True Newbie -- A few questions

[fuzzy]

[Zaviax]

[Vigdis]

[Katt]

[Corwin]

[Finori]

Did you play other MMORPGs before ?
Are you all on your own or do you have friends who can/will help out with cash and/or equipment ?

If you do not have any help I highly recommend to do the newbie class armor quests. Near each home town(!) guild master you'll find an armor quest person. These armor quests are fairly easy and that armor will last you till mid-20s. Collect any tradeskill item (almost all of them have a tradeskill tag in the item description) and try to sell them in the bazaar. Bone chips can fetch up to 1pp and spider(ling) silk even more. In general if you are without support I recommend to have always a trader up when you are not playing ... research components, quest items ... everything will add up eventually. Check items online before you sell them to vendor.

As for your buffs:
- Str will only be effective after level 20 (or if you need to carry more). Then it will raise your max damage cap.
- Make sure your Agi is above 75 - after that gains from it will be small.
- Sta is getting converted directly into Hp - thats always a good thing.
- Dex helps your proc rate - probably something you dont need to worry about yet.
- Cha - well help you sell stuff for more pp or buy cheaper. There are also 2 small level windows when you have a charm animal spell and should use it ... Cha is helping with these charm spells.

As for buying spells:
- prioritize them
- if you can afford them - get them all

Good luck.

[Corwin]

[fuzzy]

[Samanna]

[Phatcow]

[Corwin]

[fuzzy]

[seniya]

[Corwin]

[Henora]

[Brohg]

[Khaw]

Another way to generate some PP fairly quickly is killing goblins in Butcherblock. There heads and blood sell for 3 or 4 pp and they are easily killable by a level 10. There are I think 4 green goblin camps in Butcherblock all marked on your map. Stay away from the one marked Crazed Goblin and don't bother with the Aqua Goblins either. When I start a new character on a different server this is how I usually build up some starting pp. The benefit is your not relying on another player to buy these from you as you are with tradeskill items or regent items. However at the same time there are skeletons wondering in the newbie are of Butcherblock which you can use to farm Bone Chips. Plus there are Kragg's in the newbie area and snakes that you can farm eggs from, Aslo a good selling tradeskill item. I would suggest farming this a bit to build up some pp for your spells and to buy clarity/healing potions.

[Shiuna]

Be diligent about maxxing your combat and spellcasting skills each time you gain a level. Most of these skills are level-capped so you can only earn 5 points more in each one for each level you gain. There's a temporary cap of 200 at level 40 that's not increased again until level 50, so you have a few levels to get those lagging skills maxxed.

You don't have all your skills yet, so be sure to check with a shaman trainer each time you gain a level to see if it's time to get a new skill. For example, according to this you won't get the meditate skill until level 8. You have to go to a shaman trainer and put 1 point into the skill so that you can start gaining points as you meditate. You get 5 more skill points each time you level that you can apply to a skill that is just too irritating to raise by using it.

You are automatically joined to your server's shaman chat channel when you log in, and that's a good resource for getting information. You can also join a serverwide shaman channel called serverwide.crucible:crucible. To automatically join this channel each time you log in, type the following command:

/autojoin serverwide.crucible:crucible

A Shaman's "special purpose" is Alchemy, where you can make potions to enhance players or damage monsters. In a recent expansion SOE added a bunch of useful potions that can increase your mana and health regeneration. Here's a chart: . You can buy these from vendors, but its probably cheaper to make them yourself and you raise you alchemy skill in the bargain. Note that these potions have a minumum level to use. For example, you can't use the until you're level 10. This potion will increase your mana regen by 3 per tic for 30 minutes, a tic being 6 seconds. This will help regain your mana faster. Vendors sell this potion for 1.784p, but you can make 5 for 2.045p, assuming you get the dropped ingredient yourself.

OK, I've rambled long enough. Have fun!

[Jaraman]

[Finori]

[Ungkor]

[fuzzy]

[Bigsnack For'Mobs]

[Finori]

[Henora]

[Scalia]

[Henora]

[Karshak_rn]

[Brohg]

ohmy, we're talking about real gear already? ohoho!

A set of level "II" focus effects can be scooped up in the Bazaar for very cheap, running 25-100p for each one. Personally, I'd only prioritize Spell Haste and Mana Preservation highly, getting others only on gear that you'd wear anyhow. The reasoning is thus:

We cast such a variety of spells that the other effects aren't in use all the time. Sometimes you nuke, but most of the time you don't, so Improved Damage isn't useful. It's a different situation for something like Magician or Wizard, who nuke *constantly*. We do buff a lot, but that's non-combat time until level 50 (Maw buffs start then, and you're heavily into Stoicism territory). Same thing with Affliction foci and even healing. All part-time jobs.

Generally, you'll be better off wearing stats items instead of foci, because they're good all the time. By "stats" btw, I mean hp & ac. I dinged 65 with under 150wisdom, and a breastplate that had no mana (it had good otherstuff), and never missed the mana pool.

Here's why:
Until/unless you begin raiding (high mana demands in very short time), mana pool just is not an issue ever. What matters is how much mana you can use over a long time period.

Other classes worry about mana pool because it lets them absorb a net loss of mana (comparing the cost of their spells to the mana gotten back from medding) for a longer time. Typical adventures, missions, or camps last 40minutes or so between breaks. A cleric with 5000 mana instead of 4000 mana will be able to spend the difference without running out, effectively casting 2.5 mana/tick more spells over the whole time.

The same math isn't an issue for good shaman because of the Cannibalize spells. Even the level 23 spell returns 20 mana every time you cast it! You only have to cast that spell a little more than once a minute to beat the PANTS off've 1k more mana pool, and in practice, you'll be casting it a lot more than that.

First with long-lasting regeneration spells, then with efficient healing buffs like Stoicism, Shaman are mana dynamos. Hp turns to mana turns to hp

if all the preceeding numbers were gibberish to you, just take away the lesson: mana pool does not matter AT ALL to a non-raiding shaman.

General foci extend ability by a ton. Get Mana Pres, get Spell Haste, even if it means losing ac/hp on those slots. If you find yourself doing one particular thing a lot, like being main healer in groups, then get the focus effect that activity demands. Otherwise, get hp and ac.

P.S. Take the fungus shirt. Remember the mantra? Hp turns to mana turns to hp

[Scalia]

[Brohg]

[Zillanex]

Many good advices allready given here i see

Goblins in butcherblock are nice money and xp around 10-12, spells will start to cost a lot more quickly,
with the old system lvl 1 spells costed 1gold, lvl 5 spells around 4 gold, lvl 9 spells 4pp and we get a lot
of spells

The spell list i use can be found here
i print it with 4 pages on each page to keep the number of pages down, has some basic info like mana cost, what skill it uses and a short description.

[Shiuna]

[fuzzy]

[Rivitingribbit]

[Phatcow]

[Zarniwoop]

[Scalia]

[dsavereide]

[Brohg]

LoIO (Lake of Ill Omen) is one of the very few zones in the game with NEGATIVE exp adjustment. It's a pretty cool zone for beginner pulling & grouping, with regular caster mobs but no turbo-nukin' wizards, but any kill you get there will be worth 15% less than the same kill in another zone.