Hi, I'm now level 20 on my shaman, I would like to know what weapon I should use, I'm always in melee for fight.
Fist Weapon
2H Blunt
2H Sword
Duals
*1H Blunt
*Depending on your playstyle a 1H blunt may be higher on that list. I put the 2H blunt and fist at the top of the list, as you are probably going to be soloing up until 40 unless you have a good clan. And the extra Accuracy you get from a Fist/blunt combined with the higher patk is a good choice.
2H sword and Duals are a mixed bag. You really do need the ACC at some levels, while the extra crits from being a sword kinda average that out. These are more of a stylistic choice at this point. You won't be terribly penalized, but you won't get that much of a benefit either.
1H blunt means you can use a shield, but I've found that from 20-40 shields are pretty much useless for anything except blocking arrows on nukers and taking up weight.
After L40 when you have various SA's, more buffs to cast and more parties, that is when you need to start matching your gear more to your playing and not just a general scale of what is 'best'.
Thank you, when you say 2H Blunt, it's like a staff? Maybe it's good with the new skill that stun and do dmg
Not exactly. Staffs are classed as 2H blunts, but they are mage weapons. You want more of the "hammer" type blunt. One with a High Patk.
The top D grade 2H 'staff' is the Ghost Staff. It has 90 Patk/72 Matk.
There is no top 2H 'Hammer', but the second to top (by Crystal Value) is the Titan Hammer and it has 96 Patk/47 Matk.
Scalloped Jamadhrs, the top Fist weapon, has 112 Patk/54 Matk. The top Duals are 107 Patk/51 Matk.
EDIT: Almost forgot...top D 2H, the Claymore is 112 Patk/54 Matk. If you dont mind missing occasionally, the extra crits on that make it a fair trade off versus the Fists. (I like the Duals/2H more once you get the Accuracy buff. And/Or Crit buffs if you go WC...)
In general a 'mage weapon' has lower patk but higher matk. While a melee weapon is the opposite with higher Patk and lower matk. There are a couple of oddball weapons that are half-n-half with almost equal stats like the Hellknife and the old 'book' class weapons. (only found in D and C grade.) But those are the exceptions and not the rule.
The main reason to prefer a 2H weapon over a 1H weapon, is the SS efficiency. You use less, and waste less, saving you cash in the end.
And as far as Stun goes, it's not very useful. And in many cases it's just wasted MP. If you have MP to waste, it's probably better spent turning Soul Cry on, or casting a Drain/DoT before you melee the mobs down. Even if the DoT fails, it's about the same as if a stun is resisted. Except you didn't have to worry whether you were weilding a blunt or not if you want to cast a Dot.
I've tried the main combinations here, and the Fist weapons are my preferred D grade weapon. Extra Accuracy, highest Patk and good SS use.
Pain is right, I went with duals there, D and some of C because they were cheap and easy to come by over enchanted.
I prefer my single handed blunt to two handed ones because I can use a shield, but a shield doesn't seem to really help until B class and above.
If you are going to solo, the drain and a good p.atk weapon will get you there better.
-ymmv
Pain covered everything really, but in accordance with prophecy I'll throw in my two cents by piggy-backing on what he said about accuracy. From 20-39 I liked either a two-handed Patk blunt or Fists because of their innate accuracy. It's not really uncommon for a Shaman to miss two or three times in a row with a two-handed sword so even if the added damage from crits and shot efficiency more than balanced things out I still found myself getting aggravated.
I knew I was destroying stuff with my OE'd Claymore, but a few misses had me looking for something else. I was being somewhat irrational, but it's still something to think about if you're easily annoyed.
If you are up to it, I advice a wolf and a mage weapon (like staff of life).
Begin each mob with a drain and finish it off with melee and the wolf. You will be able to go on forever, especially in a herb area, and kill fast.
