What is the role of the Shaman?

[Allielyn]

So you're saying that if the group has an enchanter and a bard there's no major reason for a shaman in the group? I don't really see anything wrong with that.

I mean, I could complain that if a group has a Warrior already they really have no major use for a Shadowknight, and would probably take a Rogue or Ranger over them, but that doesn't mean that SKs should get a boost or anything. There are a variety of classes and workable combos for a reason.

 

[moghedancarns]

Okie, since this is veering off course toward areas that will only aggrivate the GMs, my "wait and see", may not work here.


First, a more powerful slow (percentage wise) is not going to happen. You have been told this, directly, in no uncertain terms. A more powerful slow is not the issue, either. The major point of our slow is that we are the third best at it. Our Slow has the highest percentage of effect, but we are the worst at actually landing it. Because the enchanter and bard have a better chance of landing their slows quickly, the lower percantage slow actually saves more damage, making it superior. This is the exact reason that the earring was nerfed... its cast and recast made it superior to the much higher percentage cast slows. What we are requesting is either...

1. Our slows to possess a resist mod, giving them a higher chance to land... or
Our malo line to possess a resist mod, mana decrease, recast decrease, and casting time decrease, bringing it line with the tash series.




2. For our buffs, we are looking to get some kind of group buffs before the mid 50s. Our current group buffs are Bih'li and 3 levels of STR buff.




3. For mana regen, we are hoping to get some kind of extention of the torpor line, downward. Before level 60, when we suddenly get the best mana regen, our mana regen is among the worst. Before the mid 50s and regrowth, it is barely more than breeze. This is over time... our burst mana regen remains high.




4. Wiz has stated that he will look at the DoT stacking issue.


Those are our 4 points. Three have been responded to as possible or as somethign that would be looked at and possible considered. I am not certain I had made point three clear, previously, so that is now addressed.

 

[Lyte]

Okie, since this is veering off course toward areas that will only aggrivate the GMs, my "wait and see", may not work here.


First, a more powerful slow (percentage wise) is not going to happen. You have been told this, directly, in no uncertain terms. A more powerful slow is not the issue, either. The major point of our slow is that we are the third best at it. Our Slow has the highest percentage of effect, but we are the worst at actually landing it. Because the enchanter and bard have a better chance of landing their slows quickly, the lower percantage slow actually saves more damage, making it superior. This is the exact reason that the earring was nerfed... its cast and recast made it superior to the much higher percentage cast slows. What we are requesting is either...

Hmm, we don't have the highest percentage effect. The only way Shamans have the highest percentage effect is if you get the epic mask, which only 2 players have.

 

[Raherin]

Shamans have a choice of different slows for mob resist types, which no other class has.

I personally play a main shaman, and I don't find them to be lacking whatsoever in the slightest compared to the other priests. If anything they overperform. As for lower end, I'm not too sure how that is now, as it's been a while. It used to be a little troublesome, however the pay off is at level 60, which is well worth it, and then some.

 

[moghedancarns]

Yessir, at 60 you have Torpor, unresistable Malo, and a second slow line.

60-65, things are pretty dang good.


Our area of discussion is 1-59, or at least it should be. We got above that talking about slow a little bit.

 

[rab]

This is why I wanted to focus on 1-59, as I think most (not all) can agree a upper end shaman has it a lot better. I think your points are pretty valid, Mogger; unfortunately, I'm not the final say so in any of this.

 

[Thinkmeats]

This thread is an impregnable wall of words i don't have time for at the moment, but I'm just going to point out that cmalath is full of ridiculously MR mobs--that's why you're having problems with root CC, not because root cc is bad. If you want to mez in cmal you pretty much need an ench, because we're the only ones who get rapture-type unresistable mezzes, and you wont be doing dick in cmal3+ with a resistable mez. Even with maxxed cha, SCM 3, and max focus/mind, complacency still bounces too often to be a good plan.

As an aside: even cmal summoned elementals from cmal 2 are extremely mr. Could this oversight be corrected, or is it intentional?

 

[Aeran]

If you want to mez in cmal you pretty much need an ench, because we're the only ones who get rapture-type unresistable mezzes, and you wont be doing dick in cmal3+ with a resistable mez.

