ogre or troll shaman? starting stats

[Brut]

Which is where ogres had their advantage, they'd get far less interrupts than rest of the races. Most folks who played one can vouch that they hardly ever had to worry about interrupts, especially if they backed into a corner. If you moved backwards, THEN you got interrupted.

Personally I remember clearly occasions of having 5+ mobs on me due to bad pulls, and casting Gate. I wasn't worried if I'd get interrupted by their melee - I was worried if I'd stay alive long enough to finish casting it.

[guineapig]

Personally I prefer Troll for shaman due to their added regen which benefits our Canni ability and the previously mention Inny snare necklace we can get.

I think being able to snare kite mobs for a class that normally can't do that is a huge benefit!

[girth]

What made melee interrupt spells was the push back.

As stated by a dev IIRC, NPC melee does not push like on Live, so they implemented a base chance on npc melee to interrupt your spell cast. This is horrible though for ogres who are used to backing against a wall or corner, which on live would basically make you immune from push back interrupts which let you cast all day long since you cannot be stunned either unless its a spell stun.

Also, because of the way this works currently, I cannot tell if I can cast through a bash yet or not. I take damage from npc bash but I cannot tell what causes interrupts so yeah its brutal as an Ogre tank currently.

[Skope]

the cast time (6 seconds) on the necklace and the low % of snare/dmg means that recasts (even with a shammy SoW) will be a little difficult unless rooted. If the mob dies within that time frame then the snare necklace wasn't needed in the first place. It's a nice tool, but don't pick a race b/c of an overrated item. It's fantastic to start off a 1v1 encounter with a mob, but that's essentially where it's use ends.

Ogre frontal stun immunity means that you can have an easier time in between slowed swings. For anyone that's played a shammy at high end, you'll know what i mean. You time your spells after the mob swings so to hit without being interrupted/stunned. Ogres don't have to worry about the latter and thus have a somewhat easier time nailing those casts on the first attempt. Post-classic shammies will rarely root a mob considering their slows are so powerful, therefore melee shammies really start to bloom during kunark and an ogre's frontal stun immunity is a decent benefit.

Troll regen is fantastic in that it scales with level. But with a Fungi and shammy spell regens the Troll regen is just an added bonus and not game-breaking.

I meant what i said, the differences are negligible at 60. Pick what you'd like to look at, because personally I avoided them both simply b/c i can't stand the graphic :P

[AstyTZ]

I played a 65 troll shaman until mid-PoP on live, and then a 60 troll shaman one of the live progression servers (cant remember which one I was on). My 65 shaman had the snare necklace... I accidentally rolled CT on the other shaman, and honestly I dint miss the necklace at all. I can attest to Skopes post... The cast time is long, the duration is short (48 seconds maybe?) and the snare % is not very great. The only time I really found it useful was root rotting frogs in PoStorm, because they hit like trucks. As stated earlier, shamans can tank a mob fairly well with a slow, and root rotting isnt used as much later on as it is in the classic era.

Oh, and I had a 60 barb shaman on VZ/TZ. Not that it makes a huge difference, but Im sticking to troll or ogre from now on. I rolled ogre this time around and Im very satisfied. I always wished i had the stun immunity on my trolls, and now i finally have it. Extremely useful for when you get a slow resist in dungeons/planes and you need to channel another one asap.

[AstyTZ]

Sorry if my last post is hard to read, Im posting from my crappy phone. It doesnt even give me an apostrophe on the browsers touch keyboard.

The troll regen is a nice bonus, but not gamebreaking like mentioned above. One thing that is really awesome about rolling an Inny shaman though is the repeatable halfling illusion mask. Honestly, that was ten times better than the snare necklace to me. I was amazed at the amount of people that had no idea about that item. When I joined my first endgame raiding guild, I used the mask and many people flipped out, and these were some of the premiere players on my server. And let me just mention, a halfling with a Spear of Fate looks amazing lol.

[AstyTZ]

Oh, one more thing that I found useful about the neck was stopping running mobs in dungeons. If your dot wears off when the mob is at 4%, having to waste mana on a nuke/root/dot is quite annoying, but you gotta kill them before thy wander down to another mob. Hit them with the necklace and then you can melee it down and save your mana. Since I played on TZ originally, I didnt have the luxury of grouping with a ranger, bard, or druid, so a lot of times we had a group with no snarer in a dungeon, and Id use the necklace for the sam purpose. But this is more a luxury than a necessity, so really your decision should be regen (and the mask lol) vs frontal stun immunity and much greater sta. And whichever you think looks cooler.

[WailinOndem]

I played a Rallos Zek Ogre Shaman from the get go.The no frontal stun appealed to me along with the toughness of ogres but in all honesty the no stun bonus really didnt start to shine until Velious raiding.Sure the Trolls had better regen and levelled a bit faster because of it over the yrs i played,but once Velious came along there were many,many encounters where all the troll shaman were laying dead on the ground while I was still standing,facing a mob and happily casting away. In the beginning though I mostly chose the Ogre because he was a big,badass, intimidating looking beast and not alot were around.7 1/2 years into the game and I was the only RZ Shaman on my server(ogre cultural armors with imbued jades).You'd think more would have been around for the no stun ability and its usefulness on raids,but Kunark brought about Iksar shaman that regen'd hps even faster then trolls and better starting stats so there were alot of leezurds running about

[bionicbadger]

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

... Kunark brought about Iksar shaman that regen'd hps even faster then trolls

I thought the regen rate was the same on iksar and trolls?

[Gweed]

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

Sorry if my last post is hard to read, Im posting from my crappy phone. It doesnt even give me an apostrophe on the browsers touch keyboard.

The troll regen is a nice bonus, but not gamebreaking like mentioned above. One thing that is really awesome about rolling an Inny shaman though is the repeatable halfling illusion mask. Honestly, that was ten times better than the snare necklace to me. I was amazed at the amount of people that had no idea about that item. When I joined my first endgame raiding guild, I used the mask and many people flipped out, and these were some of the premiere players on my server. And let me just mention, a halfling with a Spear of Fate looks amazing lol.

I assume you mean the mask you get while doing the necklace quest? I didn't know that was repeatable. That makes me giggle