Troll Shammy or Ogre Shammy?

[whippetofspades]

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

If you're asking which race to pick you're probably not gonna be good enough to solo velious dragons anyway so go troll.

Was under the impression people used the JBB to solo dragons? So why does frontal stun immunity matter if you can cast from a distance anyway? I don't know how people go about soloing Velious dragons, am just curious.

[Wildas]

Any race of shaman can solo WW dragons (although I never saw an iksar shaman do it in velious, but I'm sure it's possible). Ogre is by far the best suited to it due to the lower frequency of JBB and torpor interrupts. However this doesn't mean non-ogres can't do it. Trolls and iksar regen 800 hp more in a 10 minute fight than ogres, not huge but beneficial. Iksar will absolutely have the hardest time, as they will need to rely on pet/melee damage alone.

The math works out to a shaman needing to sustain less than (1200 + regen) damage / 24-30 seconds. Two canni 4 casts are going to be necessary to offset the mana cost of torpor. If a shaman can sustain less than 35-40 incoming dps, they can torpor heal nearly indefinitely and rely on pet/jbb/melee dps to drop well, whatever they're fighting.

Doing some quick calculations, a shaman can probably kill a 32k hp mob doing less than 50 dps to them. If they have a big enough mana/hp pool that could jump to 50-60 dps.

Iksars aren't going to be able to put out 32k hp damage fast enough to drop something doing more than 40-45 dps to them unless they have some top end hp/mana gear.

Easier dragons such as yeldema any shaman can kill, some of the harder ones, might require a non-iksar or a very well geared char to kill (due to having to dot or sustain the fight for a longer period of time)

[greatdane]

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

Was under the impression people used the JBB to solo dragons? So why does frontal stun immunity matter if you can cast from a distance anyway? I don't know how people go about soloing Velious dragons, am just curious.

Shaman high-end soloing involves tanking. It's part of why they gear for AC/HP. With good enough gear, you can tank some really beastly mobs if you slow them and torpor yourself, and then deal damage with epic clicky, JBB, pet and maybe a disease DoT while spending most mana on staying alive. Stun immunity becomes really crucial then because getting bashed could otherwise mean your death, and while other races can do anything an ogre can do, ogres have a huge advantage and can do it with less gear and more safety. It's also very nice in all other aspects of gameplay because you will occasionally get hit when you're debuffing or root-rotting, but it's not as critical when you're just soloing or sitting on your ass in a group while leveling. Since barbarians have no advantage and iksar/troll regen becomes largely obsolete once you get torpor, ogre is widely considered the best long-term race.

Basically, ubermob soloing goes like this:

1) Pull with Malo because it's unresistable
2) Slow asap
3) Optionally cast the resistable Malosini or whatever it's called afterwards because it reduces resist more than Malo
4) Torpor yourself
5) Put epic clicky and Pox of Bertoxxulous (optional but recommended) on the mob
6) Spamclick JBB whenever you're not refreshing Torpor
7) Cannibalize when your HP is high enough to do it safely
8) Re-apply Malosini and slow if the fight lasts that long

You're simply tanking the mob the whole time. With good enough gear, Torpor out-heals its slowed DPS plus enough cannis to sustain mana. If your gear isn't good enough, you'll take more melee damage from the mob and resist less of its nukes/breaths (if applicable) and your lower HP will make it unsafe to canni etc. Getting bashed can either mean your death since you couldn't get an important spell off, or simply getting behind the careful balance of keeping all those spells up and timed correctly, and eventually you'll lose. An ogre can do it pretty safely and with a lower gear requirment while another race would probably have to have unreasonably good gear and will occasionally die due to bad luck with interrupts where the ogre would have been fine.

[Brawk]

Lrn2fakecast

[Malrubius]

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

If you're kinda casual and sure about always duoing with an ogre SK, go ahead and roll a troll. It'll help a lot while leveling and you should never have to tank anything.

