Shaman healing role

[robopirateninja]

Because some buffs have a duration of several hours it is not always necessary for a class to be represented in a group for their buffs to be.

Edit: also as a wizard I have buffslots taken up by
-relic Familiar
-self rune
-rod of living fire clicky
-seductress sleeves
-self spellshied (when applicable)

that aren't standard buffs.

 

[iaeolan]

Here we go again....

Please enlighten us then.... in what normal group do you have problems with 15 buff slots? I would really like to hear this.


What are you taking in your group? Shm, Rng, Pal, Enchn, Cleric,Bst ???? I think that would be the most buff intensive group I can think off off the top of my head.

You can get buffs from people outside your group.... I personally have problems deciding which buffs to click in certain group situations, and keeping a slot open for just myself as a bard for HoT is a pain, not to mention armor and weapon proc effects.

This goes the same for most any 65 with a guild

 

[Kirin Folken]

You can get buffs from people outside your group.... I personally have problems deciding which buffs to click in certain group situations, and keeping a slot open for just myself as a bard for HoT is a pain, not to mention armor and weapon proc effects.

This goes the same for most any 65 with a guild

I would say your just buff greedy then. Of course the more buffs the better, but you dont need all 15 buffs slots to play the game.

 

[iaeolan]

I would say your just buff greedy then. Of course the more buffs the better, but you dont need all 15 buffs slots to play the game.

............................................... syduck:

 

[taishar]

I max out my buff slots in most every group I'm in.

Having to leave an additional slot open means I'm either doing less dps, have fewer resists, or less hp/ac. Why would I support a change that is going to negatively impact me (when things work just fine as is) without giving any benefit ? ie. Shamans healing efficiency not being improved

It's a nice idea, but unless its going to be a song, its useless.

It isn't even just the fact that I have to keep an extra slot open, but what happens if I get hit by a dot/snare/debuff from the mob I'm fighting, and then my buff slot that I was relying on for healing is gone. I've then got to try to click off a buff so I can get that hot, only, its not going to be able to be cast on me again any time soon because of cooldown.

The pet idea thing is a neat idea to get around the buff slot while providing a heal over time. The only problem I see with it is when fighting a mob that AEs. Your summoned pet could get flattened before the first heal pulse lands.

 

[Kirin Folken]

I max out my buff slots in most every group I'm in.

Having to leave an additional slot open means I'm either doing less dps, have fewer resists, or less hp/ac. Why would I support a change that is going to negatively impact me (when things work just fine as is) without giving any benefit ? ie. Shamans healing efficiency not being improved

It's a nice idea, but unless its going to be a song, its useless.

It isn't even just the fact that I have to keep an extra slot open, but what happens if I get hit by a dot/snare/debuff from the mob I'm fighting, and then my buff slot that I was relying on for healing is gone. I've then got to try to click off a buff so I can get that hot, only, its not going to be able to be cast on me again any time soon because of cooldown.

The pet idea thing is a neat idea to get around the buff slot while providing a heal over time. The only problem I see with it is when fighting a mob that AEs. Your summoned pet could get flattened before the first heal pulse lands.

I argee that the HoT idea with useing a buff slot isn't practical. I don't wantto confuse anyone into thinking my argueing over 15 buff slots means I am in total support of the HoT shaman.

The pet Idea I think would work even vs. AoEing mobs. The pet would have some range to it, whichmeans it would have to be a larger AoE to hit it. You could ether just code it with decent hps, or code it Immune (this would probley easyer).

In fact coding for this pet is already parialy in the game. Wizard fiamilars cast small healing spells (or at least one in particular) So this Pet summon would just be an expanded varity. But with a very limited duration (3 casts)

 

[Manluas]

I would say your just buff greedy then. Of course the more buffs the better, but you dont need all 15 buffs slots to play the game.

Just one fast example that will happen in either a longer group or raid situation:

Armor clickys (assuming you got the) x2, resists x2 (SoS + MR), Aego, PotG, Selfrune, Regen, Lich, Sta buff.

Those are 10 buffs I'd have as a necro, leaving paladins and beastlords completely aside. Can add random shaman or ench buffs too as well as mage or overall levitate spells which would make 6 more buffs - one too much already and you wouldn't even have all usefull buffs you could have as a necro then. And there definitely are certain situations where you'd want to be buffed to the teeth with resists (can eat up 4 slots alone with armor clicky, MR, SoS, mage DS) or other nice things to not fail on what you are doing.

