Melee as shaman

[demokatt]

What I liked as ranger was the ability to use some magic (dots and ds) and then meele the rest of a mob. I was wondering if you make a tanky shaman can this be done o shaman too? If I slow the mob and haste myself would I be able to dps as a ranger in meele? Also can you recommend any armour for like 10-15 k preferböy plate lookING I will probably go Barbarian.
Thanks for any help

[Pyrion]

You can melee as a shaman. That said, since you wont get dual wield or double attack, don't rely on it as your only source of damage. Slow is incredibly usefull and that's basically the reason why shamans can still tank even at higher levels. It's another question if that is the fastest way to xp or if root rotting is better (since you can med in that time).

[Jimjam]

I've seen people use this strategy on a shaman with heavy twinking.

Typical set up is a fungi, a bit haste and a plague wind censer. On the same budget you could perhaps do it with an iksar ceremonial chestplate, 20% haste and a good weapon, but of course it will be much less effective.

If you are lucky, perhaps it will be enough to carry you to a high enough level to canni and regen, and if so that should allow you to keep pursing the strategy even further.

[lurk]

Never played a shaman but I did mess around on the beta buff shaman during velious and I don't think I could have solo'd Lodizal without the blaze cudgel from VP. When you're solo and can barely keep up just healing and slowing then that melee dps is a real nice welcome.

[fragmaster]

I did 1-30/34 (can't remember when it stopped being worthwhile, but it was one of those spell levels) as a primarily melee shaman with gear my rogue was wearing (some filler slots for what the rogue didn't provide) and no haste. AC/HP/STR. Poison Wind Censer makes it really easy. My shaman is an Ogre, but I don't think you're experience will be much different. After 30/34 I switched into wisdom gear for root rotting and healing while grouping.

[Shodo]

I have heard some shamans suggest "melee dancing" (as opposed to canni dancing) as a viable way to add melee damage when root rotting. Basically just root joust between med ticks while the mob is rooted. So that might be an option for you as well post-30 if you can afford a high-damage two-hander.

[brecon]

Melee Shaman works well, and Shamans can slow tank very well once you get your good slow in the 30s. I slow tanked MM and COM. You are a force if you duo with a rogue or monk and just slow tank. Also if you roll a Barbarian, a BarB spiritits hammer makes a melee shaman a blast from 35 (when it starts proccing). You will use this your entire life, I still use it when soloing targets at 60. Other shaman races can get a VP weapon, smoldering cudgel, which serves the same purpose.

Of course, if you are in a group, often you will be too busy casting, canni dancing, and medding to melee, and your DPS output from melee outside of proc weapons won't be huge since you never get double attack or high weapon skills.

[demokatt]

Cool! The pet must Also count for some dps compared to a ranger or sk? Is it hard to keep its damage below 50% so that xp is not split?

[Xaanka]

you can smash stuff with melee if you have haste and a pwc censer until root rotting becomes better. usually around level 30's to when you get epic depending on your level of twinkage. later on you can tank group content with slow + root + torpor, you won't be doing much damage with your weapon but you can tank stuff with spells in melee range. great for duo/trioing summoning mobs without a tank class.

i dont mind shaman tanks at all when i'm playing my rogue, they hold aggro great. cost of entry for torpor is pretty high on blue tho.

[brecon]

Cool! The pet must Also count for some dps compared to a ranger or sk? Is it hard to keep its damage below 50% so that xp is not split?

Depends on the level range. Again remember, in what I described, a lot of your actual DPS comes from procs on the Barb Spiritists Hammer (250dd). That procs at 35. Assuming max dex, you are only going to do 500damage/minute from that. Pet is probably like a 35 damage / tick dot, so like 850 damage a minute plus whatever melee damage you deal. When mobs have like 2k hp, that's competitive: 2 minutes for a solo kill. When mob HP steps up to 6khp, you're looking at a 6 minute solo kill. But at that point if you have an epic, a 6-minute melee kill makes no sense.

