My new main

[Mohdit]

[Brohg]

[Scowls]

[Numrum]

[Samanna]

[Jaraman]

First of all, welcome to a great class to play and to this awesome forum. There are a few good class sites out there, but I think this is far and away the best site, period. I've played EQ for 4 years now, and I still visit the shammy forums almost daily for 3 years now. Samanna is super organized, and the info you can find here is overwhelming, and not just for the shaman.

There's going to be lots to learn on your shaman in several areas. Having played a warrior main, I'm sure you're at least aware of the various roles different classes have. The shaman is so versatile that he fills almost any role at some given time. How far you push yourself depends totally on your mindset -- are you content with being a background shaman, and just slowing and patch healing? Maybe you prefer DPS. You can play thru the eyes of a crowd controller, solo like a necro, or even just play main healer. Maybe you like the challenge of pulling. Shaman have the tools to do at least a decent job in all these areas.

For now, as you warm up to the possibilities, and scour thru some old posts here, you'll at least want to concentrate on a few areas. These are what I suggest:

SPELLS: Get all the spells you can. Grind/MM your way up to 65, then stop here to get spells and some AAs. Personally, I'd say before you grind out 23 AAs for Canni5, get Virulent Paralysis (punt-root the mob) and your 9th spell gem. Make sure you at least have Malo/Malos, cripple, our best quick heal, and Quiescence. After that, turn your back on MMs and learn to play the shaman properly.

TACTICS: Make lots of and learn to use hotkeys. Be able to target anything quickly. Know and control aggro. Memorize 10 different spellsets, and learn to use /mem spellset on the fly. Here's a simple guide you can use to get up to speed: http://www.rpgexpert.com/1844.html

GEAR: Thru the bazaar, spend 30k or so to make sure every gear slot you have has at least 50 HP. Focus on HP; the stats and resists will generally be good on high HP gear. Endgame most of your stats are gonna be max anyways, so don't worry about searching for high +WIS gear atm... it will come. Remember, for shaman and necros, HP = mana.

There is much more info, such as zones to hunt and specific gear/focusses to get, but I don't want to write another novel atm. To wrap things up for now, keep these in mind:

1) Keep your eye glued to group health bars. Be ready to heal anytime.
2) Watch for adds. Root them, slow them, punt them, off-tank them.
3) Be pro-active. Malos the mob on inc BEFORE the tank has aggro. Slow not long after that. If main healing, keep an HOT on the MT before the pull comes in. Cripple early if needed, and DOT early if DPSing. The second half of battle you spend regaining mana, handling parked adds, going to pull, etc.

Good luck and post whenever you have a question.

[Samanna]

[Galelor]

best advice given so far imo, is to stay away from MMs and level in groups or solo.
if you ahve trouble landing slow cast your maloxxx line first until it lands. leveling in MMs gives you ZERO feeling for how a class should be played. at 63 you should have some basic ideas to answer the questions you are asking. since you don't, the best advise i can possible give is for you to get your feet wet with the class you want to play! i totally agree with Brohg's post, he is a shaman who knows what he is talking about, listen to him!

[Mohdit]

[Tordail]

[Phatcow]

[Spaced_Shaman_]

[Lumor]

A couple quick rules of thumb I use to slow, your milage may vary. I apologize if this is too basic and doesn't answer your question.

The best time to cast slow depends on a bunch of things, mostly your tank and the mob:

- the tank - if you have a good aggro tank, you can fire it off pretty quick, if its an sk or pally, maybe on inc. If its an undergeared (aggro wise) tank, hold offa few % and try until you dont grab aggro. (or cast root first if you find yourself waiting too long).

- the mob - if you get resists on more then 20% or so, load up malo(s) and cast it before slow, or on the first resist of slow. Malo is low arrgo and unresistable, so you can let it fly pretty quick and make sure you have a better chance to land slow. If you dont have malo(s), look for the spell components and get it made. If you have problems slowing after malo(s), tell the chanter to tash as soon as they can. If slow still won't land, cuss at SOE and throw a rock at the mob.

- sometimes disease slow is all that lands, but that's pretty rare in my experience.

- spell haste=good, youre friendly cleric can help you here.

- stand next to the tank when you cast slow, so he can grab aggro back if you steal it.

- if the mob is at 50% before you can land a slow, you should probably stop worrying about it and do some DPS.

A good tank makes all the aggro problems moot, and resist debuffs are all you can do to land slows that are resisted.