While the hot idea is somewhat need I like the way shamans are now as they fill the spot of "battle healers" to some point - they heal quite good, can debuff, DoT, buff and melee to some extend. On top of that they make decent tanks for their tier if properly used with a ton of aggro. Show me a cleric that is PoT/PoA/NDHK geared that can tank 5+ DB mobs with 2 healers and hold aggro on them over a longer period. I wouldn't like to see them changed at all.

Oh and before you ask, yes I've played a shaman in various situations, both raiding and grouping and I'd say enough to judge this case.

 

[Kirin Folken]

Just one fast example that will happen in either a longer group or raid situation:

Please note I said Normal Group.

In a Raid groups buffs go right throw the roof,simply because of all the diferent classes involved.

Like I said earyler Raids are not were I could see a HoT style heal to be most effective for a shaman. Its much more of a group ability that would be very useful. Again due to stacking issues and buff slot issues however the HoT is not a great way to go, which is way I like my Spirit Bear pet idea.

A side note about the Spirit bear idea is since its a pet it could never be boosted by Healing Incrment or AAs. So it would be a fixed heal.

 

[Hasrett]

1) Whoever was going off about how shamans suck because of this that and the other thing... WTF are you looking for, a class that can MT, chain CH, and provide full debuffs? I've played a shaman since I started on SOD well over 2 years ago. And they fucking own.
-Slows: IDK whether shammies have the best pre-archaic slows. What I do know is that we have no problem slowing mobs quickly and effectively, either individually or in packs.
-Malo: Owns. The casting time is kinda long, and the mana cost is kinda high. It takes, what, like... 3x Canni IV to make it up, all other mana regen aside? SAY IT AIN'T SO! If you have decent charisma, you wont' even need to malo. I get fewer than 1 slow in 5 resisted, except on particular mobs where I know to take precautions. Fewer still of my dots get resisted, again, with particular exceptions. In those cases, even malo probably won't help much, so you just pick some other means of DPSing.
-Mana Regen: I've kept a warrior and a rogue alive while 3-manning (well ok, 4-manning, I didn't keep the wizard alive when he got aggro after the first nuke) the Great Nazdrich, who hits for a little under 1k a pop and rampages. This was while slowing DoTing. The mob has probably 75-100khp. And I wound up with over 40% mana left over. Shaman mana regen is unbelievably nice. I have never gone OOM while just healing. Ever. I occasionally do while DPSing and keeping plaguewind + relic DoT on 3 or 4 mobs at a time while backup healing, but you can be 100% sure that if a decently played shaman goes OOM, it means the other casters in the group ran dry long since.
-DoTs: Whoever said 2-3k/tick is either full of it, or else spending 100% of their time casting and recasting DoTs (assuming a single target). But a shaman can easily put out 200dps on a single mob, and far more than that on a larger pull. Relic DoT alone does over 130dps, a buffed pet will do over 20, and slap on a disease dot and you've got another 50 easy.
-Buffs: You're right. Shaman buffs DO own.

2) Kirin: You need to get into some better groups. I have to struggle to free up buff slots.

1. JB
2. Aego
3. focus/won
4. EoT
5. EoTW
6. Regen
7. Haste
8. Illusion: plate
9. Damage Shield
10. BP clicky
11. Pink heart/cotp
12. Magic Resist
13. HoT slot

Others: Movement buff for outdoors, Seasons, BST crack, RBOW or pally/rng innate combat proc, Niklothar, and invis to name a few. That doesn't include the need to leave a slot or two open for debuffs so your buffs don't start getting overwritten. Or for combat procs on your weapons or armor. And ALL of that except the DS is covered by just paladin, shaman and chanter. And if the shammy doesn't have relics, you may also need see invis and/or EB in there somewhere.

It's very, VERY easy to fill up all your buff slots. It has nothing to do with greed, it has to do with having a hell of a lot of extremely useful buffs and not enough slots for all of them.

 

[Temellin]

I really am happy with shaman healing the way it is and I'm not about to authorize mucking around with a solidly balanced class for no adequately explained reason.

Was this totally missed? Shamans seem to be pretty balanced, a good healing class, so-so DPS, GREAT utility (Seriously, most raids can't happen without shaman buffs and slows and they make groups go /ALOT/ smoother) I personally don't see any good reason to change them being presented in this thread.

 

[Hasrett]

Was this totally missed? Shamans seem to be pretty balanced, a good healing class, so-so DPS, GREAT utility (Seriously, most raids can't happen without shaman buffs and slows and they make groups go /ALOT/ smoother) I personally don't see any good reason to change them being presented in this thread.

