap items on the fly without having to go to your inventory - for example place you Journeymans Walking Stick in inventory slot 1 and drag it to the hot key banks, then switch your Dark Ember with it and use the Walking Stick 'til the Tash proc then switch back to your Dark Ember for the remainder of the melee.

NOTE: You can use ALT # to switch from hot key bank to hot key bank - for example if your solo bank is No 2 and your spellbook is No 8 then hit CTRL 8 to access your spellbook hotkeys mem your appropriate spell and CTRL 2 back to your offense bank, hit your stand hotkey and resume where you left off.
FYI - SHIFT # is the default for changing hot key banks, Jestice has remapped his keys. - Angryor


A Guide to Controlling Aggro and Crowds, by Dartanian

Ghetto shadowknight tanking: Load up slow (so you don't die :P), disempower (low level cripple), tainted breath (low level poison). With disempower and tainted breath you can easily hold aggro against a wizard chain nuking and rogues backstabbing. About the only thing that can pull the mob off of you is a chanter chain casting tash. This is tried and true for shaman tanking every mob that spawns in the CT sewers, including the nameds.

Enchanter protection Tip #1 (Aggro): Often times the enchanter is going to get beat down when mez is broken. Even worse it means the mob runs around chasing the enchanter (if they are a spazz) and you lose tank damage. Toss three or four disempowers on the mobs while they are mezzed, then stand next to the main tank. When the mob wakes up it makes a beeline for you and eventually switches to the main tank.

Enchanter protection Tip #2 (Slow): Slow all mezzed mobs!

Enchanter protection Tip #3 (Root Parking): If things are getting hairy (lot of mezzed mobs, enchanter getting low on mana) root every mob and try and keep them rooted. Let people know you are rooting mobs so they can move away from the rooted mobs. Get aggro with disempower and start parking them away from the group if there is room.

Root Tanking: If a mob is rooted he will always attack the person closest to him. So a good way to get an unruly mob under control is to root him and then stand close to him. This is also a tried and true shaman tanking method with every mob that spawns in the CT sewers.

Enchanter Protection tip #4 by Boobash
Here's a good idea for keeping your chanters alive on high end raids, tell the chanter('s) to wait to tash till you have maloed the mob. Malo is 5 seconds, tash 1, and the little bit of aggro malo builds along with some melee already on the mob will 90% of the time save that chanter a loading ... please wait.
Ryoz adds
when you are slowing a mob, try to stand as close to the tank as you can incase you get some agro the tank doesnt have to chase it all over gods creation trying to regain agro...
Kailyn of Povar's "RUN AWAY RUN AWAY" tip

I think we could call it the Gandalf memorial rule (or Kailyn but I am not as well known):

If the main tank says RUN (or EVAC) RUN! Don't wait to see how many sicko mobs the MT has on him... get a move on now!

Sure there are times where I have been hasty in pulling the trigger but, spececially as you are learning a new zone--and your group is, and its your first couple of pulls--believe your puller.

You will know when to break this rule...usually when you are at a level where you are /owning the zone.

If the puller says "Dead"---don't try and heal him, let him die, do the quick CR and get back to XPing.

And if your group is getting too complacent and you are the puller...grab an extra or 2. Wake people up.

Naghite's Hotkey Reassignments

I used to pay the price for this when you could only have 6 hot-keys, but since they have added more, i find this great......

I set up on almost every page a hot-key that is linked to a movement key (in my case left turn), every time i turn left, hot-key 4 goes off. I have sense direction in first page hot-key 4 spot, even after i (effortlessly i add) got sense dir to 200 on all my 40+ char, i left that option available as, DIR is actually useful. All those people who just use loc and step and re-loc, blah blah - not for me. Page 2 has /loc linked to left turn, page 3 has /corpse (this one is great for cr'ing, i just run as normal and slight look left/right to drag....no need to move any hand from my normal "eq" typing position/mouse control. My warrior had taunt there so i didn't need to move my main hand to a serperate hotkey to taunt etc.....

Only problem, is once you screw this option up by re-assigning the key, i am not sure how to get it back without re-loading eq.
Addendum by SwordMage: Naghite, Reassignment: since you probably have the hot key assigned to a number key as primary and movement key as secondary, just assign the same number as secondary. Or, for the brave of heart, edit the Keymap section of your character's INI file and just remove that assignment.
Wytchone's Horse Guide

Advantages:

- You are always meditating when you are mounted on a Horse.
- You gain an innate Safe Fall skill of 150.
- You run at the same speed as the Horse even if you are encumbered.

