Shaman

[timbro]

Im new to healers in general and especailly this class can someone who knows tell me a bit about them. (yes tere is probably a thread about this somewhere but i cant be bothered) Could you tell me about what type of guy i become when speccing in different things and abpout how to use one well

thx in advance

 

[SilverHood]

speccing in mendiing = healing... get a some ok heals, as well as a group frigs (like a heal over time spell)

Augmentation is buffs...... oh yeah, baby! You get Str buff, str/con buff, dex/con buff, dex buff, HP buff, acuity buff (piety buff for RMs and SM's, power buff for thanes, skalds, healers and shammies)

Cavemagic.... fancy becoming a witchdoctor? here's the chance, get some nifty area of effect disease, which stops health regen on a mob, as well as lowering their stats.... you get root spells, a bolt, a Damage over time spell, as well as a DD (direct damage) in future patches

Still, my shaman just stands in the corner and play's a buffbot

 

[Stonebits]

Ive gone Cave Magic as my shaman, and she can pretty much solo yellows easy when she wants too..... (oranges at a push)

With cave Magic you can take down a mob by bolting it, then rooting it, then diseasing it, then bolting it and DOT'ing it... all brfore it gets to you =)

Plus if you are a Troll Shammy you look cool =)

They are also welcome in groups for their buffs and as a backup healer, or as a 2nd rate healer.....

They also work well in pairs ive found....

So... I like em..... plus if you stick with cave you get some AOE (area of effect) Roots spells later on , which can be fun for RvR

 

[Fafnir]

Shammy's are fun, been playing mine as 1st healer in a group where the rest of the group where lvl 15 and me lvl 10, did't loose one soul until they thought they where immortal due to my buffs...

 

[nocte]

i was thinking of making a shamen... nice of this thread to be at the top

thx for info

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

Just a bit more info on each spec line:

Mending

The unspecced heals in this line heal with variation. This means that they don't always heal the same amount, but will heal for the amount specified +/- a certain percentage. The % variation you get on your baseline heals depends on your Mend spec relative to your level (including items). If your Mend spec meets or exceeds your level your baseline heals will have no variation. Generally, if you are specced to at least half your level in Mend then you are better off using the specced heals as they are more efficient and will give at least as big heals.

The baseline Seer spells include 2 normal heals, a group heal and a rez.

The Mending specced heals include 1 specced heal (no variation - always heals for same amount), cure disease and poison, 1 specced rez (longer cast time but restores more HP) and the Frigg's line.

The Frigg's spells are unique to the Shaman (certainly on Midgard, possibly on all realms) and are actually health regen buffs rather than heal over time spells, though it's easier to think of them in terms of heal over time. The reason they aren't heals is that HPs healed with Friggs don't generate aggro for the caster (it's also the reason why Friggs overwrites Skald's Heal Song - a health regen chant).

There are single and group Frigg's and they both have a duration of 30 secs, healing the amount specified every 'tick'. A 'tick', perhaps surprisingly, does not last a fixed amount of time but varies depending on whether the person being frigged is in combat, standing or sitting. When in combat a tick lasts 14secs, standing it lasts 6 secs and sitting 3 secs. The first single target Frigg (30HP for 9 Power) can, therefore, heal a minimum of 60HP (in combat) and a maximum of 300HP (sitting). This means that Frigg's is by far the best downtime heal in the game (to heal 300 HPs with a normal heal would take at least 48 Power!), though even during battle it's efficiency is OK, so it can be worth casting on a damaged tank early in a fight.

A Shaman can use this to her advantage when grouped with a single tank. The tactic is to let the tank get low on health and to keep the tank low (but alive) using regular heals then to cast frigg's in downtime, while the tank regain endurance. In this way a tank/Shaman combo can be very efficient (though I would avoid trying it with nuking mobs ).

Augmentation

The augmentation line is for buffing (stat enhancing) spells. There are two types of buffs in the Shaman's repertoire - timed buffs and concentration buffs.

Timed buffs have a fixed duration (10 minutes) over which they take effect. They can be 'refreshed' within that limit (i.e. you don't need to wait for them to go before you can recast). Timed buffs use power to cast, and you can cast as many of them as you've got power for.

Concentration buffs stay on your target until: they die, you die, you or they enter a dungeon/capital/port, or you remove the buff (by shift-clicking on the buff icon in the concentration window). Each conc buff doesn't take power but takes a number of concentration points from your 'pool' (I'm not sure if the concentration pool is based on piety or level). You can't cast any more concentration buffs if you don't have enough conc points or you have exceeded the maximum of 16 buffs.

Shaman specced buffs are great. Generally put these on first and only use the baseline buffs when you've got conc to spare.

Cave

Shaman have variants of spells found on a number of other casters. Their base spells include a root for crowd control/soloing, a Damage over Time (DoT) which will do damage every 6 secs for a duration of 24 secs, and a disease which halves the effect of heals (and health regen, I think) for its duration.

The spec line includes a bolt (decent range, but can be blocked/effected by other casters), a direct damage, and AE DoT, a damage shield, an AE root and a point blank AE disease shout.