I agree on all counts. It was just kind of a fun idea to kick around.

 

[Thinkmeats]

Was this totally missed? Shamans seem to be pretty balanced, a good healing class, so-so DPS, GREAT utility (Seriously, most raids can't happen without shaman buffs and slows and they make groups go /ALOT/ smoother) I personally don't see any good reason to change them being presented in this thread.

None of that has anything to do with what we're talking about, though. Unless there's an evil space wizard causing all the dust-collecting former-main shaman guild bots to appear, shamans clearly have some gameplay issues (NOT balance issues)--you should never really be required to bash the same spell over and over. See: necro manafeed, bard melody. That's not to mention the half-dozen or so other things brought up in this thread.

So no, that brief of a dismissal doesn't really address anything beyond the structure of the thread itself. That is, an unofficial discussion thread that's been muddied up by drive-bys. After all, you can't really expect a two-sentence post to easily refute a 650 word proposal. This thread got pretty chaotic; add to that a good amount of bleedthrough from the healing sleep thread and some irrelevant talk about bard songs and buff slots, and I don't really see much productive coming from this anymore.

If there's ever another thread made about this, I'll make it for my own proposal with all the information right in the first post for people too lazy to read the thread. Before that would happen, I'd get ahold of most of the active raid shammies and chat with them about it. Before that would happen, I'd have to have more free time than I do. So it'll be a while.

 

[kukov]

I'd rather have better HOT's than direct heals as a shaman as it gives you time to canni + cast debuffs/slows between heals. And really that's what a shaman does...regens mana for long fights.

Honestly my shaman is rarely invited to groups for healing power. I usually see groups /ooc for druid or cleric...they tend to use the phrase "druid or cleric" more than "shaman or....". This is because shaman are not nearly as good at group healing. Part of their healing power comes from slows though. I honestly think slows should have a better -resist mod on them. Especially that broke ass AOE slow. It's wonky. I often will get single resist messages with no success messages (or vice versa) in a group of 2-4 mobs...this is after my pet is sent in for aggro.

As I assume slows are a reason the shaman is not as good a healer, then give them a little better slowing for exp groups at higher levels. As it is, slows are slow cast and they eat up mana (not to mention the frequent resists).

The starfall earring would have been great for exp slows except that got nerfed to shit long ago with an 8 second cast...

I agree with Mogger on most points, but I'm less angry about it. :-D

 

[ElPapaPollo]

-DoTs: Whoever said 2-3k/tick is either full of it, or else spending 100% of their time casting and recasting DoTs (assuming a single target).

syduck: Hihi, Relic: Scourge of Life, Caress of Sivyana, and Black Plague with Afflicition Enhancement 7. So, that's 748+677+366=1791. Throw in crit chances and you're (as I said!) AVERAGING around 2k-3k damage per tick. And yeah, that's when I'm spending 100% of my time casting and recasting DoTs. I'm in full dps mode; is there a problem with that?

 

[Thinkmeats]

syduck: Hihi, Relic: Scourge of Life, Caress of Sivyana, and Black Plague with Afflicition Enhancement 7. So, that's 748+677+366=1791. Throw in crit chances and you're (as I said!) AVERAGING around 2k-3k damage per tick. And yeah, that's when I'm spending 100% of my time casting and recasting DoTs. I'm in full dps mode; is there a problem with that?

Shamans at your tier aren't bad off at all, though. You don't really get put in situations where you absolutely have to hammer slow heal over and over again. It's the entry-level shammies that get stuck on that boat because they don't have all the crit heals to give them breathing room to cast other stuff.

 

[robopirateninja]

Shamans at your tier aren't bad off at all, though. You don't really get put in situations where you absolutely have to hammer slow heal over and over again. It's the entry-level shammies that get stuck on that boat because they don't have all the crit heals to give them breathing room to cast other stuff.

Isn't that more of an aa/time investment thing than a tier thing? There are some items that make crit heals more common but I always thought that the healing aas made more of a difference than items did in that regard.

 

[ElPapaPollo]

Shamans at your tier aren't bad off at all, though. You don't really get put in situations where you absolutely have to hammer slow heal over and over again. It's the entry-level shammies that get stuck on that boat because they don't have all the crit heals to give them breathing room to cast other stuff.

I understand that, and I addressed that issue with my long post on the second page of this thread. If you expect your character to get really good, then you have to put time into it. And actually, I have been in situations even at this tier where I'm the solo healer and I've slowed and had to heal over and over again. Given, it was in dungeons harder than a lower tier, under-AAd shaman could've handled, but the point still stands.

