He Hexed Me! A Guide to Shamans

[Twinblades713]

A Guide to Shamans by Twinblades

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Do you enjoy just getting punched in the mouth repeatedly, only to laugh as your opponent is the one lying face first in the dirt? Do you like getting called a wussy that won't fight like a man? Like being that guy that pisses you off from across the world? Look no further, shamans will dance your heart and soul away!

Races

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Human – No vuln and you can pick on little kids. Better scrub hunting range. Average like humans always will be. Still a very viable pick.

Duergar – Magic resist is insanely useful, coupled with a naturally high HP. Don't roll this as your first shaman. They are incredibly mana intensive and you'll run out quickly if you're careless with your casting. Burrow is also super useful for survival. Super sweet recall if you know the Underdark.

Fire Giant – If you like hardcore mode on any of those 360 games you play, this is it. You pay a lot to get a little. Terrible mana, terrible training time, for a high strength which you can't maximize because you don't get enhanced damage. Also a gnarly vuln. Don't do this with any power combo in mind. If it's your RP, go crazy!

Drow – THE choice for a guaranteed easy time. Incredible mana pool for gratuitous combat casting, autosneak for easy escapes, very easy to train, also gets burrow for survival. Sick recall as well. Learn your Underdark folks.

Undead and Demon – Both are possible if you were wondering. Try them out, both are very powerful.

Training

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Master all your weapons, Mace, Flail, Staff, and Whip. If you don't you can't complain when you get rocked by the warrior who was silly enough to wield your weapon type. Weapons are simple, don't be lazy. Spells? You can summon, find a neat quiet spot to summon something. Combat medics are immune to poison and plague. Think about it. Slith jailer is always sleeping. Think about it. Mastering every spell you have reduces the likelihood that you'll lose concentration and wiff on a vital mal you needed to land.

Types of spells

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Whittling spells: These spells tend not to scare your opponent, but will add up to a death if they aren't careful. The goal is to land these before your opponent gets paranoid. Poison, weaken, enfeeble, visitation, faerie fog, possibly deteriorate and curse.

Chasing spells: These spells will likely get the chase in your favor. The more of these you land, the more likely your opponent will be fleeing and/or crapping his pants (literally). Plague, dysentery, insomnia, blasphemy, blindness.

Land at convenience: I suggest keeping your foes hysterical, cursed, and visited as often as possible. There is no particularly “best” time to land these. As I said, test out your foe. If he flees on first curse, wait a little while to land it when he has a few other mals built up. Same with hysteria and visitation.

Blindness – Removes sight. They can't see the room, items, or anything and take a small penalty to offensive output. Use it to screw up your enemies flight patterns. A lot of people use this to fight melees. Don't fool yourself into thinking it's going to SAVE you against a pissed off warrior. Blind fighting right. I like this as more of a chaser spell. IF you know that your opponent is prepared (gyvels, reds) sometimes it is wise to have a fight entirely dedicated to burning those consumables down. Only blind, blind, flee and heal. On the flip side, if you know your opponent is completely unprepared, an uncured blind can completely kill someone. Not being able to fight or flee really doesn't help them out. Chaser spell.

Curse – This is your first snare. Takes away the ability to recall. People get skiddish when they can't recall. It also reduces saves and hurts their hitroll. Test this. Some people will get scared away, others don't mind it much. See what your opponent does with the scenario. I will explain later why shamans more than any other class have a 'test' fight with almost every opponent.

Poison/Plague – Both do damage over time. Poison hurts hp every second or so and stops regens, and plague hurts every tic, removing hp mana and moves. As with a few other spells, cast plague if you want to scare your opponent away. Poison is a safer bet if you wish to land ill effects while keeping your opponent in combat. Plague gets incredibly rude incredibly quickly. I guarantee if you land this spell first, your opponent will either do what they do to heal it, or flee. If you don't want the fight, this is an ideal first spell. If you want a kill, use it as a chaser.

