Quote:
Originally Posted by Noselacri
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Assuming that you level up by killing mostly humanoid-type mobs, you should by level 10 or 12 have enough plat for a suit of banded armor. You'll probably wear that until level 30-40 or even beyond. It's probably the best investment you can ever make regarding the cost vs. the benefits. That suit of banded will make the difference between struggling to kill dark blues and being able to melee them down with ease.
Also, if you can make a bit of extra money, try to buy a cheap but decent weapon. Something like a Cold Iron Morning Star which is a 9/35 magical 1hb and shouldn't cost you more than 30-50pp if you can find someone selling it. Up until about level 20, most of your damage will come from melee and you really want to have a decent weapon. A magical weapon is also crucial if you end up fighting a ghoul or something and run out of mana before it's dead.
As for fighting, don't bother trying to kite or root-nuke or anything like that. It's just not worth it until higher levels. You're a shaman, not a wizard, so you can afford to tank and melee blue mobs (if you're not using cloth armor and a rusty weapon, anyway). Cast Sicken and Tainted Breath and just beat the mob to death, there's no sense in spending a full mana pool nuking stuff down.
When healing, use Inner Fire until you get Healing at level 19. Inner Fire is a 20hp buff that costs 10 mana, and when you cast it on someone, they're also healed for the 20hp increase. Light Healing heals for about 30 and costs 25 mana, far less efficient; only use this if you need to actually save someone's life and you have to heal them as fast as possible, since Light Healing is a 2 second cast instead of Inner Fire's 3 and heals for 50% more. When healing groups, do your best to avoid situations where someone gets so low that you need to spam the healing spell to keep them alive. Keep people topped off with the Inner Fire heal. +20 hp for 10 mana is far better than +30 hp for 25 mana, and it's the only way you'll be able to single-handedly heal groups without struggling immensely until you get the 100hp heal at 19.
Also, don't buy all your spells. You'll never use most of them, and certainly not in the early levels. Only the following are really necessary:
Level 1
Strengthen
Cure Disease
(Burst of Flame and Dextrous Aura are optional, can be helpful but not really necessary)
Level 5
Frost Rift
Gate
Sicken
Level 9
Light Healing
Spirit of Wolf
Tainted Breath
(Serpent Sight might help barbarians)
Level 14
Bind Affinity
Root
Spirit Strike
Turtle Skin
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I have some issues with this advice.
First, I disagree about most of your damage coming from melee. Unless you're twinked, you're better off (IMO) dot kiting yellows starting at 9 with sicken and tainted breath (i.e. cast the dots, run away with SoW, recast when necessary). This gives you a good deal of exp for not much mana, and you save mana you'd use healing yourself. At 14 you get a nice nuke (Spirit Strike) that's better to take down blues with in conjunction with Sicken and melee than just meleeing.
The Inner Fire thing is a good point, though given the amount by which it's slower to heal, I would ask whether you might be losing out on meditation mana; maybe it would be in fact more efficient to use Light Healing in a group situation since you can heal quickly and med up instead of heal for a long time without medding. I've also run into the problem in groups that people will sometimes have better HP/AC buffs than inner fire (e.g., Center, the Cleric spell) and your inner fire won't take hold.
As for the spells mentioned, there are totally others that are worth it. Feet Like Cat is an excellent buff for soloing and grouping, especially if your base agility is under 75, since it will give you a huge spike in AC. Drowsy and Walking Sleep are often in demand in groups where you already have a healer and are taking on tough monsters. Spirit Pouch is an excellent item for holding high-weight loot so you don't need to run to town as often. Summon Food/Drink are cheap and save you the money and bother of buying food and drink, and will often be appreciated in groups.
I mostly soloed my ogre shaman to 19 without any twinking, and shaman soloing during those levels can be pretty slow. I would recommend trying grouping out and seeing if it's faster or more enjoyable than soloing with the character (for me, soloing was faster, but not by much, and grouping would sometimes be a nice change of pace). My basic strategy would be to dot kite yellows from 9 until you hit 14, and to sicken-nuke-melee blues until 19. Gnoll fangs are excellent EXP early on as well.