Disadvantages:

- You cannot duck to interrupt a spells.
- You cannot forage while mounted.
- The size of the horse can distance you from a NPC and make you too far from your target to melee.
- If you are a large race, you are extreemly high up when mounted and can become stuck in some outside areas that contain buildings or structures.
- It can be difficult to loot items because you higher up and farther away than usual and have to be standing on mobs to loot.
- Your vision is slightly limited because of the horse below you and the neck jutting out in front of you, making it hard to see what is near your feet.
- Horses may only be summoned in outdoor zones and will not zone with you.
- When you summon a Horse it shows a Icon on your buff list that takes up limited slots.
- Horses will eat food and water out of your inventory.
- Horses make kiting difficult because they take a few seconds to accelerate.

Where can you purchase a horse?
You purchase a Bridle, not a Horse! You can purchase one from the Vendors located in the Stables at the Bazaar. There are two vendors, each having different sizes, colors and speeds of Horse Bridles. There are four speeds according to Bridle material, four colors and four sizes. The sizes and color do not affect the speed of the horse.

Can you sell your horse?
You cannot sell a Horse, but you can do a quest to return it's Bridle for cash. There are four NPC's in the Stable Area that will buy back your Bridle and in return give you a Bag of Platinum. Hail the NPC's and locate the one that is interested in the type of Bridle you have, hand it to him and you receive the bag. Load up on Charisma and sell the Bag to a Vendor. You will, however, loose about 1/3 of the cost you put out for the Horse by selling it back.

Cost:

Rope
10,000 pp
This is the slowest Horse and is a bit slower than Journeyman Boot speed.

Leather
30,000 pp
This Horse has a speed just above Journeyman Boots.

Silk
70,000 pp
This speed is equal to Spirit of Wolf as casted by a player under level 55.

Chain
100,000 pp
This Horse has a speed almost equal to a Bard with a Drum using Run Song.

Ornate Chain
Dropped by high level Luclin Mobs!
This Bridle has a speed equal to a level 60 Bard running with a drum and using his/her best Drum. This is also equal to the speed of Paladin and ShadowKnights Summoned Stead.

Sciek's and Aruman's AA Hotkey Thingy
How about we put together a list of known alt ability activation numbers?

i.e. Canni5 is /alt activate 47 so you could make a hotkey, if you wanted to warn your neighborhood cleric, like so:

CAN5
/gsay Activating Cannibalization, my hp will drop 2k, this is normal and expected!
/alt activate 47

And now that new cleric/druid in the group shouldn't have a heart attack when your hp drop suddenly by half or more.

Here are a few of the alt activate I have found:

Cannibalize............/alt activate 47
Radiant Cure........../alt activate 153
Virulent Paralysis..../alt activate 171
Suspend Minion....../alt activate 176
Spirit Call................/alt activate 177
Mass Group Buff ..../alt activate 35
Rabid Bear ............./alt activate 50

Sciek gets credit for posting the idea, Aruman gets credit for getting the bulk of the numbers and Shabura chipped in with a couple as well.

Fenira's Focus Item Review

General Overview

Spell Haste Focus Items
• Does not affect Complete Heals
• Does not affect Spells with less than a 3 second cast time
• Does not affect Spells that last less than 72 seconds in duration

DD Damage Focus Items
• Personal Area of Effect Spells are not effected.
• Target Area of Effect Spells are not effected.
• Damage over Time Spells are not effected.
• Dragonsbane and Giantsbane are not effected.

DoT Focus Items (Affliciton)
• More ticks of damage done for standard amount of DoT damage per tick.
• Does not effect spells which last less than 36 seconds.

