Raiding tips for Shaman?
Being that I have only been on a couple of raids, I would like some tips on how to really play a Shaman in a raid. Any tips would be cool. I am asking since I have only been on a few raids. What spells are the best to have up during the raid, which arnt. Should I have the pet up or not. So forth and so forth hehe. Look forward to hearing from everyone.
I don't have to much advice about spells, but I can advise you - no pets. Most serious raids have no pets of *any* kind, mages/necros included. Pets have a lower level then their owners, and as as such have a higher aggro radius. The damage they do on a raid is usually pretty minimal, and the risks of having a pet on a raid far outweight the small DPS you get from one.
Revenant of Innoruuk - Officer of Da Hui - Quellious
If I cannot bend heaven, then I shall move hell. -Homer
Re: Raiding tips for Shaman?
Actually 61+ pets provide a major source of dps. My 61 pet alone puts out close to 40DPS hasted and the 63 pet comes in near 70DPS depending on posistioning. Not to mention 61+ pets are lvl 60 themselves.
Pretty much the major role of a shaman on raids is to debuff/slow mobs and buff the groups. The malo line provides debuffing and along with tash / oos from chanters / bards respectively can usually lower the mobs resistances enough to slow, dot, nuke or whatever applies. I'm not a shaman nor have ever played one but this is my observances.
Buffing usually depends on how many shamans there are in the raid. One shaman in raid usually keep the main assist , ot and maybe the primary damage dealers buffed with the focus line, agility, sta. More than one shaman and you start doing the whole raid. A whole set of shaman buffs can add a good amount of hp to a person. For example self buffed I am at 2189 hp at lvl 62. Aego on top of that bring me to about 3200. Shaman buffs put that close to 3800 and with paladin I can reach over 4100.
Not too in depth or deep but if you have any other specific questions I can probably answer them.
Re: Raiding tips for Shaman?
I stand by my statement . When you have 1500dps going from the entire raid, even the best pets dps is still minimal, and the annoyances and dangers of having one up far outweigh the value of having one.
Revenant of Innoruuk - Officer of Da Hui - Quellious
If I cannot bend heaven, then I shall move hell. -Homer
You'll learn as you go to more raids, but depending on the situation, the roles of shamans vary.
Our role will always start as buffers. I tend to buff the whole raid, but because a lot of your buffs are single target until you hit 58-- it's better to ask people (in a huge raid) to send tells for buffs. Some people say just to buff key people, but I always get tells from a dozen other people for buffs, and buffing other people never hurts. ) And let people know your mana state too -- sometimes the kind necro will feed you mana, or another healer will offer to heal you if you want to canni. ) I even loved it when rangers or sk's give me their tiny heals , or when people bind wound me lol. It's just sweet.
As for during the fight, it totally depends. The primary goal would be to debuff: malo/malosini, slow, cripple. The general in kithicor hits SO hard and SO fast, and immediately kills me if i don't wait for MA to get aggro, so it's better to spend the first few seconds spam healing MA till he calls attack, so THEN i can slow. You'll usually want to do this for most of the slowable mobs.
If the mob is unslowable, or there's another shaman taking care of that, then the next thing I'd fill in as would be as healer or as nuker/dotter. If the mob AE's, then be ready to heal groupmates standing close to the mob. If he blinds or slows, have cure disease or cure blindness up and ready to cast. Our role as these curers/healers will help more than to do dots/nukes usually. And so before each big mob it helps to try to find out what kind of spells it casts, and what it takes to kill him.
If there are plenty of healers, and lots of other shamans who have debuffs taken care of, then yea it can be a little boring for us. But with shamans there's so much versatility that you can always do something. I personally like nukes ))))) If there is a mage, ask for a focus item to make your nukes bigger and spells cast faster; they do help. Also, you know our spell ASSIDUOUS VISION? It's awesome -- I use it to look through the eyes of various people or mobs just to see a little more than that corner we are told to huddle in lol.
As for long crawling raids in dungeons, like HOT, or fighting to velketor, or getting through sebilis to juggs, pets are definitely high risk and a NO in many cases. But once you get to a camp and will stay there -- pets are ok. It's good for mobs like VS, big dragons and mobs. Some mobs like faydedar lets you pull a pet out only during the fight (not before!) or else he'll aggro you and kill you on the spot. So it all depends on the situation.
As for the kael raids, I'd hold off on pulling out a pet till you get to the camp, then bring it out as a tiny dot I personally value pets cuz if some unexpected mob aggros me, my pet is the first to jump and defend, giving me a few seconds to get off a heal or slow.
cikki
go go shamans!
Sleeka Frolics with Elves
Posts: 176
(12/23/02 5:01 pm)
Re: Raiding tips for Shaman?
I always try to bind wounds on the shammy's when they canni. For one, because monks are good at it (bind up to 70%, 210 skill) and secondly, it makes me feel less guilty about the constant whining I do for buffs. The 'see through others eyes' spell is also cool. I remember one time I was trying to pull in Chardok (or was it Seb?), but did not know where I was going. Cikki cast this on me, so she was able to see what I was seeing and say things like: take the right tunnel, pull that guy, etc. Better than a GPS.
Re: Raiding tips for Shaman?
lol sleeka that was really fun for me too -- i usually don't cast it unless in situations like that or if i'm super bored.
and sleeka ALWAYS bind wounds me -- she's always running around and next thing i know sh'es next to me binding me it's very cute.
Re: Raiding tips for Shaman?
All this information helps. I wanted to hear what everyone thought, especially Cikki hehe. Thanks for all the advice everyone!
. When you have 1500dps going from the entire raid, even the best pets dps is still minimal, and the annoyances and dangers of having one up far outweigh the value of having one.
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