 

[moghedancarns]

Heh, I'm usually not angry about it. I was just having a bad night.

About a year ago, the last time I talked about it, I lost forum use for a couple months, so i am pretty estatic at the moment. I also took a long break soon there after, and I was unaware that any disparity in slowing had been created.. back then, Bards had like a 40 or 45 and everyone else had 50.

Granted, I do not consider other classes's abiltiy to slow to be that bad, individually. But with Slow being the end all, be all hammer with which the shaman class is beaten into its box, it does catch me in the odd moment in a bad way.

I still believe the sub 60 shaman requires some work.

I still dislike that our coveted abilities (that are required for our function) are requested (but thanksfully, not always granted to) a populace that feels deserving. If I seem overly protective, so be it, but I want the item designers to know, at the tip of their tongue, what the harm is in having Canni clickies, Malo clickies, Slow clickies, and excetera when asked.

Unless you have 90% crit chance, you are doing no where near 3k a tick; realistically you might be breaking 2K occasionally, barring resists in casting. So, basically, given enough time to get them all cast, you can ramp up to ~300 dps for a period of time, while having zero burst dps and yet being almost completely unable to do anything else while maintaining this. I doubt any actual DPS class is feeling threatened. Given that the rest of your mates are ok with it, then their is no problem, per say, its just a random comment you are making stating that given a perfect situation, you can do less DPS for a shorter period of time than a real DPS class while totally neglecting what shaman really do, the point of the thread. Shall I say, "How nice for you?"

 

[ElPapaPollo]

Unless you have 90% crit chance, you are doing no where near 3k a tick; realistically you might be breaking 2K occasionally, barring resists in casting. So, basically, given enough time to get them all cast, you can ramp up to ~300 dps for a period of time, while having zero burst dps and yet being almost completely unable to do anything else while maintaining this. I doubt any actual DPS class is feeling threatened. Given that the rest of your mates are ok with it, then their is no problem, per say, its just a random comment you are making stating that given a perfect situation, you can do less DPS for a shorter period of time than a real DPS class while totally neglecting what shaman really do, the point of the thread. Shall I say, "How nice for you?"

It was never my point to say that I could output that dps and still do other stuff, and it was never my point to say that I was trying to reach another dps' power. I was simply defending my statement that I can average around 2k-3k. Sure, the 3k is very hard to obtain because only on rare occasions have I crited on my dots in a row. Notice, I was giving a range, though, not an absolute number.

By the way, I'm not trying to wave an e-peen here, I'm just trying to prove that your experience as a shaman as something less than ideal does not encompass the class as a whole. I'm merely providing another perspective that shows our class has more potential and power than you realize.

 

[Thinkmeats]

Isn't that more of an aa/time investment thing than a tier thing? There are some items that make crit heals more common but I always thought that the healing aas made more of a difference than items did in that regard.

I understand that, and I addressed that issue with my long post on the second page of this thread. If you expect your character to get really good, then you have to put time into it.

True to an extent--clearly, every class will have that breaking point, and every class's AAs will make that less harsh. It's a matter of figuring out where that line should be.

syduck: Hihi, Relic: Scourge of Life, Caress of Sivyana, and Black Plague with Afflicition Enhancement 7. So, that's 748+677+366=1791. Throw in crit chances and you're (as I said!) AVERAGING around 2k-3k damage per tick. And yeah, that's when I'm spending 100% of my time casting and recasting DoTs. I'm in full dps mode; is there a problem with that?

You're doing 333-500 sustained dps? That's quite a lot.

I still dislike that our coveted abilities (that are required for our function) are requested (but thanksfully, not always granted to) a populace that feels deserving. If I seem overly protective, so be it, but I want the item designers to know, at the tip of their tongue, what the harm is in having Canni clickies, Malo clickies, Slow clickies, and excetera when asked.

There are no meaningful slow clickies, the canni clickies got removed, and the only malo clickies which exist are those which most resist debuff spells have. Honestly, I have no idea what you're trying to get at with this line of reasoning.

edit:

By the way, I'm not trying to wave an e-peen here, I'm just trying to prove that your experience as a shaman as something less than ideal does not encompass the class as a whole. I'm merely providing another perspective that shows our class has more potential and power than you realize.

That potential is in no way skill-related, though; it's just the raw-dps headbutt potential of having lots of gear and AAs.