Making a shammy, but what kind? :)

[Ragnarok1978]

Hey all,

Since I just got a 2nd DAOC account, building up a future buffbot came to mind as a good idea.

Now, my option is to either make a very groupfriendly version of a shammy, or just go pure buffbot and duo him with a tank of some sort. But which?

I have been away for quite a while, and spent some time on excal playing a Friar. My impression on excal was, that they were low on support role chars, mainly healers (Friars, Clerics). Is the situation the same on prydwen?

I will be making the shammy with the intention of getting him into his 40s asap, perhaps even all the way to 50, I don't really know yet.

So, would my best bet be to make a high mend, high aug shammy, and try and group my way there? Or, should I just go very high aug and semi-high mend and just duo my way up?

 

[trigali]

Well, if you want to use the shammy as a buff bot clearly you should consider going pure aug-mend.

However, if you actually want to play that character, you may find it pretty boring in a group as you go along. As a pure aug-mend you get very little CC ability and therefore your responsibility in the group becomes simply 'buff-plzz' and 'heal-plzz'

With a pretty basic healing line, it is not going to be demanding on your gameplay (this of course is a personal view. I took my aug-mend shaman to 23, then dropped him because he got boring to me).

Most people agree that cave line, particularly early on at low levels, is not very efficient. However as you go along you become a very decent CCer and can start inflicting some half-decent damage, which is not going to make your opponents go down in a flash if you are alone, but may well tip the balance in your group's favour.

So it all depends what you want to do with him. I personally keep my Shaman in case I buy a new computer and a new account, then I will use him as a pure bot.

 

[midmaster]

Personally, I detest buffbots.

I for one thinks that as soon as a stealther stealthes, the buffs should go away. (And yes, I have a lvl 50 stealther)

Also, buffs only for people in group, within a range, like chants.

I consider buffbots cheating, so my advise is, skip it, no matter the argument "hey, everybody else got one".

If one can't play unbuffed, find another game. Because it only proves that a player is willing to cheat to his/hers own winning, and that is in my book a violation of CoC.

Mythic must do something to get rid of all already owerpowered stealthers with supernatural buffs.

Let the flame begin.

 

[Ragnarok1978]

Originally posted by midmaster
Personally, I detest buffbots.

Thanks for a total irrelevant post added to this thread, I'm looking for advice not whining because you don't have the same possibility.

And if you bothered to read my post, I am considoring building him the group friendly way, which will actually benifit the realm as a whole.

Wether I respec a line or total respec later to a buffbot is basically just my problem, and not yours.

---

trigali, I am asking what people think in how to level him up, with the adding of respecs to lines at 20 and 40 + a total respec at 50, I am not forced to build him in one given way.

What I am trying to find out is wether or not the realm is short shammies, and of what kind of shammies, so I can deciede wether I will just duo him with a tank off my PC and laptop, or to play him purely on the PC and bet on groups.

I will try reading up on the cave line in regards to CC abilities tho, thanks for pointing it out.

 

[old.Flamin]

You could make him group friendly and than respec him to pure buff when he's high enough

 

[Ragnarok1978]

Originally posted by old.Flamin
You could make him group friendly and than respec him to pure buff when he's high enough

Yup that was what I was thinking, but it all depends on how needed shamen are on prydwen atm. Because I don't want to log him on, and then wait 45+ minutes to get in a group if you know what I mean.

Any suggestions for a group friendly spec?

 

[midmaster]

Whining or not, I speak the truth.

Make chants of the buffs, and you will see a lot less Kobbies and Trolls standing like dorks in Mid PK.

And yes it's my problem, since Hib's and Alb's do the same.
And yes i have the possibility, but i chose not to.
And yes, it's a problem for all of us with a sence of fair play.

It's just a form of cheating imo. That's why I post this instead of giving suggestions on how you should go about.

Enough said from me.

 

[old.Mu.]

My main is a shaman, and has what I would consider to be a 'group friendly spec'. At this moment in time, he is level 41, with 27 mend (first group friggs and first golden, single target friggs) and 31 Aug. I don't have any cave, for now, because I wanted to be a pure PvE group orientated character for as long as possible. Once I get 27 Mend and 32 Aug (32 Aug = Group End Regen buff in the next patch) then I'm going to start dumping everything into cave. Final spec: 27 mend (I think 28 with spare points), 32 Aug and 33 Cave.

To be honest, with that spec, I'd make a pretty good "buff bot" (and I frequently do spend hours for random lowbies/guildy lowbies, buffing and friggsing them as they go about their levelling ) and I'm also very happy playing the character in groups. I don't get bored because the whole reason I rolled a shammy in the first place was to make people stronger and keep them healed. I do that very well, imnsho.

But then, I also enjoy sitting in Gna and playing "ambulance" by responding to death messages. So my idea of fun probably isn't the same as many other peoples'.

