Shaman Deep Dive!

kloqqa

The Torpor + Canni playstyle was the most fun I had on P99. The MnM shaman implemented this fun healing playstyle way earlier, starting at like lvl 12 when you got your first Canni. Now that playstyle is dead, RIP. You can't make thoughtful decisions to sacrifice your HP for mana and vice versa anymore, bummer.

Fidric

Nazgrimn

Addition of Blind is cool. I like the faster cast time. Helps me get a mob off me so I can step back and root.

What changed with shaman blind? (Besides level 4 to 16 unlock change)

Nazgrimn

Fidric I'll be honest if shaman had it before the rework, I never bought it. How funny.
Must have been one of those spells I didn't buy to save money and then just never went back to buy it. Hah. At any rate, I've been enjoying it while soloing.
Now that I only need 2 dots loaded, I have plenty of room on my spell bar.

Growlron

Maybe Ill play again when they give back a better version of the SPIRIT pet. fix the mana economy, actually make the shaman different from Druid.

My totemcraft / totem mechanic suggestion still stands.

Crazy work destroying our ability to solo and now groups don't want us.

Heres hoping for some updates soon to fix this disaster.

Jaor

After playing some, here's my feedback on the recent changes from a lvl 20 shaman's perspective.

• Dots are very powerful and mana efficient. This was an improvement over the previous spell line, even if you consider stacking of different ranks because it translates into more med ticks. I can keep dots on 2 mobs (like on an overpull) a lot more easily than before. Shaman life is now mana efficient soloing!

• The DD nuke is such a waste that I won't be purchasing any more from the line. The only use case for it I could find was finishing off a fleeing mob, but in that case, you'd be better off recasting your disease dot and medding for 2 ticks for equivalent damage and mana cost. If the nuke is going to have a very poor mana-to-dmg ration, then there is little reason to make the damage so minimal.

 • Spirit Bane III - lvl 8     22 magic damage for 24 mana
 • Spirit Blight - lvl 20      69 magic damage for 60 mana
 • Sickness - lvl 16           30 dmg per tick for 60 seconds for 105 mana

• APM is indeed low with the change to consume. I find myself staring at my screen and not doing anything which I think is the antithesis to the shaman playstyle. I understand the need to distinguish the consume mechanic from the cannibalize one, but there should be an enjoyable alternative. Consume on a 45s cooldown makes it feel like dev thinks it has an overpowered element in combat but every time I group with a cleric, I'm the one sitting while the cleric is up in combat having fun (and nuking mobs for 300 damage). What if all overhealing done by the shaman generated mana? It wouldn't be as fun as consuming, but it would fit with the spirit world motif and be a distinct mechanic....just an idea.

• Omen of ~~Grandiloquence~~ Susceptibility seems to have taken a hit. My level 16 debuff lowers MR/DR/HR by 1. Does that increase my dmg per tick by 1? Not that I've been able to determine. Does it make my spells harder to resist? Not that I've been able to determine. Is -1 to resist that meaningful? If so, then why are there items that give +10 resist at lvl 15 (I'm looking at you, Measure Stick)? This is another spell that needs adjustment I think.

• I'd like to see the blind mechanic extended to 30 seconds so if it's intended use is stopping archers and spellcasters from tearing us up while they're rooted, then we wouldn't need to recast it. If it's supposed to give us the chance to tank a mob via proximity aggro, then 12 seconds is terrific.

On a final note, I played my inquisitor all day yesterday and have found their APM ceiling to be similar to the old shaman one so I'll most likely be jumping ship to that class at some point soon. Shaman is a BORING class to play now. Who ever suspected that we needed to be able to harm ourselves to have fun?? /boggle

Luda

The Consume Icon needs a different background. Terribly hard to see the refresh shading.

wizard

Luda according to one of the art devs the current Shaman spell icons are a placeholder and will get another pass later

Spor

I have done limited testing but my thoughts so far are:

Things I like:

Group Regen Buff
Combining sense magic and see invis
Loss of pet(unpopular opinion)

Things I dislike:

#1 Most important to me: Loss of spore discharge(it always provided value no matter what in every situation. Ritual of escape is situational and may or may not provide value. I hate having long CD spells on my bar)
Spell Icons(old ones were crisp and clean, these appear unfinished and all look the same with same colors)
Moving away from poison theme to a generic magic user theme(I see shaman as a voodoo witch doctor. Also being tied to alchemy poison just made sense to me thematically. Mushroom theme/spirit world also made sense to me)
Consume(Changed the entire play style. Being at full health and unable to cast consume is driving me nuts)

Things I would like to see:

Spore Discharge back
Much lower CD on consume(adjust hp/mana numbers as needed)
New offensive spell to make up for loss of pet and add variation to our limited options, even more so now that we cant stack dots from the same line. Something like a lifetap or a larger nuke line. Play style is becoming one dimensional. Adding a melee attack or proc would feel really good here also. Maybe a spell to summon temporary pet to attack target for the next 30 seconds then disappear and act as a DoT.
Combine all resists buffs into 1 spell

Mesh

Spor

New offensive spell to make up for loss of pet and add variation to our limited options, even more so now that we cant stack dots from the same line.