Duration Focus Items
• Does not effect Invulnerability Spells
• Does not effect Complete Heal spells

Summoning and Reanimation Focus Items
• Only works on Summoned Pets
• Does not work for Charming Pets


• Focus Item I effects (e.g. Mana Conservation I) only work on spells up to Level 20
• Focus Item II effects (e.g. Mana Conservation II) only work on spells up to Level 44
• Focus Item III effects (e.g. Mana Conservation III) work on all spells up to Level 60


FOCUS ITEM INFO:

Focus Item, Effects & Restrictions:

Improved Healing + 20% Healing -Beneficial Spells Only- Not Complete Heal Spells
Extended Range + 15% Spell Range
Extended Enhancement + 15% Spell Duration -Beneficial Spells Only- Not Complete Heal Spells -Not Invulnerability Spells
Reagent Conservation - 15% Chance of Reagent Use
Improved Damage + 20% Spell Damage- Not DoTs, AoE's, Banes
Enhancement Haste + 30% Spell Haste -Beneficial Spells Only- Min Cast Time: 3 sec- Min Duration: 72 sec
Mana Preservation - 10% Spell Mana Cost- Not Complete Heal Spells
Spell Haste + 15% Spell Haste Not Complete Heal -Spells Min Cast Time: 3 sec
Affliction Haste + 33% Spell Haste- Damaging Spells Only- Min Cast Time: 3 sec -Min Duration: 36 sec
Extended Affliction + 20% Spell Duration- Damaging Spells -Only Min Duration: 36 sec
Affliction Efficiency - 25% Mana Cost- Damaging Spells Only -Min Duration: 36
Summoning Haste + 30% Spell Haste- Summoned Pets
Reanimation Haste + 30% Spell Haste -Summon Skeleton Pets Only
Summoning Efficiency - 25% Spell Mana Cost- Summoned Pets Only
Reanimation Efficiency - 25% Spell Mana Cost -Summon Skeleton Pets Only

Meschit on Buff Timing
My helpful hint? If you're in an exp group and CC seems to going all right, summon a pet and use dogdog to time your Alac/Celerity buffs

Ouchy on Maps
Take all your printed out materials (spells, maps, quest walk-thrus, locations, etc) and put them in a 1" 3 ring binder from any store. They cost like a dollar.
Keeps everything nice and organized. Throw some loose leaf paper in there and a pen for jotting down notes (Or writing down songs to burn as i hear em on the radio =D )
Carrieanne adds
Use a sheet of OHP (Over Head Projection Paper) between each map, then you can scribble notes with an OHP pen on the sheet... that way you can annotate those maps.
Laynee on asking for Ports
First, the standard donation for an average, safe port is around 10 to 20pp (on The Rathe Server, at least). Generally, corpse runs and other extreme cases are very cheap or free. If you are asking for a port to/from a higher level or more dangerous area, most people offer 30 to 50pp. If the porter will be expected to enter an extremely dangerous zone, or travel to pick up a group for a port, 100pp is not considered out of line.

Secondly, most druids will be happy to SoW their porting customers as part of the service, but major buffing should not be expected unless an additional donation is offered.

Next, is payment. Donations should be made before porting. When I was a low level druid, new to porting, I let a couple people tell me that they, 'never pay first'. I ported them and they disbanded and left. Experienced porters always get the donation first.

Finally, let the porter invite you into their group. Don't invite them. They need to be the leader of the group so they can invite other players who they are porting.

SwordMage on Free bags
Start newbie quests to get free bags for carrying stuff

Conas on Melee Bracering
Melee Bracering: When melee tanking a mob while chain bracering, use the biggest damage weapon you can get. Delay wont matter in this case. You only get one attack between casts no matter what the delay so make it count.

Fascaser on switching targets in group
Easy method of switching between group members ... esp during raids or laggy areas. Your F1 - F6 keys in a group represent party members. Just hit the F key for person starting from top to bottom in the group list for heals, buffs, etc. Plus if you make a spell macro'd it will have a number value. So if you have a team member listed first in your group that's getting most of the aggro ... and Heal listed by number ... you can hit F1 - then Macro number without messing with your mouse.

F1- F6 = Party members
Macro'd spell = number value
F8 = Nearest targetable Mob

Sharok on Targetting pets in group
When you need to heal pets quickly (while solo or rarely in groups, as pet classes normally can take care of their own pets) you can target them with the F1-F6 keys hitting TWICE
(first is you or party member, second hit switches to pet of targetted group member).
Hitting the F1-F6 key a third time will toggle back to group member.

