I always value effects over stats for content you have less players for. A 8pt ds, 15hps/tick, etc mean very little tanking 2-3 group content but for 2-3 players it makes a noticeable difference.

I assume you have an epic or greenmist since those are class making items. Hp recovery via procs is definitely your bread and butter.

Diminishing effects hits hard in EQ. A Vindi bp is great but a Thurgadin quest bp is solid for just over 20k. Same logic for the cloak or ring 8 vs 9. Is either BP better than a fungi for low-person stuff? Probably not.

No experience with the crown. On paper 20 mana a minute will keep up with bare minimum tank spell use. Two disease clouds a minute. Probably perfect for a sham duo.

Are you glad you did Shawl 7? Recently acquired a crown, and now find myself wanting even more mana regen.

I wonder. I'm not interested in doing the extensive log parsing it would require to answer, but I wonder. Consider the following from a duo perspective:

A fungus tunic is undoubtedly better for the easy stuff. Take Sebilis as an example. The wife (60 SHM) and I (60 SK) were in Chef area last night and she had to heal me only two or three times an hour on average, mostly when some Wizard blasted me. A fungus tunic might've erased the need for outside healing entirely. On the other hand, an occasional Torpor here and there can hardly be called a strain on the healer and that stuff wasn't going to kill us regardless.

On the opposite side, look at something like Bledrek in Velketor's Labrynth, another common target of ours. He hits for double 420's. Here's where I wonder about the fungus tunic: I would lose over 20 worn (30 displayed) AC with a fungus tunic vs. Thurgadin chestplate. If that AC is sufficient to reduce even a single average DI roll per minute by half, then the fungus tunic would in fact be a net loser even ignoring its -16 net change in DEX reducing lifetap proc rate slightly and other stat reductions. While it would take a lot of log parsing to answer this one conclusively, instinct tells me the higher AC is probably preferred over the regen in this type of case.

The fungus tunic is a great item for solo, but in my situation where I mostly duo with a Shaman I'd leave it bagged most the time for regen while feigned or similar niche uses. Admittedly vanity factors in somewhat as well: Fungus tunic looks really bad on a human.

Danth

In the most basic terms it's a game of dps in vs hps regen. Normal blue cons dont hit very hard and their dps drops like a rock with a slow. That said, shaman's rarely have mana issues so maybe a moot point.

AC and hps are great, I'm a huge fan. If I was tanking stuff that hits for 200+ I'd prob wear an AC bp over the fungi; especially if it was one-off kills vs a steady stream of xp. If it's a matter of efficient grinding though, especially running around looking for pulls, 9000 extra hps an hour is really nice. Not consequential to a shaman but for like a druid or cleric w/o clarity maybe.

Yea fungi fashion is a real thing. Human's look respectable at least compared to erudite males, lol. Ultimately my biggest hurdle with a fungi is not keeping it on a different class, usually an alt or the ranger who needs every advantage not dying.

Lol I felt the same way when I got my crown. I enjoy doing the Shawl quests, so it wasn't a chore for me. But I do notice and appreciate the extra mana regen from both. Having 40 mana per minute (including the natural 1 you get per tick) helps me maintain my mana pool when soloing and grouping. 40 mana per minute means you can disease cloud 8 times per minute for free when grouping. Very nice when you don't have an enchanter. In solo situations, My kill speed is usually 1-2 minutes per low blue mob, so a camp of 4 or 5 mobs takes roughly 10 minutes. That 400 mana regenerated in 10 minutes means 2 less minutes of meditation per camp cycle. This is usually enough extra time for me to refresh all of my buffs, heal myself with thurg BP, and med back to full before the first repop in a zone with 20ish minute timers. Before I would sometimes need to let the first mob stay up for a little bit while I finished recovering. Mana is always the worst part of a hybrid, because they have no way to siphon it back, and their playstyle does not allow a lot of sitting.

the shawl is never worth it considering how fast you can get 100 dkp in any guild that does ring wars and get narandi crown @ 200% effectiveness of the shawl

You can wear both:) So yes it is worth considering. Wearing Flowing Thought II and Flowing Thought I gives you +3 mana regen total per tick.

i feel like you could get a CT brain easier than that shawl

Not at all. Brain is one of the higher DKP items to buy. Everyone wants it, CT is a 7 day spawn, and the drop rate is low. Shawl is much easier to get.

And then there's always the slight possibility that shawl 8-10 are added, as was originally intended in Velious.