OK, I can tell from the other thread you're big on statistics...which is great.

But why ignore your downtime? Casting that many more spells there's more scope for resists (you're not factoring in the malise line), there's more scope for root breaks/recasts.

Shaman pets don't dual wield and are usually light blue/green con to its owner... they're not going to be great dps, free yes, but don't overplay their damage :/

If we had a 44 shaman and a 44 cleric with identical WIS, I'd totally wager a bet that a cleric would get through more undead mobs per hour than the shaman.

In my eyes you're not doing more damage per hour because you're spending longer on each mob to get that damage put out, and unless you think you can maintain full mana or close to it by frequent canni'ing through the fight or chain pulling I just don't see it. You can't speed your dps up without casting DD's, and the amount of canni work to keep up would set you back in heals or downtime to regen it.

I can't see it, sorry :(

Resists and root breaks or recasts are both valid criticisms. However, my experience with my shaman was that if I targeted mobs that were low dark blue cons, they would rarely resist my spells. I never cast malise when soloing for EXP. I found that resists were not a major issue. Sure, they are more of an issue for a shaman that has to cast ~6 spells on a mob than a cleric that has to cast ~4, but not that much more of an issue, and it's certainly more than made up for by canni and regen. If anything, I'd argue you might have to worry more about resists, since your nukes are magic-based and monsters tend to have higher magic resists than poison or disease resists, but again, I think it's a minor issue.

Overplaying their damage is exactly what I'm not doing. I'm saying that without pets, shamans still beat clerics.

That's the whole point - it doesn't matter how long you spend on each monster. I absolutely think that a solo shaman should not be nuking (unless there are dire circumstances involved).

Here is why it doesn't matter how long you spend on the monster. Let's forget about the EXP per hour thing and let's just look at how we kill a single monster.

You: spend 675 mana plus a root on killing a monster.
Me: spend 650 mana plus two roots on killing a monster. (Note, also, though, that I do a couple hundred more damage; let's just assume we do the same amount of damage.)

We may kill the monster at different times, but it doesn't matter. Why? Because you have to regain 675 mana to get back to full, and you start regaining that mana once you kill the monster. I have to regain 650 mana to get back to full, and I start regaining the mana once I cast my first root and my first disease+poison dot combo. The whole time that monster is getting dotted down, I'm meditating (except when I take a quick pause to re-root or re-dot). What does it matter whether the monster is alive or dead if we're doing the same thing, i.e. sitting on our asses?

So we have to get back about the same amount of mana before we take down another monster, and we both kill our respective monsters before we get the mana back, but I'm getting mana back considerably faster because I have canni and regen.

Then the issue for me is how long it takes you to regen that health and whether you need to throw yourself a heal to justify the extra mana regen from canni and keep yourself above whatever health threshold you set yourself.

The issue of magic resists vs poison/disease... I remember scourge resists occurring far more frequently on my necro compared with the heat blood/vampiric curse lines (not sure if casters are on a different table to priests or not, or whether its spell related) but I remember the same with my shaman on live. Magic based spells are less resisty in my experience on anything except golems and stuff that's well known to have high MR.

We'll just have to disagree, the only way to know for sure is to test it...and I don't see you holding your health with the amount of canni'ing you're saying will keep you ahead of a cleric. If you canni a lot, which you're suggesting, then you're either going to have to sit and regen that in combat or not. If in combat, you're going to have to do the same again after mob 2... its not free mana if you need to heal yourself to keep pulls going, and that negates the supposed mana advantage you're talking about.

I'm talking absolutely zero heals here. The only time I would canni in this hypothetical scenario is if my health reaches above, say, 90%. From the math I did earlier, it's clear that casting regen is absolutely worth the cost in health, because it pays for itself over time (you wouldn't canni up the mana cost immediately, but rather as your health grew). The overall effect would be that you'd get considerably more mana over an extended period of time by meditating and cannibalizing than the cleric would.

Most of the mana would be coming from meditation just like with the cleric, but you'd also be getting extra mana from cannibalization. Again, the shaman is generating more mana over time, and spending less of it to kill the monster.

Then you're adding downtime to regen because there's no way you're chain pulling and I think you're not placing enough emphasis on upkeep spells... it's going to be a circular argument (if it isn't already), I've got an early start tomorrow but I'll come back to it, with the shaman's upkeep including pet health regen and the time it takes you to finish a fight I really don't see the shaman ahead.

while the shaman and cleric fought, the necromancer went in and cleared all of the specters.

necromancer 1
shaman + cleric 0

If the shaman worships cazic they can fear kite specs or other undead. Pathing in the caves in feerrott is perfect for this. All you need is mana for 1 or 2 dots. Fear doesnt last long, but with 2.0 sec cast time can do it in between med ticks, and shaman can med whole fight. Haste for pet sometimes, but sometimes that means pet will outdamage you.

Also was good for fear kiting spectral keepers in Traks teeth.

It's Innoruuk for the snare necklace, the problem for the shaman there is it has a long cast time and it only lasts ~6 ticks. If he has to recast VotS twice he'll have to resnare at least twice if not 3 times.

Cazic is undead fear, so he can fear kite. The mob be running fast, so that's why he mentioned pathing being important.

A Shaman will edge out a cleric on soloing (as the maths have shown) on undead fights, but they also get the advantage of not *having* to target undead mobs only. Plus they get the advantage of a Fungi tunic being "free" regen to increase their kill rate, while the cleric can only rely on a manastone to do so (and in old world zones).

I've seen a Cleric with a Manastone basically chain pull mobs in Lower Guk, so that is some serious awesomeness when used correctly. But the typical case Shaman > Cleric. But the point still stands, Cleric is better than most think.

--

As for the question on what would happen if Nilbog and Rogean just "F you all", well, they'd say "F you all" and run their own private server. During a rather...tense...time on the server that was thrown out as a "warning" to all the entitled players. They'd be more than happy to take their project offline and just use it as a sandbox for their friends.

So basically to answer your question, tomorrow the server could be offline and there's nothing that could be done with it. But that hasn't happened in 4+ years, so it's unlikely. Until that day does come (history says it will someday), just enjoy yourself :)

Actually spectres are pretty slow, so not having snare isn't too much of a problem.
Shaman also gets better equipment in regards to being more efficient solo, such as fungi to help with regen, epic and jbb for free dps.

Actually the real problem for the shaman with that strategy is that the effectiveness of DOTS is significantly reduced, doing 2/3 damage only. A feared mob still receives full damage from dots.