With regards to group-desiribility.. Pre level 24, there are a lot of shamans. A lot. I believe they are the flavour-of-the-month this week in Thidranki. I mean, as well as assassins. Most of these shamans are full cave, however, so if you're known as being group friendly, you shouldn't find grouping a problem. At higher levels, grouping for a shaman becomes even easier. At level 30-35 I was being asked to duo with level 47ish people in Spind. Why? Friggs. One spell between pulls and all the downtime is gone. Once these same people found out I had better buffs than most level 50 shammies.. Well.. To cut my long story short, lets just say I've never been desperate for a group. At level 41 my /played is just over 5 days. So.. I'd say that any 'group friendly shamans' with specs like myself must be highly desirable.

About the CC thing.. Speccing cave doesn't give you better CC. You get a single-target root spell in baseline. I've been one of the 'rooters' in my malmo group since level 38, using the single target, and it works very well. The only other form of CC you get from speccing cave is an AE version of the same root which, imo, is hardly vital.

Oh! One last thing. If you're making a buff bot, you might want to give yourself some cave spec as well - for the uber damage shield.

Ok, think I've rambled enough. I love the class. Can't play him for a week or two for the moment though, due to having no graphics card. :\ Hope I've helped answer some of your questions though.

 

[mavericky]

I would recommend that you make your Shaman as group friendly as possible to level it fast (soloing is slow with a shaman). I never found it a problem with getting groups when I was leveling mine.

The best spec for a group friendly shammy is a roughly even spec, then you have ok heals buffs and cc, it will ensure that you level as fast as possible.

Once you get to level 40, it will be trickier, as here you will need to respec to high aug and will become less group friendly as your mend will become low.

Take aug to 44 as you easily cap your stats when in epic. The reason to stop at 44, is that you will get the best damage add, group endurance buff and heat resistance buff at this level.

You will only want low mend at 7, a bot will be sitting at the pk so wont be healing you, the reason to take it to 7 though is that in 1.53 there are new dungeons which have mobs that disease you, the plague (as i think it is called) lasts half an hour unless cured, and at level 6 & & you get your cure disease and poison spells.

Cave will take up to 24 as this is the best damage shield you can afford while keeping your aug that high.

The last points you can either put more in mend , to make you more group friendly and easier to level, (spec will be mend 19, aug 44, cave 24)

Or put more into aug for a few more resistance buffs (spec will be mend 7, aug 47 cave 24)

Anyway, thats about it, I've not tried it because my shammy is an RvR spec'd shammy but this is what i would look into if I was a pure bot.

You might consider a shammy to play and have fun in RvR, if you were to do that then 14 mend, 32 aug and 41 cave cant be beaten post 1.53


Hope this has helped

 

[Ragnarok1978]

Thanks old.Mu. and mavericky, now I know which way to go.

Will most likely go low cave at first then, and keep mend and aug high for buffs and healing capability.

Atually looking forward to it, because I had alot of fun with support classes, both experimenting with a cleric, and with my friar on excalibur.

 

[Madonion Slicer]

I am new to mid and have 2 accounts, using my Berserker on one and Shaman on the other, at the moment the Shaman is full Argumentation an uses a 2h hammer, meaning she buffs the berserker and herself very well and also does nice damage with DOT and Hammer, i will be taking mending to 15 and argumentation to 38 for all the second to last buffs, leaving me to dump all the 40-50 points in offensive spec up to about 36 which will make her an excellent buffer but also very deadly in RVR when the time comes.

 

[inqy]

My shammy is currently level 39. Spec Aug 14 (or 16 can't remember), Mend 27, Cave 22.

Originally built for RvR style in the bgs (hence the 22 cave), since then I've made it a lot more group friendly. I cannot think of any group I would not be welcome in, due to my group regen/single regen abilities and although my Aug is fairly low, it is more than enough of a boost to stats.

I've still not decided on my final spec, but it will be geared towards RvR again. How many times can a char be respecced in the next version, anyone know?

 

[Madonion Slicer]

Everyone in the game gets 1 FULL respec within there next 2 lvls.

Then for any new or exsisting players you get

1 Line Respec at 20 and then another at 40

So you could go all augmentation right to 40 then despec it to 0 and go full Cave.

But i will being going for

38 Aug
15 Mend
36 Cave

 

[mid-gentry]

Imo 41 cave 32 aug 14 mend will be the best spec. 41 cave for last DD/bolt and 2nd last ae DoT, 32 aug for grp end regan in 1.53, 32 aug combined with longwind 1 is perma sprint, since mend dont offer much no real reason to take to about 9 but the spare points will do no good in aug or cave so might aswell get abit higher mend and less variance on the baseline heals.