Rascalan Knock backs and interrupts in casting
Well I just wanted to tell you all that I am a fool for not implementing this idea into my fighting style earlier.......
We all know and have read about knock back, however I really didn't care till I started having these high end 5 to 6 minute fights at level 60. JBB provides free damage, however at an 8 second cast time. I have found myself soloing in PoM which is amazing xp solo. The fights are long and you have to be careful how you spend your mana if you are not the most well equipped shaman. The fighting I have usually done was pull mob with malo, slow, send in dog and land all dots. Summoning begins so no use in trying to root. I would just stand there and get hit and try to channel through the mobs damage. Wrong method of delivery I had more interrupts than you can imagine and was wasting mana on heals cause the fights were taking much more time than needed. I didn't realize the difference it would make landing all my JBB hits on the mob. The fight time was cut in half and were not close at all. Let me tell you what I did differently, so simple I am foolish not to realize it. I would pull a mob same way however position it with my back against a wall so any hits would not push me back even slightly. Duh every JBB cast landed no kidding.....
This may seem like common sense and I know I have read about it, but if you get the chance soloing to use this tactic it helps greatly. Be it a wall, tree, rock, whatever...do it!!!! Just had to reveal this insight because it made the difference for me. I never really noticed or thought about every hit and npc does knocking you back until all my spells were being interrupted at this rate. The effects are the same in water when I mob hits you but because you are in water you actually can see yourself move the distance back. Same applies when fighting any npc in the game. Hope this helps someone and if you practice this and I am stating the obvious, good for ya!!

So moral of the story keep your back up against the wall when casting. It will save you tons of mana and time.

robert135’s Tip on outrunning mobs without SoW
If you want to run at JBoots speed without having jboots, just vector run.
Hold down, the forward key and the right key, as well as the right click key on your mouse (using the mouse to steer) - all at the same time. you will run at an angle.
Since right/left and forward are a constant speed, when you do this you are getting the effect of the Hyp of the triangle with Rgt/lft and forward being the sides, and get about a 20% inc in distance covered over time.
This is great for when you run outta SOW, or even on your other non shaman SOWless characters.
Using this with around 100 agi, you can outrun almost any 2 legged mob in the game, but will get rundown by a 4 legged mob.
(psppt.... it works in dungeons too)

Ragoscy - Dealing with Tells
For those times you find yourself in tell conversation with several people, don't sweat trying to remember everyone you are talking to. Just hit the "r" or "t" buttons and then use the "tab" to cycle through everyone you have sent a reply to.

Shift tab goes backwards through the list of tells, shift and the arrow keys to move through the text if you want to edit and already sent tell. Shift plus backspace to backspace, shift plus ‘home’ to go to the front of the line of text, shift plus ‘end’ to go to the end of the text



Unoeye Various Tips
Crowd Control:
Just to clarify, slow and cripple do not break MEZ. If our enchanter has parked some mobs I slow them too if time and manna permit. It sometimes divides the agro enough that the mob forgets to come after either one of us. And even if it does, slow gives the enchanter the extra time necessary to get the mob under control again (or someone time to root it).

Agro Management:
Slow draws LOTS of agro. Manage it as best you can. If your tank can take the beating, wait a few seconds (usually 1 to 5) before casting slow. The higher level mobs seem to hate slow more than the lower ones. In the planes (again given your tank can take it) I usually count 1000-1, 1000-2,... 1000-5 and then cast slow. If you know you are going to get agro, stand next to the tank. Don't make the tanks chase the mob. Note a resisted slow draws just as much agro as one that sticks. Also note that if you cast Insidious Malady (irresistable disease debuffer) before casting slow, your slow will stick more often as slow is a disease based resist check (so I've been told). Insidious Malady is extremely fast casting and seems to draw amazingly little agro. But maybe my tanks are just really good at keeping agro *shrug*.

Author edit - Correction: I stated that Insideous Malady (disease resist debuff) help slow to stick. It only helps Plauge of Insects to stick because that spells resist is a disease check. Tugors Tigers is magic based. However all of the slow line puts disease counters on the target. So a Cure Disease or Disenfecting Aura will remove slow from a party member should the need arrise.

It may be just an urban ledgend, but proximity seems to affect wether your spell is resisted or not. I run up and stand right underneath any mob that I know has high resists. I don't want to have to cast slow twice if I don't have to.

Buffing:
Time your buffs. Put the buff on you or your pet first. Then buff the other members of your party (or raid). That way when you get the "spell fades" message, you will know that its time for another round of buffing. Your party members don't have to ask or keep track. They know it will be taken care of.

