Solo Barbarian Shaman Stat Allocation

[loramin]

So after all that it turns out you do want to keep going after all!

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

1. WIS is harder to cap during the Velious era than STA generally speaking. This is WITHOUT RAID GEAR. Usually the best starting stat is the primary stat that is hardest to cap, because a capped stat isn't helping you. This means 25 WIS / 5 STA is generally the better way to go (or 25 WIS / 5 AGI for Ogres). If you don't believe me, you can create Magelos with various gear and see how the stats shake out. Remember that you also get a +50 STA buff, but only a +10 WIS buff that is an illusion, which means it falls off more often due to zoning. You can also drink a +STA potion that you can craft yourself.

All true ... and yet it also remains true that a non-raid Shaman will likely spend 95+% of their Shaman career without hitting the cap.

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

2. The only reason why you would want to put 25 into STA instead is if you are planning out your gear/strategies ahead of time, and want to save a buff slot in the long run. This is because if you can cap STA without needing Riotous Health / Primal Essence, you end up freeing up a buff slot, because you do not need to cast Riotous Health on yourself. Freeing up a buff slot can be difficult to do, so this can be more important than just raw stats.

You can keep repeating "the only reason is" until you're blue in the face, but it's neither evidence nor a logical argument. Although I do agree that a Shaman could save a buff slot as you describe, it's entirely irrelevant to this thread because non-raid Shaman don't hit buff limits either.

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

3. Starting stats will NOT really help you during the leveling process, because stats scale by level. You will need to be around level 40 before you start noticing a difference. Generally speaking if you are concerned about starting stats, you are looking towards the end game, where those points end up giving you the most returns.

This is a variant of the "stats don't matter argument ... which amuses me because only a few pages ago you were arguing on the other side of that debate:

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

The funny thing is if you think gear is important, you think stats are important hehe. 25 points into WIS/STA is a lot gear-wise. That on average is at least 3 pieces of gear's worth, assuming it has a higher than average WIS/STA of 8+.

So are starting stats "at least 3 pieces of gears worth" or do they "NOT really help you during the leveling process"? Personally, I'd say both: stats (whether starting or from gear) largely don't matter.

But to the extent they do matter ... having more HP > Mana.

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

4. 25 STA gives you 75HP at level 60. It gives you something like 30 HP at level 30. Neither 75HP nor 30HP will save your life a significant amount of times. If this wasn't true, everybody would be running two HP earrings instead of a stat earring + Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring. They would be getting https://wiki.project1999.com/Star_of_Eyes instead. Generally speaking Shamans do not do this, because the stat penalty from putting on Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring is insignificant. Having another inventory slot open for a bag is better, and Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring is easier to use because it does not require a target. If losing 35 HP or more on your earring doesn't change how often you die, why do you think the 25 STA will make a difference? Having a Hammered Golden Hoop instead of the Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring would give you that 75HP plus 8 more STA, and yet people wear Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring instead.

Again, a variant of the "stats don't matter" argument, and again ... I 100% agree! Clickies (and regen, and FT, and the JBB, and the epic, and ...) all matter more than maximum stats. But again, all you can get from your starting stats are more max HP and more max Mana, and the HP is more valuable.

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

5. Shamans can in fact run out of mana before dying, which is why the +25 WIS can give you a small chance to survive a bad encounter. Similar to the +25 STA, this chance is very small. The usual culprit for this both Pre-Torpor and Post-Torpor are strings of resists and/or root breaks. Shaman spells are expensive, which means fizzling, resists, and root breaks can really add up quick if you are not careful. Here is a video of me fighting Bravatar: https://youtu.be/igpbLuNe0ls?t=1244 . As you can see at that timestamp, I am low on both HP and Mana. If he had given me one or two more unlucky resists, I would be completely out of Mana. If I was at 2% mana and 40% health, I would probably gate for safety because a double attack from Bravatar would get me very close to dying. Remember, this is me fighting Bravatar in mid-tier raid gear, so a lesser geared Shaman would be even lower on Mana.

Wow, so your best evidence that Mana > HP is that ... you kinda came close to running out of mana ... and also HP ... in an 17+ minute fight (a fight where you exchanged HP and mana about a gazillion times by casting spells). A fight which, I might add, is not something a 1-59 Shaman can do, or even a 60 Shaman without Torpor (and some decent gear too I'd imagine).

In other words, even if Mana > HP in that fight ... it still doesn't change the fact that HP > Mana for the 95+% plus of the Shaman's career before that.

So just to recap, the reasons (multiple) to choose Stamina for your starting stat points over Wisdom are:

• to free up a buff slot if you are a hardcore raider
• to have more HP (which is more valuable than mana) for the vast majority of your Shaman's life, if you are not

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

All true ... and yet it also remains true that a non-raid Shaman will likely spend 95+% of their Shaman career without hitting the cap.

Your understanding of what gear a non-raid Shaman can get is simply way off base. Please stop saying this unless you can actually provide evidence for it. Show us some Magelos of what you think a "non-raid" Shaman looks like 95% of the time. And if you use someone so poor that they are just in Banded, then again starting stats don't matter. You have bigger problems (i.e. poor gear).

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

You can keep repeating "the only reason is" until you're blue in the face, but it's neither evidence nor a logical argument. Although I do agree that a Shaman could save a buff slot as you describe, it's entirely irrelevant to this thread because non-raid Shaman don't hit buff limits either.

Please tell me how it isn't a logical argument, besides you just saying so. You haven't provided any evidence. You can easily hit max buffs self buffed on a Shaman lol, and you don't need to be in a raid to get buffs from other people. I am hitting max buffs in the bravatar video, and that's all self buffed.

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

This is a variant of the "stats don't matter argument ... which amuses me because only a few pages ago you were arguing on the other side of that debate:

But to the extent they do matter ... having more HP > Mana.

