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

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I showed you very clearly how DoT damage for the example you provided was greater than melee damage, ie. > 1/2. It's impossible for me to show that melee damage was <1/3 though, because you used a Cleric and didn't provide any pet damage (ie. 1/3 of the data).

Now you can cherry pick the data by arguing over which spells to use, or you can go find a new parse of a level 27 vs. a very low blue ... or whatever. Changing the goalposts won't change the blatantly obvious fact that as a caster Shaman are going to generally do more damage with spells than melee (especially the higher level you get).

I'll say it one last time, and then I'm done with this thread: there are three Shaman play styles, and they all have value. Which one is optimal has to do with tons of factors; your melee damage output is only one.

If you weigh all of those factors, you will undoubtedly come to the conclusion that tanking for every mob you ever face is sub-optimal (even with a great melee weapon and haste). The details will vary, but I'm still convinced that as a caster class Shaman follow the general pattern of all casters: the more your level goes up, the more your melee damage becomes less and less of your total DPS. Hell, as Snaggles reminded me, from 45+ it's guaranteed Shaman melee damage will be the minority (unless you are an Iksar, sorry), because there is no weapon in the game with the DPS to match the JBB.

Don't play a Shaman (or any Priest) if you want to beat on things and have that beating be meaningful for your character's career: play a hybrid.

I am not going to let you keep moving the conversation and the goal posts to try and keep your self as being "right"[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Please just admit you were wrong on your previous points, so we can move on, and you can help people with the proper information. Let me quote you all the times you talked about how much Priest melee damage is "supposed to do":

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

I'm saying on P99 Shaman melee damage is < 1/3 total damage, at least most of the time, once you get past (roughly) 20.

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

Right, but that is a VERY different statement from "Shaman can deal a significant percentage of their damage via melee at level 40."

Again, I think two different things are being conflated in this thread:

A) pretending your Shaman is a melee class and trying to do significant damage from your weapon (which in my experience stopped working around the 20s, on both my Shaman and Cleric) ... vs.

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

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).

Those are just three examples of where you claimed a Shaman's melee damage past 20 would be 30% or less. This just isn't the case. 6.2 (probably a bit higher in most cases) vs. 6.4 is above 90%, and well beyond 30%. Your idea is just false.

You keep going back to pets, but that is irrelevant in this conversation. There is no situation in which a Shaman who melees would not use a pet vs. a Shaman who root/rots. There is no reason to include them in the calculation, because they will be there regardless. We only need to compare Melee vs. SPELL DoTs.

You also bring up the point about Shaman melee past 45. I have said repeatedly in this thread Shaman melee starts to fall off in the 40s, so I am not sure why you are bringing it up, I never claimed otherwise.

If you think a Cleric fighting a yellow mob that has MORE AC than a normal mob of that level is "Cherry Picking", you simply do not understand melee mechanics on P99 very well. Most mobs will parse the same way in the lower levels, unless they are specifically an undercon, like a dungeon boss.

You also keep dodging my point about resistances[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] They do play a factor in DPS and recovery time, which significantly affects kills per hour in solo situations.