I'm still wondering what happened to the MIA spirit manifestation mechanic. Wonder if this is something yet to be added that might bring more flavor?

Manifests spirit animals as expressions of ancestral force in their spells, but not as pets
https://monstersandmemories.com/class-shaman

Jat

Did a lot of grouping yesterday. Here are my thoughts:

Ghostly Wrath: I love that i can contribute to dps a bit now. This spell is also very efficient at pulling agro so that i can root a mob in a safe place from the group. (But we used to have a pet and i could also contribute that way soooo.. and it was way more fun to manage my pet).

Mana Efficiency: I can barely cast anything now. Basically per mob - Greater Hex of Susceptibility/Ghostly Wrath/Greater Hex of Enfeeblement - a few heals here and there to help out the Healer (i wasn't on main heals). Even doing this little and consuming whenever it was up had me struggling to keep up my mana. It was also extremely boring gameplay. I sat a lot.

Consume: Someone else has to heal ME now from my consumes. I can barely heal myself because it dilutes the mana i gain from the consume. So great. Now i'm wasting other healer's mana and honestly, it's a bit of a slap in the face and embarrassing.

Group Buffs: What group buffs? We have one more group buff. Communion of Regeneration. This is nice to have. I love the group buffs actually. But we just have one more group buff. We already had Speed of the Pact. Did i miss purchasing a group buff Berserker Wrath or Greater Rite of Haste? Is there a group buff Magic/ Disease, or Holy resistance? I don't mind casting spells one at a time, i mean it's a little exhausting, but i don't see what people are talking about group buffs? Someone help plz if i missed one.

Ritual of Escape: One thing i will petition - The buff says it only effects 6 targets. We had 6 players in our group. 3 of them had pets. This makes 9 targets. When i cast the spell, some of the "players" didn't get the buff. Can we fix this? ALSO, and very important - one of the players was an enchanter - Whenever i cast the spell, he would lose control of his charmed pet and the pet would start attacking - but if we do anything at all (i think) we lose the hp/mana regen and the buff from Ritual goes away. All in all the spell needs some tweeks. I think the spell is weird to have overall but whatever. I'll take what i can get at this point.

So yah i wasn't main healing. If i was i would literally just probably heal. And sit. And then heal. And sit. This is probalby all i would do until and hour passes and i have to buff the group. At that point, we are screwed because i lose all my mana buffing and i can't heal anymore. This is what happens when we are stripped of consume, which is basically what happened.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Nazgrimn

Well, can't seem to find a group to save my life. I keep hearing other's say they are getting denied groups because Shaman can't solo heal right now and no group wants to have 2 healers.

Spent the day mostly solo, or duo'ing with a necro.
You guys need to fix Consume and stop over adjusting things. From 12s CD to 45s CD is just wild.
Why wouldn't you try a 20s CD first?

Rhelic

What Naz said... ive messaged ppl looking for healer a couple times now when i message one said sorry man shaman is in a bad spot atm. and we only have room for one healer. the other just said we are looking for cleric or druid and changed the LFG message to cleric or druid... consume defines this class, and its been castrated... this may be your vision of the class but we are unable to do what the class was designed to do. we cannot solo heal and even throw out one round of debuffs. i consider myself pretty fair geared level 31 121 wis and i cant keep up. ive tried playing healers in eq1/eq2 vanguard, pantheon etc etc. i hated it cuz i was bored as hell all the time, i finally played shaman here (first time playing a shaman ever) and really enjoyed it, i always had something to do. and you can 100% tell the difference between a half afk shaman and a good one. now its just like any other healer sitting and doing nothing... at all.... please reconsider the consume. or if you gonna keep it this way you need to DRASTICALLY reduce the mana cost of just about every spell shaman has (buffs aside)

Fidric

Sounds familiar from bard perspective seeing group LFM for the new "serious places" like rothold and their message is 'LF CC (Enchanter)'. And I don't disagree with their take either. Gulf of performance and capacity and doubling up is overkill (and boring for the inferior of the two).

Gathbard

Main difference here is that bard didn't get their Deep Dive yet, while the 3 healers all had them.
It is safe to assume that the way people take or not take a specific healer along right now is an appropriate representation of what would happen in game.
Obviously it is still very unfinished, but if groups actively skip on shaman even as a second healer, if that is indeed what's happening, then it's a clear symptom of something that need fixing somewhere, imho.