I think you missed the point of my quote. I was pointing out the flaw in the "starting stats don't matter argument". You can say that starting stats don't matter that much, AND one choice is superior over the other[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] It is not mutually exclusive.

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

Wow, so your best evidence that Mana > HP is that ... you kinda came close to running out of mana ... and also HP ... in an 17+ minute fight (a fight where you exchanged HP and mana about a gazillion times by casting spells). A fight which, I might add, is not something a 1-59 Shaman can do, or even a 60 Shaman without Torpor (and some decent gear too I'd imagine).

In other words, even if Mana > HP in that fight ... it still doesn't change the fact that HP > Mana for the 95+% plus of the Shaman's career before that.

So just to recap, the reasons (multiple) to choose Stamina for your starting stat points over Wisdom are:

• to free up a buff slot if you are a hardcore raider
• to have more HP (which is more valuable than mana) for the vast majority of your Shaman's life, if you are not

Your best evidence against putting points into WIS is that you didn't run out of mana while leveling. Which is anecdotal and we can't prove it. I have actual evidence while you have nothing. Unfortunately video evidence trumps random anecdote. In that video I get down to 7% Mana. That is 210 Mana, which is literally what I am getting from the 25 WIS I put into my starting stats lol. This is undisputable video proof of the 25WIS coming in to play.

Furthermore, if you inspect any up and coming Shaman, you will find more Shrunken Goblin Skull Earrings than Star of Eyes, so obviously most people do not mind taking a hit on their max HP for a clickie. If people are willing to lose 35HP for a clickie, I am not sure why you think it is a stretch for them to lose a bit more HP on their starting stats.

[loramin]

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

Your understanding of what gear a non-raid Shaman can get is simply way off base. Please stop saying this unless you can actually provide evidence for it. Show us some Magelos of what you think a "non-raid" Shaman looks like 95% of the time. And if you use someone so poor that they are just in Banded, then again starting stats don't matter. You have bigger problems (i.e. poor gear).

At level 1 you start out with no gear, and as you level, your gear will not hit the caps. Even at 60 as you acquire Torpor (unless for some odd reason you delay it to max stats) you will also have less-than-max stats.

To hit caps with the kind of gear in the magelos posted (the realistic ones, not the "go for max stamina at the expense of all else" ones), as a non-raid Shaman, you need Torpor.

Once you have Torpor and farm some good gear for awhile, you could hit a stat cap! But even if you do, most people will, before too long, move on to another character ... or another game.

EQ is not WoW: you can't take your max-stat gear out to the battlegrounds to use it. Once you have all the toys, there's little else to do here (except raid).

So as I keep saying, for 95+% of a Shaman's life they're focused on getting the end game gear: they only have "endgame gear" at the end.

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

Please tell me how it isn't a logical argument, besides you just saying so. You haven't provided any evidence. You can easily hit max buffs self buffed on a Shaman lol, and you don't need to be in a raid to get buffs from other people. I am hitting max buffs in the bravatar video, and that's all self buffed.

I should have elaborated: a non-raid shaman will ... for 95+% of his career ... not be getting max buffed. And even at 60 he will likely only rarely have max buffs (eg. before a big fight, but certainly not for an extended farm session).

I'd also note that one of the buffs filling up your slots is Primal Essence ... from an item a non-raid Shaman could never have.

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

Your best evidence against putting points into WIS is that you didn't run out of mana while leveling. Which is anecdotal and we can't prove it. I have actual evidence while you have nothing. Unfortunately video evidence trumps random anecdote. In that video I get down to 7% Mana. That is 210 Mana, which is literally what I am getting from the 25 WIS I put into my starting stats lol. This is undisputable video proof of the 25WIS coming in to play.

Maybe you missed the part about how you were exchanging Mana <=> HP over the course of that (long) fight, so you can't just blame your starting mana amount on the result? What if you have 7k mana, but never cannibalize once, so you run out: was your max mana the reason you ran out?

Similarly here, if you'd just Torped a bit less and Cannibalized a bit more, you could instead be making the argument that you had low health at the end of the fight. How you played doesn't prove anything.

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

Furthermore, if you inspect any up and coming Shaman, you will find more Shrunken Goblin Skull Earrings than Star of Eyes, so obviously most people do not mind taking a hit on their max HP for a clickie. If people are willing to lose 35HP for a clickie, I am not sure why you think it is a stretch for them to lose a bit more HP on their starting stats.

Huh? We're talking Wisdom vs. Stamina, Mana vs. HP: I'm arguing HP is better, and you're arguing ... Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring is better?

[ArbiterBlixen]

Bumping for visibility.

[loramin]

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

Bumping for visibility.

Because 17 pages wasn't enough for you? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Because 17 pages wasn't enough for you? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Troxx]

Loramin … I like you. You’re old guard but in this thread I vote you out-foxed and frankly just … not the best source to listen to.

Be a little more open minded and flexible buddy. You lost the logic debate here handily … like in the first 2-3 pages.

Be safe.

[Naethyn]

I recant everything I said and I go with what the guy in the polar bear hat says for shaman related things.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Just to be thorough, there is one reason why you would want to dump into STA as your starting stat. That is to save a buff slot by capping STA without the need for Riotous Health and/or Primal Essence. Saving buff slots is very useful, and not always easy to do.

However, I myself run at full buffs and don't really feel the need to reduce my buff count by one. Shamans do run out of useful buffs to cast on themselves. This strategy would only really be useful to someone who knows the game well, and is anticipating running a specific set of buffs that would be hindered by having Riotous Health present.

[loramin]

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

Just to be thorough, there is one reason why you would want to dump into STA as your starting stat if you play exactly like I do.

FTFY