For a Shaman who wants to melee level, do I need to be Ogre/Troll?

[loramin]

P.S. Just so we're clear, I'm not saying Shaman melee damage is completely, 100% meaningless.

What I keep saying is that, because Shaman deal significantly less melee damage than their other two damage sources, it's only one factor in the equation of what style you should use (Shaman tank vs. pet tank vs. root/rot; let's pretend Shaman never get charm).

Look, even if we make up numbers and say pet damage = 1/3, melee damage = 1/3, DoT damage = 1/3 ... you still wouldn't want to melee all the time. Why? Because some mobs will hit so hard that if you melee them to get that extra 1/3 damage, you will need far more mana to heal yourself up afterwards (vs. if you just rooted the mob and didn't melee).

If your options are "do 2/3 damage, only have to cast a root or two, and be at ful HP/50m after a fight", or "do 3/3 damage, but wind up completely OOM and not full HP after", it doesn't matter that you can do more damage by meleeing ... you'll get more/faster XP over time by not meleeing, and saving yourself all the mana you would have spent on healing (and slowing the mob, and hasting yourself, and berserking yourself, and casting AC buffs on yourself).

But again, I very suspicious of the idea that at 21+(ish) melee makes up even 1/3 of a Shaman's DPS output. And regardless, it's not even as simple as "how much do I do in melee vs. how much does the mob do?" There are all sorts of other factors, like whether your pet can tank it (pets heal faster than PCs), whether the mob casts (and you want to interrupt it with melee), etc.