Looking for a bit of help with the Shaman class and maybe casting in general. I just got a Shaman to lvl 20 and realy am baffled why it takes so long to cast spells. I'm talking 10-15secs casting time for most of the skills, be it dots our aoe heal regen everything is taking forever to cast. I know I purchased passive skills like Light Armor mastery that say they should lower the spell casting time by 90% but I'm just not seeing it. I have the proper light armor on I can see my spell speed go from base 129 up to 258 when I equip the chest/legs. Is this realy how they intend spell casting to work, if so meleeing is more effective which realy leaves this class gutted for the most part.? Anyways if anyone can shine some light on the system or some possible bug with the class I'd appreciate the help thanks.
If you wanna cast faster, use robe set (yet, it's still slow compared to cast spd in higher level - coz of passives and acu sa you will be able to learn/use). So yes, light armor is a pain to cast spells at your level; and if you 258/129, that's about 90% bonus (since I believe you should have newbie buffs - acumen)
Ya unfortunetly I can't stand the casting for that many lvls. I've been playing Mmos since EQ released and this is about the worst casting system to date. The melee classes all play smooth especialy when you factor in the dmg bonus from soul shots. I honestly just don't see how someone can stomach playing a caster upto a decent enough lvl for the gameplay to smooth out enough. Not to mention using soulshot so far has severly outpaced any dps advantage I could get from casting the dots. Even the regen why anyone would cast it with the current cast timer is beyond me especialy factoring in how potions stack up vs's regen. Not knowing how pvp ballance plays out in this game yet I have a hard time imagining casters doing very well in the early lvls especialy if you have to wait till the 50's to beable to cast spells even remotely quick. Most games 1-3 seconds is the norm depending on the spell but upward of 15 seconds for some of the early spells with out the full passives is just crazy.
Shamans are one of the slowest casters in game...although they become pretty fast at higher lvls where you get more equipment that boosts your casting speed and also can take yout WIT up and boost your casting speed even more.
The other casters has 2-4 times faster casting speed.
Not knowing how pvp ballance plays out in this game yet I have a hard time imagining casters doing very well in the early lvls especialy if you have to wait till the 50's to beable to cast spells even remotely quick. Most games 1-3 seconds is the norm depending on the spell but upward of 15 seconds for some of the early spells with out the full passives is just crazy.
In this late of the game, what happens in 78+ matters. If you don't like and can't wait till higher lvl for the shaman, you are surely playing the wrong class or game. Either try out other classes or play another game.
first orc shaman I did,I wore robes,carried a blunt,nuked mob with life drain/later on steal
essence,then hit them.Very few dots seemed to land,sleep works great though.
yes,if you want fast cast,after forty get a acu weapon.
blunt staffs with acumen are available,think thats a grade.
You get 1/10th of the damage you do back as mp on a melee swing, how does it even make sense to go nuker path?
This is my point behind the classes desing flaws why have 3 dots and 1 drain that all take up to 10-15secs to cast and 1 stun melee atk. That to me means the class was designed to be a caster not a melee class or they would have given those dots as melee atks instead. As for the negative post above about playing other games actualy waiting on Aion to release which is basicly L2 remade in alot of ways and a much better more modern game. L2 can be fun and reminds me of EQ back when it first released. At this point slow combat casting just isn't fun even looking at Asian based Mmo's such as FFXI, as a comparison doesn't have the same issues. Even looking at similar classes in pretty much every other MMO that has been released no game suffers from this situation. I can tell you that Ncsoft learned alot from L2 and hasn't repeated any of this in Aion thankfuly they moved on as have other Mmo's.
I'll agree with Smittie and its as I assumed the class would develop much later as others have pointed out lvl 50 + casting seems to improve. From a player retention point slugging out 50 lvls to get to the good part is just an old way of thinking that current games have gotten away from. The last game to try the old school slow approach was Vanguard and its on its way out. I appreciate the type of game L2 is/was, but with Aion coming out this was just something I wanted to see if I could enjoy till that point.
just love how brand new players that has only played this game for few hours comes here complain about desing flaws before they even get to try the char out and to play it the way it was meant to be played.
orc mystics are support (buffer) classes with strong melee abilities along with lots of debuffs (Over Lords).
your buffs are party type and you can buff the entire party (War Cryer)/clan (Over Lord) with almost every buff in the game in less than a minute.
if you hate the orc mystics that mutch then why do you still play one?....by the way they rock at higher lvls
just love how brand new players that has only played this game for few hours comes here complain about desing flaws before they even get to try the char out and to play it the way it was meant to be played.
orc mystics are support (buffer) classes with strong melee abilities along with lots of debuffs (Over Lords).
