What good is the Shaman?

[Lauren CW]

First: I'm playing on Hard. Torment is for my next playthrough.

 

Um... Vulnerability curse...?

Is about the only use I can find for her. All her buffs, I prefer using scrolls for. Summoned creatures just don't hit that hard, do little more than distraction. But the really hard monsters have AOE, so it doesn't help much. Her regular attacks (Both staff, AND dex) don't hit hard, unless MAYBE you stack her up with a bunch of missle %dmg items. Those are all on my shadowwalker, because he STILL hits harder than my Shaman.

I rarely need any healing, and could probably better use the potions and scrolls I've been hoarding. So far she's been outclassed all aspects for the entire game, by Nathalie, and everything I've read says that Sorceress is the weakest class. I've tried a max dex build and a max int build, with respective gear, but she's still crap. Help?

[Marak]

I picked a Shaman as my Main Character on Hard and I have to agree she was generally the weakest link in my Party and ended up playing a Healing/Utility role most of the time. That said, she does have a few strengths:

 

1) Vulnerability Curse. Keep her Dex higher than Nathalie's and watch out.

 

2) Her summoned Pets all have special abilities. Wolves can use Battle Curse. Hellhounds have a cone of fire. Salamanders have an AoE fire pulse (think Ring of Fire Scrolls). Drakes have a much stronger cone of fire that recharges every other round. If you're using the Summoning Rods, Spiders have AoE Poison Mist (the weaker version) and a cone of webs that does low damage but can Ensnare things.

 

3) Summoned pets, when boosted by the middle tree passive, can take tons of hits for you and distract monsters from going after your Shaman or Sorceress. Have them wade in and use their special ability and most monsters will be glued to them for a good long while.

 

I made best use of my Shaman by always keeping my pet out and having it toss AoEs around and generally make a nuicance of itself. From there, I'd have her alternating Vulnerability Curse, heals, and her wand attack. I also gave her the "cone of fire" Scarab for some extra offense. Also, keeping her Dex above Nathalie's but below your Blademaster/Shadowwalker worked out pretty well for me.

[The Ratt]

Her level 6 base attack is pretty good too, though that can sometimes draw too much aggro.

[Slariton]

It sounds like you aren't that far in the game.

 

- When you get further, you WILL need more healing. Her extra healing abilities are pretty much always useful after the beginning, IMHO.

- The Sorceress's base attack will usually be better. The Shaman's AoE attacks have better range, and she has some that rely on Dexterity, which is nice.

- The summons, especially the Hell Hound, are probably the best thing about her. They get mounds of HP, so they suck up lots of damage, and as the Shaman's level rises, they will stick around longer and get to make an increasing number of AoE attacks.

- Spine Shield is also really useful (although not as useful as having everybody dodge attacks).

 

Shamans are not the biggest damage-dealers, although compared to healer-types in most RPGs, they do great. Their biggest weakness is actually their fragility, but that also does not appear until later in the game.

[Randomizer]

Spines Shield on a pet that almost always get hit is very useful because the Shaman can heal it from a distance and in Avadon monsters can't easily disengage to fight the rest of the group.

[Lauren CW]

I'm about to go to Beraza woods for the third time. I'm level 30, and the only optional things I haven't done yet are killing the demon in Zhethron's lair, and killing the other dragon. Beloch was no problem, and I only used one heal spell fighting him.

I typically don't need the summoned pets to tank hits for me, because Shima and Nathalie kill trash mobs in one round. During bosses or named fights, Shima does so much damage nothing bothers focusing anyone else, and nothing can hit Shima. I'm just trying to maximise damage potential on the Shaman so I can end fights even faster.

 

I guess my problem is that I just don't NEED her at ALL for the roles that she shines in. Consumables do her job for her, except for vulnerability curse.

[Alorael at Large]

Summoned pets do the most damage of any ability. You get several rounds of low damage melee attacks and a couple of high-damage area attacks.

 

—Alorael, who still spent most of the game not using Jenell for the same reasons. She's necessary for some tough fights, but she's not essential most of the time, and other characters are more effective sources of damage.