The problem with grouping in this is that procs are very unreliable. Maybe you get two right away and steal aggro from the tank. Maybe you get none until the mob is at 1%, in which case you waste most of the damage. Because of the variability in procs and the aggro issues, most DPS classes don't rely on proc weapons. At 50 Rangers get a proc weapon that is a 1-hander and does 688 damage per proc. But I don't see rangers use that, because (1) procs are unreliable, and (2) because of aggro problems, and (3) I'm assuming someone has parsed it out and found that a solid ratio 1-hander is better, but I'd need a ranger to chime in here.

Again, where this works is if you are a group tank. Slow is going to give you a lot of initial aggro. From there you can attack with the Hammer and hopefully generate procs. With a mob shaman slowed, a wizard could tank it. You can canni a bit during the fight and get topped off by the healer if mana runs down. And if you have a JBB, you can corner cast, spam JBB, and still get procs off the barb spiritist hammer. I don't see nearly enough Shaman tanks and I kind of think it's a shame, but it's understandable why.

[Webeporting]

Pretty much what everyone said, but let me make it concise. For your budget of 10-15k, purchase the following

Jade Mace-700-800pp. Will last until damage cap comes off at 20.
Poison Wind Censor-1kpp- Use this when you ding 20, don't use it before, a lot of dps will be going to waste because of the damage cap.
Silver Chitin Hand Wraps-2500- Cheaper version of FBSS.
Iksar BP-8-10k- i cannot state it enough how this will change your experience playing a shaman, buy this item, it's a must.

These items all together will allow you to melee your way(as you wanted to with your ranger) to lvl 35-40. If you have any questions you can PM me, I have played like 7 shamans. Think i have a pwc rotting somewhere too.

[Teppler]

Shaman melee is better than a lot of chars. Save up 1-2k for Poisoned wind censar. Awesome weapon. If you're rich get a fungi and haste item and you'll be good to go up to 50 with meleeing.

[BarackObooma]

PWC is 650-800pp

[isoka]

You are better root rotting while converting hp saved into mana through canni dancing imho. That being said, if you want to melee, go through it.

[goofball_jones]

I just leveled to 24 with dotting and then meleeing, and it's worked out pretty well. But now that I'm 25, I don't melee that much at all until they start running. I pull with Malaise then Root them. Then hit them with both my dots and let them go down...then I start nuking when they're half way, re-Rooting when need be. Then they just go down.

I'm not getting the crap beat out of me and they go down quicker than if I was melee with them. Granted, I don't have a ton of high-end gear because unlike most on this server, I don't have ultra-high level characters with tons of plat on them, but it's decent gear.

But, I guess it just suits my style better, while others like to melee more. But if I wanted to melee, I'd just play my monk. :)

[HalasHermit]

Depends on the level range. Again remember, in what I described, a lot of your actual DPS comes from procs on the Barb Spiritists Hammer (250dd). That procs at 35. Assuming max dex, you are only going to do 500damage/minute from that. Pet is probably like a 35 damage / tick dot, so like 850 damage a minute plus whatever melee damage you deal. When mobs have like 2k hp, that's competitive: 2 minutes for a solo kill. When mob HP steps up to 6khp, you're looking at a 6 minute solo kill. But at that point if you have an epic, a 6-minute melee kill makes no sense.

The problem with grouping in this is that procs are very unreliable. Maybe you get two right away and steal aggro from the tank. Maybe you get none until the mob is at 1%, in which case you waste most of the damage. Because of the variability in procs and the aggro issues, most DPS classes don't rely on proc weapons. At 50 Rangers get a proc weapon that is a 1-hander and does 688 damage per proc. But I don't see rangers use that, because (1) procs are unreliable, and (2) because of aggro problems, and (3) I'm assuming someone has parsed it out and found that a solid ratio 1-hander is better, but I'd need a ranger to chime in here.