I used to frequent cmal3 with a bard all the time (even after resist changes) and we never had an ounce of problem. Hell, I even preferred him to an enchanter because (1) I could get aggro very easily when breaking mez and (2) he was a very capable tank if I couldnt pull aggro (or for mana combusters... ). IIRC theres only a handful of three-pulls - one before you go up the chute to the main area, one for the Funeral Master, and any others I forgot (pretty sure thats it tho), all others are two pulls. I never played a mezzer there, but doing it with a bard was always amazingly efficient and effective.

 

[BarryHalls]

Comparing shaman to chanter isn't like comparing tanks, they have such different roles. My point was the mezzers are so important in xp/dungeon groups and since the 2 mezzers have the same or better slows than shamans then shamans are getting the shaft because slowing has long been the most important role of the shaman and it is no longer his role making the druid his better, not his equal or alternate.

 

[Yanbik]

i still irl over the torpor nerf

 

[Yally]

Because the enchanter and bard have a better chance of landing their slows quickly

I'm not trying to dismantle your post because it has some very valid points/ideas, but in this aspect I think you might be a little skewed. At least on the enchanter portion. Some ideas I came up with for your reasoning as to why we could land slow "better" than a shaman:

Tash and Higher CHA

Enchanter slow appears to have the same aggro as Shamans'. As well, tash is a HUGE chunk of aggro, more (im pretty sure) than malo. So even though enchanters can tash in only 1 second and be ready to slow fairly reliably, they loose a good deal of time waiting for the tank to have enough aggro apres-tash so they dont get wiped out.

As for CHA, yea, we have that!

 

[Lyte]

Because the enchanter and bard have a better chance of landing their slows quickly

I'm not trying to dismantle your post because it has some very valid points/ideas, but in this aspect I think you might be a little skewed. At least on the enchanter portion. Some ideas I came up with for your reasoning as to why we could land slow "better" than a shaman:

Tash and Higher CHA

Enchanter slow appears to have the same aggro as Shamans'. As well, tash is a HUGE chunk of aggro, more (im pretty sure) than malo. So even though enchanters can tash in only 1 second and be ready to slow fairly reliably, they loose a good deal of time waiting for the tank to have enough aggro apres-tash so they dont get wiped out.

As for CHA, yea, we have that!

On Live, Tash did have a huge chunk of aggro; however, we've been finding that if we cast Malo/Tash at the same time at the start of fights, the person who casted Malo would get aggro.

Does anyone know for sure if Tash is still much higher aggro than Malo?

 

[BarryHalls]

bump

I would like to know what, if anything is being done on this issue.

I don't want to rush anyone, i'd just like to know what's in mind and maybe progress report if that's not too much?

(please don't ban me!)

 

[tinkaa]

On Live, Tash did have a huge chunk of aggro; however, we've been finding that if we cast Malo/Tash at the same time at the start of fights, the person who casted Malo would get aggro.

Does anyone know for sure if Tash is still much higher aggro than Malo?

I also think mala generates more aggro (speaking from my experience).

 

[luciferblack]

On Live, Tash did have a huge chunk of aggro; however, we've been finding that if we cast Malo/Tash at the same time at the start of fights, the person who casted Malo would get aggro.

Does anyone know for sure if Tash is still much higher aggro than Malo?

I also think mala generates more aggro (speaking from my experience).

Tash is only a MR debuff though whereas the Mal line is a total resist debuff right? Would make sense that debuffing all resists is more aggro than debuffing one.

 

[Webtroll]

Speaking for myself (Enke is only lvl 24 in SoD but Enkidu was 65 on the defunct SolRo) the changes I'd like to see made to the shaman would be to greatly reduce the resistance to slows and the introduction of a rez spell. Now there may be a shaman rez that I've not encountered before, but from what I can tell there isn't. As a tribal healer I've always felt a basic rez was lacking from the shaman spell set. As far as reducing the resists on slow, the effectiveness was reduced but the casting time, agro and mana cost have not. It's resisted to a silly degree right now and for the amount of time it takes to cast and mana it takes to cast it many people are just doing without. I know if I'm the healer in a group I'm not casting slow more than once, and if it's resisted so be it.