If you think you'll become a high-end player some day and/or don't know for sure if your SK buddy will always be around, go ogre. Best race for the self-sufficient shaman.

Thanks, that's just what I was looking for and I think I'll go with the Troll.

I won't be soloing with this guy, as I mentioned in the OP. I guess I should have explained that that includes not soloing Velious dragons. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Pyrocat]

All of this posting about soloing dragons in velious is cool and all, but for pure mana regeneration troll/iksar wins every time. How often are you going to be soloing velious vs. how often will you be grouping and raiding? If you're raiding the mana regeneration means less downtime, faster mob kills, faster wipe recoveries. If you're grouping the mana regeneration means faster exp, less chance of group wipes.

[greatdane]

Yeah, but once you have Torpor, you pretty much have endless mana. Regen becomes almost useless at that point because Torpor removes the need for it. Instead of maximizing your regen to offset canni's damage, you start being able to just canni down to half HP and recovering it all with a Torpor. The spell completely changes the shaman playstyle and you never have to sit down again. It simply makes regen obsolete because it gives you a new tool that's better and mostly eliminates the need or even benefit of regen. You can stop caring about paying close attention to ticks and making sure you don't sit at full HP wasting regen, you just canni whenever you need mana and Torpor the HP back for less mana than you gained from the cannis. That's also why mana pool is so irrelevant for shamans while HP matters much more, as well as other survivability stats. That's only at 60 with a rare spell, though. Until then, regen is great.

[Ring]

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

All of this posting about soloing dragons in velious is cool and all, but for pure mana regeneration troll/iksar wins every time. How often are you going to be soloing velious vs. how often will you be grouping and raiding? If you're raiding the mana regeneration means less downtime, faster mob kills, faster wipe recoveries. If you're grouping the mana regeneration means faster exp, less chance of group wipes.

Are you 60 Pyro (don't remember, not being glib). If you have torpor and still think regen is this important, I'd be shock.

I want to see a troll shaman solo juggs. I know it's possible, but it's annoyingly harder than what ogres have to deal with. Juggs are the gauge of what mobs become in Velious and ogre shamans solo them with no issues currently. Mobs on here stun so much more than classic, I don't know if it's an issue with defense skill or what, but it feels like you're stunned on cooldown if you try to cast. Imagine casting epic or JBB on a 50k+ hp mob and being stunned over and over (or even just stunned trying to cast malo / slow and eatting unslowed melee for 20 seconds). Ogres don't have this issue. It's so huge and people who don't think it is haven't had to deal with it.

I'd reroll if I were a troll shaman at 60, not even kidding.

[baub]

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

Are you 60 Pyro (don't remember, not being glib). If you have torpor and still think regen is this important, I'd be shock.

I want to see a troll shaman solo juggs. I know it's possible, but it's annoyingly harder than what ogres have to deal with. Juggs are the gauge of what mobs become in Velious and ogre shamans solo them with no issues currently. Mobs on here stun so much more than classic, I don't know if it's an issue with defense skill or what, but it feels like you're stunned on cooldown if you try to cast. Imagine casting epic or JBB on a 50k+ hp mob and being stunned over and over (or even just stunned trying to cast malo / slow and eatting unslowed melee for 20 seconds). Ogres don't have this issue. It's so huge and people who don't think it is haven't had to deal with it.

I'd reroll if I were a troll shaman at 60, not even kidding.

I solo Juggs with ease as a Barb, its not hard to time a fucking bash. Sometimes I even stop spamming JBB and sit on their face inbetween the special attack cycles to lul at them.

My advice: If your intention is to solo WW Dragons, roll an ogre if you dont have a brain, roll a troll if you want that little bit of extra regen (which is still incredibly useful, even with torpor lol...), or roll a barb and be a fuckin man

I swear most people giving shaman advice on this server have very little to no experience actually playing one and are just theorycraft specialists. or they suck.

[Ring]

Roll a barb if you don't care about performance, but are a roleplayer who needs to look pretty in a video game.