Dysentery – Same with plague, only worse. CHASER spell. This will scare your opponent away. If you are however chasing, this might be one of your best allies. Follow the turds. It makes them take unrecoverable hunger and thirst damage for the duration. Only issue to consider with dysentery is that if you desperately want credit for your kill, think about how nasty hunger and thirst can get. Don't want them dying to the elements do you? Chaser spell.

Deteriorate – Lowers resistance based on how much they have. Some vets will remove their resist eq so that this spell isn't as nasty. It depends on your playstyle. Again, test this spell to see if it bothers your opponent. If it doesn't, land it first and carry on. If it does, consider when you should cast it to keep them in combat. Whittle spell.

Phantom Grasp - Also lowers resistance, but by a set amount. The wonderful thing here is that you can stack this mal and essentially bring any character down to a resistance that you can deal with. If someone has a ton of saves, it only extends the time it takes for you to start sticking them with nasty mals thanks to this spell. Whittle spell.

Blasphemy – Destroys communers by removing the ability to commune for the duration. Know that if you land this on a cleric or paladin, they will flee instantly and not return until it is worn off. If you are comfortable with the chase, land it first. I suggest landing some flee-debilitating spells first like enfeeble or dysentery. Chaser spell.

Mass Hysteria – Reduces proficiency in all skills. Hands down favorite shaman spell against literally any class. It does not scare anyone as badly as it should. It will ruin a warriors melee, a casters casting, and a communers prayers. It's almost worst than blasphemy because a communer might get lagged trying to cast things instead of just running. Also makes fleeing difficult. If you manage to land this spell, I would generally start using your chasing spells. Whittle spell and chaser spell.

Enfeeblement – If there was any confusion, enfeeble no longer drains moves on the cast. It used to a long long time ago. It does however drain MORE moves per room. Many classes have a means to deal with this, so in my opinion this spell does not scare people as much as it should. Whittle spell.

Weaken – Lowers strength. Good on high and low strength characters. Brings warriors down if they're not prepped with +str eq. Unlikely to do anything a berserker, be warned. Great for coupling with poison and plague, you can quite possibly make your opponent drop your weapon with that triple combination. Whittle spell.

Curative prayers – Heals your hp by a rough amount. Cure crit and nothing else. This is where the “Shaman heal dance” comes into play. DO NOT flee and immediately cure. That will get you killed, and make you feel bad. Flee, make sure you can manage a round of lag and be able to move again. This takes finesse. This is more than half of what a shaman does. If you cannot survive the onslaught, none of the 'whittling and chasing' tactics matter. You can't kill someone if you're dead. Maybe if you're undead but not dead.

Word of Recall – Be wise. If you wish to use this spell, make it a point to fight far away from your recall point. This is where drow and duergar get spoiled.

Teleport – Sends you somewhere random in the world. Usually dangerous, but you can do it while cursed. Most likely equals a mob death. Anything less is good luck. I think it's bad taste to take it over a looting, but that's just me. Use it at your own risk.

Insomnia – Could potentially be a whittle spell if it does not scare your opponent. Most communers and casters will notice the mana dropping and will bounce. It does not scare warriors as much as it should though. Insomnia drains mana for several tics, then causes your opponent to fall asleep and be unable to wake for a period of time. A VERY dirty trick is to time your poison so that it wears off the same time insomnia puts your opponent to sleep. It counters a very common tactic to wake back up, and that is using poison from a brew or whathaveyou to wake up.

Dispel magic – Removes random effects on the target. I personally don't like this. Your time should be spent getting right into your mal game. Dispelling sanctuary does almost nothing for you, and most other buffs on your opponent can be easily replaced. You just can't take crippling advantage of this even with success.

Harm – Ironically does less damage the more hurt they are. And it's your only real chasing damage spell. Use it when you're bored and have nothing else to do, which should be never. If you played your cards right, they're dying of poison, plague, are blind, cursed, faerie fired, drowning in lava and being molested by forest creatures.

