Shaman build discussion

[swirly]

So I have a shaman who I play with a warlock friend of mine. I find myself being the main healer and main tank in ALOT of situations. We often end up with a group of shaman, warlock, mage, rogue, rogue. I'm not sure we have ever grouped with a warrior, druid, or priest. :blink: I'm hoping this changes because I don't know how many more instances we can do with me being both tank and healer. (we are around 28 currently) I pretty much end up shocking a mob a few times and chain healing myself while everyone else beats up on mobs. This seems to keep me alive and keep the mobs on me instead of them attacking the other people.

So the bits of my build that I know I want to keep:

Elemental Mastery

Concussion Rank 5
Convection Rank 5
Reverberation Rank 5
Elemental Focus Rank 1

Elemental Total: 16

Restoration Mastery

Tidal Focus Rank 5
Totemic Focus Rank 5
Improved Lesser Healing Wave Rank 5

Restoration Total: 15

Total
Total Points Spent: 31
Level Required: 40


This basically gets me good shocks as well as healing that is cheaper to cast and less likely to be interupted. The question is, where do I go with the last 20 points? There are lots of options I think.

I really like the idea of 5 in Call of Thunder and 1 in Elemental Fury because it improves my shocks even more and I use them quite a bit. if I did that it also opens up the option for 8 points to get Lightning Mastery or 9 to get Elemental Mastery. This is tempting because it makes chain lightning and regular lightning bolt more viable. In my current role it wouldn't be all that useful, but a shaman generally is backup healer and not the main tank. So if things start changing towards that then I could stay back and use my spells while keeping an eye on my mana so I could have some available if additional healing is required.

I could use 6 points to get Nature's Swiftness. This seems promising because with me both tanking and healing alot, an instant big heal could come in handy.

I could put 5 in Ancestral Knowledge. This is a pretty simple idea, more mana means more healing and more shocksghtning. I like this alot. This also opens up the option of putting 2 in Improved Ghost Wolf and 3 in Improved Lightning Shield. IGW would help in situations where I need to run away from a fight (I don't PvP so that doesn't matter and this is a PvE server as well). ILS would be more damage for while I am tanking. My problem here though is that I'm hoping to get out of the tanking roll some which makes me not like ILS that much. Its just too reactive of a skill for my liking. I have to be getting hit for it to do any good. I much prefer skills where I choose when to do damage instead of ones where its up to the mobs. I could also get Thundering Strikes and Flurry for improved melee. If I went that far I would be tempted to look at Parry as well, but then I would have to pull 1 point from elemental probably.


So there are alot of ways I can go from here. I'm leaning away from the melee route and more towards healing and elemental. I like the idea of improving my shocks so am strongly leaning towards Elemental Fury. So that would use up 6 points, leaving me with 14. From here it seems like I have to choose lightning or healing. I currently don't use my lightning skills very much, but I am unsure how much that will change. Having the 5 points in call of thunder tends to encourage me to go further in improving my lightning as well, but yet nature's swiftness just seems so useful as well. So I don't really know what to do here. I could get Nature's Swiftness and Lightning mastery. I could get Nature's Swiftness, Ancestral Knowledge, and Improved Ghost Wolf (leaving one more point somewhere). I could get Elemental Mastery and Ancestral Knowledge. I just don't know which way to go. So I'm looking for advice from people here. What would you do? What do you think are the pros and cons of the various routes? Help me! :)

[Treesh]

So I have a shaman who I play with a warlock friend of mine.  I find myself being the main healer and main tank in ALOT of situations.  We often end up with a group of shaman, warlock, mage, rogue, rogue.  I'm not sure we have ever grouped with a warrior, druid, or priest. :blink: I'm hoping this changes because I don't know how many more instances we can do with me being both tank and healer.  (we are around 28 currently)  I pretty much end up shocking a mob a few times and chain healing myself while everyone else beats up on mobs.  This seems to keep me alive and keep the mobs on me instead of them attacking the other people.
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For what it's worth, for Mogo and Marn, the pet is the closest thing to a main tank that we have and Mogo is main healer for the group. The way we work it (and I'm sure there are better ways to do it) is that we spread aggro around. If I'm getting too hurt and having my heals stuttered too much, either GG pseudo tanks for a bit (go mail armor, agility and aspect of the monkey!) or the pet does. Usually we start off with the pet being tank and then I take aggro off of it if the pet is starting to get overwhelmed. Then if my heals are being stuttered just too much, aggro goes back to the pet or to Marn if the pet isn't healthy enough yet. When there are more people with us, it's actually easier because things die quicker so the pet doesn't get hurt as badly and I don't have to play tank too often that way. But earlier on, I was the tank and the healer for everything. I don't remember just when I stopped that though because it was just too tough to heal and tank at the same time with the long cast heals. Is the warlock using the voidwalker or an imp/succubus? If it's usually warlock, mage, rogue, rogue in your group you can probably get away with having the voidwalker up and have it tank for a bit so you can get your heals in and then you can take aggro back when you're healed up and ready to go, although torment does seem to be a bit weaker than growl on hunters' pets.

