Best 4 person all caster/priest group

[Troxx]

Of all the classes to play, shaman is one of the easiest to do so at a level of mediocrity. It’s a busy class, but not a difficult one to play or be effective with. Especially once you have torpor.

I’m much more impressed by someone who knows how to play some of the other classes effectively… notably bard, necro, and enchanter. The really good ones really stand apart from those that just attain mediocrity.

Honorable mention to clerics and paladins who perform exceptionally well. A well played cleric in particular (one who does more than sit/stand/heal/sit when the situation calls for) it is awesome.

[Troxx]

I’m asserting that as a shaman healing is probably the most important thing you could do, giving the enchanter a chance to recover and buy time so they could use their own toolkit to get things under control. Other choices exist but when you are the only thing that could save them from death … yeah I’d heal my ass off.

Some of the Alternatives:

You could root a mob, but the stunned or casting enchanter probably isn’t moving. Mob is rooted but still beating down on the enchanter who still hasn’t been healed. If the non-pet mob was rooted or being face tanked by the shaman or shaman pet this might save the enchanter if they aren’t stunned or casting and you rooted the charm pet hitting them. But now the pet is rooted for 3 minutes.

You could cast a single target slow, but now their pet is slowed and the ench still isn’t healed and any other mobs are still not dealt with.

You could cast AoE slow, but with a 5 second cast time (plus any lag in situational awareness and imperfect player reaction time) your enchanter is either dead by the time it landed or got things under control before you finished casting that slow. If the enchanter survived- again they had it under control before you finished casting.

You could do what you stupidly did in that video and start casting malo, stop when you realize it won’t land in time or help …. And end up with 3% health enchanter who was only alive because ANOTHER person saved them.

You could use blind which is, admittedly a very fast cast spell. But would it be on your bar? If the enchanter stepped back would the pet path off stupidly and aggro even more stuff?

——————

Quit playing games. Shamans have a broad toolkit and all of us have been around long enough to know them inside and out.

Answer the question.

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

Ok professor, educate me.

Your ench partner is at 100% health. Your enchanter has a hasted, quadding high dps pet and charm breaks. The mob summons (or doesn’t summon but root broke cause this is a “pickle”). The enchanter is now being wailed on by the pet and the mob. Or an alternative scenario is that ench gets a bad pull. 2-3 mobs incomming and pet suddenly breaks. All 3-4 mobs (one a beefed up pet) are on the loose.

Please keep in mind that the alternative partner here (cleric) would just fire a longish duration AoE stun to fix the “pickle” in 1 seconds worth of cast time. Even if the spell resists, mobs are now on the cleric who can take a few rounds and backup DA giving thr ench precious time to recover.

Ok professor. Educate me. What do you do?

And … go!

So riddle me this professor … what would DSM do?

Once you provide your answer please explain how that is better than a 1 sec aoe stun that locks everything down followed by superior fast healing as needed. Remember that the cleric also has at least one other no damage fast cast single target stun to use.

Unfortunately I don’t think you’ll reply. As stupid as you are I do think you’re smart enough to clam up when you know you’re wrong.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Quit playing games. Shamans have a broad toolkit and all of us have been around long enough to know them inside and out.

I am not playing games. You said these two things:

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

Like it or not, shamans simply have far fewer and less potent tools to handle “oh shit” moments. You’re basically stuck spamming chloroblast for mediocre healing.

I'll tell you what I think you should do: heal the enchanter, clinch your pussy lips and pray the heals cover enough of the gap for the enchanter to manage an AOE to get shit under control.

You claimed to be an expert on Shamans, but these two statements are ignoring everything else a Shaman can do. The only person who was playing games was yourself. It took you quite a few posts to actually admit you were wrong here. Thank you for admitting you were wrong by providing other examples.

