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Question - Shaman advice ( aux healer & dps )

Joined
Jun 7, 2020
RedCents
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Hi RedGuides

I've been levelling a shaman for my team as an auxiliary healer and provide some dps come utility. As climb through the levels, things change as content becomes tougher etc. Therefore I thought I'd ask the community some advice on how to box the shaman in case I'm missing something obvious.

Three things I'd like to ask about, but feel free to chip in with other words of wisdom.



To melee or not to melee?
- At the moment it's turned off. The shaman hangs back, does the casting thing whilst the pet joins in the battle.

This was from the view of out of range of being interrupted by the mob and also wasn't sure about moving for sticky position vs casting priority. e.g. if finds itself in front, when should be behind, and there is need to cast a heal or a dps.
Then I've also noticed some weapons have proc that could be beneficial and so wondered if the melee dps plus the procs would outshine the staying at range.



How do you slow with yours?
- Using the single target casts currently, that often as "insects" in it's name.

I've since noticed the "counterbias" spells that at first glance looked to be heals, but subsequently spotted the cast triggers a slow on the mob, and a heal for the mobs target.
The slow cast I'm currently using is marked with "debuffall|slow|always", and when I'm driving the tank I do see the debuff appear on the mob. Not knowing anything of the "counterbias" line, don't know if it will work the same or be as reliable come efficient etc.



Thoughts on the dps aspect - nukes / dots ?
- To date, the line-up has "Bite" poison nuke and "ice" cold nuke.

My thinking there was that if it's not slowing, healing; then it can throw nukes at the mob.
However, the fight durations are growing longer, significantly longer than they used to be. i.e. the "quick wins" of lower level n hp mob, bouncing off a high level damage shield on the tank have reduced. This prompted the thought from a necro view point, of dots, in a sustained fight.
There appears to be a lot of dots to choose from; and with type of curse, disease or poison. If this was a damage per mana, the dot would appear to win by a mile. I'm not so sure in terms of chain cast of nukes vs the dots, but a feeling says there may be something in it.



Regards and Best Wishes
 
I for sure melee and well.. whatever else mq2shaman does for me.
 
I dont melee... too many interrupted spells fucks damage and healing. Leave nukes and dots on unless i dont want it to do damage for some sort of achievement and adjust everything else with spell line up BYOS.

also, dots depend on your shaman's mana... a good geared shaman is basically OOM proof, but if you have junk gear, you may want to turn them off and just let them can
 
shaman are a busy class - some things you really have to pick/choose what they're doing with that time - it is a finite resource and there are no takesybacksies

Shammies changed their effectiveness in the "priest" role pretty substantially once you get into the EoK+ era due to having multiple reckless and progressive available to you

- melee unless you're having some reason with the amount of "non casting time" while sticking into position - some missions due to movement or whatnot i don't melee (or if with a crappier tank), but mostly i stay melee

- your "modern" tank belts do a fineish job giving " a slow" to the mobs hitting them, outside of larger pulls where a lot is happening, i just let the belt do its work
- - i use slowaoe but not single slow - imo it is a waste of a cast
- - -same with malo - i keep maloaoe on, but not malo

- counterbias sucks, especially if we're talking "current game"
- mending sucks the largest suck there is to suck

- dots are very powerful - couple xpacs ago doing shei with like 12 toons, shaman healing the MT could still be over 1M dps lol
- - since again we're talking about "value per cast time" for shammies because you have quite a bit more wiggle room with the idea of "mana efficiency per cast" like you would in many things, it is important to think "one cast of this dot" will likely last longer than the fight, so one time doing "something else" means now you're freed-up to be more flexible
- - bite/spear are handy and have their place
- - look at the "combo" dots , like chaotic or pandemic, now you're getting a lot of value from the cast time
 
Melee or Not: My shaman is my healer. I have tried him with both. Melee turned on, and him set as primary healer (mq2shaman as mentioned by @ImGreg ) and melee turned off and him set to primary healer. My SK stayed up on his feet with both. My general setting is having him not melee and set as healer.

Slows: again, mq2shaman, and I have him set to use both his single and multi target slows. Then I let mq2shaman decide how bad my pull was and how to handle it. With the Shaman slows and the bard mezz, even a bad pull isn't always a rezz situation. Bad pathing in certain zones add to the adds, etc.

DPS aspect? My shaman, I don't have him set to DPS. He does some stuff, but I just smile and nod as I watch the magic happen. If you shaman isn't your only/primary healer, then I'd set him to nuke and dot and then adjust when he starts and stops based on how fast he goes OOM. If you don't go OOM, sweet Jesus BOOM, HEADSHOT!

Try it all the ways and figure out which one or what works for you and your automation or boxing/macro ability. Before I started here, I had 10-15 macro's set up for slowing, healing, etc. Alt Tab was my begrudging friend. Whom I was glad to part ways with.
 
