17 Sham Having Trouble Leveling

[bub99]

Can do wisps/lightstones in North Karana. Just have to watch for the high level griffons.

[loramin]

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

I guess because of this gear, I'm having a lot of trouble soloing. I can only take one blue before I need to heal and med up for 5+ minutes - and the blues take me down to 30-40% HP.

I doubt the problem is your gear. Shaman really don't care about gear very much, except for key items like the JBB. Your primary weapon does matter a little bit, and obviously a suit of chain armor will help a bit more than a suit of leather, but really the gear you have isn't a big factor in your soloing success.

However, the simple truth is that whatever your gear (unless you have a Fungi), soloing is going to be a bit slow at your level. You're using your level 9 Poison DoT and your level 4(!) Disease DoT, so naturally your DPS is going to be a bit weak.

Things will speed up when you get a new Disease DoT at 19, and then they're really speed up at 24 when you get your first Cannabalize spell (and a new Poison DoT, new DD, first regen buff, a bunch of other buffs, etc.) Until then, you just have to "afk" solo a bit.

Go somewhere like Lake Rathe, where you have a bunch of single root/rot targets around. Root/rot one (or two if you can manage to do so without dying), then just sit down, meditate, and go do something else for a bit, maybe even something productive IRL. Within a few hours you'll find the XP feels like it's coming much faster, and your house will get cleaner (or your dinner will get cooked, or whatever it is you do while AFK).

Keep at it for a few days and you'll be 19 in no time, and if you enjoy the AFK root/rot style you can keep doing it until 24 or beyond (although again, with Cannabalize and the other spells you get at 24 you should need less AFK time).

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

I've consulted a few leveling guides I've found, but I can't solo most of the spots it recommends (I did make a full level soloing the sisters bandit camp, but then died three times to roaming brownies, so I'm scared away from lfay). I've tried finding groups in Oasis, Unrest, and Highpass; I got an Orc Highway group in Oasis once, but otherwise have come up empty-handed every time I've looked.

I strongly recommend checking out the Per-Level Hunting Guide (levels 15-19 section). It's for all classes, but I first started it when leveling my Shaman so it has tons of ideas for places for Shaman to hunt. You can even narrow it down to Shaman-recommended places by going to the top of the page and clicking on the Shaman filter.

[Ballaorf]

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

Post

Ahh thank you so much for the thoughtful post!

I actually have that guide bookmarked and was using that, but I totally overlooked the filter at the top! I also realized that when I was saying I didn't have luck in Unrest earlier, I was actually thinking of Befallen... Doh! I did get a couple of groups in Unrest and could solo some yard trash.

I'll give Lake Rathe or the Karanas a shot. I've been a little reluctant to go back toward the Qeynos area since my friends have been hanging out in the FP area for a while - plus, being near EC is nice. I don't want to spend a bunch of plat getting ports, especially not while I'm not really making a ton of money at the moment. Regarding the sisters: Yeah, I know it's an awesome camp if I can get it, but losing 35% of a level and almost losing my corpse to roaming brownies was enough to scare me off. I figure if I need to go back and farm it just for the cash later on, I can do that pretty easily when I'm higher level.

[loramin]

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

I'll give Lake Rathe or the Karanas a shot. I've been a little reluctant to go back toward the Qeynos area since my friends have been hanging out in the FP area for a while - plus, being near EC is nice. I don't want to spend a bunch of plat getting ports, especially not while I'm not really making a ton of money at the moment.

The good news on ports is that WC is a sort of hub: it constantly has new Druids and Wizards zoning in. If you politely say "hey, I'm level 17 and broke, but I'd really like to go kill in Lake Rathe, any chance I could get a free NK port" to each new Druid/Wizard as they zone in, I strongly suspect it will take less than five tells to get you a free port. Just don't forget to bind afterwards [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Alternatively it's not that long of a run, even just with SoW (since unfortunately you don't have Scale of Wolf yet). Take the tunnel to NRo, run through Oasis, SRo, Innothule, Feerrott, and Rathe Mountains, and you're there. While you're passing through Rathe you can even get your epic started by killing Blind the Cutpurse, and if anyone is willing to help you kill Taliban and Glaron you can get that part of your epic out of the way as well.