Now, to your scenarios:

Scenario 1:

First issue is what Vivitron pointed out. The mob is going to be slowed by the Shaman, and the Shaman is going to be tanking, so the mob being attacked would stay with the Shaman, not go to the Enchanter. A hasted dual wielding pet in a place like Sebilis is doing around 100 DPS. A level 60 Enchanter with Rune V + Bedlam, STA, and FoS or Magi Shielding is going to have at least 3k worth of HP. At 100 DPS, the Enchanter is going to die in 20-30 seconds. Plenty of time to Slow, Blind, Root, or Heal, depending on the specific situation.

Both Root and Blind have a two second cast time if you need to be as fast as possible. If the Enchanter isn't stunned, you can just use Root and they can back off. If the Enchanter is stunned, you can use Blind and step in to tank the pet. It would be a short distance since the Shaman is tanking the mob, and the Enchanter pet was next to the Shaman since it was attacking the mob. The charm broken pet will attack the closest player while blinded, regardless of hate. If you are really worried about charm breaks, you can have blind on bar. Personally I don't normally need to go that hard, as well piloted Enchanters are going to be fine most of the time anyway.

I've been in plenty of single pet break scenarios, it really isn't a big deal if the Enchanter is actually using Rune V, Bedlam, and Stuns. Remember that the pet is going to be Maloed, so the pet will break less often, and stuns, slows, blinds, or roots will all be easier to land.

Scenario 2:

You can use strategy to avoid this scenario in the first place, but let's address the scenario first.

If the distance from the mobs to the Enchanter is max casting length, you'll have enough time to land an AoE slow and catch the mobs that are running. It takes about 4-5 seconds to reach the Enchanter at that distance. This will remove the mobs running at the Enchanter, and we are back to Scenario 1, where the Enchanter is only getting hit by their pet. With the 2-3 mobs AoE slowed and attacking the Shaman, it'll be easier to land a Torpor or spot heal on the Enchanter so they can deal with their pet in the 20-30 seconds they have to live. With the pet being Maloed, you are less likely to get a resist on stun, mez, charm, etc.

Now, there are ways you can simply avoid this scenario all together. Let's take a look at Howling Stones, where mobs have Harm Touch. Shamans have a pet. You can summon the pet, pre-torpor it, and then run the pet into a room of 4 mobs. This will cause them to pop their harm touches on the pet. The Shaman can AoE slow while the Enchanter does an AoE Mez and blur.

In both scenarios, Malo is reducing the chances of a Charm Break to begin with. This means you are less likely to get into this problem in the first place.

I'll often do the pulling in an Enchanter/Shaman group as well so that way the mob is already slowed and agroed on me rather than the Enchanter. If there is a Monk/SK in the group, they are doing the pulling and can flop bad pulls.

[Troxx]

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

Once you provide your answer please explain how that is better than a 1 sec aoe stun that locks everything down followed by superior fast healing as needed. Remember that the cleric also has at least one other no damage fast cast single target stun to use.

Finish the assignment.

For the record:

-a hasted quadding pet will do more dps on a cloth caster than on an xp group mob

-you assume an enchanter with self buffs (or focus) and rune will have 3k worth of hp. You are assuming a level of gear superior to what my casually raid geared nec and mage have.

-malo will have an impact on charm break frequency but 100% of charms will break eventually

You talk a big game about all the spells you could use to handle an unexpected emergency … but without prophetic foresight what are the chances you had aoe slow or blind loaded to begin with. Remember now … you’ve only got 8 spell slots - more than half of which are likely permanently occupied by core spells: heal, big slow, torpor, root, canni … that’s 5 spells right there and we haven’t even begun to consider all the other crap you will want loaded at any moment.

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

Once you provide your answer please explain how that is better than a 1 sec aoe stun that locks everything down followed by superior fast healing as needed. Remember that the cleric also has at least one other no damage fast cast single target stun to use.

Finish the assignment

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Finish the assignment.

