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

[loramin]

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

Not sure why people keep saying Shamans can't melee well past 20.

Two very different things are being conflated: tanking (ie. standing in front of a mob and taking damage) and dealing melee damage. I can't speak for anyone else, but what I was saying is that Shamans or Clerics (or Druids) can't do meaningful melee damage after (something like) level 20.

And I stand by that statement; again, I used a weapon that doesn't even exist on P99 anymore (a Barbarian Spiritist's' Hammer prior to the proc nerf), and I still couldn't do significant damage relative to my other damage sources. My DoTs and my "best DoT" (ie. pet) just did more, at every level after (roughly) 20.

But I'm certainly not saying is "Shaman should never tank after level 20". Whether or not they should do that has everything to do with how hard the mob is hitting vs. how much mana it would cost to avoid those hits (eg. by rooting instead). And if you are tanking as part of your overall strategy, of course you want to hit the mob with something while you do. But again, that damage will be miniscule compared to what your DoTs/pet do.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Two very different things are being conflated: tanking (ie. standing in front of a mob and taking damage) and dealing melee damage. I can't speak for anyone else, but what I was saying is that Shamans or Clerics (or Druids) can't do meaningful melee damage after (something like) level 20.

And I stand by that statement; again, I used a weapon that doesn't even exist on P99 anymore (a Barbarian Spiritist's' Hammer prior to the proc nerf), and I still couldn't do significant damage relative to my other damage sources. My DoTs and my "best DoT" (ie. pet) just did more, at every level after (roughly) 20.

But I'm certainly not saying is "Shaman should never tank after level 20". Whether or not they should do that has everything to do with how hard the mob is hitting vs. how much mana it would cost to avoid those hits (eg. by rooting instead). And if you are tanking as part of your overall strategy, of course you want to hit the mob with something while you do. But again, that damage will be miniscule compared to what your DoTs/pet do.

This is incorrect. Shaman Melee damage is superior to Shaman DoTs until at least level 40. Shaman DoT DPM is low at lower levels, and they have a decent chance of getting resisted unless you use your resistance debuffs, which cost even more mana and can also be resisted. Healing is more mana efficient since it cannot be resisted, and does not need to be supplemented with other debuffs.

The reason why you had a bad experience with your Barbarian Spiritist Hammer is because the ratio sucks.

At level 34 with Quickness and Silver Chitin Hand Wraps you have 52% Haste. Your max weapon damage level 30+ on the Priest damage table is 26. A Granite face Grinder is a 26/23.7 with 52% Haste, which is a 1.1 ratio. The Spiritist Hammer is a 22/28.3, which is only a 0.78 ratio. You were doing 25% less white damage than you otherwise could have. The proc would not make up for that loss unless you got lucky with RNG.

[Jimjam]

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

This is incorrect. Shaman Melee damage is superior to Shaman DoTs until at least level 40. Shaman DoT DPM is low at lower levels, and they have a decent chance of getting resisted unless you use your resistance debuffs, which cost even more mana and can also be resisted. Healing is more mana efficient since it cannot be resisted, and does not need to be supplemented with other debuffs.

The reason why you had a bad experience with your Barbarian Spiritist Hammer is because the ratio sucks.

At level 34 with Quickness and Silver Chitin Hand Wraps you have 52% Haste. Your max weapon damage level 30+ on the Priest damage table is 26. A Granite face Grinder is a 26/23.7 with 52% Haste, which is a 1.1 ratio. The Spiritist Hammer is a 22/28.3, which is only a 0.78 ratio. You were doing 25% less white damage than you otherwise could have. The proc would not make up for that loss unless you got lucky with RNG.

Theoryquesting here, is the hammer better in the context of a 60 shaman facetanking big game while torpored (self slowed, fewer swings so more procs per swing, so procs are a larger portion of dps and mob ac maybe mitigates melee better)?

[Danth]

Keep in mind Loramin's talking about the pre-nerf version of that hammer which had an absurd proc rate.

[loramin]

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

Keep in mind Loramin's talking about the pre-nerf version of that hammer which had an absurd proc rate.

I think this is key ... but look, I didn't also run a Granite Face Grinder, parse my logs, and compare the two, so I can't swear that the the pre-nerf BSH was superior (I just suspect it was).

All I can say for certain is that I did my absolute best to melee as much as I could with that weapon, which was certainly one of the top melee Shaman weapons ... and I still went back to root/rot (though I would sometimes "joust" with it when a mob was rooted, because again I wanted to use it). And I know it was around 20ish, because I remember doing this in Lake Rathe/South Karana.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I think this is key ... but look, I didn't also run a Granite Face Grinder, parse my logs, and compare the two, so I can't swear that the the pre-nerf BSH was superior (I just suspect it was).

All I can say for certain is that I did my absolute best to melee as much as I could with that weapon, which was certainly one of the top melee Shaman weapons ... and I still went back to root/rot (though I would sometimes "joust" with it when a mob was rooted, because again I wanted to use it). And I know it was around 20ish, because I remember doing this in Lake Rathe/South Karana.

This doesn't make sense. If the Spiritist Hammer consistently Procs 4 times in two minutes you did over 1000 damage to a single mob, not including the white damage. Mobs level 20-30 basically have 1000 HP or less. That would kill any level 20ish mob in those areas faster than your DoTs. Four envenomed breaths in the same two minutes would deal 800 damage and cost you a staggering 400 mana, which is a lot for that level. It would be way more mana efficient to melee than to spend at least 400 mana per mob, not including roots or resists. Doing the root/rot method would cause a lot more downtime. Casting two walking sleeps in those two minutes to face tank would only cost 120 mana, and heals also only cost 60 each.

To answer JimJams question, you are correct that proc weapons are better at 60 with Torpor. This is because Shaman melee drops off a cliff past level 50. You miss a ton and don't have good damage bonuses, so proc weapons end up doing great damage by comparison. You are also too busy casting a ton of spells to get a lot of melee hits in.

[loramin]

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

This doesn't make sense. If the Spiritist Hammer consistently Procs 4 times in two minutes you did over 1000 damage to a single mob, not including the white damage. Mobs level 20-30 basically have 1000 HP or less. That would kill any level 20ish mob in those areas faster than your DoTs. Four envenomed breaths in the same two minutes would deal 800 damage and cost you a staggering 400 mana, which is a lot for that level. It would be way more mana efficient to melee than to spend at least 400 mana per mob, not including roots or resists. Doing the root/rot method would cause a lot more downtime. Casting two walking sleeps in those two minutes to face tank would only cost 120 mana, and heals also only cost 60 each.

Look you can theorycraft it all you want, but I'm too lazy to theorycraft back. To be clear, that's not saying your theorycrafting is wrong though.

All I can say is that ultimately your theorycrafting didn't line up with what I experienced in the game ... back when procs worked significantly better than they do today.