I’ve been playing around with the talent calculators for several days now (curse you servers for being down!!) and have finally discovered the spec I’ll use for my Shaman. It took a lot of theorycrafting, some trial and error on my level 31 Shaman, and a lot of concessions to finally decide on exactly what type of playstyle I want. It wasn’t easy. The Shaman is an incredibly diverse hybrid class that can be a decent dps’er, a great healer (at high lvls mind you), and a decent debuff/utility char. I spent a lot of time wishing I could have it all.
Lvl 40 w/ 25 Points
10pts in Mork taking ‘Do Sumfin Useful’
15pts in Gork taking ‘Leaky Brainz’ and ‘Geddof!’
I decided on this spec after playing around with how useful ‘Shrug it off’ was and how much those extra few points in Mork make a difference for my healing spells. In the end I just wasn’t satisfied with how situational ‘Shrug it off’ was and the additional healing numbers were just not enough to make me feel gimped for not spending 15pts in Mork. Going up to ‘Geddof!’ was an easy choice because of how useful the knockback is in T4 – it seems like there are cliffs, bridges, walls, ledges, and all sorts of places where knocking people off is so unbelievably useful. ‘Leaky Brainz’ was taken because of a few reasons; the first being I have absolutely no ideal place for that last point. Second choice would have been taking ‘Hurts, don’t it?’ but I’m not sure how often I’ll be spamming Brain Bursta – it seems easier to spam ‘Leaky Brainz’ and debuff their nukers like Bright Wizards before putting a toughness debuff on someone.
There I go theorycrafting again but so far this spec has worked out really well for me and I can’t imagine a spec that is more balanced for damage, still has utility, and provides me with a truly useful adaptation of the Shaman. I’ll be dealing damage and healing at what I consider to be peak efficiency. My biggest regret though? Not taking Da Green for more utility. There are some amazing things in that mastery line which are looked over far too quickly and I’ll admit I used to be one of the ones that dismissed them early. Just take a look at ‘Ere we goes again’ and ‘Sticky Feets’.. *drool* That’s another reason why I love the Shaman though. There’s not one route (in theory) that is absolutely the end-all be-all. There are arguments for the strengths of many specs.
GOBBOS RULE!
I’ve picked something pretty similar for my Archmage, I think. The AE explosion talent seems to be mirrored between the two classes, and I don’t have to tell you how much fun it is.
LOVE IT!
TheoryHammering* 😛
seems like a pretty good spec Keen.
i think i would have gone with Hurts, Don’t It? for sure though. You’re basically stuck choosing between Bunch’o’Waagh and Brain Bursta for your main damage spell no matter what you do. Neither is especially good but considering the options I’d go with the one with the Tactic that adds an insane toughness debuff to it. One of those on your groups focus fire target and that guy will go down like a pile of bricks.
also, fun Path of Da Green spec based on spamming ‘Ere We Go in combination with the “Ere We Go Again” tactic and “Get Moving” tactic.
http://war.mmoguildsites.com/career_planner/shaman?110011000100000000000001100
I spent an entire afternoon debating Leaky Brainz vs. Hurts, Don’t it? and now I’ve begun doubting it again. 😛 Maybe I will go for the toughness debuff… it’s just so tempting to hinder those Bright Wizards.
Umm how is shrug it off situational?? As in you gona be using it every cooldown? If nobody taking damage just put it on a sorceress = full grp heal in 9 sec. INcredible to use on charging tanks as well
@Keen – If you look at it this way, a huge toughness debuff on a BW will hinder them quite nicely as they drop in fewer hits. 😉
Bunch O’ Waaagh! Is a nice main damage spell but highly situational. First, it drains some mad AP and second it requires that you are able to channel it without being interrupted. The spell is 100% useless if you’re engaged in melee, whereas Brain Bursta may not do as much damage but give it a toughness debuff and it becomes a lot more useful.
I think the Life Leaka talent can work nicely too, but you’re limiting your effectiveness to casters with an int/wis debuff rather than widening to affect everyone nicely with a toughness debuff.
If you focus yourself as a BW/AM interrupt character, I’d go with what you have. It will be quite effective. If you want to be a bit more versatile, go with the toughness debuff on Bursta.
The coolest part I gained from all this is that you have many ways where you can be useful, but you can’t pick any one combination that makes you extremely versatile in all situations. Well, you could if you went pure Mork and focused on mending, but then you would probably pick a Zealot because they’re better at focused healing.
Theoryhammering wise (based on lots of information provided by lasts week surge of information on this and many other blogs) I’d agree with Snafzg and go for Hurt’s don’t it too.
Glad to see more post about WAR coming from this blog. Encore encore..
I know this is off topic, but can anyone explain the difference between the guild tax and guild tithe? I understand the tax, but can’t find anything descriptive about the tithe.
Hello Keen, i have a question, shamans and zealots (for example), they necesary have to do damage to then heal?
Thank u
@trasitive – just now checked your suggested Da Green tactic. with “Ere we go (+again)” and the “Get Moving” tactic. That sounds as a real mean healer/support shaman for a 6 man train. Huge Moral gain for your group members, every 10 sec they could have 300 Morale. As it an instant cast he the shammy can just pop it during healing.
With Realm Ranks (DAoC term, dunno the WAR equivalent) you could spec to “Sticky Feets” and get “Pass it On” (tactic) from Mork line.
Some questions:
1) How much moral is needed to fire a Moral 1, 2 and 3 ability? And, how much Morale does an average action build normally?
2) How long is the cooldown or preperation time on a Moral ability? As in video’s I saw the Moral abilities turning red with a 60 second cooldown, but I couldnt find out what that means. Depending on the answer to this question it could influence our Hammercrafting on the usefullness of the build in a 6 man train.
3) “Do Sumfin” usefull uses Mork Waagh to increase the thoughness bonus?
@marcus – from what I have read both classes dont need to do damage to heal. However the shaman will receive benefits from casting damage spells, followed by healing spells. These benefits may be that a healing spell becomes instant cast or more powerful (i believe).
I can recommend http://www.warhammeralliance.com, who have a great forum to ask these kind of questions too. You can also browse there for a lot of useful information and player insights into the classes.
Hope that helped.
@DeSlisser
yeah, you’ve got the idea. its a group support spec that would require you to be working closely with your 6 man crew. You would be adding large amounts of damage and morale to your allies at all times with Ere We Go spam, in addition to doing your obvious job of healing them.
for your questions
1) i don’t know the specific numbers. 150 morale is like about 2 seconds worth of it building up. the actual morale gauge expands as it goes up the scale though so i can’t really judge exactly how much morale the 4 ability points on it require.
2) all morale abilities are on a shared 1 minute long cooldown. you can’t use any of your morales more than once ever 60 seconds. the idea behind a morale boosting tactic isn’t that it lets you spam your low level morales really fast, its that it lets you build up to the more powerful rank 3 and 4 morales in the same 60 seconds. rank 3 and 4s are devastating though, so i think its worth it.
3) yep! Waagh power is converted to toughness buff, which is very nice since increasing toughness sort of indirectly improves the power level of all your other healing on that target.
Looks like all the questions were answered pretty well. Thanks all. 🙂