 

[mavericky]

Originally posted by mid-gentry
Imo 41 cave 32 aug 14 mend will be the best spec. 41 cave for last DD/bolt and 2nd last ae DoT, 32 aug for grp end regan in 1.53, 32 aug combined with longwind 1 is perma sprint, since mend dont offer much no real reason to take to about 9 but the spare points will do no good in aug or cave so might aswell get abit higher mend and less variance on the baseline heals.

Yep, agree with this, my spec will be the same will be the best RvR template for a shammy and not a bad bot & pwr lvl'r too if the need arises

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

Shaman make the best duoing healer in the game for one simple reason: Friggs.

The first single Friggs (at 9 Mend) can heal for 300HPs on a sitting target. To heal for that much with the most efficient specced heal (Major heal) would require approx 5 times more power.

For those that don't know Friggs is actually a health regen buff rather than a heal (it overwrites the Skald's Song of Health). HP regeneration occurs each 'tick', and the duration of a tick is dependent on context. In battle a regen tick is 14 secs, standing/running it is 6 secs and sitting is 3 secs. Friggs heals the amount of the spell each tick for a duration of 30 secs. So the Mend 9 Friggs (30HP) will heal a minimum of 60HP (during battle) and a maximum of 300HP when target is sitting. The top level Friggs can heal a maximum of 1320HP - enough for any rez-sick tank

To utilise this is a duo you keep the tank lowish on health (just use small heals) during the battle and then cast Friggs at the end. While the tank regains endurance he'll gain back all those HPs.

A duo like this should be able to chain reds pretty well. 30 secs downtime isn't bad for a red in a duo You will also benefit from high aug all the way up through the levels. I'd be surprised if you couldn't level this duo faster than you can with pick-up groups.

Having said that, larger groups are a whole lot more fun - I'd much rather get some group action that play with myself for days on end

But it's up to you - a high aug/low mend Shaman is still wanted in groups.

 

[Madonion Slicer]

Trine this is exaclty how my Shaman and Berserker work and soloing Reds they lvl fast.

 

[Jenna.]

Impact, I would first suggest you to lvl your main some.. lets say to 50 ~~ ?

 

[Ragnarok1978]

Originally posted by Jenna.
Impact, I would first suggest you to lvl your main some.. lets say to 50 ~~ ?

Hey he's like ½ bub from 47, he maybe slow but he's getting there!

 

[SilverHood]

get on the list at malmo and then lvl your buff bot to lvl 20

 

[dakeyras]

Well, I've decided to give in and get a buffbot aswell. Sick and tired of the infils camping mpk-mmg (and sometimes you have to navigate that area to get to your group... before someone chips in with 'get a group') Then on Sunday was buffed by a 41 shammy who got me to 1810 hits and 1247 weap skill. Was hitting a tincan for 450+ with provoke and a keep door for 180+... not bad for a skald

Went out at lunchtime and bought a second account and will tonite roll a kobold shammy that will be pure aug.

As I was gonna start farming cash to save for crafted af102 anyway I figured why not do it with a shammy grouped and on /follow. Will get him to 42 for the last end buff and then park him at apk.

Sad that the only way to compete in this game is to have a 2nd account but that is the way it is heading and Mythic will never nerf buffbots...they produce too much revenue.

 

[mavericky]

It does seem that there are more bots waiting at the pk these days, I am a bit sad in my case, I use my shammy in RvR, but have started leveling a healer up on a second account because I wanted the PoX (always run out of power) and it seemed easier than putting pointed into serenity etc etc.

 

[rynnor]

Durbashem is currently 28 with 24 in mend 14 aug - having a great time with this spec - the friggs regen is awesome - i cast it before combat and it makes the job of keeping the tanks alive much simpler - plus regen does not count as healing so generates no aggro and does not steal xp.

I often partner with a zerker - have grouped all of my levels and havent found any difficulties - there may be a few shaman about but the demand for them is always greater - especially if your a good healer.

I aim to group with tanks 3-5 levels higher - no point grouping with people above this as youll get blue con xp regardless of what they pull.

I'm aiming for 36 mend for 2nd best group friggs and 38 or 39 (cant remember offhand) in aug - not everyones cup of tea it seems but I have really enjoyed it.

I would definately encourage people to get some of the friggs spells - they really are great

Im not interested in Cave since it seems a poor mans cloth caster in chain - if u want to nuke in chain go play a smite cleric - even after the forthcoming nerf they will still be superior in raw damage dealing.

 

[old.Zarff]

impact ske!!
make him pure aug... u can pl him on ya own- cuz u will sure as hell get tired of some of the grps around in our realm.... that's how i did it and that's how many others do it. Just use ya skald for speed and dmg and then kt with ya shaman to lvl 20- it will go fast since ur skald can just beat the mob to 1% hp and let shaman finish him.

 

[SilverHood]

or just group with your shaman?

did this with my brothers mincer on excal... works fine