Shaman melee damage

[Tuurin]

This is what is posted on the P99 wiki (https://wiki.project1999.com/Game_Mechanics#Melee_Combat_and_Damage)- seeing if anyone can confirm:

Damage Cap

Damage cap = (dmg * 2) where dmg is the weapon's stated damage.

levels 1-9 - damage cap is 20
levels 10-19 - damage cap is 28
Levels 20-29 - damage cap is 60
30+ - lifted, can do 2x weapon damage or more based on class

TODO: a recent patch implemented "class-specific" damage caps, so the general ones listed above may no longer apply for your class. For shaman's the new values seem to be 18 for levels 1-9, 24 for levels 10-19, 40 for levels 20-29, and 52 for level 30+ -- difficult to tell on this last one since strength is bringing in a lot of higher hits now, but 52 appears to be the modal hit still despite having a 29 dmg weapon. 4-19-2017***

Anybody confirm?As I read this, shaman have a lower damage cap than other classes? Or is that true of say druids or clerics?

If this is accurate, then wouldn't that mean for levels 20-29, any dmg/delay weapon with a damage over 20 would be wasted for a shaman, right? And then 30+, any weapon damage over 26 is wasted, right?

[xaxis]

Well I'm not sure about the 20-29 and 30+ levels or the other classes, but I can say for sure that as a lvl 18/19 Troll Sham, whether with a str buff or not, I never hit for more than 24. That being said, I THINK you can do double wep damage up to the level restricted cap at any point because while I swing for 24 regularly, my weps are a Brell's Keg Popper (15dmg) and a Runewood Great Staff (22dmg).

[loramin]

You have it correct. I haven't leveled my Shaman up through those levels in years, but I recently leveled up a Ranger and asked basically the same question, only to have several people confirm the caps:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285377

Really though, as a Shaman if you're relying on melee damage there's a very good chance you're doing it wrong.

[Tuurin]

You have it correct. I haven't leveled my Shaman up through those levels in years, but I recently leveled up a Ranger and asked basically the same question, only to have several people confirm the caps:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285377

Really though, as a Shaman if you're relying on melee damage there's a very good chance you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, I know about that thread- I actually answered your question on that thread and gave you that link lol. What I'm really wanting to know is if anyone has confirmed that the damage cap is class specific due to some kind of "recent patch".

Also, as a level 21 troll shaman with a Ikky bp and a PWC, meleeing is absolutely doing it right. What am I going to do, root/dot/nuke and med for 5 minutes after every fight? I can melee blues non-stop and not really lose health. Of course eventually with canni/pet/better dots I can potentially do better casting than meleeing, but with slows, heals and decent weapons shaman melee is not at all "doing it wrong."

[Nixtar]

I melee + slowed + one dotted my way close to 54. It was very efficient unless you fought undercon guards. I demolished the Oggok guards though with a Granite Face Grinder up to 51(or possibly 50). Some mobs are better than others though.

My shamie was an iksar without a fungi/ikky BP as well. No epic. On the topic of root/rotting... Let's be frank, many new shamans who are levelling up won't actually see their epic until lvl60 now. No more cheap easy access MQs sales so I find every single guide with the disclaimer "assuming you have your epic" to be completely useless.

[Tuurin]

Dug around a bit and might have found the answer, although even in this thread there seems to be some uncertainty...

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275279

Guess I'll just have to keep leveling to see how the cap goes. :D

[loramin]

Yeah, I know about that thread- I actually answered your question on that thread and gave you that link lol. What I'm really wanting to know is if anyone has confirmed that the damage cap is class specific due to some kind of "recent patch".

Also, as a level 21 troll shaman with a Ikky bp and a PWC, meleeing is absolutely doing it right. What am I going to do, root/dot/nuke and med for 5 minutes after every fight? I can melee blues non-stop and not really lose health. Of course eventually with canni/pet/better dots I can potentially do better casting than meleeing, but with slows, heals and decent weapons shaman melee is not at all "doing it wrong."

Oh heh, sorry didn't notice your name.

However, I think you missed my point. I never said "shaman meleeing is a bad idea". On the contrary, shaman have three core playstyles, and that's one of them:


tank with self
tank with pet
root/rot


What I said was:
relying on melee damage [=] a very good chance you're doing it wrong

I stand by that statement. Even with a PWC, try measuring how much melee damage you do over the course of a fight. Now measure how much damage your pet (ie. your best "DoT") does. Now measure how much DoT damage you do.

