Hi Allm
I have a Orc Shaman wanting to do some damage with a Dwarf Scav. What equipment would be best for her? I was thinking Heavy Brig, but if anyone has a better suggestion...
Elven Mith with a good Matk weapon.
Your best damage will come from Life Suck and in heavy you have sucky casting speed.
At lower levels, d-grade, you have a lot of choices on Shaman of course.
I used Sage's rags and SoL and did fine up to 32. I retired that toon to try an orc so perhaps I would have run into difficulty 32-40. One benefit to rags--they were relatively low cost compared to other sets. Toon was light, didn't die too quickly, and had mana and as much movement as possible.
I solo'd completely from 20-32 with no problems.
Just another thought.....
Hi Allm
I have a Orc Shaman wanting to do some damage with a Dwarf Scav. What equipment would be best for her? I was thinking Heavy Brig, but if anyone has a better suggestion...
As long as the scav is tanking (Spoil generates a nice amount of hate to hold/get aggro when fighting with other 'low' damage chars.) then it really doesn't matter much which type of armor you have. Shaman armor differences break down roughly like so:
Robes - Max MP regen, Additional MP, Lowest Pdef. (259 base cast speed, up to 272/273 with Oath/Mith robe sets.) (~223 pdef)
Heavy Armor - Slightly less MP regen and casting speed compared to Light, highest Pdef. (222 cast speed.) (314 pdef)
For the most part, cast speed is not a big deal for Orc Shamans. Your not really a 'main healer' nor a 'nuker' thus the main incentives for high cast speed are secondary at best. The loss of bonus MP from a Robe set IS however noticable. On the other hand it is only really relevant if you are doing something more than buffs and the occasional heal/sleep. (Chant of Life cast time is loooong however, so if you use this more than occasionally, any amount of MP/cast speed is helpful!)
If you take any amount of hits from melee, the difference in Pdef is quite noticable. You can make it up with a drain or two but the cost in MP is definately noticable.
And although your MP regen is 'reduced' with the heavier armors, the amount of reduction is pretty much unnoticable. (MP regen sucks no matter what you wear...waiting for the Interlude regen skills!)
Thus, I'd stick with the Brigandine overall for the 20-40 levels in a duo with a Scav. (It also allows more solo ability if your not together all the time.)
....If you have a ton of money/enchants to blow, I'd go for a +6 Mithril (Heavy) set. The extra MP regen for the +6 set with the pdef of heavy would be ~hawt~ on a shaman. (Heck, I'd kill for it now!....it's just too **** expensive at my levels, I'd need a B grade +6 set at the minimum since I am in A grade levels right now as an OL.)
I used robes for my Shaman. Since they were Academy, I couldn't get rid of the darn things. You can get by in robes, but as you progress in level, it gets harder and harder. The exception is in Cruma Swamps, where almost everything is weak to fire and all of your magic skills are "fire-based", and even in robes you can get by fairly easily. But if you want to go somewhere else besides Cruma, you will want to give this some thought. A Shaman can be played many ways, but I think you will find yourself happier with heavy armor. You're not a nuker, and thus, you will end up either meleeing a lot, or sitting a lot to regen mana from using drains and other spells.
FYI, when you get to higher levels and you have many buffs, you will want robes for when you are grouped, and maybe heavy armor for when you solo. But 2 sets of gear for D grade doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Drain isn't fire based, nor is poison. Not sure about the other DoTs, but they don't benefit signifiantly from fire weakness (if that's what they are), as they do a specific amount of damage depending on the level of the spell. But Cruma Swamp is nice regardless :)
Robes would be the best choice if you will be duoing with a dwarf most of the time. Mana for buffs and sleeps and the occasional spell :)
I think Sages Rag is the D robe that gives the most mana? If so, it would be a good choice, since mithril doesn't add that much more casting speed, but the +7 speed is nice.
If you plan going to catacombs or other dungeons with that dwarf then you will have to tank at least part of the time becouse without herbs dropping the dwarfs will have realy expencive time keeping up the mp.
I had heavy armor+ blunt, but looking back a twohander or duals could of probably worked better. For the robes I had devotion, for those rare cases i was in large party with real healer and a tank.
Champa, I'm not sure if you've played a Shamon or not. Shamans do have a DoT that is fire-based, and an AOE that is fire-based. In robes I used to walk up to 2 or 3 of the passive Statakos, hit them with the fire-based AOE, then take them all down very quickly. And the logic you use for the DoT would seem right, but nevertheless, I found that I could kill fire-weak mobs in Cruma swamps faster than any other mobs. (However, I did have to get Greater Antidotes, as at times the poison effects of some of the creatures was very strong to my Shaman, at least until my level got a little higher.)
Once I made WC, I tried comparing a blunt and duals, and the duals won out big, even over mobs that have a weakenss to blunts.
If the dwarf keeps aggro, and you play mostly with the dwarf, robes will be OK for the Shaman. If you solo much, you will probably like heavy armor better. Those times when you happen to get 3 mobs at a time in a robe will either take your down or really tax your mana (from doing drains to keep from dying).
Those times when you happen to get 3 mobs at a time in a robe will either take your down or really tax your mana (from doing drains to keep from dying).
Or just sleep or 2. ;)
I here use sleep even in heavy (386cast sleed celft buffed and sleep's cast sleed double of C4 nukers) when I get 3+ mobs on me.
But CT swamp is prety good spot.
I said I wasn't sure of the element of the other DoTs (the ones that aren't poison), but still DoTs either land or they don't, weaknesses or resists have no influence on how much damage they do. Is it possible that the stakatos have less HP than the other mobs you're comparing them with?
Yes, sleep works most of the time, and Shamans/WCs casts don't get interupted most of the time. Those times when the sleeps/drains don't land or your casting gets interupted can have you pulling your hair out. I probably sound argumentative, and I don't want to be that way. A Shaman can be played many ways, so I'm just recomending what I think most players would chose if they had many sets of gear to try out.