Shaman Math

[Droxx]

1225hp, 2010 mana, 700 ac, 177 wis. Troll, combo of wis/hp/mana. No items specifically for AC.

[Estu]

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

Chain canni is about equivalent to FT9. Shaman 1 is essentially buffed with FT9 for for 48 seconds, and then has to sit and regen mana normally. Shaman two is essentially buffed with FT9 for 64.5 seconds, and then has to sit and regen mana normally. Shaman two is able to regen approximately an extra 150 mana in 16.5 seconds compared to shaman 1. To say this doesn't affect the amount of time between pulls is like saying if they added a 5 minute "wait" period before your clarity could be refreshed, it wouldn't affect the amount of time between pulls. It sure as hell would.

Sir, you're missing the point. That HP doesn't just come out of nowhere. Once you've spent your extra HP, you need to wait longer to regenerate it.

Think of it this way. Let's say you have Shaman A with 1500 HP and Shaman B with 1000 HP, and the two shamen are otherwise the same, and they are both trying to take down an endless series of mobs. They decide that they can safely take down a mob when they have at least 500 HP, so they both start out by killing mobs until they get below 500, and then wait to get back up to 500. Clearly Shaman A has the advantage here, because he will take longer to get below 500.

But! Once they are down to 500, they are effectively the exact same shaman, because every mob takes them down exactly the same amount of HP (I am leaving mana out of the picture here; essentially, imagine that they both want to be full mana before every fight, so they will canni however much they need after a fight to get back up to full mana). So, after those first couple of mobs where Shaman A doesn't need to wait between pulls, THESE SHAMEN ARE EXACTLY THE SAME.

Let me stress that. After the first couple of pulls, there is no difference between these shamen in terms of how fast they can pull mobs.

Now, in practice, you're not going to have both shamen waiting until they have 500 HP in order to pull a mob. But this doesn't matter. Let's say Shaman A waits until he has all 1500 HP, and Shaman B waits until he has all 1000 HP; each mob will STILL deplete them the exact same amount of HP, so both shamen will STILL wait the exact same amount between pulls.

Having more HP improves your survivability for tough pulls that you might not otherwise be able to handle. It does NOT improve your long-term speed to kill a long series of easy mobs. AC, on the other hand, helps in both cases, since it will reduce the amount of damage you take from either the tough mobs or the easy ones, both making you more able to take down tough mobs, and faster to take down a long series of easy ones, since you spend less time healing between pulls. Now, maybe a large HP pool is more important than extra AC when it comes to taking down a single tough mob, but extra AC is clearly the only thing that will help you when you are taking down a long series of easy mobs. (This, of course, assumes that you are root-dotting rather than meleeing; if you're meleeing, STR and DEX start to come into play; but the point about HP still stands.)

[Droxx]

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

But! Once they are down to 500, they are effectively the exact same shaman, because every mob takes them down exactly the same amount of HP (I am leaving mana out of the picture here; essentially, imagine that they both want to be full mana before every fight, so they will canni however much they need after a fight to get back up to full mana)

If they both "essentially want to be at full mana before each fight", shaman A will still have the advantage. Shaman B will take much longer to regen to full mana cause of all his extra wis. Shaman A pulls and kills sooner. Thanks for your story, it helped prove our point.

[FireEmblem86]

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

If they both "essentially want to be at full mana before each fight", shaman A will still have the advantage. Shaman B will take much longer to regen to full mana cause of all his extra wis. Shaman A pulls and kills sooner. Thanks for your story, it helped prove our point.

So he has more mana, and thus he USES more mana in each fight?

What?

[Droxx]

Originally Posted by FireEmblem86 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So he has more mana, and thus he USES more mana in each fight?

What?

That was never stated. The fact is that it takes more time to regen 1500 mana than it does to regen 1000 mana.

[Swishahouse]

1269 HP, 1765Mana, 819AC

[Droxx]

Either way,
OP: In a controlled, safe scenario, there will be little difference in the stats that you choose as a shaman. Different scenarios will require different stats, and there's no right answer to what stats you want to max. Play style will affect this too.