your buffs are party type and you can buff the entire party (War Cryer)/clan (Over Lord) with almost every buff in the game in less than a minute.
if you hate the orc mystics that mutch then why do you still play one?....by the way they rock at higher lvls
Actualy I played quiet a bit back in closed beta but that was 5 years ago other games like Daoc,WoW,FFXI,WaR,Lotro, among others had my attention. I also don't play the Shaman now I origionaly made a Knight when I first came back then tried the shaman to help a friend who also started playing get through the Orc village area. Thats when I was questioning how they could have this class in its current state. I've also rolled a scavenger as obviously L2 is a completely adena driven economy questing so far doens't yield much useable gear. And this is made more obvious by the shadow weapons aka the bandaid for new players to try and enjoy the game. The economy is so mudflated from gold selling its almost impossible for a new player to step in and be in gear thats appropriate for there lvl. Which is a complete backstep to how current games work questing or getting drops along the way not the 1/5000 drop rate that L2 has. Then coming back through and twinking alts a bit L2 either requires working the market buy low sell high or buy gold to be competitive the latter I refuse to do for any game. So I obviously made the scavenger who basicly has almost no combat proficiency fairly boring to play, but hey it allows you to make money so you can enjoy the game later on another character..
2-4 means that you can have 2k cast speed on Sps mcBuff, and 1k on most others, while having 500 or so cast speed on orcs.
That's like comparing a fully buffed mage with robes and another mage with minimal buffs with heavy, if you wanna compare it that way then ofc the difference is huge and unrealistic.
Add: Just fyi, a level 31 LE mage with devotion set (+15% cast spd bonus) + passives and newbie buffs got 606 cast speed.
i played an orc shaman since open beta.
i can completely agree that casting time is slow...
the fixes to slow casting are Shots, Robes with a cast speed modifier, +wit, Acumen, (Zerk) acumen on a weapon, and i believe there is a dance to increase cast speed. when i played way back, i'd just find slow monsters, and Chill flame them, and venom, then wait till they were low enough to kill in one whack, life drain, which essentially changes to steal essence at 40 is ok, but very MP expensive.
so... don't nuke, just grab your weapon of choice, throw on soul cry, and butcher themz mobs to death til you get an herb of faster casting(acumen).
the casting improves over time, but to tell the truth, it still sucks if you're not wearing faster cast equipment. especially bad if you're in heavy armor(worse in no armor for some reason, should get a 300% boost :) would be nice).
That's like comparing a fully buffed mage with robes and another mage with minimal buffs with heavy, if you wanna compare it that way then ofc the difference is huge and unrealistic.
Add: Just fyi, a level 31 LE mage with devotion set (+15% cast spd bonus) + passives and newbie buffs got 606 cast speed.
A lvl 31 Orc Shanam with the same gear and acu3 got 354 in casting speed...almost half of what the LE has at the same lvl/gear.
where I already demonstrated in their wit info I posted before... lol
you mean with this?
Orc shamans have 15 wit, and the fastest casting class Light Elves have 23 wit. How does that make 2-4 times faster cast spd? o.o
Stack more buffs on top of the casting difference along with the passives and the LE casting speed will go up alot more than the ones of a orc mystic since the buffs gives a % boost based on the base casting speed that is set by the WIT.
The more WIT you have the more casting speed you will get from each buff...maybe 2-4 times was little over the edge, but 2-3 times faster is posible when they are both evenly buffed and got the same gear
The more WIT you have the more casting speed you will get from each buff...maybe 2-4 times was little over the edge, but 2-3 times faster is posible when they are both evenly buffed and got the same gear
The most will be 1.xx but not yet 2 times, which is roughly as the wit difference (also there's cast spd cap, too). You do the maths yourself. I already did and know the maths myself before posting.
my cast speed is fine.... blaz skin -> stun(or)crush -> soulcry+melee to death... drain if hp gets low
if you wanna streamline that its just soulcry and melee...
lvl 40 = Plated leather set and a darkscream w/ focus
lvl 52 = Bluewolf leather and a kris w/ focus
lvl 61 = dark crystal light (or i prefer tallum heavy) and a bloody orchid w/ focus
76+ you should have a mage set for pure buffing and pvp and a melee set of your choosing there is plenty that work well as your man job at this point is to buff then make it look like your actually doing dmg...
2 hand swords w/ focus are also a good option from c - a grades
as a meleer a focus weapon is your best friend... you can get a cheap acumen staff for faster casting and stun then switch to your melee weapon to kill the mob... i have also played around w/ a 2 handed blunt weapon just chaining hammercrush and burning chop, its a fun way to kill mobs while in robes waiting on a party or somthing but not really that fast of xp