And for some help on keeping mobs off other people, don't underestimate stoneclaw totem. It has gotten a bit of an aggro buff in one of the recent patches so if you know you're getting more adds than can be crowdcontrolled in a normal fashion, slap down the stoneclaw totem (preferably away from where the mages are AoEing), let the things beat on that for the short bit and then when they kill the totem they'll more than likely come to you anyway if they weren't being hit by AoEs while beating on the totem. Sometimes the critters will just head towards the closest body from the totem though so if you notice the health about to expire, head towards the totem, chain lightning them (when you are a high enough level for it), shock the nastiest looking one so it won't head towards your squishies, throw on rockbiter quick and hit each critter quickly. This will keep things off your mages a little bit better. Can make it a bit scary for you sometimes, but it'll give your DPS monkeys a bit more time to do their thing before critters peel.

[KiloVictor]

I could use 6 points to get Nature's Swiftness.  This seems promising because with me both tanking and healing alot, an instant big heal could come in handy.
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I don't know a lot about playing a shaman, but I do know a lot of shamen that have a lot of good things to say about Nature's Swiftness.

<waits for knowledgeable comment from others>

Kv

[Treesh]

I don't know a lot about playing a shaman, but I do know a lot of shamen that have a lot of good things to say about Nature's Swiftness.

<waits for knowledgeable comment from others>

Kv
[right][snapback]81553[/snapback][/right]

Nature's swiftness is a fantastic thing. One of the better choices in the restoration tree. If you've got points in restoration already, nature's swiftness is a no brainer.

[oldmandennis]

Swiftness rocks.

Unfortunatly, the name of the tree game is choices. Taking substaintial talents in 3 trees is rarely a good idea.

If you really wanna keep tanking AND healing (probably a bad idea), or want a build that can tank OR heal (better idea), then you almost need to give up those elemental talents. If you wanna tank you NEED the shield talent and the armor/defence and parry. Don't do so much shocking and get aggro with RockBaiter.

And if you are healing while tanking, NS is manditory. No questions. And if you get parry and NS, well you need to give back some of the elemental points. The lightning spells are pretty worthless, IMHO, unless you are in Alterec anyways, although NS + CL can be fun anytime. They just take to long to cast for the amount of damage they do, and CL can't be used if there are CC'd mobs around or if you are unsure of the warriors ability to hold aggro. And if you are the MT, they get stuttered way to often to be useful at all.

[Alram]

If you really wanna keep tanking AND healing (probably a bad idea), or want a build that can tank OR heal (better idea), then you almost need to give up those elemental talents.&nbsp; If you wanna tank you NEED the shield talent and the armor/defence and parry.&nbsp; Don't do so much shocking and get aggro with RockBaiter.


[right][snapback]81556[/snapback][/right]

I agree. Sharc (level 41) has currently got Restoration talents up to Improved Lesser Healing Wave Rank 5. The rest of his talents are in Enhancement. He handles both melee and healing well. In small noninstance groups against mobs of his level or lower he has functioned well as a combo tank/healer. In an instance he has to do one or the other. The same thing would apply, I believe, to using elemental damage/healing; you need to conserve your mana to keep your party alive. Occasionally some shocks might be of great value, but primarily your mana should go to healing and appropriate totems.
Improved Ghost Wolf is worth having.

[Drasca]

End-game, Nature's swiftness and Mana tide totem (end restoration talent) totally own group play. With those, you can serve as backup healer, and recharge main healer at pivotal moments. That's if you want to focus on group play. Not that it doesn't help solo play, but MANA RECHARGE mid-battle is pivotal for any primary healer.

Going elemental/enchancement is just for personal fun though. Try it for a while if you don't mind taking a hit in group play. Better for pvp than pve. PvE, you might as well go 31 points restoration, then go whatever way you'd like.

Consider respec at 40 for Mana tide. Until then, do what you'd like.

EDIT: Oops. Shamans have enchancement, not balance.

End-game, mana tides will literally turns the tide of battle in group play.

[Artega]

Not sure how much help this is, but the cookiecutter Shaman build (to my knowledge) is 23/7/21, Ele/Enh/Res.

I recall Elemental looking similar to this:

5/5 Concussion and Convection
4/5 Reverberation
1/1 Elemental Focus
5/5 Call of Thunder
2/2 Improved Fire Totem
1/1 Elemental Fury

Enhancement was your choice of either (crappy) tier1 talents, and then 2/2 Improved Ghost Wolf.

Restoration was whatever you wanted to reach 21 for Nature's Swiftness.

From what I understand, it's very powerful (cookiecutter for a reason, after all :) )

[oldmandennis]

Not sure how much help this is, but the cookiecutter Shaman build (to my knowledge) is 23/7/21, Ele/Enh/Res.

I recall Elemental looking similar to this:

5/5 Concussion and Convection
4/5 Reverberation
1/1 Elemental Focus
5/5 Call of Thunder
2/2 Improved Fire Totem
1/1 Elemental Fury

Enhancement was your choice of either (crappy) tier1 talents, and then 2/2 Improved Ghost Wolf.

Restoration was whatever you wanted to reach 21 for Nature's Swiftness.

From what I understand, it's very powerful (cookiecutter for a reason, after all :) )
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I think thats the BG cookie, cause in BG's CL rocks the house. But for PVE, Elemental is too mana inefficient.

Full Res is painful cause there are so many useless talents. Mana Tide is great... but is it worth 11 points? Especially when it has just about 0 value in PvP? Tough call.

I don't know what "elemental/balance" is.... balance is a druid tree, and the closest thing to it for shams is elemental, soooooo