[Marak]

Yeah, if a Shaman isn't your main character, I can't really recommend taking one along. The only time I can see a NEED for a Shaman in the group is if you're fighting some particularly nasty foe that's tossing AoEs around or summoning a ton of adds or something, and you need the Mass Heal. However, a Sorceress with the Mass Heal Scarab can partially fill that role, and if your offense is good enough, you'll never need a lot of healing. If all else fails, it's not like the game doesn't throw a ton of Mass Heal scrolls at you.

[Slariton]

The Mass Heal scarab works equally well on Blademasters and Shadowwalkers, too. It doesn't derive any benefit from Intelligence!

[darint]

Yeah, I love the summon porcupines (summon pets + spine shield) ability of the Shaman. Do that, use the porcupines to pin down the baddies, and heal, heal, heal. The more the baddies hit, the more they get damaged.

[Lauren CW]

Just finished the game. Here's my final reflection on the matter of shamans:

 

Summons only do the most damage of any ability if the fight lasts long enough. The only reason ANY fight might last long enough is BECAUSE you have a shaman who's unable to keep up with DPS. With decent tactics and either scrolls/scarabs, you can completely replace the shaman and have just as good survivability, with better damage output.

 

My ideal party would probably be two shadow walkers and a sorceress. It's easy enough to either juggle your pc's or use summon wands for backstab.

[Superba]

Try Spirit Claw and Call the Winds skills at level 8 (+2 enhancements), they are powerful and effective. Pets are useful to divert attention so party members in long fights have more time to heal and recharge skills. This apart Jenell is the only non selfish member of the party... :-)

[Slariton]

Originally Posted By: Beer and Motor Oil

Summons only do the most damage of any ability if the fight lasts long enough. The only reason ANY fight might last long enough is BECAUSE you have a shaman who's unable to keep up with DPS.

For random mobs that you fight 1 or 2 at a time, that's quite true. But for the tougher encounters, and definitely against the bosses, it's hard for them NOT to last long enough. The bosses will definitely do that on any difficulty level. The tougher encounters I guess will vary: on Normal it's easier to just punch through them with damage than on Torment.

[Tcheedchee]

The shaman is a bit vulnerable and not a char that can be played excessivily offensive, that's true…

I still remember the cursing Sevilin started, when my shaman got herself killed three times in one fight, and he always had to revive her. After the fight he told her to never do that again and just stay out of close combat.

But she's really good with the 'summoned porcupine', if she keeps it well trained…

[Alorael at Large]

I agree that a sorceress accompanied by shadowwalkers, blademasters, or one of each is probably the best party for most of the game. Most minor enemies, most boss fights, probably the entire main plot with the exception of the last fight, which gives you everyone anyway. It's a small handful of very tough optional fights that really benefit from extra healing and having an extra source of damage over time and another meat shield. Zephyrine and Beloch spring to mind.

 

—Alorael, who tried Beloch many, many times without Jenell. It was not pretty. Then he tried it with Jenell. It still wasn't pretty, but it was much easier.

[Vent]

I developed the second and third tree of my shaman, and with a high dex. I put 2 specialization points in second tree and one in third, all in second would probably have been better.

 

With that approach, the Shaman has a high dex all along the game, the focus on center tree give her protections and health bonus, and the shaman can use fairly good protection items.

 

This give her a fair long range attack, but not good because she has no skill to increase damages, only various items and dex.

 

But this development gives her strong healing abilities, and very strong summon, and strong Thorns on all allies. I don't remember when she get the Drake summon but it's quite before the end.

 

With that approach the Drake summon cast its AOE attack every three rounds, and every two rounds in last parts of the game if I remember well, and starts with haste, last a long time before disappear. And can be summoned again if it doesn't die before spawn end time.

 

Add the Drake summon damages, plus damages coming from Thorns on all allies, plus fair long range damages and you get something close to the best damage rate. And a rather resistant character.

 

It's a strange build but with good points.

[Tcheedchee]

Well, seems like I'm not far enough into the game. At the moment the Spirit charge also does good work and is a good support to prepair foes for a final kill for the other partymembers.