You could also just run through Kithicor to Highpass, then to East, North, and South Karana. The canyon part of East is long (and don't forget to use SoW and Invisibility because of the bandits), but whether you go that route or the desert route, running from EC to Lake Rathe should only take maybe twenty minutes.

But there's plenty of good places to hunt near you also, although I haven't done them all myself so I can't guarantee every spot is good for Shaman. I think most things in Lavastorm (near the zone line from Kithicor) should be blue to you (or if not they will be soon). Befallen, as you mentioned, is kind of a pain, but the better you learn it the safer it becomes. Orcs in Kithicor have a bonus XP item, although you can only hunt them half the time ... but then Highpass also has Orcs (and Gnolls). And then there's also the entrance to Upper Guk.

In other words, whether you want to travel (either by begging a port or running <20 min) back to Lake Rathe to do Aviaks like I did, or whether you want to try exploring somewhere close by, you have plenty of options to choose from, and if it were me I'd just explore them all until you find somewhere you like.

[kjs86z]

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

Ahh thank you so much for the thoughtful post!

I actually have that guide bookmarked and was using that, but I totally overlooked the filter at the top! I also realized that when I was saying I didn't have luck in Unrest earlier, I was actually thinking of Befallen... Doh! I did get a couple of groups in Unrest and could solo some yard trash.

I'll give Lake Rathe or the Karanas a shot. I've been a little reluctant to go back toward the Qeynos area since my friends have been hanging out in the FP area for a while - plus, being near EC is nice. I don't want to spend a bunch of plat getting ports, especially not while I'm not really making a ton of money at the moment. Regarding the sisters: Yeah, I know it's an awesome camp if I can get it, but losing 35% of a level and almost losing my corpse to roaming brownies was enough to scare me off. I figure if I need to go back and farm it just for the cash later on, I can do that pretty easily when I'm higher level.

Stick to the XP superhighway. Unrest, Guk, Mistmoore.

These zones are busy for a reason (XP modifier).

If you move from zone to zone at the appropriate level, there will be spots you can solo if the zone is empty...and stuff you can "move up" to w/ a group.

Explore when you make your necromancer later on.

[Ballaorf]

Thanks again for the suggestions! Really appreciate them!

I'll try those zones mentioned for groups (I had forgotten about Unrest and hadn't tried Guk or MM). Failing that, I'll give Lavastorm a shot or maybe Kith if I can catch it in the day. If those don't work out, I'll bite the bullet and head to the Karanas/Lake Rathe.

[ScaringChildren]

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

and if anyone is willing to help you kill Taliban

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[Amyas]

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

I'm nearly 18, but I've been stuck at 17 for a while and I'm looking for a little guidance on what I should be doing. Some more background:
- I'm not really twinked out. Someone was kind enough to gift me some gear and a little plat, but it's far from optimal and I haven't been able to find any affordable gear for sale yet (I only have around 650p in the bank): I still have cloth sleeves, a couple of pieces of banded, two raw hide bracers, and the Tribunal Symbol necklace.
- I guess because of this gear, I'm having a lot of trouble soloing. I can only take one blue before I need to heal and med up for 5+ minutes - and the blues take me down to 30-40% HP.
- I've consulted a few leveling guides I've found, but I can't solo most of the spots it recommends (I did make a full level soloing the sisters bandit camp, but then died three times to roaming brownies, so I'm scared away from lfay). I've tried finding groups in Oasis, Unrest, and Highpass; I got an Orc Highway group in Oasis once, but otherwise have come up empty-handed every time I've looked.

I have a group of friends to play with, but my schedule rarely aligns with theirs, so they are starting to outlevel me quite a bit.

Am I doing something wrong? Are there better zones I can find groups in? It doesn't seem like soloing is going to work for me at this point.

/friend Amyas and send me a tell in game. I love helping lowbies and will get you out of your level rut.

[loramin]

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

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

ROFL I'm glad you caught that as I totally missed it. Tabien.

[Ballaorf]

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

/friend Amyas and send me a tell in game. I love helping lowbies and will get you out of your level rut.

Oh thank you! I will give it another shot the old fashion way, but if I'm still stuck, I will take you up on this!