But if you cannot afford the expensive wolf gear and have no nerve to manage aggro away from your canine companion, better don't do it.
if you are soloing and you're an orc mage...why teh ** would you want a blunt? for stun? for drains? those are weak and are very mana intensive. only use soul cry. orc mages get general weapon passives so use something with better than [censored] crit rate. a dagger or two hand sword with decent crit rate and soul cry will carry you sooooooooooooooo much further than a blunt will. this differs if its a mage weapon and you're in a party. i know id rather miss than never crit in a blue moon. just fight green mobs...how hard is that? btw i have a 78 domi and 55 wc.
drain should only by used when you're low life and in trouble. it is not a nuke.
Mr. Lifesong, are you talking about real soloing or "soloing" with a box buffer behind you?
Cause nothing in newbie buffs supports criticals in the least, while there IS some support for the drain, and I have found you can keep the drains up virtually forever in a herb area.
Anyway you won't be able to keep aggro from the wolf with a dagger, you simply don't do enough initial damage compared to the drain.
Well to keep my advice unambiguous, I concede that with buffs like from a prophet for example you might fare better with a dagger and soul cry, plus sparing you the hassle of managing aggro with a wolf.
I guess I do need to clarify myself. I am talking about soloing without any form of outside help except self buffs (noobie+shaman self buffs and later on, wc or lolverlord buffs).
The thing is, if you drain every mob to establish aggro for your wolf to kill, I find it extremely hard to believe you can sustain your mp pool even with herbs and newbie buffs. consider 15 levels in our friend's future, when he is 35. that lvl 35 drain costs 79 mp compared with a dark wizard's twister attack which costs 30. It is beyond double the mp and does way less damage. I would love to see anyone try and drain-nuke in an herb area without recharger and keep their mp stable.
besides, until 55, wolves are mediocre at best DD's. Even in the best gear, they die fast and they dont hit harder than an orc mage with soul cry on. he would do just fine with the melee herbs that drop (which give him focus 3, might 3 and haste 2 far more often than emp 3), starting off hitting the mob before his wolf. rarely at the lower levels will a wolf take aggro away.
Well the few times I tried it, my impression was that Soul Cry takes more mp from me than one initial drain to pull the mob did. But of course I was using a bonebreaker then, not a dagger.
And as I was feeling the drains were superior over time to my melee damage, I switched to a mage weapon (Mace) for C grade, and was happy ever since I got me a wolf.
Maybe I am inferring too much from my C grade, which after all has much nicer casting speed and mp performance, but I still would like to see that tested
- dagger/SoulCry vs. SOL/drain (both with a wolf).
I never used Soul Cry unless I was "chaining" mobs or I really, really needed some extra Patk. It's just too inefficient to use if the mobs aren't close together(Cata, Necro, other dungeon, etc.). Using drains and DoT's always seemed pointless to me since they either wouldn't land or the mob would be dead before they got through every "tick". I tried it a lot in C1 and although it was cool that I could use robes I found it to be very slow and dangerous.
In the end I just went and got really good melee gear and brutalized mobs because that was the safest, easiest, and most flexible avenue to go down.
Things tend to be tricky when you use weapons you don't have masteries in. Duals i.e. are less useful if you don't have masteries for them. They seem to be one of the most finicky weapons in that regard, but that's just from my own experiences.
I agree with the blunts for stunning...shamans seem very flexible from what I've tried with them in the past...I've seen people use just about every weapon there is to use with them. For soloing, stunning can come in handy. But blunts are not always everyone's cup of tea. So you can always try things out with shadow weapons to get a feel...though they aren't by any means top weapons, but it's better than buying lots of weapons you'll never use in the long run. ^^
Soul Cry has two problems, both related to how much MP is uses.
1)Buffing takes pretty much all your MP. So unless you use lots of elixers or get lots of MP herbs you don't have much MP to use on SC or enough time with it up to make a huge difference.
2)The MP per 'tick' is very high...your only real option is to keep SC at one skill level below max until you are high enough level to handle the drain. (1 level below since less doesn't give enough of a boost for the level you are at.) At first you will never have enough MP to use SC much, but by the time you hit L20 you can start using it more and more.
This essentially means that as a buffer, it's better to have someone else buff you, so you can make the most out of SC. Since by the time you reach B grade, it's pretty much impossible to buff yourself with full buffs as an orc buffer without wearing robes and having full MP.