 

Also earthquake is not bad.

 

She just has to be kept out of reach of harm.

 

I really think that the area effects you she can employ are a big plus.

[Dark.Fenix]

playing ot hard mode, first time. main char SW.

i use shaman and sorc for the extra speed from AoE'ing all the trash u find. althought at first i switched shaman for BM for some boss fights i dont do that anymore cause i actualy dont need to even if with some reloads (on torment might be diferent, cant coment).

 

hellhound and salamander work great vs dragons and fire casters cause of imunity. specialy usefull during the "no spoil" encounter to tank the multiple ilusions fire, 3-5 ilusions kept atacking them for 20rounds total wich prenvented alot of dmg on the party.

 

i still think that when ill do some of the optional bosses i might go SW BM sorc.

[Slariton]

I still am not clear on what makes the sorceress so great. Her only advantage over the shaman is her much more tolerable physical resistance. Her attacks aren't meaningfully stronger (except her regular attack, which is not essential), and she loses healing, summons, and spine shield. Her attacks are especially unimpressive if you give others the magic attack scarabs.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

I still am not clear on what makes the sorceress so great. Her only advantage over the shaman is her much more tolerable physical resistance. Her attacks aren't meaningfully stronger (except her regular attack, which is not essential), and she loses healing, summons, and spine shield. Her attacks are especially unimpressive if you give others the magic attack scarabs.

The Sorceress is the only class whose attacks and abilities all key off a single stat, which means you can pump only Intelligence and still be able to use all your attacks at full effectiveness. Of course, this would be more of an advantage if Intelligence weren't the least useful stat in the game.

[Marak]

To build on Lilith's post, she also has a larger repertoire. 1-2 Cone AoEs, 1-2 circular AoEs, free Firebolts whenever, Ice bolt, circular Daze, and at least one of not two Cloak spells (self only and Party wide). I also gave her the Dark Bolt and Mass Curing Scarabs. I almost never found her stuck in the position of "quaff a potion or default to a Wand attack". Of course, that's exactly what my Shaman was doing in any fight that lasted more than 3-4 rounds.

 

Having easy access to Acid and Corruption and Ensnare debuffs tacked onto AoE damage is also a plus.

 

Lastly, flavor. I'm a sucker for Glass Cannon, Spell-flinging, AoE-happy Wizard-types.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Yeah, shorter cooldown time is basically the reason I found sorceresses more effective on offense (and my first playthrough party was almost always SW-Nathalie-Jenell, so I had a lot of time to compare). Between magical mastery, and focus mastery triggering any time they get hit by magic attacks, sorcs have cooldown-shortening such that even if their attack spells aren't stronger than a shaman's, they get to use them a lot more. Also, to get the best summons (which Slarty cites among the shaman's offensive advantages) one has to forego her stronger direct damage abilities.

 

I really like shamans, but that's more because of their defensive abilities (good healing, only class with access to non-wand summons, etc.), than offense.

[Randomizer]

The main advantages of a sorceress are against magical attacks you have shorter cool down periods and even reflection of her own attack is beneficial. The most different damage attack types so there is almost nothing that is immune to at least one attack in the last half of the game. Strong defensive resistances to all damage types including mental even though she will usually take lots of physical damage hits that a high dexterity build will avoid.

[Marak]

I personally found that pumping the middle tree with my Shaman gave her so much Max Health that it (partially) overcame her meh armor and resists. I still don't think I'll be using Jenell much on my new, Shadowwalker-main Torment playthrough.

[Shadowplay]

The Shaman is a meat-shield provider. Either she turns your characters into meat shields or she provides them herself. A good idea is to send out a pet on recon around a corner when you face a big group or boss. You will usually get something like 4 or 5 area affect attacks turning your hellhound into a puddle on the ground instead of doing 150 damage (450 resisted) to everyone in your party, PLUS drawing a lot of the more adventurous enemy spellcasters out from behind their fighters and archers. This is more beneficial in the end game where you can combine the Shaman's pet with the Scarab of Summoning and maybe one or two Wands as well for nearly perpetual meatshieldage.