The exact numbers will vary by gear and level, but even so I can all but guarantee that most of the time your melee damage will be the lowest of the three. Why? Because I did the math with a BSH ... back before the proc nerf ... and even with that (equivalent of an) extra JBB hit per fight, melee still was the lowest of the three for me.

Melee might be 20% of your overall damage, and that's certainly not trivial, but if you switch to a weapon with higher damage/lower delay to account for the damage cap, you'll only get 20% of that difference as an increase to your overall DPS ... and in practice the difference between any two Shaman leveling weapons really won't be all that much.

So look, Shaman melee damage isn't meaningless, and I'm not saying Shaman shouldn't melee. I'm just saying we do (relatively) crap for damage when we hit things with our big stick/spear, and that's to be expected as we're worse at meleeing than every class except Clerics, Druids, and Int casters :D

[skarlorn]

Kraddoc soloed Nagy with. Melee he made a video

[xaxis]

I'm just saying we do (relatively) crap for damage when we hit things with our big stick/spear, and that's to be expected as we're worse at meleeing than every class except Clerics, Druids, and Int casters :D

Right but we also face tank better than all of those, and probably better than Rangers too, while also not having the mana efficiency or tactical abilities of most of those classes. We can't quad kite, can't charm, can't fear kite, expensive ass DD's, so while I agree that shaman probably shouldn't melee at a certain point, I would argue that a lot of your levels are going to be spent meleeing out of necessity/efficiency .

[loramin]

Right but we also face tank better than all of those, and probably better than Rangers too, while also not having the mana efficiency or tactical abilities of most of those classes. We can't quad kite, can't charm, can't fear kite, expensive ass DD's, so while I agree that shaman probably shouldn't melee at a certain point, I would argue that a lot of your levels are going to be spent meleeing out of necessity/efficiency .

Agreed; again, I failed to communicate :( Meleeing (ie. tanking) and doing melee damage are two different things. We're great at the former (though maybe not better than a Ranger) ... but we're lousy at the latter.

Tanking is about taking hits, not giving them. In other words, it's about giving the mob something to do so it doesn't kill your pet or run around wasting your DoTs (and at high levels it's because you have no choice after being summoned).

None of that requires doing melee damage: between slows, roots, and DoTs (and Flash of Light ;)) Shaman can easily tank a mob without ever landing a single melee hit. Melee damage is just "well I'm already standing next to this mob anyway, I might as well hit the auto attack button to throw a few extra DPS in".

Again, nothing wrong with that, it's just that the "might as well" damage will normally be less than either your pet damage or your DoT damage. If it amounts to say 20% (exact % varies by level/gear) of your damage then I just don't think it makes sense to spend a lot of time/energy trying to optimize that damage, because all that effort only optimizes 20% of your DPS output. If it takes you ten hours to acquire a haste belt/better weapon, that belt/weapon has to add damage equal to 50 hours of melee damage without it (10 hours / 20%), or else you would have been better off just XPing with your old gear.

P.S. That doesn't mean a Shaman should never upgrade their melee weapon. If they can get a new weapon that adds even a small amount of DPS at level 20 and then they never look for a new weapon again, even that small DPS increase will likely be justified over the course of 40 levels. Shaman can even make a few of those "justified" upgrades as they level because they can do so without spending a lot of time/energy on them. It's stuff like getting a haste belt, or getting a slightly more optimal weapon when you already have a PWC, that I think isn't worth the trouble.

[xaxis]

It's stuff like getting a haste belt, or getting a slightly more optimal weapon when you already have a PWC, that I think isn't worth the trouble.

I'm with you now, I can agree with all that ;D

[Kaibutsu]

None of that requires doing melee damage: between slows, roots, and DoTs (and Flash of Light ;)) Shaman can easily tank a mob without ever landing a single melee hit. Melee damage is just "well I'm already standing next to this mob anyway, I might as well hit the auto attack button to throw a few extra DPS in".



This made me laugh more than I care to admit. It's been a rough day, thanks for the laugh. Well played.

[Alphablue]

Didn't feel that I should create a new thread to ask since it's related:

My ogre shaman is currently lvl 21 and I have a PWC (with SCHW). Should I continue to save up for a Granite Face Grinder, or would my (eventual) plat be better spent on replacing my mediocre armor with something like Arctic Wyvern?

[loramin]

Didn't feel that I should create a new thread to ask since it's related:

My ogre shaman is currently lvl 21 and I have a PWC (with SCHW). Should I continue to save up for a Granite Face Grinder, or would my (eventual) plat be better spent on replacing my mediocre armor with something like Arctic Wyvern?

