What class will you roll first on a fresh server?

[greatdane]

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

I have a shaman on Green and have been playing him since before Kunark. Sure, it was a pain in the ass previous to Kunark, but not because of JBB or Epic, but because of the spells. It's not till Kunark that we get the juicy spells. Imagine a lvl50 Shaman casting a lvl24 Cannibalize spell over and over non-stop. I still have nightmares about that, plus 20+ guys in raids sending me tells asking for 5 to more than 10 types (Stats, sow/shrink, regens & resists) of different buffs each. Most I get asked for nowadays is Shrink & FoS/STA.

Still, once Kunark comes out, he sure shares the soloing capability of an enchanter, although before that, I was hunting guards at freeport or clearing Ishva camp at a respectable pace. The shaman is a more stable soloer than an enchanter. Like I always say, the shaman path is a SLOW one. Heck, I've been soloing mobs in Velious that no enchanter would ever be able to solo (Royal Scribe and Huntsman, for instance).

That said, the shaman will kill at a much slower rate than a necro or an enchanter. But at the same time, their pros and cons is what make shaman + necro or shaman + enchanter such awesome duos.

Killing slowly is a big part of what makes it a sub-optimal soloing class, until you get to the point where you can maintain a never-ending sequence of killing and/or root-rot multiple mobs at a time. Until then, shaman definitely doesn't belong on the same tier as enchanter and necromancer.

And in classic, nearly all relevant content is located deep inside endgame dungeons where shamans just don't really have the means to do it. Enchanters and necros can crush it in SolB and LGuk. What's the limit of shaman soloing in classic? Ishva? Ghoul sage? By no means is it a top tier soloist pre-Kunark.