For the record:

-a hasted quadding pet will do more dps on a cloth caster than on an xp group mob

-you assume an enchanter with self buffs (or focus) and rune will have 3k worth of hp. You are assuming a level of gear superior to what my casually raid geared nec and mage have.

-malo will have an impact on charm break frequency but 100% of charms will break eventually

You talk a big game about all the spells you could use to handle an unexpected emergency … but without prophetic foresight what are the chances you had aoe slow or blind loaded to begin with. Remember now … you’ve only got 8 spell slots - more than half of which are likely permanently occupied by core spells: heal, big slow, torpor, root, canni … that’s 5 spells right there and we haven’t even begun to consider all the other crap you will want loaded at any moment.



Finish the assignment

You misunderstood the 3k HP thing. An EC geared enchanter would have around 2k HP + 1k rune for 3K total. I was not referring to a well geared Enchanter.

Yes, Charms eventually break, but you know what the max duration of the charm is lol. You can plan around that while using malo to re-charm the pet before the charm wears off.

I've saved Enchanters before with these spells. No prophecy needed. Just like you don't need to be a prophet to use stuns.

I am well aware of spell slot limits, and it isn't difficult to retool your spell bar to match the scenario. Using basic root instead of paralyzing earth is an easy swap if you want faster cast speed. You can swap a DoT for a Blind if your group is fine with not using Shaman DPS, etc.

As for your "assignment" lol, I answered your question about the scenario in question. You tacked that extra question on later.

The downside to Stun Command is it has a 30 second recast time. If it gets resisted then you won't have access to it for the rest of the "pickle" moment. You also won't be able to use it if two "pickle" moments happen within that 30 seconds.

Finally, I never said Stun Command and Cleric heals were bad. I disagree with the idea that they are tipping the scales enough so that you should pick a Cleric over a Shaman when looking at a four player caster/priest grpup. I've saved plenty of Enchanters with my Shaman, no Stun Command needed.

I do not have an obsession with pocket clerics. I simply live in reality, where pocket clerics are a common occurence. They have been around for many years, and aren't going away.

[Trexller]

Isn't that the entire point of chloroblast?

As an ench its annoying AF when other players fuck with my pet

Sometimes we ench get stunned on break, i got rune v/bedlam, just watch me for a sec, ill get it under control everytime

Dont snare my pet, or slow it, or mez it, or 20 min root it, you aren't helping, you are panicking.

You must understand that if you have a skilled ench in your group, then you are not a group member, you are another pet

[Troxx]

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

As an ench its annoying AF when other players fuck with my pet

Yep. Besides the superior emergency healing, complete heal, and flat out (by a long shot) superior buffs, one of the things that is so awesome about what cleric/ench synergy is that the other things a cleric does to help enchanters in an emergency is that those stuns don’t break mez and bump heads with the “oh shit” measures enchanters possess.

I’ll be honest - I have typically recommended enchanters I have duo’d with skip the reagent-costing runes unless we are doing something extra spicy. They don’t need it - cause I won’t let them die even without it.

———————

DSM.

We are waiting.

Educate us and provide your answer FFS. What would DSM do? After you have provided your answer explain how it’s better than the complete control and lock down of a 1 second aoe stun followed by a helpful heal.

[Kevris]

This is magnificent. A two year argument, including some of the original parties. EverQuest is the greatest game of all time.

[Troxx]

Remember this isn’t a discussion of whether or not a shaman can get the job done with an enchanter. They can. It is a discussion about who can handle it better. Shaman’s do not handle it better than clerics ….

Hence your obsession with allowing a pocket cleric

[Vexenu]

DSM is still desperately trying to theorycraft a Shaman response to an ill-timed charm break even though we literally have a video of him facing that exact scenario, in which he did absolutely nothing useful.

He will now respond to this post and blame the Enchanter, completely ignoring the fact that a Cleric could have easily saved the Enchanter in spite of his bad play, which indisputably demonstrates the superiority of the Cleric toolkit for this purpose.