[Boleslav]

[Cereall]

[Mohdit]

Thanks for the help and info so far. I'm still having a bit of difficulty soloing and hope to resolve that with practice since finding groups or creating them seems to be more of challenge as the days move on. I stopped at level 65 and have been crunching aa's since (51 so far) and invested into the recommends.

It's nice to be part of this community and not involved with the types that flame just for fun. Again thanks for the help and advice.

[Aruman]

[darhews]

[harlybear]

I have many bots, alts toons in general. I still Love and Play my Shammy most of all. I have been reading these posts and figured I would chime in. Playing any class well in EQ takes dedication to it. You get what you put in. If you want to learn use spells on easy mobs to see their effects. Sometimes thinking about what shammys did while you were a Tank can help. BAsically its all about taking the time to learn. Power leveling teaches you nothing, buying a ready to use toon is just insane. Most important. Don't be afraid to die lots LOL, its part of the game And if people don't like it.......em!! Enjoy

[Phatcow]

wow can you imagin jumping 10 lvls in MM's ... thats a whole lot of real experience to miss out on with your main. And if your lvl 62 and don't know how to slow .. omg dude!

All I can say is I hope you do spend the time and learn your class. Difference between a 52 - 62 melee and 52 - 62 caster is a lot, then again even melee types have changes between lvl 52 mobs and 62 mobs.

For slowing at 62 malo everything first then tugurs .. casting malo will give your tank time to generate some aggro so when slow hits the nob doesn't tear you a new one. Malo has very small aggo which even your pet should be able to turn in a few hits ... I know in WoS the mob is normally at 60% when I get slow off, which when you think to your self kinda sucks but that why you haste everyone. Slow is still king because the amount of damange a mob can do in X amount of time is more than 6 hasted people can do in most settings. Malo first slow second ... this I believe is the most effective way to help your group.

Read stuff here .. read the spell discriptions on Alla .. read the player comments on Alla ... there is a lot of information out there that will make you a better shaman.

[ribeye]

[Vigdis]

[Frakass]

[xyu101]

[Slithor]

Cripple: I mem this for named but on normal XP mobs I do not. I always Cripple when soloing.
Malos: I generally do not malos during XP unless the snarers are having difficulty or the mobs are highly resistant.
Slow: I flop back and forth because I have a TA. If I did not have a TA I would probably use the short duration slow for everything during XPing and not malos. This is unless the group is taking longer than the short duration to kill mobs.
Root: With the new spells we've gotten, I find it hard to make room for everything. As a result, I generally do not load root (I used to always keep it up) and use VP instead. While VP is on, I may load root quickly in case VP breaks and we cant handle the add. If we're pulling multiple mobs quite frequently then I'll take something out and keep root up.

[Vigdis]

[darhews]

[Finori]

[darhews]

[Aruman]

[Cabe]

[darhews]

[Jaraman]

[darhews]

[Mohdit]

When you slow a mob and you get a message like "Mostly Slowed" or "Partially Slowed", does this mean you can further slow it by other means or is that all that you can do as far as slowing the mob? I tried looking for more info on this but I have had no luck with this.

I have tried soloing murks in NC lately and want to make sure I am doing this right. Currently 69 and have all my 68 level spells.
-park dog at camp
-pull with turg's
-root mob at camp
-send in dog (already buffed)
-cast HoT (Q) on dog
-cast Panther on dog
-DoT mob
-heal as needed

The challenge I have (but I am learning) is keeping dog alive while managing my mana. Do I need to be buying dog pet kits (weapons etc)? Is it worth casting cripple and malicous decay if I am disease doting (have not been to conserve mana)?

[Tordail]

Puppy, while cute and loyal and all, is little more than a speedbump. I always gave him toys (weapons, a mask, a belt), and let him chew stuff up. But I think you will get farther if you see him as four-legged DOT rather than a tank. He gets chewed up pretty good, and it takes a good deal of mana to keep him alive. I tend to solo more without him than with him, root-rotting or tanking when I feel like it. When I do tank, I sometimes let him play too so he can do some damage while I take the beating.

[Beafly]

Since Murkgliders do not summon and you have VP maxed. I'd suggest an entirely different strategy.

First, kill your dog. He mostly gets in the way.

Pull with Malicious Decay (Disease debuff).

Root with Virulant Paralysis.

Stack Blood of Saryrn and Breath of Ultor.

Refresh Dots as required.

Refresh VP when your gem refreshes.

Get exp.

[Kozul]

[EeyonRN]

[Samanna]