Viqqtor Warrhog Posted On 11/03/01 12:35PM

From early on we get the drowsy series and the disease series - these will be a vital learning tool for all of your life experiences. Be it group or be it solo you MUST slow them (drowsy) and you must put diseases and poisons on your mobs. (this is a must in solo) Our disease series will all but stop a nice hearty normal mob regen and the slow will be vital in the extension of your life during the fight. now to kite or to fight that is the question I my self have always been the fighter (cant say this is the smartest always but ...) as an ogre i don't get stunned so ...

Next phase of our lives is the 34 pet coming into our lives, it is a must u know how to control this thing, you want a haywire death you can get one by not knowing how to control your pet in a dungeon . Now the life style i explained earlier is same for me with a pet, i ALWAYS slow everything! ALWAYS ! This is a life saver for your pet and for any others in your group, i shall explain - if i am with a good group i can save my cleric tons of mana by slowing this mob down. 1. my tanks take less double attks and usually the damage intake is drastically different - also i can increase the pulls for my group thru the slow method and then hasting method. The mob deaths are very fast now and we are taking little damage. Ok back to the pet - same method as group , except i will usually step in and help pet when he is hurting and absorb some damage as well - just for his life extension. also i use the enstill method of root and not my early root, this can be a big debate in some peeps eyes but... root is 36 seconds and enstill is 96 seconds -- well the root wont break near as often as enstill when u are nuking or applying a dot. My method here is this i slow on the pull, and sick pet. step into melee range and attack, cast my dots in succession and then i cast enstill - now once it takes effect i back out and calm pet and med for the next 96 seconds - periodically adding my dot's as they fade. THIS METHOD IS VITAL IN HG SOLO"S
cause this will allow my mana its full potential thru medding during the dot/enstill time and allows me to solo 3 hg's in succession before going to medd up for mana.

Adeer Posted On 11/03/01 02:01PM

while grouping i have found that the best thing a shaman can do is to join the defensive side of the group, that means, no dots, no blasts and most importantly NO MELEE. (sorry all you battle shamans out there). what i mean is that you should first slow the mob that the main tank/puller is on, than slow every other mob that is at the camp, since slow is a huge taunt that means that these mobs will be all over you. so what do you do with them you ask, simple, pull back away from the rest of the group and root them, than go and continue slowing the rest of the mobs. that helps the tanks because they aren't getting hit as much, the cleric cause he doesn't have to heal as much, and most importantly the enchanter because it keeps the mobs off of him and when his mez breaks the mob runs after you because the slow is more of a taunt than the mez. now with the mob on you after the broken mez i would suggest a root while the enchanter re-mezzes it. my logic behind all this is that i would much rather have a mob on a shaman than on an enchanter because the enchanter will die if a mob is on him for more than about 10seconds. also, in groups that dont have enchanters shaman make pretty good replacements, using the slow root tactics the mobs are generally not a problem. now, since shaman arent tanks they cant take much punishment either, that is why you should have a regen on yourself at all times, not only does it help keep you alive it help with your cannibalizing, also try and keep a regen on the main tank, the cleric and the enchanter, normally the cleric and enchanter only get hit once or twice before it gets mezzed/taunted off so a regen would help with the clerics mana.

now with regards to buffing, i have found it best to keep a stamina buff on everyone in the party, a talisman buff on everyone except the int casters ( talisman stacks with symbol but not the int selfshields) a strength and dexterity buff on all the tanks, an agility buff on the rogues and monks, and finally a charisma buff on the bards and enchanters.

now, shaman soloing... i have tried many different tactics but this one seems to work the best

1. summon a pet, buff it with str, sta, talisman, ac
2. pull the mob with a slow
3. root the mob
4. stack your poison and disease dots on the mob
5. re-root and reapply dots as necessary
6. when the mob gets down to half hp send in your pet, sending in your pet any earlier will mean certain death for it.
7. depending on your style of play you could melee when its at half health, personally i don't cause i think my time is better spent medding than hitting a mob for 2 damage every 30 seconds, but that's just me

Logiktue Posted On 01/31/02 07:17AM

I've decided to add a Small tidbit I like to use and something I have Noticed about a question in this thread.

Shaman is me, this is MY experience on one thing.

Groups with no Enchanters....
Shaman has one of the best Taunt spell I know, Insects line. it's cast on ASSIST, then one ADD. sometimes the add will not aggro to you but other times it will....what you want is it YES aggro on you...and do what I call Ghetto Mezz.

Insect the add, if it's aggro'd to you then drag it away from battle, ROOT and go back and repeat for all adds.

if it Does NOT aggro on you just Sit down immediatly after casting even Beg it to aggro on you to draw it out of battle from hitting the tanks on the back where they can't block and riposte and all that jargin.

This method works extremely well to keep ppl alive during heated battles and multiadd types.

if more than 1 add, Attempt to root them separate from one another if possible so that when the tanks go to Kill one the other isn't beating on them too, making this method now obsolete.
This is a tiny bit harder to do for younger Shaman, as their Insects gets slower cast times and the root also, I personally use out 3rd in the root type line...is faster cast so usually NOT interrupted so can get out of melee range faster and take less damage in the process.
Unlike Natures roots, our Shamanistic root will not add any damage(for when a Chanter IS available to mezz)

now...
About DS and FD...
Firstly I'll say what I've OBSERVED about DS and aggro and give an example of One of the places i've learned this.
DS added b4 any aggro is gained/established will NOT add the caster onto the Hate list. DS added After or during Aggro is gained/established WILL add the caster on the Hate list.
My example...
lvl 15 Ranger in LOIO walks by a Druid of lvl 60 while pulling his mob to the kill spot(soloing), the lvl 60 druid casts probably some of his best DS onto the Ranger(that will take on low lvl's)...the Damage per hit is 25... This Ranger had NO other help in killing the MoB and then gained NO experience from the kill and did NOT have loot rights to it because the DS did much more damage than the Ranger could even wish he could.
From then EVERY kill was gained by the ranger with FAST kills because of the DS and he gained a level pretty quickly(until the DS faded)

now this example does Not prove that the druid was not on the hate list after the first mob, and I realise this. I am assuming this because of the kills gained. I WILL however experiment with this using a Monk and Druid...Monk will toss a shuriken to pull a mob AFTER the druid casts his DS on him....the monk will stand for 5 seconds taking a beating letting the DS damage add up some, FD just a little out of normal aggro range of the Druid. If the druid gets pounded on then my theory is False. If the MoB starts normal patroling or whatever, then I will conclude that I am Correct and I will post my findings here next week.


Logiktue Tek
Mystic of Vazaelle
Lucid Chimera Officer