I recommend staying away from caster npc's as much as possible. They nuke very hard (they aren't in classic mode atm) and aren't worth the risk of having to CR.
KYM (Know Your Mob):
The #1 thing you need to figure out for each mob you're facing is:
"What is the most efficient way for me to kill this?"
In most cases, this means
NOT casting slow. It's not worth the mana cost.
Experience in an area will tell you what you need to spend mana wise to kill a mob. Different mobs of the same type will vary as well. When hunting orcs in South Ro, I determined there were 4 "types" of the same mob depending on it's level.
-Ones only requiring a disease dot + melee (lowest level)
-Ones requiring a disease and poison dot + melee (next level)
-Ones requiring a disease and 2 poison dots + melee (highest level)
-Ones requiring 1 poison dot, nukes + melee (casters)
This list will change depending on what area you're fighting in. That's really what you need to figure out.
Avoid using nukes unless you're risking death. Dots are more efficient. The exception to this is multiple mob camps where you have to break a spawn or if you need to kill a caster in short order (see risking death).
If you're going to stack dots on a mob, always pull with the longer cast time one first. After the cast finishes, during the "recast" period where your spell gems are greyed out, strafe away from the mob until your spell gems are available again, then stop and cast the second one. This gives you breathing room so the second dot won't get interrupted.
KYB (Know Your Buffs):
Keep up necessary buffs only. Refreshing buffs obviously takes mana, which could be better spent on killing stuff. Early on I went with AC & SoW because the lack of having a Root caused me to fight in melee a lot. Other stats don't really do much at that point.
Once you get regen you will want to keep this up 100% of the time. This leads to the next topic...
KYD (Know Your Dance):
The CanniDance is an important part of a shaman's arsenal. Everything runs on 6 second ticks. As mentioned in other threads, as long as you're sitting when the "tick" registers, you'll get the full benefit of sitting regen (both hp and mana).
You can use the following macro to help you dance, or you can do it manually with spell gem/sit keys or however you like.
Quote:
/stand
/pause 2, /cast 1
/pause 15, /cast 1
/sit
|
1 = # of spell gem where you have Cannibalize
The reason for 2 casts in the same sequence and the pauses is because of fizzles. The syntax for the macro is kind of weird because the pause actually happens AFTER the cast, even though it's listed before it. Pause 15 is 1.5 seconds, pause 2 is .2 seconds, etc.
Anyway more to the point on the dance, what you're setting out to do here is CanniDance in between regen ticks; this adds to your leveling efficiency.
KYP (Know Your Pet):
It'll be a lilttle while before you get him at 34 but a few things to keep in mind:
Always /con your pet after summoning. They can vary in level depending on the summon, and it's worth it to /dismiss a low level pet and continue summoning until you get one that cons dark blue.
Your pet needs buffs too! SoW, AC, HP, Str, Regen, Haste.
Your pet needs weapons! Rusty works just fine, make sure you have two.
I think that covers most everything for solo play that I can think of right now.