Yet another AA check

[Siluuael]

A little background:

My main is an 80 necro with a 65 warrior alt on that account. I started a shaman box account because, well, leveling a warrior without having your own healer stinks. The plan was to keep the shaman and warrior roughly together in terms of progression, farming a mix of group, old world raid gear, etc. to have the warrior be a viable tank and the shaman a viable healer at each level. Then, once the shaman was high enough level, I'd start boxing him with my necromancer. Got both the warrior and shaman to level 65 with a mix of qvic and DSH/LP gear. So far so good.

This all broke down during LGuk/BB. In order to successfully solo there with my necromancer, I needed to bring my then 65 shaman along for slows/VPing adds. In doing so, I hit the wall at around 250ish AAs at 65. There just wasn't that much more of significant value that I could buy that would help the shaman in his role of slow/debuff/keeping my necro pet alive and, eventually, DoT dps. I decided to level him. Once BB came out, I decided that the benefit of level 71 and all that gear and the better spells/AAs would be worth it.

So... I now have a 71 shaman with ~300AAs that sometimes groups with a 65 warrior, sometimes with an 80 necromancer, performing two vastly different roles in each situation (slow/panther/heal). Here's the kicker... I also spend a lot of time farming totally random stuff for all of our toons / alts / boxes with a friend (80 mage / 80 cleric box primarily, but has tons of other toons). This includes SoF named, LDoN raids, epic mobs, primals, CoD, etc.

Long story short, I guess healing / debuffing would be my current main role. I have a decent mana pool for my level (11.2k) but still eat mana alive, especially when we do LDoN raids and everyone is getting hit (so I tend to run champ/Ghost/panther). What are the best AAs I should pursue, given my current purchases? My thoughts are the following AAs in this approximate order:
Spiritual Channeling
Greater Rabid Bear (max for lvl 71)
Union of Spirits1
Healing Boon (max for lvl 71)
Healing Adept (max for lvl 71)
Healing Gift (max for lvl 71)
???

Really, I'm not sure what I should pursue after Healing Gift. I have VP3, Canni, Call of the Wild, Ancestral Aid4, some defensives, quickbuff3, SCRM... am I missing any 'key' shaman AAs for level 71 which will help me in any of the situations described above? Thanks in advance.

[Scalia]

If your Magelo is up to date and your Shaman doesn't have Pet Affinity, I would consider getting it sooner rather than later. Other than that, you have perfectly decent droppable gear (very similar to mine at 79), so perhaps work on Epic 1.5, Lassitude and the TBS hand augment while leveling to 80?

P.S. BTW, there are better droppable Charms out there.

[Siluuael]

Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't thinking pet affinity until I get the next pet at 72. I'm not sure how much dps either does, I mainly use pets when boxing with my warrior (who needs as much dps as he can get) or when kiting on my necro. Panther is what, ~50 dps per player and ~90 dps per pet that it hits?

Slowsil's magelo is pretty close, a few AAs, augs and items short since the last patch (Magelo Sync not going again yet). I'm in the process of farming some charms in LP (Wendia's Charm for him, Orrel's Bauble for warrior) to get me through until level 80. I also need to do the Wanderlust aug quest, which should be fast and easy now that he has the horse from SSRA.

I won't be leveling him to 80 just yet (I have this thing about not leveling before getting the 'good' AAs and spells available at each level), but I have all of the drops done for MMM/Crystallos access, hence wanting to get him to 75, which is the minimum level required to get the MMM access quest so he can group with nec/mage/cler in Crystallos.

I did 68.1/2 for some guildies the other morning, and I'll probably lead guild groups for the last 3 missions too in that arc sometime in the next week, which will give me Sloth, which should a) help with AE pet aggro when we're mage/necro pet tanking LDoN raids, and b) lessen the need for Languor / Lassitude.

Along those lines: I have a couple thousand orux on my necromancer. Is it worth doing the faction quests in Katta for spells? Any must haves? I believe I can grind ally doing snake quests in a few weeks, or do some of the fast pirate missions in order to get ally with the pirates in a matter of days.

