Question - Replace my shaman? (1 Viewer)

[Hanlons Razor]

Right now I'm running a 105 shaman in my group (sk/brd/zerk/shm/clr/wiz). The DPS I get out of it is pretty bad and I'm not totally convinced the ADPS it gives out weighs the benefit of a higher DPS class. BST seems like the simplest replacement, but maybe I shouldn't rule out another wizard, mag, enc, rogue - even ranger or paladin? Any recommendations?

 

[Kyle]

Right now I'm running a 105 shaman in my group (sk/brd/zerk/shm/clr/wiz). The DPS I get out of it is pretty bad and I'm not totally convinced the ADPS it gives out weighs the benefit of a higher DPS class. BST seems like the simplest replacement, but maybe I shouldn't rule out another wizard, mag, enc, rogue - even ranger or paladin?

The slow is what I fear you'll miss. Enchanters are decent dps and there crowd control and slow is great. I would drop the wizard and bring in a Berserker since you have a bard or drop the berserker and bring in abother wiz. You have melee and caster dps with a bard you're best off focusing on one or the other not both.

 

[Tone]

I recommend dropping the SHM for a DRU/BST

DRU keeps battle rez and does better dps
BST keeps slow anddoes better dps

 

[Abbath]

Tough call, your group is torn between separate synergies, you would need to swap more than 1 toon to be super effective.

Your shm is boosting dps of your zerk and bard, dropping it for an ench would yield better dps from the ench and boosting wiz dps a lot, but you would be losing melee boost to the zerker and bard somewhat.

Any suggestion i would make would be personal bias towards caster groups. I would grab an ench to replace the shaman and replace the BARD with a wizard. another wizard would add more dps than a bard would boost your current group. plus wizards get a wicked boost from the ench.

I ran war,clr,ench,wiz,wiz,necro. If the necro wasnt my main i would have replace it with a wizard, maybe a bard...maybe..but probably a third wizard.

Up to you, you need a dps boost though and its up to you what you want to box. Your money and time =)

 

[Dretski]

I have yet to see any really good use for an automated shaman, everything they do seem to be a bit too slow for my taste (I don't know, others might think different, but their buffs just doesn't make it up for me). Chanters are amazing with buffs/auras however, and would let your bard off the mezzing (which uses up valuable song times).

 

[Hanlons Razor]

I couldn't see myself ever getting rid of the Bard. Dichotomic Psalm allows my characters with a mana bar to burn all out every single mob while never running OOM. The only Bard synergy that my Wizard is missing out on are the damage add songs (Nilsara's Aria, Horthin's Psalm of Potency) which are minor and overshadowed by the proc songs since I have a good deal of melee and pets (IMO). My SK more than anything turns into an absolute killing machine thanks to double dipping off the Bard buffs and having a pet to soak up the buffs as well.

The Wizard gives me ports on top of the extremely good DPS that it puts out. I'd have to replace it with a Druid if I did replace it, and I'm not a fan of Druid for my group composition - I think Druid makes most sense when you have several DPS casters (mage/wiz/nec?).

The Shaman I see as a safety net. He makes hard content much easier by keeping a huge group HoT running at all times, slowing mobs, and providing lots of backup heal support. When he's not needed for those things (99% of the time), his spells are too slow and he just does terrible damage no matter what I do. The ADPS added by roar of the lion is pretty pathetic, and I'm not sure if the "Focusing" line is giving me much DPS either. I'm not sure how much the 2.0 will do for me... if anything it should make my Zerker's burn considerably stronger - again helping on hard content more than anything.

So far I'm leaning towards BST. It should double dip off the Bard like my SK does and provides *some* of the safety that my shaman did with slow and patch heals. It adds two melee to the group to benefit from the Bard love and I've heard they do very respectable sustained DPS.

Thanks for your help so far guys! As you can see, I always overthink this kind of thing.

 

[Meistro]

When looking at what char to run, you always need to consider what it is you are really trying to accomplish with the group (kills as much as fast as possible? Be able to do any/all progression? Survive just about any normal group combat situation?). If you are looking for the best overall DPS, then you should concentrate on melee or caster style. If your looking at versatility, then hybrid classes help a lot.

Your thinking on just swapping out shammy for better DPS, then I'd go Bst. Similar buffs/dbuffs. Great pet, melee and caster DPS (the new DoTs rock), heals, and can off tank/and pull.

A mage would give you a lot of boosts aswell. Pet off tank/ melee DPS, caster DPS, CoH for travel, pet kits, even a clicky you could pass to your Wizard (if you monitoring your group) for a weave/mana free casting item.