Spread the buffing out so you don't have to replace all the buffs at one time and constantly be out of manna. Start with the longest lasting buffs first (SoW, HoS, etc.). Do the canna-dance to a respectable level (75% or more) and continue with additional buffs. Don't expect people to hold up pulls while you buff and regain manna once a raid has started. Replace buffs on the go. Buff the tanks near the end of battles or while the puller is out.

Ask folks to give you a tell for buffs and use /rtarget to target the person who just gave you a tell. Great tool for general raid buffing when there is only one or two shaman present, and when timing becomes impossible to manage.

Some pure caster types don't like our HoS line of buffs because it interferes with their skin self buffs. One seems to prevent the other. Almost all melee types love HoS (or the higher lvl one)! If you don't know the people in your group/raid, ask them which buffs they would like. No need to waste agility buffs on someone who's ability is maxed anyways.

Enchanters never seem to mind gettin our charisma buff.

Warriors, Monks, Palladins, Bards, Shadow Knights, Beastlords all seem to enjoy HoS as well as Agility. HoS seems to be compatible with druid self buffs

All classes like our stamina buff (quite a few hps gained from this).

Be sure to throw your friendly necro a regen/regrowth/etc. They might be nice and throw some mana your way Necro's also enjoy any HP buffs you have, because they like you trade life for mana.

Keeping your party alive:
Keep an eye on any cleric or enchanter in your group. They are likely to draw agro at some point. You are their lifeline. SAVE THE CLERIC! SAVE THE ENCHANTER! They are keys to a successful raid. If they live, it is likely you or at least most of your party will live. Or at the very least the cleric will be there to rez. Make sure they are at full life after every battle.

If you are lucky enough to have another healer type in your group, be sure they understand when you need healing and when you don't. Note even folks with secondary healing abilities (rangers, paladins, beastlords) can keep a canna-dancing shaman in an endless supply of manna. Our rangers and palladins often do this for me between pulls. This arrangement means you can always slow/buff/heal/etc. without need for a break.

If you get agro and feel like you are going to die if you don't heal yourself you are probably going to die anyway. Healing yourself just gets you that much more agro and makes it harder for the tanks to get the mob off of you. This is true for the other healers in your group/raid. Don't make them heal themselves. Do it for them.

Fun time:
Shammy Rain of Pain: If you should be so lucky to have multiple shaman in your raid (and plenty of manna because everyone is doing their job well), I've found this to be successful. Once the mob has been slowed, crippled, debuffed, etc.

Have all the Shaman load up Ebolt (Envenomend Bolt). The lead shaman Hotkeys the cast of Ebolt. When the message is seen all the other shaman simultaneously cast Ebolt. This can be done immediately following engagement by the MA. The agro is distributed evenly among the shaman so the mob doesn't come after any of them. Ebolt's dmg is also very fast but in reasonable amounts per tick so the tank retains agro. If all the casters followup with a nice simultaneous nuke the mob usually goes down very fast.

Atira Various Tips
At as young an age as possible, CAST CAST CAST. All the time, on anyone and everyone, using all your spells, ....it gets your abilities up faster!! You will fizzle far less often in group situations when it really matters. You will also be known as a generous shaman.

Remember where you were born and visit there each time you lvl.
Sharing your buffs and wisdom with the young shamans and other peeps, bring us honor as a class.
*(keeping a set of lower lvl buff spells on one page in your book, makes it easy to access when you are visiting your home land or in a zone like nexus. They go up and down faster, and you can cast a complete range of them in 60 sec's.)
**When they offer their thanks, or kneel, or try to pay, I tell them they can show their thanks by helping others when they too are wise and powerful.

Learn to speak a bit of Ogah, Iksar or Trollie. Half of our kind are born to these races. You will make great alliances with people and guilds when you make the effort to communicate with them in their 'speak' .

If you have the mana, dont be skimpy on the buffs. Tanks love to see their stats maxed out, and to read their messages of critical hits. When it comes time for a shaman to be asked to group, the tanks will remember you.

Since we can now cast shrink in outdoor zones, offer it to the group. Whether out of neccessity or just for fun, it is almost a instant cast, that costs negligable mana.

Shamans can carry alot of weight usually , so be prepared to be asked to ML for your group. Keeping your bags tidy with at least 2 empty ones for group loot before you hunt saves time. Monks can't carry heavy coin so offer to be an atm for them, converting their gold, silver, and copper into Plat.