Raybane

Rhelic This may be a self fulfilling prophecy as by complaining too much on the forum people start to believe you and not want you in groups. I have personally been turned down from a group based on class that I know was totally bogus. I just took it as a filter to avoid bad groups and then watched them fail while joining another player in a duo instead.

Nazgrimn

Raybane I will say not many people are playing right now. I know a lot of people are taking a break in prep for EA so chalking that up to some of it.

I was able to find one group this weekend but there was already a druid in the group, healing and everything was light blue to me at 51 so not a real test. Was hoping to find something more challenging so I could really give it a test, but no invites to that content. Even setup shop in Fallen Watch for a bit, waiting.

thedrizzle

I agree with other posters here that the shaman rework feels extremely rushed, losing multiple mechanics and not gaining any new spells/abilities outside of the somewhat weird (but useful) group save spell was dissapointing.

I think the lack of spirit animal summons or buffs/themes is a huge miss. Instead of adding cool new spells and something to make the shaman unique they just clipped its wings completely.

With that being said, Consume did need an adjustment since with Wis scaling it became a massive influx of free mana at high levels/gear, but the 45 second CD feels horrible. Additionally, shaman spells feel extremely expensive (likely since shaman has good mana sustain) but this was not adjusted at all with the Consume change making the class feel even worse.

Consume should be changed to 20 second CD if you want to reduce APM or if its gonna stay 30 seconds or longer please adjust the numbers.

I hope the devs consider taking a look at spirit pets even if they are temporary as that was a huge joy to playing a shaman both thematically/mechanically. Many in this thread and others have offered ideas (could act like totems w/ AOE based buffs/debuffs), temp pet summon like old Bst with different abilities, or just return the wolf pet as it was unique.....

I guess I just do not see the vision or plan w/ these changes to the shaman and would love a dev to chime in as the deep dive plan and what actually happened were drastically different.

Nazgrimn

thedrizzle The Cleric rework was weeks ago and they still haven't gotten an official word from the devs on their random procs they receive, or losing one of their core spells, the oath of protection. (Sorry if that isn't the correct name)
I wouldn't expect any devs to chime in here but I do find it odd that devs have offered communication in the Fighter deep dive discussion.

Jat

I was main healer last night in upper Saman camping Lady what’s her face… I was struggling to maintain my mana. Our tank was Grimfang, a 58 SK powerhouse. Thank god for his tankyness. When things were incredibly smooth, I can maintain full mana while throwing a dot heal every once in a while and also debuffing the mob stats, resists, and slow. But that’s when things are smooth. 1 mob in. 1 mob out. Easy. But I sat A LOT. I just sit. Press a few buttons. And sit. This to me isn’t that fun.

When things are not smooth, which obviously happens often, I see my mana drop significantly trying to help the party with different things such as debuffing multiple mobs, rooting, healing multiple people or pets, etc.

And who’s going to heal me from all the massive amount of life I’m losing from consume?? I can say this - I was cheating. I had Gnomore the Elementalist in the group, so he was providing me with linen bandages. Without the bandages I have to heal myself, as the health regen from our buffs just isn’t nearly enough to recoup the mana lost from consume. So I would have had even less mana.

I was also finding desperate times and bandaging Grimfang instead of healing him to conserve some mana. A main healer has to bandage his main tank… yah.

I still don’t have an accurate reading of what happens when I’m the only healer and don’t have tons of linen bandages to consume for my consume.

When it was time to buff? Hopefully we were in a comfortable situation and could maintain that safety for 15 min in order for me to recover from my mana bar going down to nearly nothing. I guess we’re living life on the edge after I buff the party! It’s the Wild Wild West out there boys and girls when your healer is oom :p

The slap to my face - When I was told I probably can’t handle FW main healing. A 58 Shaman with 170+ Wis can’t handle FW? That hurt. And honestly, who knows. In a perfect group I’m sure I’d be fine. But this isn’t a game for the “perfect” group. We should be given the skills to achieve greatness when we don’t have that “perfect” group. Just play better. Do more. But unfortunately, there is no way in hell I can do more right now with the current state of consume. I just can’t keep up my mana and my health drops way too fast.

But I will say this if any dev is actually reading this - this game is fantastic! You guys are doing such a great job regardless of all the complaining. I think these complaints are more of just honest feedback. We really appreciate everything you are doing and are extremely thankful for this game. Either way, I’m excited for EA. It might be the wild Wild West but who cares. As long as we are killing monsters and creating memories, who gives a shit 🙂

But yah. 45 second consume is absolute dogshit.

Fidric

Nazgrimn forum class communication has been from xilith, who has been working on a different set of classes (e.g. fighter/monk/paladin/bard). The healers / pure casters are with dev Jahaar (+ranger/sk) who I don't think is active via forum or discord in the same way.

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