Again, where this works is if you are a group tank. Slow is going to give you a lot of initial aggro. From there you can attack with the Hammer and hopefully generate procs. With a mob shaman slowed, a wizard could tank it. You can canni a bit during the fight and get topped off by the healer if mana runs down. And if you have a JBB, you can corner cast, spam JBB, and still get procs off the barb spiritist hammer. I don't see nearly enough Shaman tanks and I kind of think it's a shame, but it's understandable why.

Barb Spirit Hammer procs at 30 unless they have changed it since winter/spring '15.

[Noselacri]

It stops being any good around level 20, and becomes completely futile at like 30. The exception is if you have some kind of proccing weapon or something, like Barbarian Spiritist Hammer.

[Shamanics]

Does anyone know if iksar ceremonial chestplate (worn) regen stacks with the regen (spell) cast? Would both of those regens also stack with fungal regen (clicky) from the fungal staff?

[jolanar]

Does anyone know if iksar ceremonial chestplate (worn) regen stacks with the regen (spell) cast? Would both of those regens also stack with fungal regen (clicky) from the fungal staff?

Worn regen stacks with spell regen. The regen from the chestplate is worn, but the regen from the fungi staff is spell regen because you click it and it gives you a buff. But it's still a lot better regen than you can cast on your own until the 50s and even then it's mana free.

[vouss]

Every shaman is a melee shaman. If you are killing anything worth killing it summons and you cannot root rot it. You are fighting it in melee range. Your melee DPS sucks. Get something that procs or don't even bother.

[RDawg816]

Every shaman is a melee shaman. If you are killing anything worth killing it summons and you cannot root rot it. You are fighting it in melee range. Your melee DPS sucks. Get something that procs or don't even bother.
I have been able to root-rot things that summon. It's fun.

[vouss]

Yeah it must be fun doing things in the most difficult inefficient manner. Yawn, pass

[jolanar]

Shaman are a caster class that can stand in melee range if they desire to. They are not a melee dps class with spells.

I think that's the best way to sum it up, since sometimes people seem to get the impression that shaman are a real melee class.

[Gumbo]

I think Shaman are melee classes until level 34 when they get the pet spell.

Once they get the pet spell, you can just cast root, snare, send in your dog and dot and let the dog do the damage, but pull it back so it doesn't do more than 50%.

[Baler]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Rune_Etched_Icewurm_Fang
or
epic
are your best bets for effective melee as a shaman. There really are not a ton of choice.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Jade_Chokidai_Prod
is not a bad option until you can afford/find a icewurm fang(they're super rare)

[RDawg816]

Yeah it must be fun doing things in the most difficult inefficient manner. Yawn, pass
It's not difficult, nor inefficient. I'm not going to argue though. It won't do any good and I don't care how you choose to play the game (if you even do.)

[Cillaz]

To answer your Q's ; Yes can mele as sham. I had banded armour, 5/55hp rings and a PWC. No haste, no other gear and was iksar. I mostly mele sham'd til 34. I then self quested scaled mystic armour, then root rotted. I did however still mele sham til 49 to keep def and mele skills up. It was do able but lacked dps and couldn't med while mele, so wasn't as viable, but do able.
What I'm saying is - with only low end/self quested gear I could mele sham til 49 no problems. Wasn't the fastest way once 34+ but easily doable.
With your budget a granite face grinder or barb hammer + SCHW or FBSS, it will be much better.
Plate look on a budget for a barb : buy totemic armour. Sham only armour that has plate look!

[EdTuBrutus]

There's absolutely no reason why a Shaman can't tank n spank mobs all the way till they hit level 60 and be just as efficient as a Rotter.

But the best part is, if you gear for HP and AC then you can still Rot with absolutely zero loss of efficiency over a Wisdom geared papershaman. It's the best of both worlds and can be done without Fungi/Ceremonial (although clearly its much better with).

[Doctor Jeff]

It's not difficult, nor inefficient. I'm not going to argue though. It won't do any good and I don't care how you choose to play the game (if you even do.)

You made the right choice, that guy got griefed off the server.

[RDawg816]

You made the right choice, that guy got griefed off the server.
Awesome. Thanks Jeff.