I experienced JBB until (I think) level 56. Mob hp got higher and it was a choice between standing there clicking JBB (+/- adding my own dots) and either trying to let dog tank or simply face tanking. Dog would not be reliable in holding aggro, so it meant the mob was on me.
Fastest kill speed: dog + dot + jbb
Medium kill speed: dog + jbb no dot
Slightly slower: load some dots + dog tank + me med vs cannidance
Why did the third option just end up better over time even though the individual kill speed was slightly lower? Efficiency resulted in less down time and faster pull tempo. JBB meant I was face tanking. JBB meant I was not only missing out on extra regen and med ticks from sitting during the fight, I was actively taking the damage vs letting the pet do that.
Pet regens 30 per tick baseline. More with a regen buff. You and I both know that shaman pets properly buffed are actually pretty good meat shields. By capitalizing on both the pet’s innate regen , regen buff, my own innate regen (sitting), fungi, and buff regen - well between the two of us we were rocking along at 30 + 15 + 15 + 15 (75 total health per tick) combined BEFORE you factor in troll racial regen while sitting. This is vs just my own regen and not getting to sit. So yeah 91 regen (16 racial sitting) combined between the two of us. It was nearly 1/3 of a continuous torpor that only required a regrowth refresh every nearly 20 minutes.
Pet health regen covered the dps of mobs in this level range very nicely and heals were infrequent and not very necessary- super efficient. My own regen covered the hits I would take here and there and funnel all that extra back into my mana bar. By not standing and chain clicking, I would also hit a lot of med ticks.
Even when the fights took a bit longer, I would kill more total mobs over any given unit time as each fight would end with me simply ready for the next.
With JBB chain clicking there were no med ticks. My innate regen was cut in half. I would be the one actively taking the damage which would require either time or mana to recover, and I’d have less mana from not canni’ing or dancing along the way.
You can show all the cute math of what a “free” clicky gives you in terms of dps, but don’t neglect the opportunity cost of having all of your everything fully occupied during the time you’re face tanking the damage and mindlessly clicking JBB.
Then again, Troll regen was there. You like to quote the differences while standing but I promise it’s a much wider gap while sitting.
Yes. Mid-50s it became less efficient than just playing differently and more efficiently. It was then I realized that my once overpowered self-PL tool was now just a cute toy.
Beyond that - the best results were with a duo buddy and god damn if it wasn’t boring as fuck. Shaman is such a dynamic class. It’s a shame to see it relegated to slowing a mob on incomming. And then just mindlessly hitting one key until it was dead.
Sold it. No regrets. Don’t want another. Would sell another immediately if I won one in a group.
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