Hex - The "This is why I hate shamans" spell. It reduces luck for a good couple hundred IG hours. Sometimes it's worth it just to preface a fight with this. Fight until hex lands, flee out. Spend a day blowing out dandelions, then come back. It'll still be good.

Visitation – Incredible offensive output. If you want to cast harm, cast this instead. Two or three unblockable rude amounts of damage at a time a few hours after you cast it.

Spirit Bind – Kill something, bind its spirit. It will do damage for you. Very useful but short duration and it cuts down on mana regen. Still very useful when you can manage to keep it up.

Protective Shield/Sanc/Dark Shroud/Armor – Just a combination of useful spells that will keep you alive. Self explanatory. Dark shroud will hide many status effects on you, making it harder to see where you stand in combat. Sanc/nosanc, etc.

Chorus of Anguish – I prefer faerie fog for getting peeps out of hiding. This is weak and lame.

Faerie Fog/Faerie Fire – Master these unless you like being thief'd and ninja'd. They reveal and worsen AC a bit.

Protection – Sanc-like damage reducer for all of the opposite align.

Tactics:

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As I mentioned earlier, almost every fight is going to require you to test out your opponent. Some people will stay and fight through curse, believing they can still outrun you. Some people will stay while deteriorated. Some people will flee after the first mal lands. These types are very difficult to kill, but on the flip side, if they can't stay for a single mal, you should have no fear of dying to them. Your biggest challenge is going to be high damage output. Learn your shaman heal dance, and be able to dance around. Remember, if you flee too far, your opponent will also use the time to recover from their mals by using temples, curatives. It's imperative to both keep yourself healed BUT remain near your enemy. It's a tricky balance.

There are some attitudes you should adjust to based on your enemies' movements. If you are against multiple enemies and want to narrow down your fight, use those spells I mentioned would scare them away. If you fight two enemies, and one just got plagued and dysenteried, it gives you time to focus on the other guy. If you fight one guy and he only flees, land very non-threatening mals first like enfeeble and mass hysteria. If they guy is kicking your butt, work your whittle game. If you are getting your teeth beat in, your opponent is most likely to take more risks.

A personal tactic I use is to stay relatively low in hp to keep your opponent around. People like to see

>Shaman is pretty hurt.

Seeing this, it feels safer to stay in the fight while plagued. The pretty hurt gives the notion of Just a little bit more..... until they have no moves or mana and still dying of plague.

Manage your mana. It is as important as hp. Chances are you will be taking damage faster than they are and an average pk will require you to heal at least four times your hp in cure crits. Don't be afraid to flee and try again. Never forget that your opponent will be using more curatives than you are 90% of the time. Cure blinds, cure poisons, temple runs, keeping sanc up, cure plagues, herbal brews to counter insomnia. Fighting a shaman is exhausting. Make them pay.

Class wise? Your highest damage output classes will be most difficult. The game remains relatively the same. Insomnia will be more important on mana intensive classes like invokers. Weaken will be more useful on warriors and rangers. Fairly simple. It's not what they have as tools, it's what you know about your opponent's playstyle that will net you a pk.

Equipment:

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Cursed weapons and shields are a luxury, but if you can afford the luxury, get them at all costs. This is the one hiccup in your game. If you can get your shield or weapon disarmed, you are in a very bad way. Keep them around, keep them wielded and worn. It's your life.

As for AC vs HP. Consider your personal play style. HP will give you more time per encounter to land mals. If you have 500 hp, you can't take as many hits as 1000 hp in the same combat encounter. This may seem obvious, but I use that to preface my next statement. AC will pay off more in the long fight, because it makes your HP work for you better. Every attack you receive damage from is reduced with AC, but your cure crit will always cure roughly 50 hp. You can scale down the damage you take, but the damage you heal never scales, so you will last much longer.

Tldr; HP is better for short fights. AC is better for long fights. I suggest still going for a combination, but lean towards AC.

Conclusion:

The shaman is a scary class to fight and almost no one enjoys fighting one. For this reason, more often than not you will have the upper hand. Be prepared for those who are prepared for you though, and keep all your normal sensibilities in check. Poison around rogues, etc. Keep a good head on your shoulders and death should be rare.

