New SHM to server... save for JBB?
 

My wife plays a SHM and I see there is talk about basically a few items being class defining for a shaman. One of them is the JBB. She's almost 40 and I was wondering if it's wise to, say, put all of our eggs (plat) into the JBB basket? I never played endgame shaman in classic, but I am led to believe this item never gets replaced?

So, it seems like a good "investment" rather than spread out the coin on ac/hp/mana.


Thank you.

A must have
 

I am playing a 57 epic owning Shaman. And I can tell you first hand a JBB is a must have item!! I remember the day i dinged 45 en the first time i could use it, it IS a game changing item.

Yes its worth it, its a mana free 250 dmg nuke you can click over and over. It's either get JBB or Ikky bp if you don't have that yet. Either one is worth getting more than spreading out on a bunch of minor ac/hp/mana upgrades in other slots.

It's basically a 200dmg/tick free dot. Imagine that! Will never sell mine, so get yours asap :)

I'm a torpor shaman and I've never had one. It's mainly a solo item. Saving up for a fungi would be a better investment in my opinion. That's good in all situations, group or solo.

In the short term it will pay for itself and you can always resell it. It will help you level 45-50 much faster solo or duo.

This. When the returns start to diminish or you simply don't use it enough to justify not putting the plat elsewhere, you can always resell it. The EC market value seems pretty steady on them.

I don't disagree about a the value of a fungi, but you don't collect any dividends or interest in EQ from plat sitting in the bank. The item holds its value, so any loss or gains on the resale are fairly negligible. If using a JBB speeds up your leveling process by 5-10% and it has relatively no depreciation, then you are effectively earning time. We all know that time is money, so the item is actually an asset. That being said, if one has saved up the plat and the sale of the JBB will close the purchase of the fungi, then I wouldn't hesitate.

I played a barb on live and an iksar on P99, so I clrearly value regen for leveling. That and master races ( in-game, not RL).

As a level 60 shaman who still uses EBolt and Plague and only just got a fungi (but has had a JBB since the 40's) I would strongly disagree. You can get most 51+ spells for cheap, and the ones that cost more than 1k really aren't necessary. All upgrading your offensive spells does is let you spend mana more inefficiently to kill a little faster, which isn't what you want when leveling because you don't care about the speed of killing one mob, you care about overall efficiency.

But a JBB, if you use it properly, will greatly increase your leveling speed. It's hard to compare, but in the 40's/early 50's I actually think the JBB might even improve your leveling rate more than a Fungi.

Now, none of this addresses the most important shaman item (unless you count Torpor as an item): your epic. That will make more of a difference (at least in some camps) than a JBB and a fungi combined.

Thanks for all the great feedback. I did not consider the Ceremonial Iksar Chestplate. That seems pretty nice. Obviously it is not as good as a Fungi, but that's not really on my radar. I am playing a mage and my wife a shaman both from "scratch" so we have maybe 2-3k between us. I figure it will speed up now that we're approaching the 40's.

After looking at the https://wiki.project1999.com/Ceremon...sar_Chestplate I wonder, is this an item that's going to be "campable" in an exp sense? I last played Kunark around 2001 so, yeah, my memory isn't fresh lol.