So in a nutshell: reduce the resistance to slows and introduce a rez spell. Thank you for your time in reading this.

 

[Yally]

You get a rez at 39.

 

[REEE]

my only problem with the shaman class is my own fault, i didn't realize that the end result is a canni/heal bot. which is not something i'm interested in.
i made it past 44 before the earring was nerfed to 8s, but i couldn't imagine trying to slow in a 30s group without it. there were far too many resists.

thanks for taking a look at stuff admins.

 

[Nuncio]

I don't mean to be contrary... but I found my shaman (only played to 62, admittedly) to be extremely usefull and versatile.
When I was two boxing him with my SK, I had some great macros worked up. Stand up, sic pet, cast slow, cani, cast dot, cani. cani, heal SK and sit. Somtimes added a macro for debuffs. Or If I was with a group, would just cut out the macroed heal and use it for more damage or debuffs.
Now, I know you don't want to bot your main, but the fact was, the SK became more bot than the shammy. Just had to have him attack and cast aggro spells now and then, after pulling with him.
Later, I started playing the shammy more when I wasn't 2 boxing. Nice pad heals, groups loved him.
If I were to start playing SoD with any regularity again, I'd probably spend more time on the shammy than my SK.
When I raided with Ruin, and we needed to camp a botted toon, the SK got camped quite a bit more often than the shammy did near the end there. The shammy just brought so much to the group.
And in XP groups, he was even better, because he could do some pretty good healing as well as pretty good damage, and keep quite a few buffs on the group, with group stat buffs.
*shrug* I dunno, maybe my SK sucked so hard that in comparison, my sucky shaman didn't seem as sucky as he really was.

 

[Lyte]

I don't mean to be contrary... but I found my shaman (only played to 62, admittedly) to be extremely usefull and versatile.
When I was two boxing him with my SK, I had some great macros worked up. Stand up, sic pet, cast slow, cani, cast dot, cani. cani, heal SK and sit. Somtimes added a macro for debuffs. Or If I was with a group, would just cut out the macroed heal and use it for more damage or debuffs.
Now, I know you don't want to bot your main, but the fact was, the SK became more bot than the shammy. Just had to have him attack and cast aggro spells now and then, after pulling with him.
Later, I started playing the shammy more when I wasn't 2 boxing. Nice pad heals, groups loved him.
If I were to start playing SoD with any regularity again, I'd probably spend more time on the shammy than my SK.
When I raided with Ruin, and we needed to camp a botted toon, the SK got camped quite a bit more often than the shammy did near the end there. The shammy just brought so much to the group.
And in XP groups, he was even better, because he could do some pretty good healing as well as pretty good damage, and keep quite a few buffs on the group, with group stat buffs.
*shrug* I dunno, maybe my SK sucked so hard that in comparison, my sucky shaman didn't seem as sucky as he really was.

I could probably write a similar paragraph about every single class in the game.

I don't mean to be contrary... but I found my Bard to be extremely useful and versatile. When I was two-boxing him with my Shaman, I had some great macros worked up. I would cast mana-regen to decrease down-time, and could even mez when adds got out of control. If I was in a group, I could add even more versatility through haste spells! In fact, the Shaman became more of a bot than my Bard because all I needed to do with him in a group was to DoT, send a pet, and heal!

I don't mean to be contrary... but I found my Enchanter to be extremely useful and versatile. When I was two-boxing him with my Shaman, I had some great macros worked up. I would cast KEI to decrease downtime, and I could mez adds, and even haste my group.

I don't mean to be contrary... but I found my Ranger to be extremely useful and versaile. When I was two-boxing him with my Shaman, I had some great macros worked up. I would sit down, and memorize my spells over and over again because I died before I could cast them.

Oh wait, the last one didn't exactly work, but you get the point I didn't mean to be rude, but the idea is that your "personal" opinions may not be the critical analysis of the class that helps focus attention on where the Shaman is lacking and where the Shaman excels. Every class is "fun" and can contribute something to a raid group depending on the player, so saying you prefer X class over Y class does not necessarily mean X class is perfectly balanced.