But it all comes down to what you want your group to do

 

[Hanlons Razor]

When looking at what char to run, you always need to consider what it is you are really trying to accomplish with the group (kills as much as fast as possible? Be able to do any/all progression? Survive just about any normal group combat situation?). If you are looking for the best overall DPS, then you should concentrate on melee or caster style. If your looking at versatility, then hybrid classes help a lot.

Your thinking on just swapping out shammy for better DPS, then I'd go Bst. Similar buffs/dbuffs. Great pet, melee and caster DPS (the new DoTs rock), heals, and can off tank/and pull.

A mage would give you a lot of boosts aswell. Pet off tank/ melee DPS, caster DPS, CoH for travel, pet kits, even a clicky you could pass to your Wizard (if you monitoring your group) for a weave/mana free casting item.

But it all comes down to what you want your group to do

Good points. Essentially my goal is to support the crap out of my raiding main. My previous raiding main was a Monk, but I dumped him out of boredom so this time it's either going to be the Berserker or the SK (preferably the SK, but every raiding guild on Luclin is begging for Zerkers... so path of least resistance may be zerker). I definitely need to be able to do all group progression that can be boxed, farm any group-attainable aug or gear, and killing speed while farming AAs and farming gear is important to me. I ended up with my current group comp because I leveled up this team together and having both the cleric and shaman made more content doable faster. However, if the SK ends up raiding main I think I'll be able to get by without the shaman's backup.

So I guess just replacing the Shaman with a Beastlord makes the most sense overall. I will make it on the same account as the Shaman (has a fresh 1 year sub), so I could still bring the shaman out if I'm doing difficult content that requires the extra help.

 

[Tone]

My go to group lately has been Tank/BRD/CLR/DRU + 2 The Bard is there for obvious reasons... mana / buffs / mez | CLR heals / rez | DRU I have modified my version of KA to focus on only using Battle Rez on the cleric, plus they pull nice DPS and ports. other 2 DPS slots are usually wizards / beastlords / zerkers.

I recommend an SK tank, as long as you have a warrior tank somewhere if you are trying to kill raid targets ever.

 

[Casca]

When ever I start thinking about replacing my shaman with a class that'd be more productive, I end up just adding on yet another account and keep my shaman. If they ever get around to doing the DoT changes they've been promising, maybe shaman DPS will be improved significantly. Also, I think everyone knows shaman is about the most useless class right now. Slows don't really matter that much, shaman DPS is not even worth bothering with and although surge heals are nice, shaman's can't main heal anywhere near as well as a cleric. So I am thinking sooner or later, shamans are going to be "fixed" and become very useful. With a new expansion coming out, who knows.

 

[Hanlons Razor]

When ever I start thinking about replacing my shaman with a class that'd be more productive, I end up just adding on yet another account and keep my shaman. If they ever get around to doing the DoT changes they've been promising, maybe shaman DPS will be improved significantly. Also, I think everyone knows shaman is about the most useless class right now. Slows don't really matter that much, shaman DPS is not even worth bothering with and although surge heals are nice, shaman's can't main heal anywhere near as well as a cleric. So I am thinking sooner or later, shamans are going to be "fixed" and become very useful. With a new expansion coming out, who knows.

I was just thinking along these lines last night... Maybe with the new expansion, shammies will get the DoT revamp on their new spells. Right now I'm trying the shammy in melee mode to see if I can get some bard-like DPS out of him. Of course I can't find a 2hb on the TBM merchants for him, so guess I'll have to hunt a drop.

 

[Meistro]

I myself am working on getting a 105 max AA'S toon of every class each on its own account. Some classes I'll have more than one of. But once maxed, many don't need to run subbed, so once done, they go back to FTP.

 

[Hanlons Razor]

Ok I actually think with a decent 2her he will keep up with my Bard. This is with a un-auged CoTF 1her (117 dmg 26 delay) over a 6 hour grind of nonstop pulling (about 1350 mobs). This parse doesn't include the SK or Shaman pets (only swarm pets) because I'm too lazy to go in and combine them. The shammy pet does 1500-2000 DPS.

Berserker 777982k@53411sdps (53422dps in 14563s) [32.33%]
ShadowKnight 777724k@53393sdps (53393dps in 14566s) [32.32%]
Wizard + pets 571059k@39205sdps (39216dps in 14562s) [23.73%]
Bard + pets 155324k@10663sdps (10667dps in 14561s) [6.46%]
Shaman + pets 86201k@5918sdps (5920dps in 14561s) [3.58%]

 

[Tone]

I have 2 shamans benched right now... I might make group 10 my group of misfits to fill out the slots I don't have.

 

[Hanlons Razor]

Ugh... I realized that my Bard was spending way too much time mezzing mobs that my SK can face tank and turned off the mezzing. He's back to doing 20-25k DPS.

Shammy just can't hang! I'll still get his 2.0 and hope that the next expansion brings buffs. If not I'll have to swap it up for a BST.