I am similar to Sic, AE slow and AE Malo, The belts are enough slow for most tanks. I also use shammy as the only healer so drop any other you have once you get comfortable. Stuff dies fast enough with extra DPS and you wont need to do much dotting with the shammy but with combo dots now one cast and your back to healing. Test it out I think you will find it works well!
 
Thanks all for the replies so far.

I've been out to buy some missing spells in the dot family

Also lots of cross reading from Allakhazam and Raidloot for their spell searches.

For these combo dot spells, I take it the mana cost is more than the single pandemic spell - and that it will cost the two spells plus what it says on the pandemic?

I found this Allakhazam comment interesting, that talked of Turgur's Insects, with reference to it overwrite Enchanter spells even those of higher level, bonus points the post being fairly recent.
 
Thanks all for the replies so far.

I've been out to buy some missing spells in the dot family

Also lots of cross reading from Allakhazam and Raidloot for their spell searches.

For these combo dot spells, I take it the mana cost is more than the single pandemic spell - and that it will cost the two spells plus what it says on the pandemic?

I found this Allakhazam comment interesting, that talked of Turgur's Insects, with reference to it overwrite Enchanter spells even those of higher level, bonus points the post being fairly recent.
FYI, if you're buying spells then scriber is BIS! Give it a shot, you might just like it :) https://www.redguides.com/community/resources/scriber.2391/
 
Melee sham! I use sham for ADPS and DPS. Never been main healer. I'm from the old crowd that used to root rot so its refreshing to be able to smack things around without fear of getting hit.
 
My main was a shaman until CoTF. Shaman for me is my slower class and my Dot class. In today's group game, for me at least, there is no need for a dedicated DOT class, as fast as mobs die, the dots do not normally have time to soak and get high DPS. Nukes are an option, but there are way better classes for that. Beasts and Mages are the best pet classes. So, where is the new role for Shamans? The overwhelming opinion seems to be that shamans as their main healers. My group makeup is always my cleric as my main healer, so I have put my shaman in a utility role. CWTN's loadout has an option, I think it's hybrid? It lets the shaman do some DPS and some healing. It keeps the mobs slowed, dots on the mob, and his pet and swarm pets. I never turn on melee unless I do the mission in ToE with the puddles. I turn on melee for all my toons on that one to keep everyone close enough to the tank to prevent a charm. I can easily run all 4 missions in ToB with this mix of toons SK/cleric/bard/shaman/rogue/mage.
 
Thought I'd give a quick update having tried some change in a session.




I added dots to the mix.
Specifically, the pandemic!

I'll give a nod to this Shadowraze737 shaman ini as it contains a couple of immediate wins that gave direction to safely implement the pandemic.
Code:
DPS17=Tegi Pandemic|98|Cond12
Cond12=!${Target.Buff[Breath of the Tegi].ID} && ${Range.Between[40,99:${Target.PctHPs}]} && ${Me.PctMana} > 40

I liked the conditional check as it protects against waste of mana by casting on low hp mob and also ensures the shaman has mana for the heals.
With that in mind, I added a mana only condition to the nuke spells as well.

Trying to be a little scientific, not change too much at once so can feel the influence it has - good or bad.
I haven't turned on melee yet, but that is on the cards to do.




There was a "feeling" that things went quicker, be that a kind of placebo of seeing dots on the mob, its hp going down whilst shaman did other heal / nukes and the remainder of the group did their jobs - who knows.

Mana didn't appear to have a problem, yes the shaman mana bar visibly lowered, but recovered timely. Sufficient that I didn't need to stop for "med breaks", I just drove the tank somewhat normal and got on with the session.




One new question - I've noted talk of "belts" and having slow - can anyone shed a bit more light on that please? e.g. an example belt, what expansion such becomes available ?
 
There is a great guide here:
https://forums.eqfreelance.net/index.php?topic=9389.0

My main is a shammy and its the ony lvl 125 char I have - so I do pulling, DPS and heals for my melee group :)

For slows and malo, I use the AA skills (comes both single and AoE versions):
  • Malaise / Wind of Malaise: will cast highest malo spell you have memorised
  • Turgur's Swarm / Turgur's Virulent Swarm: will cast highest slow spell you have memorised

For heals, the best bang for your buck is casting ghost of renewal spell line (to trigger AA Luminarys's synergy) followed by either Spritiual Shower, or any of the group heals (very quick cast, recourse or intervention lines). I usually keep 2 reckless heals memorised too, but I rarely use them.

For dots at lvl 125, here is my lineup:
  1. Chaotic Bloodcurse (instant cast, 2 dots + DD)
  2. Hotariton Pandemic (2 dots, long lasting, quicker cast time)
  3. Krizad's Affliction (single dot, long lasting)
  4. Malediction
  5. Fandrel's Curse
Depending on how long your mob lasts, you might want to save mana (I normally only use the full set when I'm soloing). 1 and 5 have very quick cast times so they might be worth casting for you (if the mob will last more than 30 seconds ;P).

