Thank you for agreeing with me on that point. Hopefully you will realize heals/utility have benefits to this party too. Keeping the Clerics/Enchanters focused on dealing with the pets is a benefit, since the Shaman can handle healing, slowing, etc. when necessary in any situation, and they can help stabilize an emergency better than a Mage.

From my experience groups make mistakes and wipe, even groups with highly experienced players. I would rather prevent the wipe than save a tiny bit of time on each kill. Wipes often times are group killers. If your group has been going for 3 hours and then wipe, you often times will end the session earlier than if you didn't. That's why the benefits of a Shaman are harder to quantify, because it depends on the players. But again, I have seen wipes end a party much more often than slightly slower kill speed. If you never wipe, you tend to play longer. Often times that evens out the time saved per kill, or ends up being better, depending on how much longer the session lasts.

So you've fallen back on "Shaman is better cause players might be bad"? That's probably the best argument you've ever made. However as has been stated many times we're assuming the players are good in this hypothetical situation. If we assume bad players then all bets are off and the shaman could also be bad and more detriment to the group than helpful. Like if he/she decided they wanted to pull a bunch of extra mobs to root rot for extra DPS then loses control of them.

I didn't say the players were bad. I am assuming the players are good in this situation.

I also didn't fall back on anything. What I said in my previous post has been part of my argument the entire time. The conversation has been more focused on DPS, that is the only reason why I haven't expanded on this part of my argument as often. But you can see me making this argument plenty of times in my earlier posts.

Even the best guilds wipe on raid bosses. Highly skilled players still make mistakes, or just get unlucky via RNG, lag, etc. I have never seen a player/group be perfect all the time. It just doesn't happen. This is why most people aren't claiming 4x Enchanters is the best group comp for OP's question. Technically that group doesn't need healing if played perfectly. In reality it does need healing because mistakes happen, or you get unlucky. That is one downside with playing an RNG game. You can just get really unlucky, and it's harder for skill to save you in those cases.

The cleric is there for when "mistakes happen" with the enchanters. A shaman in this situation is redundant as has been mentioned many times now. Do you understand what redundant means? Using that logic you should just fill the entire group with clerics just in case. It's less likely to cause a wipe with 3 clerics than 1 right? The cleric unlike a shaman can also rez if someone dies (including one of the other clerics). If DPS is truly unimportant why wouldn't you bring more heal power and an extra rez? Or better yet bring a necro instead who can heal in a pinch and rez and mez and do more damage?

guys just join bad groups all the time and you’ll see the awesome power of shaman
(LOL)

It's true that a good shaman can do a lot to carry a bad group and correct a lot of mistakes. A group of 2+ encs and a cleric that are good at the game have almost no use for a shaman whatsoever outside of their mediocre dps.

I do understand what redundant means. You are only using it for Shamans though, and not the Mage. The Mage's DPS is also redundant, as you have admitted.

You are also taking my argument to the extreme by arguing for 4 clerics. That wouldn't work since you couldn't kill fast enough, which increases risk.

Basically there are two camps of thought here. You are the type of person who prefers higher risk, higher speed groups. I prefer more consistent groups. From my experience the higher risk higher speed groups tend to end up farther behind than the consistent groups. The higher risk, higher speed groups don't think so because it feels good when you are playing well, and you forget when you wipe or play bad.

The reason why Shaman wins here is because having a broader toolkit means your group can do more things. A third Enchanter, a Mage, or a Shaman are all redundant in a group with 2x Enchanters and a Cleric. The question is simply which redundancy you prefer. I prefer the redundancy that expands what the group can do, while reducing wipe chances. Consistency + better coverage of camps is a more powerful combination than simply slightly faster kill speeds.

39 more pages of DSM non sense to hit 200, we almost there boys.

The mage has a pet that can tank shit when charms get broken so you don't wipe. The shaman dog is like lvl 39 and torpor is both too slow and problematic on a summoned player. The only argument for shaman is, "you need torpor for x, because y". Feel free to make that argument, but there is no other added utility when you have 2 ench and a cleric. Mages have rods, coth, and DS, which is actual utility the ench/cleric don't provide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umuVBewCNgY - The Shaman pet can tank a Cliff Golem just fine, which is going to be a harder mob than anything you are chain pulling. With FoS the Shaman pet has close to 2500 HP. The Shaman can also tank, so the pet tanking argument doesn't work.

Shamans have Malo, which is better than Mala.

CoTH is rarely used in group settings. Most of the time you would need to have your Mage already set up somewhere, unless you are doing something like Chardok Royals. In a static 4 man if you wanted to stay at Juggs, everybody would just stay camped in Juggs. You wouldn't leave your Mage friend behind and play with the other 3 players.

Shamans save tons of mana because they can cast things like slows, heals, etc. This means the Cleric and Enchanters don't have to. That easily covers Mod Rods, which damage the player and require the Mage to spend mana on them.

Damage Shield is only 4-16 DPS roughly, depending on if the mob is slowed. That's not a lot of DPS. Remember than Enchanters also have a DS, so really the Mage is only increasing your DS DPS by 66%. In reality the Mage is only adding 2.5-10 DPS when taking that into account.

Finally, if you want to use the "players are playing perfectly" argument, then a Shaman can perfectly root/rot mobs, which is the same DPS output as a Mage. You can't have it both ways. You can't say a group is playing perfectly, but the Shaman can't root/rot in a scenario where the group is chain pulling easy mobs and playing perfectly.