As far as epics go, I believe I have just one fight left to finish his 1.0 (Child's Tear done already). After that, 1.5 should be doable in a few days, no?

[Macnair]

One of the nectar spells Rank 1 comes from the Pirates in Buried Sea (Nectar of Agony, maybe?). It shouldn't be too hard to get the faction you need for them to sell it to you, and you might be able to get the doubloons in the bazaar.

I wouldn't go for Greater Rabid Bear right away. It's true that, in conjunction with Spiritual Channeling, it can work quite well. Still, it's pretty situational. I'd only look into it if, even when you are only slowing and healing, you find yourself frequently running out of mana mid fight.

If the point of the shaman is basically to slow and then to provide heals for either the necro pet or the warrior, just focus your aa purchases on becoming a better and better healer. Get the aa slow (when you can). Get more and better heal crits, heal-over-time crits, max out the aa quick heal. If mostly you are teaming up with your level 80 necro, you don't need the shaman for the sake of dps, so leave all the offensive aas for later.

[Scalia]

[Siluuael]

The point of the shaman varies... when farming LDoN raids with mage/clr/nec/shm, he is usually on champ/panther/ghost duty, since we all get hit at various times with the 4-12 mob pulls that we get tearing through Valdoon. When with the warrior (depending on content) he oftentimes has enough time/mana to nuke or dot a bit on top of slow/hot/panther/champ.

I'm wanting to get all of the available strong DoTs in the event that I need the shaman to dps, and sloth/lassitude/languour for necro/mage pet tanking. Had a situation at the end of an Nro LDoN raid the other night (with 80 mag/clr, 80 shm and my 80 nec/71 shm) where the final mob could only reliably be hit by poison and had a bajillion hps and some insane regen. It required all of the poison dps that the nec/shm/shm could muster (plus mage RpS pets) to get him down.

I was thinking Spiritual Channeling / Greater Rabid Bear for the long fights where I need to have continuous heals, like P'Tav Msha in Qvic, or various other old world raid named.

As for spells, I may just go the Doubloon route to get most of them.

[Unmei]

[Scalia]

[Bigcat Daddy-o]

[Veril]

Especially when multi-boxing convenience and ease of use trumps almost all other things. If you regularly use a pet, then you should get this AA

This AA get the Veril Seal of Approval.

[Siluuael]

Update:
I got shaman to level 75 and completed his epic 1.5 and Crystallos access. Now I can go back to AAing for a while. Only thing I'm looking for gear-wise in the short term is an ac aug for his shield (will get Crystallos 35 ac aug or AG West 30ac 60hp aug).

So... first things first... what order should I purchase AAs, assuming that my shaman will be spending a lot of time slow/cripple/heal/champ/panther in Crystallos and farming old world raid mobs?

Here is my updated current thinking on AA order (maxing each line for lvl 75):
Healing Adept
Healing Boon
Healing Gift
Pet Affinity
Suspended Minion
Persistant Minion
Spiritual Channeling
Greater Rabid Bear
Pact of the Wolf
Secondary Forte
DoT Crits
Ancestral Guard

... that's something like 200-300AAs (I have ~350 now). Any disagreements on order or items that I'm missing that I should add? Are the returns worth it on ranks of Union of Spirits over lvl 1?

[fendaann]

Assuming you can currently heal ok where you are fighting I would get Spiritual Channeling and then back on healing AA's.

Spiritual Channeling - this ablity allows you to re-buff your group after a wipe with low mana just make sure to heal your self when this ablity is on. Low mana -instant casting ablity to spam heals and group Hot to keep your HP up.

[Brohg]

Spiritual Channeling isn't instant cast.

[Morainna Saidai]

Actually he said instant casting ability as in when you have 0 mana and use it you have infinite mana so long as you have life.

[Brohg]

I don't see what's instant about that.

[Zama]

[Brohg]

WORDS MEAN THINGS