If you want to look up the spells, either eqrespource or alla have great info:

You can also look up the lines in case you are not 125 yet (e.g., Fandrel's Curse is part of tthis one https://spells.eqresource.com/spellstackinggroups.php?id=89 )

Melee - always (at least to get in range)
Nukes - almost never (just Gelid Gift to trigger healing twincast, but rearely)

I hope this helps, have fun :D
 
Agreed with everyone else in that once the tank is beefy enough post EoK, shaman works great as a primary healer, the only limitation being it’s in combat rez options. This can be mitigated by the Rez clickie or even Rez tokens.

For melee, it depends on the situation. If I’m in the open world, I won’t - just so I have one less toon moving around. In some cases, mobs have frontal dots/nukes… in those cases I find melee on from behind keeps any of my toons from getting hit unnecessarily. My default is on, just to keep him close to all the toons for splashes, etc…any proce or dps is a plus.

Ae slow. Ae malo.

I never worry about mana efficiency, just get the spells off. I’m fairly certain a well geared shaman has infinite mana!
 
I use hybrid for 90% of the time.

I use melee 90% of the time.

I do use a modified stickhow
Code:
StickHow7=${If[${Math.Calc[${Target.MaxRangeTo}*0.8]} > 19,15,${Math.Calc[${Target.MaxRangeTo}*0.8]}]} hold moveback !front loose

This will move to the target and not move you a lot to cut down on interrupts.
 
Thought I'd give a quick update having tried some change in a session.




I added dots to the mix.
Specifically, the pandemic!

I'll give a nod to this Shadowraze737 shaman ini as it contains a couple of immediate wins that gave direction to safely implement the pandemic.
Code:
DPS17=Tegi Pandemic|98|Cond12
Cond12=!${Target.Buff[Breath of the Tegi].ID} && ${Range.Between[40,99:${Target.PctHPs}]} && ${Me.PctMana} > 40

I liked the conditional check as it protects against waste of mana by casting on low hp mob and also ensures the shaman has mana for the heals.
With that in mind, I added a mana only condition to the nuke spells as well.

Trying to be a little scientific, not change too much at once so can feel the influence it has - good or bad.
I haven't turned on melee yet, but that is on the cards to do.




There was a "feeling" that things went quicker, be that a kind of placebo of seeing dots on the mob, its hp going down whilst shaman did other heal / nukes and the remainder of the group did their jobs - who knows.

Mana didn't appear to have a problem, yes the shaman mana bar visibly lowered, but recovered timely. Sufficient that I didn't need to stop for "med breaks", I just drove the tank somewhat normal and got on with the session.




One new question - I've noted talk of "belts" and having slow - can anyone shed a bit more light on that please? e.g. an example belt, what expansion such becomes available ?

I have tried to parse, but with how variable crits and such are its always hit or miss. I go with the feel of it also. I know when i'm not getting good DPS. I usually stick with same mob types when i am grinding.

And as for belts... As you get into higher levels they added specific procs for different belts: Crippling Slicer, Overdrive Punch, Treaded Boon of Potential. I prefer to use Boon on my SK. So if i have a slower in the group i will swap it out.
 
Thought I'd give a quick update having tried some change in a session.




I added dots to the mix.
Specifically, the pandemic!

I'll give a nod to this Shadowraze737 shaman ini as it contains a couple of immediate wins that gave direction to safely implement the pandemic.
Code:
DPS17=Tegi Pandemic|98|Cond12
Cond12=!${Target.Buff[Breath of the Tegi].ID} && ${Range.Between[40,99:${Target.PctHPs}]} && ${Me.PctMana} > 40

I liked the conditional check as it protects against waste of mana by casting on low hp mob and also ensures the shaman has mana for the heals.
With that in mind, I added a mana only condition to the nuke spells as well.

Trying to be a little scientific, not change too much at once so can feel the influence it has - good or bad.
I haven't turned on melee yet, but that is on the cards to do.




There was a "feeling" that things went quicker, be that a kind of placebo of seeing dots on the mob, its hp going down whilst shaman did other heal / nukes and the remainder of the group did their jobs - who knows.

Mana didn't appear to have a problem, yes the shaman mana bar visibly lowered, but recovered timely. Sufficient that I didn't need to stop for "med breaks", I just drove the tank somewhat normal and got on with the session.




One new question - I've noted talk of "belts" and having slow - can anyone shed a bit more light on that please? e.g. an example belt, what expansion such becomes available ?

Thanks for pointing out this condition, you can get a lot of mileage out of adapting this for similar uses.
 
Question - Shaman advice ( aux healer & dps )

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