Personally, I want to know that when shit hits the fan worst case style, I have enough HP AND Mana to survive the fight.

[FireEmblem86]

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

That was never stated. The fact is that it takes more time to regen 1500 mana than it does to regen 1000 mana.

Yes, yes it was. If you use 1000 mana in a fight, then the other guy should use the same amount (on average, over a period of time).

Fight
Use 1000 mana
Med to full

Doesn't take the guy with 1500 mana longer to med, it just means that he ends the fight with 33% mana.

[Droxx]

Originally Posted by FireEmblem86 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes, yes it was. If you use 1000 mana in a fight, then the other guy should use the same amount (on average, over a period of time).

Fight
Use 1000 mana
Med to full

Doesn't take the guy with 1500 mana longer to med, it just means that he ends the fight with 33% mana.

Who's to say they'll use the same amount of mana? I'd almost guarantee someone who maxes HP will fight differently than someone who maxes wis.
There's no way to say either one is better with hypothetical situations.

Level a shaman to 50.
Max wis.
I'll max hp.
We can kill shit all day long and count who kills more.

[Rahnza]

Originally Posted by Estu

Sir, you're missing the point.

Ok, let's see.

That HP doesn't just come out of nowhere. Once you've spent your extra HP, you need to wait longer to regenerate it.

HP regenerates faster than mana, so I don't see how this is a disadvantage vs. higher wis/mana pool. This is ESPECIALLY the case later in your "solo chain pull" example, assuming you only have your own buffs (lots of HP regen, no clarity).

Point: Reiker. Erm, I mean Rahnza.

Basically in your example, what you're saying is that having higher HP will give you an advantage when you start soloing, and also better survivability. You gave no advantage to high wis shaman, and only saying that they will begin to "equal" out over time. Advantage still to high HP.

Point: Rahnza.

Your example is very limited, and only looks at 2 soloing shaman. Let's look at raiding. You conceded that the high HP shaman has an advantage vs. high wis at the beginning of a solo session (100% hp/mana). Your solo example includes no rest time, however this "rest time" occurs a bunch during raiding, for example before a boss. So, you'd have to agree that a high HP shaman will perform much better than a high wis shaman versus a raid boss.

Point: Rahnza

What you're saying is that high HP shaman performs better than a high wisdom shaman while soloing and especially while raiding.

So... what point was it I was missing again?

Edit: Your only other point is that shaman generally perform equally while soloing for awhile. This is... true and false. In Kunark, this is completely false, as it's very difficult to have enough HP to make Torpor completely efficient even if you ignore wisdom completely. So, when we factor Torpor, you're completely wrong. In classic, high HP just makes your life easier (and as you conceded, makes you much more powerful at max hp/mana). The lower your HP is, the harder canni management is (you never want to reach 100% hp, and having 500 HP less than another shaman means you have to canni more often to stay below that ceiling). The advantage of a high hp shaman in this case (500/1500 hp vs. 500/1000) is breathing room. This can even make you more efficient. Say you regen to 1200/1500 and need to apply another poison, you have 300 HP left before you have to start canning, so you can fire off the poison np. The 1000 hp shaman would be frantically canning to stay below max hp and then juggling that with refreshing dots, etc. And since starting in Kunark there is no such thing as too much HP, why not just start building that way in classic?

I'm not even going to begin to argue against you as per AC vs. HP. First of all, this is very dependent on how often you solo vs. how often you group/raid. Second, people debated AC vs. HP for years on live (no one disagreeing that AC was important, but at what point should you sacrifice HP for AC? I had no trouble soloing the biggest baddies focusing completely on HP so I never really gave it a whole lot of thought). Since AC mechanics are different on P99, this is a discussion that would require tons of parsing and hypotheticals, so I'm ignoring it for a reason.

Edit 2: Shield AC is the exception. As a shaman, you should always be wearing a shield with as much AC as you can get. Throw that PKT away, brah.