[Twinblades713]

Feel free to tear it apart or learn from it. I claim by no means to be the best shaman player, and learned many tricks from other people. These are the tactics that contributed to my personal success and by no means are a standard that you MUST strive for to do well. It is simply an amalgamation of tactics I've employed without putting Cabal Skills from various places into the mix.

[jibber]

You should add this to the Wiki!

Very well written. Thumbs up.

[Anume]

Gonna put it on Essays once we've worked in arising comments if any.

[Twinblades713]

Thanks Jibber.

Sounds good Anume!

[Mindflayer]

P.S.-hide behind a full retard beefy warrior

[Demiterracotta]

P.S.-hide behind a full retard beefy warrior

You never go full retard!

Thanks Twin, this makes the class look like something I could play. And I NEVER roll evils.

[Twinblades713]

P.S.-hide behind a full retard beefy warrior

My capture count was higher than yours. :>

Although I wouldn't have lasted half as long without the Commissar.

[Pali]

Somewhere in there should be a warning: if you like getting kills, prepare to be very, very frustrated.

[Mindflayer]

My capture count was higher than yours. :>

Although I wouldn't have lasted half as long without the Commissar.

So was your death count ;P

[Twinblades713]

There there. You're better than me at everything, Dave. It's okay, you win. I know you need to.

[Kyzarius]

How can you call this a guide, with no reference to Phantom Grasp at all?

[Twinblades713]

Because I don't care about other people's feelings or opinions and wanted to call it a guide? Also, fixed. Thanks.

Also added Meditation of Blades. It's in white.

[f0xx]

Phantom grasp is useless imho.

[Kyzarius]

Phantom grasp is useless imho.

Totally not true.

PG is a primary means of reducing saves on decked players. When Deteriorate or Curse wont land, you PG. This also lets you really stack save reduction without any real trackable alert to your enemy.

Yeah they can type AFF every round, but the PG does not have the fear factor that deteriorate or curse can cause.

For example, using PG, then exhausting, THEN cursing will often times lock people down. However, if you curse, THEN exhaust, your foe is more likely to flee as they will see the curse and hit the road.

This is a crucial ability for Shamans, I am quite suprised it is not listed.

[Twinblades713]

I never used it only cause I never had trouble landing mals. Always kept it mastered just in case someone wanted to get obnoxious with mal saves.

Also, I suggest looking more carefully. Got all caught up in your spiel you misse it in the list. Under deteriorate friend.

[Kyzarius]

I never used it only cause I never had trouble landing mals. Always kept it mastered just in case someone wanted to get obnoxious with mal saves.

My shaman was nexus, back in the day, hence fighitng sigils all the damn time made it a near requirement in my arsenal.

[Evangelion]

I veto this guide solely for the Hunger Games reference.

[Twinblades713]

I veto this guide solely for the Hunger Games reference.

What one. I haven't even seen that movie.

Edit: Googled hunger games quotes. Weak. Changed.

[Evangelion]

[Twinblades713]

I hate that quote now. D: Hahahahah

[Mindflayer]

There there. You're better than me at everything' date=' Dave. It's okay, you win. I know you need to. [/quote']

It just happens that way

Nice guide though. Makes me want to roll up a shaman!

[Twinblades713]

Please don't. I like life. D: hahaa

[Mindflayer]

I've lost my FL mojo I'm afraid. I've made some really newbish PK mistakes lately. All in good fun though, all in good fun!

[mya]

Excellent guide. Very good. In fact to good for my taste... I'ts a pain when people actually know how to play a shaman.

One question on Phantom Grasp. Don't they check saves? If so what is the point in using them on high saves characters?

Also on HEX, Paladins could cut hundreds of hours on HEX duration with lay hands. Probably still can. And cure blasphemy, to, it think (not self).

Also, Shamans are very frustating to play solo. Good pk class, that they take ages to get eq solo.