So, this is just me, but here's how I see your options:


save for a Granite Face Grinder, which will result in a miniscule increase in your DPS (Benefit? A miniscule increase in your XP gains)
spend your plat on replacing armor so that you have slightly higher maximums (Benefit? It won't even increase your XP rate a little, but maybe under very rare/specific circumstances it could save you from a death)
do neither: forget that plat exists, throw it in the bank when it gets to heavy, and otherwise just focus on leveling (Benefit? You level noticeably faster).


Again, this is just my opinion, but any time/energy spent on gear before 45, except for stuff like a Fungi Tunic that you won't be able to afford anyway, is a complete waste. Better maximums don't increase your rate of XP gain, so instead of wasting that time you should just level up. And you don't even have to stop at 45: I guarantee you can wear nothing except the gear you loot (eg. Jarsath armor from KC) and still level all the way to 60 as a Shaman just fine

To me it boils down to:


1-45: level
45-60: maybe level, maybe get gear
60: get gear


45-60 to is sort of a gray area because depending on how good you are at earning plat (and how much you like earning plat, and how much you like "toys"), it might be worth spending some time to get Shaman items like Fungis, epics, or JBBs. Getting an epic or JBB will increase your DPS/XP rate significantly, but will they increase it enough to make up for all the time you spent getting them in the first place? Hard to say.

Alternatively, if you level to 45 you can join a raid guild, and then get stuff like a suit of Velious dragon armor for only the cost of some gems and your time spent raiding ... but then your raiding time will cut into your leveling time, and even a suit of dragon armor really isn't going to make you level faster, so there's a good case to be made for saving raiding until later too.

[Alphablue]

So, this is just me, but here's how I see your options:


save for a Granite Face Grinder, which will result in a miniscule increase in your DPS (Benefit? A miniscule increase in your XP gains)
spend your plat on replacing armor so that you have slightly higher maximums (Benefit? It won't even increase your XP rate a little, but maybe under very rare/specific circumstances it could save you from a death)
do neither: forget that plat exists, throw it in the bank when it gets to heavy, and otherwise just focus on leveling (Benefit? You level noticeably faster).


Again, this is just my opinion, but any time/energy spent on gear before 45, except for stuff like a Fungi Tunic that you won't be able to afford anyway, is a complete waste. Better maximums don't increase your rate of XP gain, so instead of wasting that time you should just level up. And you don't even have to stop at 45: I guarantee you can wear nothing except the gear you loot (eg. Jarsath armor from KC) and still level all the way to 60 as a Shaman just fine

To me it boils down to:


1-45: level
45-60: maybe level, maybe get gear
60: get gear


45-60 to is sort of a gray area because depending on how good you are at earning plat (and how much you like earning plat, and how much you like "toys"), it might be worth spending some time to get Shaman items like Fungis, epics, or JBBs. Getting an epic or JBB will increase your DPS/XP rate significantly, but will they increase it enough to make up for all the time you spent getting them in the first place? Hard to say.

Alternatively, if you level to 45 you can join a raid guild, and then get stuff like a suit of Velious dragon armor for only the cost of some gems and your time spent raiding ... but then your raiding time will cut into your leveling time, and even a suit of dragon armor really isn't going to make you level faster, so there's a good case to be made for saving raiding until later too.

Very insightful, thanks!

I think you've swayed me to not even think about gearing unless it happens to drop, and instead just accumulate plat and deposit it for later. Can't argue with your logic about time spent leveling vs farming plat.

[jolanar]

I agree that Granite Face Grinder is a waste of money for a shaman. The ratio is almost identical to PWC. Save that money for a JBB.

[Tuurin]

You could make a fair argument that grinding all the way to 60 in banded/jarsath is possible and/or better, since you can then farm better cash/gear at 60. However, isn't it also possible that once you get to 60, (unless you're raiding with that char) there's no point in getting better gear for that character anyways, since you're already done leveling him so what's the point in gearing?

To me that's the P99 paradox- in a dead-end server, the whole point in playing is leveling up/developing a character. On live, you still had an incentive to play a max-level character since you're preparing for the next expansion etc. But since that's not the case here, I really don't get the point of rushing to 60 so then you can start gearing up. GEARING UP FOR WHAT?? You already beat the game.

[username17]

You use the shaman to start making even more money. Then use that money to twink new alts to so you can begin the 1-60 adventure anew.