When in a group, take notice of the abilities of your group members and adjust your debuffs, slows and dots accordingly. Just because you are a certain lvl doesnt mean that zone calls for the spells you cast to be the highest lvl ones. Experiment when you are comfortable in group and hunting well. High lvl spells cost alot of mana, and you are often needed to multitask (slow and root mobs, debuff mobs, speed and buff tanks, heal, regen, sow etc etc) Use your mana wisely.

Make a Hotkey for ADD's. This is a great tool when in a fast pulling group, and in dungeons. Let it tell your tanks what it is, and that you have rooted or slowed it etc. Your chanty and tanks can take over from there. e.g.

ADD a %t incoming !!
/cast 6 (or whatever root/slow is on your screen)
rooting it now (or slow etc)

If you see a nakid person, cast SOW, dont wait to be asked, chances are they are on a CR and may need it.

You will encounter rude people who take you for granted. Remind them of their manners, we will all benefit.

Forochel Various CR Tips

1)'/who corpse' will list the corpses you have in zone. Useful for that CR that went bad the *second* time around. Ouch!

2) If you happen to get 'shroomed' by Trakanon, try sitting immediately. He might just summon you back. You'll most likely still die but, getting your corpse will be much, much easier.

Lovisla Various Tips
1) Always cast regen ...don't care what level spell ...always hit the MT and chanter and cleric. It has saved me more times and the group than I care to count.
2) Ask if the cleric wants you to assist with healing ...again you can make the difference. You will never have to ask me just do it ...I would rather overheal then have a fatality.
3) Always make a pet ...and if you don't wanna use it park it behind you. Many many times I have had to ask the shaman to make one ...extra dps, extra taunt. (chanters should do this too) Esp with how mezzing works now and the non aggro of pets

Wargbearjumper Various Tips
BUY A FROST GIANT FEMUR!
It's a 2hb weapon that looks like an Axe when you Equip it. Then Equip it, and go Anon when you are in Crowded Zones.... No one will ask you for Buffs.
Dye your gear the Same colour as Skyshrine Chain... this greatly reduces the numbers of Inspects and Questions as you run around.

Loramin - Quick Q&A about specialization:

How does specialization work?

Well, there's two school's of thought on this: Verant's, and the correct one. The school of thought proposed by Verant, and outlined/explained at "http://eq.crgaming.com/misc/pages/special.asp" is that specialization is a set of skills, one of which is invoked every time you cast a spell (once you've reached the appropriate level, 30 for shaman), and depending on which spells you cast the most, one school will eventually reach a higher skill (200) than the others, which will cap at (50). So far so good.

Then we get to the incorrect part. Verant claims that when you cast a spell the computer makes a roll, and depending on your specialization skill you may or may not "succeed" at the roll. If you do succeed, then your spell will have reduced mana cost, and fizzle rate.

However, many dutiful parsers and users of ShowEQ have diligently run tests to determine how specialization, and the conclusions they came up with are summed up nicely at "http://www.graffe.com/graffe1.0/lib...izardly_faq.htm" (under section "2. Spells"). In brief, they determined that there is no roll for specialization, and in fact that it simply works all the time. For your primary (skill 200) specialization, you save 10% mana on all spells you cast from that school. For your secondary (50) skills you get a 2.5% reduction in mana cost.

To their credit, Caster's Realm does have a few useful points on Specialization:

"Specialisation does not increase chance of recovering after interruption. This is based purely on Channelling. Specialisation does not make spells cast faster. This is a fixed amount."

But what about Spell Casting Mastery (SCM)?

According to Verant, the AAXP skill Spell Casting Mastery works as follows (borrowed from Caster's Realm):

"[SCM ] increases the chance that a player will successfully get a specialization roll. The first point increases the chance of specialization by 5%, the second raises the chance to 15% and the third to 30%."

However, as we already know there are no specialization checks in Everquest, so how does this ability really work? Well, according to reports from The Crucible, SCM:3 adds 10% reduction to all spells cast, SCM:2 adds 5% reduction to all spells cast, and SCM:1 adds 2.5% reduction to all spells cast.

While we're on the topic, does SCM stack with Mana Preservation and other focus effects?

Yes, SCM will stack with focus effects. Keep in mind however that focus effects don't stack, so even if you have Mana Preservation IV AND Affliction Efficiency IV, only one of them will work.