If you hunt where herb drops and can get full buffs, you *can* wear Heavy Armor and still use SC almost (but not quite) constantly. (I used my OL to buff my WC for the first 46 levels or so, and this worked fine, with the WC just doing the buffs the OL didn't have.)
In a party, you can wear robes and still use SC half the time. Buff, regen until at almost full, then turn SC on/off while keeping your MP above 60% until about 3 min until rebuff and leave it off to regen fully. (How long it takes to regen that last % needed to have enough MP to fully buff again is level/gear/build dependant.)
If the 'other' patch notes about Gracia 2 are correct, then in the next update SC's MP use goes down, but Soul Guard goes up....
The use of the drain for long term, consistant hunting is to pace the kills out correctly. You can not drain each mop for the full 20 minutes unless you get the mp herbs to drop alot more than they do now.
Also, the freeze strike will get you alot of aggro and keep it from the pet in one on one mop fights to maintain the mana pool.
The other thing is not have the groups of agro around you tight like in Blazing Swamps. Those bat groups will screw you up there if you try it with a pet.
I have been able to hunt for hours w/ the ol solo, but not with SC on. I have worked on it even toggleing it off and on only during the fight, but I always run the mana out.
One more question.. does a warcryer wear a robe or light armor, ( for PvP and PvE if it's different ) Thanks
I wore robes for grouping(as long as someone else was tanking), heavy for solo'ing in PVE, and for PVP? I liked heavy, but it's been a long, loooooong time. Most Doomcryers I see on the siege field are probably rocking robes because:
1. You're probably the last person to be focus fired
2. If you are focus fired then chances are nothing was going to stop you from being lit up like a Christmas tree.
3. If the group buffer runs out of mana then life starts to suck and it's going to be a while until the suckage abates.
As a rule I never really liked light armor. It always seemed like an insufficient half-measure. Robes for grouping. Heavy for solo'ing. That was my plan.
One more question.. does a warcryer wear a robe or light armor, ( for PvP and PvE if it's different ) Thanks
Just about every WC/OL I've ever seen, talked to, or played has always had at least two sets of armor. Robes for the MP bonus and casting speed, and Heavy or Light for soloing pve.
Wether they choose Light or Heavy as their 'alternate' armor is mostly a matter of personal preference. Although OL's seem to prefer Heavy over light, as they don't have VR to compensate with.
For the most part, you will probably make a decision based on the armor's set abilities based on the grade you are in and what your playstyle is based on that.
I've heard of a few people say that they use robes in solo pve and rely on VR/Drains to keep their HP up, but I haven't really run across this playstyle at higher levels myself. (AKA above D grade.)
As far as 'pvp' goes, I can't say I've ever really seen a WC/OL do much more than spam the Victory/Invincibility skills as well as regular buffs..so I would say robes there. >_<
DC light is a good set but if you want 2 PVP also then I recommend Majestic Light which also adds 2 your Stun resist, MP pool, you can hold more CP pots, and looks good on WC ;)
I've heard of a few people say that they use robes in solo pve and rely on VR/Drains to keep their HP up, but I haven't really run across this playstyle at higher levels myself. (AKA above D grade.)
I do it still at 59 (OL) :) . It's not very mp eficient however, but as long as I can keep my mana up (herb drops) I'm usually ok. BW robes and a CoN +2 w/Acumen. Sometimes it's better for me to use my Clan Heal though because some mobs have too high m.def to heal me well enough. I rely heavily on MP to solo (crowd control, drains, heals) and as long as I don't run out I almost never die (sometimes things happen).
i never touched anything except robes (didn't even get masteries). why? magician's movement gives a nice boost in atk speed and you also get highest mp pool, while hp was never an issue in herb areas.
for wep i always used daggers, because you get the highest benefit out of soul cry with one.
after i hit B grade i got mage wep w/ acu and never hit (melee) a mob ever since. i went the pure support path (assisting with sleep/heal) and lvled 100% in parties. if i wanted to dish out damage i would've chosen a dd class.