[loramin]

Originally Posted by netchayev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have been grinding the Bandits in WK to try and get some plat for a new weapon. I am currently using a bone wraith hammer but I am in real need of a new one it seems, as I'm starting to have real troubble killing things smoothly.

Shaman do the vast majority of their damage through spells, and melee damage is only significant at the lowest levels. I'm not saying you shouldn't melee, but just that if you do 50% of your damage through your poison dot, 40% through your disease dot, and 10% through melee, even doubling your melee damage (and no weapon you can afford will do double damage) won't have much of an impact. And whatever those percentages actually are for your right now, melee damage will become an increasingly lower percentage over time.

Originally Posted by netchayev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

First of all, I can barely kill a white bandit/creature without being on the brink of dying and having used all my mana for nukes/slow/dot.

Welcome to EverQuest. Honestly I'm surprised you can even survive fighting white con mobs at 15 (it's been a long time since I was that level; I forgot how powerful we Shaman are at lower levels). Most classes have to switch to blues exclusively sooner when soloing.

Originally Posted by netchayev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When killing blue ones I lose about 30-50% hp and maybe 30-40% mana.
So after each kill, or maybe 2 max, I have to sit down and med for about 2-3 minutes, to be able to continue killing. Is this normal ?

Yes, welcome to Shaman soloing. If you want to reduce or avoid downtime, try finding a duo partner or group.

Originally Posted by netchayev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I am usally just slowing the mob once and then meleeing/tanking it. Sometimes I use my dot or nuke once, but mostly just melee it when its slowed.

Am I doing something wrong here ?

You've got the basic principle right, although at your level slow only slows 25%, which isn't that great, and costs 60 mana. That's almost enough to cast another root (40) and poison dot (40), so really slow might not even be worth it right now. In general though that's one main style of Shaman soloing ("face tanking").

The other two are:

1) "root rot": use both your poison and disease dots on a mob, root it ("100% slow" since you can then step away and not be hit), and then meditate to recover mana while it dies. Downside: no melee damage (but again, Shaman melee damage is minimal), Upside: Less downtime (again, root = 100% slow).

2) "pet tanking": basically the same thing you described, except that your root the mob and step away so that it attacks your pet instead of you. Downside: You have to watch your pet's HP and step in and tank yourself (or root rot) if it gets to low. Upside: Pet deals damage, and pets heal faster than you do (so less downtime).

Originally Posted by netchayev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Between having to rebuff myself, wait for mana and untill I have to rebuff myself again, I have the chance to kill maybe 15 bandits. And that takes about 30-40 minutes becuase of all the downtime.
Seems like I'm sitting down more then I am standing/running and fighting.


Thats why I'm saving money for a new weapon, assuming thats my problem.
Or is there something else im missing here ?

Your weapon is not your problem. Again, if you're doing 100 damage every 30 seconds right now, and only 10% (or even 20%) of that damage is coming from melee, than even doubling your weapon damage (not going to happen) will only result in you doing 10 more damage every 30 seconds.

What you're missing is just that EQ is slow, and soloing is slower. Smoke a bowl, watch something on Youtube on your second monitor, or do whatever else it takes to make "the grind" more enjoyable ... or speed things up by playing with others. You may or may not level faster in a group (depending on the group), but it will definitely feel a lot faster since there will be a lot less downtime.

Hope that helps.